2 degrees hotter not an acceptable climate target but a disaster, say leading scientists

Countries round the world have pledged to try and limit the average global temperature rise to 2°C above pre-industrial figures. That’s way too high and would threaten major dislocations for civilization say a group of prominent scientists.

Lead author James Hansen

by Tim Radford, Climate News Network

Governments have set the wrong target to limit climate change. The goal at present – to limit global warming to a maximum of 2°C higher than the average for most of human history – “would have consequences that can be described as disastrous”, say 18 scientists in a review paper in the journal PLOS One.

With a 2°C increase, “sea level rise of several meters could be expected,” they say.  Increased climate extremes, already apparent at 0.8°C warming, would be more severe. Coral reefs and associated species, already stressed with current conditions, would be decimated by increased acidification, temperature and sea level rise.

Parts of Australia reaching threshold where it is impossible for normal life to continue because of the heat, says climate impacts researcher

Some parts of Australia, such as Darwin, and some farms and factories, are likely to be  unviable in a 4°C hotter world, according to climate impacts research by Dr. Liz Hanna, from the Australian National University’s National Centre for Epidemiology and Population Health.
Paul Brown of Climate News Network reports from the UN climate talks in Warsaw.

UN bodies and health authorities are being advised to prepare for a world temperature rise of 4°C because scientists no longer believe that politicians are capable of holding the temperature rise below the internationally agreed limit, 2°C above pre-industrial levels.

Mark Maslin, professor of climatology at University College in London, was speaking at a conference here which also heard that some parts of the world were already in danger of becoming too hot for humans to inhabit.

Typhoon Haiyan and climate change: connecting the dots (updated)

UPDATED 15 November


NEW:  Super Typhoon Haiyan's Intensification and Unusually Warm Sub-Surface Waters
A remarkable warming of the sub-surface Pacific waters east of the Philippines in recent decades, due to a shift in atmospheric circulation patterns and ocean currents that began in the early 1990s, could be responsible for the rapid intensification of Super Typhoon Haiyan. Hurricanes are heat engines, which means they take heat energy out of the ocean, and convert it to kinetic energy in the form of wind. It's well-known that tropical cyclones need surface water temperatures of at least 26.5°C (80°F) to maintain themselves, and that the warmer the water, and the deeper the warm water is, the stronger the storm can get.
http://www.wunderground.com/blog/JeffMasters/comment.html?entrynum=2579

The Abbott government: climate policy as culture war

by David Spratt, first published at ReNewEconomy

Overnight in London, former prime minister John Howard gave the climate-denialist Global Warming Policy Foundation's annual lecture, telling his audience:

I've always been agnostic about [climate change]… I don't completely dismiss the more dire warnings but I instinctively feel that some of the claims are exaggerated… I don't accept all of the alarmist conclusions… You can never be absolutely certain that all the science is in.

 Agnosticism masking denial has been Howard's trademark. In February 2007, he told Lateline that 4-to-6 degrees Celsius of climate warming "would be less comfortable for some than it is now".  Yes, really!

Connecting the dots can turn the table on denialist prime minister

by David Spratt, first published at The Guardian and RenewEconomy

It's hard to imagine that one tweet from Australian Greens deputy leader Adam Bandt could change the terms of the climate change policy debate in Australia. But it has.

View PDF of how the story evolved

On 17 October, as fierce, out-of-season bush fires erupted around Sydney and destroyed 200 houses after the hottest year on record in Australia, Bandt tweeted that Australia would experience more terrible climate impacts if newly-elected conservative prime minister Tony Abbott got his way and abandoned the carbon pricing and renewable energy legislation enacted by the Labor government in 2010.

The previous day, Bandt had written in The Guardian that: "Faced with the biggest ever threat to Australia's way of life (bush fires), Tony Abbott is failing in the first duty of a prime minister which is to protect the Australian people." This struck a chord with many people and launched a long overdue, but until now suppressed, public discussion about the relationship between a hotter and more extreme climate and worsening disasters.

Climate change and fire risk: what scientists say

Prime minister Tony Abbott says that "fire is a part of the Australian experience" and not linked to climate change. Here's what the peer-reviewed scientific research says.

