Climate Change general thread

At 387 ppmv CO2 is already higher than it ever has been in at least the last 3 million years, and quite possibly the last 20 million, which means it's higher now than it has been since before the current glacial-interglacial era.

And because we've not just increased the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere by 38%, but increased the total amount of carbon in the active carbon cycle by around 329 Gt [CDIAC], even completely halting future CO2 increase, much less merely reducing the rate of increase, will not prevent us seeing a 3C or more increase and massive rise in sea levels.

In other words, we can ultimately say goodbye to all perennial northern hemisphere ice, plus a good portion of perennial Antarctic ice as well, and recent research tells us not to take any comfort in this happening slowly.

Never mind emission reductions, or even going complete cold turkey with fossil carbon fuels, we need to start removing carbon from the atmosphere at least as fast as we have been adding it.

I guess I'm wondering what the alarmists here think can actually be done to stop this trend or, as would probably need to happen, reverse it. I do remember Suzuki back in the '70s talking about how close we were getting to the "tipping point". My guess is, if there was a tipping point, we passed it a couple of decades ago. This rather late-in-the-game panic and arguing over strategies, as if they would have any significant effect, is futile and misguided, imo. What are you hoping to protect? Life as we know it? Life has never been static, even over a generation. If we've fucked the planet beyond repair, do you really think your personal boycotting of air travel, for example, is going to bring something back?

I think it's important for everyone in the industrial and post-industrial world to understand what has been happening on a large scale, but these discussions about drop-in-the-bucket measures such as cap and trade, or measuring one's personal "carbon footprint" in a way a dieter counts his or her calories, don't make a lot of sense to me, unless it's either about guilt - guilt about one's own personal consumption patterns - or powerlessness: taking control of your personal "carbon footprint" gives you some sense of contributing toward a vague, ill-defined solution.

There is no remedy for this problem - if indeed it exists and is indeed human-caused - as long as we have the kind of means of existence (I was going to say modes of production) that we currently have. There is no way you can remedy "global warming", if it exists, while holding onto industrial mass production. Our entire way of life and of relating to each other and our environment would need to be fundamentally altered. You are not going to do a fucking thing about reducing any kind of carbon (or whatever future pollutant would arise from the new so-called solutions) footprint and hold onto your car manufacturing or your hamburgers or your suburban detached houses or your computers and wide-screen TVs. Like, get fucking real.

I agree, Jas, we might already be fucked and we definitely cannot hang on to this way of life.  Did you read my bit about how much global warming is hidden in the ocean and in the melted ice? The oceans were rising 1.8mm per year up to a while ago, now it is 3 mm!  (And that is pretty hard to spot even over a lifetime)  How much heat does it take to melt enough water and warm the water enough to rise the ocean  that much?   A lot!  We can say 1.2 mm per year is caused by us. (at least)  and it is surely increasing.

So you just say screw it and continue to make it worse?  CO2 is a fertilizer that affects plant and animal competition directly everywhere in the world. Amphibians breathe through their skin. Every frog and toad and salamander and fish in the world has to contend with a 35%  higher "pressure" gradient of CO2 than they had to contend with just a hundred years ago.  People will get hit with this too very soon. This really matters. And the governments keep pretending that it is just about the climate getting warmer.

The seas across the planet are starting to have dead zones.  It is entirely possible that the next stage is anoxic oceans and a rotten egg smell in the air. It dont matter how rich canada is if that happens. We will start dieing like flys. Hydrogen sulphide is more deadly than cyanide.   It just takes a bit more warming, and all hell will break loose.

The sun now sends out conciderably more energy than it did a hundred million years ago.  We are heading to that atmosphere again. But a lot more energy hitting it.

The mad fuckers like harper who say "it doesn't exist/ bring it on"  might not feel so good in 10 or 15 years when they go on trial for climate genocide. 

Anyone who believes or offers up as a straw person that there is only one tipping point doesn't understand the problem. Not even the Permian-Triassic extinction wrecked the planet beyond repair (but it did for most life on earth). Cutting emissions now may not make a difference for a couple of decades, but it may make a huge difference after that, perhaps a between a major extinction event and a great extinction event, or between some form of civilization and human extinction.

If you are claiming the science is not settled, the question is what science? Obviously not everything is settled to the extent gravity is, but some aspects of the science are, and that is worrying enough, even without the uncertainty behind the rest, which goes both ways.

If we continue with industrialization and economic growth at all costs there will be a collapse of some kind, perhaps sooner rather than later. If we don't, something may be salvaged, and we may be able to adapt to and/or mitigate global heating and other environmental shocks.

Well said Pw

Remember too that no science is "settled". Even Gravity.  Waiting for the science to be settled is a cop out.  If it gets warm enough worldwide for insects to "work" through the winter, imagine the nightmare situation we would have!   It is bad enought all ready.

