Giddy Up 409

Baby you're much too fast

    -Prince (Little Red Corvette)

But life is just a party
And parties weren't meant to last

     -Prince (1999)

Greetings

     I hope you are enjoying the recent spate of warm weather.  If it hits 85 in April, what does August hold in store? 

     Well, at least it gets your mind off the political campaign.  Here's some fun facts. from here

"According to Media Matters, there have been a whopping 1,477 questions asked during the 20 Republican and Democratic debates so far. Just 22 of those questions—or about 1.5 percent—have been about climate change. Nine of the debates, including one that took place four days after the historic Paris climate agreement, included no global warming questions whatsoever.  

      Perhaps  this whole climate deal has settled down?    Well... not really.   It seems that things are actually moving faster than anticipated.    The UN reports that the future is happening now, as 60 million are affected by climate disruptions including droughts, and floods..

       Recently the Keeling curve hit a record 409.     Temperature records are indicating that we may alredy be hitting 1.5 degrees above pre industrial temperatures.  see here

 "February was also notably far above the long-term average, enough so that scientists described that month as a "shocker," as well as it being "a kind of climate emergency." Then, on the heels of February, the Japan Meteorological Agency released data showing that March was even hotter. NASA data confirms this increase, and also shows that March was 1.65 degrees Celsius higher than the 1951-1980 March average, while February was 1.71 degrees Celsius hotter than the February average over that time period."

(1.5 is believed to be sufficient to begin the process of melting permafrost, releasing tons of frozen carbon and methane.  see here )

      Meanwhile up north, its hotter than ever.  

 Image source: CIRES.)

As Robert Scribbler reports:

"From just about every indicator, we find that the Arctic sea ice is being hit by heat like never before. And the disturbing precipitous early season losses we now see in combination with the excessive, extreme warmth and melt accelerating weather patterns are likely to continue to reinforce a trend of record losses. Such low sea ice measures will also tend to wrench weather patterns around the globe — providing zones for extreme heatwaves and droughts along the ridge lines and related warm wind invasions of the Arctic that will tend to develop all while generating risk of record precipitation events in the trough zones. To this point, the North American West is again setting up for just such a zonal heatwave pattern. Extreme heat building up in India and Southeast Asia also appears to be following a similar northward advance."

For an interesting review of the impacts of an ice free arctic, see here

Speaking of melting ice, I recently saw a video of James Hanson explaining a new paper he and 18 co-authors published.  It cane be seen here/

     Here's  a transcript.     Here's how it starts:

"Hi, I’m Jim Hansen, Director of the Climate Science, Awareness and Solutions program at Columbia University Earth Institute. I want to discuss some implications of the paper Ice Melt, Sea Level Rise and Superstorms that is being published in Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics, a paper on which I have 18 exceptional American and international co-authors.

We have uncovered information and a partial understanding of feedbacks in the climate system, specifically interactions between the ocean and the ice sheets. These feedbacks raise questions about how soon we will pass points of no return, in which we lock in consequences that cannot be reversed on any time scale that people care about.

Consequences include sea level rise of several meters, which we estimate would occur this century or at latest next century, if fossil fuel emissions continue at a high level. That would mean loss of all coastal cities, most of the world’s large cities and all their history.

A more immediate threat is the likelihood of shutting down the oceans overturning circulations in the North Atlantic and Southern oceans. That’s where superstorms come in.  Let me explain."

Here is the paper by Hanson et al

         So, why is the issue all but ignored by the media and politicians?   Perhaps the Hanson video provides the answer.  Listen as he patiently tries to explain the multiple interacting factors ; and the evidence from deep history.  Then take a look at this   Why we can't understand global warming .   Previous issues have been simple in terms of cause and effect. CFC's destroys ozone, tobacco causes cancer, DDT softens egg shells  -   but to understand climate change , you have to be able to deal with multiple causes, effects,  and  feedbacks.  You have to see the system.    

