Global Warming...New Report...and it ain't happy news

The graphs above have all been presented in a way that maximizes the visual effect of the trends being presented. Imagine what they would look like if they were plotted on a scale that showed zero so that the observer could see the real relative magnitude of the changes in question. They would appear MUCH smaller.

CO2 IS accumulating in the atmosphere. However it is not the only or even the most important of the greenhouse gases. Methane, CH4 ,is per unit mass about 22 times as effective a greenhouse gas as CO2. The total greenhouse effect (in terms of the increase in the last century) is a good deal less than would be indicated by the concentration of CO2 alone. Indeed for a given mass of carbon allowed to enter the atmosphere through a combustion or decay process, CO2 is likely the least harmful of the possibilities. It is readily absorbed by green plants in photosynthesis and also taken up by the oceans in the form of carbonic acid and eventually is precipitated out as calcium carbonate. Methane has a much greater greenhouse effect and is not nearly so easily removed from the atmosphere.

For a given quantity of mechanical energy output, a heat engine run on carbon fuels produces less greenhouse effect than feeding the carbon fuel to a horse and harvesting the energy through its motion. The combustion process in the heat engine produces only CO & CO2, while that in the horse's gut yields methane. Montana's dream of a bucolic world driven by horsepower would be far worse for the atmosphers than what we have now.

If the earth's population were to be reduced to the levels of the early 19th century, then it wouldn't matter much how we produced our energy. That is the key point here.

The reductions in the CO2 output implied in the graphical depictions above cannot be achieved by banning SUVs or mandating compound engines in automobiles, or more efficient lighting or all the rest of the familiar litany so favored by environmental zealots. The critical element in the solution is much more widespread use of zero emission nuclear power for both electrical generation and for the production of hydrogen fuels for vehicles (free hydrogen does not occur in nature - one must apply energy in some form to separate it).

Strangely most global warming fanatics are also anti-nuke. Go figure.

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bm

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blatham wrote:

thomas

You can put the scowl away in your pocket.

Done. Good luck for the Carnegie Hall debut, and congratulations to your niece for making it there in the first place. You must be awfully proud of her! Smile

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Quote:

Global warming is 'twice as bad as previously thought'

By Steve Connor, Science Editor
27 January 2005

Global warming might be twice as catastrophic as previously thought, flooding settlements on the British coast and turning the interior into an unrecognisable tropical landscape, the world's biggest study of climate change shows.

Researchers from some of Britain's leading universities used computer modelling to predict that under the "worst-case" scenario, London would be under water and winters banished to history as average temperatures in the UK soar up to 20C higher than at present.

Globally, average temperatures could reach 11C greater than today, double the rise predicted by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the international body set up to investigate global warming. Such high temperatures would melt most of the polar icecaps and mountain glaciers, raising sea levels by more than 20ft. A report this week in The Independent predicted a 2C temperature rise would lead to irreversible changes in the climate.

The new study, in the journal Nature, was done using the spare computing time of 95,000 people from 150 countries who downloaded from the internet the global climate model of the Met Office's Hadley Centre for Climate Prediction and Research. The program, run as a screensaver, simulated what would happen if carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere were double those of the 18th century, before the Industrial Revolution, the situation predicted by the middle of this century.

David Stainforth of Oxford University, the chief scientist of the latest study, said processing the results showed the Earth's climate is far more sensitive to increases in man-made greenhouse gases than previously realised. The findings indicate a doubling of carbon dioxide from the pre-industrial level of 280 parts per million would increase global average temperatures by between 2C and 11C.

Mr Stainforth said: "An 11C-warmed world would be a dramatically different world... There would be large areas at higher latitudes that could be up to 20C warmer than today. The UK would be at the high end of these changes. It is possible that even present levels of greenhouse gases maintained for long periods may lead to dangerous climate change... When you start to look at these temperatures, I get very worried indeed."

Attempts to control global warming, based on the Kyoto treaty, concentrated on stabilising the emissions of greenhouse gases at 1990 levels, but the scientists warned that this might not be enough. Mr Stainforth added: "We need to accept that while greenhouse gas levels can increase we need to limit them, level them off then bring them back down again."

