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keane
Joined: 09 Jul 2007
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 Posted: Sat Oct 20, 2007 6:49 am Post subject: |
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If the previous didn't scare you, this should...
Another 'must read' from Hansen:
'Long-term' climate sensitivity of 6 degrees C for doubled CO2
Original article here.
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...As a complement to the Charney climate sensitivity, let us derive the climate sensitivity that applies if these slow feedbacks are allowed to operate: we call this the "long-term" climate sensitivity. We can obtain this "long-term" climate sensitivity from paleoclimate data by finding the scale factor that causes the GHG forcing to match the paleoclimate temperature change as accurately as possible. Figure 4 shows that multiplying the climate forcing due to long-lived GHGs (CO2 + CH4 + N2O) by 3.02�C per W/m2 yields remarkably good agreement with Antarctic temperature. Given that glacial-interglacial global temperature change is about half of Antarctic temperature change, this implies a "long-term" climate sensitivity of ~1.5 W/m2 or about 6�C for doubled CO2.
Which climate sensitivity is more relevant to humanity: the Charney 3�C for doubled CO2 or the "long-term' 6�C for doubled CO2? Both. The net human-made climate forcing, including negative forcing by tropospheric aerosols, has been substantially positive only for the past three decades. On that time scale the Charney sensitivity is a good approximation, as little contribution from slow feedbacks would be expected. Thus climate models with 3�C sensitivity for doubled CO2, incorporating only the fast feedbacks, are able to achieve good agreement with observed warming of the past century. We suggest, however, that these models provide only a lower limit on the expected warming on century time scales due to the assumed forcings. The real world will be aiming on the longer run at a warming corresponding to the higher climate sensitivity.
...Elsewhere (Hansen et al. 2007a) we have described evidence that slower feedbacks, such as poleward expansion of forests, darkening and shrinking of ice sheets, and release of methane from melting tundra, are likely to be significant on decade-century time scales. This realization increases the urgency of estimating the level of climate change that would have dangerous consequences for humanity and other creatures on the planet, and the urgency of defining a realistic path that could avoid these dangerous consequence. |
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keane
Joined: 09 Jul 2007
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| Posted: Sun Oct 21, 2007 4:50 am Post subject: |
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The meltdown of Greenland's way of life - In the Arctic, a shockingly sudden retreat of the ice is changing everything
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Colin Woodard, Chronicle Foreign Service
Friday, October 19, 2007
(10-19) 04:00 PDT Ilulissat, Greenland --
Seen from the air, Greenland's massive ice cap is clearly taking a beating.
Lakes and ponds of open water are scattered across its cracking surface, some feeding streams that vanish into moulins - drain-like cavities about 40 feet across that pierce the bottom of mile-thick ice. Approaching the edge of the ice, mountain summits poke out like islands. Glaciers tumble toward the sea, where this year they discharged ice at an unprecedented rate in this self-governing province of Denmark. Melting at the top of the ice sheet was the greatest ever recorded, 150 percent more than average, according to a new NASA-sponsored study.
"The rate of melting is just phenomenal," said Robert Correll, chairman of the Arctic Climate Impact Assessment, an international scientific monitoring project. "We're adding freshwater to the ocean at a much more rapid rate than predicted"
...Scientists report that glaciers draining the ice cap are picking up speed,
..."The suddenness of these changes we've seen in the Arctic over the past five years have really startled us, and we've been struggling to understand what is going on."
In Ilulissat, 200 miles north of the Arctic Circle, the town's 4,500 residents have seen the changes firsthand.
The Jakobshavn glacier ...flowed at between 2 and 21/2 miles a year... This year it flowed 9 miles - 61/2 feet an hour
The lack of sea ice is another serious matter.
No roads connect Greenland's main towns - the island is too rugged, harsh and sparsely populated to make them feasible - meaning the prime modes of travel are by air (prohibitively expensive) or sea. In winter, ship travel is dangerous, so in central and northern Greenland, most people travel across the frozen sea by dog sled.
