Sudden Surges in Atmospheric CO2: FIRE-EARTH Forecast

Just when you thought it couldn’t possibly get much …

FIRE-EARTH Models show unprecedented surges in atmospheric CO₂ concentrations starting 2014. The massive increases could be as much as 10 – 15 times any rises ever recorded.

To minimize abuse of this forecast by the usual culprits and dozens of newcomers, FIRE-EARTH won’t release further details at this time.

The graph shows recent monthly mean carbon dioxide globally averaged over marine surface sites. The Global Monitoring Division of NOAA/Earth System Research Laboratory has measured carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases for several decades at a globally distributed network of air sampling sites [Conway, 1994]. A global average is constructed by first fitting a smoothed curve as a function of time to each site, and then the smoothed value for each site is plotted as a function of latitude for 48 equal time steps per year. A global average is calculated from the latitude plot at each time step [Masarie, 1995]. Go here for more details on how global means are calculated.  Click for a comparison with recent trends in carbon dioxide at Mauna Loa, Hawaii, which has the longest continuous record of direct atmospheric CO₂ measurements. Image and caption: ESRL/NOAA

Index of Human Impact on Nature (HIoN)

Diagram shows the exponential growth of Human Impact on Nature (HION) between 1960  and July 2013. Source: FIRE-EARTH Real-Time Earth Models. Copyright: FIRE-EARTH Blog Authors.

Related Links

• Weekly Average CO2 at Mauna Loa Tops 400ppm
• CO2 Tops 400ppm at Mauna Loa as Forecast
• 400 PPM

• Critical Overload Threatens Planetary Life Support Systems
• RAPID CHANGE IN PROGRESS!

DISASTER Diary – May 26, 2013

Namibia Declares National Drought Emergency

President of Namibia has declared a national drought emergency due to significantly below-average precipitation.

• An estimated 331,000 people, 14 percent of the Namibia’s population of 2.324 million,  in rural communities across 13 regions have now been classified as food insecure so far this year.

• An additional 448,000 people have been classified as moderately food insecure.

•   Those moderately food insecure could rapidly become food insecure, UN reported.

• About 109,000 children under age 5 living in rural households classified severely and moderately food insecure are at risk of malnutrition due to reduced availability, access and utilization of food, compounded by limited access to safe water and improved sanitation, UN said.

Namibia: Rainfall Anomaly for Q1 2013. Source: SADC FANR

Water, Sanitation and Hygiene

• 11 Regions across the country are without water tanks for additional storage.

• About 32% of households and communities use boreholes as their main sources of water, followed by piped water (20%) and public taps in neighboring houses (19%).

• As a result of the severe drought, water tables in boreholes are currently low with reduced yields.

• The cost of water has risen and most households are now using their limited funds to buy food instead of water.

• Only 33% of households have improved sanitation facilities.

• 50% of the population practice open defecation. [Source: U.N.]

-oOo-

Other Global Disasters/ Significant Events

Extreme Rain Events Flood San Antonio, Texas

At least two people were killed on Saturday as torrential rains in San Antonio triggered severe flooding forcing the rescue of about 240 people, officials said.

• San Antonio was inundated with about 10 inches of rain Saturday, the second-wettest-day recorded, San Antonio Express-News reported.

• “Saturday was not only the wettest day in May ever recorded, but with 9.87 inches of rain at the San Antonio International Airport, it was the second wettest day ever recorded in San Antonio, according to the National Weather Service. The wettest day on record is Oct. 17, 1998, when 11.26 inches of rain fell.”

• NWS issued Flood Warnings  for rivers affecting Bexar, Wilson and Karnes counties.

-oOo-

Average CO₂ at Mauna Loa:
Last 5 days of preliminary daily average CO₂

• May 24 – 399.84        
• May 23 – 399.67        
• May 22 – 399.97        
• May 21 – 399.74        
• May 20 – 400.11
  

-oOo-

M5.7 Earthquake, Plumas County, Northern Calif

A state of emergency has been declared in Plumas County after the magnitude 5.7 earthquake struck the area Thursday, causing damage both to infrastructure as well as homes and businesses.

• “The earthquake did not injure anyone but did cause moderate damage and was felt by people as far away as the Bay Area, Reno and into Oregon,” said a report.