Bushfire weather in SE Australia: Recent trends and projected climate change impacts

Lucas, C., K. Hennessy, G Mills and J. Bathols (2007), "Bushfire weather in SE Australia: Recent trends and projected climate change impacts", Bushfire CRC, Australian Bureau of Meteorology and CSIRO, Melbourne.

The number of ‘very high’ fire danger days generally increases 2-13% by 2020 for the low scenarios and 10-30% for the high scenarios (Table E1). By 2050, the range is much broader, generally 5-23% for the low scenarios and 20-100% for the high scenarios. The number of ‘extreme’ fire danger days generally increases 5-25% by 2020 for the low scenarios and 15-65% for the high scenarios (Table E1). By 2050, the increases are generally 10-50% for the low scenarios and 100-300% for the high scenarios.

Fire and climate change: don't expect a smooth ride

By Roger Jones, Victoria University, via The Conversation

With fires still burning across New South Wales, it’s time to have a look at the role climate change might have played. Are the conditions we’re seeing natural variation, or part of a long term trend?

In fact, it doesn’t have to be one or the other.

Has bushfire risk increased due to climate change?

In research I did with colleagues earlier this year we looked at the Fire Danger Index calculated by the Bureau of Meteorology, and compared how it changed compared to temperature over time in Victoria.

Is the Abbott government fiddling while NSW burns?

" …it is precisely during extreme weather events that journalists have the best opportunity to communicate the reality of climate change… As the events increase in number and scale, they will advance so far into the daily lives of Australians that social and psychological issues will emerge — that will touch us so personally and deeply — as to require narrative symbolisation. For even the most tabloid journalism to ignore these issues when people are desperately searching for an explanation will not be possible."

By David Holmes, Monash University, via The Conversation

Watch Adam Bandt on ABC News24

For the Abbott government, it has emerged that talking about climate change during a “natural” disaster is taboo. Of course, how “natural” the NSW fires actually are is the issue here, as we witness over 100 separate fires across NSW. These fires are the likes of which have never been seen in the month of October anywhere in Australia, let alone this close to population centres.

Yesterday Greens MP Adam Bandt posted the following on Twitter that drew several reactions from LNP politicians:

Tony Abbott’s plan means more bushfires for Australia and more pics like this of Sydney.

Confused about the new IPCC's carbon budget? So am I.

by David Spratt

When the IPCC's new report on the physical basis of climate change was released in late September, media attention focused on a conclusion from the Summary for Policymakers that the world had emitted just over half of the allowable emissions if global warming is to be kept to 2 degrees Celsius (2°C) of warming.

Unfortunately, because many people think if you have a budget you should spend every last dollar, the "carbon budget" message could be interpreted as saying there is plenty of budget left to spend. The respected climate researcher Ken Caldeira told Climate Progress that the carbon budget concept is dangerous for two reasons:

There are no such things as an “allowable carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions.” There are only “damaging CO2 emissions” or “dangerous CO2 emissions.” Every CO2 emission causes additional damage and creates additional risk. Causing additional damage and creating additional risk with our CO2 emissions should not be allowed.
If you look at how our politicians operate, if you tell them you have a budget of XYZ, they will spend XYZ. Politicians will reason: “If we’re not over budget, what’s to stop us to spending? Let the guys down the road deal with it when the budget has been exceeded.” The CO2 emissions budget framing is a recipe for delaying concrete action now.

Climate battle line: Community mobilisation or Canberra lobby?

by David Spratt

Rally against carbon pricing, Canberra, 23 March 2011

How should climate activist and climate campaigning organisations respond to the new Abbott government, and its goal of knocking out most of Australia's climate programmes and trashing environmental regulation in the service of the fossil fuel and mining industries?

• Should the methods utilised for the Labor and Labor–Greens coalition governments, of applying pressure and trying to negotiate better outcomes, be used?
• Or should we set out to deliberately get the Abbott government out of office?

The Abbott Liberal–National Party government celebrated its victory by abolishing Australia's Climate Commission, the first baby steps in a culture war on climate programmes, the renewable energy industry and environmental regulation and protection.