     "Any application or force to something or someone that produces an immediate change to that thing or person is direct causation: When causation is direct, the world cause is unproblematic. We learn direct causation automatically as children because that's what we experience on a daily basis. Direct causation, and the control over our immediate environment that understanding it allows, is crucial in the life of every child. That's why it shows up in the grammar of every language.

The same is not true for systemic causation. Systemic causation cannot be experienced directly. It has to be learned, its cases have to be studied, and repeated communication is necessary before it can be widely understood.

That's right, no language in the world has a way in its grammar to express systemic causation. You drill a lot more oil, burn a lot more gas, put a lot more CO2 in the air, the earth's atmosphere heats up, more moisture evaporates from the oceans yielding bigger storms in certain places and more drought and fires in other places, and yes, more cold and snow in still other places. The world ecology is a system - like the world economy and the human brain.

As a result, we lack a concept that we desperately need. We need to understand and communicate, for instance, about the greatest moral issue of our times - global warming. The ecology is a system operating via system causation. Without an everyday concept of system causation, global warming cannot be properly comprehended. In other words, without the systemic causation frame, the oft-repeated facts about global warming cannot make sense. With only the direct causation frame, the systemic causation facts of global warming are ignored. The old frame stays, and the facts that don't fit cannot be comprehended."

Wishin' and hopin'

Last night I a wonderful dream about you
Hope that it will come true
      - The Majors

Only trouble is
Gee wiz
I'm dreaming my life away
     - Everly Brothers

Greetings

       Well the Paris extravaganza is over.  Time to celebrate?  A historic agreement ?

  Here's a good analysis from Brad Plummer at Vox 

Dr James Hanson doesn't seem too impressed.  He calls it a fraud.

Kevin Anderson gives is 4 out of ten.  See also here.  Anderson notes that it is weaker than Copenhagen.  One of the problems is that the agreement uses the word "should instead of "shall.  This terminology  was insisted on by the US, as "shall" would be a deal breaker.

Here's an interesting analysis from "New Internationalist" which suggests four evaluation criteria

"To meet the People’s Test, the Paris deal would need to do the following four things:

1. Catalyze immediate, urgent and drastic emission reductions;

2. Provide adequate support for transformation; 

3. Deliver justice for impacted people; 

4. Focus on genuine, effective action rather than false solutions;

Does the deal pass the test? The 15,000 people who took to the Paris streets today to condemn the agreement clearly didn’t think so.

-----

On the other hand, most mainstream folk try to  "keep on the sunny side", by calling it a "good first step", recognizing that the agreement doesn't do much,  and expressing hope for better things in the future.   Even if the agreement was enforceable-  which it isn't  - the "commitments" would still allow temperatures

 to rise about 3 degrees above pre industrial levels.

    So, hopeful people say maybe it will set the stage for future actions.   Things like -  new "voluntary limits" to be agreed to later,   a market based revolution in energy production turning away from FF's.  or new technology to pull CO2 out of the air.

-----

Which view you take may depend more on your general attitude than anything else..

Maybe Elizabeth Kolbert put it best ( from here)

"Elizabeth Kolbert - author of The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History - sums it up.  In one clip from Racing Extinction linked at the Rolling Stone article, she says in a voice of weary resignation, “We have these prehistoric brains, and we have this god-like technology…and when you bring them together, the result is not necessarily a happy one”.

Atlantis

Way down
Under the ocean
 where I want to be
    -Donovan (Atlantis)
Six feet of water
in the streets of Evangenline
     - Randy Newman

Greetings

       When James Hanson says something, its probably worth listening.  Not only has been looking into these maters longer than most, but he is also willing to tell the unvarnished truth  see e.g Ballad of the sad climatoligists.
      So it was with some interest that I listened to an interview he gave in Australia earlier this year, which I found on Ecoshock).  Here is a transcript of part of it

"The paleoclimate evidence indicates the ice sheets are much more sensitive than the glaciologist, the modellers of ice sheets have indicated and furthermore we now have satellite data over the last 12 years that confirms that ice sheet disintegration is a non-linear process that should not have been surprising, and I have been saying that for 10 years, but now this satellite data confirms that.