-oOo-

DISASTER CALENDAR – May 26, 2013 — 
SYMBOLIC COUNTDOWN: 1,021 Days Left 

Mass die-offs resulting from human impact and the planetary response to the anthropogenic assault could occur by early 2016.

• SYMBOLIC COUNTDOWN: 1,021 Days Left to ‘Worst Day’ in the brief Human  History
• The countdown began on May 15, 2011 …

GLOBAL WARNINGS

• WARNING: Human impact 2.85 x Earth’s diminishing carrying capacity
• WARNING: RAPID PLANETARY DECLINE IN PROGRESS!
• Europe: The First Phase of Collapse Has Started 
• United States: The First Phase of Collapse Has Begun

Global Disasters: Links, Forecasts and Background

• The First Wave of World’s Collapsing Cities
• Back to the Primordial Future
• The Fate of Energy Dinosaurs
• Mass Die-offs

Disaster Calendar – 10 June 2012

DISASTER CALENDAR SYMBOLIC COUNTDOWN: 1,375 Days Left

[June 10, 2012] Mass die-offs resulting from human impact and the planetary response to the anthropogenic assault could occur by early 2016.  SYMBOLIC COUNTDOWN: 1,375 Days Left to the ‘Worst Day’ in Human History…

Recent Mauna Loa CO2

• May 2012:     396.78 ppm
• May 2011:     394.16 ppm

• April 2012:     396.18 ppm
• April 2011:     393.28 ppm

Recent Global CO2 (ESRL/NOAA)

• April 2012:     394.01 ppm
• April 2011:     391.83 ppm

• March 2012:     393.87 ppm
• March 2011:     391.46 ppm

Global Disasters: Links, Forecasts and Background

• The First Wave of World’s Collapsing Cities
• Back to the Primordial Future
• The Fate of Energy Dinosaurs
• Mass Die-offs

• 2010 Disasters [Links to 2010 Disaster Calendar]
• Mega Disasters
• 2011 Disaster Calendar
• 2012 Disaster Calendar

4,024,776,626,758,050

Total Atmospheric CO2e: 4,024.78 Gt

CO₂ at Mauna Loa (weekly average)

Week of May 22, 2011: 394.97 ppm

• Weekly value from 1 year ago:   393.06 ppm
• Weekly value from 10 years ago:   373.93 ppm

Based on the above data, total atmospheric CO2 TODAY:

3,081,994,507,051.11 Mt [3,082Gt]

Combined impact of Nitrous Oxide (N2O), Methane (CH4) and CFC 12 ( CCl2F2) calculated at their full global warming potential: 30.59% of the CO2 Impact, or the CO2 equivalent of

942,782,119,706.94 Mt CO2e [942 Gt CO2e]

Effective Total: 4,024.78 GtCO2e

[MT: Metric Tons;  Gt: Gigatons; CO2e: Carbon Dioxide Equivalent; ppm: parts per million by volume]

Trends in Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide (ESRL)

The graph, updated weekly, shows as individual points daily mean CO₂ up to and including the week (Sunday through Saturday) previous to today. The daily means are based on hours during which CO₂ was likely representative of “background” conditions, defined as times when the measurement is representative of air at mid-altitudes over the Pacific Ocean. That air has had several days time or more to mix, smoothing out most of the CO₂ variability encountered elsewhere, making the measurements representative of CO₂ over hundreds of km or more. The selection process is designed to filter out any influence of nearby emissions, or removals, of CO₂ such as caused by the vegetation on the island of Hawaii, and likewise emissions from the volcanic crater of Mauna Loa. For details, see ”How we measure background CO2 levels at Mauna Loa”. The same measurement principles also apply elsewhere. The weekly mean (red bar) is simply the average of all days in the week for which a background value could be defined. The average standard deviation of day to day variability, calculated as the difference from the appropriate weekly mean, equals 0.38 ppm for the entire record. As a visual aid, the blue lines present monthly means of background data as they are presented under Recent Monthly CO₂ at Mauna Loa. These data are still preliminary, pending recalibrations of reference gases and other quality control checks. Image and Caption: ESRL.  Click images to enlarge.

