Thomas O’Reilly:
April 29th, 2015 at 4:34 AM
289 Rob Ellison – are you seriously concerned and dismayed at the lack of energy access and the extent of poverty in the world?
Or are you only really concerned about all the poor science and poor policy in the world regarding the “faux issues” of AGW/CC in your opinion?
In the context of abruptly shifting climate and ecological systems – greenhouse gas emissions are potentially
problematic. A comprehensive response to emissions and the added instability – in an abruptly changing system – requires a multi-gas strategy including aerosols, conservation and restoration of ecosystems, enhancing organic content of agricultural soils, etc. This is only possible with continuing global economic development. The other side of the problem is population restraint in the context of better health and education outcomes.
The solutions for carbon dioxide – in both electricity generation (26% of greenhouse gases) and transport (13%) are technological. This is happening as a result of concerns with emissions – but perhaps primarily in response to higher prices and prospective scarcity of fossil fuels.
Emissions add to instability in a dynamically complex system – the potential is for extreme change in as little as 10 years. ‘Faux issues’ of climate change is not a quote from me.
And yes we are concerned with development and energy access.
Although my comments – including the one referred to – and these links – keep disappearing so there seems little hope that practical and pragmatic solutions to emissions will intrude on realbias.
Jim Larsensays
Eric,
I agree with you for the most part. My comments were in answer to the proposal that humans will go extinct or civilization will collapse in the near future. I’m simply saying that if that is true, if civilization is at risk and billions will starve, then we’ve got a very bad solution to fall back on. Sulphur-based geoengineering results in nasty side-effects, such as reduced crop yields because of lower solar intensity. It does nothing about ocean acidification. Life would suck. I’m not talking about sunshine and daisies, I’m talking about survival of the few.
BPL,
Yep, we are prone to wait for a crisis to fully develop before changing our behaviour. Unfortunately climate change is slow, taking years, decades, and centuries to fully develop. That gives us plenty of time to make things worse. My disagreement with you is that I don’t see the starvation of billions as a threat to our civilization. The US may end up invading Canada economically or militarily. Africa and Central America might become unviable. Most species might disappear. But we and our tech will muddle on.
Chuck Hughessays
BPL: Stupid question. I wouldn’t have submitted a paper to peer-reviewed science journals if I’d based it on the Revelation of Saint John.
Comment by Barton Paul Levenson — 29 Apr 2015
BPL, I didn’t figure you would like the question but seeing as how I don’t know much about you I felt compelled to ask. Sorry. I am not a scientist myself so I really don’t have the background necessary to know what’s what. I plead ignorance up front and get it over with.
Anyway, I think there would be some sort of set of criteria necessary for determining the amount of remaining resources, calculating how much warming is in the pipeline and how soon it may emerge. It makes perfect sense to me that our time is indeed limited. James Lovelock has given specifics as has Frank Fenner. I am looking for other credible sources on this. I think it’s important to know how and what to plan for based on a fairly reliable timeline. Let’s say the Arctic becomes ice free this decade and the ridge over California remains stationary for several more years. These are hypothetical but we know it’s possible. Brazil runs out of water. California alone would put a serious dent in our food supply. Lake Mead is running low etc.
Pope Francis is taking what I consider to be drastic steps to address the problem and thankfully President Obama is making the issue front and center. I’m seeing some real changes but of course they’re slow in coming and people around the world are going to have to get on board with this pronto.
Is it just too late? Are we gonna blow past 450ppm? I live in Arkansas and we’re losing trees everywhere to infestations and microbes of some sort. These are hardwoods that take over 100 years to grow back. Our weather patterns are erratic and un predictable. We’ve had massive back to back flooding. One event in South Arkansas killed 20 people at a campground in 2010. Really bizarre stuff happening. I’m looking for credible sources who can provide sound reasons for their predictions. I guess Gwynne Dyer is one.
Anyway, sorry for the insulting question. Thanks
Killiansays
278 Chuck Hughes said, What are the experts out there giving as an estimate of our “sell by” date generally?
The only people I know of that would qualify as expert on collapse would be the Limits to Growth crowd (mid-century-ish), Jared Diamond and Joseph Tainter.
Among the layperson crowd, you can look at The Automatic Earth, the Post Carbon Institute, John Greer (catabolic collapse: Longer period of punctuated collapse; step-dowm), and, if really desperate and willing to deal with truth-stretching, Guy McPherson.
When I spoke with Joseph Tainter in 2010 at a conference he had in recent years turned from positive about arresting collapse to negative about it. No idea what his current thinking is.
Given most collapse theories are based on resources more than climate, they should generally converge at mid-century. Phosphorus is toast by end of the century at current rates of use (a silly metric as consumption of resources is generally exponential until peak and collapse), so that would be a good last resort point if we don’t go regenerative.
Killiansays
279 Steve Fish said, nothing at all
However, let us challenge this childishness: …exaggerated self reference…
Put your money where your mouth is. What, exactly, have I *not* been accurate about? You’ve got 8 years of Real Climate, The Automatic Earth, The Old Drum, Facebook and A Perfect Storm Cometh to search out and prove you are not merely libeling.
Good luck with that because, unlike you, I DID call 2012 ASI within margin of error. I DID call the 2008 financial crisis (to be accurate, agreed with those few who did call it), DID call the last two seasons as not as low as 2012, DID call much more accelerated ice loss from Greenland, the Arctic and Antarctica way back in 2007, and since, DID call 3M SLR by 2100 “possible, if not likely”… and on and on.
Now, please DO grow up and start addressing the content of my posts or keep your mouth(s) shut or on-topic
Who needs denialists when we have our own immature, cannibalistic piranhas?