IPCC summary report at a glance, in their own words

via Climate News Network

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Observed changes in average surface temperature 1901-2012

Summary for Policymakers of the Working Group I contribution to the Fifth Assessment Report

A note from the Climate News Network editors: we have prepared this very abbreviated version of the first instalment of the IPCC's Fifth Assessment Report (AR5) to serve as an objective guide to some of the headline issues it covers. It is in no sense an evaluation of what the Summary says: the wording is that of the IPCC authors themselves, except for a few cases where we have added headings. The AR5 uses a different basis as input to models from that used in its 2007 predecessor, AR4: instead of emissions scenarios, it speaks of RCPs, representative concentration pathways. So it is not possible everywhere to make a direct comparison between AR4 and AR5, though the text does so in some cases, and at the end we provide a very short list of the two reports' conclusions on several key issues. The language of science can be complex. What follows is the IPCC scientists' language. In the following days and weeks we will be reporting in more detail on some of their findings.

Is climate change already dangerous (5): Climate safety and an unavoidably radical future

by David Spratt

Fifth and last in a series

Climate safety

The research evidence and expert elicitations demonstrate that climate conditions are “dangerous” now – according to the generally accepted “safe boundary”, “five concerns” and “tipping point” metrics.

• The 350 ppm “safe boundary” for atmospheric CO2 has already been exceeded by 50 ppm.
• In 2007, at around +0.76ºC warming (equivalent to ~335 ppm CO2 at equilibrium), Arctic sea-ice passed its tipping point. The Greenland Ice Sheet may not be far behind, as the Arctic moves to sea-ice-free conditions in summer, triggering further tipping elements.
• Around +1.5ºC warming may be the tipping point for the Greenland Ice Sheet and for the large-scale release of Arctic carbon permafrost stores. At +1.5ºC, coral reefs would be reduced to remnant systems.
• The paleo-climate record shows that the current level of atmospheric CO2 at 400 ppm is enough to produce sea-level rises of 20–40 metres; is around the tipping point for large-scale release of Arctic carbon permafrost; and is sufficient to trigger powerful amplifying polar feedbacks.

Is climate change already dangerous? (4): Tipping points and climate modelling

by David Spratt

Fourth in a series

A tipping point may be understood as a step change, or passing of a critical threshold, in a major earth-climate system component, where a small perturbation (a small push or change) unleashes a bigger change in the component.  Potsdam Institute Director, Prof. Hans Joachim Schellnhuber, says that tipping points “identify the most vulnerable components (tipping elements) of the Earth System, the critical warming thresholds where the respective Earth System elements flip into a qualitatively new state”.  These elements include ecosystems, major ocean and atmospheric circulation patterns, the polar ice sheets, and the land- and ocean-based carbon stores.

This process is often tied to positive feedbacks, where a change in a component leads to other changes that eventually “feed back” onto the original change to amplify it.  The classic case in global warming (or, in reverse, cooling) is the ice-albedo feedback, where decreases (increases) in the ice cover area change surface reflectivity (albedo), trapping more (less) heat and producing further ice loss (gain).

Is climate change already dangerous? (3) Consequences from current greenhouse gas levels

by David Spratt

Third in a series

Danger from implied temperature increase

The current level of atmospheric CO2 only is sufficient to increase the global temperature at equilibrium by +1.5°C, based on the standard assumption of near-term climate sensitivity of 3°C for doubled CO2.

If all current greenhouse gases are taken into account, then:

The observed increase in the concentration of greenhouse gases (GHGs) since the pre-industrial era has most likely committed the world to a warming of 2.4°C (within a range of +1.4°C to +4.3°C) above the pre-industrial surface temperatures. (Ramanthan and Feng)

And the 2007 IPCC Synthesis report (Table 5.1 on emission scenarios) also shows that for levels of greenhouse gases that have already been achieved (CO2 in the range of 350–400 ppm, CO2e in the range 445–490 ppm) and peaking by 2015, the likely temperature rise is in the range of 2–2.4°C.

Is global warming in a hiatus? Not if you measure global heat content

by Prof. Andy Pitman, via The Conversation

Prof. Andy Pitman, Univ. of NSW

On September 27 2013 the 5th Assessment Report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) will be released.

One part of this report will address the so-called “warming hiatus”. This is the argument that warming has stopped, with the further assertion in some quarters that we therefore have nothing to worry about in the future.

