First open thread of the new year. A time for ‘best of’s of climate science last year and previews for the this year perhaps? We will have an assessment of the updates to annual indices and model/data comparisons later in the month.
Climate science from climate scientists...
>Larsen
I knew that sounded familiar; see 14 Dec 2013 at 2:39 PM with a link to their illustration showing how the cracks develop and propagate
Prokaryotes #249,
I have been following the major climate blogs for the past few years. It seems to me every paper reported shows some new phenomenon making the climate situation even more dire, such as the one you have reported along with your extrapolation to Greenland. Is this biased self-selection by the contributors, or is this a reflection of what’s happening: the situation is really far worse than we had thought even a few years ago? Are we in fact seeing a positive feedback mechanism of the climate literature itself, where identification of new adverse phenomena is spawning further research into these phenomena, which in turn is identifying even more dire prospects for the future?
The problem I see with transitioning to a completely carbon free or carbon neutral energy economy is that, as wonderful as that may be, it is only one of a myriad of horrible problems that are self evident at the extinction level. The major problem is the use of energy, Thus I have come to the conclusion that complete evacuation of the human species from the planet is the only solution that will yield anything even vaguely resembling an early Holocene era planetary ecological and biological diversity. And indeed, I have worked out the necessary global technological and engineering actions required to produce that desired result. Your opinion on the subject of future evolution of humanity may diverge from my own, of course, but it is a subject I have studied deeply.
From today’s Salon article.
http://www.salon.com/2014/01/10/climate_change_madness_the_fate_of_the_planet_now_depends_on_kickstarter/?source=newsletter
“Every footnote tells a story. But a nugget in the minutes of the International Geophysical Year (IGY) Working Group on Oceanography, dated March 2, 1956, marks the beginning of a particularly important tale.
In the IGY meeting, two U.S. scientists, Roger Revelle and Hans Suess, pushed for government funding to measure the amount of carbon dioxide in the earth’s ocean and atmosphere. Their goal: “a clearer understanding of the probable climatic effects of the predicted great industrial production of carbon-dioxide over the next 50 years.”
That’s right: Way back in the 1950s scientists were already focused on gathering data that would help them test the theory that human-caused production of CO2 was likely to cause climate change.
Revelle and Seuss were successful in their recommendation. The upshot of the meeting: A young post-doctoral student at CalTech, Charles Keeling, received enough funds to further his passion for measuring CO2. Keeling, according to the New York Times, was “the first person in the world to develop an accurate technique for measuring carbon dioxide in the air.” ”
The article goes on to describe the Keeling Curve and how the measurements have continued for fifty+ years, and focuses on the need to obtain funds for continuing to take measurements. All well and good, but in those fifty years, what have we done as a result of these measurements, and how have we altered the Keeling Curve? Information on climate change is important, but it doesn’t do much good if it is not used to spur action.
# 248 Ray Ladbury “… renewables. There isn’t another choice.”
On the contrary Ray, when eventually we grasp the nettle of exploiting the unimagined potential of nuclear energy we shall own a resource of such prodigious power as to enable the liberation of mankind from poverty well into a future measurable in millennia. But renewables? Sadly, a hopeless dead end.
willi
It is a new circulation, after effects from the Cold wave over North America. This should change the weather everywhere in the NH. I’d expect Europe to be colder from this. There is a westward cyclone displacement overt the Canadian Arctic, not so common, but affecting weather further South.
simon abingdon wrote: “But renewables? Sadly, a hopeless dead end.”
With all due respect, sir, that is utter nonsense. I find myself thinking that your comment must be some kind of joke.
Solar and wind are the fastest growing sources of new electricity generation capacity in the world, growing at record-breaking double-digit rates year after year, while the cost of the technologies plummets and their efficiency grows rapidly, with no “end” in sight.
The energy content of all the fossil fuels and all the radioactive fuels on Earth combined is puny, compared to the energy available on an ongoing basis from sunlight and wind.
> abington
> nettle … nuclear … potential … prodigious …liberation
Ooh, lovely trolling, I bet you can hook several people with that one.
But you won’t hook anyone able to do the math.