Professor Bob Spicer, of the Open University, said average global temperature rises of 11C are unprecedented in the long geological record of the Earth. "If we go back to the Cretaceous, which is 100 million years ago, the best estimates of the global mean temperature was about 6C higher than present," Professor Spicer said. "So 11C is quite substantial and if this is right we would be going into a realm that we really don't have much evidence for even in the rock [geological] record."

Myles Allen, of Oxford University, said: "The danger zone is not something we're going to reach in the middle of the century; we're in it now." Each of the hottest 15 years on record have been since 1980.

Source

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Related Nature article:

Quote:

Nature 433, 403 - 406 (27 January 2005); doi:10.1038/nature03301

Uncertainty in predictions of the climate response to rising levels of greenhouse gases

D. A. STAINFORTH1, T. AINA1, C. CHRISTENSEN2, M. COLLINS3, N. FAULL1, D. J. FRAME1, J. A. KETTLEBOROUGH4, S. KNIGHT1, A. MARTIN2, J. M. MURPHY3, C. PIANI1, D. SEXTON3, L. A. SMITH5, R. A. SPICER6, A. J. THORPE7 & M. R. ALLEN1

1 Department of Physics, University of Oxford, Parks Road, Oxford OX1 3PU, UK
2 Computing Laboratory, University of Oxford, Parks Road, Oxford OX1 3QD, UK
3 Hadley Centre for Climate Prediction and Research, Met Office, Exeter EX1 3PB, UK
4 Rutherford Appleton Laboratory, Chilton, Oxfordshire, OX11 0QX, UK
5 London School of Economics, London WC2A 2AE, UK
6 Department of Earth Sciences, The Open University, Milton Keynes MK7 6AA, UK
7 Department of Meteorology, University of Reading, Reading RG6 6BB, UK

Correspondence and requests for materials should be addressed to D.A.S. ([email protected]).

News release

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The latest issue of Nature will be delivered to my employer's library either tomorrow or Monday. I will read it whenever it arrives and comment on it after that.

For now, I'll just note that the Independent's headline says "Global warming is 'twice as bad as previously thought' ". But when you check this against the abstract of the actual Nature paper, you see that this isn't what it tells us at all. Its message could much more accurately be summed up as 'our uncertainty about the extent of global warming is twice as bad as previously thought.' We are looking at a big leap from 'a lot of scenarios seem physically possible according to our models' in a peer-reviewed scientific article to 'Scientists predict doom' in the press coverage of that article.

Leaps like this are typical in the global warming debate, even for otherwise reliable newspapers. I also think they are most unfortunate.

***

Having read the abstract of the Nature article, it strikes me that the authors give a very, very wide range for the sensitivity of global temperatures to CO2: 1.9-11.5°C of warming for a doubling of carbon dioxide concentration. But even so, the global warming that was actually observed lies outside of that range, significantly below their low estimate. Over the last 150 years, when CO2 concentrations rose from 280 to 360 ppm, global warming was 0.6°C, which computes to a sensitivity of 1.6°C for a doubling -- less if you also account for other greenhouse gasses. So it seems that their model, when fed with the CO2 concentrations actually observed over time, grossly overestimates the warming that was actually observed over time. I'm curious what the authors have to say about that.

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thomas

Thanks. The performance is tomorrow night. I'm not an opera fan, so I'll probably bring my iPOD. Megan rehearsed the other day with a pianist from the Met, who stopped her midway and said, "Dear, the people at the Metropolitan have to hear you. If the right ones aren't at this performance, I'm going to to arrange for you to sing for them." So, that made her day. The only real bad news in all of this, and it is significant, is that my older brother seems to have concluded that musical-ability traits are inherited backwards. He is now constantly in song, and it's godawful, and I'll probably have to kill him.

You and I disagree on a bunch of stuff (possibly everything other than what sorts of girls are pretty and whether all germans are evil or just most) but I think you a good fellow and one of the folks here who believes we ought to be mindful of our assumptions and and cautious in our reasoning.

