Two can be as bad as one
It's the loneliest number
since the number one
     - Three Dog Night

Two of us, riding nowhere

   
     -John Lennon

Greetings

     Here's a nice post from David Spratt of  Climate Code Red.   It demonstrates that there has been no " pause"   In warming, but that 2014, is right on track.    He also explains how Michael Mann has come to the conclusion that, if we continue with current emissions, we are likely to see 2 degrees by 2036.   That' s  only 21 years away !   (if I did my arithmetic correctly.)

      However, it looks like, even if we "turned all the knobs to the left",  and emitted no carbon starting tomorrow, we would still hit 2 degrees, but perhaps a little later.  This is because the carbon already in the pipeline will add another .5 degrees,  and the loss of the cooling by the aerosols will add another 1 degree. When added to the .8 we are already experiencing, we slide into 2 degrees some time this century.

     But of course, even .8 has some problems.  see e.g.  Boston has snowiest month on record  Why Bigger Snowstorms come with Climate Change     

     http://www.climatecodered.org/2015/02/two-degrees-of-warming-closer-than-you.html

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Two degrees of warming closer than you may think

by David Spratt

It's taken a hundred years of human-caused greenhouse emissions to push the global temperature up almost one degree Celsius (1C°), so another degree is still some time away. Right?  And there seems to have been a "pause" in warming over the last two decades, so getting to 2C° is going to take a good while, and we may have more time that we thought. Yes?

Wrong on both counts.  

The world could be 2C° warmer in as little as two decades, according to the leading US climate scientist and "hockey stick" author, Dr Michael E. Mann. Writing in Scientific American in March 2014 (with the maths explained here), Mann says that new calculations "indicate that if the world continues to burn fossil fuels at the current rate,global warming will rise to 2C° by 2036" and to avoid that threshold "nations will have to keep carbon dioxide levels below 405 parts per million", a level we have just about reached already.  Mann says the notion of a warming "pause" is false.

Global temperature over the last 1000 years: the "hockey stick"

Here's why 2C° could be just 20 years away.

Record heat

2014 was the hottest year in the instrumental record. The US government agencies NASA and NOAA announced the 2014 record on 16 January, noting that "the 10 warmest years in the instrumental record, with the exception of 1998, have now occurred since 2000". 

NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) says that since 1880, "Earth’s average surface temperature has warmed by about 1.4 degrees Fahrenheit (0.8C°), a trend that is largely driven by the increase in carbon dioxide (CO2)  and other human emissions into the planet’s atmosphere. The majority of that warming has occurred in the past three decades."

GISS Director Gavin Schmidt says that this is “the latest in a series of warm years, in a series of warm decades. While the ranking of individual years can be affected by chaotic weather patterns, the long-term trends are attributable to drivers of climate change that right now are dominated by human emissions of greenhouse gases".

2014 was also Australia’s third-hottest year on record, according to the Bureau of Meteorology: "Overall, 2014 was Australia's third-warmest year on record: the annual national mean temperature was +0.91 °C above average…  All States, except the Northern Territory, ranked in the four warmest years on record." 

The 2014 record was achieved in neutral ENSO conditions

Fluctuations in the ENSO cycle affect global temperature, with El Niño conditions (a mobile blister of Pacific Ocean heat that affects wind patterns and currents and reduces rainfall in eastern Australia) correlating with warmer global temperatures. Former NASA climate science chief Dr James Hansen and colleagues note that the record global temperature in 2014 "was achieved with little assistance from the tropical ENSO cycle, confirms continuing global warming...  and with the help of even a mild El Niño 2015 may be significantly warmer than 2014."

And El Niño conditions are likely to became more frequent with more warming. Last year, Wenju Cai, a climate researcher for Australia’s Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO), warned that the frequency of extreme El Niño events could double with climate change, in a paper that presented "evidence for a doubling in the occurrences in the future in response to greenhouse warming".

There is no "pause" in warming

In releasing the data on 2014's record warmth, NASA charted warming since 1970 and demonstrated that there has been no "pause" or slowing in warming, contrary to the million-times-repeated claims of the climate warming denial industry.

Joe Romm of Climate Progress says this chart (below) shows that: "The human-caused rise in surface air temperatures never paused, never even slowed significantly. And that means we are likely headed toward a period of rapid surface temperature warming. "

A year ago, Prof Matthew England of University of NSW suggested that temperatures were likely to rise quickly:

Scientists have long suspected that extra ocean heat uptake has slowed the rise of global average temperatures, but the mechanism behind the hiatus remained unclear…. But the heat uptake is by no means permanent: when the trade wind strength returns to normal –- as it inevitably will –- our research suggests heat will quickly accumulate in the atmosphere. So global [surface] temperatures look set to rise rapidly….

The oceans are warming very rapidly

Of all the additional heat trapped by higher levels of greenhouse gases, more than 90 per cent goes to warming the oceans, and thus ocean heat content (OHC) is by far the most significant and reliable indicator of global warming. By contrast only two per cent goes to warming the atmosphere, so small heat exchanges between oceans and the atmosphere (caused by changing sea surface, ocean circulation and wind conditions) can have a significant impact on atmospheric temperature, but not on ocean temperature.

The NOAA's State of the Climate for 2014 reports:

During 2014, the globally-averaged sea surface temperature was 1.03°F (0.57°C) above the 20th century average. This was the highest among all years in the 1880-2014 record, surpassing the previous records of 1998 and 2003 by 0.09°F (0.05°C).

The rate of OHC incease appears to be accelerating, with Romm noting that:

... ocean warming has sped up, and sea level rise has accelerated more than we thought, and Arctic sea ice has melted much faster than the models expected, as have the great ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica.

And as Matthew England has told us, when the trade wind strength returns to normal, some ocean heat will quickly accumulate in the atmosphere.

You can check all the NOAA ocean heat content charts here.

