Climate Change

[Michael Scally MD]

The Oxford Handbook of the Macroeconomics of Global Warming
http://goo.gl/b2uRB4

The Oxford Handbook of the Macroeconomics of Global Warming analyzes the economic impact of issues related to and resulting from global warming, specifically the implications of possible preventative measures, various policy changes, and adaptation efforts as well as the different consequences climate change will have on both developing and developed nations. This multi-disciplinary approach, which touches on issues of growth, employment, and development, elucidates for readers state-of-the-art research on the complex and far-reaching problem of global warming.

 

[Michael Scally MD]

Tony Abbott says 'coal is good for humanity' while opening mine
‘Coal is vital for the future energy needs of the world, so let’s have no demonisation of coal’ says PM
http://www.theguardian.com/world/20...-coal-is-good-for-humanity-while-opening-mine

 

[Michael Scally MD]

Cowern NEB, Ahn C. Thermal emissions and climate change: Cooler options for future energy technology. http://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/0811/0811.0476.pdf

Climate projections that account for both greenhouse gas emissions and human-made thermal emissions show that global temperature forcing will not peak and decline as currently expected, but will continue to rise indefinitely, unless we exploit renewable energy sources that are heat-neutral or act as heat sinks.

 

[Michael Scally MD]

Pentagon Says Global Warming Presents Immediate Security Threat
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/14/u...rming-presents-immediate-security-threat.html

The Pentagon http://www.acq.osd.mil/ie/download/CCARprint.pdf Monday asserting decisively that climate change poses an immediate threat to national security, with increased risks from terrorism, infectious disease, global poverty and food shortages. It also predicted rising demand for military disaster response as extreme weather creates more global humanitarian crises.

 

[Michael Scally MD]

NASA: Earth Just Experienced the Warmest Six-Month Stretch Ever Recorded
http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_t...enced_the_warmest_six_month_stretch_ever.html

Over the weekend, NASA announced that last month was the warmest September since global records have been kept. What’s more, the last six months were collectively the warmest middle half of the year in NASA’s records—dating back to 1880.

 

[whwlives]

Hmm, a quote from Slate. It would be more credible of you quoted Al Gore. It amazes me that people of (supposedly) above average intelligence can fall for this crap when it is fully based upon manipulated data, statistical chicanery, and COMPUTER MODELS that have no degree of certainty. We've got the world's largest supercomputers working on models for such things as fission primaries and fusion secondaries - haven't come close to fully modeling those processes and yet somehow we've modelled a problem several orders of magnitude more difficult - global climate. Not only that, but we've got 90% concurrence and the "science is settled" - ROFLMAO

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

Global Analysis - September 2014
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/global/2014/9

Global Highlights
· The combined average temperature over global land and ocean surfaces for September 2014 was the highest on record for September, at 0.72°C (1.30°F) above the 20th century average of 15.0°C (59.0°F).
· The global land surface temperature was 0.89°C (1.60°F) above the 20th century average of 12.0°C (53.6°F), tying with 2013 as the sixth warmest September on record. For the ocean, the September global sea surface temperature was 0.66°C (1.19°F) above the 20th century average of 16.2°C (61.1°F), the highest on record for September and also the highest on record for any month.
· The combined global land and ocean average surface temperature for the January–September period (year-to-date) was 0.68°C (1.22°F) above the 20th century average of 14.1°C (57.5°F), tying with 1998 and 2010 as the warmest such period on record.

 

[Michael Scally MD]

Sea Level
http://climate.nasa.gov/vital-signs/sea-level/

Sea level rise is caused primarily by two factors related to global warming: the added water coming from the melting of land ice and the expansion of sea water as it warms. The first chart tracks the change in sea level since 1993 as observed by satellites.

The second chart, derived from coastal tide gauge data, shows how much sea level changed from about 1870 to 2000.

 

[Michael Scally MD]

Why uncontrolled climate change may be an ultimate limit to growth
http://theconversation.com/why-uncontrolled-climate-change-may-be-an-ultimate-limit-to-growth-33551

Highlights
· We present a modified, hybrid indicator of global sustainability.
· It extends Adjusted Net Savings to include technical progress and population growth.
· It uses precautionary values of CO2 emissions, induced from a 2 °C warming limit.
· It is positive, and current well-being is sustainable, if emissions are controlled.
· It is negative, and well-being peaks in a few decades, if emissions are uncontrolled.

Pezzey JCV, Burke PJ. Towards a more inclusive and precautionary indicator of global sustainability. Ecological Economics 2014;106(0):141-54. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0921800914002109

We construct a hybrid, economic indicator of the sustainability of global well-being, which is more inclusive than existing indicators and incorporates an environmentally pessimistic, physical constraint on global warming. Our methodology extends the World Bank's Adjusted Net Saving (ANS) indicator to include the cost of population growth, the benefit of technical progress, and a much higher, precautionary cost of current CO2 emissions. Future warming damage is so highly unknowable that valuing emissions directly is rather arbitrary, so we use a novel, inductive approach: we modify damage and climate parameters in the deterministic DICE climate-economy model so it becomes economically optimal to control emissions in a way likely to limit warming to an agreed target, here 2 °C. If future emissions are optimally controlled, our ANS then suggests that current global well-being is sustainable. But if emissions remain uncontrolled, our base-case ANS is negative now and our corresponding, modified DICE model has an unsustained development path, with well-being peaking in 2065. Current ANS on an uncontrolled path may thus be a useful heuristic indicator of future unsustainability. Our inductive method might allow ANS to include other very hard-to-value, environmental threats to global sustainability, like biodiversity loss and nitrogen pollution.