It is a fact, based on observations of air temperature, that the rate of global warming measured as surface air temperature has slowed over the past 15 years. The last decade is still the warmest in the past 150 years.

Is climate change already dangerous (2): The Arctic

by David Spratt

Second in a series

Arctic sea ice

 

Download full report

On 16 September 2012, Arctic sea-ice reached its minimum extent for the 2012 northern summer of 3.41 million square kilometres, the lowest seasonal minimum extent in the satellite record since 1979, and just half of the average area for the 1979–2000 period.  There was a loss of 11.83 million square kilometres of ice from the maximum extent on 20 March 2012.  This was the largest summer ice extent loss in the satellite record, more than one million square kilometres greater than in any previous year.

Two-thirds of the loss of sea-ice extent has happened in the 12 years since 2000, and the process appears to be accelerating.  From 1979 to 1983 in the Arctic, the sea ice summer minimum covered an average of just over 51 per cent of the ocean.  It fell to just 24 per cent of the Arctic ocean surface in 2012.

Climate case overwhelming, say scientists

Eleven days before the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change publishes its latest report, a group of eminent scientists says there is massive evidence of human responsibility.

By Alex Kirby, Climate News Network, 16 September 2013, London

With the IPCC report not yet published, there is already heated debate about what it will say, and about the implications of its findings for human development.

The scientists' statement is unequivocal, and is not based on whatever the IPCC may publish. They  say: "The body of evidence indicating that our civilisation has already caused significant global warming is overwhelming."

The statement comes from 12 members of the recently established Earth League, which describes itself as "a voluntary alliance of leading scientists and institutions dealing with planetary processes and sustainability issues".

Is climate change already dangerous? (1)

by David Spratt

First in a series

Download full report

… the (climate) disruption and its impacts are now growing much more rapidly than almost anybody expected even a few years ago. The result of that, in my view, is that the world is already experiencing ‘dangerous anthropogenic interference in the climate system’… The question now is whether we can avoid catastrophic human interference in the climate system.
— John Holdren, senior advisor to President Barack Obama 
on science and technology issues, 2008

The stated purpose of international climate negotiations is to avoid “dangerous” climate change or, more formally, to prevent “dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system”. Most of the climate action movement and most NGOs identify with this goal.

"Model in crisis" of many big green groups, says Naomi Klein

Introduction: Australia has a new climate-change-denialist Liberal–National Party (LNP) government led by Tony Abbott, who says the science of climate change is "crap".  His government has a clear majority in Australia's lower house, and similarly will enjoy majority rule in the upper house (with the support of conservative,and often climate denialist, small parties) when new Senators take their places on 1 July 2014.
    The Senate results mean the LNP will very likely enjoy that majority for at least two terms (six years), and there is only one occasions in which an elected government in Australia has lasted only one term. So a government which for all practical purposes denies climate change and has the mission of destroying Australia's carbon price and most renewable energy initiatives will likely run the place for at least six years. For those large climate and environment NGOs who have made working inside the Canberra beltway a priority, their models faces a crisis.
     And in a different way so do we all, in working out the way to get the climate emergency approach, which does not downplay now grim scientific realities that global warming is already dangerous in favour of political convenience and incrementalism, onto the agenda.
     At this moment, with the triumph of climate-denialist politics in Australia, Naomi Klein's recent interview is particularly pertinent. – David

by Naomi Klein, interviewed by Jason Mark


First published  Earth Island Journal, 5 September 2013 (extracts)

JM: In the wake of Hurricane Sandy you wrote about the potential of a “people’s shock.” Do you see that it’s happening, a global grassroots response to some of the extreme weather we’re experiencing?

The astounding global warming impact on our oceans that will reduce cloud cover and bring tears to your eyes

Ocean acidification will just not kill significant ocean ecosystems, but add even more to global warming

by David Spratt

Another significant global warming positive feedback that will add even more to future temperature rises has been identified by researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Meteorology in Hamburg, Germany. End result: Perhaps another half a degree of warming this century.

New research just published in Nature Climate by Katharine Six and her colleagues shows that as oceans become more acidic (by absorbing increasing volumes of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere to form carbonic acid),  the amount of a compound called dimethylsulphide (DMS) in the ocean decreases.