This figure shows the atmospheric increase of CO₂ over 280 ppm in weekly averages of CO₂ observed at Mauna Loa. The value of 280 ppm is chosen as representative of pre-industrial air because it is close to the average of CO₂ measured and dated with high time resolution between the years 1000 and 1800 in an ice core from Law Dome, Antarctica. [Etheridge et al., 1996]. Although the time resolution of old air locked in ice cores is not enough to preserve seasonal cycles, there is no doubt that the seasonal cycle, which is mostly caused by photosynthesis and respiration of ecosystems on land, was similar to what we observe today. Therefore, for the comparison with pre-industrial times the Mauna Loa weekly data have been first deseasonalized by subtracting the observed average seasonal cycle, and then subtracting 280 ppm. The enhancement of the CO₂ mole fraction in the atmosphere over pre-industrial is expressed both as ppm and as a percentage change since the year 1800. Data are reported as a dry air mole fraction defined as the number of molecules of carbon dioxide divided by the number of all molecules in air, including CO₂ itself, after water vapor has been removed. The mole fraction is expressed as parts per million (ppm). Example: 0.000400 is expressed as 400 ppm.  Image and Caption: ESRL 

CO2 emissions reach a record high in 2010

Energy-related carbon-dioxide (CO2) emissions in 2010 broke all previous records, according to the latest estimates by the International Energy Agency (IEA).

Recent Mauna Loa CO₂

The graph shows recent monthly mean carbon dioxide measured at Mauna Loa Observatory, Hawaii.

The last four complete years of the Mauna Loa CO₂ record plus the current year are shown. Data are reported as a dry air mole fraction defined as the number of molecules of carbon dioxide divided by the number of all molecules in air, including CO₂ itself, after water vapor has been removed. The mole fraction is expressed as parts per million (ppm). Example: 0.000400 is expressed as 400 ppm.

In the above figure, the dashed red line with diamond symbols represents the monthly mean values, centered on the middle of each month. The black line with the square symbols represents the same, after correction for the average seasonal cycle. The latter is determined as a moving average of SEVEN adjacent seasonal cycles centered on the month to be corrected, except for the first and last THREE and one-half years of the record, where the seasonal cycle has been averaged over the first and last SEVEN years, respectively.

The last year of data are still preliminary, pending recalibrations of reference gases and other quality control checks. The Mauna Loa data are being obtained at an altitude of 3400 m in the northern subtropics, and may not be the same as the globally averaged CO₂ concentration at the surface.   Image and Caption: ESRL

Full Mauna Loa CO₂ record

Monthly mean atmospheric carbon dioxide at Mauna Loa Observatory, Hawaii – The carbon dioxide data (red curve), measured as the mole fraction in dry air, on Mauna Loa constitute the longest record of direct measurements of CO₂ in the atmosphere. They were started by C. David Keeling of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in March of 1958 at a facility of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration [Keeling, 1976]. NOAA started its own CO₂ measurements in May of 1974, and they have run in parallel with those made by Scripps since then [Thoning, 1989]. The black curve represents the seasonally corrected data.

Data are reported as a dry mole fraction defined as the number of molecules of carbon dioxide divided by the number of molecules of dry air multiplied by one million (ppm).  Image and Caption: ESRL    -Data Set Available HERE

Related Links

• New York Cognitive Dissonance

How Big is Your CO2 Dome?

Urban CO2 domes increase deaths

Public release: Stanford University

Everyone knows that carbon dioxide, the main greenhouse gas driving climate change, is a global problem. Now a Stanford study has shown it is also a local problem, hurting city dwellers’ health much more than rural residents’, because of the carbon dioxide “domes” that develop over urban areas. That finding, said researcher Mark Z. Jacobson, exposes a serious oversight in current cap-and-trade proposals for reducing emissions of heat-trapping gases, which make no distinction based on a pollutant’s point of origin. The finding also provides the first scientific basis for controlling local carbon dioxide emissions based on their local health impacts.

“Not all carbon dioxide emissions are equal,” said Jacobson, professor of civil and environmental engineering. “As in real estate, location matters.”

His results also support the case that California presented to the Environmental Protection Agency in March, 2009, asking that the state be allowed to establish its own CO₂ emission standards for vehicles.

Jacobson, director of the Atmosphere/Energy Program at Stanford, testified on behalf of California’s waiver application in March, 2009. The waiver had previously been denied, but was reconsidered and granted subsequently. The waiver is currently being challenged in court by industry interests seeking to overturn it.

