Climate Change

[Michael Scally MD]

Temporal Scaling of Carbon Emission and Accumulation Rates: Modern Anthropogenic Emissions Compared to Estimates of PETM Onset Accumulation

The Paleocene‐Eocene thermal maximum (PETM) is a global greenhouse warming event that happened 56 million years ago, causing extinction in the world's oceans and accelerated evolution on the continents.

It was caused by release of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases to the atmosphere.

When we compare the rate of release of greenhouse gases today to the rate of accumulation during the PETM, we must compare the rates on a common time scale.

Projection of modern rates to a PETM time scale is tightly constrained and shows that we are now emitting carbon some 9–10 times faster than during the PETM.

If the present trend of increasing carbon emissions continues, we may see PETM‐magnitude extinction and accelerated evolution in as few as 140 years or about five human generations.

Gingerich PD. Temporal Scaling of Carbon Emission and Accumulation Rates: Modern Anthropogenic Emissions Compared to Estimates of PETM Onset Accumulation. Paleoceanography and Paleoclimatology 2019;34:329-35. https://doi.org/10.1029/2018PA003379

The Paleocene‐Eocene thermal maximum (PETM) was caused by a massive release of carbon to the atmosphere. This is a benchmark global greenhouse warming event that raised temperatures to their warmest since extinction of the dinosaurs.

Rates of carbon emission today can be compared to those during onset of the PETM in two ways:

(1) projection of long‐term PETM rates for comparison on an annual time scale and

(2) projection of short‐term modern rates for comparison on a PETM time scale.

Both require temporal scaling and extrapolation for comparison on the same time scale. PETM rates are few and projection to a short time scale is poorly constrained.

Modern rates are many, and projection to a longer PETM time scale is tightly constrained—modern rates are some 9–10 times higher than those during onset of the PETM.

If the present trend of anthropogenic emissions continues, we can expect to reach a PETM‐scale accumulation of atmospheric carbon in as few as 140 to 259 years (about 5 to 10 human generations).

 

[Michael Scally MD]

[OA] Existential Climate-Related Security Risk: A Scenario Approach
https://docs.wixstatic.com/ugd/148cb0_b2c0c79dc4344b279bcf2365336ff23b.pdf

A realistic assessment of climate-related impacts and threats depends on understanding the strengths and weaknesses of climate science projections. Unfortunately, much scientific knowledge produced for climate policymaking is conservative and reticent.

In reality, climate change now represents a near- to mid-term existential threat to human civilisation. A new approach to climate-related risk management is required, paying particular attention to the high-end and difficult-to-quantify “fat-tail” possibilities, such as climate tipping points. This should be the key task of the minister’s new department. What sort of approach should the government bring to emergency risk management in the face of existential climate risk?

It is essential these high-end, bad possibilities, not just middle-of-the-road probabilities, are seriously considered. This may be most effectively explored by scenario analysis. In our paper a 2050 scenario is outlined in which accelerating climate-change impacts pose large negative consequences to humanity which might not be undone for centuries.

 

[Michael Scally MD]

[OA] Existential Climate-Related Security Risk: A Scenario Approach
https://docs.wixstatic.com/ugd/148cb0_b2c0c79dc4344b279bcf2365336ff23b.pdf

A realistic assessment of climate-related impacts and threats depends on understanding the strengths and weaknesses of climate science projections. Unfortunately, much scientific knowledge produced for climate policymaking is conservative and reticent.

In reality, climate change now represents a near- to mid-term existential threat to human civilisation. A new approach to climate-related risk management is required, paying particular attention to the high-end and difficult-to-quantify “fat-tail” possibilities, such as climate tipping points. This should be the key task of the minister’s new department. What sort of approach should the government bring to emergency risk management in the face of existential climate risk?

It is essential these high-end, bad possibilities, not just middle-of-the-road probabilities, are seriously considered. This may be most effectively explored by scenario analysis. In our paper a 2050 scenario is outlined in which accelerating climate-change impacts pose large negative consequences to humanity which might not be undone for centuries.