  We know that CO2 is a greenhouse gas, we know that in the past CO2 levels and warm climate are linked. We also know that in the past when temperature and CO2 levels were a lot higher, the sun was not outputting so much energy as it is now. So it is a reasonable conclusion that if you get high CO2 like in the past, you will get higher temperatures than in the past.    

That the economics of perptual growth are totally at odds with "settled" science. Perpetual growth is impossible but Canada, USA and the rest of the worlds economic and political systems depend on perpetual growth.

Now, which is going to break first?  Physics or economics?

http://www.agu.org/meetings/fm09/lectures/lecture_videos/A23A.shtml

An interesting presentation.

Have a really hard time Jas with the things you have stated denying climate change, while I look out my windows at orange pinetrees for as far as the eye can see!

Thank you policy wonk and brian for putting some facts out there.

Ever since picking up Lovelock's Ages of Gaia in the early 80s, I have been convinced we were on a perilous path.  But I have also wondered why all of the practising scientists have not long ago risen up and denounced our collective insanity.  Sure, Harper is nuts, but he's counting on Jesus. What is the excuse of the scientific world,..beyond cynicism, condecension and their accumulated pensions?

And I'll certainly second remind's thank you to the scientific element on board babble.

It is an excellent presentation, An hour but worth it.

Robert Grumbine just put up the first of a couple posts inspired by that Richard Alley AGU talk The Biggest Control Knob: Carbon Dioxide in Earth's Climate History

See CO2 and temperature for 800,000 years. [63]

Even a coursory look at that scatter plot shows just how far outside of the historical temperature:concentration norm current CO2 levels are: 9 standard deviations outside!

Anyone who denies the reality of anthropogenic global warming is engaing in pure wishful thinking, not critical sketiciism.

It's the idea in your last paragraph that I was mainly addressing in my post. What we produce and the way we produce it, whether on a capitalist or socialist model, is what's harming the natural environment and I've found that, quite apart from capitalism's obvious effects, certain brands of socialism too are at odds with a revisioning of our modes of production, our means of existence -- a revisioning that, imo, is likely necessary in order to live in harmony with the rest of the biological world.

Part of my rant was also frustration at hearing or reading at various points the way people justify their personal consumption vis a vis their personal "carbon footprints". I think very few of us in the post-industrial, largely service economies should even be opening our mouths in that regard. Especially those that drive cars daily in communities that have transit.

The Harper government has decided how to deal with global warming: quit funding climate research.

An explanation for our unusually mild winter here: Winter Temperatures and the Arctic Oscillation

A friend explains it thusly: "The Gulf Stream, instead of heading off towards the British Isles, is going up the Western coast of Greenland. Britain is covered in snow and Greenland and Canada are warm."

That makes sense when you look at the map - my area - just south of Labrador - is one of the areas in red.

This presentation by Jeff Rubin is well worth watching if you have a spare 45 minutes.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wYuLjGQQ-jg

Something else to worry about now. The theorized methane feedback may be starting to show up.

http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-change/methane-levels-m...

More about climate change and coffee:

Coffee producers "getting hammered" by global climate change

Grizzlies encroach on polar bear territory

Grizzly bears are being spotted in Manitoba, Canada, where biologists say only polar bears are usually found.

More on methane:

A section of the Arctic Ocean seafloor that holds vast stores of frozen methane is showing signs of instability and widespread venting of the powerful greenhouse gas, according to the findings of an international research team led by University of Alaska Fairbanks scientists Natalia Shakhova and Igor Semiletov.

It's looking more and more like 2010 is on-track to become the warmest year in the instrument temperature record.

Not only was March 2010 the warmest March in both the UAH and RSS satellite temperature record, and tied for the warmest March in NASA's GISS temperature record, Jan-Feb-March 2010 was the warmest in the satellite records and second warmest in GISS behind 2007.

Here is a NASA comparison (pdf) of the first three months of 2010 with 1998 and 2005 (tied for the warmest annual anomaly):

Also, April 2009 – March 2010 is the warmest 12 month period in the NASA GISS anomaly record, with an average anomaly of +0.637C, vs January 2005-December 2005 and August 2006-July 2007, which are tied for second at +0.621C.

This not a surprise. Many have been suggesting that 2010 could likely set a new record for a couple of reasons.

One is the 2009-2010 El Nino, which although no where near as strong as that of 1997-98 and weakening, has transfered a lot of heat from the ocean into the atmosphere. (Really just moving energy around.)

Another is that solar cycle 24 has finally started, bringing a close to the quietest solar minimum in a century, so the sun is getting brighter. (More energy in).

And a third factor that I haven't seen mentioned is the economic recession, which almost certainly has reduced the aerosol load, thus removing some of the aerosol cooling that masks a portion of existing greenhouse warming. (Also more energy in.)