Human greenhouse gas emissions are not slowing

Data from the Global Carbon Project shows annual carbon dioxide emissions are continuing to increase, and that the rate of increase since 2000 is at least double that of the 1990-99 decade. Emissions are projected to continue on the current growth path till 2020.

Fossil fuel emissions 1990-2014 and projected to 2019

To summarise the story so far: 2014 was a record hot year (without El Nino conditions); there has been no pause in warming; ocean heat content is rising at an increasing rate; global annual carbon dioxide emissions are continuing to grow; and more frequent El Nino conditions and a return to more normal trade wind strength will release some ocean heat to the atmosphere; so we are likely headed for a period of rapid surface temperature warming.

But there is more to the story.

A reservoir of heat already in the system 

Increased levels of atmospheric greenhouse gases create an energy imbalance between incoming and outgoing radiation, which is resolved by elements of the earth system (land and oceans) absorbing the additional heat until the system reaches a new balance (equilibrium) at a higher temperature. But that process takes time, due to thermal inertia (as with an electric oven: once energy is applied, it takes time for all the structure to heat up and is not instantaneous).  As a rule of thumb, about one-third of the heating potential of an increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide will be felt straight away, another third take around 30 years, and the last third is not fully realised for a century.

Thus there is more warming to come for the carbon dioxide already emitted, amounting to about another 0.6°C of warming.  And because the rate of emissions is increasing, that figure is also increasing.

From this we can conclude that around 1.5°C of warming is locked into the system for current CO2 levels, though very large-scale carbon drawdown could reduce levels slowly over decadal time frames.

As well as long-lived CO2, there are other greenhouse gases with shorter lifetimes, particularly methane (lifetime approx. 10 years) and nitrous oxide (lifetime approx. 100 years). Because emissions of these gases are also continuing unabated, they also contribute to warming temperatures on decadal time frames.

In fact, the current level of greenhouse gases if maintained is already more than enough to produce 2°C of warming over time: in 2008 two scientists, Ramanathan and Feng, inOn avoiding dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system: Formidable challenges ahead found that if greenhouse gases were maintained at their 2005 levels, the inferred warming is 2.4˚C (range 1.4˚C to 4.3˚C).

The current level of greenhouse gases is around 400 parts per million (ppm) CO2, and 470 ppm CO2 equivalent (CO2e) when other greenhouse gases are included. The last time CO2 levels were as high as they are today, humans didn't exist, and over the last 20 million years such levels are associated with major climate transitions. Tripati, Roberts et al. found that, big changes in significant climate system elements such as ice sheets, sea levels and carbon stores are likely to occur for the current level of CO2:

During mid-Miocene climatic optimum [16-14 million years ago] CO2 levels were similar to today, but temperatures were ~3–6°C warmer and sea levels 25 to 40 metres higher than at present… When CO2 levels were last similar to modern values (greater than 350 ppmv to 400 pmv), there was little glacial ice on land, or sea ice in the Arctic, and a marine-based ice mass on Antarctica was not viable…

But the question remains as to how quickly this warming will occur, and for that we need to look at two further factors: climate sensitivity and the role of aerosols.

Climate sensitivity

The measure of how much warming occurs for an increase in greenhouse gases is known as climate sensitivity, and is expressed as the temperature rise resulting from a doubling of greenhouse gas levels. 

As Michael E. Mann explains:

Although the earth has experienced exceptional warming over the past century, to estimate how much more will occur we need to know how temperature will respond to the ongoing human-caused rise in atmospheric greenhouse gases, primarily carbon dioxide. Scientists call this responsiveness “equilibrium climate sensitivity” (ECS). ECS is a common measure of the heating effect of greenhouse gases. It represents the warming at the earth's surface that is expected after the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere doubles and the climate subsequently stabilizes (reaches equilibrium)… The more sensitive the atmosphere is to a rise in CO2, the higher the ECS, and the faster the temperature will rise. ECS is shorthand for the amount of warming expected, given a particular fossil-fuel emissions scenario.

As discussed previously here, some elements of the climate system respond quickly to temperature change, including the amount of water vapour in the air and hence level of cloud cover, sea-level changes due to ocean temperature change, and the extent of sea-ice that floats on the ocean in the polar regions. These changes amplify (increase) the temperature change and are known as short-term or “fast” feedbacks, and it is on this basis that (short-term) ECS is well established as being around 3°C for a doubling of greenhouse gas levels (see, for example, Climate sensitivity, sea level, and atmospheric carbon dioxide).

But there are also longer-term or “slow” feedbacks, which generally take much longer (centuries to thousands of years) to occur. These include changes in large, polar, land-based ice sheets, changes in the carbon cycle (changed efficiency of carbon sinks such as permafrost and methane clathrate stores, as well as biosphere stores such as peat lands and forests), and changes in vegetation coverage and reflectivity (albedo). When these are taken into account, the sensitivity is significantly higher at 4.5°C or more, dependent on the state of the poles and carbon stores. Importantly, the rate of change at present is so fast that some of these long-term feedbacks are being triggered now on short-term timeframes (see Carbon budgets, climate sensitivity and the myth of "burnable carbon").

Mann says uncertainty about ECS can arise from questions of the role of clouds and water vapour, with the most recent IPCC report simply giving a range of 1.5–4.5°C but no "best-fit" figure. Factors such as changing rates of heat flux between oceans and atmosphere (including the El Nino/La Nina cycle), and volcanic eruptions, can cloud the short-term picture, as has the focus on the non-existent "pause". 