And most people here can do the math and know you’re being silly.
Why bother, Simon? Recreational typing is so 20th Century.
#241 prokaryotes–Thank you, but that’s Rasmus, not Gavin–isn’t it? That post was focusing on Europe but it’s right on topic here and now.
“Last June, during the International Polar Year conference, James Overland suggested that there are more cold and snowy winters to come. He argued that the exceptionally cold snowy 2009-2010 winter in Europe had a connection with the loss of sea-ice in the Arctic. The cold winters were associated with a persistent ‘blocking event’, bringing in cold air over Europe from the north and the east. … …and Petoukhov and Semenov argue that the cold winter should be an expected consequence of a global warming.”
Matter of fact James Overland, Arctic researcher at NOAA, is going to be on the conversation today at 2p E–linked by Hank at #203 (and described #237):
http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2014/01/08/we-geeks-polar-vortex-and-extreme-weather#sthash.EgPT9sDG.dpufd
There’s a 2 minute video with Dr James Holdren on this topic on the linked page.
Simon, I could hardly be called phobic when it comes to nukes. I collect uranium and thorium minerals (I even have a gemstone containing thorium–ekanite). However, to date the impact of nukes on our energy infrastructure has been not so much unimagined as imaginary. Now, it is possible that the new thorium-based generation technology might eventually reanimate the corpse of nuclear energy in this country. That would increase the fuel supply and likely help (not solve) waste disposal. It would not, however, eliminate proliferation concerns.
And ultimately, where would this have gotten us? We’d be beholden to a new set of energy overlords probably as ruthless and immoral as the Koch brothers. We’d still have a finite energy supply and a new energy infrastructure owned by stakeholders bent on maximizing their profits.
Ultimately, if it’s not renewable, it’s not sustainable, and anything that diverts us from sustainability is a detour, possibly a long one that would take us centuries to recover from.
Thomas Lee Elifritz: “Thus I have come to the conclusion that complete evacuation of the human species from the planet is the only solution…”
Got a destination in mind. Last I looked, there didn’t seem to many branches of Club Med on planetary bodies other than Earth.
Thomas Lee Elfritz:
Human extinction would serve the same purpose. How deep is your ecology?
BTW, reCAPTCHA is now almost unusable. I cycled it a couple of dozen times before I got one I could make out.
I believe that Simon is misunderstood. He is probably referring to the very reliable nuclear fusion reactor that is a safe 93 million miles away and beams power to every site on earth for free!
Steve
#257 SecularAnimist “The energy content of all the fossil fuels and all the radioactive fuels on Earth combined is puny, compared to the energy available on an ongoing basis from sunlight and wind.”
I think you’ll find …
Diogenes at #246, I think we are mostly in agreement.
On your next point, at #252, I too have been following the science pretty closely. Things do look worse than just a few years ago, but papers come out that modify some of the worst cases occasionally. But they themselves are of course subject to revisions. I see this back-and-forth in sensitivity studies, studies of rates of GIS loss, AMOC (non-)slowing, and a number of other areas. That’s to be expected. It’s not necessarily a consequence of some kind of disciplinary ‘feedback.’ (If anything, I get the impression that most researchers are hoping that they are wrong, and that things aren’t as dire as the data seem to suggest.)
But, yeah, as far as I’ve seen, mostly most areas of study show today that things are looking worse than they were looking five to ten years ago. To paraphrase MLK, the arc of GW research is long, but it bends toward catastrophe!
Oops, yes. Thanks for pointing that out patrick.
http://www.skepticalscience.com/2013-was-Australias-hottest-year-warm-for-much-of-the-world.html
“Off to a hot start, and no El Nino.” This GLOBAL assessment by the Australian Bureau of Meteorology at Skeptical Science !0 Jan is worth reading, every word and number.
It’s a re-post by Rob Painting from “The Conversation.”
“The presence of record temperatures without the climatic influence of an El Niño makes the 2013 Australian temperatures especially significant.”
Ow Canada.
http://thetyee.ca/News/2013/12/09/Dismantling-Fishery-Library/
Read it and weep.
