Showing posts with label Paris Agreement. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Paris Agreement. Show all posts

Sunday, September 24, 2023

September 2023, highest anomaly on record?


The above image shows the temperature in 2023 as a bold black line, up to September 22, 2023, with the temperature reaching an anomaly of 1.12°C above the 1979-2000 mean for that day.


The above image shows the temperature anomaly from the 1979-2000 mean. In blue are the years 1979-2022 and in black is the year 2023 up to September 25, 2023. A trend is added in pink based on 2023 data. 

[ click on images to enlarge ]
Note that 1979-2000 isn't pre-industrial, the anomaly from pre-industrial is significantly higher. 

It looks like September 2023 will be the month with the highest temperature anomaly on record and the year 2023 will be the hottest year on record. 

The question is whether temperatures will keep rising. The current El Niño is still strengthening, as illustrated by the image on the right, adapted from IRI, and there is more to be taken into account. 


Until now, February 2016 has been the hottest month on record. The above image, from an earlier post, shows that February 2016 was 3.28°C (5.904°F) hotter than 1880-1896 on land, and 3.68°C (6.624°F) hotter compared to February 1880 on land. Note that 1880-1896 is not pre-industrial either and that sustained anomalies higher than 3°C are likely to drive humans into extinction. The image adds a poignant note: Looking at global averages over long periods is a diversion, peak temperature rise is the killer!

The situation raises questions. How much has the temperature risen? Will the temperature keep rising? What can be done about it? How can these questions best be answered?

The Paris Agreement mandate



During the UN Climate Change Conference scheduled to be held from November 30 to December 12, 2023, in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, the first Global Stocktake of the implementation of the Paris Agreement will be concluded.

The 2015 Paris Agreement mandate: Holding the increase in the global average temperature to well below 2°C above pre-industrial levels and pursuing efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels by undertaking rapid reductions in emissions in accordance with best available science.

Many assume that the temperature rise will only threaten to cross 1.5°C above pre-industrial in the second half of this century and that by that time action will have stopped the temperature from rising, with the idea that an increase in carbon sequestration could make up for remaining emissions and avoid dangerous climate change. 

The question is whether such assumptions and decisions are indeed based on best available science, as opposed to political whim. Indeed, politicians are vulnerable to collusion with lobbyists feeding suggestions that there was a carbon budget to divide among polluters to enable polluters to keep polluting for decades to come. Local People's Courts can best rule on such questions, after taking a closer look at points such as the following: 

  • Rise from pre-industrial - While many politicians keep pushing the idea that 1.5°C above pre-industrial hasn't been crossed yet, we may already have crossed 2°C above pre-industrial, as discussed in this analysis.

  • Policy choices - emission reductions are best achieved early, rather than late. Yet, many politicians keep supporting fuel (fossil fuel and biofuels) and envisage burning of fuel to continue well beyond 2050 (combined with BECCS). Instead, when taking into account damage to health and the environment, and the danger of runaway temperature rise, it should be clear that better policies must be implemented soon, such as local feebates, to support better methods and technologies such as biochar, heat pumps and eVTOL air taxis. 

  • Rising emissions - Politicians claim that merely stating to aim for net-zero emissions will suffice to reduce emissions, whereas the evidence shows that energy-related greenhouse gas emissions have started to grow again, following minor Covid lockdown-related reductions in 2020, as illustrated by the image below, from an earlier post
[ Global energy-related greenhouse gas emissions 2000-2022, adapted from EIA ]
  • Carbon sink loss - Carbon sinks have long been taking carbon out of the atmosphere, but they are struggling and many may turn from sinks into sources and instead add carbon to the atmosphere. In 2023, nearly 2bn tons of carbon is estimated to have already gone up into the atmosphere in Canada up to now due to forest fires, far exceeding annual emissions tied to Canada’s economy (i.e. 670m tons). As temperatures rise, trees become more vulnerable to diseases and insects such as bark beetles. A 2020 study shows that at higher temperatures, respiration rates continue to rise in contrast to sharply declining rates of photosynthesis. Under business-as-usual emissions, this divergence elicits a near halving of the land sink strength by as early as 2040. As temperatures rise, soils and vegetation will lose moisture to the atmosphere. The Land Evaporation Tipping Point can get crossed locally when water is no longer available locally for further evapotranspiration from the soil and vegetation, with the rise in land surface temperatures accelerating and vegetation decaying accordingly. Higher temperatures result in more extreme weather events, such as fires, droughts, storms, flooding and erosion, that can all contribute to further decrease the terrestrial carbon sink. The ocean is also struggling as a carbon sink, in part because increased river runoff and meltwater lowers alkalinity levels. Furthermore, warmer water holds less oxygen and is becoming more stratified and thus less able to supply nutrients to help plankton grow and store carbon

  • Hydroxyl loss - There is a danger that hydroxyl, the main way that methane gets broken down in the atmosphere, is declining or getting overwhelmed by the rise in methane, as described here.