Mitigatory, but worth knowing about–a major Chinese study finds that it is possible that by 2050 “CO2 emissions could drop 70% below today’s levels, while important contributors to China’s air pollution problem — SO2 and NOx — could decline to levels China hasn’t enjoyed since the 1980s,” all while costing “no more than 2% above business as usual (even without counting the higher environmental cost of business as usual).”
An increase in the rate of global mean sea level rise since 2010
DOI: 10.1002/2015GL063902
This article has been accepted for publication and undergone full peer review but has not been through the copyediting, typesetting, pagination and proofreading process, which may lead to differences between this version and the Version of Record.
Abstract
The global mean sea level (GMSL) was reported to have dropped 5 mm due to the 2010/11 La Niña and have recovered in one year. With longer observations, it is shown that the GMSL went further up to a total amount of 11.6 mm by the end of 2012, excluding the 3.0 mm/yr background trend. A reconciled sea level budget, based on observations by Argo project, altimeter and gravity satellites, reveals that the true GMSL rise has been masked by ENSO-related fluctuations and its rate has increased since 2010. After extracting the influence of land water storage, it is shown that the GMSL have been rising at a rate of 4.4 ± 0.5 mm/yr for more than three years, due to an increase in the rate of both land ice loss and steric change.
Those melt rate/SLR numbers match up too well with a 5 to 10 yr doubling of rate of SLR, no?
Hansen, et al., just keep nailing it.
Yikes.
Killiansays
Arctic Sea Ice Extent sets record for the date, May 1, at 12.66M km2.
I suspect it will track near ‘7, ’11 and ’12 till August, then we shall see what we see. I’m gonna be very surprised if we don'[t have a new 2nd or 3rd low if export continues out the Fram Strait as it has been of late.
CORRECTION to #316.
Spencer has released v6.0 of his UAH TLT but @316 I was listing v5.6 previous monthly anomalies.
There is some considerable difference between the two versions but the heads-up from Spencer on his ‘latest temperature’ page is less than promenant. Where he does discuss the changes, he tells us v6.0 shows lower decadal warming rates, as it happens 19% less, which is “due to is due to lesser sensitivity of the new LT to land surface skin temperature (est. 0.010 C/decade[7%]), with the remainder of the reduction (0.016 C/decade [11%]) due to the new diurnal drift adjustment, the more robust method of LT calculation, and other changes in processing procedures.”
There remains a sizable drop for April with the v6.0 values.
v5.6
2015 1 +0.351
2015 2 +0.296
2015 3 +0.257
2015 4 +0.162
v6.0
2015 1 +0.261
2015 2 +0.157
2015 3 +0.139
2015 4 +0.065
BojanDsays
#316, @MA Rodger, note that they changed UAH version to 6.0, so it’s a drop from 0.139 (March) to 0.065 (April). More interestingly and importantly, the trend 0.140 C/decade decreased to 0.114 C/decade with this new version. I feel this will be much talked about in the next few months.
[Response: I’m sure it will. But not by anyone that knows anything about statistics.–eric]
monosodiumgsays
Anthropic heat output from total primary energy production works out to about 0.035W/m^2. Much of that is dumped into the lower atmosphere. What impact might that have on models?
[Response: None. The forcing from greenhouse gases is roughly 100 times larger than that number.–eric]
Hank Robberts @320.
The analysis you link to that gives 5.5% for the ratio of FF energy use/global energy imbalance is surely comparing apples & oranges because the forcing due to FF energy use will have caused a small temperature increase that would then not be part of the energy imbalance.
This SKS graphic compares FF energy with the net AGW forcing and gets 2%. I have calculated a similar value by calculating how long it takes for the forcing resultant from the CO2 released from burning FF (assuming a constant Airborne Fraction of 45%) to trap the same amount of energy as that released by the burning of the FF. The result is for your average FF about 12 months (longer for gas, shorter for coal). Then if you calculate the present average length of atmospheric CO2 increase which is about 50 years, that yields a present ratio of 2%.
Certainly 5.5% seems too high.
Icarus62says
I keep going back to Michael Mann’s ‘Danger threshold by 2036‘ article in Scientific American and I just can’t see how we could get to 2°C of surface warming above the pre-industrial by 2036 without a substantial acceleration of warming. If today’s temperature is 0.9°C above pre-industrial, and the rate of warming continues at about 0.17°C per decade, then it should take more like 60 to 70 years to pass 2°C, not 21 years. I know it’s much more likely that I’ve got it wrong than he has, but still… To get 1.1°C of warming in just over 20 years means an average rate of warming of 0.5°C per decade between now and then. Does the 2036 prediction assume an imminent increase (by more than double) in the rate of warming or have I got it wrong somewhere?
[Response: Has to do w/ the baseline and the target quantity. We are looking only at NH mean temperature as indicated in article. NH mean warms more than globe (more land/less water). As we discuss in the technical details (linked at the bottom of this page), we have used the “Berkeley” NH mean temperature record from AD 1750-1849 to establish a true pre-industrial mean (the problem of the typical e.g. 1900 choice of “zero” is that there was already several tenths of a degree C anthropogenic warming by that time). Relative to that baseline, the NH mean has already warmed about 1.2C relative to *pre-industrial* temperatures. And the NH mean will warm faster than global mean over next several decades (again, more land/less water). -mike]
You can follow up there. Other experts in the field have already commented on it.
His point is that when
The question is: how much energy are we currently adding to the earth system due to all those greenhouse gases we’ve added to the atmosphere?
several different ways are used to calculate it; mistakes are easy; answers are “roughly” in the same ballpark; and it’s an interesting discussion still open among experts.
