Climate Letter #1282

An update on the status of technologies designed for direct air capture of CO2  (The Guardian).  According to the IPCC, “People have done too much damage to the climate to avoid catastrophe just by halting the burning of fossil fuels. They now will have to re-engineer the world…..The livability of the planet will thus depend largely on tools that are now available only on a small scale and currently still expensive.”  This story is about small companies trying to find answers.

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Some large organizations are looking for leverage to revolutionize agriculture (Thomson Reuters).  They want more effort incorporated into UN proceedings as a top priority in fighting climate change, in part because of all the other benefits that go with it.  Their goals “have the potential to transform the agriculture industry from being a major emitter of greenhouse gases to one that is net neutral, and possibly even be a greenhouse gas sink, while reducing deforestation and freshwater use by 55 per cent and 35 per cent respectively.”  http://news.trust.org/item/20170929093743-f1ig8

An example of what agricultural revolution at its best might look like:  This is an amazing story about what some small farmers in Brazil are doing to restore land that had been ruined by large corporations practicing monoculture.  It took hard work but food production and forest restoration have both made significant gains.
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Many well-known scientists are critical of the IPCC for underestimating the threat of climate change.  Actually, as previously pointed out, the report was written for policymakers, not with the intent to mislead, since policymakers have plenty of opportunities to dig out the truth if they want it, but as a way of compromising the setting of goals with nations that are resistant to any kind of action, and so maintaining some sense of unity.for moving ahead.  Getting unified action behind the full requirements of the watered-down version will be difficult enough as it is, as demonstrated by actions since the Paris Agreement.  The problem with this approach is that the stronger version of the truth that the scientists know about and are worried about is not getting through to the public, which has to rely on relatively weak media accounts for information.
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Democrats are having a problem of their own in framing the issues around climate change (The Hill).  At this moment it seems to have no traction as a campaign message, nor does Trump’s environmental rollback program, the latter being perhaps harder to explain.  “Democrats, who are now favored to seize the House, have crafted their campaign message around issues like increasing working-class wages and lowering the cost of prescription drugs. They think the kitchen-table agenda will resonate more effectively, particularly in conservative-leaning districts where voters tend to be wary of the economic impact of climate legislation.”
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Lithium-sulfur batteries are getting closer to commercial readiness, as stability issues appear to have been overcome by work at Drexel University..  “Our research shows that these electrodes exhibit a sustained effective capacity that is four-times higher than the current Li-ion batteries. And our novel, low-cost method for sulfurizing the cathode in just seconds removes a significant impediment for manufacturing.”
Carl

Posted in Daily Climate Letters | Comments Off on Climate Letter #1282

Climate Letter #1281

An examination of how extreme weather conditions threaten the people of Africa (Deutsche Welle).  “The fact that we are getting a warmer planet and that’s impacting on the climate, we fully expect to have more extremes…..One reason Africa is particularly vulnerable to these changes is that an estimated 70 percent of the population grow their own food to some extent.”  People who depend on subsistence agriculture have an uncertain future, complicated by the world’s fastest population growth.

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A high-ranking UN official offers a sobering account of how much hunger already exists in the world., drawing a clear link to the migration crisis.  “Some 821 million people, or one of every nine people on the planet, suffered from hunger last year, marking the third consecutive annual increase, according to the UN’s latest hunger report.”
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A new report covers the decline of insect populations in a pair of tropical forests (Science magazine).  Several species have almost vanished from a Puerto Rican rainforest that had been well protected, apparently for no reason other than climate change.  The animals that eat them are also in trouble.  A Mexican forest had a similar experience.  Both forests experienced high temperature increases, 2C or above, over a four-decade study period.
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Humanity is ‘cutting down the tree of life” (The Guardian).   “More than 300 different mammal species have been eradicated by human activities.”  This article is about how much evolutionary diversity has already been lost.  “The most important point is one that I believe is already widely recognised: humans are extinguishing not only many species, but many kinds of species.”
–A different review of the same study has additional details plus a graphic representation of the scale of losses.
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Humans began altering the climate thousands of years ago by the way they worked the land.  Bill Ruddiman, a noted pioneer in this field of research, was co-author of an interesting new study.  “It also shows that without this human influence, by the start of the Industrial Revolution, the planet would have likely been headed for another ice age…..The ancient roots of farming produced enough carbon dioxide and methane to influence the environment.”
Carl