What would happen if ECS is a bit lower that the "best-fit" value of 3°C of warming for doubling of greenhouse gas levels?  Mann explains:

I recently calculated hypothetical future temperatures by plugging different ECS values into a so-called energy balance model, which scientists use to investigate possible climate scenarios. The computer model determines how the average surface temperature responds to changing natural factors, such as volcanoes and the sun, and human factors—greenhouse gases, aerosol pollutants, and so on. (Although climate models have critics, they reflect our best ability to describe how the climate system works, based on physics, chemistry and biology. And they have a proved track record: for example, the actual warming in recent years was accurately predicted by the models decades ago.)
I then instructed the model to project forward under the assumption of business-as-usual greenhouse gas emissions. I ran the model again and again, for ECS values ranging from the IPCC's lower bound (1.5°C) to its upper bound (4.5°C). The curves for an ECS of 2.5 degrees and 3°C fit the instrument readings most closely. The curves for a substantially lower ECS did not fit the recent instrumental record at all, reinforcing the notion that they are not realistic.
To my wonder, I found that for an ECS of 3°C, our planet would cross the dangerous warming threshold of 2°C in 2036, only 22 years from now. When I considered the lower ECS value of 2.5°C, the world would cross the threshold in 2046, just 10 years later.

This is charted as: 

MIchael E. Mann's graph of future temperature for different climate sensitivities.  Click to enlarge.

Mann concludes that "even if we accept a lower ECS value, it hardly signals the end of global warming or even a pause. Instead it simply buys us a little bit of time—potentially valuable time—to prevent our planet from crossing the threshold."

As I have explained repeatedly, including in Dangerous climate warming: Myth and reality, 2°C is far from a safe level of warming. In fact, a strong case is made that climate change is already dangerous at less than 1°C of warming and, in James Hansen's analysis, “goals of limiting human made warming to 2°C and CO2 to 450 ppm are prescriptions for disaster” because significant tipping points – where significant elements of the climate system move from one discrete state to another – will be crossed. 

Aerosol's Faustian bargain

Mann also indicated what level of CO2 would be consistent with 2°C of warming:

These findings have implications for what we all must do to prevent disaster. An ECS of 3°C means that if we are to limit global warming to below 2°C forever, we need to keep CO2 concentrations far below twice pre-industrial levels, closer to 450 ppm. Ironically, if the world burns significantly less coal, that would lessen CO2 emissions but also reduce aerosols in the atmosphere that block the sun (such as sulfate particulates), so we would have to limit CO2 to below roughly 405 ppm.

The aerosol question is central but often not well understood. Human activities also influence the greenhouse effect by releasing non-gaseous substances such as aerosols (small particles) into the atmosphere. Aerosols include black-carbon soot, organic carbon, sulphates, nitrates, as well as dust from smoke, manufacturing, windstorms, and other sources.

Aerosols have a net cooling effect because they reduce the amount of sunlight that reaches the ground, and they increase cloud cover. This effect is popularly referred to as ‘global dimming’, because the overall aerosol impact is to reduce, or dim, the sun’s radiation, thus masking some of the effect of the increased greenhouse gas levels. This is of little comfort, however, because aerosols last only about ten days before being washed out of the atmosphere by rain; so we have to keep putting more and more into the air to maintain the temporary cooling effect.

Unfortunately, the principal source of aerosols is the burning of fossil fuels, which causes a rise in CO2 levels and global warming that lasts for many centuries. The dilemma is that if you cut the aerosols, the globe will experience a pulse of warming as their dimming effect is lost; but if you keep pouring aerosols together with CO2 into the air, you cook the planet even more in the long run. A Faustian bargain.

There has been an effort to reduce emissions from some aerosols because they cause acid rain and other forms of pollution. However, in the short term, this is warming the air as well as making it cleaner. As Mann notes above, likely reductions in coal burning in coming decades will reduce aerosol levels and boost warming

Some recent research suggest aerosol cooling is in the range of 0.5–1.2°C over the long run:

• Leon Rotstayn in The Conversation explains that "results from CSIRO climate modelling suggest that the extra warming effect from a decline in aerosols could be about 1°C by the end of the century".
• Present-day aerosol cooling effect will be strongly reduced by 2030 as more stringent air pollution controls are implemented in Europe and worldwide, and as advanced environmental technologies come on stream. These actions are projected to increase the global temperature by 1°C and temperatures over Europe by up to 2–4°C, depending on the severity of the action. This is one of the main research outcomes of the European Integrated project on Aerosol Cloud Climate and Air Quality Interaction project.
• In 2011, NASA climate science chief James Hansen and co-authors warnedthat the cooling impact of aerosols appears to have been underestimated in many climate models and inferred that: "Aerosol climate forcing today is inferred to be −1.6±0.3Wm−2," which is equivalent to a cooling of about 1.2°C. In that case, they wrote, "humanity has made itself a Faustian bargain more dangerous than commonly supposed".

Conclusion

Michael E. Mann's analysis is sobering, especially when aerosols are accounted for. 

The world is already hitting 400 ppm CO2 (the daily average at the measuring station at Mauna Loa first exceeded 400 ppm on 10 May 2013 and currently rising at a rate of approximately 2 ppm/year and accelerating), so the message is very clear that today we have circumstances that can drive us to 2°C of warming, and that emissions from now on are adding to warming above 2°C and towards 3°C or more.  This reinforces my conclusion last year that there is no carbon budget left for 2°C of warming, and claims to the contrary are a dangerous illusion.

Mann concludes in not dis-similar terms: 

The conclusion that limiting CO2 below 450 ppm will prevent warming beyond 2°C is based on a conservative definition of climate sensitivity that considers only the so-called fast feedbacks in the climate system, such as changes in clouds, water vapor and melting sea ice. Some climate scientists, including James E. Hansen… say we must also consider slower feedbacks such as changes in the continental ice sheets. When these are taken into account, Hansen and others maintain, we need to get back down to the lower level of CO2 that existed during the mid-20th century — about 350 ppm. That would require widespread deployment of expensive “air capture” technology that actively removes CO2 from the atmosphere.

Furthermore, the notion that 2°C of warming is a “safe” limit is subjective. It is based on when most of the globe will be exposed to potentially irreversible climate changes. Yet destructive change has already arrived in some regions. In the Arctic, loss of sea ice and thawing permafrost are wreaking havoc on indigenous peoples and ecosystems. In low-lying island nations, land and freshwater are disappearing because of rising sea levels and erosion. For these regions, current warming, and the further warming (at least 0.5°C) guaranteed by CO2 already emitted, constitutes damaging climate change today

Feeling lucky?