Killiansays
Since 2008, ice loss from West Antarctica’s unstable glaciers doubled from an average annual loss of 120 billion tonnes of ice to twice that by 2014, the researchers found…
A 6-year doubling. Great. Extrapolated, that’s a huge SLR by 2100 if it keeps doubling. Even with mitigation, I’m going to be surprised at anything less than 3M by 2100 or so. Well, if I were to be alive then I would be.
Looking at the ice sheets during the Pliocene – about three million years ago, when levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere were similar to today (400 parts per million), lead author Dr David Pollard of the Earth and Environmental Systems Institute at Penn State University, and co-author Professor Robert DeConto, of the University of Massachusetts conclude that melting of Antarctica’s sheets over thousands of years led to the sea level rise of 17m.
It took just 100 years for the West Antarctic ice sheet to raise sea levels by about 3m.
Both papers are published in the journal Earth and Planetary Science Letters…
A Buffalo University study had shown that the Greenland ice sheet shed about 243 giga tonnes of ice per year from 2003-09. This is enough to raise oceans by about 0.68mm per year.
Icarus62 @322,
The Hansen piece you link to is not saying that we are on course to reach 2 degrees C above pre-industrial temperature by 2036. Rather “for an ECS of three degrees C, our planet would cross the dangerous warming threshold of two degrees C in 2036.” That is, the climate forcing would be in place that would result in a 2 degree C increase. The threashold is marked by a level of 450ppm atmospheric CO2 which would require an average 2.4ppm annual increase.
Hank Roberts @323.
A ratio of 5.5% I get from the item as 1/18 = 0.0555. The item does admit to having made a mistake and has made corretvive edits in green. This makes it a rather confusing account but it is certainly using energy imbalance as the measure of AGW which I still consider wrong as explained @321.
#322–Interesting (not to say troubling) question, Icarus. As usual, I don’t know the answer to the precise question you pose, but also as usual I couldn’t quite leave it alone. So I headed for woodfortrees for a little graphical playtime with cherries. What, I asked myself, are the sharpest warming episodes seen so far?
Turns out that we have seen ~.5 C warming in the instrumental record, though only over short periods: that was the OLS trend for ’93-’98. (Green line in my graph.) Of course, that’s in considerable due to the depression of global temperatures at the start of the period, following the eruption of Mt. Pinatubo. That period also culminated in the ‘monster El Nino’ of 1998, abetting the peak of that warming episode, and providing ammunition for statistically-illiterate climate deniers for literally decades to come.
There’s a very similar trend for ’85-’91, and that, too, has a volcanic connection: Mt. Chichon erupted in 1982, killing about 2,000 people, and, like Pinatubo, lowering worldwide temps for a couple of years. (Purple line.) So, when global temperatures are depressed due to aerosols, and those aerosols clear from the atmosphere, we have seen the kinds of warming rates that could take us to 2C by 2036.
It sounds like a somewhat comforting caveat to an essentially uncomfortable take away, until I reflect that 1) we are currently in, or emerging from, a period of, if not depressed temps, then muted warming. The fact that the causation is still somewhat obscure should not lead us to assume that it couldn’t generate a similar ‘rebound’ effect, should that cause cease to operate.
I further reflect that 2) the radiative greenhouse forcing today is considerably greater than it was in 1993 or 1985. And 3), the growth in atmospheric CO2 appears still to be accelerating on a global basis, despite the fact that some developed nations have succeeded in lowering emissions. That’s not even going to the wild card of 4), which would be the likelihood of climate feedbacks–what odds would we give on an ice-free Arctic Ocean in 2036, for instance? According to AR5, they shouldn’t be very steep at all.
So, 0.5 C/decade might seem unlikely on the face of it, given the seemingly robust longer term trend, but it’s clearly not impossible.
(Note, for those unfamiliar with woodfortrees: to see the actual trend numbers, click on ‘view raw data’ and scroll down to the appropriate series.)
#325, MA Rodger–I think your interpretation is mistaken: from the figure mentioned in Mann’s (not Hansens’s) text (but apparently not viewable in the online version), the danger threshold is indeed a projected global anomaly of 2C. Here’s what I’m pretty sure is a version of that figure:
[Response: See my comment below. Some of the confusion appears to relate to the issue of baseline (we use a 1750-1849 mean to get a more true “pre-anthropogenic” baseline), and we are looking at NH rather than global mean temperature (that warms faster/more than global mean owing to greater land/ocean fraction). I hope that clarifies things a bit? -mike]
From answers stated as “roughly” and “about” — about the varied approaches to the problem — you’ve calculated out to four decimal places and attributed your result to the original text to argue with it as though it were precise.
That’s just wrong.
alan2102says
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oTMiii-BRtU
Thomas Goreau – The Down-to-Earth Solution to Global Warming: How Soil Carbon Sequestration Works; at 3:20: GEOTHERAPY – restoration of planets natural life support systems
Geotherapy: Innovative Methods of Soil Fertility Restoration, Carbon Sequestration, and Reversing CO2 Increase
Thomas J. Goreau, Ronal W. Larson, Joanna Campe
December 19, 2014 by CRC Press
Reference – 630 Pages – 435 B/W Illustrations
ISBN 9781466595392 – CAT# K20722
snippet:
“outlines the basic concepts of geotherapy and highlights the importance of healing the biosphere’s ability to store soil carbon to prevent climate change impacts. Facing challenges head on, it addresses how and why policymakers have underestimated the long-term impacts of climate change and how we can correct the flawed carbon management mechanisms today. The book also factors in where carbon can be most effectively stored, how quickly that can be done, and the practical and policy actions needed to get there. This text presents innovative new technologies for restoring the most productive ecosystems on land while maintaining high biodiversity. It addresses processes and techniques of soil carbon restoration through biogeochemical cycling, biochar, slow-release fertilizers, weathering of minerals (olivine) and rock (basalt) powders, amendments and bio-fertilizers, and the establishment of vetiver and other perennials.”