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Climate Letter #1280

A global temperature report for the month of September.  This year’s global average was practically the same as the 2017 month.  The 12-month moving average is still showing a very slow downtrend but remains about two-tenths of a degree above where it was five years earlier, just before the start of the last El Nino.  That is significant because another El Nino is rated as a probability in the near future, not as strong as the last one but still able to give the average a good boost.  The long-running trend of 1.7C increases per decade could be getting an upward nudge in this case.

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Interesting views are expressed concerning the rate at which hurricanes can intensify.  Michael caught everyone by surprise, and that experience could become more common in the future.  From Kerry Emanuel, “Troublingly, intensification rates don’t increase linearly as the intensity of a storm increases–they increase by the square power of the intensity. Thus, we can expect future hurricanes to intensify at unprecedented rates, and the ones that happen to perform their rapid intensification just before landfall will be extremely dangerous.”
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The world is on a path toward yet greater hurricane damage.  The root cause is found in the warming trend of ocean surface temperatures.  That trend may be slow but it is also shown to be an effective agency in terms of storm severity.  “A number of insurance companies are already adjusting their rates and their policies based on climate change outlooks.”
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Another huge iceberg is poised to break off from Antarctica’s Pine Island Glacier (Scientific American).  “If the iceberg breaks off in one piece, it will be a whopping 115 square miles (300 square kilometers), which is even larger than the one that broke off last year.”  The source of the iceberg is a shelf that extends out from the glacier over ocean waters that have upwelled and are thought to have been warmed elsewhere as an effect of climate change.
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Arctic sea ice has lost two-thirds of its thickness since 1958.  That is mostly due to losses of multiyear ice, which is continuing.  Ice that forms and melts within one season has not been showing much loss of thickness but is more vulnerable to breaking up under extreme weather conditions, such as those of 2012 when the all-time lowest extent on record was reached.
–This year reached the fourth lowest extent on record in September after getting off to a bad start last winter, as shown on this graph:
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New studies find a real connection between mental health and bad weather events (Psychology Today).  That has been found in many small studies, and is now seen in “the results of a large-scale study providing empirical evidence of the mental health risks threatened by climate change.”
Carl

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Climate Letter #1279

Today marks the fifth anniversary of the Climate Letter.

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The first one was sent out by email on October 14, 2013 to a group made up of friends and family who had expressed an interest.  Here is how it went:
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“Welcome to my new climate letter.  I’ll start things off with something pretty simple, a couple of the really good outside sources of both news and basic information, nicely presented.  Even if you don’t have much time you can easily pick out things of interest for reading.  In any case, set up a special bookmark folder and save these sites.  There will be a lot more coming.
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First, Carbon Brief, which is from the UK,  http://www.carbonbrief.org/  You should sign up for their daily email, where I find one or two good reading items every day.  Public discussion in England on this subject is way ahead of what we see in the US.  Along that same line you might want to check out the level of reporting at the Guardian newspaper.  Their site is at http://www.theguardian.com/environment/climate-change
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Another great site for daily updates is called “Climate Denial Crock of the Week,” which is a misnomer, but Peter Sinclair has a keen eye for interesting new developments of many kinds.  https://climatecrocks.com/   With this one I just go to the site every day or two and scroll down for stories, which are plentiful, and more.  Right now you can find a short video interview with Stefan Rahmstorf, one of the very top scientists in the field, who has a neat way of telling it as it is.