Baby, even the losers

get lucky sometimes

   -Tom Petty

Greetings

     It seems that China and Obama have agreed on terms for a Climate Change treaty.   Ignoring for a moment whether Obama a can deliver, one might ask, whether it makes any difference.

      We are all used to the notion of compromise, and a " first step"  or a "step in the right direction".   And using that sort of measuring stick, you could argue that any US and China commitment to reduce emissions is a good thing. 

     Some folks are calling it  a landmark  agreement.   Grist calls it a "game changer"

    It's a little short on details, so it's hard to evaluate.    But let's assume the best.   According to this analysis, China' s 2030 peak is pretty much a given.   The US  reductions are a little more iffy.   So, that's 45% of the emissions . If the rest of the world made  similar commitments, ( also iffy) we might have a 50 - 50 chance of staying under 2 degrees.  

Are you feeling lucky?

      Other analyses may differ. Here's a recent piece from Scientific American where,  Dr Michael Mann shows argues (using an ECS of 3), in order to stay under 2 degrees, "  fossil-fuel burning would essentially have to cease immediately" , and that we will probably hit 2 degrees by 2036 (ECS of 3) or 2046 (ECS of 2.5).  

        Below, Kevin Anderson discusses the underlying question " Is some deal better than no deal"    ?      As you might guess,  he' s not too enamored  with a weak deal, because we'd just end up with " a slightly modified business as usual future heading for temperature rises of 4C or more."

"If we can’t get anywhere, then let’s have the international community be honest about this and admit they have failed to deliver and that the world must prepare for very high levels of climate change. We mustn’t continue to hide our abject failure behind some long, eloquent document absent of substance."

  --------

https://www.chinadialogue.net/article/show/single/en/7473-The-world-is-heading-towards-a-weak-and-irrelevant-deal-on-climate-change

former director of the Tyndall Centre, the UK's leading academic climate change research organisation, talks to chinadialogue's Tom Levitt about climate politics and his hopes for a global deal on reducing emissions by the end of 2015.

Tom Levitt (TL): Is any deal better than no deal at the UN climate summit in Paris next year?

Kevin Anderson (KA): No, I don’t think it is. If no worthwhile deal appears to be forthcoming from Paris then first we have to be open and honest about that, and put in an emergency timetable to bring leaders together again to hammer out a deal. What will happen with a weak deal is targets or frameworks far removed from those necessary to meet the 2C commitments - first agreed by leaders at the Copenhagen Summit in 2009 - will be used to inform the basis of national policies. In practice we’d then likely only achieve a proportion of those and thereby lock in a slightly modified business as usual future heading for temperature rises of 4C or more.

Rather than having a weak and irrelevant deal that would stop the process of significant mitigation for another four or five years, we have to drive a process to bring our leaders back to negotiations. If we can’t get anywhere, then let’s have the international community be honest about this and admit they have failed to deliver and that the world must prepare for very high levels of climate change. We mustn’t continue to hide our abject failure behind some long, eloquent document absent of substance.

TL: How do you see the European Union’s leadership role on climate change?

KA: The EU has not developed internal policies that are in any way consistent with its repeated and expressed goals of avoiding the 2C characterisation of dangerous climate change. The EU is now aiming for what it says is an ambitious target of a 40% reduction in emissions by 2030. That’s far too weak. We need to achieve more than double that for the EU to be making its reasonably fair contribution to a 2C future as outlined by the IPCC. The science and the numbers that come out of the IPCC report in terms of the carbon budget – taking into account a reasonable element of equity - would mean nations and regions like the US, EU and Australia would need to reduce their emissions at a much faster rate than even the EU is considering.

TL: The UK has been seen as a leader on climate change since the passing of the Climate Change Act in 2008. But is it now in danger of ditching or failing to meet its commitments?

KA: To its credit the UK does have carbon budgets, but, unlike the 80% target for 2050 outlined in the Climate Change Act, they are not enshrined in law. The long-term, 2050 targets are irrelevant and worse still misleading in relation to climate change. The only thing that matters is the build-up of greenhouse gases, particularly CO2, in the atmosphere, in other words carbon budgets. The problem with the UK’s 2050 80% target is that it allows us to think that we can do things tomorrow that we failed to do today. If no agreement is reached in Paris next year, there may be increasing pressure on the government to repeal the Act itself. And even if the Act remains, I think the influence of the Committee on Climate Change may be reduced, and there is a risk that it could be abolished.

TL: If we were to have a realistic chance of meeting the 2C target, what expectation would that put on China?

KA: If we look at the IPCC's carbon budgets for a reasonable chance of staying within a 2C framing of climate change, then the message is fairly stark for Annex 1 countries, i.e. the US, Europe, etc. They have to eliminate fossil fuel use from their energy system early in the 2030s. For non-Annex 1 countries, including and dominated by China, they would need to eliminate all fossil fuels from their energy system by 2050, but also they need to peak their emissions by the mid 2020s and, by 2030, be delivering decarbonisation rates of at least 10% reductions year on year. Together these give a good chance of staying below a 2C rise in temperature.

A big point for China is the issue of infrastructure development. When China constructs airports, ports, roads or buildings it is currently locking in very high energy-use and hence carbon futures, as even China will not be able to transition to low-carbon energy sources at sufficient rate. The other issue is trying to overcome the way the West frames success and progress. China has a very different philosophical and cultural background to that of the West so has real scope to think differently about what it means to be successful. The model we’ve developed in the West is dominated by consumption – that’s how we repeatedly measure success – let us hope China can propose alternatives.

TL: How far can the policies promoted by The New Climate Economy report and others like them take us in reducing GHG emissions and tackling climate change?