But in Ilulissat, the sea hasn't frozen solid for nearly a decade, wiping out the livelihoods of the country's subsistence hunters and isolating thousands more throughout the long, dark Arctic winter.
..."It has been documented that (this) region will be most hard hit by the rising emission of greenhouse gases," said Aleqa Hammond, finance and foreign minister of Greenland's home rule government, which controls most local affairs. "But we don't need to read scientific documents and interpret highly complex mathematical models or charts. You can (tell) by living here and talking to the local people about what is changing."
Not all of the changes are for the worse.
...growing season is getting longer, and new areas are opening up for cultivation.
...Potato farming has expanded in size and area, with spuds now grown in the capital, Nuuk, which is just 185 miles south of the Arctic Circle. Near the southern village of Qassiarsuk, farmers say they succeeded in growing broccoli for the first time this year.
"Here in south Greenland, we are now approaching the climate conditions of northern Europe," said local elder Erik Rode Frederiksen...
Scientists say the accelerated melt will have decidedly negative effects for the globe, as it is certain to boost sea levels. The most recent assessment... forecast a surge of between 8 inches and 2 feet by 2100, but scientists say the rapidly melting ice in Greenland and Antarctica have already rendered those estimates obsolete....
Correll said most scientists in the field would argue that it will be "the upper part of a meter" (3 feet 3 inches) this century...
"We can't discount the possibility of an abrupt change, the equivalent of a sudden avalanche of snow," Correll said. "We don't think that will happen here, but there are these possibilities." |
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keane
Joined: 09 Jul 2007
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| Posted: Tue Oct 23, 2007 1:32 am Post subject: |
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Cross-posted.
This is why Global Warming matters. An entire city must choose: move, or wall yourself off from the sea. Multiply this by dozens of cities around the world... and that's just the cities. You want to keep the land from being inundated, you're looking at much more effort and money.
This case is a combination of development and GW. The development is driving the majority of the problem now, but if information released the last week by NASA is correct, we could be looking at meters of ocean rise this century.
I suggest Bangkok build the wall.
Rising seas, sinking land threaten Thai capital
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KHUN SAMUT CHIN, Thailand (AP) -- At Bangkok's watery gates, Buddhist monks cling to a shrinking spit of land around their temple as they wage war against the relentlessly rising sea.
...Experts say these waters, aided by sinking land, threaten to submerge Thailand's sprawling capital of more than 10 million people within this century. Bangkok is one of 13 of the world's largest 20 cities at risk of being swamped as sea levels rise in coming decades, according to warnings at the recent Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change held here.
"This is what the future will look like in many places around the world," says Lisa Schipper, an American researcher on global warming, while visiting the temple. "Here is a living study in environmental change."
...The loss of Bangkok would destroy the country's economic engine and a major hub for regional tourism.
"If the heart of Thailand is under water everything will stop," says Smith Dharmasaroja, chair of the government's Committee of National Disaster Warning Administration. "We don't have time to move our capital in the next 15-20 years. We have to protect our heart now, and it's almost too late."
The arithmetic gives Bangkok little cause for optimism.
The still expanding megapolis rests about 3 � to 5 feet above the nearby gulf, although some areas already lie below sea level. The gulf's waters have been rising by about a tenth of an inch a year, about the same as the world average, says Anond Snidvongs, a leading scientist in the field.
But the city, built on clay rather than bedrock, has also been sinking at a far faster pace of up to 4 inches annually as its teeming population and factories pump some 2.5 million cubic tons of cheaply priced water, legally and illegally, out of its aquifers. This compacts the layers of clay and causes the land to sink.
...He urges that work start now on a dike system of more than 60 miles -- protective walls about 16 feet high, punctured by water gates and with roads on top, not unlike the dikes long used in low-lying Netherlands to ward off the sea. The dikes would run on both banks of the Chao Phraya River and then fork to the right and left at the mouth of the river.