The ice sheets are losing mass faster and faster with a doubling the of about 10 years. If that continues, we would get sea-level rises of several metres within 40 to 50 years."

Several meters?   40-50 years?

             This is not what I've been hearing from the IPCC, so it was kind of a rude shock.  But it turns out Hanson has been saying stuff like this for some time.  see here
           While the IPCC sees a sea rise in a gentle upslope,  Hanson sees it as accelerating much faster,..

(Global sea level rise since 1870. Image source: Dr. James Hansen.)

There may be some support for Hanson's view in recent work.  This from Robert Scribbler's blog (see below)

 For a recent study, headed by Shuang Yi and published on April 30 in Geophysical Research Letters provides evidence that, since 2010, annual rates of global sea level rise have shown a strong uptick. The study, entitled An Increase in the Rate of Global Mean Sea Level Rise Since 2010, notes:

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.

In short, the study finds an average rate of sea level rise of 4.4 mm per year, or 30% faster than the annual rate from 1992 to 2009, during the period of 2010 to 2013."

    Sea level rise is a function  of both thermal expansion dues to increased temperature, and additional water flows dues to melting Glaciers.  Thermal expansion has been the major factor thus far, but by its nature is  generally slow.  Glaciers on the other hand, can melt rapidly. 

       It all comes down to doubling time.  But every exponential curve starts slow and accelerates.  It difficult at the beginning to see which curve the data is following.  It may be a slowly changing curve or a rapidly changing one.    Thus in one paper Hanson argues.

       The increasing Greenland mass loss ... can be fit just as well byexponentially increasing annual mass loss, a behavior that Hansen (2005, 2007) argues could occur because of multiple amplifying feedbacks as an ice sheet begins to disintegrate. A 10-year doubling time would lead to 1 meter sea level rise by 2067 ... 2045 ... for 5-year doubling time and 2055 ... for a 7-year doubling time.

Obviously we are not preparing for such rapid sea rises.   And it could mean a loss of a lot of coastal property.  See Here  One aspect that I hadn't given much though to, however, is the impact on commerce - the impacts on ports.
   Just to get a feel for how much goes through ports, here is what wiki says

American ports are responsible for moving over 99 percent of the country's overseas cargo.

U.S. ports handle a wide variety of goods that are critical to the global economy, including petroleum, grain, steel, automobiles, and containerized goods. Reports from individual ports indicate that approximately 4.6 million automobiles (imports and exports) passed through American ports in 2006.

The impacts of sea level rise to ports could be significant.  For instance one EPA report states.

The U.S. Department of Transportation (U.S. DOT) initiated another effort to examine the risk to transportation infrastructure from climate change along the Atlantic coast. The study is identifying the transportation infrastructure that, without protection, will regularly be inundated by the ocean or is at risk of periodic inundation due to storm surges. Phase 1 of the report, covering Washington D.C., Maryland, North Carolina, and Virginia, was released in December 2007. In the state of Maryland, the study found that 28% of port acreage would be regularly inundated or at risk of periodic inundation if sea levels rose just 6 cm (2.4 inches)

However the Gulf Coast ports are more significant to the national economy. Noaa points out

"Along the Northern Gulf Coast, an estimated 2,400 miles of major roadway and 246 miles of freight rail lines are at risk of permanent flooding within 50 to 100 years as relative sea level is expected to rise in the range of 4 feet (Figure 1). The Gulf Coast is particularly at risk to service disruptions due to a transportation network that is interdependent and relies on minor roads and other low-lying infrastructure. The Gulf Coast is home to seven of the ten largest commercial ports (by tons of traffic) in the country. The region also hosts a significant portion of the U.S. oil and gas industry, with its offshore drilling platforms, refineries, and pipelines. Roughly two-thirds of all U.S. oil imports pass through the Gulf. Sea level rise would potentially affect commercial transportation activity valued in the hundreds of billions of dollars annually through inundation of area roads, railroads, airports, seaports, and pipelines (U.S. Global Change Research Program, 2009). Figure 1 shows the Gulf Coast area roads at risk from sea-level rise.