KA: The first thing to bear in mind is that these reports are primarily about greening growth. They are not about climate stabilisation. That’s an important distinction. They are genuinely interested in how we can green the process of economic development, but they are not thinking about what the science says about carbon budgets and keeping to the 2C target. That’s a real danger because there is an assumption that if we green growth that’s adequate. But if the temperature keeps rising then the implications of a rapidly changed climate will, overall, play out negatively in terms of economic development.

These reports are authored by well meaning people trying to figure out how far you can push the current socio-economic and political systems to address climate change. The fact is that the speed and depth of mitigation now required for 2C begs fundamental questions of the current systems. Perhaps these systems could have addressed climate change if they’d responded appropriately at the time of the first IPCC report almost a quarter of a century ago. But in 2014 our emissions are 60-65% higher than they were in 1990 and are showing no signs of coming down in the next few years.

TL: Do you still have faith in the UN process or is it time to pursue alternatives like bilateral deals?

KA: I am all for continuing with the UNFCCC (United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change) and related processes, I think we need to be pushing them as hard as we can. But there are other things we should do alongside them. The UK’s Climate Change Act was a separate process, outside of the UNFCCC, as were the EU negotiations. We already have a mix of approaches. It’s a mistake to think that these can’t be designed to complement the UN negotiations. Ultimately however, if you are serious about climate change as a global problem then a global framework is necessary to understand the collective implications of everyone’s efforts. It is foolish and naïve to decry the UN process assuming you could substitute it for smaller, bilateral or other negotiations – these are necessary, but only as a complement to the UN process.

TL: Why do you think that message about 2C isn’t getting through to policymakers?

KA: Those of us in the scientific community who have been developing emissions scenarios and pathways have not served the policy-makers or civil society well. We have collectively adopted the approach of the New Climate Economy authors in trying to second-guess how hard we can push the political and economic system. It is our job as academics to stand outside of such constraints and say if the international community wants to meet it targets of 2C then these are the necessary carbon budgets and these are the range of accompanying emissions pathways. We should stand our ground as independent, objective analysts, much more than we have.

By trying to serve the political system in a way that is well meaning, we have ultimately undermined a robust understanding of the severity of the situation we have got ourselves into. It’s led us to the point today where we have squandered any reasonable opportunity of an evolutionary transition to 2°C, and now face revolutionary changes to our energy systems. The scale and timeframe of such systemic re-writing of energy supply, demand and distribution inevitably raises fundamental questions about the structure of contemporary society. 

We have squandered any reasonable chance of keeping within 2C of climate change unless we take draconian action, says climate scientist Kevin Anderson

The former director of the Tyndall Centre, the UK’s leading academic climate change research organisation, talks to chinadialogue’s Tom Levitt about climate politics and his hopes for a global deal on reducing emissions by the end of 2015.

…
KA: The EU has not developed internal policies that are in any way consistent with its repeated and expressed goals of avoiding the 2C characterisation of dangerous climate change. The EU is now aiming for what it says is an ambitious target of a 40% reduction in emissions by 2030. That’s far too weak. We need to achieve more than double that for the EU to be making its reasonably fair contribution to a 2C future as outlined by the IPCC. The science and the numbers that come out of the IPCC report in terms of the carbon budget – taking into account a reasonable element of equity – would mean nations and regions like the US, EU and Australia would need to reduce their emissions at a much faster rate than even the EU is considering.

TL: The UK has been seen as a leader on climate change since the passing of the Climate Change Act in 2008. But is it now in danger of ditching or failing to meet its commitments?

KA: To its credit the UK does have carbon budgets, but, unlike the 80% target for 2050 outlined in the Climate Change Act, they are not enshrined in law. The long-term, 2050 targets are irrelevant and worse still misleading in relation to climate change. The only thing that matters is the build-up of greenhouse gases, particularly CO2, in the atmosphere, in other words carbon budgets. The problem with the UK’s 2050 80% target is that it allows us to think that we can do things tomorrow that we failed to do today. If no agreement is reached in Paris next year, there may be increasing pressure on the government to repeal the Act itself. And even if the Act remains, I think the influence of the Committee on Climate Change may be reduced, and there is a risk that it could be abolished.

TL: If we were to have a realistic chance of meeting the 2C target, what expectation would that put on China?

KA: If we look at the IPCC’s carbon budgets for a reasonable chance of staying within a 2C framing of climate change, then the message is fairly stark for Annex 1 countries, i.e. the US, Europe, etc. They have to eliminate fossil fuel use from their energy system early in the 2030s. For non-Annex 1 countries, including and dominated by China, they would need to eliminate all fossil fuels from their energy system by 2050, but also they need to peak their emissions by the mid 2020s and, by 2030, be delivering decarbonisation rates of at least 10% reductions year on year. Together these give a good chance of staying below a 2C rise in temperature.

A big point for China is the issue of infrastructure development. When China constructs airports, ports, roads or buildings it is currently locking in very high energy-use and hence carbon futures, as even China will not be able to transition to low-carbon energy sources at sufficient rate. The other issue is trying to overcome the way the West frames success and progress. China has a very different philosophical and cultural background to that of the West so has real scope to think differently about what it means to be successful. The model we’ve developed in the West is dominated by consumption – that’s how we repeatedly measure success – let us hope China can propose alternatives.

TL: How far can the policies promoted by The New Climate Economy report and others like them take us in reducing GHG emissions and tackling climate change?

KA: The first thing to bear in mind is that these reports are primarily about greening growth. They are not about climate stabilisation. That’s an important distinction. They are genuinely interested in how we can green the process of economic development, but they are not thinking about what the science says about carbon budgets and keeping to the 2C target. That’s a real danger because there is an assumption that if we green growth that’s adequate. But if the temperature keeps rising then the implications of a rapidly changed climate will, overall, play out negatively in terms of economic development.