  • Heat sink loss - This recent study and this one warn that AMOC (the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation) is slowing down faster than expected. A recent post warns that this can contribute to more hot water accumulating in the North Atlantic, as opposed to moving to greater depth. The post also warns that, as temperatures rise, less heat gets stored in oceans, because stratification increases and more heat can get transferred from oceans to the atmosphere as sea ice disappears. There also are indications that, over time, proportionally more heat is remaining in the atmosphere, while less heat gets stored on land. All this results in a hotter atmosphere. 
     
  • Albedo loss - Loss of sea ice, loss of snow cover and warming oceans causing fewer bright clouds combine to reflect less sunlight back into space, as discussed here and here
  • [ Two out of numerous feedbacks ]
    Feedbacks - Important also is the accelerating rate of change. In many respects, we're in uncharted territory and changes are occurring faster than ever in Earth's history, which should be reason for caution and even more reason to plan ahead!

    The danger is growing that feedbacks are kicking in with ever greater ferocity, i.e. non-linear change. The image on the right, from an earlier post, illustrates how two self-reinforcing feedback loops can contribute to accelerate the Arctic temperature rise.

    [ click on images to enlarge ]
  • [ see the Extinction page ]
    Tipping Points - An even more dramatic form of non-linear change occurs when tipping points get crossed, and the consequences can be catastrophic for the entire world.

    The above image, from an earlier post, illustrates the danger that, as the latent heat and seafloor methane tipping points get crossed, the ocean temperature will keep rising as huge amounts of methane get released in the Arctic.

    It is essential to assess the danger of events and developments such as heat reaching and destabilizing methane hydrates contained in sediments at the seafloor of the Arctic Ocean, as discussed in many earlier posts such as this one.

    Seafloor methane is one of many elements that could jointly cause a temperature rise of over 10°C, in the process causing the clouds tipping point to get crossed that can push up the temperature rise by a further 8°C, as illustrated by the image on the right, from the extinction page

    Ominously, very high methane levels continue to be recorded at Barrow, Alaska, as illustrated by the NOAA image below.

Conclusion

Alarms bells have sounded loud and clear, such as here, warning that the temperature rise could be more than 3°C as early as in 2026. The precautionary principle should prevail and the looming dangers should prompt people into demanding comprehensive and effective action to reduce the damage and to improve the situation. To combat rising temperatures, a transformation of society should be undertaken, along the lines of this 2022 post in combination with a declaration of a climate emergency.


Links

• Climate Reanalyzer

• The International Research Institute for Climate and Society, Columbia University Climate School 

• Paris Agreement

• International Energy Agency (IEA) - Global energy-related greenhouse gas emissions 2000-2022

• NOAA - Barrow Atmospheric Baseline Observatory, United States
https://gml.noaa.gov/dv/iadv/graph.php?code=BRW&program=ccgg&type=ts

• Transforming Society
https://arctic-news.blogspot.com/2022/10/transforming-society.html

• Climate Plan
https://arctic-news.blogspot.com/p/climateplan.html

• Climate Emergency Declaration
https://arctic-news.blogspot.com/p/climate-emergency-declaration.html




Wednesday, November 10, 2021

The road to zero emissions is strewn with "alternative facts"

by Andrew Glikson

Once again, the hopes of billions have been raised, only to be dashed, this time by the cruel joke of COP26, the reality being that “By 2030, governments are planning to extract 110% more fossil fuels than their Paris Agreement pledge to limit the temperature increase to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels would permit”.

Misrepresentations abound:
  • The United Nations upper global temperature target of 1.5°C takes no account of the fact that, without the transient short-lived aerosols effect of over 0.5 to 1.0 Watt/m⁻², the mean global heating is nearing ~2.0°C.
  • It is the cumulative concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, which controls temperatures, triggering feedbacks from land and oceans, and which has reached a high level of combined CO₂+CH₄+N₂O of >500 ppm CO₂-equivalent. Only sequestration / drawdown from this level may be able to lower terrestrial temperatures.
  • Polar temperature changes are critical: The Arctic temperature anomaly reached 3°C above 1981-2010 in 2016 and the increasing similarity between polar and northern latitude temperatures leads to weakening of the jet stream boundary effect, allowing cold and warm air masses to cross the boundary.
  • The tropical climate zone is expanding and Mediterranean climate zone, where much of the world’s crops are grown, is shrinking and shifting toward the poles.
  • As the polar ice sheets are melting sea levels are rising, initially on the scale of inches and subsequently toward as equilibrium with Pliocene-like temperatures equivalent to a sea level rise of ~25 meters, flooding extensive coastal zones and delta where billions live and grow food.
The development of hydrocarbon reserves is proceeding unabated (Figures 1 and 2). Since the Paris agreement in 2015, the world’s 60 largest banks have poured $3.8 trillion into fossil fuel companies. In the US, auctioning has begun of drilling rights in Alaskan waters and the Gulf of Mexico. In the UK, whose PM is talking about one minute to midnight, 113 new licenses are offered to explore offshore reserves. Germany is developing new coal deposits. Australia, accounting for about 29% of traded coal globally in 2016, has become the world’s largest coal exporter and near-largest natural gas (LNG) exporter, currently representing around 3.6% of global emissions.

