The following editorial was published today by 56 newspapers around the world in 20 languages including Chinese, Arabic and Russian. The text was drafted by a Guardian team during more than a month of consultations with editors from more than 20 of the papers involved. Like The Guardian most of the newspapers have taken the unusual step of featuring the editorial on their front page.
RealClimate takes no formal position on the statements made in the editorial.
Copenhagen climate change conference: Fourteen days to seal history’s judgment on this generation
Today 56 newspapers in 45 countries take the unprecedented step of speaking with one voice through a common editorial. We do so because humanity faces a profound emergency.
Unless we combine to take decisive action, climate change will ravage our planet, and with it our prosperity and security. The dangers have been becoming apparent for a generation. Now the facts have started to speak: 11 of the past 14 years have been the warmest on record, the Arctic ice-cap is melting and last year’s inflamed oil and food prices provide a foretaste of future havoc. In scientific journals the question is no longer whether humans are to blame, but how little time we have got left to limit the damage. Yet so far the world’s response has been feeble and half-hearted.
Climate change has been caused over centuries, has consequences that will endure for all time and our prospects of taming it will be determined in the next 14 days. We call on the representatives of the 192 countries gathered in Copenhagen not to hesitate, not to fall into dispute, not to blame each other but to seize opportunity from the greatest modern failure of politics. This should not be a fight between the rich world and the poor world, or between east and west. Climate change affects everyone, and must be solved by everyone.
The science is complex but the facts are clear. The world needs to take steps to limit temperature rises to 2C, an aim that will require global emissions to peak and begin falling within the next 5-10 years. A bigger rise of 3-4C — the smallest increase we can prudently expect to follow inaction — would parch continents, turning farmland into desert. Half of all species could become extinct, untold millions of people would be displaced, whole nations drowned by the sea. The controversy over emails by British researchers that suggest they tried to suppress inconvenient data has muddied the waters but failed to dent the mass of evidence on which these predictions are based.
Few believe that Copenhagen can any longer produce a fully polished treaty; real progress towards one could only begin with the arrival of President Obama in the White House and the reversal of years of US obstructionism. Even now the world finds itself at the mercy of American domestic politics, for the president cannot fully commit to the action required until the US Congress has done so.
But the politicians in Copenhagen can and must agree the essential elements of a fair and effective deal and, crucially, a firm timetable for turning it into a treaty. Next June’s UN climate meeting in Bonn should be their deadline. As one negotiator put it: “We can go into extra time but we can’t afford a replay.”
At the deal’s heart must be a settlement between the rich world and the developing world covering how the burden of fighting climate change will be divided — and how we will share a newly precious resource: the trillion or so tonnes of carbon that we can emit before the mercury rises to dangerous levels.
Rich nations like to point to the arithmetic truth that there can be no solution until developing giants such as China take more radical steps than they have so far. But the rich world is responsible for most of the accumulated carbon in the atmosphere – three-quarters of all carbon dioxide emitted since 1850. It must now take a lead, and every developed country must commit to deep cuts which will reduce their emissions within a decade to very substantially less than their 1990 level.
Developing countries can point out they did not cause the bulk of the problem, and also that the poorest regions of the world will be hardest hit. But they will increasingly contribute to warming, and must thus pledge meaningful and quantifiable action of their own. Though both fell short of what some had hoped for, the recent commitments to emissions targets by the world’s biggest polluters, the United States and China, were important steps in the right direction.
Social justice demands that the industrialised world digs deep into its pockets and pledges cash to help poorer countries adapt to climate change, and clean technologies to enable them to grow economically without growing their emissions. The architecture of a future treaty must also be pinned down – with rigorous multilateral monitoring, fair rewards for protecting forests, and the credible assessment of “exported emissions” so that the burden can eventually be more equitably shared between those who produce polluting products and those who consume them. And fairness requires that the burden placed on individual developed countries should take into account their ability to bear it; for instance newer EU members, often much poorer than “old Europe”, must not suffer more than their richer partners.
The transformation will be costly, but many times less than the bill for bailing out global finance — and far less costly than the consequences of doing nothing.
Many of us, particularly in the developed world, will have to change our lifestyles. The era of flights that cost less than the taxi ride to the airport is drawing to a close. We will have to shop, eat and travel more intelligently. We will have to pay more for our energy, and use less of it.
