Best estimates are that doubling the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere will produce a temperature rise of about 1 degree Celsius directly, and a total of about 3 degrees Celsius taking into account the inevitable positive feedbacks.
So far we have increased the CO2 in the atmosphere by about 40%, and will have doubled it by the end of this century at current rates of emission.
which is the kind of material I used with my students to strengthen their criticism. This is the new trend in negationism: ice is good, only a little change in distributions. The coarse manipulation made in images like this one should be somewhat analysed in High School.
The same page in the blog links to some document in nsidc. The innumerate basis of negationism is always there, as the blog's author seem to have overlooked an opportunity to criticize "how science is made". Look at this snapshot searching for mistakes (two different kind of mistakes in a total of 8 occasions)
More than hundred days later, that document at NSIDC's website continues to contain those stupid figures. Isn't here any citizen of the United States ashamed enough to tell them to correct that? Don't tell denialists about this.
You go to the worst source, you don't read what it says.
So why does an eleven year cycle have a 150 year effect Haig? The paper clearly shows an eleven year cycle not a 150 year increase, look at the peaks and troughs same rough level since 1980s.
It's an appeal for crowdfunding of the Dark Snow Project - a project to measure the loss of albedo on Greenland and identify whether soot from industry and wildfires are driving a dangerous new feedback.
It's sad that scientists now have to resort to appealing to the internet to get funding but that's the reality - anyone with a few bucks to spare could do worse than to spend it on this:
Based on what I read on forums I guess in U.S. you mostly hear that cutting emissions will destroy your economy. Not true, unless you were idiots who can do nothing but destroy it. The opposite is true: maintaining current path and not reducing emissions will seriously harm your and the World's economy. One cannot change the laws of physics, now that would be hopeless.
Don't let denialists mislead the public by hijacking the agenda with their silly talking points. Denialism is approaching the bankruptcy it always was ("science schmience, there's no warming it's a conspiracy and it's the Sun and we should do nothing etc"), and is mutating into denihilism ("kk maybe warming but I'll keep on overstating uncertainties and we cannot do anything anyway and cutting emissions would destroy us and warming only harmful to irrelevant poor people etc").
Now is the opportunity to start changing the public discourse. Most denialist talking points have lost their effect, and only idiots parrot them (remember how 9/11 troofers collapsed into irrelevancy?). Now is the perfect time to grab the agenda and start setting the public discourse back to the actual reality.
It's not hopeless.
Instead of being the world leader U.S. did nothing to cut the emissions but let them rise for a decade. Public discourse turned into a bastion of disinformation and anti-scientific denial which, among GHG's, has been a big U.S. export - though other nations are not buying it. U.S. is a democracy. Nothing prevents American people to turn the path. Absolutely nothing. You don't even need guns or jesus for that - just your informed opinion and your vote.
It's not hopeless.
And U.S. does have politicians with rationality and personal integrity to face the reality and state the facts. For example, please listen what senator Sheldon Whitehouse has to say about manufactured doubt versus reality:
Excellent speech, he's saying it just as it is, but why is it exceptional these days?
It may seem like hopeless in U.S. but I guess it's partly because of the distorted partisan discourse and related sponsored denialism. But it's not hopeless. Let the politicians know that misleading public with denial and manufactured doubt is an insult to public, against nation's interests, economically damaging, dangerous and dishonest. Isn't there election approaching? About now would be a good time to start putting some sense of reality into them and fear of not getting re-elected.
Before election your public discourse needs move on to more acute issues: How to cut down the emissions? What policies is needed to achieve that? How much will mitigation cost? How much will adaptation cost? Where have other nations already been successful and how? Since U.S. is not leading the world please start at least following.
Even though you're probably familiar with next, I'll lay down some key points about the realities: what has to be done, what other nations have committed to, and what they have already achieved in cutting emissions without sacrificing economic growth. And please excuse me the brevity.
The framework:
If we want to keep this planet from warming beyond recognition we have to cut GHG emissions globally. It's a fact. We have to cut our emissions. There's absolutely no question about that. We have lotsa good science and research on it and we know it. To pretend otherwise is simply denial of reality and would lead to disaster.
Global warming will harm us, our economies, our societies and the biosphere. No doubt about that. Science and research shows that it will raise the sea level, it will change the weather patterns, it will change and shift the biomes, it will change the ecosystems that all humanity and our civilizations depend on. Besides the damage to ecosystems, there will be human suffering and costly economic damage (in trillions), and possibly some local silver linings too. How harmful it will be depends on how much we let it warm.
Obviously just stopping the emissions cold would be impossible and harmful. That would destroy economies and lead to disaster. So a transition time is needed.
The target:
The World has to reduce it's global GHG emissions at least 50% from 1990 level by 2050 in order to stabilize CO2-eq concentration below 450 ppm. According to IPCC that would give a "reasonable chance" (=fifty-fifty) to keep the warming below 2ºC.