(Note, for those unfamiliar with woodfortrees: to see the actual trend numbers, click on ‘view raw data’ and scroll down to the appropriate series.)
Comment by Kevin McKinney — 7 May 2015
So do you think we’ll see a 2C rise in temperature above preindustrial by 2036? Also, do you think we’re gonna reach 450-500ppm CO2 fairly soon? Maybe by mid century.
Top Advisor To Australian Gov’t Says Climate Change is a UN Conspiracy
Posted by Soulskill on Friday May 08, 2015 @07:20AM
from the because-the-UN-is-totally-competent-enough-to-pull-that-off dept.
An anonymous reader writes:
Maurice Newman, the top business advisor to conservative Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott, today published an opinion piece (paywalled) in which he claims, “It’s a well-kept secret, but 95 per cent of the climate models … have been found … to be in error.” He goes on to write “This is not about facts or logic. It’s about a new world order under the control of the UN.” While Newman’s ‘skeptical’ views have long been on record, it’s unclear when he came to believe in this vast global conspiracy. Last year, the Abbott government removed Australia’s Emissions Trading Scheme, and recently gave $4 million in funding to contrarian Bjorn Lomberg, while cutting hundreds of millions of dollars from science across the country.
… Scientists in their various toothless non-decision-making organizations conclude that the anthropogenically initiated climate change, and mass extinction event associated with it, probably threatens their descendants’ welfare, and thus scientists’ own evolutionary fitness. The sleepers awake.
… Comic scene here as modellers debate the numbers, with a biologist pointing out that the benefit of life to every living organism could justifiably be defined as infinity, considerably altering equation’s results. (Shouting, fights, saloon demolished in Wild West manner.)
Conference attendees conclude altruism is probably warranted, and hedge fund is established. (Readers of novel wishing to pre-invest are directed to a website http://www.sciencemutual.net.) Participating scientists then vote to establish a board; a model constitution for all governments to adopt; a policy-research institute tasked with forming a political platform; and a lobbying firm. All scientific organizations are urged to join the fund. Fund’s legal team goes to World Court to claim compensation for all future biospheric damage, to be paid into the fund by those wreaking the damage and the governments allowing it…..
I’d sign on right now, if it were more than fiction.
Anyone got anything to add?
I’d been thinking for a long time, as I get older and wonder what to do with the few acres of old forest I’ve been able to protect for a few decades — family’s too small to preserve little chunks of the world that are too small to be self-sustaining, and too small to be of interest to big organizations with greater worries more urgent.
We need tribes, in the good sense of the word. Since then the “Public Benefit Corporation” has been created as a legal concept.
Maybe that would do it?
#331–“So do you think we’ll see a 2C rise in temperature above preindustrial by 2036?”
Chuck, I don’t have personal opinion on that, but according to AR5, even the most severe scenario, RCP 8.5, just barely reaches that threshold by 2050, so if someone forced me to bet, I’d bet against.
Mind you, I wouldn’t bet against being committed to an eventual 2C warming by then, so I don’t think I should be colored Pollyanna pink, even if there are those here who would argue a much more pessimistic scenario than that.
” Also, do you think we’re gonna reach 450-500ppm CO2 fairly soon? Maybe by mid century.”
Well, we’re presently adding 2 ppm or so each year, and it’s not clear that emissions growth is even slowing on the global level. 2 ppm times 35 years gives us ~470 ppm in 2050, so I have to say that 450 by mid-century very possible. I hope that the accelerating deployment of various forms of cleantech and the possibly forthcoming Kyoto successor (even if it’s subject to an ‘ambition gap,’ as seems very likely) will bend the emissions curve downward.
But that depends on what we collectively choose to do over the next few years. Some will feel more sanguine than others about that.
Chuck Hughessays
The difference between hope and reality…
Dr. Gavin? Tell me the truth Doc. Will I still be able to play the violin?
The climate policy mantra — that time is running out for 2 °C but we can still make it if we act now — is a scientific nonsense. Advisers who shy away from saying so squander their scientific reputations and public trust in climate research.
@ 319 monosodiumg asked: “Anthropic heat output from total primary energy production works out to about 0.035W/m^2. Much of that is dumped into the lower atmosphere. What impact might that have on models?”
To which eric responded: [None. The forcing from greenhouse gases is roughly 100 times larger than that number.]
Thanks for that. It is a misconception I often come across among students and others when discussions of global warming come up. Someone always thinks that waste heat from industrial activities is a significant contributor and, if no one else does, I try to point out that it is a couple of orders of magnitude below the heating caused by GHGs.
But seeing the figure “roughly 100 times larger” in print got me wondering:
If industrial civilization were to be able to continue indefinitely into the future with the economy–and therefore energy production (whatever the sources) and heat output from that industry–were to continue to grow at a ‘healthy’ but modest pace of say 3% per year on average over that time, how long would it take for that direct industrial heat to match current heating from GHGs?
Going from the ‘rule of 72,’ it looks like doubling every 24 years or so. So about seven doublings to get over a hundred means we would reach that level in well under 200 years. And from there, you only need a couple hundred more years to reach truly absurd levels of heating from this source, even leaving aside heating from GHGs.
Someone please check the math, the logic, and everything else, but it seems to me that this is yet another clear reason than economic growth (at least how that term has been used generally) cannot go on forever on a finite planet, however ‘clean’ then source of the energy that fuels that growth is.