"There is no one single solution to respond to climate change," says Anond...
...The five monks at the temple and surrounding villagers are building the barriers from locally collected donations and planting mangrove trees to halt shoreline erosion.
The odds are against them. About half a mile of shoreline has already been lost over the past three decades, in large part due to the destruction of once vast mangrove forests. The abbot, Somnuk Attipanyo, says about a third of the village's original population was forced to move.
...The monastery grounds are less than a tenth of their original size... the monks to raise its original floor by more than three feet. |
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Junior
Joined: 18 Nov 2005
Location: the eye
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| Posted: Tue Oct 23, 2007 2:02 am Post subject: |
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| keane wrote: |
I suggest Bangkok build the wall. |
I suggest they restore the previously effective buffer that they so quickly removed: extensive mangrove swamp.
The land lost is because it was washed away. It had no mangroves to hold it in place.
Similar story goes for Luoisiana.
A wall is extremely costly and innefective, and just fuels and delays the inevitable. More erosion.
Have a look at the flood prevention measures they have been doing in southern England. They have been restoring the ancient floodplains, (which soak up floodwater like a sponge). Take out the concrete and construction along the coast, bring back its natural (and perfectly designed) defenses. |
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keane
Joined: 09 Jul 2007
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| Posted: Thu Oct 25, 2007 3:55 am Post subject: |
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Carbon output rising faster than forecast, says study
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� Global warming 'will come sooner and be stronger'
� Chinese growth and loss of natural 'sinks' highlighted
* David Adam
o Tuesday October 23 2007
...Scientists warned last night that global warming will be "stronger than expected and sooner than expected", after a new analysis showed carbon dioxide is accumulating in the atmosphere much faster than predicted.
Corinne Le Quere... said: "It's bad news because the increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide has accelerated since 2000 in a way we did not expect.
...Global carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuel burning has risen by an average 2.9% each year since 2000. During the 1990s the annual rise was 0.7%.
The new study explains abnormally high carbon dioxide measurements highlighted by the Guardian in January. At the time, scientists were puzzled why dozens of measuring stations across the world were showing a CO2 spike for 2006, the fourth year in the last five to show a sharp increase in the greenhouse gas.
Carbon dioxide concentration in the atmosphere... from 1970 to 2000, the concentration rose by about 1.5ppm each year; since 2000 the annual rise has leapt to an average 1.9ppm.
..."In addition to the growth of global population and wealth, we now know that significant contributions to the growth of atmospheric CO2 arise from the slowdown of natural sinks and the halt to improvements in the carbon intensity of wealth production."
...the growth in atmospheric CO2 is about 35% larger than they expected. |
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keane
Joined: 09 Jul 2007
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| Posted: Thu Oct 25, 2007 6:36 am Post subject: |
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| Junior wrote: |
| keane wrote: |
I suggest Bangkok build the wall. |
I suggest they restore the previously effective buffer that they so quickly removed: extensive mangrove swamp.
The land lost is because it was washed away. It had no mangroves to hold it in place.
Similar story goes for Luoisiana.
A wall is extremely costly and innefective, and just fuels and delays the inevitable. More erosion.
Have a look at the flood prevention measures they have been doing in southern England. They have been restoring the ancient floodplains, (which soak up floodwater like a sponge). Take out the concrete and construction along the coast, bring back its natural (and perfectly designed) defenses. |
I agree, if you're talking about regular flooding. That is not the issue any longer. Sea level change is not flooding, it's permanent. Maybe a visual will help you:
http://flood.firetree.net/?ll=33.8339,129.7265&z=12&m=7 |
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keane
Joined: 09 Jul 2007
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| Posted: Thu Nov 08, 2007 7:29 am Post subject: |
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Hanson gives a nice overview of temp measurement and CO2 vs. aerosols.