In this interview Stefan observes that energy companies are spending $700 billion per year, worldwide, just looking for new sources of fossil fuel, money that could go a long way toward establishing alternatives if redirected.  I would add that whoever is spending that 700 bil on new discoveries will not actually sell production and start receiving a return for around eight to ten years.  The investors are obviously pretty confident that there will be a market for their products at that time, and will do whatever they can to keep that dream alive.  Could they possibly have an influence with politicians, or with the media?
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This is all for today.  I am now working on ways to best describe the relationship between CO2 and air temperature.  If you know of others who might be interested in these sorts of things just tell them to sign up.  Carl”
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All of that information still holds up.  Looking back, I have always had a heavy interest in the sciences but for some reason skipped over climate science until early in 2013.  That’s when I picked up a copy of James Hansen’s book, “Storms of My Grandchildren,” off the shelves of the local library, and got excited by it, thinking the subject might deserve more attention.  That feeling, which soon led to writing the climate letters, has only deepened, and today it is about all I can think about.
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The latest letters, you may have noticed, still reflect an interest in the relationship between CO2 and air temperature, but now that has evolved into making a distinction between air temperatures over land and over the oceans.  Once again, James Hansen is responsible.  When rummaging through his website at  http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/  I found a chart that had been buried away in an obscure place and got excited by the unusual message it was conveying.  Go back to yesterday’s letter, look at the two charts, read about them and also the material in CL #1273, and see if you agree.  The message I am getting seems clear, and unfortunately rather discouraging.  My confidence in the accuracy of this particular message is not yet deep, but it is deepening, and no doubt more will be said about it in future letters.
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A lot has changed in the last five years, including the climate itself and the broadening of associated concerns.  The next five should see much more of an awakening, and I hope to be part of it.
Carl

Posted in Daily Climate Letters | Comments Off on Climate Letter #1279

Climate Letter #1278

Back to those temperature charts.  What are they telling us?  The charts I recommend come from James Hansen’s website, where they are only found in the form of PDF.  These two are well-matched because they both use the same base period, one whose numbers are reasonably close to matching the actual preindustrial era, and they are consistent in the sense that the global average figures are at all times weighted about 70% in favor of ocean air temperatures and 30% land, as explained in CL #1273.