But the shift to a low-carbon society holds out the prospect of more opportunity than sacrifice. Already some countries have recognized that embracing the transformation can bring growth, jobs and better quality lives. The flow of capital tells its own story: last year for the first time more was invested in renewable forms of energy than producing electricity from fossil fuels.
Kicking our carbon habit within a few short decades will require a feat of engineering and innovation to match anything in our history. But whereas putting a man on the moon or splitting the atom were born of conflict and competition, the coming carbon race must be driven by a collaborative effort to achieve collective salvation.
Overcoming climate change will take a triumph of optimism over pessimism, of vision over short-sightedness, of what Abraham Lincoln called “the better angels of our nature”.
It is in that spirit that 56 newspapers from around the world have united behind this editorial. If we, with such different national and political perspectives, can agree on what must be done then surely our leaders can too.
The politicians in Copenhagen have the power to shape history’s judgment on this generation: one that saw a challenge and rose to it, or one so stupid that we saw calamity coming but did nothing to avert it. We implore them to make the right choice.
PS the instantaneous ratios of 20 (per molecule – aka molar basis, volume basis) and the derived 55 are just nice-round numbers; I don’t remember the exact value off hand but it’s not too far off.
gary thompson (453):
“i couldn’t agree more! see the arrogant response gavin gave to me on #31. when faced with data and questions that challenge their hypothesis (and their financial nest eggs) they act like children.”
Arrogance is what you find in arm-chair “scientist” (some with actual college degrees, though in totally unrelated fields) that think they can spend a few hours skimming over decades of research and suddenly they’ve found the silver-bullet to kill “big bad” theory of AGW. Your question in #31 made it was obvious that you haven’t “bothered” to do even the most rudimentary reading on the subject. Given the context, I’d consider Gavin’s response a bit blunt, perhaps, but completely appropriate.
Go spend a few weeks reading and understanding the material at these sites:
http://www.skepticalscience.com/
http://www.aip.org/history/climate/index.html
Then come back and read a few dozen of the many good posts here at Realclimate.org. After that your questions and doubts, if any still remain, might be worthy of a more detailed response by Gavin or others.
Re Pete – considering how GWP is calculated – example:
For exponentially decaying perturbations, approximating radiative forcing (RF) as linearly proportional to compositional perturbation (for a small perturbation, a linearization has smaller errors):
RF = RF0 * exp(-t/Tau), where Tau is the timescale of the decay and RF0 is the initial value.
If two perturbations of different substances M and N have, per unit amount of substance, instantaneous forcings RF0(M) and RF0(N) and timescales of decay Tau(M) and Tau(N), then the ratio of GWPs (not corrected for efficacy or secondary composition effects) for a time horizon h is,
GWP(M,h)/GWP(N,h)
=
integral(from t=0 to t=h)of[ RF0(M) * exp(-t/Tau(M)) ]
/
integral(from t=0 to t=h)of[ RF0(N) * exp(-t/Tau(N)) ]
=
-Tau(M) * RF0(M) * [ exp(-h/Tau(M)) – 1 ]
/
-Tau(N) * RF0(N) * [ exp(-h/Tau(N)) – 1 ]
=
Tau(M) * RF0(M) * [ 1 – exp(-h/Tau(M)) ]
/
Tau(N) * RF0(N) * [ 1 – exp(-h/Tau(N)) ]
= [RF0(M)/RF0(N)] * [Tau(M)/Tau(N)] * [ 1 – exp(-h/Tau(M)) ]/[ 1 – exp(-h/Tau(N)) ]
IN the limit of h goes to 0 (using the method of taking derivatives of numerator and denominator),
GWP(M,h goes to 0)/GWP(N,h goes to 0)
= lim(h goes to 0) of { [RF0(M)/RF0(N)] * [Tau(M)/Tau(N)] * [Tau(N)/Tau(M)] *exp(-h/Tau(M))/exp(-h/Tau(N)) }
= RF0(M)/RF0(N), as expected
In the limit of h goes to infinity:
GWP(M,h goes to 0)/GWP(N,h goes to 0)
= [RF0(M)/RF0(N)] * [Tau(M)/Tau(N)] * [ 1 – 0 ]/[ 1 – 0 ]
= [RF0(M)/RF0(N)] * [Tau(M)/Tau(N)]
= ratio of decay timescales times ratio of instantaneous forcings
Of course, the decay for CO2 perturbations is not a simple exponential decay, but hopefully this illustrates the general concept of GWP.