Now, there's uncertainty in that estimate. We don't know for sure if reaching that target will keep us below 2ºC: maybe more is needed, or maybe less would be enough, or maybe it all needs to happen sooner. The target requires for global emissions to peak by 2020 at the very latest, and for developed nations to reduce their emissions 25-40% by 2020. The target itself might prove to be inadequate depending on how long the biggest polluters U.S. and China continue to procrastinate. The estimate of 2ºC warming may very well be too optimistic.
But the contemporary uncertainty gives absolutely no reason not to start reducing emissions now already. It must be done. There's no doubt about that. We're currently working on reducing just the easiest first 20-30% of emissions, or at least many countries are. We have to do it anyway, and the sooner we start the easier and less costly it will be - plus in the emerging new markets the quick will eat the procrastinators as new tech will be needed everywhere.
Achieving the target is not hopeless, it's both possible and necessary even though it's not certain if the long term target itself is in fact adequate.
But it will not be easy. The world has to both reduce the emissions and accommodate economic growth - especially in developing countries. As biggest polluters developed nations have to reduce their GHG emissions at least 80% from 1990 level by 2050. They're by far the biggest polluters and have been for a long time. Big reductions by biggest polluters will leave room for developing nations, they will have to make their effort to keep emissions down but there will also be room for their needed economic growth.
Mitigation will be costly but adaptation costlier by magnitudes. Investments on mitigation will give huge savings in adaptation. And the mitigation itself could become more costly if postponed.
The big question is how to do it?
Obviously there's no single silver bullet solution to cover all sectors and emission sources. What's needed is a combination of various approaches, technologies, investments and policies applied in due time. Planning ahead, making long term roadmaps and keeping the public informed would be a good idea.
Does anyone know if U.S. gov has a long term (-2050) mitigation and adaptation roadmap or plan in existence and accessible in the web?
Next milestone is set to 2020:
Compared to 1990 level 20% reduction of GHG emissions (or even 30%), increasing the share of renewables to 20% and improving energy efficiency by 20%.
And future milestones: "Europe's emissions should be 40% below 1990 levels by 2030 and 60% below by 2040. All sectors will have to contribute. Emission reductions will be stepped up gradually from approximately 1 percentage point compared to 1990 in the first decade, 1.5 percentage points in the second decade until 2030 to 2 percentage points in the last two decades until 2050."
How much does mitigation cost?
EU estimate is "Recent work on mitigation costs indicates that meeting the 2°C target could be achieved with GDP losses of at most 2.5% by 2050 (reducing annual growth by at most 0.05%/year), and with lower costs for earlier years. When taking into account co-benefits in terms of air pollution reduction, net costs could be significantly lower. The costs of actions to mitigate climate change are small when compared to the relative costs of impacts due to inaction."
EU strategy also notes the problems with procrastination, which could make the mitigation more costly: "The analysis also shows that a less ambitious pathway could lock in carbon intensive investments, resulting in higher carbon prices later on and significantly higher overall costs over the entire period."
Yep, we're looking at you Poland.
What about investments needed?
From EU's strategy: "Full implementation of the Strategic Energy Technology plan, requiring an additional investment in R&D and demonstration of € 50 billion over the next 10 years, is indispensable. Auctioning revenue and cohesion policy are financing options that Member States should exploit. In addition, increasing resource efficiency through, for instance, waste recycling, better waste management and behavioural change, as well as enhancing the resilience of ecosystems, can play an important role. Also, continued effort to strengthen research on climate mitigation and adaptation technologies will be required."
Oh, but that's just a strategy. It's good and nice that EU has come up with it and so on, but it's all just words on paper.
So what has EU achieved in practice so far?
Quite a lot actually.
In Kyoto Protocol EU committed to reduce it's GHG emissions to -8% from 1990 level by 2008-2012. EU exceeded the Kyoto target and successfully reduced it's emissions by about 18%. Graph:
And EU is well on track for it's next target of -20% by 2020. In fact it will probably overshoot it and reach 25-30%. In Copenhagen negotiations EU offered to commit to target of -30% if some other developed nations start finally doing their fair share. Didn't happen, biggest disappointments being Obama's ridiculous target and China.
So -20% it is, but exceeding it is probable. And EU's offer is still on the table: -30% by 2020 if other developed nations start getting serious in the international negotiations for climate action. The 2ºC target requires for global emissions to peak by 2020 at the very latest, and for developed nations to reduce their emissions 25-40% by 2020. At least EU will probably get there.
Did achieving -18% destroy EU economy?
No, it certainly did not. Graph:
But the first 20-30% are the easiest low hanging fruits. The next milestones will be more challenging, and not gonna happen unilaterally. International co-operation will be essential.