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–Global average:  go to http://www.columbia.edu/~mhs119/Temperature/–click on “PDF” below the chart.
–Land /ocean:  go to http://www.columbia.edu/~mhs119/Temperature/T_moreFigs/ –scroll down just a bit, then click on “with 1880-1920 base period.”
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Here is how I believe the graphics shown should be interpreted:
1.  The data expressed from measurements taken before 1950 is less reliable than that which followed, with the latter steadily improving, but is still useful as a general guide.  The anomaly trends that developed after the 1970s are very real, and they are unnatural.  They occurred at a time when greenhouse gas levels in the atmosphere were accelerating upward, not just CO2 but the whole package of gases and albedo changes.  Some albedo changes show decreases, as in the Arctic, while others of the aerosol type show increases, with no real agreement on the full measure, but altogether they serve to supplement the whole CO2 forcing package.  (We should always think of there being such a package of forcings, actually originating as feedbacks, which surround CO2 and enhance its effects in all circumstances, creating a total net forcing that is then amplified by about two times due to natural changes in the greenhouse effect of the water vapor feedback.  The size of the full package is to some extent naturally consistent from era to era but is always subject to distortions, plenty of which have come about in the current era.)
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2.  The growing spread between air temperatures over land surfaces and those over the oceans demands a thorough explanation.  I believe that explanation is located in the fact that ocean water temperatures at depth have been rising at a significant rate during this same forty-year period, as I have previously discussed.  The Earth is otherwise known to be retaining heat somewhere simply because of a calculated radiation imbalance, at a rate which, if there were no such imbalance, should have allowed global average air temperatures to rise by another half degree or a bit more.  I cannot say much about how that is all calculated, but there is plenty of literature on the subject from scientists like Hansen and Trenberth and many others.
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3. The radiation imbalance will at some point surely be corrected, but I don’t see how that can happen in full until the total heat content of the oceans at depth stops increasing, because that is where the bulk of the imbalance, making up some 93% of global warming, is said to be going. That in turn seems unlikely to happen as long as ocean surfaces keep passing some of the heat energy downward that they collect as energy from above. When should that stop happening? One idea is that it won’t happen until the temperature gradients across the oceans become reconfigured or rebalanced in such a way that no additional inputs from the surface can be accepted without equal amounts being returned. This process in its entirety is where the concept of inertia comes from. Inertia is not easy to think about or to explain in detail, and even some scientists would rather not try, which leads me to the next point.
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4. The concept of inertia is not well developed in the new IPCC report, or in the Paris Agreement, or much of the surrounding literature, but maybe it should be. I believe that until the inertia process, as described above, has ended the ocean surface temperatures are going to continue rising until they catch up with those on land, and those on land are going to keep rising as long as the CO2 package keeps going up. If we stop the CO2 forcing completely then land temperatures should quickly stop rising, but not oceans. When ocean surfaces finally stop sending energy into the depths (because the depths will no longer on balance accept it) they will by necessity be sending more of their collected energy into the atmosphere, and thence to space, subject still to the greenhouse impediment, and that will correct the overall radiation imbalance. (Remember that the numbers we see on the charts are anomalies, departures from the norm, and do not show the relationship between actual average land and sea surface temperatures, just the change in that relationship.)
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5. On land, there is very little in the way of an inertia problem, thus the surface temperature stays nearly current with changes in the level of energy input. That makes the land chart a good indicator of climate sensitivity as related to the current CO2 forcing package, which, based on today’s increased CO2 level, must therefore be at least 3.5C for a full doubling. The ocean surface response is much slower, but there is a known pathway for it to catch up. (That pathway could in fact be temporarily disrupted if a huge flotilla of icebergs entered the seas, a distinct possibility not to be wished for.)
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6. This reading of 3.5 for sensitivity purposely avoids making inferences into what may happen hundreds of years later on due to possible changes in the Earth system. I am only interested in getting the clearest possible picture of the current reality, and thus knowing the true magnitude of changes that would be required to fix it in a reasonably acceptable way.  To reach a permanent 1.5C limit CO2 must be cut below 376 ppm.
Carl

Posted in Daily Climate Letters | Comments Off on Climate Letter #1278

Climate Letter #1277

A study about the Great Drought of 1875-78 and the resulting famine.  This was a disaster that cost over 50 million lives, mostly due to widespread crop failures that occurred in Asia, Brazil and Africa.  The causes were entirely natural, “aided in no small part by one of the strongest known El Niños.”  According to the lead author, “a similar global-scale event could happen again. Moreover, rising greenhouse gas concentrations and global warming are projected to intensify El Niño events, in which case “such widespread droughts could become even more severe.”
https://phys.org/news/2018-10-climate-scientist-stage-reprise-worst.html

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A comprehensive new study provides reasons for why a major reduction in meat consumption has an essential role to play in climate change mitigation.  The high-level research team had 24 participants; there is open access to their report.  One of their many conclusions is that “In western countries, beef consumption needs to fall by 90% and be replaced by five times more beans and pulses.”
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A recent study has found a developing environmental process that is likely to speed up the thawing of Arctic permafrost.  Warmer temperatures are causing the spread of plant species in tundra regions that grow much taller than those they replace.  “Arctic regions have long been a focus for climate change research, as the permafrost underlying tundra vegetation contains one-third to half of the world’s soil carbon. When the permafrost thaws, greenhouse gases could thus be released.  An increase in taller plants could speed up this process as taller plants trap more snow in winter, which insulates the underlying soil and prevents it from freezing quickly and deeply in winter.”
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A “minor” greenhouse gas has a major effect on climate change.  This story about the importance of the short-lived gases pays special attention to one of them, the HFCs, that could be quickly and drastically reduced if an existing international treaty (the Montreal Protocol) can be given a simple amendment.  “The Kigali amendment, by avoiding the equivalent of up to 90bn tonnes of CO2 by 2050, could be “perhaps the single most significant contribution to keeping warming well below 2C.”  That amount of climate forcing is equal to that of well over two years’ worth of total greenhouse gas emissions including CO2.  It would help not just by halting new emissions but would actually reverse the existing level of these harmful gases due to their short life.
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An article that provides a detailed explanation of the way oceanic inertia delays the full impact of the warming caused by greenhouse gases.  This comes from the highly respected Skeptical Science website.  The material has direct application to rounding out an explanation of the ideas I have lately been writing about but does not specifically make reference to the distinction between land and ocean surface warming.  From one key sentence, “What this means is that at the point that we realized 1°C warming, we had already locked in 1.5°C warming.”  I hope to have ready some additional comments in tomorrow’s letter.
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A terrible disaster is just days away.  If this thug is elected president of Brazil, which looks almost inevitable, what can the rest of the world do to protect its priceless resources?
Carl