Sorry if I’ve missed an earlier reply, but the reason that no Australian newspaper ran this editorial is that it coincided with the election of Tony Abbott as Leader of the Opposition in the federal Parliament. This event followed days of frenzied discussion within the Liberal (i.e. conservative) Party and it coalition partner about climate change. The discussion took place because the Labor Government was trying to pass its climate change bill, which would have put in place an emissions trading system. The previous Liberal leader, Malcolm Turnbull, supported the ETS but couldn’t bring his party with him; Tony Abbott only won the leadership from him by one vote. As a result of this political schism that nearly split the Liberals, The Age and the Sydney Morning Herald both felt that they had to write an editorial about the Copenhagen talks that reflected the events that led up to the leadership spill.
(The government’s climate change bill subsequently failed to pass the Senate, which gives them the excuse for a double dissolution election fought on this issue, in which both houses would be elected simultaneously. The bill could then be passed in a joint sitting of the houses – assuming, of course, the government gets control of the Senate.)
I know The Age was broadly supportive of the anthropogenic factor in climate change, but as a Melburnian I can’t comment on what the Sydney Morning Herald’s editorial position was.
Hank #479: Thank you for your effort to explain your complaint. I understand that you disagree with me about whether or not the various temperature proxy methods were massaged into agreement in the twentieth century. But I’m not clear on exactly how you think I should modify my page. I did, however, set up my blog specifically so that people could complain at me and tell me to fix things, so if you have the energy to attempt your correction over there, I will give it my full attention.
#462 &
Sheesh, men! Can’t multitask!!
#472 – please tell me where i can find the scientific explanation to why the increas in CO2 has not caused an increase in global temperatures for the last 10 years. instead of insulting me, give me a source. i want to know the truth. twice i’ve asked for guidance on this and i’ve been insulted both times. give me a link.
” Therefore, the case for an historical (as opposed to fundamental/theoretical/modeled) link between CO2 and temperature rise over the past 100 yrs is essentially predicated on the validity of the adjustment procedure(s). ”
Idiocy. Sheer idiocy.
Are you interested in Climate, or are you trolling?
If interest in Climate, then read the IPCC report, particularly the bits about paleoclimate.
There is a mountain of evidence that points to climate sensivity being around 3 degrees (and not less than 1.5 degrees) from REAL EVIDENCE. Not models. EVIDENCE.
None of this comes from temperature data this century.
But if you’re so worried about temperature data, why not get the raw data from the daata page here at Realclimate and work it up yourself?
deech56 (post 407), I did read the IPCC TAR. In fact, I’m talking about the very sentence you asked me to go read.
Did: I don’t think there has been a single direct fatality from a civilian nuclear accident in the US.
BPL: You wrote that AFTER seeing my list of nuclear accidents, including the fatal ones? How are you defining “direct?” When plant workers are killed in explosions, doesn’t that count as a “direct fatality?”
Really: after reading a lot about global warming/climate change, I just cant understand how this can possibly be more urging than all the chemicals that are put in our food, consummables, etc that make male fertility and testosterone levels plummet, cancer skyrocket. Mercury levels that poison people, especially kids who end up with autism, ADD, decreased cognitive abilities. For north americans/europeans, how can GW be more urging than saving humans from being sick?
BPL: Think “complete collapse of human agriculture.”
Rod B: BPL (423), you keep quoting prices for electricity in California that I have never been able to find and you have never verified.
BPL: I quote an earlier poster:
On May 13, 2008, the California Energy Commission and the California Public Utilities Commission released a comparison of the costs of of new generating capacity. The analysis was prepared by Energy and Environmental Economics, Inc. The estimates include firming resource costs.