The last paragraph:
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| If we follow a �business-as-usual� course, Hansen predicts, then at the end of the twenty-first century we will find a planet that is 2-3�C warmer than today, which is a temperature Earth hasn�t experienced since the middle Pliocene Epoch about three million years ago, when sea level was roughly 25 meters higher than it is today. |
Notice the high temp anomalies over the Antarctic Peninsula (Larsen B) and the Arctic (The Big Melt.) |
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khyber
Joined: 16 Jan 2003
Location: Compunction Junction
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| Posted: Thu Nov 08, 2007 7:44 am Post subject: |
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One thing you'll hear global warming skeptics claim is that temperature readings are always found near urban centres. And given the amount of development and the expansion of these cities, it's clear that there would be a temperature bubble around the cities warming it up faster.
So when they look at the graphs, they explained that warming was due to the proximity of measurements to city centres.
One thing you'd notice about that big red earth is that areas near cities haven't necessarily become warmer. in fact, most of the warmest places have a VERY limited population. |
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keane
Joined: 09 Jul 2007
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| Posted: Thu Nov 08, 2007 7:58 am Post subject: |
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| khyber wrote: |
One thing you'll hear global warming skeptics claim is that temperature readings are always found near urban centres. And given the amount of development and the expansion of these cities, it's clear that there would be a temperature bubble around the cities warming it up faster.
So when they look at the graphs, they explained that warming was due to the proximity of measurements to city centres.
One thing you'd notice about that big red earth is that areas near cities haven't necessarily become warmer. in fact, most of the warmest places have a VERY limited population. |
Read the article. It's a quick and easy read. That's exactly what it's about, how the do they temps. Very informative. Explains the cooling (aerosols) from '40 - '70, the resumption of the temp upslope (no aerosols and CO2 increasing), how they deal with anomalous temps around cities (they compare temps over long period averages for areas, which they can do via a certain kind of wave in the atmosphere, and toss out the ones that don't fit the area trends), etc. Excellent overview. |
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keane
Joined: 09 Jul 2007
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| Posted: Wed Nov 14, 2007 5:18 am Post subject: |
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Follow-up to �The Big Melt� challenges assumptions on Co2 targets.
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by Rob Hopkins
RELATED NEWS:
Peak Oil - Nov 11...
Climate policy - Nov 5...
An inconvenient assessment...
Climate & water - Nov 5...
The Big Melt...
tpcNot content with having written The Single Scariest Thing I Have Ever Read, the recent Big Melt report, David Spratt at Carbon Equity has just produced the second in what will be a series of three reports. The new one, Target Practice; where should we aim to prevent dangerous climate change builds on the insights from the first report, namely that the thawing of the Arctic ice is happening so much faster than anyone had ever thought, nearly 100 years ahead of the IPCC projections and before we have even reached a 1 degree rise in global temperature, that we need to reassess our concept of where a �safe� limit might lie. In the new report, Pratt, now joined by Philip Sutton, asks the question, given that 2 degree is no longer a �safe� limit, where might that limit be?
The key findings of the report are as follows;
* Policies have not been constructed within a framework of fully solving the problem.
* Actions proposed should be doubly-practical: they should deliver tangible results in the real world and crucially they must also fully solve the problem
* We suggest the goal is a climate safe for all people and all species over �all� generations
* The loss of the Arctic sea ice, in all likelihood at an increase of less than 1�C in global average temperature unambiguously represents dangerous human interference with the climate and therefore global temperatures should not have exceeded the levels three decades ago in order to avoid dangerous climate change.
* The widely-promoted 2�C is not credible, initiating climate feedbacks on earth and in the oceans, on ice-sheets and on the tundra, taking the earth past significant tipping points.
* Proposals for a 60% cut on 1990 levels by 2050 implies a 3�C target. The last time temperatures were 3�C higher than our pre-industrial levels, the northern hemisphere was free of glaciers and ice sheets, beech trees grew in the Transantarctic mountains, sea levels were 25 metres higher.