Posted in Daily Climate Letters | Comments Off on Climate Letter #1277

Climate Letter #1276

Today I want to talk some more about the land and ocean chart data that has been discussed in recent letters.  Please go back to CL #1273 and reopen the links that were provided for the charts.

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When you look at the land temperature chart some questions should come to mind:
Why have temperatures risen all the way past 1.6C?
More specifically, where did all the heat come from to produce those temperatures?
What accounts for the fast pace of those increases?
Does that pace tell us anything we should be interested in knowing more about?
What should we make of the much slower pace and lower results over the ocean surfaces?
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I can think of only one way to explain these things.  It has to do with making a proper estimate for climate sensitivity and with putting Earth’s energy imbalance into the right perspective, which is needed in order to resolve some of the misunderstanding that surrounds the various ways to describe what is meant by sensitivity.
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The only way I can think of to explain the rising heat over the continents is through the greenhouse gas effect, complemented to some extent by albedo changes that come along as part of a normal package.  That exact same total package also adds energy to ocean surfaces everywhere, with about the same average amount of incoming radiation of the longwave type, but with a distinctly different outcome during any period when that type of radiation is growing, which we know is happening at present.  Oceans clearly are processing this increasing amount of energy in a different way from land.  One way to describe that difference is to say that maybe land surfaces are more sensitive to increased energy inputs than ocean surfaces, so what does that mean?
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It means that when land surfaces warm up they quickly re-radiate most of the acquired energy back into the atmosphere, where it can eventually move on and out to space.  Some of the energy can get tucked away in the soil, or by melting ice, but essentially the system stays nearly in balance.  With oceans that is now how it works.  Much more of the energy increase gets tucked away, because it can be quickly grabbed and shuttled into the depths below.  That leaves less energy to be re-radiated to the atmosphere and from there to space, causing an imbalance that is further marked by a true warming up of an “inside” part of the Earth, namely the deep oceans.
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The warming up of the oceans at depth will continue on its own pace, and so will the surface, which is likely to slowly increase that pace until eventually it can re-radiate as much energy that moves all the way out to space as the amount that it collects coming in, plus re-emitting  whatever amount is determined by the greenhouse gas effect that exists at that time.  That slow reaction, which could take a hundred years to complete, constitutes much of the “inertia” factor that scientists talk about, and is further expressed in the concept of “equilibrium” sensitivity, which is not realized until all of the incoming radiation from space is re-radiated from the outer atmosphere instead of being partially trapped somewhere.  The deep oceans, and ice too, have a special ability to trap heat, upon being activated in the manner now observed, that supplements the ability of the atmosphere to trap heat heat by adding greenhouse gases, and does so on a remarkably large scale, which is simply not available to energy captured on land surfaces.
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If land surfaces and the air directly above them are warming up in a manner almost completely sensitive to greenhouse gas effects, putting them largely in a state of equilibrium right now, what does that tell us about the proper measure of Earth’s temperature to a doubling of the CO2 level?  From the looks of the readings on the land temperature chart, if the Earth were nothing but land and expressed these same readings it could not possibly be anything less than 3.5C for a full double, starting at 280 ppm.  The presence of oceans should not change that number, but can keep it from being realized for a lengthy period of time, maybe an extra century, as the lower parts of oceans (which right now are very cold) find a way to interfere.
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If the true sensitivity reading is 3.5C, that means every time the CO2 level rises 10.4%, from any starting point, the stage is set for another one-half degree of average warming once the oceans reach equilibrium.  That being the case, the one sure way to limit the current path of increase to less than 1.5C is to reduce the CO2 level to 376, the marker for the third 10.4% increase starting from 280.  The next marker, assigned to a 2.0C increase, is 415, more manageable but still difficult.
Carl  (As you can see, I am still trying to find just the right words for expressing these ideas!)