These reports are authored by well meaning people trying to figure out how far you can push the current socio-economic and political systems to address climate change. The fact is that the speed and depth of mitigation now required for 2C begs fundamental questions of the current systems. Perhaps these systems could have addressed climate change if they’d responded appropriately at the time of the first IPCC report almost a quarter of a century ago. But in 2014 our emissions are 60-65% higher than they were in 1990 and are showing no signs of coming down in the next few years.

TL: Do you still have faith in the UN process or is it time to pursue alternatives like bilateral deals?

KA: I am all for continuing with the UNFCCC (United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change) and related processes, I think we need to be pushing them as hard as we can. But there are other things we should do alongside them. The UK’s Climate Change Act was a separate process, outside of the UNFCCC, as were the EU negotiations. We already have a mix of approaches. It’s a mistake to think that these can’t be designed to complement the UN negotiations. Ultimately however, if you are serious about climate change as a global problem then a global framework is necessary to understand the collective implications of everyone’s efforts. It is foolish and naïve to decry the UN process assuming you could substitute it for smaller, bilateral or other negotiations – these are necessary, but only as a complement to the UN process.

TL: Why do you think that message about 2C isn’t getting through to policymakers?

KA: Those of us in the scientific community who have been developing emissions scenarios and pathways have not served the policy-makers or civil society well. We have collectively adopted the approach of the New Climate Economy authors in trying to second-guess how hard we can push the political and economic system. It is our job as academics to stand outside of such constraints and say if the international community wants to meet it targets of 2C then these are the necessary carbon budgets and these are the range of accompanying emissions pathways. We should stand our ground as independent, objective analysts, much more than we have.

By trying to serve the political system in a way that is well meaning, we have ultimately undermined a robust understanding of the severity of the situation we have got ourselves into. It’s led us to the point today where we have squandered any reasonable opportunity of an evolutionary transition to 2°C, and now face revolutionary changes to our energy systems. The scale and timeframe of such systemic re-writing of energy supply, demand and distribution inevitably raises fundamental questions about the structure of contemporary society.

It's not the end of the world

we can live beside the ocean
linger far behind
swim out past the breaker
watch the world die

  -Everclear (Santa Monica)

Greetings

    Things must be looking pretty bad if a "doomer" like Kingsnorth gets a spot in the NYT Sunday mag!    

            The sad fact is that we are going past 2 degrees.  (In about 20 years, according to Dr hockey stiock - Michael Mann)  We missed the boat on that.   So, we need to deal with it.  The future isn't what we'd hoped for.  Its going to be a mess.  Its not the end of the world, though.

      Perhaps "giving up hope" is a step toward dealing with reality

Here's another take:

Clive Hamilton in his “Requiem for a Species: Why We Resist the Truth About Climate Change” describes a dark relief that comes from accepting that “catastrophic climate change is virtually certain.” This obliteration of “false hopes,” he says, requires an intellectual knowledge and an emotional knowledge. The first is attainable. The second, because it means that those we love, including our children, are almost certainly doomed to insecurity, misery and suffering within a few decades, if not a few years, is much harder to acquire. To emotionally accept impending disaster, to attain the gut-level understanding that the power elite will not respond rationally to the devastation of the ecosystem, is as difficult to accept as our own mortality. The most daunting existential struggle of our time is to ingest this awful truth—intellectually and emotionally—and continue to resist the forces that are destroying us.

http://www.truthdig.com/report/print/the_myth_of_human_progress_20130113

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http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/20/magazine/its-the-end-of-the-world-as-we-know-it-and-he-feels-fine.html

Giddy-up 409

My four speed dual quad posi-traction 409

-Beach boys

Well, the last thing I remember, Doc, I started to swerve
And then I saw the Jag slide into the curve
I know I'll never forget that horrible sight
I guess I found out for myself that everyone was right
Won't come back from Dead Man's Curve

_Jan and Dean

Greetings

  Isn't civilization great?  It gave us muscle cars and plenty of gas to run them..   Too bad we didn't know enough to avoid dead man's curve. 

    Michael Mann has a new article in Scientific American: Earth Will Cross Climate Danger Threshold in 2036.     See more below  

    He addresses the "pause', which he calls a "slow down".  Also he tries to get a grip on climate sensitivity.    If I am understanding his points, he says that climate sensitivity estimates range from 1.5 to 4.5.  He uses 3.   Once we reach 405, we will have locked in 2 degrees - but due to lags in the system , we won't hit 2 degrees until 2036.  (If sensitivity were 2.5 it would be 2046 - likewise if sensitivity were higher, presumably we would hit 2 degrees sooner) 

 

     Why 405?  And not 450?   In a word -  "aerosols"   So far, aerosols have been masking some of the impacts of coal burning.    Hanson calls this the "Faustian Bargain" 

"These findings have implications for what we all must do to prevent disaster. An ECS of three degrees C means that if we are to limit global warming to below two degrees C forever, we need to keep CO₂ concentrations far below twice preindustrial levels, closer to 450 ppm. Ironically, if the world burns significantly less coal, that would lessen CO₂ emissions but also reduce aerosols in the atmosphere that block the sun (such as sulfate particulates), so we would have to limit CO₂ to below roughly 405 ppm."

    What are we make of this?    Consider food for instance.  While the FAO predicts that by 2050, world population will increase by 50%.  On the other hand  the IPCC predicts that food production will decrease by 2% per decade.  And recent studies suggest even with adaptation there may be more serious impacts to agriculture.   see here

The authors of both papers found that farming innovations could reduce the negative impact of climate change on yields, but that the impact was still negative.

“While just the climate change effects (result in) a 17% negative yield hit on average, the final yield hit is only 11%, again on average,” said the lead author of both papers, Gerald Nelson.

 

     When?   This paper asserts that the yields will begin to fall in the 2030's

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Far Worse than Being Beaten with a Hockey Stick: Michael Mann, Our Terrifying Greenhouse Gas Overburden and Heating the Earth by + 2 C by 2036

I’m going to say something that will probably seem completely outrageous. But I want you to think about it, because it’s true.