EPA says

"Looking particularly at the impact of storm surges, the Gulf Coast Study determines the percentage of marine transportation facilities in an area from Mobile, AL to Galveston, TX that would be affected by certain levels of storm surges. The study predicts that relative sea levels in the region will rise between 0.3 and 7 feet, depending on location, over the coming century. Average temperatures in the region are likely to increase between 0.9°F and 4.5°F over the next fifty years.11 The study provides probabilities for some impacts at the regional level. For example, if relative sea levels rise 4 feet, 72 percent of ports in the region will be at least partially inundated.

So, Hanson's conclusion looks pretty accurate.  

"So spell that out for us James before we move on, sea level rises of several meters in forty years, what would that look like in terms of our lives

The consequences are almost unthinkable. It would mean that all coastal cities would become dysfunctional, some parts of the cities would still be sticking above the water but they would not be habitable, so the economic implications are incalculable. We really cannot go down that path, this is an issue of intergenerational injustice.   It’s a moral issue because the current generation is burning the fossil fuel and getting the benefits and creating a situation that for young people, our children and grandchildren and future generations is going to have enormous consequences."

For an interesting interactive map of pontential flooding, see here 

Global Sea Level Rise Going Exponential? New Study Records Big Jump in Ocean Surface Height

From about a thousand years ago through to the mid 19th Century, global sea levels remained remarkably stable. Together with overall global temperatures, sea surface heights stayed at about the same levels until the late 1800s. At that time, an initiation of large-scale burning of oil, gas and coal dumped heavy volumes of greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere. The Earth System began to warm and seas began a slow upward climb.

(Global sea level rise since 1870. Image source: Dr. James Hansen.)

At first, the pace of sea level rise was minor — only hitting about 0.8 mm per year. But then, by around 1925, the rate of sea level rise more than doubled to 1.9 mm per year. The oceans, which at first only slowly accumulated heat, began a long term warming which eventually extended through almost every depth and region. This pace maintained until about 1992 when the oceans again hit a higher rate of rise at around 3.1 mm per year — a pace that then included a small but ominously growing portion of glacial melt.

Now, it appears that global warming is again pushing sea levels to rise even faster. As, over recent years, a number of ominous indicators pointed toward yet another surge in ocean surface levels.

In south Florida, the pace of  sea level rise at local tidal gauges, by last year, had gone exponential. Along the U.S. East Coast, a sudden jump in sea level during recent years was blamed on a slowing down of the Gulf Stream due to freshwater melt pulses hitting the North Atlantic.

All over the world’s frozen regions, the great land glaciers — especially in Greenland and Antarctica — have been destabilizing. Melting, cracking, and clamoring as their gargantuan, mountain-like forms assembled in an ever-speeding march to the seas. This great rush of freshwater melt and ice is already causing an ocean-threatening slow-down of Atlantic circulation. And in the Southern Ocean surrounding Antarctica an ominous bulge of water near the southern polar zone became an indicator of an increasing rate of melt from some of the largest glaciers on Earth. A bulge that was 2 centimeters higher than the global average along melting and thawing Antarctic shores.

Global Sea Level Rise On Upward Curve?

Recently, the global sea level rise measure — AVISO — also took an unsettling leap. With satellite captures of the world ocean showing a strong surge in sea level rise throughout 2014 and into 2015. A spike that displays vividly as a hockey-stick like jog at the tail end of the measure below:

(Big spike in sea level rise plainly visible in the AVISO measure. Image source: AVISO.)

It’s an upward jump representing nearly a 1 centimeter spike in the rate of sea level rise over the past six months.

By itself, this jump in sea level would be something to worry over. But new findings paint an even starker picture. For a recent study, headed by Shuang Yi and published on April 30 in Geophysical Research Letters provides evidence that, since 2010, annual rates of global sea level rise have shown a strong uptick. The study, entitled An Increase in the Rate of Global Mean Sea Level Rise Since 2010, notes:

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.