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

Carbon Dioxide Levels Hit Record Peak In May
Carbon dioxide levels hit record peak in May - Welcome to NOAA Research

Atmospheric carbon dioxide continued its rapid rise in 2019, with the average for May peaking at 414.7 parts per million at NOAA’s Mauna Loa Atmospheric Baseline Observatory, scientists from NOAA and Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California San Diego announced today.

This is the highest seasonal peak recorded in 61 years of observations on top of Hawaii’s largest volcano, and the seventh consecutive year of steep global increases in concentrations of carbon dioxide, or CO2. The 2019 peak value was 3.5 parts per million (ppm) higher than the 411.2 ppm peak reached in May 2018; it represents the second-highest annual jump on record. The May monthly average measured by Scripps' instruments was 414.8 ppm, also 3.5 ppm higher than Scripps' May 2018 average.

The concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere increases every year, and the rate of increase is accelerating. The early years at Mauna Loa saw annual increases averaging about 0.7 ppm per year, increasing to about 1.6 ppm per year in the 1980s and 1.5 ppm per year in the 1990s. The growth rate rose to 2.2 ppm per year during the last decade.


RECORDS AS OF JUNE 1, 2019
MAUNA LOA OBSERVATORY, HAWAII
All-Time Record Highs for CO2 Daily Averages
https://www.co2.earth/daily-co2

415.70 ppm on May 15, 2019 (Scripps)

415.64 ppm on May 15, 2019 (NOAA-ESRL)

415.50 ppm on May 13, 2019 (Scripps)

415.40 ppm on May 13, 2019 (NOAA-ESRL)

415.39 ppm on May 12, 2019 (Scripps)

415.27 ppm on May 12, 2019 (NOAA-ESRL)

415.26 ppm on May 11, 2019 (Scripps)

414.94 ppm on May 1, 2019 (Scripps)

414.88 ppm on May 1, 2019 (NOAA-ESRL)

414.84 ppm on March 18, 2019 (NOAA-ESRL) & May 2, 2019 (Scripps)

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

A 10-step plan for Congress to save the climate
A 10-step plan for Congress to save the climate

Climate change is not a liberal or a conservative issue. It is foremost an issue of great human tragedy with lives, homes and habitats lost to extreme heat waves, droughts, fires, floods, hurricanes, sea level rise, storm surges and coastal erosion. The number of people exposed could reach 1.5 billion in 25 years and 7 billion in 60 years.

Climate change science is driven by big data and governed by Newton’s equations of motion, quantum mechanics and a law that links heat energy with work. I know this from 46 years of research. In 1975, I joined a NASA team that launched a climate satellite. I used it to measure directly the heat trapped by atmospheric greenhouse gases including carbon dioxide.

For me, personally, the denouement occurred in 2017. First were two reports in which we concluded that unchecked climate change can morph into an existential threat. The second and final blow was the announcement by the cautious American Meteorological Society, “we're experiencing new weather, because we've made a new climate”.

Science often answers questions by giving probabilities and ranges of outcomes rather than a single exact number. This should not stop Congress from enacting forceful mitigation actions to cut emissions drastically.

Congress should know that model predictions of 20th-century climate changes have been verified by thousands of scientists using massive amounts of data.

This gives scientists increasing confidence that they can model the future with narrowing bounds of uncertainty. The predictions are that, with unchecked emissions, the warming by 2100 is likely to be a catastrophic 4 degrees Celsius; with a 1-in-20 chance that it could be as low as 2.5 degrees Celsius — which is still dangerous — or as high as 6 degrees Celsius, which would pose existential threats for all.

None of us would board a plane if it has a 1-in-20 chance of crashing. But unless we quickly change course, that’s the plane that we are committing our children and grandchildren to board.

There is still time to avoid the worst outcomes. I am very optimistic Americans will do the right thing and lead the way in solving this global problem. Let me explain why: In about 11 years, the warming will increase by 50 percent from the current 1 degree Celsius to 1.5 degrees Celsius; and with it the underlying forces that link warming with weather extremes will also intensify by 50 percent. Climate change will be in everyone’s living room and the growing public support we’re already seeing will turn into overwhelming public support for quickly bending the warming curve.