Busbar cost in cents per kilowatt-hour in 2008 dollars:
* Coal Supercritical: 10.554
* Coal Integrated Gasification Combined Cycle (IGCC): 11.481
* Coal IGCC with Carbon Capture & Storage (IGCC with CCS): 17.317
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Comparative_electrical_generation_costs
“Comparative Electrical Generation Costs.” SourceWatch, accessed 11/05/2009
Lazard analysis (including the cost for creating the generating capacity) are:
* Gas peaking: 22.1 – 33.4 cents/kWh
* IGCC: 10.4 – 13.4
* Nuclear: 9.8 – 12.6
* Advanced supercritical coal: 7.4 – 13.5 (high end includes 90% carbon capture and storage)
* Gas combined cycle: 7.3 – 10.0
* Solar PV (crystalline): 10.9 – 15.4
* Fuel cell: 11.5 – 12.5
* Solar PV (thin film): 9.6 – 12.4
* Solar thermal: 9.0 – 14.5 (low end is solar tower; high end is solar trough)
* Biomass direct: 5.0 – 9.4
* Landfill gas: 5.0 – 8.1
* Wind: 4.4 – 9.1
* Geothermal: 4.2 – 6.9
* Biomass cofiring: 0.3 – 3.7
* Energy efficiency: 0.0 – 5.0
I’m bitterly dissapointed about the debarcle that is the copenhagan summit but what else can you expect from this process. Democratic process cannot work in this arena!!
Ray Ladbury 13 December 2009 at 12:54 PM
on the la-la-la-la, for some doing that finger in ear thing runs the risk of them tips touching each other somewhat mid-way.
I was shocked to read about that ice-breaker going 25 miles per hour in a Arctic region where the Sats indicated there was multi-year ice… there was, but it was very thin. November had the worst ratio Area/Extent on my record… just 80.8%, where the previous low was 82.6% (2007). It ain’t true they say.
gary thompson,
what you’re looking for has been frequently discussed here. It is not that hard to find. People would probably be nicer if you made that effort first.
Anyway, try this for starters:
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2009/10/a-warming-pause/
There are more links to recent articles in the first lines of that post. I suggest you look those up also.
Lawrence, ONLY a democratic process can work. There is no “man on a white horse” to ride in and save our butts.
Copenhagen is not the end. Yes, I worry about the time, as no doubt we all are worrying here. It is a bitter thing to reflect on the opportunities wasted over the past two decades, the time lost, the risks blindly incurred by folks too foolish to take a clear-eyed look at the facts.
But the struggle will continue, and reality will increasingly assert itself. It is quite clear that the will to change is increasingly global in scope–with India and China having offered up intensity cuts, the false claim that all we can expect from them is BAU is rebutted. Of course, more is needed than just intensity cuts; we need absolute reductions in emissions. But I expect to see some motion in the right direction, at least, and the process *will* continue.
We’ve got to keep working, and hope that there’s enough margin to limit the damage done.
Gary Thompson #507,
now you’re asking nicely — a well established data exchange protocol amongst (not only) scientists. See, we don’t owe you an education, you owe yourself one.
See CM #515, and also http://tamino.wordpress.com/2009/12/07/riddle-me-this/ .
Gary Thompson@507
Tamino’s post:
http://tamino.wordpress.com/2009/08/04/influence-of-the-southern-oscillation-on-tropospheric-temperature/
was a pretty good start. The thing is that a lot of things affect “climate” on short timescales–volcanoes, El Nino/La Nina (together called ENSO), changes in aerosols… In the short term, these effects can overpower the energy added by CO2–but only in the short term.
Like the tortoise, CO2 keeps on going, always blocking infrared radiation that would otherwise escape and cool the air. And CO2 persists for hundreds of years. Over time, that energy adds up and warms the planet. It has to, because warming up is the only way the planet can radiate more energy outside the wave band that CO2 absorbs and again attain equilibrium. Hopefully this helps. Don’t get discouraged. Keep in mind that there are a lot of disingenuous denialists who come on here thinking they are asking something scientists haven’t thought of, when in reality, they get the same question 100 times a day. Also keep in mind that some of the posters here are out-and-out accusing the entire scientific community of fraud–and that can kind of throw cold water on any warm fuzzy feelings you have toward humanity. If this doesn’t help, ask again, and I’ll try to be more specific. Keep trying to learn.
#507 gary thompson
Weather is not predictable on long time scales and climate is predictable on long time scales. Climate is generally defined as 30+ years (I like to add attribution to that for context). So looking at anything on a 10 years time scales does not relate to global climate.
http://ossfoundation.us/projects/environment/global-warming/myths/global-warming-stopped
Please realize that this cooling meme has long been debunked. People have answered the question some many times that it gets frustrating after a while.