In short, the study finds an average rate of sea level rise of 4.4 mm per year, or 30% faster than the annual rate from 1992 to 2009, during the period of 2010 to 2013. For these, more rapidly rising, sea levels the study identifies clear causes. The first is an increasing rate of land ice loss. The second is what is termed as ‘steric change’ — a scientific phrase that both identifies ocean thermal expansion due to warming combined with changes in ocean salinity, which also impacts sea surface height.

The April 30 study did not include the more recent sea level rise spike now showing up in the AVISO measure. So, at least for now, sea levels do appear to be sliding up some rather dangerous curves.

Hitting the More Difficult Rates of Sea Level Increase

Such a jump has stark implications for sea level by end century. A 4.4 mm per year rate of rise would equal just less than half a meter of increased sea level within one Century. This compares to the previous rate of rise which would have resulted in a 1 foot global jump within a one hundred year span.

A jump of this kind was, however, predicted with sea level rise by end of this Centuryexpected to hit between 0.5 and 1 meters of increase in the IPCC measure and between 5 and 6 feet in US Coast Guard studies (most studies find a range between 3-9 feet for this Century). The 4.4 mm per year increase is rather ominous in that it already puts annual rates of rise in the IPCC mid-range. An early ramp up with fully eight and a half decades left to go in a Century that will certainly see substantial further increases in global heat accumulation.

(South Florida 6 meters of sea level rise before [left frame] and after [right frame]. Note that second image is an artist’s rendering based on flood analysis showing what a 6 meter sea level rise would look like for South Florida, should it occur. Image source: Tropical Audobon Society.)

Many planners use the IPCC measure or even more conservative indicators to prepare for sea level rise at their city, county and state shores. And the fact is these indicators may fall well short of reality at the coastlines. A stark circumstance that will become more and more difficult to manage as time moves forward.

Overall, a 2010 ramping in the rate of sea level rise is a bit soon. Similar further jumps leading up to potential worst case 1-4 cm per year levels would initiate a combination of dangerous impacts including untenable rates of rise for coastal regions, severe shocks to ocean circulation systems and overall ocean health, and potentially very dangerous impacts to the world’s weather. To this point Hansen’s paper entitled ‘Greenland Ice Sheet Mass Loss, Exponential?‘ is well worth a (re)read.

Similar Climate Conditions Saw 20 Meter Surges in Sea Level Due to Glacial Melt

With current greenhouse gas levels now in the range of 400-405 parts per million coinciding with substantial jumps in glacial melt and sea level rise, it may be worth taking a look back at times in the geological past when atmospheric heating conditions were similar to those seen today. The last time heat trapping gasses were seen at such high concentrations was at the height of the Pliocene warming 3-5 million years ago. That time saw temperatures in the range of 2-3 degrees Celsius warmer than Holocene averages. It was also a geological period that saw Antarctic and Greenland melt events that pushed seas up to 20 meters higher.

We are exceeding maximum Pliocene atmospheric CO2 thresholds at this time (well exceeding if you count in a 485 CO2 equivalent forcing from all greenhouse gasses added by human beings). And we will almost certainly enter Pliocene warming levels this century. So the melt pressure we are putting on the world’s ice sheets is likely to at least be in the 20 meter range for the (hopefully) longer term.

https://robertscribbler.wordpress.com/2015/05/04/global-sea-level-rise-going-exponential-new-study-records-big-jump-in-ocean-surface-height/

http://www.climatecentral.org/news/sea-level-rise-locking-in-quickly-cities-threatened-16296

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/what-does-the-u-s-look-like-after-3-meters-of-sea-level-rise/

http://www.ecology.com/2012/03/05/effects-sea-level-rise/

http://www.businessinsider.com/1429-towns-destroyed-by-climate-change-2013-8

Plans B and C

Slip sliding away

-Paul Simon

I have my dreams like everybody else

But they're out of reach

I said, right out of reach

-Pretenders (Mystery Achievement)

Greetings

    Its becoming more clear that we are loosing control of the climate.   Not only are we unwilling to impose limits on CO2,  we are entering the tipping point era, where other feedback systems take the control out of our hands.