Congress needs to set the stage now for a rapid response. Here are 10 actions for the new Congress to have a major impact in slowing the warming and coping with climate/weather extremes.

…

 

[Michael Scally MD]

Historical chart. There are no known cases in Finland's climate history when it has been hotter than now so early in the summer. Heatwave in Finland: 32.3°C in Oulunsalo (near Oulu), close to the Arctic circle, at 65° North, yesterday.

 

[Michael Scally MD]

The melt is not simply a seasonal process. The natural thaw that starts with spring’s warm weather is being amplified by manmade global heating. The Arctic has heated up by 2C above pre-industrial levels, twice the global average. Some hotspots, including parts of the Fram strait, have warmed by 4C. There are variations from year to year, but the trend is clear and accelerating. Sea ice is melting earlier in the spring and freezing later in the autumn. Each summer it thins more and recedes further, leaving greater expanses of the ocean exposed to 24-hour sunlight. This is driving back the frontiers of ice and fragmenting one of the planet’s most important climate regulators. It is also creating a series of feedbacks that are accelerating the Arctic melt. Several are only partially understood.

…

Since the start of the satellite era in 1979, the summer Arctic has lost 40% of its extent and up to 70% of its volume, says Wagner. Other scientists calculate the rate of decline at 10,000 tonnes a second. Much of the multiyear ice is now gone. Most of what is left is the younger, thinner layer from the previous winter, which is easier for the sun to melt and the wind to push around. Wagner expects ice-free summers in 20 to 40 years, which would allow ships to cruise all the way to the north pole.

…

Researchers are discovering that the floes are home to an extraordinary variety and abundance of life, even during the four-month darkness of Arctic winter. Depending on how the ice is formed, it can be permeable and elastic, with space inside that can be colonised by bacteria, fungal spores and the tiny creatures that feed on them such as the transparent jellyfish Sympagohydra tuuli, which squeezes inside the cracks in the ice to hunt for food. The green and yellow shades at the base of floes indicate the presence of phytoplankton – algae that use sunlight to convert carbon dioxide and water into oxygen and energy. These are the pastures on which the zooplankton graze. Most important among them are copepods, a fat-filled staple in the diet of whales and fish.

Together, millions of these species form an oceanic pump, says Mattias Cape, a biological oceanographer with the University of Washington. Phytoplankton help the oceans produce more oxygen than all the world’s forests. They also sequester carbon dioxide more effectively because copepods and the bigger creatures that eat them take the gas down to the depths, where it can be stored for hundreds of years. Nowhere is this pump more effective than near the poles – the zooplankton here are bigger, so they sink deeper.

But this is changing. When Cape observes the zooplankton through a microscope in the hold of the ship, he can see that the chubby Arctic copepods have competition from their slimmer and shorter Atlantic counterparts. This invasion has been recorded in other parts of the ocean. “We see a shift from big to small, which is a concern, because it will make this pump action weaker,” he says. The study may help to explain why the Arctic is losing oxygen faster than almost anywhere on Earth. Another factor is that cold water absorbs more carbon dioxide, which gives it high levels of acidity. “We talk about the ocean being hot, sour and out of breath,” Cape says.

 

[Michael Scally MD]

Steve Bannister Pours Cold Fusion on Climate Deniers


Steve Bannister, from the University of Utah, is special guest on this week’s Debunking Economics podcast. He talks to Phil Dobbie about his approach to climate change modelling, based on GDP growth, energy use and carbon emissions.

Steve Keen talks about the weakness of other modelling, including Nordhaus’ DICE model.

Steve Bannisters model predicts things will even out eventually, but will we be alive to see it? Nope.

The answer seems to be, there’s a need for a new source of energy. Clearly, its where science needs to focus its efforts, but is the sense of urgency strong enough to see if through?