There are many complications in understanding the inter and intra decadal signals that seem to be related to the inter-dynamic processes that include ocean and atmospheric mechanisms. There are short and long term ocean cycles that seem to impact these decadal variations. There also may be long term oceanic heat balance cycles. It is a truly fascinating area of study.
In addition you might want to examine natural variability
http://ossfoundation.us/projects/environment/global-warming/natural-variability
and forcing
http://ossfoundation.us/projects/environment/global-warming/forcing-levels
to round out your understanding.
Ed Every says, “Politics has no place in science.”
Spoken like a man who has never done science! Science is done by humans, and every human endeavor has politics. That said, science is an endeavor where humans have agreed to be constrained by the preponderance of the evidence–an unprecedented concession to the notion of physical reality. The reason why you have more than 90% of climate scientists agreeing with the proposition that we are warming the planet is because the overwhelming preponderance of the evidence says so. There is no ballot. There’s only the publication record and what we have to accept to understand the planet’s climate. The silence (of evidence, anyway) on the other side is deafening.
ccpo:
Yes, indeed, my source includes decommissioning. It would be very deceptive to ignore it! Indeed, the source includes full lifecycle costs based on actual plants. Look for yourself: http://www.ukerc.ac.uk/Downloads/PDF/07/0706_TPA_A_Review_of_Electricity.pdf
BPL:
I see that wind is, indeed, cheaper in the US than it is globally (although not by as much as your source suggests). Please remember, though, that wind requires space. This means that in some countries, there simply isn’t enough physical space to get large proportions of energy from wind. Denigrating nuclear power based on your local energy situation seems irresponsible to me.
I see that in your nuclear accidents list you have, indeed, included some US incidents that did not have any nuclear components, and hence didn’t make the wikipedia list. I concede that when making comparisons between technologies, these should be (and are) included. However, my point stands: nobody has died in the US directly from a civilian nuclear accident (although there have been a few researchers that died, and the official estimate from Three Mile Island is “the equivalent of one excess cancer death”).
SecularAnimist:
No responsible nuclear advocate pushes it instead of renewables. You keep thinking it is an either/or thing, or that people somehow aren’t aware of the risks of nuclear power. We need wind. We need solar. We need hydroelectric. We need nuclear.
All have risks – very different risks, but all can be quantified and compared.
I know there are hardcore nuclear zealots who try to promote nuclear at the expense of renewables. However, I have not seen any such individuals posting here, and I would appreciate it if you didn’t project such attitudes and motives on me (and others defending nuclear here).
Yes, I know it’s weird to be discussing things with someone online who isn’t an absolutist, and convinced of their total rightness. Learn to deal with it :-)
Ray Ladbury @ 520
Good answer, but from a procedural point of view you want to keep pressure groups from exerting undue influence on the process. Censoring climate reports (Bush admin.) is a sign that the cat is among the pigeons for instance. The agreement to be constrained by the preponderance of evidence can’t be taken for granted and has to be guarded with some vigilance.
In the case of climate science these days, Ed Every, intense pressure is being applied by those who are panicked over the kooky notion that reality might have some kind of a liberal bias.
> Kevan Hashemi says: 14 December 2009 at 12:05 AM
> Hank #479: Thank you for your effort to explain your complaint. I understand that you disagree
> with me about whether or not the various temperature proxy methods were massaged into agreement
> in the twentieth century. But I’m not clear on exactly how you think I should modify my page.
You assert the data were altered to agree. You showed a picture that does not support your claim.
You can link directly to the data and compare the numbers used for the picture.
That would show you’re making your claim up. That’s how I think you should modify your page.
You’re asserting an academic fraud. You’re an academic. You know how this should be handled.
This isn’t really on-topic, but in case anyone is interested Paul Hudson’s latest post on his BBC blog is based on David Archibald’s solar cycle theories: http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/paulhudson/2009/12/could-the-sun-cast-a-shadow-on.shtml
It’s presented in a very: “Blimey! There’s all sorts of ideas out there, who’s to know what’s right, eh?” fashion.
I realize that RealClimate has a backlog of interesting things to get to, but at some point it might be nice to cover statements like the following:
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5hGkx5ED3BxWScLRJuzhDFRm9wAzwD9CJ4M701
I could see it being “possible” that summer Arctic ice might disappear in the next five to seven years, but 75% chance sounds, well, alarmist. And I usually admire Al Gore’s ability to listen to scientists and package the information in intelligible ways. So it would be nice to hear if a) he is exaggerating in this case, or b) there actually is new science out there that indicates that near-term Arctic summer disappearance is actually likely.