Well, it’s just one paper, but there is this on the Clausius-Clapeyron relation and climate change:
http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00382-006-0180-2#page-1
161 cites, for what that’s worth.
Completely OT, but I’m liking the ‘food-centric’ Capcha algorithm, when it comes ’round.
Time for lunch.
Thomas O’Reilly:
April 29th, 2015 at 4:34 AM
289 Rob Ellison – are you seriously concerned and dismayed at the lack of energy access and the extent of poverty in the world?
Or are you only really concerned about all the poor science and poor policy in the world regarding the “faux issues” of AGW/CC in your opinion?
In the context of abruptly shifting climate and ecological systems – greenhouse gas emissions are potentially
problematic. A comprehensive response to emissions and the added instability – in an abruptly changing system – requires a multi-gas strategy including aerosols, conservation and restoration of ecosystems, enhancing organic content of agricultural soils, etc. This is only possible with continuing global economic development. The other side of the problem is population restraint in the context of better health and education outcomes.
The solutions for carbon dioxide – in both electricity generation (26% of greenhouse gases) and transport (13%) are technological. This is happening as a result of concerns with emissions – but perhaps primarily in response to higher prices and prospective scarcity of fossil fuels.
Emissions add to instability in a dynamically complex system – the potential is for extreme change in as little as 10 years. ‘Faux issues’ of climate change is not a quote from me.
And yes we are concerned with development and energy access.
e.g. – http://www.copenhagenconsensus.com/post-2015-consensus – http://thebreakthrough.org/index.php/programs/energy-and-climate/our-high-energy-planet
Although my comments – including the one referred to – and these links – keep disappearing so there seems little hope that practical and pragmatic solutions to emissions will intrude on realbias.
Eric,
I agree with you for the most part. My comments were in answer to the proposal that humans will go extinct or civilization will collapse in the near future. I’m simply saying that if that is true, if civilization is at risk and billions will starve, then we’ve got a very bad solution to fall back on. Sulphur-based geoengineering results in nasty side-effects, such as reduced crop yields because of lower solar intensity. It does nothing about ocean acidification. Life would suck. I’m not talking about sunshine and daisies, I’m talking about survival of the few.
BPL,
Yep, we are prone to wait for a crisis to fully develop before changing our behaviour. Unfortunately climate change is slow, taking years, decades, and centuries to fully develop. That gives us plenty of time to make things worse. My disagreement with you is that I don’t see the starvation of billions as a threat to our civilization. The US may end up invading Canada economically or militarily. Africa and Central America might become unviable. Most species might disappear. But we and our tech will muddle on.
BPL: Stupid question. I wouldn’t have submitted a paper to peer-reviewed science journals if I’d based it on the Revelation of Saint John.
Comment by Barton Paul Levenson — 29 Apr 2015
BPL, I didn’t figure you would like the question but seeing as how I don’t know much about you I felt compelled to ask. Sorry. I am not a scientist myself so I really don’t have the background necessary to know what’s what. I plead ignorance up front and get it over with.
Anyway, I think there would be some sort of set of criteria necessary for determining the amount of remaining resources, calculating how much warming is in the pipeline and how soon it may emerge. It makes perfect sense to me that our time is indeed limited. James Lovelock has given specifics as has Frank Fenner. I am looking for other credible sources on this. I think it’s important to know how and what to plan for based on a fairly reliable timeline. Let’s say the Arctic becomes ice free this decade and the ridge over California remains stationary for several more years. These are hypothetical but we know it’s possible. Brazil runs out of water. California alone would put a serious dent in our food supply. Lake Mead is running low etc.
Pope Francis is taking what I consider to be drastic steps to address the problem and thankfully President Obama is making the issue front and center. I’m seeing some real changes but of course they’re slow in coming and people around the world are going to have to get on board with this pronto.
Is it just too late? Are we gonna blow past 450ppm? I live in Arkansas and we’re losing trees everywhere to infestations and microbes of some sort. These are hardwoods that take over 100 years to grow back. Our weather patterns are erratic and un predictable. We’ve had massive back to back flooding. One event in South Arkansas killed 20 people at a campground in 2010. Really bizarre stuff happening. I’m looking for credible sources who can provide sound reasons for their predictions. I guess Gwynne Dyer is one.
Anyway, sorry for the insulting question. Thanks
278 Chuck Hughes said, What are the experts out there giving as an estimate of our “sell by” date generally?
The only people I know of that would qualify as expert on collapse would be the Limits to Growth crowd (mid-century-ish), Jared Diamond and Joseph Tainter.
Among the layperson crowd, you can look at The Automatic Earth, the Post Carbon Institute, John Greer (catabolic collapse: Longer period of punctuated collapse; step-dowm), and, if really desperate and willing to deal with truth-stretching, Guy McPherson.
When I spoke with Joseph Tainter in 2010 at a conference he had in recent years turned from positive about arresting collapse to negative about it. No idea what his current thinking is.
Given most collapse theories are based on resources more than climate, they should generally converge at mid-century. Phosphorus is toast by end of the century at current rates of use (a silly metric as consumption of resources is generally exponential until peak and collapse), so that would be a good last resort point if we don’t go regenerative.
279 Steve Fish said, nothing at all
However, let us challenge this childishness: …exaggerated self reference…
Put your money where your mouth is. What, exactly, have I *not* been accurate about? You’ve got 8 years of Real Climate, The Automatic Earth, The Old Drum, Facebook and A Perfect Storm Cometh to search out and prove you are not merely libeling.
Good luck with that because, unlike you, I DID call 2012 ASI within margin of error. I DID call the 2008 financial crisis (to be accurate, agreed with those few who did call it), DID call the last two seasons as not as low as 2012, DID call much more accelerated ice loss from Greenland, the Arctic and Antarctica way back in 2007, and since, DID call 3M SLR by 2100 “possible, if not likely”… and on and on.