This is the payoff graph updating my population--driven Kaya modeling work of six years ago. On this model global CO2 emissions peak around 2060, about the same time as six years ago, but at about 45 X 10^9 metric tonnes of CO2 annually. Six years ago the peak was at about 50 X 10^9 metric tonnes of CO2 annually. That's about a 10% decrease.

This is the first time any data that matter have indicated an improvement. This is great news. The bad news, however, is that we are still going to fry on all current trends.

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

Writing in the New York Post last week, Bjorn Lomberg argued against calling climate change "catastrophic", and quoted a United Nations report which alleged that global warming will have only a trivial effect on global GDP over the next half century. …

So should you have faith in the IPCC's prediction that climate change will reduce GDP by less than 2% over the next fifty years? Only if you can trust the "simplifying assumptions" made by the economists who wrote that part of the IPCC report.

The actual climate scientists who write other parts of the IPCC report certainly don't trust the economists. They can't say so in the IPCC report itself, because of the consensus rules that determine what the IPCC can and can't publish. But they are certainly saying so in their own academic papers. A recent paper by 16 climate scientists advised strongly against the methods that economists use to decide whether we should take action against climate change:

Current rates of change of important features of the Earth System already match or exceed those of abrupt geophysical events in the past (SI Appendix). With these trends likely to continue for the next several decades at least, the contemporary way of guiding development founded on theories, tools, and beliefs of gradual or incremental change, with a focus on economy efficiency, will likely not be adequate to cope with this trajectory. (Steffen, Rockström et al. 2018, p. 8257. Emphasis added)

Rather than being blasé about the impact of a 10°C increase in global temperatures, these scientists are worried that even a 2°C increase will trigger feedback effects in the climate that we will be powerless to reverse:

Our analysis suggests that the Earth System may be approaching a planetary threshold that could lock in a continuing rapid pathway toward much hotter conditions—Hothouse Earth. This pathway would be propelled by strong, intrinsic, biogeophysical feedbacks difficult to influence by human actions, a pathway that could not be reversed, steered, or substantially slowed. Where such a threshold might be is uncertain, but it could be only decades ahead at a temperature rise of ~2.0 °C above preindustrial, and thus, it could be within the range of the Paris Accord temperature targets. (Steffen, Rockström et al. 2018, p. 8257. Emphasis added)

They therefore argue that we should do everything possible to avoid a 2°C increase in global temperatures:

Precisely where a potential planetary threshold might be is uncertain. We suggest 2 °C because of the risk that a 2 °C warming could activate important tipping elements, raising the temperature further to activate other tipping elements in a domino-like cascade that could take the Earth System to even higher temperatures (Tipping Cascades). (Steffen, Rockström et al. 2018, p. 8254)

With global temperature already 1°C above pre-industrial levels, we're already half-way to the threshold that climate scientists warn could lead to catastrophic change to the biosphere, and therefore dramatic damage to the economy as well. So don't trust what a tiny cabal of mainstream economists tell you about climate change. Don't be gullible like Bjorn Lomborg. We only have decades left to avoid a catastrophe that, as usual, economists cannot see coming.

 

[Michael Scally MD]

Extreme weather drove the growth in energy demand last year to its highest level since 2010, triggering warnings of a “vicious cycle” fuelled by reliance on heating and cooling systems that could worsen the world’s carbon emissions crisis.

Energy group BP said in its closely watched annual market review that energy consumption grew 2.9 per cent in 2018, led by China and the US, despite modest economic growth and strengthening oil and gas prices.

The rise spurred a 2 per cent increase in carbon emissions, the fastest since 2011 and equivalent to increasing the global passenger car fleet by a third, or just under 400m.

“If there is a link between the growing levels of carbon in the atmosphere and the types of weather patterns observed in 2018, this would raise the possibility of a worrying vicious cycle,” Spencer Dale, BP’s chief economist, is expected to say in a speech to launch the report on Tuesday afternoon.

The US saw an unusually high number of very hot or cold days last year, the most since the 1950s. China and Russia also saw greater fluctuations in temperature in 2018.

Such patterns could cause stronger growth in energy demand and carbon emissions as households and businesses seek to offset the effects, Mr Dale will warn.