Huge LNG projects were planned in 2020 in Alaska ($43 billion), Mozambique ($33 billion), Kuwait ($16 billion), Nigeria ($11 billion), Australia ($11 billion), Russia ($10.8 billion, pipeline), Louisiana ($10.8 billion), Greece ($5.5 billion, pipeline) and elsewhere. According to NES FIRCROFTIn terms of new projects, however, the outlook is wide open. According to sector research firm Rystad Energy, around 250 new Oil & Gas projects are likely to be sanctioned for development in 2020 - up from 160 in 2016. The number of floating production, storage and offloading vessels (FPSOs) is due to increase with as many as 28 currently on order or under construction, while around 4,000 km of subsea oil and gas flowlines are due for installation this year.

In India forecasts for 2024-2025 include utilization of energy supplies of 50% coal, 25% oil, 20% gas, 3% nuclear and 2% hydro.

Figure 1. EIA projects nearly 50% increase in world energy use by 2050, with no decline in fossil fuel use

A 2014 analysis by Katherine Keil concluded that fossil fuels like they exist in the Arctic are expected to continue supplying much of the energy used worldwide.

Given that future emissions and temperatures may exceed what current policies would lead to (Figure 2. below), growth in the use of fossil fuels combined with the lack of effective methods of reducing the concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere can only have catastrophic consequences. This means that unless civilization moves to a war-like footing, such as in pre-world war II, in an attempt to reduce carbon emissions from all sectors and to sequester greenhouse gas levels, large parts of the Earth may become uninhabitable.

So much for the term “security” repeated through corporate reports.

Figure 2. Climate Action Tracker Thermometer (Nov. 2021 update)

It is the children, led by an 18 years-old girl, who appear to have the perspective on what will determine the future of humanity and nature.


Andrew Glikson
A/Prof. Andrew Glikson

Earth and Paleo-climate scientist
School of Biological, Earth and Environmental Sciences
The University of New South Wales,
Kensington NSW 2052 Australia

Books:
The Asteroid Impact Connection of Planetary Evolution
https://www.springer.com/gp/book/9789400763272
The Archaean: Geological and Geochemical Windows into the Early Earth
https://www.springer.com/gp/book/9783319079073
Climate, Fire and Human Evolution: The Deep Time Dimensions of the Anthropocene
https://www.springer.com/gp/book/9783319225111
The Plutocene: Blueprints for a Post-Anthropocene Greenhouse Earth
https://www.springer.com/gp/book/9783319572369
Evolution of the Atmosphere, Fire and the Anthropocene Climate Event Horizon
https://www.springer.com/gp/book/9789400773318
From Stars to Brains: Milestones in the Planetary Evolution of Life and Intelligence
https://www.springer.com/us/book/9783030106027
Asteroids Impacts, Crustal Evolution and Related Mineral Systems with Special Reference to Australia
https://www.springer.com/us/book/9783319745442
The Event Horizon: Homo Prometheus and the Climate Catastrophe
https://www.springer.com/gp/book/9783030547332
The Fatal Species: From Warlike Primates to Planetary Mass Extinction
https://www.springer.com/gp/book/9783030754679

Friday, March 13, 2020

2°C crossed


It's time to stop denying how precarious the situation is.

Remember the Paris Agreement? In 2015, politicians pledged to hold the global temperature rise to well below 2°C above pre-industrial levels and pledged they would try and limit the temperature rise to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels. Well, an analysis by Sam Carana shows that it was already more than 1.5°C above pre-industrial when the Paris Agreement was reached.

View details of Sam Carana's analysis

In Sam Carana's analysis, the year 1750 is used as the baseline for pre-industrial. The analysis shows that we meanwhile have also crossed the 2°C threshold (in February 2020) and that the temperature rise looks set to rapidly drive humans and eventually most if not all species on Earth into extinction.

Yet, our politicians refuse to act!

Accelerating temperature rise

Indeed, there are indications that the recent rise is part of a trend that points at even higher temperatures in the near future, as also discussed at this analysis page. Polynomial trends can highlight such acceleration better than linear trends. The 1970-2030 polynomial trend in the image below is calculated over the period from 1880 through to February 2020. The trend points at 3°C getting crossed in 2026.


In above image, the January 2020 and February 2020 anomalies are above the trend. This indicates that the situation might be even worse.

A polynomial trend calculated over a shorter period can highlight short-term variation such as associated with El Niño events and can highlight feedbacks that might otherwise be overlooked. The 2010-2022 trend in the image below is calculated with 2009-Feb.2020 data. The trend indicates that 2°C was crossed in February 2020, and looks set to keep rising and cross 3°C in 2021, more specifically in January next year, which is less than a year away.