 

[Michael Scally MD]

38 federal agencies reveal their vulnerabilities to climate change — and what they’re doing about it
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs...limate-change-and-what-theyre-doing-about-it/

The Obama administration on Friday plans to publish a http://www.performance.gov/node/3406/view?view=public#supporting-info of climate change documents, outlining 38 federal agencies' vulnerabilities to global warming and how they will address them -- as well as a separate and even larger set of new government-wide plans to cut down on greenhouse gas emissions and achieve new targets for sustainability.

In many cases, the vulnerabilities revealed are stark.

 

[Michael Scally MD]

Fifth Assessment Report (AR5)
http://www.ipcc.ch/

AR5 provides a clear and up to date view of the current state of scientific knowledge relevant to climate change. It consists of three Working Group (WG) reports and a Synthesis Report (SYR).

 

[Michael Scally MD]

Fossil fuels should be 'phased out by 2100' says IPCC http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-29855884

 

[Michael Scally MD]

IPCC: rapid carbon emission cuts vital to stop 'severe' impact of climate change
http://www.theguardian.com/environm...cuts-severe-impact-climate-change-ipcc-report

“For scientists, conservative by nature, to use ‘serious, pervasive, and irreversible’ to describe the effects of climate falls just short of announcing that climate change will produce a zombie apocalypse plus random beheadings plus Ebola.” Breaking the power of the fossil fuel industry would not be easy, McKibben said. “But, thanks to the IPCC, no one will ever be able to say they weren’t warned.”

 

[Michael Scally MD]

"The research and analysis of climate change carried out by an unprecedented number of IPCC scientists is subject to peer review by a similar number of scientists. There is nothing to compare with this level of research anywhere else. Anyone now doubting, or rather refusing to believe, the IPCC findings is nothing less than a 'flat earther'."

 

[Michael Scally MD]

IPCC Final Report: We've Blown Two-Thirds of Our Carbon Budget
http://www.wunderground.com/blog/JeffMasters/comment.html?entrynum=2849

 

[Michael Scally MD]

29 Bullets Tell All about Climate Challenge
http://blogs.scientificamerican.com...ine-bullets-tell-all-about-climate-challenge/

Climate changes:
· The atmosphere is getting hotter.
· The oceans are getting much hotter, and much more acidic.

Causes:
· CO2 emissions are by far the largest cause of global warming and ocean acidification, and they are rising.
· Methane emissions are the second largest cause of warming, and they are rising.
· Since 1950 human activities have led to virtually all temperature rise.
· Natural forces have caused virtually none of the temperature rise.
· The largest human sources of CO2 emissions are burning fossil fuels, making cement and burning off gas (“flaring”) from oil and gas production.

Impacts:
· Sea level is rising, and at an increasing pace.
· Glaciers are melting, ice sheets are thinning, and Arctic sea ice is disappearing.
· Permafrost is thawing.
· In North America, snow pack is decreasing.
· The number of cold days and nights are decreasing.
· The number of hot days and nights are increasing.
· Heat waves will occur more often and last longer.
· Heavy rainstorms and snowstorms will become more intense and frequent.
· Overall, precipitation will rise in high latitudes and the equatorial Pacific. In mid-latitudes, dry areas will get drier, wet areas will get wetter.
· Species are vanishing at an alarming and ever-increasing rate.
· Most plants, small mammals and ocean organisms cannot adapt fast enough to keep up with changes.
· Global temperature rise greater than 2 degrees Celsius will compromise food supplies globally.
· Human health problems will get worse.
· Risks to poorer people are greater than for others, in all countries.

What to do:
· To avoid severe damage to natural and human systems, the world should keep global warming to less than 2 degrees C above pre-industrial levels.
· Without more mitigation than is being done today, the temperature is more likely than not to rise by 4 degrees C by 2100.
· Significant reductions in greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 can significantly reduce warming by 2100.
· Keeping greenhouse gases in the atmosphere below the equivalent of 450 parts per million of CO2 can keep warming below 2 degrees C.
· Levels are likely to stay below 450 ppm if human emissions are reduced 40 to 70 percent by 2050 compared with 2010 levels.
· Allowing levels to reach 530 ppm by 2100 gives the planet slightly better than 50-50 odds of staying below 2C; that would require reducing emissions 25 to 55 percent by 2050 versus 2010.
· To hit a target of 430 to 530 ppm by 2100, the world must invest several hundred billion dollars a year in low-carbon electricity sources and energy efficiency.
· It is highly unlikely the world will stay below 450 ppm without widespread use of carbon capture and storage technologies.

So…improve technical solutions, reach government agreements, and fund them, now.

 

[heady muscle]

I wonder why Geoengineering is not mentioned in any of these studies?

Being a tree hugger, solar and wind designer and installer, I really believe there is more than meets the eye with climate change. Yes, human activity is changing our climate, I think there should be no doubt about that, but climate modification and Solar Radiation Management (SRM) is also pushing the climate change doomsday scenario, IMO.

Most people are too involved with electronic gadgets (laptops, tablets, TV, smartphones) to notice most things happening around them. Shit, they can't even drive without looking at their smartphones!

There is more than meets the eye here with climate change.

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

Geoengineering - http://www.theguardian.com/environment/geoengineering