Wednesday, March 30, 2016
Climate Change
– Speeding Past the Stop Signs
Rather than feeling complacent after the
Paris climate summit, we should be doubling down on the very limited progress
we made. (Photo: faungg's photos/flickr/cc)
There’s been a tendency in the media and in
the international community to assume that with the Paris agreement this past
December, the world is well on its way to dealing with the problem of climate
change. In fact, the agreement was woefully inadequate, allowing for
an increase of 3.5 C or more, and recent data
suggests it’s only gotten worse since the agreement was signed. Rather than
feeling complacent, we should be doubling down on the very limited progress we
made.
Bottom line: even with the Paris
agreement, we may be running out of time to avoid losing virtually every coastal
city and port in the world, among other things.
"Paris was a magnificent political
achievement but it was woefully inadequate from the perspective of physics. And
when it comes to a conflict between physics and politics, physics always
wins."
Let’s
take a look at what’s happened since the agreement was reached.
Record Breaking Records
February was an astounding 1.35 C (2.43
F) warmer than the average temperature for February based on the period from
1951 to 1980. That smashed the previous record for a monthly temperature
increase by .21 C, another record. Oh, and that previous monthly
record? It was set in January.
To put the 1.35 C increase in
perspective, the Paris Agreement recognized that a 1.5 C increase over
pre-industrial levels posed serious threats and countries agreed “… to pursue efforts to limit the temperature
increase to 1.5 °C above pre-industrial levels, recognizing that thiswould significantly reduce the risks and
impacts of climate change …” Worse, we’ve been above the so-called “guardrail”
agreed to in Paris – 2 C above pre-industrial levels (as opposed to measuring
against the 1951-1980 average) – for several months now.
The last ten months in row, by the way, have
all broken such records. And March is set to break the record for the warmest
March since records have been kept, which would break the record for the most
consecutive monthly records set in a row in 1944.
Confused? Wait, there’s more.
Last year, 2015, “smashed” another record as
the warmest year on record. The previous record was set in 2014.
According to NOAA, 2015 was a full .9 C above the 20th Century
average, and every forecast calls for 2016 to break the record once again.
Finally, the National Snow and Ice Data
center announced on Monday that the Arctic sea ice maximum was the
lowest it’s been since records have been kept, breaking the previous record
which was set – you guessed it, in 2014.
And while some of this record smashing can be
attributed to the effects of a severe el Nino, that merely accents a trend that
has been accelerating for decades now.
Two More Reasons for Concern
Two recent articles explain why the
Paris agreement may be too little too late, and they should send a collective
shiver throughout the planet.
The first was
by James Hansen and it described in a peer-reviewed paper that he and
18 other distinguished climate scientists wrote that will be published in Atmos.
Phys. Chem. The paper attempts to explain discrepancies between what
the models we use to forecast the rate of climate change and its effects tell
us – particularly on sea level rise and superstorms – and the observed
consequences of temperature changes on these phenomena in the geologic record.
To put it more simply, when you look at
what happened in geologic history when warming equal to the 2 C “guardrail”
occurred, the observed consequences were far worse than what our models
suggest. And the kicker is, today’s human-induced warming is happening much
faster than those in the geologic record.
The Paris agreement used the IPCC’s
estimates of sea level rise which put the upper limit, worst case, for
sea level rise by 2100 at just 1.2 meters. The geologic record
suggests it could be more than twice that, and that it could begin sooner.
Hansen et. al. also point to evidence that the added energy from warming
spawned massive superstorms that assaulted coastal areas with epic storm
surges.
The combination of multi-meter sea level
increases this century with superstorms would make our coastal cities
unlivable, and undefendable.
Some scientists are criticizing the
conclusions reached in this paper because they are not 100% “definitive.”
In short, they believe that we should continue to drift toward potential
catastrophe until someone can conclusively prove it. But more prudent
scientists and policy makers realize that the burden of proof falls on those
who would defend the status quo, putting the future of our children and their
children at risk.