I don’t know if this has already been posted, but it is a fairly good (if grim) overview of our current predicament, imho:
http://www.climatecodered.org/p/is-climate-change-already-dangerous.html
> Canada
Privatization, with extreme prejudice.
I’ll bet some very, ah, potentially fruitful collections shuffled out the loading dock in the last days. I wonder if anyone kept the card catalog or equivalent to know what was ‘lost’ that isn’t duplicated elsewhere.
Time for some serious reading :)
“In Much of U.S., Extreme Cold is Becoming More Rare”
http://www.climatecentral.org/news/extreme-cold-events-in-a-climate-context-16931
Click-to-enlarge graphic. Choose-your-city interactive.
From retweet by Gavin: “The real story is that people have forgotten what cold weather is like,” — @ClimateOfGavin pic.twitter.com/l3QoEsll3J
Stefan Rahmstorf @rahmstorf 7 Jan
Have a look at today’s temperature anomaly: cold eastern US, hot Europe, warm Arctic. http://cci-reanalyzer.org/DailySummary/index_ds.php# … pic.twitter.com/91b0syLW2U
Retweeted by Gavin Schmidt
—What you see is: Today’s Global Weather Overview: air temperature anomaly (interactive).
Check the feature at the bottom of the page: 7-day Weather Forecast Maps and Animations. Try it.
You can also select Sea Temperature Anomaly, Precipitation, Precipitable Water, Surface Wind, Jetstream, with oh yes the polar vortex, Cloud Cover, and Snow and Sea Ice. Try it.
Plus more. And one interactive-big Related Site:
http://www.10green.org/
White House staff discusses the polar vortex and climate change with scientists (The first 7 mins are introductions)
Wili #270,
The link you have provided is outstanding, incorporates the views of all the major credible climate experts, and I would commend every viewer of this blog to read it in detail.
Some important takeaways:
“Yet the 2ºC goal is not an option either, because, with climate and carbon cycle positive feedbacks in full swing, IT IS LESS A STABLE DESTINATION THAN A SIGNPOST ON A HIGHWAY TO A MUCH HOTTER PLACE. The real choice now is to try and keep the planet under a series of big tipping points by getting it back to a Holocene-like state, or accept that a 3-6ºC“catastrophe” is at hand.”
“As Anderson and Bows show, if global emissions don’t peak till 2020, THEN THE CARBON BUDGET FOR THE DEVELOPED WORLD IS… ZERO (5b. above). Even the 2ºC target requires actions that are completely outside the current climate policy-making framework, and therefore considered impossible”
“Today, in 2013, we face an unavoidably radical future. We either continue with rising emissions and reap the radical repercussions of severe climate change, or we acknowledge that we have a choice and pursue radical emission reductions: NO LONGER IS THERE A NON-RADICAL OPTION. MOREOVER, LOW-CARBON SUPPLY TECHNOLOGIES CANNOT DELIVER THE NECESSARY RATE OF EMISSION REDUCTIONS – THEY NEED TO BE COMPLEMENTED WITH RAPID, DEEP AND EARLY REDUCTIONS IN ENERGY CONSUMPTION”
While I agree with the statement of the seriousness of the problem, I don’t see how any of the solutions recommended in the article, even the most radical solutions, will extricate us from being in the truly ‘dangerous’ regime. And, as the first quote above implies, we might not be able to stabilize at ‘dangerous’, but will proceed to ‘catastrophic’.
This just in from CBC:
http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/climate-change-rattles-mental-health-of-inuit-in-labrador-1.2492180
Folks are feeling “isolated” as their mobility is significantly reduced due to loss of sea ice and snow cover. Diet is disrupted due to phenology changes.
Some headlines from today’s extended menu of CP articles. While my previous post emphasized the dire nature of our climate predicament, and the extremely radical actions required to avoid catastrophe, the articles below show motion in the completely opposite direction. How do we turn this situation around?
“Canadian Government Dismantles Ecological Libraries After Dismissing Thousands Of Scientists
By Ari Phillips on January 10, 2014
Closing critical libraries and severely cutting scientific research are the latest moves by the Harper administration to prioritize fossil fuel development and short-term profits over long-term concerns like climate change and the environment.”