Jacobson found that domes of increased carbon dioxide concentrations – discovered to form above cities more than a decade ago – cause local temperature increases that in turn increase the amounts of local air pollutants, raising concentrations of health-damaging ground-level ozone, as well as particles in urban air.

In modeling the health impacts for the contiguous 48 states, for California and for the Los Angeles area, he determined an increase in the death rate from air pollution for all three regions compared to what the rate would be if no local carbon dioxide were being emitted.

The results of Jacobson’s study are presented in a paper published online by Environmental Science and Technology.

The cap-and-trade proposal passed by the U.S. House of Representatives in June 2009 puts a limit on the amount of greenhouse gases that each type of utility, manufacturer or other emitter is allowed to produce. It also puts a price tag on each ton of emissions, which emitters will have to pay to the federal government.

If the bill passes the Senate intact, it will allow emitters to freely trade or sell their allowances among themselves, regardless of where the pollution is emitted.

With that logic, the proposal prices a ton of CO₂ emitted in the middle of the sparsely populated Great Plains, for example, the same as a ton emitted in Los Angeles, where the population is dense and the air quality already poor.

“The cap-and-trade proposal assumes there is no difference in the impact of carbon dioxide, regardless of where it originates,” Jacobson said. “This study contradicts that assumption.”

“It doesn’t mean you can never do something like cap and trade,” he added. “It just means that you need to consider where the CO₂ emissions are occurring.”

Jacobson’s study is the first to look at the health impacts of carbon dioxide domes over cities and his results are relevant to future air pollution regulations. Current regulations do not address the local impacts of local carbon dioxide emissions. For example, no regulation considers the local air pollution effects of CO₂ that would be emitted by a new natural gas power plant. But those effects should be considered, he said.

“There has been no control of carbon dioxide because it has always been thought that CO₂ is a global problem, that it is only its global impacts that might feed back to air pollution,” Jacobson said.

In addition to the changes he observed in local air pollutants, Jacobson found that there was increased stability of the air column over a city, which slowed the dispersal of pollutants, further adding to the increased pollutant concentrations.

Jacobson estimated an increase in premature mortality of 50 to 100 deaths per year in California and 300 to 1,000 for the contiguous 48 states.

“This study establishes a basis for controlling CO₂ based on local health impacts,” he said.

Current estimates of the annual air pollution-related death toll in the U.S. is 50-100,000.

Related Links:

• 133,000,000 Wise Monkeys
• Carbon Footprint of Your Dollar

House Passes Emissions Bill

Image of the Day:

Dream On!

Morbidly Obese: Cutting Small, Dreaming Big

The US House of Representatives has passed a climate change bill which seeks to cut emissions from 2005 levels by 17% by 2020. The bill was passed by a slim majority of 219-212 votes.

FAT CHANCE! Morbidly obese dreaming of a cure on a 17% dietary cut! [Photo Source: Caliba. Image may be subject to copyright.]

Related Links:

• Look me straight in the eye & tell me you can’t

• The Really Holy Cow
• New York Cognitive Dissonance
• World CO2 Emissions [2007 / 2008]
• Carbon Footprint of Your Dollar
• The Billionaires’ contribution to CO2 pollution

• Protect Economy from Climate??!
• Blind scientists examining the economic elephant

• Index of Human Impact on Nature
• World Problems:The Root Cause Matrix
• First Wave of World’s Collapsing Cities
  
• Future Scenarios
• Nuking Earth for Lifestyle
• Giga Trends

• LHC Champaign Science & Three-Legged Chickens!
• Will the real Slim Shady Stand up

• Desperate Times, Funny Science, Nutty Professors

• UNEP Issues Some CO2 Reduction Snakeoil!
• Earth Hour Snakeoil
• Union of Concerned Scientists Issue Some Global Warming Snakeoil

• UN Hypocrisy: Kick the CO2 Habit!
• New York Cognitive Dissonance

Who is afraid of melting ice sheets?

Based on its outdated “one-dimensional” model, the U.N. Climate Panel has reported that seas could rise by 18-59 cm  (7-24 inches) by 2100. The model also excludes the threat from highly probable scenarios in which ice sheets in Antarctica and Greenland could melt at exponential rates.