Such a steep rise is in line with unfolding developments that are causing the aerosol masking effect to fall away, such as a decrease in industrial activity due to COVID-19 fears. The image below shows a potential rise of 18°C or 32.4°F from 1750 by the year 2026.


Above image was posted more than a year ago and illustrates that much of this potentially huge temperature rise over the next few years could eventuate as a result of a reduction in the cooling now provided by sulfates. In other words, a steep temperature rise could result from a decline in industrial activity that is caused by fears about the spread of a contagious virus, as also discussed in the video at an earlier post.

The situation is dire and calls for immediate, comprehensive and effective action, as described in the Climate Plan.


Links

• Analysis: Crossing the Paris Agreement thresholds
https://arctic-news.blogspot.com/p/crossing.html

• A rise of 18°C or 32.4°F by 2026?
https://arctic-news.blogspot.com/2019/02/a-rise-of-18c-or-324f-by-2026.html

• How much warming have humans caused?
https://arctic-news.blogspot.com/2016/05/how-much-warming-have-humans-caused.html

• Arctic Ocean January 2020
https://arctic-news.blogspot.com/2020/02/arctic-ocean-february-2020.html

• Climate Plan
https://arctic-news.blogspot.com/p/climateplan.html


In the video below, Guy McPherson discusses the situation.



Sunday, November 24, 2019

The breach of the Paris Agreement

By Andrew Glikson
Earth and climate scientist
Australian National University



Since its inception the Paris Agreement has been in question due to, among other:
  • its broad definition, specifically holding the increase in the global average temperature to well below 2°C above pre-industrial levels and pursuing efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels;
  • its non-binding nature; and 
  • accounting tricks by vested interests.
The goal assumes pre-determined limits can be placed on greenhouse gas levels and temperatures beyond which they would not continue to rise. Unfortunately these targets do not appear to take account of the amplifying positive feedback effects from land and oceans under the high cumulative greenhouse gas levels and their warming effects. Thus unfortunately the current high CO₂ levels of about 408 ppm and near-500ppm CO₂-equivalent (CO₂+methane+nitrous oxide) would likely continue to push temperatures upwards.

Significant climate science evidence appears to have been left out of the equation. The accord hinges on the need to reduce emissions, which is essential, but it does not indicate how further temperature rise can be avoided under the conditions of a high-CO₂ atmosphere, which triggers carbon release, unless massive efforts at sequestration (drawdown) of greenhouse gases are undertaken. Inherent in global warming are amplifying positive feedbacks, including albedo (reflection) decline due to the melting of ice and the opening of dark water surfaces, increased water vapor contents of the atmosphere in tropical regions which enhances the greenhouse effect, reduced sequestration of CO₂ by the warming oceans, desiccation of vegetation, fires, release of methane from permafrost and other processes. This means that even abrupt reductions in emissions may not be sufficient to stem global warming, unless accompanied by sequestration of greenhouse gases from the atmosphere to a lower level, recommended as below 350 ppm CO₂ by James Hansen, the leading climate scientist.

The world is on track to produce 50% more fossil fuels than can be burned before reaching the limit prescribed by the Paris Agreement, with currently planned coal, oil and gas outputs making the Paris Agreement goal impossible. Projected fossil fuel production in 2030 being more than is consistent with 2°C, and 120% more than that for 1.5°C.

Unbelievably, according to the International Monetary Fund, “In 2017 the world subsidized fossil fuels by $5.2 trillion, equal to roughly 6.5% of global GDP”, which is more than the total the world spends on human health. Such subsidies cannot possibly be consistent with the Paris Agreement. The pledge to end fossil fuel subsidies by 2025 by the G7 nations, with exceptions by the UK and Japan, may come too late as global CO₂ concentrations, already intersecting the stability limits of the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets, are rising at a rate of 2 to 3 ppm per year, the highest in many millions of years.

Despite the scientific consensus regarding the anthropogenic origin of global warming, the world’s biggest fossil fuel corporations are taking a defiant stance against warnings that reserves of coal, oil and gas are already several times larger than can be burned if the world’s governments are to meet their pledge to tackle climate change. ExxonMobil said new reserves in the Arctic and Canadian tar sands must be exploited. Peabody Energy, the world’s largest private coal company, said global warming was “an environmental crisis predicted by flawed computer models”. Glencore Xstrata said that governments would fail to implement measures to cut carbon emissions. The World Bank and Bank of England have already warned of the “serious risk” climate action poses to trillions of dollars of fossil fuel assets.

Not to mention the risks to the living Earth and its billions of inhabitants!

The apparent neglect of scientific advice is not an isolated instance. It is not uncommon that climate reports are dominated by the views of economists, lawyers, bureaucrats and politicians, often overlooking the evidence presented by some of the world’s highest climate science authorities. Whereas the IPCC reports include excellent and comprehensive summaries of the peer-reviewed literature, the summaries for policy makers only partly represent the evidence and views of scientific authorities in the field, including those who have identified global warming in the first place.
Figure 2. from: James Hansen, data through June 2019

There exists a tendency in the media to report averages, such as average global temperature values, rather than the increasingly-common high zonal, regional and local anomalies.