“In The Face Of Historic Smog, China Adds $10 Billion In New Coal Production Capacity
By Emily Atkin on January 9, 2014
The desolation of smog in China? Forget it.
Despite experiencing the worst air pollution on record in 2013, China last year approved the construction of more than 100 million tonnes of new coal production capacity at a cost of $9.8 billion, according to a report compiled Wednesday by Reuters. The increase in coal production in 2013 was six times bigger than the increase in 2012, when the administration approved just four coal projects with 16.6 million tonnes of annual capacity and a total investment of $1.2 billion.
In other words, in just one year, China added coal production capacity equal to 10 percent of total U.S. annual usage.
The news is startling, considering the country’s world famous pollution, which has caused myriad health problems, marred cityscapes, and even gave an 8-year-old girl lung cancer. What’s more, the pollution has recently been confirmed to be caused by fossil fuel production, with coal at the forefront.
The news of China’s staggering increase in coal production capacity also casts serious doubt on the government’s recently-announced new pollution reduction targets, which reportedly require all of China’s provinces to reduce air pollution by 5 to 25 percent annually. Those who fail to meet those goals will supposedly be “named and shamed” publicly.”
“Can America’s Grasslands Be Saved?
By Tom Kenworthy on January 8, 2014
As America’s Great Plains are converted to the production of corn and soybeans, the result is a dramatic change that is eating away at our carbon storage reserves.”
“After Winning Support Of Environmentalists In 2013, McAuliffe Looks To Boost Virginia’s Coal Industry
By Katie Valentine on January 7, 2014
McAuliffe calls jobs from CCS-equipped coal plants “jobs of the future.””
Diogenes at 276: Yes, the folks at ClimateCodeRed are pretty impressive at laying it out there. I agree with your assessment. It is time to practice a Buddha-like detachment from desired consequences and just do the right thing because it is right.
>> wili
> patrick
I don’t think so.
Unless your definition of “credible” means accepting what’s there.
Not possible. See http://skepticalscience.com//pics/TARfig9-1.gif
Look, I’m all in favor of screaming doom, but you need to do it effectively and credibly and not make stuff up if you claim the scientists are all in agreement with you.
Joe Romm does it about as dramatically as I think can be supported. He’s entertaining, captures attention, and gets lots of blog hits. People have been scraping his stuff — a big hazard once interest develops, the promoters who don’t do any of the work have all their time and money available to do the SEO and try to grab the attention. Look at the sites scraping Tamino’s work now for example.
I wish “climatecodered” did a better job of citing sources, rather than screaming doom and disaster.
When people think there’s no hope of correcting our course, they just drink up and watch the disaster coming and hope to die before it bothers them personally.
That’s not a good approach.
If you believe all the credible climate scientists endorse some statement, show a link to where they endorsed it.
Grumble.
Things are plenty bad enough without confusing people further.
Picture this:
When people think there’s no hope
Australia goes off the scale: Meteorologists create new colour chart for record 54°C heatwave as wildfires blaze across bush
The news above is actually from January 2013.
This year
West Australian heatwave closes national parks, dams as temperatures head toward 44C in Perth
Updated 10 hours 32 minutes ago
A week ago, temperatures in parts of Central Australia, north-western New South Wales and Queensland approached 50C, setting new records.
The sweltering conditions came as a BoM report revealed that 2013 was the hottest year on record in Australia.
Hank Roberts #280,
“Look, I’m all in favor of screaming doom, but you need to do it effectively and credibly and not make stuff up if you claim the scientists are all in agreement with you.”
THERE WAS NOTHING ‘MADE UP’ IN THAT ARTICLE. ALL QUOTES WERE FROM REPUTABLE SOURCES.
“Joe Romm does it about as dramatically as I think can be supported. He’s entertaining, captures attention, and gets lots of blog hits.”
THOSE ARE YOUR CRITERIA: ENTERTAINING; CAPTIVATING; MANY HITS?? THEY ARE NOT MINE!
I wish “climatecodered” did a better job of citing sources, rather than screaming doom and disaster.”