The second article
comes from Joe Romm, who explained why two apparently contradictory trends
in climate data were, in fact resolvable.
The first trend was widely reported and
concerned the fact that, for the second year running, 2015 CO2emissions
were flat, even though the economy grew. This was widely hailed as real
progress in our attempt to slow the steady march of climate change.
It wasn’t, and here’s why.
On March 9th, NOAA reported that 2015 saw the biggest
rise in atmospheric concentrations of CO2 on record.
This begs a question. If emissions are
static, why is the atmospheric concentration of green house gasses (GHG)
accelerating?
The answer is simple, but not well
understood by policy makers or the media.
As Romm notes, the atmosphere can be
thought of as a bathtub, with GHGs flowing in, and GHGs draining out.
Although the flows and “drains” – or sinks – vary slightly over the epochs,
they are typically in equilibrium, which lends the system some stability.
Beginning with the industrial revolution, humans began to add more carbon (as
well as methane and other greenhouse gasses) at a faster rate, and the bathtub
began filling.
And even though 2015 saw a leveling in
the amount of human caused emissions, we are still adding more than the sinks
drain, so levels will continue to go up.
But if we’re not increasing the
amount we’re adding, why did 2015 set a record for the biggest increase in
atmospheric concentrations ever observed?
The answer lies in the sinks, and it
doesn’t bode well for the Paris Agreement having the kind of impact we
need.
Sinks include things that absorb or
sequester carbon. Some of the major ones include forests and other biota,
including the oceans, soils, and peatlands. Basically, because of warming, the
sinks aren’t functioning as well as they used to. For example, one of the
largest terrestrial sinks – the boreal forests – have been devastated by
disease and pests caused by warming, and now they are not taking in as much
carbon as they used to. In fact, in some areas, they have become a source of
carbon emissions, not asink.
So even if we manage to turn the
emissions down a bit, the bathtub will continue to fill faster because the
drain is clogged.
But it gets worse. The sinks have
already stored trillions of tons of carbon over the eons. In fact, fossil fuels
are basically hundreds of millions of years of stored photosynthetic energy.
One of the more sensitive sinks, permafrost, contains an estimated 1,672
gigatons of carbon (more than double the amount currently in the atmosphere),
and due to rapid warming, it is releasing some of this carbon – much of it in
the form of methane, a GHG that is 73 times as strong as carbon dioxide in the
short term. There are other feedbacks at work, each serving to release more
GHGs.
This compromising of the sinks may be
one reason that most of our models – including those that the IPCC uses –
haven’t matched the observable geologic record, and that means we’ve grossly
understated the difficulty of mitigating climate change.
Bottom line: Paris was a
magnificent political achievement but it was woefully
inadequate from the perspective of physics. And when it comes to a conflict
between physics and politics, physics always wins.
We knew, even as we signed it, that the
Paris agreement did not prevent dangerous anthropogenic warming, and could
result in warming of 3.5 C or more – a
guaranteed catastrophe. The latest data suggests that, absent additional
action, that outcome has moved from probable to something approaching
inevitable.
Scientists need to urge leaders
to hold an emergency meeting of the world’s nations within a year, designed to
hammer out an agreement that responds to the physical realities of climate
change, not one constrained by what we currently perceive to be politically
possible.
This work is licensed under a Creative
Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License
John
Atcheson is author of the novel, A Being Darkly Wise, an eco-thriller and Book
One of a Trilogy centered on global warming. His writing has appeared in The
New York Times, the Washington Post, the Baltimore Sun, the San Jose Mercury
News and other major newspapers. Atcheson’s book reviews are featured on
Climateprogess.org.
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to the Baltimore Nonviolence Center, 325 E. 25th St., Baltimore, MD
21218. Ph: 410-323-1607; Email: mobuszewski [at] verizon.net. Go to http://baltimorenonviolencecenter.blogspot.com/
"The master class
has always declared the wars; the subject class has always fought the battles.
The master class has had all to gain and nothing to lose, while the subject
class has had nothing to gain and everything to lose--especially their lives."
Eugene Victor Debs
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