This is another quick in and out on the subject. Could I have it wrong re the special editions?! It's possible, I don't recall now where I got that, though I remember bringing it up with you a couple of years back. I'll try to isolate that 'datum' and will let you know if I don't find it to be so.

But quickly, on the issue of dollars behind the two camps here...I really don't think you can credibly argue that the granola crowd has financial capabilities even approaching that of the industries involved. Not to mention access, though that's usually directly related. Here's something from today's Guardian.

Quote:

Oil firms fund campaign to deny climate change

David Adam, science correspondent
Thursday January 27, 2005
The Guardian

Lobby groups funded by the US oil industry are targeting Britain in a bid to play down the threat of climate change and derail action to cut greenhouse gas emissions, leading scientists have warned.
Bob May, president of the Royal Society, says a "a lobby of professional sceptics who opposed action to tackle climate change" is turning its attention to Britain because of its high profile in the debate.

Writing in the Life section of today's Guardian, Prof May says the government's decision to make global warming a focus of its G8 presidency has made it a target. So has the high profile of its chief scientific adviser, David King, who described climate change as a bigger threat than terrorism.

Prof May's warning coincides with a meeting of climate change sceptics today at the Royal Institution in London organised by a British group, the Scientific Alliance, which has links to US oil company ExxonMobil through a collaboration with a US institute.

Last month the Scientific Alliance published a joint report with the George C Marshall Institute in Washington that claimed to "undermine" climate change claims. The Marshall institute received £51,000 from ExxonMobil for its "global climate change programme" in 2003, and an undisclosed sum this month...

MORE

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Thomas wrote:

The latest issue of Nature will be delivered to my employer's library either tomorrow or Monday. I will read it whenever it arrives and comment on it after that.

For now, I'll just note that the Independent's headline says "Global warming is 'twice as bad as previously thought' ". But when you check this against the abstract of the actual Nature paper, you see that this isn't what it tells us at all.

I couldn't read the complete article either.

However, when you read the press release (see my link), you'll notice that The Independent wasn't that wrong at all:

Quote:

Biggest-ever climate simulation warns temperatures may rise by 11 ºC.

In the worst-case scenario, doubling carbon-dioxide levels compared with pre-industrial times increases global temperatures by an average of more than 11 ºC.

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Walter Hinteler wrote:

However, when you read the press release (see my link), you'll notice that The Independent wasn't that wrong at all:

Quote:
Biggest-ever climate simulation warns temperatures may rise by 11 ºC.

In the worst-case scenario, doubling carbon-dioxide levels compared with pre-industrial times increases global temperatures by an average of more than 11 ºC.

I did read the press release. Note that it also says this:

Quote:

The project's final predictions are based on the 2,017 simulations that were able to mimic the current climate. All predicted temperature rises. Most were about 3.4 ºC, the average value predicted by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change; many were far more severe.

So the new simulations produce an extent of projected global warming that is similar to the IPCC's simulations. But thanks to their improved model, they can explore more of the far-out, unlikely scenarios that the IPCC couldn't simulate yet. Presumably, that's why the article's title emphasises the uncertainty about global warming, not the expected extent of it. The Independent's confidence is further contradicted by the fact that the IPCC, at least, has explicitly given up on predicting future global warming. That's why they call their scenarios "projections", and why one IPCC member called them an attempt of "computer-aided storytelling". I will have to read the Nature article to find out if the authors set out to do anything more ambitious. But I would be surprised if they did.

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Okay, I was mainly referring to the "at all" in your "this isn't what it tells us at all".

Sorry that I didn't clear that up well enough.

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OK Walter, you are correct. The headline touts 11 deg C, but if one reads on, one finds a reference to this as the worst case scenario. This, without any acknowledgement of the wide variation implicit in the forecast, or of the fact that te measured warming so far falls below even the lower limit of that forecast, does not constitute responsible and accurate reporting of anything -- not long range climatological trends, and certainly not not tomorrow's weather forecast (would you rely on a daily weather forecast that reported things this way?).