Ian Allison, head of  the Australian Antarctic Division’s Ice, Ocean, Atmosphere and Climate program was asked by Reuters the following question: How great is the threat from melting ice sheets?

Allison who is a researcher within the Antarctic Climate and Ecosystems Cooperative Research Center, and who has been involved in Antarctic science for more than 4 decades, responded as follows.

HOW GREAT IS THE THREAT FROM ICE SHEETS MELTING?

I think it is now unequivocal that warming of the world is occurring and I think the last IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) conclusively showed that a major cause of warming is greenhouse gas emissions from mankind.

We now know that the ice sheets are contributing to sea level rise and for the Arctic, at least, this is because the warming of this region is much greater than in other places on Earth.

We also know that glaciers in mountain areas are undergoing a very rapid retreat and they’re a major contributor of sea level rise, too.

WHICH IS OF MORE CONCERN? GREENLAND OR WEST ANTARCTICA?

Greenland is of more concern because of the warming of the Arctic. Greenland is at lower latitude than much of Antarctica and we’ve seen the direct effect of the melting.

We still don’t understand many things about the dynamic response of the ice sheets but we do see direct melt exceeding snowfall in Greenland.

This might not mean a runaway effect but it does mean Greenland is contributing to sea level rise and will continue to add to sea levels at the present temperatures for many hundreds of years.”

EXPLAIN THE THREAT FROM WEST ANTARCTICA

Ice shelves and floating ice tongues can buttress the flow of grounded ice from the interior of the ice sheets. We’ve seen examples in both Greenland and Antarctica of floating ice disappearing, and the ice that sits on the land then flowing more quickly into the ocean.

“In addition, the West Antarctic may be inherently unstable. The West Antarctic forms what is called the marine ice shelf. The ice is resting on bedrock but that bedrock is below sea level. It’s like if you load too many ice cubes in your gin and tonic, the bottom one touches the bottom of the glass even though it’s well below the water level.

Where the bedrock under a marine ice sheet slopes down toward the interior, such as under parts of West Antarctica, the ice sheet may be unstable. If it thins, it will start to float at the edges, becoming an ice shelf.

For a bedrock that slopes backwards and becomes deeper further in, continued retreat of the grounded ice sheet may proceed very rapidly. A small retreat could in theory destabilize the entire West Antarctica ice sheet, leading to rapid disintegration.

WHAT ARE THE MAIN GAPS IN OUR KNOWLEDGE?

There two areas. One, we need to improve our mathematical models of ice streams, ice sheets and ice shelves to be able to better project future changes. We also need more detailed measurements of how deep the bedrock is under the ice sheets to use in the models.

The other major gap in our understanding is what is happening at the bed of the ice sheets; how they react with liquid water at the base, what role water may have in sliding processes and the role of gravels and slurry at the base.

We now know there is a lot of liquid water under the ice sheets. But we don’t really know how changes in this may affect the ice flow. Knowing what’s under the ice sheets we really need to measure that with radar systems.

WHAT ARE YOUR MAIN MESSAGES TO POLICY MAKERS?

The main thing is monitoring what’s actually happening with sea level rise and the ice sheets. We’ve now got tools that can do that, we can improve those and make sure they keep going, particularly satellite-based systems.

We need better predictive tools to know just what is likely in the next 100 years. I don’t think we should be rushing into building up coastal defenses until we know what we could be defending against. So our biggest requirement is to be able to refine our projections for what may happen in the future. (Edited by David fox).

Related Links:

• World CO2 Emissions
• Climate Change Finals – CO2: 392 Human Chances: 0
• Carbon Footprint of Your Dollar
• CO2 Emissions Must Be Criminalized!
• UNEP Issues Some CO2 Reduction Snakeoil!

• UN Hypocrisy: Kick the CO2 Habit!
• Oceans, Where Life Started, Are Dying – Part IV
• Stern Report: “a great toxic dump of doublespeak in truly Orwellian fashion”
• The Shrinking Window of Opportunity
• The myth of keeping CO2 under 450ppm

• Oceans, Where Life Started, Are Dying – Part III
• Repeat After Me!

Protesters close down runway at UK airport

Climate action group Plane Stupid breached security at UK’s  Stansted airport forcing dozens of flights to cancel.