-Marcus
[Response: This is based on claims by Wieslaw Maslowski (unpublished as yet, but widely reported) and come from a simple linear extrapolation of the Arctic ice thickness data from his model of historical changes which indeed show a faster decline than summer ice extent. However, it is clear that since the extent and the thickness give different times for no summer ice, that there is probably something a little suspect about linear extrapolations of these things. No physical model gives timescales that short, but then again they are underestimating trends so far. Thus, this claim remains speculative. – gavin]
519
John P. Reisman (OSS Foundation) says:
14 December 2009 at 9:07 AM
#507 gary thompson
“Weather is not predictable on long time scales and climate is predictable on long time scales. Climate is generally defined as 30+ years (I like to add attribution to that for context). So looking at anything on a 10 years time scales does not relate to global climate.”
1. Rapid climate change of 10 years or less are well known from the geological record.
2. 30 years as a climate period has no scientific basis. I have asked on numerous occasions for any published justification for the 30 year period and no one can point me to any such material.
3. Climate is not predictable on long time scales. You are fooling yourself if you think that. The models are not sophisticated to do it so I can’t see how you think that it is.
4. The data from three of the four main datasets that are relied upon show that there has been no statistically significant net warming since 2003 (any guesses as to who is the outlier GISS?). And for your information the RSS lower troposphere data show a statistically significant net cooling of 0.12 degrees C per decade (P<=0.01) from 2001 to current. We can argue about cherry picks but it looks worse for you if we use 1998 as a start and no significant warming or cooling if we use 2000 as a start. Your so-called meme (I really hat that word) is not debunked except by those wishing to deny the reality of the data.
Patrick 027 (497), I have a uncertainty about GWPotential but don’t understand it enough to come to any conclusion. You made a statement to Pete that might aid my understanding: How can a molecule of CH4 have 20x the GWP of a molecule of CO2? CH4 can absorb a single photon as can CO2 and those two photons are fairly close in energy level — certainly not a difference of 20x. Or is there some process that allows CH4 to do significantly more photon absorption – energy transfer cycles than CO2 (though I don’t know why that would be…) and the 20x factor comes somehow from probabilities and/or quantum factors?
Can you shed some light?
Ray, could you comment on the usefulness of citing “Tamino”, whoever he or she is? While I respect the notion that it’s the evidence and the ideas that are important, and I tend to reject appeals to authority in general, still it strikes me as odd that the insistence on peer review and the like could fit hand in glove with anonymous bloggers such as Tamino. I do apologize if it’s one of those things where everyone knows who he/she is and chooses not to offend by mentioning it, and I would imagine this topic has come up before, but I’d be curious to know your view of the matter, and whether you think Tamino would be a more useful contributor in front of the curtain. There is an understandable tendency here to vilify McIntyre, Watt, Lindzen, etc., but at least they say who they are.
Walter
PS to Patrick 027, there might be something in your #503 post, but that will take some slogging…
Just got around to reading the Guardian articles relating to this 56-newpaper editorial. It seems only one U.S. newspaper ran it — The Miami Herald. The other well-oiled papers have sold their souls to the dev-oils, which I’ve known for a long time. One U.S. paper apparently even responded in this rough manner to the Guardian (even tho the Guardian worked hard rewriting the editorial so as to get every participating papers’ agreement on the text):
WHICH NEWSPAPER WROTE THAT??!! Anyone know?
Silk (508), not surprisingly you’re still bellowing the mantra of “mountains of evidence,” “REAL EVIDENCE” (emphasis yours), and finally just plain “EVIDENCE” to support the nominal 3 degrees increase following a doubling of CO2 — as opposed to models and physics theory. I’d still like to be directed to the referenced for that evidence with pointing sans higher db’s.
Ray Ladbury #520 says that more than 90% of climate scientists agree that we are warming the planet. I am just curious why most people on here think that number isn’t higher. Is it because of Industry influence/funding? Thank you.