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georgeob1 wrote:

(would you rely on a daily weather forecast that reported things this way?).

Certainly not ... but I if I found them surpringly in the 'Science section' of my paper, who knows Laughing

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I think a lot of the concern of Global Warming stems from the scientific community's success in their ability to detect, analyze and seemingly solve the problem of ozone depletion. (At least, we assume the global aggreements to cut CFCs will have their desired effect within the expected 50 years.)

Unfortunately, it seems likely that whatever the causes of this bigger problem, Global Warming, or at least the "apparent" warming of the global climate, the solution will be much more complex than cutting the proliferation of man-made non-water-soluble chlorine.

I remember how some people complained that we couldn't live without our CFC's. It sounds strangely reminiscent of how we couldn't possibly live within the Kyoto Accord. Apparently the agreement we didn't sign in Kyoto was seriously flawed because it would put so much of the onus on the U.S. and other developing countries. Well, why didn't somebody brilliant come up with another Accord? Instead, our country's official response has been to blow off the entire subject. "What Global Warming?" is the Bush Adminstration's response -- so eloquently repeated by Georgeob1.

Clearly there is a lot of work to be done in gauging the extent of climatic change, determining whether we are in a true spiral, a cycle or a stable variation. Clearly the United States is not spending too much in doing that work.

It is pretty well-known that ice studies show that over the last 100,000 years, there have been several world-wide climatic changes, some, at least, which were abrupt -- changing within a decade or so. Climatic change, particularly abrupt change, would be disastrous for most of us... climate change from whatever cause.

The hard-headedness of those who refuse to even plan for the spectre of abrupt global change is astounding, as Squinney alluded to. It seems matched by this country's dragging of its many feet in funding long-term climatic simulation reserach. In 1995, it was determined that the United States seriously lagged behind other countries in its ability to perform those simulations. From recent news reports it seems that this deficit has not been corrected. Since these critical and costly simulations are done in other countries, the American non-performers are free to question the accuracy of the work and the political motivations of the workers.

Some people are worried about global warming for whatever cause. Those people, like me, see what seems to be apparent changes in climate -- noting, of course, that our short lifespans subject us to a biased view of such things. Nevertheless, we cannot understand why our government isn't: 1) Broadly funding continued research, 2) Planning for mitigations of suspected human causes (as were found to be the case with ozone depletion), and 3) Making further plans for just what the hell we're going to do if, in three or four decades, the entire world is faced with a much more serious problem. Other countries take this seriously. Our country officially doesn't.

Granted we have not been taking accurate climatic temperature measurements for not much more than 150 years. Grant, also, that during that time, the ten HOTTEST years have all occurred since 1990.

As the world begins to slowly burn, when the water needed for agriculture is not there, and as the oceans rise will the successor to George W. continue to play his lyre?

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Piffka wrote:

I remember how some people complained that we couldn't live without our CFC's. It sounds strangely reminiscent of how we couldn't possibly live within the Kyoto Accord.

I remember them too, and I also remember such arguments when cars were required to run on un-leaded fuel and have catalysators. I agree that the arguments on the political battlefield were similar. But I am not aware that the anti-catalysator position or the keep-the-CFCs position had a broad foundation in peer-reviewed literature from economists on their side. The anti-Kyoto position does.

Piffka wrote:

It is pretty well-known that ice studies show that over the last 100,000 years, there have been several world-wide climatic changes, some, at least, which were abrupt -- changing within a decade or so. Climatic change, particularly abrupt change, would be disastrous for most of us...

May I ask what your source for this assertion is?

Piffka wrote:

In 1995, it was determined that the United States seriously lagged behind other countries in its ability to perform those simulations. From recent news reports it seems that this deficit has not been corrected.