For example, the annual mean global temperature rise of for 2018 is about one third the Arctic mean temperature rise (Fig. 2). Given that developments in the Arctic bear major consequences for climate change, the global mean  does not represent the seriousness of the climate crisis.

Another example is the way extremes weather events are reported as isolated instances, neglecting the rising frequency and intensity of hurricanes, storms, fires and droughts, indicated in frequency plots (Fig 3.).

Figure 3. Rise in geophysical, meteorological, hydrologocal and climatological events. Munich RE
It is not until international and national institutions take full account of what climate science is indicating that a true picture of the climate crisis will be communicated to the public.


Andrew Glikson
Dr Andrew Glikson
Earth and climate scientist
Australian National University


Books:
- The Archaean: Geological and Geochemical Windows into the Early Earth
- The Asteroid Impact Connection of Planetary Evolution
- Asteroids Impacts, Crustal Evolution and Related Mineral Systems with Special Reference to Australia
- Climate, Fire and Human Evolution: The Deep Time Dimensions of the Anthropocene
- The Plutocene: Blueprints for a Post-Anthropocene Greenhouse Earth
- Evolution of the Atmosphere, Fire and the Anthropocene Climate Event Horizon
- From Stars to Brains: Milestones in the Planetary Evolution of Life and Intelligence



Saturday, October 13, 2018

IPCC keeps feeding the addiction


The IPCC just released its report Global Warming of 1.5°C. Things aren't looking good and instead of providing good advice and guidance, the IPCC bends over backward in efforts to keep feeding the addiction.

The Paris Agreement constitutes a joint commitment by all nations of the world to keep the temperature rise below 1.5°C. The IPCC should have honored this commitment by explaining that the situation is dire and by pointing at action to be taken to improve the situation.

Instead, the IPCC bends over backward to make it look as if temperatures were lower than they really are, in an effort to make it look as if there were carbon budgets to be divided, and polluters should be allowed to keep polluting until those budgets had run out. This is like saying that drug junkies who cause damage and are deeply in debt, should be handed over more OPM (other people's money, in this case the future of all people and other species).

In reality, there is no carbon budget to be divided, there is just a huge carbon debt to be repaid. The urgency and imperative to act is such that progress in one area cannot make up for delays elsewhere. The best policies should be implemented immediately, and everywhere across the world.

Use of terms such as trade-offs, net-outcomes, off-sets, carbon budgets and negative emissions is misguided and highly misleading. Policies based on giving and trading in permits to pollute are less effective than local feebates, i.e. policies that impose fees on sales of polluting products and then use the revenues to support rebates on the better alternatives sold locally.

Here are twelve instances where the IPCC is misleading:
  1. Changing the baseline set at the Paris Agreement
    The Paris Agreement is clear that pre-industrial is to be used as baseline. The IPCC defines pre-industrial as the multi-century period prior to the onset of large-scale industrial activity around 1750, and then proceeds to use as baseline 1850-1900, a period when the Industrial Revolution had long started. This compromises the entire Paris Agreement and thus the integrity of us all. Temperatures in 1900 may well have been 0.3°C higher than pre-industrial, as depicted in above image in the light blue block. Add up the impact of further warming elements and it may well be that people have caused around 2°C of warming already and that we're facing warming of more than 10°C by 2026.

  2. Misleading calculations and wording
    The IPCC suggests that warming caused by people is 1.0°C (±0.2°C), likely to reach 1.5°C between 2030 and 2052. To reach these numbers, the IPCC used misleading calculations in efforts to downplay how dangerous the situation is, as discussed further below. As an example of misleading wording, the IPCC says it has high confidence that 1.5°C won't be reached until 2030 if warming continues to increase at the current rate of 0.2°C per decade. Sure, if warming was 1.0°C and if the temperature rise was indeed increasing by 0.2°C per decade and if that rise would continue at 0.2°C per decade, yes, then it would take 25 years for warming to reach 1.5°C. But the reality is that warming is already far more than 1.0°C and that it is accelerating. That makes it misleading to associate high confidence with the suggestion that warming will not reach 1.5°C until 2030. The suggestion of a straight line (linear trend) is misleading in the first place, since warming is accelerating. The suggestion of a straight line is even more misleading when making projections into the future and when qualifications such as high confidence are added.

  3. Ignoring the importance of peaks
    Daily and monthly peaks are obviously higher than annual averages, and it's those high peaks that kill, making it disrespectful toward past and future victims of extreme weather events to average that away. The image on the right shows that in February 2016, it was on average 1.70°C warmer than in 1900 (1885-1914 i.e. a 30-year period centered around 1900), while the higher latitudes North had anomalies of up to 15.1°C. The IPCC failed to warn people, who mostly live on land on the Northern Hemisphere, how high anomalies were in February 2016. Conservatively, the magenta block at the top of the bar in above image shows a rise of 1.62°C for February 2016. Note that this is the rise from 1900, i.e. before adding 0.3°C for the rise before 1900, and before adding further adjustments as discussed below.