A triple whammy, if you will, if not quite a "perfect storm."

More at Climate Progress. [73]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/apr/12/us-document-strategy-c... [75]

Here on the Quebec coast, we just came through the warmest winter anyone here can remember, including our 80+ year olds. I posted about this earlier, it was due to a phenomenon known as the Arctic Oscillation and a diversion of the Gulf Stream Current to Greenland instead of to Europe, according to frends of mine. I'm curious as to whether we can expect to see this again.

Not sure if the Arctic Oscillation is connected to the Atlantic Converyor, but that theory about the permanent interruption of the Gulf Stream's return flow at great depth, due to the impact of melting glaciers, would suggest we can "expect to see this again", if oscillating conveyors are in it. Then again, maybe the melting ice twixt Greenland and Baffin Island just makes it easier for it to flow  up that way, rather than toward Spitzbergen.  Any good beaches up your way, Boomer?

Oh, indeed. Lots of them! But no connecting road, alas...

If P.E.T. can paddle across the Gulf Stream near Cuba, any Canuck worth his salt can navigate the Moisie...or is that not the only Northshore barrier? Are you people behind on your taxes, like the rural folk of Ontario? This place is littered with rusted-out, century-old creek crossings, and the counties have learned the trick of downloading responsibility for them to the townships. And the Conservatives at all levels promise "lower taxes" to the salivating citizenry...but no bridges.

Oh, folks have adapted. From Kegaska, you can drive your ATV right to the Natashquan River, then have a pre-aarranged 'water taxi' take you across at that point. Alternatively, you can take the Nordik Express once a week back and forth from Kegaska to Natashquan. Natashquan is the end of Route #138 until you get to Old Fort Bay - there is a road connecting Old Fort Bay right to the Quebec /Labrador border.

ETA: It ain't the Moisie but rather the Natashquan River that cuts off the Lower North Shore from the rest of Quebec.

Photos of Iceland's Eyjafjallajoekull volcano ash cloud.

Well, there goes 2010's chance of setting a new record high annual mean temperature, at least in the northern hemisphere.

NOAA's State of the Climate Global Analysis for March 2010 has just been released.

ETA: Confirmation from this volcanoly blogger

And Dr. Jeff Masters confirms my totally amateur read of things at WeatherUnderground. [84]

Hmmm, when you factor in the unburned jet fuel, turns out so far Eyjafjallajoekull has not only been carbon neutral, but carbon negative!

Just watched The Hottest Place on Earth - in Ethiopia, on the Discovery Channel. Daytime temps in excess of 120F, and the crew in the story were to map out the world's oldest active volcano, which they did, and actually managed to get a probe into the volcano to test for any active organisms (don't laugh - scientists have found living life - microorganisms - in underwater volcano thermal vents). The land surface not far from the volcano rum was in excess of 200F. They also visited a volcanic chasm that erupted a few years ago - also in Ethiopia - a chasm about the length of two football fields - evidence that Africa is tearing itself apart, and may be the location of a new sea in the future (as Africe splits apart, ocean water rushes in).

NB:  This doesn't fit with the thread title, but I thought I'd post just how hot Ethiopia is, to give some idea of what to expect in the future if global warming continues. A few years ago, I walked through an inactive volcano in New Mexico, and brought home some fossilized lava samples, which I still have. God, it was hot that day - probably 113F. When I got to Phoenix, Arizona a few days later, the airport tarmac was melting, I could actually feel the tarmac sinking as I walked across it to the plane. While I was in Phoenix, it was hot even in the evening - the only way folks can live there is to use a/c virtually 24/7 from the first of May right through to November. Unreal.

ETA: I grew up in Ottawa, and in the 1950s/1960s I don't recall the temperature in the summer ever approached 95F. When I spent a visit there in the summer of 1995, the temps ranged from 80F to well over 105F. I really don't understand climate change deniers - how can they be so frigging blind???

I am not sure how you got a carbon negative out of that one. It might have reduced the fossil fuel carbon out put, but I doubt that it has removed cabon from the atmosphere.

Relax, Bubbles, it's a joke making the rounds of the climate blogs.

The NOAA State of the Climate Global Analysis for April 2010 is just out today.

- The combined global land and ocean average surface temperature for April 2010 was the warmest on record at 14.5°C (58.1°F), which is 0.76°C (1.37°F) above the 20th century average of 13.7°C (56.7°F).

- The worldwide ocean surface temperature was 0.57°C (1.03°F) above the 20th century average of 16.0°C (60.9°F) and the warmest April on record.

- The April worldwide land surface temperature was 1.29°C (2.32°F) above the 20th century average of 8.1°C (46.5 °F)—the third warmest on record.