This point I can easily understand, for two reasons. 1) Computing power isn't the limiting factor for finding out the probable future of climate change. Since the last IPCC report in 2001, Moore's law has increased the computing power each dollar can buy by a factor of five. This has barely made any difference to the quality of our climate models. The limiting factor for climate research isn't the production of new computer-generated hypotheses; it's the difficulty of checking those hypotheses against empirical data. 2) Climate change is something that happens over decades and centuries. Therefore, given Moore's law, I can't see why it is necessary to run climate simulations on a $100,000 computer now, rather than on a $10,000 computer of equal power six years later. What you see as an objectionable underfunding, I see as a sensible time preference.

Piffka wrote:

Other countries take this seriously. Our country officially doesn't.

I think that oversimplifies reality on both accounts. What your federal government officially says (to the dismay of some state governments) is that it needs better science before it decides to spend billions of dollars a year on reducing global warming. Personally, this strikes me as reasonable. On the other side of the Atlantic, many European governments have signed Kyoto, including my own. But I expect they will unofficially fall off the wagon as soon as CO2 reductions start to impose serious costs on them. (Which is what they did with earlier climate treaties, and which also strikes me as reasonable.)

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By my lunchtime walk today, I passed some thorn bushes and the buds were about to break.
Very unusual for January, in these latitudes.

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McTag wrote:

By my lunchtime walk today, I passed some thorn bushes and the buds were about to break.
Very unusual for January, in these latitudes.

Well it's 22deg F in Washington and the ground is covered in snow. Perhaps the warming is a European phenomenon.

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Hello Thomas.

Thomas wrote:

... keep-the-CFCs position had a broad foundation in peer-reviewed literature from economists on their side. The anti-Kyoto position does.

Since when should an economist have anything to say about what seems to me a strictly science matter? An economist can say, "Oh, God. THIS won't be good." But to discuss whether science is accurate, I'd say a real scientist who has studied the field -- ie. can read ice cores, study earlier climate clues and relate them to current climate is MUCH more important in any peer-reviews. Don't you?

Anyway, as I said: Let some brilliant person give us a change from Kyoto, since Kyoto is fatally flawed. If there isn't Kyoto, give us a new accord. Bring the developing countries to the table. They've recently seen the damage from a single large underwater earthquake and might perhaps have more inkling as to the possibilities that we could face if there is catastrophic climatic change.

Thomas wrote:

Piffka wrote:
It is pretty well-known that ice studies show that over the last 100,000 years, there have been several world-wide climatic changes, some, at least, which were abrupt -- changing within a decade or so. Climatic change, particularly abrupt change, would be disastrous for most of us...

May I ask what your source for this assertion is?

Do you doubt this assertion?

http://books.nap.edu/catalog/10136.html
National Academies Press -- blurb re. 2002 Abrupt Climate Change: Inevitable Surprises

The National Academy of Science is a pretty big wheel around here. Any additional fight should be taken up with them.

Thomas wrote:

Piffka wrote:
In 1995, it was determined that the United States seriously lagged behind other countries in its ability to perform those simulations. From recent news reports it seems that this deficit has not been corrected.

This point I can easily understand, for two reasons. 1) Computing power isn't the limiting factor for finding out the probable future of climate change. Since the last IPCC report in 2001, Moore's law has increased the computing power each dollar can buy by a factor of five. This has barely made any difference to the quality of our climate models. The limiting factor for climate research isn't the production of new computer-generated hypotheses; it's the difficulty of checking those hypotheses against empirical data. 2) Climate change is something that happens over decades and centuries. Therefore, given Moore's law, I can't see why it is necessary to run climate simulations on a $100,000 computer now, rather than on a $10,000 computer of equal power six years later. What you see as an objectionable underfunding, I see as a sensible time preference.

Actually, from what the website says, the United States has always led in short-term and middle-term simulations, which is why I specified the LONG-TERM simulations, so I question what you say would be the funding motivations. In fact, that 1995 report was the original impetus for increasing the U.S. government's research in climate so that they (we) would always stay "strategically" in front of other countries which is what your next quote seems to point to. My point is that the ability to make long-term simulations are still not available to Americans since the "News" which generated this thread is based on sniping the results of the simulations reported in the London Times.