  4. Cherry-picking the baseline period
    The image on the right shows that, for a baseline of a 30-year period around the year 1900, the temperature rise to 2016-2017 was 1.25°C. When adding a further 0.3°C rise for the rise before 1900, warming was well above 1.5°C in 2016-2017. Yet, while first defining pre-industrial as the multi-century period prior to the onset of large-scale industrial activity around 1750, the IPCC then uses 1850-1900 as baseline, a period when it was relatively warm, i.e. warmer than in 1750 and warmer also than in 1900. It was warmer over 1850-1900 due to increasing livestock numbers and forests clearing, while huge amounts of wood were burned, all contributing to large emissions of black carbon, brown carbon, methane, CO, etc., which caused additional warming during this period. So, this period was relatively warm. There was little impact yet of the sulfur aerosols that started coming with burning fossil fuel from 1900. Choosing this period enabled the IPCC to beef up the temperature for its baseline and then draw trends that looks flatter than they would have been if drawn from pre-industrial, to suggest that global warming was only 1°C and that 1.5°C would not be reached until somewhere between 2030 and 2052.

  5. Changing the data
    The U.K. Met Office's HadCRUT dataset goes back to 1850. The IPCC used this dataset, but actually changed the data, by averaging the data with datasets that showed a similar rise for the years after 1900, but that showed higher warming for 1880-1900. This enabled the IPCC to further beef up the average temperature for the period 1850-1900 and then draw a linear trend from 1850-1900 that looks even flatter.

  6. Cherry-picking the type of data
    To further support its suggestions, the IPCC uses water surface data for ocean temperature, but uses air data for temperatures over land. When selecting datasets with more consistency and using air temperatures globally, the temperature rise is 0.1°C higher.

  7. Not using new techniques to estimate values for missing data
    The IPCC chooses not to use new techniques to estimate temperatures where data are missing. Less data are available for the Arctic, and this is precisely where temperatures have risen much faster than in the rest of the world. When values for missing data are included, the temperature rise is another 0.1°C higher.

  8. Leaving out 2016
    The IPCC says the Special Report is an assessment of the relevant state of knowledge, based on the scientific and technical literature available and accepted for publication up to 15 May 2018. Yet, the IPCC says that global warming is currently increasing at 0.2°C per decade, as if the high temperatures in 2016 didn't occur. To arrive at 0.2°C, the IPCC used the period of 2006-2015 and used data from a specific dataset, and then rounded down the value. By contrast, NASA data show a rate of increase of 0.3°C over 2006-2015, 0.4°C over 2007-2016 and 0.4°C over 2008-2017. Failure to properly address acceleration of future warming is further discussed in the point below. 

  9. Failure to properly address dangerous developments
    The IPCC fails to point out that carbon dioxide reaches a maximum in warming the atmosphere some 10 years after emission, which means that the full wrath of global warming due to the very high emissions of carbon dioxide over the past decade is yet to come. While temperatures could rise very rapidly over the coming decade, the IPCC keeps talking about carbon budgets, without properly addressing tipping points such as the decline of the snow and ice cover that will result in huge albedo losses, jet stream changes, more and more extreme weather events, and more. The IPCC fails to point out the danger of destabilization of sediments containing methane in the form of hydrates and free gas. Furthermore, the IPCC fails to properly address the aerosol warming that will occur as sulfur emissions decrease and other aerosols increase such as black carbon, brown carbon, etc. The IPCC fails to mention the water vapor feedback, i.e. the increase of water vapor in the atmosphere that will occur as a result of these developments. Since water vapor itself is a potent greenhouse gas, this will speed up the temperature rise even further. These developments could lead to a potential global temperature rise (from 1750) of more than 10°C by 2026, as illustrated in the image at the top.

  10. There is no carbon budget left
    Instead of pointing at the dangers, as it should have done, the IPCC makes it look as if there was a remaining carbon budget that should be divided among polluters, as if they should continue polluting the world. The IPCC creates this illusion by interpreting the thresholds set at the Paris Agreement as averages over a 30-year period, while ignoring the acceleration of the temperature rise. It should be obvious that there is no such budget. Instead, there's only a huge and very dangerous carbon debt. There is no room for trade-offs or offsets, and terms such as negative emissions are also inappropriate. All efforts should be made to cut emissions, including ending current subsidies for fossil fuel and livestock, while at the same time great effort should be taken to remove carbon from the atmosphere and oceans. And even then, it's questionable whether any humans will be able to survive the coming decade, which will be critically dangerous for all species on Earth.