…

BP has pointed to the world’s enduring reliance on fossil fuels and said it is aiming to increase output while ultimately reducing emissions.

But the latest statistics show the global energy system is not able to easily break this link as would be necessary to meet the Paris climate agreement goals.

“There are grounds for us to be worried,” Mr Dale will say, and will add that there is a “growing mismatch between hopes and reality”.

According to BP, oil, gas and coal accounted for nearly three-quarters of the growth in energy demand last year, their highest share in five years.

Growth in renewable energy was less pronounced than in previous years but remained the fastest-growing source at 14.5 per cent.

Even as China and India have expanded into cleaner energy sources in recent years, the growth is not enough to meet demand and they are still building coal plants.

Coal saw its second consecutive annual pick-up in demand last year, led by Asia, after three years of declining consumption.

Natural gas demand expanded by 5.3 per cent, one of its strongest growth rates in more than 30 years, fuelled by a continuing switch to gas in China.

 

[FlawlessSet]

Extreme weather drove the growth in energy demand last year to its highest level since 2010, triggering warnings of a “vicious cycle” fuelled by reliance on heating and cooling systems that could worsen the world’s carbon emissions crisis.

Energy group BP said in its closely watched annual market review that energy consumption grew 2.9 per cent in 2018, led by China and the US, despite modest economic growth and strengthening oil and gas prices.

The rise spurred a 2 per cent increase in carbon emissions, the fastest since 2011 and equivalent to increasing the global passenger car fleet by a third, or just under 400m.

“If there is a link between the growing levels of carbon in the atmosphere and the types of weather patterns observed in 2018, this would raise the possibility of a worrying vicious cycle,” Spencer Dale, BP’s chief economist, is expected to say in a speech to launch the report on Tuesday afternoon.

The US saw an unusually high number of very hot or cold days last year, the most since the 1950s. China and Russia also saw greater fluctuations in temperature in 2018.

Such patterns could cause stronger growth in energy demand and carbon emissions as households and businesses seek to offset the effects, Mr Dale will warn.

…

BP has pointed to the world’s enduring reliance on fossil fuels and said it is aiming to increase output while ultimately reducing emissions.

But the latest statistics show the global energy system is not able to easily break this link as would be necessary to meet the Paris climate agreement goals.

“There are grounds for us to be worried,” Mr Dale will say, and will add that there is a “growing mismatch between hopes and reality”.

According to BP, oil, gas and coal accounted for nearly three-quarters of the growth in energy demand last year, their highest share in five years.

Growth in renewable energy was less pronounced than in previous years but remained the fastest-growing source at 14.5 per cent.

Even as China and India have expanded into cleaner energy sources in recent years, the growth is not enough to meet demand and they are still building coal plants.

Coal saw its second consecutive annual pick-up in demand last year, led by Asia, after three years of declining consumption.

Natural gas demand expanded by 5.3 per cent, one of its strongest growth rates in more than 30 years, fuelled by a continuing switch to gas in China.

Such a vicious cycle indeed! I am ever so grateful to have no children.

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

Exhibit A: the decision this week by the Queensland State government to allow a big coal mine in northeastern Australia to move forward. The project, known as the Carmichael mine, is controlled by the Adani Group, an Indian corporate behemoth headed by billionaire Gautam Adani.

If it ever opens, the Carmichael mine would not be the biggest coal mine in the world, or even the biggest coal mine in Australia. But it may be the most insane energy project on the planet, and one that shows just how far supposedly civilized nations (and people) are from grasping what’s at stake in the climate crisis.

The site for the Carmichael mine is in the Galilee Basin, an unspoiled region of Queensland that Adani has been itching to get his hands on for at least a decade. The battle over the mine has been the usual sordid tale of fossil fuel industry development, in which a rich, powerful, politically connected corporation gets its way with weak and corrupt politicians.

But of course there are a lot of stupid and destructive energy projects in the world right now. What makes Adani worse than the others?

Let’s start with the Great Barrier Reef. ...

 

[Michael Scally MD]