You, where-ever you are now, are living through the first stages of a disaster in which there is nowhere to run, nowhere to hide, and no safe place on Earth for you to go to avoid it. The disaster you are now living through is a greenhouse emergency and with each ounce of CO2, methane and other greenhouse gasses you, I, or the rest of us, pump into the air, that emergency grows in the vast potential of damage and harm that it will inflict over the coming years, decades and centuries. The emergency is now unavoidable and the only thing we can hope to do through rational action is to reduce the degree of harm both short and long term, to rapidly stop making the problem worse, and to put human ingenuity toward solving the problem rather than continuing to intensify it.

But damage, severe, deadly and terrifying is unleashed, in effect and already happening, with more on the way.

*    *    *    *    *

(Michael Mann’s famous Hockey Stick graph showing Northern Hemisphere temperatures over the past 1,000 years. The influences of human warming become readily apparent from the late 19th to early 21rst centuries. But human greenhouse gas forcing has much greater degrees of warming in store.)

This week, Michael Mann wrote an excellent piece describing the immediacy of our current emergency in the Scientific American. In typical, just the facts, fashion, he laid out a series of truths relevant to the current greenhouse catastrophe. These facts were told in a plain manner and, yet, in a way that laid out the problem but didn’t even begin to open the book on what that problem meant in broader context.

Michael Mann is an amazing scientist who has his hand on the pulse of human-caused climate change. He is a kind of modern Galileo of climate science in that he has born the brunt of some of the most severe and asinine attacks for simply telling the truth and for revealing the nature of our world as it stands. But though Mann’s facts are both brutal and hard-hitting for those of us who constantly read the climate science, who wade through the literature and analyze each new report. By simply stating the facts and not telling us what they mean he is hitting us with a somewhat nerfed version of his ground-breaking Hockey Stick. A pounding that may seem brutal when compared to the comfortable nonsense put out by climate change deniers and fossil fuel apologists but one that is still not yet a full revelation.

I will caveat what is a passionate interjection by simply saying that Michael Mann is one of my most beloved heroes. And so I will do my best to help him out by attempting to lend more potency to his already powerful message.

2 C by 2036 — Digging through the Ugly Guts of it

All that said, Michael Mann laid out some brutal, brutal facts in his Scientific American piece. Ones, that if you only take a few moments to think about are simply terrifying. For the simple truth is that the world has only a very, very slim hope of preventing a rapid warming to at least 2 C above 1880s levels in the near future and almost zero hope altogether of stopping such warming in the longer term.

The first set of figures Mann provides involves the current greenhouse gas forcing. Current CO2 levels are now at the very dangerous 400 parts per million threshold. Long term, and all by itself, this forcing is enough to raise global temperatures by between 2 and 3 degrees Celsius. But hold that thought you were just about to have, because we haven’t yet included all the other greenhouse gasses in that forcing.

Mann, in the supplemental material to his Scientific American paper, notes that the total forcing of all other greenhouse gasses currently in the atmosphere is about 20% of the total CO2 forcing. This gives us a total CO2 equivalent forcing of 480 ppm CO2e, which uncannily mirrors my own analysis here (the science may have under-counted a bit on the methane forcing, but this value is likely quite close to current reality for both the short and long term).

480 ppm CO2e is one hell of a forcing. It is nearly a 75% greater forcing than 1880s values and, all by itself, is enough to raise temperatures long-term by between 3.5 and 4.5 degrees Celsius.

And it is at this point that it becomes worthwhile talking a bit about different climate sensitivity measures. The measure I am using to determine this number is what is called the Earth Systems Sensitivity measure (ESS). It is the measure that describes long term warming once all the so called slow feedbacks like ice sheet response (think the giant glaciers of Greenland and West Antarctica) and environmental carbon release (think methane release from thawing tundra and sea bed clathrates) come into the equation. Mann, uses a shorter term estimate called Equilibrium Climate Sensitivity (ECS). It’s a measure that tracks the fast warming response time once the fast feedbacks such as water vapor response and sea ice response are taken into account. ECS warming, therefore, is about half of ESS warming. But the catch is that ECS hits you much sooner.

At 480 ppm CO2e, we can expect between 1.75 and 2.25 degrees C of warming from ECS. In essence, we’ve locked about 2 C worth of short term warming in now. And this is kind of a big deal. I’d call it a BFD, but that would be swearing. And if there is ever an occasion for swearing then it would be now. So deal with it.

Mann, in his article, takes note of the immediacy of the problem by simply stating that we hit 2 C of shorter term ECS warming once we hit 405 ppm CO2 (485 CO2e), in about two to three years. And it’s important for us to know that this is the kind of heat forcing that is now hanging over our heads. That there’s enough greenhouse gas loading in the atmosphere to push warming 2 C higher almost immediately and 4 C higher long term. And that, all by itself, is a disaster unlike anything humans have ever encountered.

(Global annual fossil fuel emission is currently tracking faster than the worst-case IPCC scenario. Aerosols mask some of the heating effect of this enormous emission, what James Hansen calls ‘a Faustian Bargain.’ Image source: Hansen Paper.)

But there is a wrinkle to this equation. One that Dr. James Hansen likes to call the Faustian Bargain. And that wrinkle involves human produced aerosols. For by burning coal, humans pump fine particles into the atmosphere that reflect sunlight thereby masking the total effect of the greenhouse gasses we have already put into the atmosphere. The nasty little trick here is that if you stop burning coal, the aerosols fall out in only a few years and you then end up with the full heat forcing. Even worse, continuing to burn coal produces prodigious volumes of CO2 while mining coal pumps volatile methane into the atmosphere. It’s like taking a kind of poison that will eventually kill you but makes you feel better as you’re taking it. Kind of like the greenhouse gas version of heroine.