Police reportedly arrested nearly 60 protesters for aggravated trespass, attempting to gain access to a restricted area, and conspiracy to commit a public nuisance, BBC reported.

Never knew the Brits had it in them 😉  It took just over fifty young protesters from the climate action group Plane Stupid have this morning shut down Stansted Airport by camping on the runway and surrounding themselves with fortified security fencing.

A senior police officer from Essex police force told reporters that the demonstrators were “committing a criminal act.”

A spokesman for Stansted airport said a total of 56 flights had been canceled.

The activists had carried “concrete blocks and 6ft-high security fencing with them and erected a ‘stockade’ about 50m (164 ft) from the runway. They then chained themselves to the fencing.” A BBC reporter said.

On of the demonstrators, Lily Kember, 21, said she was “incredibly apologetic” for inconveniencing the passengers, but added: “The effects of climate change are going to be monumental.”

Another protester said: “We’re here because our parents’ generation has failed us and it’s now down to young people to stop climate change by whatever peaceful means we have left.

“We’re afraid of what the police might do to us, we’re afraid of going to jail but nothing scares us as much as the threat of runaway climate change.” (Source)

Related Links:

• Plane Stupid shuts Stansted Airport
• Map of Stansted airport

Image of the Day: Polluting Poland!

Energy Dinosaur Poland relies on polluting coal for about 92 percent of its electricity production.

Poland’s 105 coal-burning power plants produce 60 percent of its CO2 emissions

A Greenpeace activist carries a banner during a protest to create a “Stop” sign next to an excavator at Jozwin-2B, a state-owned (KWB) open pit brown coal mine in Konin, western Poland November 24, 2008. REUTERS/Nick Cobbing/Greenpeace /Handout.

“Poland’s economy is based on coal and any real alternative like nuclear, is a long way off,” says Tadeusz Skotnicki, production chief at the 110-year-old Wujek coal mine in the heart of southern Poland’s Silesian coal basin.

4.5 times more NF3 in atmosphere than thought

Scripps News Release
Scripps Institution of Oceanography

Potent Greenhouse Gas More Prevalent in Atmosphere than Previously Thought

NF3, a greenhouse gas used in manufacture of computer displays, flat panel televisions, microcircuits, solar panels is 17,000 times more powerful at warming the atmosphere than carbon dioxide

Scripps Institution of Oceanography/UC San Diego

Nitrogen trifluoride (NF3), a powerful greenhouse gas, is about 4.5 times more prevalent in the atmosphere than previously thought, say researchers at Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego.

[A 3-d Space-filling model of nitrogen trifluoride. ]

Nitrogen trifluoride (NF3), a potent greenhouse gas used in the plasma etching of silicon wafers, has a global warming potential (GWP) 17,000 times greater than CO2 over a 100 year period, and with an estimated atmospheric lifetime of about 750 years.

Atmospheric measurements of nitrogen trifluoride (NF3) were made using new analytical techniques by a team at Scripps shows that the amount of the gas in the atmosphere in 2008 was about 5,400 metric tons, 4.5 times higher than previously thought,  and was increasing at about 11 percent per year.

Geochemistry professor Ray Weiss who lead the research team said: “Accurately measuring small amounts of NF3 in air has proven to be a very difficult experimental problem, and we are very pleased to have succeeded in this effort.”

The research will be published in Geophysical Research Letters, a journal of the American Geophysical Union (AGU) on October 31.

Previously, emissions of NF3 were considered too low to be a significant contributor to global warming and were therefore omitted from the Kyoto Protocol, the agreement to reduce greenhouse gas emissions signed by 182 countries in 1997.

Environmental Impact of NF3 Gas at Current levels

• NF3 is about 17,000 times more effective a global warming agent than an equivalent mass of CO2.
• Persists five times longer in the atmosphere than carbon dioxide.
• [Fortunately] Contributes only about 0.04 percent [at its current application levels] to the overall global warming caused by the anthropogenic carbon dioxide emissions.

Nitrogen trifluoride has been the industries’ preferred alternative to perfluorocarbons, also potent greenhouse gases, as it was thought industrial applications broke down about 98 percent of the NF3 and only about 2 percent of the gas escaped into the atmosphere.  (Source)

Related Links:

• A forecast of the most used “scientific” phrase in 2009 : “We were completely surprised!”