* In order to avoid the loss of the Arctic icesheet, a safe target would be 0.5�C. We therefore propose that a safe-climate temperature increase cap be 0.5�C and greenhouse gas level of 320 ppm CO2e, a level to which we should aim to return the planet if we value biodiversity and human life. There is no ideal achievement timetable other than as fast as possible.
* To return to the safe zone we need to bring the global temperature and the atmospheric greenhouse gases down from their present levels; and
* This means that no further greenhouse gases should be added to the air and there needs to be a very significant decay in the level of the short-residence-period greenhouse gases and other positive forcing (warming) agents in the atmosphere (e.g. soot) and a major draw down of CO2 using natural carbon sinks and deliberate human capture and sequestration.
The challenge the report sets is summed up in the graph below. It is worth looking at closely.
A third report, Rising to the Challenge (currently in preparation), will look at how to achieve the goals set out in this report. Next time you hear a Minister say that 60% cuts in CO2 by 2050 is �ambitious�, send them a copy of the two reports so far and suggest that still holding to 2 degrees as a target is, in effect, condemning humanity to runaway climate change. Target Practice spells the end of economic growth, but also offers an unleashing of human creativity unparalleled in history. |
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Len8
Joined: 12 Feb 2003
Location: Kyungju
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| Posted: Wed Nov 14, 2007 5:33 pm Post subject: |
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If people stopped smoking we might see a reduction in global warming.
Someone should figure out a way to seed the atmosphere with a carbon dioxide reducing substance.
There was supposed to have been a period at the turn of the century when the sunspots were very active and temperatures around the Earth were way above average. Maybe we are just going through another hot spell, and the trapped carbon dioxide and stuff which is reflecting heat from the Earth back to the Earth and heating it up will react with something , then dissipate and leave a cleaner atmosphere. |
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keane
Joined: 09 Jul 2007
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| Posted: Thu Nov 15, 2007 1:33 am Post subject: |
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| Len8 wrote: |
| Someone should figure out a way to seed the atmosphere with a carbon dioxide reducing substance. |
Two choices: keeping messing with natural systems or stop messing with natural systems. Common sensically, which do you think is more likely to end well?
| Len8 wrote: |
| There was supposed to have been a period at the turn of the century when the sunspots were very active and temperatures around the Earth were way above average. Maybe we are just going through another hot spell, and the trapped carbon dioxide and stuff which is reflecting heat from the Earth back to the Earth and heating it up will react with something , then dissipate and leave a cleaner atmosphere. |
Zero science to back you up. Why not read the thread instead of spreading propaganda? |
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keane
Joined: 09 Jul 2007
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| Posted: Mon Nov 19, 2007 5:28 am Post subject: |
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Key findings of UN scientific report
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By The Associated Press Sat Nov 17, 4:23 PM ET
The following are some key findings in a report issued Saturday by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change:
ADVERTISEMENT
click here
� Global warming is "unequivocal." Temperatures have risen 1.3 degrees Fahrenheit in the last 100 years. Eleven of the last 12 years are among the warmest since 1850. Sea levels have gone up by an average seven-hundredths of an inch per year since 1961.
� About 20 percent to 30 percent of all plant and animal species face the risk of extinction if temperatures increase by 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit. If the thermometer rises by 6.3 degrees Fahrenheit, between 40 to 70 percent of species could disappear.
� Human activity is largely responsible for warming. Global emissions of greenhouse gases grew 70 percent from 1970 to 2004. The concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is far higher than the natural range over the last 650,000 years.
� Climate change will affect poor countries most, but will be felt everywhere. By 2020, 75 million to 250 million people in Africa will suffer water shortages, residents of Asia's large cities will be at great risk of river and coastal flooding, Europeans can expect extensive species loss, and North Americans will experience longer and hotter heat waves and greater competition for water.