THEY HAVE ~65 REFERENCES, INCLUDING ANDERSON, HANSEN, LENTON, MASLOWSKI, IPCC, ON AND ON. THEY HAVE LAID OUT THE REALITY; YOU ARE INTERPRETING THEIR ACCURATE DEPICTION OF REALITY AS ‘DOOM AND DISASTER’.
HANK; YOU CAN DO BETTER THAN THAT; YOU USUALLY DO!
Careful with that capslock, you might hurt somebody’s credibility.
If you say the scientists support you, citing papers isn’t evidence of that. You need to have the scientists actually say they support _you_.
But I think I see where you’re coming from.
The problem is far worse than most people realize.
The solution is far easier than most people realize.
How to start. Hank’s most vociferous point seems to be that we should never present anything that might take away people’s ‘hope’ (‘hope for what?’ one might ask.). But the first critique of the article is that it is too unrealistically hopeful–that we could even get back to the climate range the civilization arose in. So which is it? On the other side, 3-6 degree C warming is well within what many scientists and organizations are saying we are headed for by about the end of the century, if not sooner. So what exactly is your beef here?
Note that they point out in the last paragraphs that, even with very fast cut backs in fossil fuels, there will need to be major efforts at carbon dioxide removal and probably some geo-engineering. These are things that the IPCC includes in its latest report. We can certainly discuss the enormous problems with all of these, but don’t you think it is, at long last, necessary to face the stark future we have locked ourselves into, and that it is long past time to get into emergency mode to do what we can to minimize the impacts?
> Hank’s most vociferous point
My point is, cite valid sources.
> what exactly is your beef here?
Cite valid sources.
We won’t get back to the Holocene. Not possible.
See http://skepticalscience.com//pics/TARfig9-1.gif
> 3-6 degree C warming
Definitely probable, ample sources for that
> “catastrophe” is at hand.”
Which scientists support this? That’s harder to cite.
Now you’re in this territory. Which, to me, seems overreaching. Rather than claim to know what the scientists support, why not ask the scientist to sign on if the blogger’s got it right?
Scientists appreciate people who understand their work and can interpret it in plain language. They’ll tell you if they think you did. Heck, some even will tell you if you’re getting it wrong.
But silence isn’t agreement, when blogging about what scientists think. You gotta ask them to check what you wrote and sign on or not.
Enough. It’s just my opinion, remember. Some guy on a blog.
Hank Roberts #286,
“But I think I see where you’re coming from.”
I couldn’t bring up your link. But I can tell you directly where I’m coming from. I’m trying to reconcile Anderson’s and Hansen’s statement of the problem and desired targets with their proposed solutions, or any other proposed solutions I’ve seen. Why Anderson and Hansen? They are two climate experts I respect heavily, and both have been willing to put their necks on the chopping block to show their commitment. They have very different backgrounds, have a number of co-authors who obviously support their conclusions, and identify temperature ceiling targets that have been around for at least two decades (and have not been refuted).
If Anderson requires ~10% annual reductions in CO2 emissions to stay within 2 C (and in the next breath states that is too high by a factor of two), then I would surmise that far higher reductions would be required to achieve Hansen’s target. If Anderson states flatly that we cannot achieve 2 C through the supply side alone, but need substantial demand reductions, what does that say about supply side solutions and a target of ~1 C?
‘Gloom and doom’ is not the issue; the question is whether we can close the loop on the numbers. If you have problems with the ceiling targets, take them up with Anderson and Hansen, not me. I’m just accepting the numbers that the experts have provided as targets; that’s their strong point. If they could show me how their proposed solutions are consistent with achieving these targets, I would accept them as well. In my view, they haven’t done the latter, nor has anyone else.
And in other related news:
http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2014/01/11/3150431/photos-chemical-spill/
OK, it’s not exactly business as usual, but it sure ain’t ‘clean coal,’ either. What a mess in WVa!
As diogenes pointed out, they cite all sorts of sources. As far as I can see, all of them are valid.
Do you not think 3-6 degrees is a catastrophe?