“The island nations are desperate for measures that will reduce warming in the short term. Black carbon is an ideal target because it stays in the atmosphere for only a few weeks, compared with 100 years for carbon dioxide, meaning that if black carbon emissions were eliminated, atmospheric heat-trapping would drop quickly.”
http://www.latimes.com/news/nation-and-world/la-fg-climate-emissions14-2009dec14,0,4164470.story
Really?
Gavin, what is wrong with this statement?
[Response: Nothing. BC is a positive forcing – both because of it’s absorbing properties in the air and it’s impact on snow albedo. There is some uncertainty about its impacts as an ice cloud nucleating particle, but it is very likely that reducing BC (which comes from biomass burning (deforestation), diesel engines and residential burning of coal/wood) would help reduce climate warming. – gavin]
The idea that supercomputers will eventually be able to show us how to tweak the climate to get acceptable results, is an idea I thought of. I was wondering if anyone has any thoughts on this, or can show me links to discussions on this topic.
-Thank you
> I’d still like to be directed to the referenced for
> that evidence with pointing sans higher db’s.
Why? It didn’t work last time we tried. I submit that if you were motivated to learn, you could do the footwork yourself by now.
Nobody owes you an education but yourself.
#523 Mark A. York
Sounds backwards somehow, maybe the writer of the article has confused multiple concepts.
The big problem with black carbon, as I understand it, is that it lands on snow and melts it faster. He may be mixing that with aerosol pollutants which are beneficial for cooling as a negative forcing?
So not sure what he is talking about, not sufficient context on statement.
Barton Paul Levenson (512) Busbar costs are not the same as what one can actually buy electricity for — maybe about half or a little more. So saying wind power “costs” so much based on busbar estimates is misleading. No one in California, a far as I can determine, gets usable electricity for 9 cents/kWh.
There is little way to verify the accuracy of SourceWatch’s cost estimates, and given their purpose and general mode of operation they don’t seem, top of the head, to be the folks one would pick for engineering costs analysis. But, giving them the benefit of the doubt, there is interesting and useful information there for a comparison (ballpark at least) of alternative energies. But it ought to be used in the right context.
Rod B (#525): A molecule of CH4 can have 26 times the absorptive capacity of CO2 at the top of the atmosphere because they absorb different wavelengths. Because there’s 390 ppm or so of CO2 out there, compared to less than 2 ppm of CH4, the wavelengths where CO2 absorbs are mostly used up. For example, if CO2 concentrations are doubled, the absorption per molecule drops by about 15% (total forcing increases as the log of the concentration). The difference in absorption wavelengths comes from different stretching and bending modes: symmetrical molecules like O2 and N2 are pretty much transparent at the wavelengths we care about, CH4 and CO2 both absorb in the right area but differently due to different modes. In addition to which wavelength a molecule absorbs at, there is also a “capture cross section” – the likelihood that a photon of the right wavelength in the right place actually leads to excitation – but I don’t know how much of a role this plays in this case.
-Marcus
ps. SF6 has a radiative forcing of something like 37,000 time CO2, per molecule.
Mark (531):
Nothing wrong with that. The short-lived species are the best initial target because their lifetime is short. The atmospheric concentration thereof follows the emissions much more closely than does CO2.
Martin Vermeer (533), I was given one reference, a graph of PETM (and other stuff), to show the “observed evidence” that when CO2 goes to 550 ppm (doubling) the temperature rises by nominally 3 degrees. Unfortunately, the reference showed no such thing, as I have already mentioned. Why do I have the responsibility to find information that someone else claims exists though can’t refer to it, and I think doesn’t exist? Is this a scavenger hunt?
[Response: Of course not. As a general rule, if people make a claim here they should cite the reference. That goes for everyone. – gavin]
#533/536
I was unsure about that so the additional context helps. So black carbon is positive forcing in the air and on snow. Brain fuzz I guess. Carbon is carbon.
I am probably confusing other associated aerosol pollutants in my head and their effects.
Yup, 480 is right, someone who knows what they are doing needs to take a look at this:
http://www.populartechnology.net/2009/10/peer-reviewed-papers-supporting.html
At a glance, a lot of the papers look like they are off topic and/or focused on topics that are related to climate change but do not disprove much of anything. A few papers seem to mean the opposite of what the author of that post thinks they mean. But I’m not, ahem, an expert. Someone who knows the field needs to wade through that post, otherwise, a zillion blogs are going to quote it and refer to the papers mentioned in every other anti-AGW post. 500 papers is a lot of muddy water, even if all 500 papers add up to zero.