  11. Suggesting polluting pathways
    The pathways suggested by the IPCC keep fossil fuel in the picture for many years, while highlighting non-solutions such as BECCS. The IPCC makes it look as if coal-fired power plants could continue to operate, by burning more biomass and capturing carbon. The IPCC makes it look as if transport could continue to use internal combustion engines, by burning more biofuel. Instead, clean & renewable energy has many benefits, including that it's more economic, so air capture powered by such facilities would make more sense than BECCS. Furthermore, electric vehicles should be supported now, rather than in the year 2050. It makes sense to stop fossil fuel subsidies, and to support better diets, to plant more vegetation and to support ways to add carbon and nutrients to soils and oceans, such as with biochar and ground rocks. Many technologies have been proposed, e.g. refrigerators and freezers are now made that do not use gases for cooling. The IPCC should not have used pathways that are wrong in the first place. Instead, the IPCC should have pointed at the policies that can best facilitate the necessary transitions, because the scientific evidence is overwhelming and it's the right thing to do.

  12. Not pointing at the best and much-needed policy tools
    The IPCC report fails to point out that imposing fees on polluting products is the most effective policy instrument, the more so when the revenues are used to support rebates on better alternatives supplied locally.
The situation is dire and calls for comprehensive and effective action, as described at the Climate Plan.

Prof. Peter Wadhams and Stuart Scott discuss the IPCC Global Warming of 1.5ºC report

Extended version of above video

Paul Beckwith on baseline, methane and more

Stuart Scott talks with Prof. Peter Wadhams on Arctic sea ice

Magnificent work by Stefanie Steven

[ budget ]
Proper analysis would have pointed at what the best action is to improve the situation.

However, the IPCC does not do that. Instead, the IPCC keeps stating that there was a carbon budget to be divided and consumed, while advocating non-solutions such as BECCS and while hiding the full extent of how threatening the situation is.

A quick word count of the IPCC report Global Warming of 1.5°C (SPM) shows paragraphs full of words such as budget (1st image right) and of non-solutions such as BECCS (2nd image right).

[ BECCS ]
At the same time, it fails to mention biochar, meat or local feebates. It fails to mention the huge threat of feedbacks and tipping points such as methane hydrates and Arctic sea ice, instead making it look as if all that could only pose potential problems over longer timescales.

This is indicative of how much the IPCC is part of the problem and part and parcel of the wilful destruction of life itself that is taking place so obviously all around us.

The IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) might as well change its name to IPCD (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Destruction).



It's not as if people weren't warned.
The danger was described back in 2007: Total Extinction.
The mechanism was depicted back in 2011: Runaway Global Warming.
And still, in 2018, the IPCC sadly keeps on feeding the addiction.




Links

• IPCC special report Global Warming of 1.5°C
https://report.ipcc.ch/sr15/

• Paris Agreement
https://arctic-news.blogspot.com/2015/12/paris-agreement.html
http://unfccc.int/documentation/documents/advanced_search/items/6911.php?priref=600008831
https://unfccc.int/resource/docs/2015/cop21/eng/l09r01.pdf

• How much warming have humans caused?
https://arctic-news.blogspot.com/2016/05/how-much-warming-have-humans-caused.html

• Climate Plan
https://arctic-news.blogspot.com/p/climateplan.html

• Feedbacks
https://arctic-news.blogspot.com/p/feedbacks.html

• Extinction
https://arctic-news.blogspot.com/p/extinction.html

• Can we weather the Danger Zone?
https://arctic-news.blogspot.com/2018/07/can-we-weather-the-danger-zone.html

• How much warmer is it now?
https://arctic-news.blogspot.com/2018/04/how-much-warmer-is-it-now.html

• 100% clean, renewable energy is cheaper
https://arctic-news.blogspot.com/2018/02/100-clean-renewable-energy-is-cheaper.html

• Fridges and freezers that don't use gases
https://www.facebook.com/groups/geoengineering/permalink/1794122703977728

• Negative-CO2-emissions ocean thermal energy conversion
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S136403211830532X

• 'Electrogeochemistry' captures carbon, produces fuel, offsets ocean acidification
https://arctic-news.blogspot.com/2018/06/electrogeochemistry-captures-carbon-produces-fuel-offsets-ocean-acidification.html

• Olivine weathering to capture CO2 and counter climate change
https://arctic-news.blogspot.com/2016/07/olivine-weathering-to-capture-co2-and-counter-climate-change.html

• Biochar group at facebook
https://www.facebook.com/groups/biochar

• Aerosols
https://arctic-news.blogspot.com/p/aerosols.html

• IPCC seeks to downplay global warming
https://arctic-news.blogspot.com/2018/02/ipcc-seeks-to-downplay-global-warming.html

• Blue Ocean Event
https://arctic-news.blogspot.com/2018/09/blue-ocean-event.html

• What Does Runaway Warming Look Like?
https://arctic-news.blogspot.com/2018/10/what-does-runaway-warming-look-like.html

• Ten Dangers of Global Warming
https://arctic-news.blogspot.com/p/ten-dangers-of-global-warming.html

• AGU poster, AGU Fall Meeting 2011
https://arctic-news.blogspot.com/p/agu-poster.html


Monday, April 2, 2018

How much warmer is it now?