� Extreme weather conditions will be more common. Tropical storms will be more frequent and intense. Heat waves and heavy rains will affect some areas, raising the risk of wildfires and the spread of diseases. Elsewhere, drought will degrade cropland and spoil the quality of water sources. Rising sea levels will increase flooding and salination of fresh water and threaten coastal cities.
� Even if greenhouse gases are stabilized, the Earth will keep warming and sea levels rising. More pollution could bring "abrupt and irreversible" changes, such as the loss of ice sheets in the poles, and a corresponding rise in sea levels by several yards.
_A wide array of tools exist, or will soon be available, to adapt to climate change and reduce its potential effects. One is to put a price on carbon emissions.
� By 2050, stabilizing emissions would slow the average annual global economic growth by less than 0.12 percent. The longer action is delayed, the more it will cost.
(This version CORRECTS seven-tenths to seven-hundredths of an inch.)) |
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keane
Joined: 09 Jul 2007
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| Posted: Tue Nov 20, 2007 7:15 am Post subject: |
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Arctic Ocean could be ice-free in summer as early as 2010
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Marianne White, CanWest News Service
Published: Friday, November 16, 2007
QUEBEC -- The Arctic Ocean could be free of ice in the summer as soon as 2010 or 2015 -- something that hasn't happened for more than a million years, according to a leading polar researcher.
Louis Fortier, scientific director of ArcticNet, a Canadian research network, said the sea ice is melting faster than predicted by models created by international teams of scientists, such as the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
They had forecast the Arctic Ocean could be free of summer ice as early as 2050. But Fortier told an international conference on defence and security in Quebec City yesterday that the worst-case scenarios are becoming reality.
"The frightening models we didn't even dare to talk about before are now proving to be true," Fortier told CanWest News Service, referring to computer models that take into account the thinning of the sea ice and the warming from the albedo effect -- the Earth is absorbing more energy as the sea ice melts.
According to these models, there will be no sea ice left in the summer in the Arctic Ocean somewhere between 2010 and 2015.
"And it's probably going to happen even faster than that," said Fortier... |
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keane
Joined: 09 Jul 2007
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| Posted: Tue Nov 27, 2007 4:11 am Post subject: |
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Years of living dangerously: the wild, wild world
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It's not just your imagination, the weather really is getting worse. Andrew Buncombe and Daniel Howden explain why disasters are coming faster, and more furiously than ever
Published: 26 November 2007
It has been unmistakable to the millions caught up in the biblical downpours that cut off an entire region of Mexico this year. Many Australians have been sufficiently convinced of it to change the way they vote. It has been obvious to the home owners of middle England who have stood knee deep in their flooded sitting rooms. And it can't have escaped the notice of the millionaire's on Malibu beach who have watched their luxury beach homes burn like matchsticks.
Weather related disasters are increasing in both frequency and savagery and the expansion of human communities into vulnerable habitats along with the increasingly apparent effects of climate change are to blame. A leading British charity has discovered that there has been a fourfold increase in catastrophes such as the floods that swept through South Asia this year affecting more than 250m people.
In a new report, Oxfam says that from an average of 120 such annual disasters in the early 1980s, there are now as many as 500 every year.
..."This year we have seen floods in South Asia, across the breadth of Africa and Mexico that have affected more than 250 million people," says Oxfam's director Barbara Stocking. "This is no freak year. It follows a pattern of more frequent, more erratic, more unpredictable and more extreme weather events that are affecting more people."
The report published yesterday, says that the number of people affected by such disasters has risen by around 68 per cent. Between 1985-94 an average of 174 million were affected by these incidents while between 1995 to 2004 the average was 254 million.
...Although countries such as China and India have seen a rapid increase in emissions as a result of their burgeoning economic growth, the charity says that developed nations should be required to act first because they are responsible for the majority of emissions that have led to climate change. |
True. However, the developing countries (read primarily China and India) will take over and be more responsible for future increases, but that is a goodly bit in the future. The GHGs already in the air and likely to be produced over the next few years will result in major changes... the generation wll just push us into a whole new world of hothouse existence. |
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