    A recent report on the arctic,  asserts that the ice free water - and the albino feedback- is now responsible for 25% of warming.  So, even assuming emissions stopped, and the air was scrubbed of excess CO2, this would continue to warm.

 .  Or put another way - remember all that stuff we didn't want to do, because the cost was too high?     

 Well..... add 25% 

  NASA study 

To measure the effect, Ian Eisenman of the Scripps Institute of Oceanography in La Jolla, California, and colleagues turned to data from NASA's CERES satellite. They found that the Arctic Ocean's albedo – the fraction of sunlight it reflects back into space – dropped from 52 per cent in 1979 to 48 per cent in 2011. That may not seem like much, but it means a big rise in energy absorbed – equal to 25 per cent of that trapped by the rise in atmospheric carbon dioxide over the same period.

     Meanwhile, while  Hanson argues that a 1 degree target is more appropriate, and a common sense appraisal of the current weather anomalies make it clear that we have already gone too far.  Things are happening a head of schedule.    In Australia, they are experiencing the heat waves predicted for 2030.  See here .  Governments are already having to make hard choices about how to deal with the current climate.  See here for an interesting discussion of abandoning the coast of England and concentrating on saving London -  after their brutal winter storms.  

                At the same time, many climate scientists  appear to agree that 2 degrees is unachievable.    In a recent opinion piece in Nature Climate Change, climate scientists suggest  that while a focus on reducing emissions is needed, we can't ignore, the facts of current and future changes.

"Calling for swift and deep reductions in emissions, although essential, is not sufficient," said the scientists. "Confronting and managing the risks of high-magnitude warming will require a science-based policy narrative that honestly communicates these risks, accounts for potential policy failures and climate emergencies that may occur, and helps society weigh the adoption of mitigation and adaptation options that themselves pose significant risks, costs and uncertainties."

    They suggest that a singled minded  focus on 2 degrees, may blind us to the realities.  National Geographic 

Climate scientists first proposed the 2°C target in the mid-1990s as a way of giving substance to the commitment nations had made to address climate change at the 1992 Earth Summit at Rio de Janeiro. It was not until 2009 in Copenhagen, after the 15th annual session of negotiations around that goal failed to reach a binding treaty, that nations instead signed on to an accord pledging to work toward the 2°C limit.

Since then, the UCS scientists and colleagues wrote in their new commentary, "the foundation on which the 2°C target was built has steadily eroded." Not only have global carbon emissions continued to rise 3 percent a year, but the science has made more clear that human populations and natural systems face serious risk of substantial climate damage at warming less than 2°C, they said.

The scientists didn't spell out a different target in the new commentary, but instead, a different approach. They endorsed an idea borrowed from national security and defense planning, a framework for "climate security," that has been proposed by scientists at the London-based nonprofit EG3. This "ABC" approach says policymakers should aim for an "ambitious" target for reducing carbon emissions, while "building" for, or adapting for, greater warming than targeted, and engaging in "contingency" planning for future climate emergency.

Such an approach, the scientists said, would better communicate to the public the magnitude of climate risks the planet faces. It might increase public willingness to make necessary trade-offs, for example, to accept local impact on wildlife and ecosystems from the siting of renewable energy projects, such as wind turbines and large-scale solar plants, or to consider the risks of geoengineering for forced climate cooling. (See related "Video: The Tortoise and the Solar Plant" and "Mojave Mirrors: World's Largest Solar Plant Ready to Shine" and "Pictures: Seven Emergency Climate Fixes.")

The authors said it might also motivate "difficult but much-needed dialogue and planning" for the drastic measures needed to address "truly disruptive impacts." Two examples: relocation of development from floodplains around London after 2060 and the creation of water-efficient corn varieties for Africa, would require planning and investment now, they said. (See related "Quiz: What You Don't Know About Food, Water, and Energy.")