- For the year-to-date, the global combined land and ocean surface temperature of 13.3°C (56.0°F) was the warmest January-April period. This value is 0.69°C (1.24°F) above the 20th century average.

Climate change makes it too hot for lizards

This talk outlines the things we have to get started doing to cope with climate change - in short, renewable energy everywhere and some large changes in how we personally use energy.

Not sure if this is for real: billions could die from GW.

http://www.agoracosmopolitan.com/home/Frontpage/2007/01/08/01291.html

That "billions could die" (by 2012) shit is just the stuff that deniers everywhere need to refute the reality of such processes.  Leave that for the readers of news at the checkout counters, please.

The processes are still real, even if the impacts are speculative, and catastrophic impacts from global heating and resulting political and military responses may occur sooner rather than later. However this seems like Mayan calendar hysteria.

NASA GISStemp June 2010 data update just out:

Global Land-Ocean Temperature Anomaly  Index
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/tabledata/GLB.Ts+dSST.txt [96]

June + 0.59, tied with 2005 for third behind 2009 (0.62) and 1998 (0.69).

Land-Ocean, Nothern Hemisphere only:
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/tabledata/NH.Ts+dSST.txt [97]

June + 0.78, displaces 2005 (.76) for record

Global Land stations only:
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/tabledata/GLB.Ts.txt [98]

June + 0.86, tied for first with 1998

Land Stations, Nothern Hemisphere only:
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/tabledata/NH.Ts.txt [99]

June + 1.04, blows away 2005 (.97) for record

Perhaps you don't understand the political implications of giving voice and so a degree of credibility to "Mayan calendar hysteria" ?

Is it me or do most of the threads in Babble tend toward not wanting to do anything about anything? Every aspect of the oil crisis would seem to be the impetus to the discussion of getting unions to embrace green retrofitting not only for North American homes but North American industry but in here or on any other thread, that does not really come to the fore. The Left really does seem to want to fetishize its own ineffectuality and its own marginality.

Would you like to "flesh out" that concern about babblers "not wanting to do anything about anything."?  As a lifelong advocate of action over philosophizing, I'm intrigued by your comment, 2dawall.

I made the pulser pump.  It got researched at queens universtiy and somewhere in the USA this year and is on Appropedia.  And I may have stopped posting about the solar stuff but it is still goin on. In organic islands festival tommorrow and in ideawave on sunday.

And I know remind has been fighting for the Salmon for years and reporting about the dead pine tree landscape in her area.

And I have this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E1CwnYY64NU about saving the bee populations.  (Basically, many bee types shelter and lay eggs in holes in wood and plant stems).    So even if you just bundle up your old raspberry stems, and old vine stems in 1 ft lengths from when you cut them back, you will provide bee habitat. Even if you make "mud pies" and poke holes in the mud with knitting needles, and  let the mud set up hard somewhere dry,  you are being proactive and helping the insects out.  I made some earlier in the year and solitary bees shelter at night in the holes and bees also use the holes for their larvae.  If you just compost your old raspberry canes, you are also composting the bee babies inside them!   

Lots of people do lots of stuff, it will not all appear here.

You mean we don't brag about the things we do as individuals?

Maybe we're too busy, you knw, doing them.

It isn't bragging.   As an individual, I am nothing but if others copy and improve those things,  I have worth.  So I have to tell them.

How can others possibly do it this way if I do not tell them?  

Are you one of those that told my all my stuff was crap and not worth researching?  Some got researched a bit this year with more to come. 

I talked to a lady today who'se husband did solar research in the mid 70's. After that all his results got canned.  But everyone THINKS that all the little and low tech  stuff has been researched to perfection.  Compare someone in 1975 to you or me.  We have lasers, we have ray tracing and ray casting and animation software.   We ordinary people have the tools at our disposal to do it better than those researchers  could ever imagine.  Most people do not bother because either they think it has all been done already or they get shouted down as braggarts if they report any findings.

editing

Brian, my reply was directed at 2dawall. I quite agree with you that it is absolutely essential for us to multiply our individual actions by convincing others to also take action and teaching them how to do so. Personally I do plenty of that in the real world, I just don't feel the need to tick off all the things I do because someone thinks the left doesn't back up its talk with action.

 Sorry George but it is that on various threads regarding the spill I have asked about green/red alliances that might be using this event to push for more retrofitting, etc. Either there is a Kiwanis-klub like reply that 'that would cost jobs' or there is no mention of anything. Well lots of new policies, ie 'free' trade cost jobs but those are implemented regardless. If anything the conversion to solar/wind/geothermal would create new jobs but any response in Canada to highlight that is invisible. Some people here in Babble just say 'oh well we are doomed.' That attitude would seem to mimic what I see here in Winnipeg; a passive response of despair or capitulation.  I am not talking about individual actions but group or coalition responses.