Thomas wrote:

Piffka wrote:
Other countries take this seriously. Our country officially doesn't.

I think that oversimplifies reality on both accounts.

I am a simple person, Thomas, therefore I oversimplify. If you say other countries are not taking this seriously, then I believe you. For my own country, I look to see if Congressional money is being thrown at the problem. With dismay, I read the summary of this latest and long-awaited 2004 report:

Implementing Climate and Global Change Research: A Review of the Final U.S. Climate Change Science Program Strategic Plan

Quote:

(Official) Summary: The report finds that the strategic plan for the US Climate Change Science Program (CCSP) is much improved over a previously reviewed draft and should be implemented as soon as possible. However, commitments to fund many of the newly proposed activities are lacking; CCSP and participating agencies need to set priorities in order to meet the ambitious overarching goals. The program will also face challenges in ensuring a balanced and societally relevant program, enhancing observation and modeling capabilities, establishing effective management, maintaining scientific credibility, and addressing capacity needs.

Bolding and emphasis are mine.

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Piffka,

It is simply a fact thart ALL reports prepared by government funded scientists call for increased government funding of the subject in question. (Another simple observation for thiose who value simplicity.)That such a recommendation was made in a study of the warming problem signifies nothing.

It is not wisdom or knowledge that stands in the way of a more effective or less damaging "remedy" than the one devised at Kyoto. it is instead consent and committment. India and China and all of the former Soviet Empire were exempted from any action under Kyoto even though, in the case of the Soviets, they were, per unit of production, the worst polluters in the world, and, in the cases of China and India, they are the most rapidly growing ones. Why was that ? The answer is that there was no possibility of persuading any of them to take any such action.

If you take the doomsday (tipping point) projections of the GW fanatics to be true (and I don't) then an immediate and drastic worldwide reduction in fuel consumption and agriculture is required -- far beyond the relatively minor reductions proposed under Kyoto. This will frustrate the economic ambitions of every country and lead to major changes in lifestyle, not to mention the sustainable population of the earth. There is no political power on earth capable of enforcing such restrictions.

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Piffka wrote:

Thomas wrote:
... keep-the-CFCs position had a broad foundation in peer-reviewed literature from economists on their side. The anti-Kyoto position does.

Since when should an economist have anything to say about what seems to me a strictly science matter?

Two answers. 1) Ever since economists had something to say about costs, benefits, and tradeoffs. Natural scientists can tell us how warm the globe is likely to be and how high sea levels are likely to rise in the year 2100. But economists are much better than physicists at assessing what damage that may cause, and whether the proposed solutions are likely to cause more or less damage than the problem. 2) Ever since economists had something to say about economic growth, the demand for natural resources and the supply of them. That would be since Adam Smith (1776). I am a physicist, and I study economics as a hobby, so I know what I'm comparing.

Piffka wrote:

Anyway, as I said: Let some brilliant person give us a change from Kyoto, since Kyoto is fatally flawed. If there isn't Kyoto, give us a new accord.

Very well then, here is my accord: Quitchabellyachin. Get over the fact that the globe will warm by a degree Celsius or two or three over the next century, and adapt to the consequences of warming as necessary. I expect that the net costs of dealing with global warming will be smaller than the costs of preventing it, so consider Clinton's and Bush's policy in the matter the best one suggested so far.

Piffka wrote:

Do you doubt this assertion?

Yes I do. For the purposes of this thread, I will believe you that abrupt climate change is possible, but I doubt that it would be disastrous in any meaningful way. That last part I won't believe without a good source.

Piffka wrote:

The National Academy of Science is a pretty big wheel around here. Any additional fight should be taken up with them.

The National Academy of Science, however prestigious, does not get to define what truth is any more than you or I do.

Piffka wrote:

My point is that the ability to make long-term simulations are still not available to Americans since the "News" which generated this thread is based on sniping the results of the simulations reported in the London Times.

So what? No nation can be #1 in everything. And why should they, given that the results of everyone's research are published for everybody else to read?

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Global Warming...New Report...and it ain't happy news

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