RE Skip Smith
This is taking a bit of digging htrough the thread, but here is the original comment by Bernie:
The sentence means (to me) that recent tree-ring density variations have not followed recent temperature trends. We know that temperatures have gone up recently, so a reader should know that this means that densities have not (the “decline”). If there was any doubt, the reader could look up Briffa 1998a, which is this paper: Briffa, K.R., F.H. Schweingruber, P.D. Jones, T.J. Osborn, S.G. Shiyatov and E.A. Vaganov, 1998a: Reduced sensitivity of recent tree-growth to temperature at high northern latitudes. Nature, 391, 678-682 for more detail. The TAR is not a primer, and interpretation of the sentence in question does depend on some knowledge of the field.
It is interesting to note that thanks to the explanation by Gavin and the more detailed work of Deep Climate, McIntyre has updated his post to clarify that the e-mails were not about this divergence after all.
I hope I’m getting this right and I hope that this helps.
RodB, 537, but the busbar costs ARE the marginal cost that the Free Market is supposed to drive costs of any fungible goods.
That they are different (if they are) is because there’s no proper Free Market operating.
Which is quite possible given the centralised nature of such large one-shot power generators like coal and nuclear.
Another problem with citing “soot” as the cause of warming (cf earlier comments) is that if the temperature is very cold still, then the melt will refreeze. Any huge melting would wash the soot away and anything other than the small amount that can get out of the way (remember we have ice melt from sunshine without soot still) in time, without being blocked by excessive melt, will likewise freeze.
Walter Manny wrote in 526:
Tamino was in correspondence with Ian Jolliffe, an authority on principal component analysis, and despite the fact that Ian Jolliffe originally disagreed with the use de-centered principle component analysis (and at this point he can only withold judgement as he has not been able to keep up with all of the literature) he recognized Tamino (with whom he was in some personal correspondence) as a statician of some stature in his own right. Tamino has coauthored peer-reviewed papers on climatology with world class climatologists and I gather that he has also coauthored peer-reviewed papers on stellar dynamics. However, given his prominence online in the defense of the science of climatology he has been subject to death-threats. So I believe it is understandable that he withholds his actual name. His blog alone speaks volumes on the level of his expertise.
However, as it has been clear for some time that you put absolutely no stock in a vast body of peer-reviewed literature and an overwhelming scientific consensus consisting of thousands of scientists who are experts in their respective fields, and instead put your stock in op-eds by people belonging to propaganda “think tanks” with extensive ties to fossil fuel and tobacco companies (not to mention companies that would prefer to keep CFCs, dioxins, asbestos and and the like deregulated as the deaths that would result are far less important than their bottom line), I see little reason for believing that you will put any stock in Tamino’s viewed whether he reveals his exact identity or not. And personally I would prefer that he does not as I would like to see him stick around for quite some time to come.
I do hope that the above is sufficiently illuminating.
Didactylos #521 said: my point stands: nobody has died in the US directly from a civilian nuclear accident (although there have been a few researchers that died, and the official estimate from Three Mile Island is “the equivalent of one excess cancer death”).
You might want to familiarize yourself with these studies. The real question is, how many have alredy died as a result of living near nuclear power plants?
http://www.news-medical.net/news/2007/07/20/27840.aspx
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18082395
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2757021/
I know there are hardcore nuclear zealots who try to promote nuclear at the expense of renewables. However, I have not seen any such individuals posting here, and I would appreciate it if you didn’t project such attitudes and motives on me (and others defending nuclear here).
See Edward Greisch’s comment #360: What the coal companies know that most people don’t: As long as you keep messing around with wind, solar, geothermal and wave power, the coal industry is safe. There is no way wind, solar, geothermal and wave power can replace coal, and they know it.
Re Rod B – what 538 Marcus said.
I have a couple of problems with the pop-up form of the comments. First, there doesn’t seem to be any search capability. Second, I entered a long comment, but forgot to include my Name and E-mail address, so I was directed to
https://www.realclimate.org/wp-comments-post.php
which had the message
Error: please fill the required fields (name, email).
but provided me with no way to get back to do that short of starting all over.
Am I missing something?
Thanks. I guess the short life of BC versus the long life of CO2 as a canceling effect threw me.