So start putting your act together North America. Start thinking about your future. It's not hopeless. Mitigation will not destroy your economy, but failing to reduce emissions will seriously harm it. Forget the denialism and related nihilism, and start thinking strategically like your military already does.
And what has U.S. done so far?
In Kyoto U.S. committed to reduction of 7% from 1990 level by 2008-2012, but never ratified the protocol and instead of needed reduction let it's emissions continue to grow far above 1990. Graph:
In Copenhagen Obama offered a reduction of 17% from 2005 level by 2020, which translates to just -4% from 1990 level. It's a start, but not enough for the 2ºC target. And I don't know if U.S. has actually even committed to that.
Since the peak year of 2007 there is a recent modest reduction, which is partly due to Clean Air Act, EPA's regulatory efforts and Supreme Court's 2007 landmark decision that emitted CO2 is in fact a pollutant (Took that long to figure it out? Really?). Other big factors are the rising secular trends in both energy efficiency (EPA regulations) and Natural Gas sources and usage, related decline in coal usage, and effects of economic downturn.
If, say, the USA, second on the list, were to undertake a massive effort to reduce emissions and for example, reduced them by half, that would accomplish very little in global terms, but would come at an enormous economic cost.
Adaptation will be much much costlier than mitigation. Postponing mitigation will multiply the costs of adaptation. And mitigation must be done anyway, it will be a lot cheaper to seriously start cutting emissions about yesterday.
Great post.
Sweden is the poster child for transition to carbon neutral - well on their way to that by 2050 and both Sweden and Norway have had a carbon tax of $50 a barrel and both have good economies with Norway's an exceptional lesson in handling natural resources with a 3/4 Trillion in their heritage fund.
Canada is a poster child in
a) mishandle their resources
b) climate change denial
Eventually it will ALL have to be carbon neutral and somebody is going to get very wealthy replacing the $7 Trillion fossil industry with alternative forms of energy.
BIll Gross thinks it will be the biggest economic boom ever as that occurs but it's hard to pick winners as the tech is shifting very rapidly.
I'd be content to put a big dent in coal use in the first world.
If there was a decent way - even Norway is struggling with it and they certainly have the resources and know how.
Every tree helps a bit tho so lose the lawns
I'm doing a video about the basics of global warming, what it means, what are the consequences, and what are our best options for countering it. It's going to be in Finnish, but I would still like to hear your thoughts about what pieces of info to include, and what would you like to see in a video like that, aimed for the layperson. Duration: 3-10 mins.
and that the difficulty is in determining how quickly it will warm and the differing impacts on various regions.
Cover off polar amplification as that impacts you directly.
There is good info here http://www.arctic.noaa.gov/reportcard/
I'm doing a video about the basics of global warming, what it means, what are the consequences, and what are our best options for countering it. It's going to be in Finnish, but I would still like to hear your thoughts about what pieces of info to include, and what would you like to see in a video like that, aimed for the layperson. Duration: 3-10 mins.
A fellow Finn here... if you need any help with the video, i might be of assistance - i make moving images for a living, including 2D and 3D motion graphics.
Thanks Mac, although I don't give much credit to UCS in general (GM and nuclear reasons), but it looks like a good overview with sources, and thanks for the other links!
Halsu, I appreciate your offer for helping out, however I'll try to make this on my own, it's a good way to practice. I'll PM you with a link when it's ready, and I'd be happy if you have time to give some comments and critique.
Hope to get it done by wednesday next week. I'm sure I'll be back with single questions and source hunting in the next few days!
One Friday more than two years ago, an air-quality monitoring device atop the United States Embassy in Beijing recorded data so horrifying that someone in the embassy called the level of pollution “Crazy Bad” in an infamous Twitter post. That day the Air Quality Index, which uses standards set by the United States Environmental Protection Agency, had crept above 500, which was supposed to be the top of the scale.
I don't find UCS too bad on nuclear - they want enforced safety - they claim neutrality.
I'd like to see more push on coal safety instead tho. Different topic.
Loads of info from the premiere climate science site.
Any good links for CC mitigation? Cost and reliability analysis between different energy solutions would be great.
I've understood that for example IPCC relies very much on energy efficiency in their calculations, something like 40% of all the CO2 reduction should come from that. To me that sounds a bit risky, have you guys talked about the rebound effect here? Does anyone know how seriously IPCC takes it? To me it seems a legit idea, and I'd like to understand the reality of it better.
Ah - well - let's see how to get there first. You won't cover this in a 3-10 minute basics.
It's more to do with economics and behaviors. I thought you were after the climate science.
Halsu, I appreciate your offer for helping out, however I'll try to make this on my own, it's a good way to practice. I'll PM you with a link when it's ready, and I'd be happy if you have time to give some comments and critique.
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OP those trapped killer whales would demonstrate how mammals in Arctic are changing their habits and that's very current.