Posted in Daily Climate Letters | Comments Off on Climate Letter #1276

Climate Letter #1275

New research into the way a warmer climate affects tree growth in northern woodlands.  The work shows that soil moisture is the key, and that two-thirds of the time, due to warming-and-drying processes, soil moisture may be low enough to have a  negative effect on growth.  “These results show that low soil moisture will slow down or eliminate any potential benefits of climate warming on tree photosynthesis even in moist, cold climates like Minnesota, Canada and Siberia.”  That would of course reduce their uptake of CO2, as depended upon by many climate models.
https://phys.org/news/2018-10-warmer-climate-drier-negative-impacts.html

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There is a new report on the impact of global aridity change on human populations.  This is an important study which for some reason has not been picked up by any of the regular science news services.  It does have open access, and the message can be clearly gained by reading the Abstract and Significance statement at the beginning, plus the Conclusion for the principal details.  “Understanding how the water cycle will respond to climate change has important implications for human populations……The largest impacts are expected to occur in Africa, where current water scarcity levels are highest, and where the largest populations coincide with widespread drying.”
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Carbon Brief has a thorough and very readable review of the IPCC report.  It even offers considerable information on the uneven nature of atmospheric warming—a subject I have been harping on lately in these letters—supported by graphic imagery.  “Warming greater than the global annual average is being experienced in many land regions and seasons, including two to three times higher in the Arctic. Warming is generally higher over land than over the ocean……In fact, chapter one (pdf) of the report notes that 20-40% of the global population live in regions that have already experienced warming of more than 1.5C in at least one season.”  (An interpretation of the full meaning of the imbalance is not provided anywhere, as if it were not important.  I believe that oversight is a mistake.)
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A video discussion about estimates of climate sensitivity, calling it “The Most Important Number in Climate Change.”  Several scientists explain why the median conventional estimate of 3C for a doubling of CO2 is too low.  Michael Mann, for one, sees a range of three to four degrees applicable to current circumstances, as a way of explaining effects now being observed.  It is important to get the number right for the purpose of projecting what the actual impacts will be like.  Proper knowledge of those impacts would best instruct the kinds of action required to hold back the things we don’t want to see, as Bill McKibben explains.  The warnings issued by the IPCC in its report, dire as they may be, are based on the lesser impacts foreseen by sensitivity estimates in the 3 degree area, as compared with those of 3.5 or 4.  The implications are substantial.
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Growth of the other greenhouse gases also need to be cut.  These gases contribute significantly to the current pace of global warming, and human activity is largely responsible for the size of that contribution.  Cutting those emissions in many cases would be less onerous than cutting CO2.  Also, in the case of short-lived gases like methane, when cuts are accomplished the amount of such gas that remains in the atmosphere quickly declines, and so also its potency.  That is not the case with CO2, which only declines at a snail’s pace over many thousands of years, which is why there is so much talk about negative emissions technology.
–Speaking of negative emissions technologies, here is a guide to the ones most often discussed:
Carl

Posted in Daily Climate Letters | Comments Off on Climate Letter #1275

Climate Letter #1274

There are countless stories today about the new IPCC report, which is itself a massive piece of information.  No one can read them all, but have picked out a few that reflect the content from a variety of perspectives.