Now, please DO grow up and start addressing the content of my posts or keep your mouth(s) shut or on-topic
Who needs denialists when we have our own immature, cannibalistic piranhas?
We ARE on the same side, geniuses.
Mitigatory, but worth knowing about–a major Chinese study finds that it is possible that by 2050 “CO2 emissions could drop 70% below today’s levels, while important contributors to China’s air pollution problem — SO2 and NOx — could decline to levels China hasn’t enjoyed since the 1980s,” all while costing “no more than 2% above business as usual (even without counting the higher environmental cost of business as usual).”
Report at:
http://www.efchina.org/Attachments/Report/report-20150420/China-2050-High-Renewable-Energy-Penetration-Scenario-and-Roadmap-Study-Executive-Summary.pdf
Of course, that’s in addition to the aggressive new California emissions goals: 40% below 1990 levels by 2030.
Some good stuff, going into Paris.
GRL:
An increase in the rate of global mean sea level rise since 2010
DOI: 10.1002/2015GL063902
Increased steric SLR–so, more heat going into the oceans, as we expected from other information.
Still, not good news for Miami or Norfolk, VA–to name but a couple.
Republicans Push Climate Change Cuts at CIA, Defense Department
http://www.nationaljournal.com/energy/republicans-push-climate-change-cuts-at-cia-department-of-defense-20150317
House Science Committee guts NASA Earth sciences budget
Appears to be part of a concerted attack on climate research and responses.
http://arstechnica.com/science/2015/05/01/house-science-committee-guts-nasa-earth-sciences-budget/
Those melt rate/SLR numbers match up too well with a 5 to 10 yr doubling of rate of SLR, no?
Hansen, et al., just keep nailing it.
Yikes.
Arctic Sea Ice Extent sets record for the date, May 1, at 12.66M km2.
I suspect it will track near ‘7, ’11 and ’12 till August, then we shall see what we see. I’m gonna be very surprised if we don'[t have a new 2nd or 3rd low if export continues out the Fram Strait as it has been of late.
New low? We’ll look at that in July.
#311–Thanks, Vendicar. Unwelome but unsurprising news.
Let’s all write our congresscritters. May not help, but it can’t hurt.
Two Arctic ice researchers presumed drowned after unseasonably high temperatures
Police have called off the search for two Dutch scientists. Unusually thin ice likely played a role in their presumed death in the Canadian Arctic this week
http://www.theguardian.com/vital-signs/2015/may/01/deaths-arctic-researchers-ice-climate-change-cornelissen
UAH are quick off the mark with April’s TLT anomaly. It shows a marked drop on recent months.
2014 5 . . +0.326º
2014 6 . . +0.305ºC
2014 7 . . +0.304ºC
2014 8 . . +0.199ºC
2014 9 . . +0.294ºC
2014 10 . . +0.365ºC
2014 11 . . +0.329ºC
2014 12 . . +0.322ºC
2015 1 . . +0.351ºC
2015 2 . . +0.296ºC
2015 3 . . +0.256ºC
April 2015 (prelimenary?) +0.07ºC
CORRECTION to #316.
Spencer has released v6.0 of his UAH TLT but @316 I was listing v5.6 previous monthly anomalies.
There is some considerable difference between the two versions but the heads-up from Spencer on his ‘latest temperature’ page is less than promenant. Where he does discuss the changes, he tells us v6.0 shows lower decadal warming rates, as it happens 19% less, which is “due to is due to lesser sensitivity of the new LT to land surface skin temperature (est. 0.010 C/decade[7%]), with the remainder of the reduction (0.016 C/decade [11%]) due to the new diurnal drift adjustment, the more robust method of LT calculation, and other changes in processing procedures.”
There remains a sizable drop for April with the v6.0 values.
v5.6
2015 1 +0.351
2015 2 +0.296
2015 3 +0.257
2015 4 +0.162
v6.0
2015 1 +0.261
2015 2 +0.157
2015 3 +0.139
2015 4 +0.065
#316, @MA Rodger, note that they changed UAH version to 6.0, so it’s a drop from 0.139 (March) to 0.065 (April). More interestingly and importantly, the trend 0.140 C/decade decreased to 0.114 C/decade with this new version. I feel this will be much talked about in the next few months.
[Response: I’m sure it will. But not by anyone that knows anything about statistics.–eric]
Anthropic heat output from total primary energy production works out to about 0.035W/m^2. Much of that is dumped into the lower atmosphere. What impact might that have on models?
[Response: None. The forcing from greenhouse gases is roughly 100 times larger than that number.–eric]
Another calculation of the anthropogenic greenhouse forcing added by anthropogenic energy use: the planet is currently gaining about 18 watts of extra power for each 1 watt of power humans actually use.
Hank Robberts @320.
The analysis you link to that gives 5.5% for the ratio of FF energy use/global energy imbalance is surely comparing apples & oranges because the forcing due to FF energy use will have caused a small temperature increase that would then not be part of the energy imbalance.
This SKS graphic compares FF energy with the net AGW forcing and gets 2%. I have calculated a similar value by calculating how long it takes for the forcing resultant from the CO2 released from burning FF (assuming a constant Airborne Fraction of 45%) to trap the same amount of energy as that released by the burning of the FF. The result is for your average FF about 12 months (longer for gas, shorter for coal). Then if you calculate the present average length of atmospheric CO2 increase which is about 50 years, that yields a present ratio of 2%.
Certainly 5.5% seems too high.