How many people and major institutions do you need me to cite that say we are on the path toward 3-6 degrees (or more)? Hansen? Anderson? IEA? World Bank? PWC? What kind of legitimacy are you looking for? I already addressed your point about the Holocene.
If you aren’t willing to read and respond to points made, you are acting no different than a troll.
I’ll get back to you when you actually show some evidence of reading what people are writing and actually looking at the works you are dismissing, rather than just emoting and reposting already posted and addressed graphs.
(reCaptcha notes: replied oesbus)
@266 wili said: “But, yeah, as far as I’ve seen, mostly most areas of study show today that things are looking worse than they were looking five to ten years ago. To paraphrase MLK, the arc of GW research is long, but it bends toward catastrophe!”
Are Sea Level Rise and a rise in temperature going to vastly accelerate in the next few years? I understand that events are in a state of flux and nobody really has any definite answers as to how long we have or when we might expect some serious climate events to take place. Having said that, the Global Average Temperature seems to be creeping up at about the same pace for the last 150 years. Sea Level Rise seems to be pretty steady even though it’s gradually increasing. Sooooo…. Does anyone expect a sudden acceleration of either temperature or sea level rise within the next few years?
Here’s the same question in another form: what are the chances that we will experience sudden increases in temp and SLR within say, the next decade or so?
Simplified even further: How much time do we realistically have before things get really bad… as in, miserable?
Thanks. Sorry in advance for the elementary questions. I’m not a scientist.
> Do you not think
Nobody cares what I think.
I’m here to to learn what the climate scientists can teach me.
> they cite all sorts of sources
Wili, a blogger writes an opinion, and adds a list of journal articles, saying those scientists endorse that blogger’s opinion.
It gets boring.
The real published science is scary enough.
<a href="../report/ICA-RUS_REPORT_2013_eng.pdf" ICA-RUS REPORT 2013 (5.3MB) PDF
Hat tip to http://bskiesresearch.wordpress.com/
that’s from http://www.nies.go.jp/ica-rus/en/index.html
Diogenes, wili et al.,
Look, when it comes to telling us that things look bleak, you are preaching to the choir. When you lament that our leaders are behaving irresponsibly, all I can say is “Amen!”
None of that means there is no hope. What we have to do is make as much progress as possible until there is a surgical solution for the recto-cranial inversion condition from which our leaders suffer and/or until we come up with technical fixes that can further ameliorate the situation.
Do the experts say we’ll get 3-6 degrees of warming. OK. Let’s do whatever we can to hold it to 3. Because damage scales exponentially with increasing temperature above about 2 degrees, and exponential damage in a world of 10 billion people (we are already off track to meet the UN’s low-end estimate for the crest of 9 billion in 2050) is not something I want to contemplate except in the context of minimizing suffering those people will experience. Hope is more than wishful thinking.
Re- Comment by Hank Roberts — 11 Jan 2014 @ 6:07 PM and previous
Hank, I am confident that there are more than a few here who understand what you are saying with regard to intellectual honesty and communicating with scientific accuracy. I, for one, appreciate your voice.
Steve
Ray Ladbury and Diogenes,
I agree that we need to phase out fossil fuels as quicky as possible. I agree that future societies or communities will get their energy from renewables. All I’m saying is that we shouldn’t pretend that our present society can continue its ways with renewables, partly because that amount of renewables could have consequences which could be like hauling ourselves out of the fire only to land in the frying pan. All of the energy received from the sun is currently used in providing the planet we now live on. It may not be that great but diverting more of that energy to provide humans with their niceties may not improve the planet. Not that a renewables infrastructure of that size would itself be renewable but that’s another matter.
I know many people think nuclear is a major part of the “answer” to our problems. But what if we have 900 (double) or 1300 (triple) nuclear reactors providing the bulk of the world’s power when some of those societies start destabilising (as all societies do)? What if the attempt fails and climate change, plus environmental deterioration, continue to the dangerous level (as some commenters think we’ve already reached) or emissions before nuclear starts to replace fossil fuels ensure that catastrophic levels will be reached? We haven’t thought about future generations up to now, let’s start doing so. Energy usage reductions must be the main response, and that will require a rethink of how we live.