So the ghg heroine/coal has injected particles into the air that mask the total warming. And as a result we end up with a delayed effect with an extraordinarily severe hit at the end when we finally stop burning coal. Never stop burning coal and you end up reaching the same place eventually anyway. So it’s a rigged game that you either lose now or you lose in a far worse way later.

Mann wraps coal and other human aerosol emissions into his equation and, under business as usual, finds that we hit 2 C of ECS warming by 2036 as global CO2 levels approach 450 ppmv and global CO2e values approach 540 ppmv. At that point, were the aerosols to fall out we end up with an actual short term warming (ECS) response of 2.5 to 3 C and a long term response (ESS) of about 5 to 6 C. (Don’t believe me? Plug in the numbers for yourself in Mann’s climate model here.)

So ripping the bandaid off and looking at the nasty thing underneath, we find that even my earlier estimates were probably a bit too conservative and Mann, though we didn’t quite realize it at first, is hitting us very hard with his hockey stick.

What does a World That Warms So Rapidly to 2 C Look Like?

OK. That was rough. But what I am about to do is much worse. I’m going to take a look at actual effects of what, to this point, has simply been a clinical analysis of the numbers. I’m going to do my best to answer the question — what does a world rapidly warming by 2 C over the next 22 years look like?

Ugly. Even more ugly than the numbers, in fact.

First, let’s take a look at rates of evaporation and precipitation. We know that, based on past research, the hydrological cycle increases by about 6% for each degree Celsius of temperature increase. So far, with about .8 C worth of warming, we’ve had about a 5% increase in the hydrological cycle. What this means is that evaporation rates increase by 5% and precipitation events, on average, increase by about 5%. But because weather is uneven, what this does is radically increase the frequency and amplitude of extreme weather. Droughts are more frequent and more severe. Deluges are more frequent and more severe.

(Program in which top climate scientists explain how global warming increases the intensity of evaporation and precipitation all while causing dangerous changes to the Jet Stream.)

At 2 C warming we can change this loading from a 5% increase in the hydrological cycle of evaporation and precipitation to a 12% increase. You think the droughts and deluges are bad now? Just imagine what would happen if the driver of that intensity more than doubled. What do you end up with then?

Now let’s look at something that is directly related to extreme weather — sea ice loss. In the current world, about .8 C worth of warming has resulted in about 3.2 C worth of warming in the polar regions. And this warming has resulted in a massive and visible decline of sea ice in which end summer volume values are up to 80% less than those seen during the late 1970s. This loss of sea ice has had severe effects on the Northern Hemisphere Jet Stream, both pulling it more toward the pole and resulting in high amplitude Jet Stream waves and local severe intensification of storm tracks. At 2 C worth of global warming, the Arctic heats up by around 7 C and the result is extended periods of ice free conditions during the summer and fall that last for weeks and months.

(Actual rate of sea ice loss vs IPCC model predictions. The most recent record low value achieved in 2012 is indicated by the dot. Image source: Assessment of Arctic Sea Ice/UCAR Report.)

The impacts to the Northern Hemisphere Jet Stream are ever more severe as are the impacts to Greenland ice sheet melt. Under such a situation we rapidly get into a weather scenario where screaming temperature differentials between the North Atlantic near Greenland and the warming tropics generate storms the likes of which we have never seen. Add in a 12% boost to the hydrological cycle and we get the potential for what Dr. James Hansen describes as “frontal storms the size of continents with the intensity of hurricanes.”

Greenland melt itself is much faster under 2 C of added heat and the ice sheets are in dangerous and rapid destabilization. It’s possible that the kick will be enough to double, triple, quadruple or more the current pace of sea level rise. Half foot or more per decade sea level rise rapidly becomes possible.

All this severe weather, the intense rain, the powerful wind storms and the intense droughts aren’t kind to crops. IPCC projects a 2% net loss in crop yields each decade going forward. But this is likely to be the lower bound of a more realistic 2-10 percent figure. Modern agriculture is hit very, very hard in the context of a rapidly changing climate, increasing rates of moisture loss from soil and moisture delivery through brief and epically intense storms.

The rapid jump to 2 C is also enough to put at risk a growing list of horrors including rapid ocean stratification and anoxia (essentially initiating a mass die off in the oceans), large methane and additional CO2 release from carbon stores in the Arctic, and the unlocking of dangerous ancient microbes from thawing ice, microbes for which current plants and animals do not have adequate immune defenses.

How do we avoid this?

In short, it might not be possible to avoid some or even all of these effects. But we may as well try. And this is what trying would look like.

First, we would rapidly reduce human greenhouse gas emissions to near zero. As this happens, we would probably want a global fleet of aircraft that spray sulfate particles into the lower atmosphere to make up for the loss of aerosols once produced by coal plants. Finally, we would need an array of atmospheric carbon capture techniques including forest growth and cutting, then sequestration of the carbon stored by wood in lakes or in underground repositories, chemical atmospheric carbon capture, and carbon capture of biomass emissions.

For safety, we would need to eventually reduce CO2 to less than 350 ppm, methane to less than 1,000 ppb, and eliminate emissions from other greenhouse gasses. A very tall order that would require the sharing of resources, heroic sacrifices by every human being on this Earth, and a global coordination and cooperation of nations not yet before seen. Something that is possible in theory but has not yet been witnessed in practice. A test to see if humankind is mature enough to ensure its own survival and the continuation of life and diversity on the only world we know. A tall order, indeed, but one we must at least attempt.

Links:

Earth Will Cross Climate Danger Threshold by 2036

What does a World at 400 Parts per Million CO2 Look Like Long-Term?

One Scientist Argues 2036 Could be Point of No Return for Climate Disaster

A Faustian Bargain on the Short Road to Hell

Doubling Down on our Faustian Bargain

Dr. Jennifer Francis, Top Climate Scientists Explain How Global Warming Aps the Hydrological Cycle and Wrecks the Jet Stream to Unleash Extreme Weather

Assessment of Arctic Sea Ice/UCAR Report