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For a compact but thorough evaluation of the full scope of the report, this is surely one of the best:
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This one does the same job well with more of a snappy, power-point approach:
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For a very quick introduction this from Thomson Reuters covers the key points:
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The Guardian has a story about some things that are missing from the report, and why:
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Finally, a quickie from Axios contains several comments suggesting that the whole theme of the report is a departure from reality, with actual emissions expected to keep growing through 2030:
–A separate report bearing depressing news out of China backs up that last view:
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A new study covers the various methods used to predict sea level rise.  The result confers validity to estimates as high as 8 feet by 2100 and 50 feet by 2300.  In the near term the most likely range is 6 to 10 inches by 2050, with almost no chance of exceeding 18 inches, but from then on things get dicey.
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A report from a group of 40 scientists emphasizes the critical role that forests play in controlling the climate, beyond the issues that surround fossil fuels.  “It noted that the world’s forests contain more carbon than exploitable oil, gas and coal deposits.…..Forests produce water vapour, boost rainfall and cool down local temperatures by as much as 3 degrees Celsius.”
–The report itself is short and well worth reading for a clear statement of fundamental facts:
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New research quantifies the immediate release of CO2 from forest fires during drought in the Amazon region.  The result is found to be three to four times greater than previous estimates, largely attributed to the vast amount of understorey being consumed. That type of loss takes a very long time to recover, longer than trees themselves do.
Carl

Posted in Daily Climate Letters | Comments Off on Climate Letter #1274

Climate Letter #1273

About last Friday’s Climate Letter:

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1.  Here are links to clear and closely related views of the most relevant chart anomaly data for average air temperatures around the globe since 1880, separating land only, ocean only and the full combination, with a baseline roughly equal to the preindustrial average:
–Global average:  go to http://www.columbia.edu/~mhs119/Temperature/–click on “PDF” below the chart.
–Land /ocean:  go to http://www.columbia.edu/~mhs119/Temperature/T_moreFigs/ –scroll down just a bit, then click on “with 1880-1920 base period.”
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2.  The global average is based about 70 % on ocean readings and 30% on land. For any given date, take 70% of the ocean reading and 30% of land and the two numbers should add up to the combined global average reading, which was a little below 1.2C in 2017, dropping to probably 1.1C this year.
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3.  If you extend the green line on the global average off the chart until it would reach 1.5C that should take about 25 years, and would also imply staying on course at 0.17C per decade.
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4.  If land temperatures also stay on course–sorry, no green line–they would come to about 2.2C in those 25 years.  With the same for ocean you get about 1.2C.  (Again take 30% of 2.2 (0.66) and 70% of 1.2 (0.84) to get the full 1.5C.)  Note that the spread differential between land and ocean keeps growing in that event, to 1.0 from around 0.8 at present.  The spread can keep growing for a bit longer, then must turn around and shrink until some far off day when the two surface averages again become equal, or even higher for awhile over the ocean.
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5.  Air temperatures over land will keep rising as long as CO2 and other greenhouse gases keep rising, subject to any significant modification in Earth’s albedo, as from ice and snow cover, cloud cover or aerosol effects.  Each CO2 increase of 10.4% is currently adding 0.5C to the average over land.  (That has been a fact for forty years now, as you can see on the chart.)  On the present course of 2ppm per year, which of course we are hoping to reduce, the next half degree would take less than 25 years.
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6.  The ocean air chart shows quite a bump over the last 3-4 years, thanks in large part to the major El Nino.  I think if ocean surfaces were keeping pace with land temperature increases we would be getting even larger volumes of rainfall than the deluges experienced recently, and more hurricane action as well.  In that regard, but maybe not all regards, the ocean heat sink is doing us a big favor.  That same sink doesn’t seem to have much, if any, cooling effect over land, which keeps getting badly burned by more and more drought, wildfires, heatwaves and so on.
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7.  There will be a new IPCC report this week.  The ideas you see here are probably different in some respects from the more conventional ones that will be found in the report.  Unless I find some holes (let me know!) I will probably keep talking this way.
Carl

Posted in Daily Climate Letters | Comments Off on Climate Letter #1273