The IPCC appears to be strongly downplaying the amount of global warming that has already occurred and that looks set to eventuate over the next decade or so, according to a leaked draft of the IPCC 'Special Report on 1.5°C above pre-industrial'. The 'First Order Draft of the Summary for Policy Makers' estimates that the global mean temperature reached approximately 1°C above pre-industrial levels around 2017/2018.

Let's go over the numbers step by step, by following the image below line by line (click on the image to enlarge it).

NASA's data for the two most recent years for which data are available (2016/2017) show a warming of 0.95°C when using a baseline of 1951-1980 and a warming of 1.23°C when using a baseline of 1890-1910 (left map on image below). In other words, using this earlier baseline results in an additional 0.28°C rise. When using an even earlier baseline, i.e. 1750 or preindustrial, it could be 1.53°C warmer, as discussed in an earlier post.


In other words, merely changing the baseline to preindustrial, as agreed to at the Paris Agreement, can show that we're already above the 1.5°C guardrail that the Paris Agreement had pledged we should not cross.

There's more! As a recent publication points out, most methods that calculate the global temperature use sea surface temperatures. However, doesn't it make more sense to calculate the temperature of the air just above the sea surface? Measuring air temperature at the surface is done in the case of temperatures over land, where one doesn't measure the temperature of the soil or rocks when telling people how warm it is. Since air surface temperatures are slightly higher than sea surface temperatures, the result of looking at air surface temperatures across the globe would be a temperature that is approximately 0.1°C warmer. Furthermore, many areas in the Arctic may not have been adequately reflected in the global temperature, e.g. because insufficient data were available. Since the Arctic has been warming much faster than the rest of the world, inclusion of those areas would add another 0.1°C to the rise. Adding this to the above 1.53°C rise makes that it's already 1.73°C (or 3.11°F) warmer than preindustrial.

Another question is over what period measurements should be taken when assessing whether thresholds have been crossed. When focusing on temperatures during specific months, the rise could be much higher than the annual average. So, does it make more sense to look at a monthly peak rather than at a long-term average?

When building a bridge and when calculating what load the bridge should be able to handle, it makes sense to look at peak traffic and at times when a lot of heavy trucks happen to be on the bridge. That makes a lot more sense than only looking at the average weight of cars driving over the bridge during a period of - say - one, two or thirty years.


Accordingly, the right panel of the top image shows numbers for February 2016 when temperature anomalies were particularly high. When looking at this monthly anomaly, we are already 2.37°C (or 4.27°F) above preindustrial, i.e. well above the 2°C guardrail that the Paris Agreement had pledged we should definitely not cross.

Should the temperature rise be calculated using a longer period? The IPCC appears to have arrived at its temperature rise estimate by using an extrapolation or near term predictions of future warming so that the level of anthropogenic warming is reported for a 30 year period centered on today.

The image below, from an earlier post, shows global warming for a 30-year period centered on January 2018, using NASA 2003 to January 2018 LOTI anomalies from 1951-1980, adjusted by 0.59°C to cater for the rise from preindustrial to 1951-1980, and with a polynomial trend added.


If above trendline is adjusted by a further 0.2°C, by shifting to air temperatures instead of sea surface temperatures, and by better reflecting Arctic temperatures, then the trendline looks set to cross the 2°C guardrail in 2018. So, will Earth cross 2°C in 2018?


Above images illustrate the importance of what's going to happen next. The temperature rise up until now may well be dwarfed by what's yet to come and the outlook may well be even worse than what most fear will eventuate. The image below, from an earlier post, shows a steep rise from 2016 to 2026, due to the combined impact of the warming elements listed in the left box of the image below.


Meanwhile, the rise in carbon dioxide levels appears to be accelerating, as illustrated by the images below.


Indeed, despite pledges made at the Paris Agreement to limit the temperature increase to 1.5°C above pre-industrial, the rise in CO₂ since preindustrial, i.e. 1750, still appears to be accelerating.


On March 18, 2018, the sea surface temperature near Svalbard (at the green circle) was 16.7°C or 62.1°F, i.e. 14.7°C or 26.4°F warmer than the daily average during the years 1981-2011.


On March 30, 2018, methane levels as high as 2624 parts per billion were recorded.


On April 1, 2018, methane levels as high as 2744 parts per billion were recorded.



The situation is dire and calls for comprehensive and effective action, as described in the Climate Plan.


Links

• Climate Plan
https://arctic-news.blogspot.com/p/climateplan.html

• Extinction
https://arctic-news.blogspot.com/p/extinction.html

• How much warming have humans caused?
https://arctic-news.blogspot.com/2016/05/how-much-warming-have-humans-caused.html

• IPCC seeks to downplay global warming
https://arctic-news.blogspot.com/2018/02/ipcc-seeks-to-downplay-global-warming.html

• 2016 well above 1.5°C
https://arctic-news.blogspot.com/2017/01/2016-well-above-1.5c.html

• Interpretations of the Paris climate target, by Andrew Schurer et al.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41561-018-0086-8