I keep going back to Michael Mann’s ‘Danger threshold by 2036‘ article in Scientific American and I just can’t see how we could get to 2°C of surface warming above the pre-industrial by 2036 without a substantial acceleration of warming. If today’s temperature is 0.9°C above pre-industrial, and the rate of warming continues at about 0.17°C per decade, then it should take more like 60 to 70 years to pass 2°C, not 21 years. I know it’s much more likely that I’ve got it wrong than he has, but still… To get 1.1°C of warming in just over 20 years means an average rate of warming of 0.5°C per decade between now and then. Does the 2036 prediction assume an imminent increase (by more than double) in the rate of warming or have I got it wrong somewhere?
[Response: Has to do w/ the baseline and the target quantity. We are looking only at NH mean temperature as indicated in article. NH mean warms more than globe (more land/less water). As we discuss in the technical details (linked at the bottom of this page), we have used the “Berkeley” NH mean temperature record from AD 1750-1849 to establish a true pre-industrial mean (the problem of the typical e.g. 1900 choice of “zero” is that there was already several tenths of a degree C anthropogenic warming by that time). Relative to that baseline, the NH mean has already warmed about 1.2C relative to *pre-industrial* temperatures. And the NH mean will warm faster than global mean over next several decades (again, more land/less water). -mike]
The analysis I linked to?
Nope. That isn’t on that page. Is it your calculation?
You can follow up there. Other experts in the field have already commented on it.
His point is that when
several different ways are used to calculate it; mistakes are easy; answers are “roughly” in the same ballpark; and it’s an interesting discussion still open among experts.
A 6-year doubling. Great. Extrapolated, that’s a huge SLR by 2100 if it keeps doubling. Even with mitigation, I’m going to be surprised at anything less than 3M by 2100 or so. Well, if I were to be alive then I would be.
melting rates point to 3-metre rise by end century
Icarus62 @322,
The Hansen piece you link to is not saying that we are on course to reach 2 degrees C above pre-industrial temperature by 2036. Rather “for an ECS of three degrees C, our planet would cross the dangerous warming threshold of two degrees C in 2036.” That is, the climate forcing would be in place that would result in a 2 degree C increase. The threashold is marked by a level of 450ppm atmospheric CO2 which would require an average 2.4ppm annual increase.
Hank Roberts @323.
A ratio of 5.5% I get from the item as 1/18 = 0.0555. The item does admit to having made a mistake and has made corretvive edits in green. This makes it a rather confusing account but it is certainly using energy imbalance as the measure of AGW which I still consider wrong as explained @321.
#322–Interesting (not to say troubling) question, Icarus. As usual, I don’t know the answer to the precise question you pose, but also as usual I couldn’t quite leave it alone. So I headed for woodfortrees for a little graphical playtime with cherries. What, I asked myself, are the sharpest warming episodes seen so far?
http://woodfortrees.org/plot/gistemp/mean:25/from:1978/plot/gistemp/from:1993/to:1998/trend/plot/gistemp/from:1978/to:2014/trend/plot/gistemp/from:1985/to:1991/trend
Turns out that we have seen ~.5 C warming in the instrumental record, though only over short periods: that was the OLS trend for ’93-’98. (Green line in my graph.) Of course, that’s in considerable due to the depression of global temperatures at the start of the period, following the eruption of Mt. Pinatubo. That period also culminated in the ‘monster El Nino’ of 1998, abetting the peak of that warming episode, and providing ammunition for statistically-illiterate climate deniers for literally decades to come.
There’s a very similar trend for ’85-’91, and that, too, has a volcanic connection: Mt. Chichon erupted in 1982, killing about 2,000 people, and, like Pinatubo, lowering worldwide temps for a couple of years. (Purple line.) So, when global temperatures are depressed due to aerosols, and those aerosols clear from the atmosphere, we have seen the kinds of warming rates that could take us to 2C by 2036.
It sounds like a somewhat comforting caveat to an essentially uncomfortable take away, until I reflect that 1) we are currently in, or emerging from, a period of, if not depressed temps, then muted warming. The fact that the causation is still somewhat obscure should not lead us to assume that it couldn’t generate a similar ‘rebound’ effect, should that cause cease to operate.
I further reflect that 2) the radiative greenhouse forcing today is considerably greater than it was in 1993 or 1985. And 3), the growth in atmospheric CO2 appears still to be accelerating on a global basis, despite the fact that some developed nations have succeeded in lowering emissions. That’s not even going to the wild card of 4), which would be the likelihood of climate feedbacks–what odds would we give on an ice-free Arctic Ocean in 2036, for instance? According to AR5, they shouldn’t be very steep at all.
So, 0.5 C/decade might seem unlikely on the face of it, given the seemingly robust longer term trend, but it’s clearly not impossible.
(Note, for those unfamiliar with woodfortrees: to see the actual trend numbers, click on ‘view raw data’ and scroll down to the appropriate series.)
#325, MA Rodger–I think your interpretation is mistaken: from the figure mentioned in Mann’s (not Hansens’s) text (but apparently not viewable in the online version), the danger threshold is indeed a projected global anomaly of 2C. Here’s what I’m pretty sure is a version of that figure:
http://www.scientificamerican.com/sciam/assets/Image/articles/earth-will-cross-the-climate-danger-threshold-by-2036_large.jpg
[Response: See my comment below. Some of the confusion appears to relate to the issue of baseline (we use a 1750-1849 mean to get a more true “pre-anthropogenic” baseline), and we are looking at NH rather than global mean temperature (that warms faster/more than global mean owing to greater land/ocean fraction). I hope that clarifies things a bit? -mike]
> MA Rodger … 5.5% … 1/18=0.0555
From answers stated as “roughly” and “about” — about the varied approaches to the problem — you’ve calculated out to four decimal places and attributed your result to the original text to argue with it as though it were precise.
That’s just wrong.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oTMiii-BRtU
Thomas Goreau – The Down-to-Earth Solution to Global Warming: How Soil Carbon Sequestration Works; at 3:20: GEOTHERAPY – restoration of planets natural life support systems
…………………….
https://www.crcpress.com/product/isbn/9781466595392
Geotherapy: Innovative Methods of Soil Fertility Restoration, Carbon Sequestration, and Reversing CO2 Increase
Thomas J. Goreau, Ronal W. Larson, Joanna Campe
December 19, 2014 by CRC Press
Reference – 630 Pages – 435 B/W Illustrations
ISBN 9781466595392 – CAT# K20722
snippet:
“outlines the basic concepts of geotherapy and highlights the importance of healing the biosphere’s ability to store soil carbon to prevent climate change impacts. Facing challenges head on, it addresses how and why policymakers have underestimated the long-term impacts of climate change and how we can correct the flawed carbon management mechanisms today. The book also factors in where carbon can be most effectively stored, how quickly that can be done, and the practical and policy actions needed to get there. This text presents innovative new technologies for restoring the most productive ecosystems on land while maintaining high biodiversity. It addresses processes and techniques of soil carbon restoration through biogeochemical cycling, biochar, slow-release fertilizers, weathering of minerals (olivine) and rock (basalt) powders, amendments and bio-fertilizers, and the establishment of vetiver and other perennials.”
book contents here:
http://www.routledge.com/books/details/9781466595392/
(Note, for those unfamiliar with woodfortrees: to see the actual trend numbers, click on ‘view raw data’ and scroll down to the appropriate series.)
Comment by Kevin McKinney — 7 May 2015
So do you think we’ll see a 2C rise in temperature above preindustrial by 2036? Also, do you think we’re gonna reach 450-500ppm CO2 fairly soon? Maybe by mid century.
We did it
https://www.facebook.com/events/590345234435894/permalink/599680173502400/
Hat tip to Slashdot:
Ten years ago, in Nature, Kim Stanley Robinson described a possible future
I don’t know how I missed this for a decade.
I’d sign on right now, if it were more than fiction.
Anyone got anything to add?
I’d been thinking for a long time, as I get older and wonder what to do with the few acres of old forest I’ve been able to protect for a few decades — family’s too small to preserve little chunks of the world that are too small to be self-sustaining, and too small to be of interest to big organizations with greater worries more urgent.
We need tribes, in the good sense of the word. Since then the “Public Benefit Corporation” has been created as a legal concept.
Maybe that would do it?
#331–“So do you think we’ll see a 2C rise in temperature above preindustrial by 2036?”
Chuck, I don’t have personal opinion on that, but according to AR5, even the most severe scenario, RCP 8.5, just barely reaches that threshold by 2050, so if someone forced me to bet, I’d bet against.
Mind you, I wouldn’t bet against being committed to an eventual 2C warming by then, so I don’t think I should be colored Pollyanna pink, even if there are those here who would argue a much more pessimistic scenario than that.
” Also, do you think we’re gonna reach 450-500ppm CO2 fairly soon? Maybe by mid century.”
Well, we’re presently adding 2 ppm or so each year, and it’s not clear that emissions growth is even slowing on the global level. 2 ppm times 35 years gives us ~470 ppm in 2050, so I have to say that 450 by mid-century very possible. I hope that the accelerating deployment of various forms of cleantech and the possibly forthcoming Kyoto successor (even if it’s subject to an ‘ambition gap,’ as seems very likely) will bend the emissions curve downward.
But that depends on what we collectively choose to do over the next few years. Some will feel more sanguine than others about that.
The difference between hope and reality…
Dr. Gavin? Tell me the truth Doc. Will I still be able to play the violin?
The climate policy mantra — that time is running out for 2 °C but we can still make it if we act now — is a scientific nonsense. Advisers who shy away from saying so squander their scientific reputations and public trust in climate research.
http://www.nature.com/news/policy-climate-advisers-must-maintain-integrity-1.17468
A world with this much CO²: lessons from 4 million years ago http://climatestate.com/2015/05/10/a-world-with-this-much-co%C2%B2-lessons-from-4-million-years-ago/
Hank @ 12:53, that’s telling. Thanks.
@ 319 monosodiumg asked: “Anthropic heat output from total primary energy production works out to about 0.035W/m^2. Much of that is dumped into the lower atmosphere. What impact might that have on models?”
To which eric responded: [None. The forcing from greenhouse gases is roughly 100 times larger than that number.]
Thanks for that. It is a misconception I often come across among students and others when discussions of global warming come up. Someone always thinks that waste heat from industrial activities is a significant contributor and, if no one else does, I try to point out that it is a couple of orders of magnitude below the heating caused by GHGs.
But seeing the figure “roughly 100 times larger” in print got me wondering:
If industrial civilization were to be able to continue indefinitely into the future with the economy–and therefore energy production (whatever the sources) and heat output from that industry–were to continue to grow at a ‘healthy’ but modest pace of say 3% per year on average over that time, how long would it take for that direct industrial heat to match current heating from GHGs?
Going from the ‘rule of 72,’ it looks like doubling every 24 years or so. So about seven doublings to get over a hundred means we would reach that level in well under 200 years. And from there, you only need a couple hundred more years to reach truly absurd levels of heating from this source, even leaving aside heating from GHGs.
Someone please check the math, the logic, and everything else, but it seems to me that this is yet another clear reason than economic growth (at least how that term has been used generally) cannot go on forever on a finite planet, however ‘clean’ then source of the energy that fuels that growth is.