Next ten years critical for achieving climate change goals

[OKIsItJustMe]

http://www.iiasa.ac.at/web/home/about/news/170413-carbon-cycle.html

[font face=Serif]13 April 2017

[font size=5]Next ten years critical for achieving climate change goals[/font]

[font size=4]In order to have a good chance of meeting the limits set by the Paris Agreement, it will be necessary to both reduce greenhouse gas emissions while preserving carbon sinks, with net emissions peaking in the next ten years, according to a new study[/font]

[font size=3]Carbon dioxide (CO₂ ) and other greenhouse gases in the atmosphere can be reduce in two ways—by cutting our emissions, or by removing it from the atmosphere, for example through plants, the ocean, and soil.

The historic Paris Agreement set a target of limiting future global average temperature increase to well below 2°C and pursue efforts to even further limit the average increase to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels. Yet the timing and details of these efforts were left to individual countries.

In a new study, published in the journal Nature Communications, researchers from the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA) used a global model of the carbon system that accounts for carbon release and uptake through both natural and anthropogenic activities.

“The study shows that the combined energy and land-use system should deliver zero net anthropogenic emissions well before 2040 in order to assure the attainability of a 1.5°C target by 2100,” says IIASA Ecosystems Services and Management Program Director Michael Obersteiner, a study coauthor.

…[/font][/font]

http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/NCOMMS14856

[Boomer]

1. The longest ten years in recorded history

I've been hearing "we only have ten years" to divert climate change for at least the last 5 or 10 years. The clock never seems to reset to "we only have 8 years left" or "we only have 5 years left". It's stuck perpetually at 10 years.

Either the prediction is meaningless to begin with or our time is up. You can't have it both ways.

[kristopher]

2. Can you document where, in the published academic literature, those claims exist?

I've never seen those kinds of assertions anywhere except the non-specialist blogosphere. Is that what you're going by?

[Boomer]

8. From a 5-minute Google Search

From 1989: http://www.climatedepot.com/2015/05/04/flashback-1989-un-issues-10-year-global-warming-tipping-point/

From 2006: http://www.nbcnews.com/id/14834318/ns/us_news-environment/t/warming-expert-only-decade-left-act-time/

From 2007: http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-change/ten-years-left-to-avert-catastrophe-434718.html

From 2015: https://www.rt.com/uk/269023-climate-change-health-emergency/


My own belief is that the warnings were accurate enough and that we're now out of time. Our "ten years" ran out decades ago and we're a dead-man-walking.

So forgive me if a snicker every time I hear the "we have ten years left" meme dragged out once again as some kind of urgent call to action. We missed the boat, and we should move the conversation on to doing our best to just survive what's coming at us.

[OKIsItJustMe]

9. You were asked for "published academic literature"

Two of your sources are questionable at best:
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Climate_Depot
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Russia_Today

As for the “ten year” window, it depends on what you’re trying to accomplish. Are we trying to avoid “climate change?” “Climate change” cannot be avoided. It’s already happening:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/climate-change-is-here--and-worse-than-we-thought/2012/08/03/6ae604c2-dd90-11e1-8e43-4a3c4375504a_story.html

So, Hansen’s warning in 2006 (cited in the NBC piece) “…I think we have a very brief window of opportunity to deal with climate change ... no longer than a decade, at the most,” appears to have been accurate.

But, what did Hansen mean by “deal with climate change?” Did he mean we needed to cut emissions to net zero in ten years?

Here’s an academic paper he wrote in 2006:
https://pubs.giss.nasa.gov/docs/2006/2006_Hansen_ha07110b.pdf

[font face=Serif][font size=3]…

We propose that two foci in defining DAI should be sea level and extinction of species, because of their potential tragic consequences and practical irreversibility on human time scales. In considering these topics, we find it useful to contrast two distinct scenarios abbreviated as ‘‘business-as-usual’’ (BAU) and the ‘‘alternative scenario’’ (AS).

BAU has growth of climate forcings as in intermediate or strong Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change scenarios, such as A1B or A2 (10). CO₂ emissions in BAU scenarios continue to grow at ?2% per year in the first half of this century, and non-CO₂ positive forcings such as CH₄, N₂O, O₃, and black carbon (BC) aerosols also continue to grow (10). BAU, with nominal climate sensitivity (3 ? 1°C for doubled CO₂ ), yields global warming (above year 2000 level) of at least 2–3°C by 2100 (10, 17).

AS has declining CO₂ emissions and an absolute decrease of non-CO₂ climate forcings, chosen such that, with nominal climate sensitivity, global warming (above year 2000) remains ?1°C. For example, one specific combination of forcings has CO₂ peaking at 475 ppm in 2100 and a decrease of CH₄, O₃, and BC sufficient to balance positive forcing from increase of N₂O and decrease of sulfate aerosols. If CH₄, O₃, and BC do not decrease, the CO₂ cap in AS must be lower.

…[/font][/font]

OK, so, he was proposing acting quickly to divert from “Business-As-Usual,” to an “Alternative Scenario,” where CO₂ levels peak at 475 ppm.


We are quite capable of making things worse. It is never too late to act to avoid that.

[sue4e3]

10. Thank You

Because you know if we say anything other than we are all going to die a heinous death imminently due to global warming it's a problem. Sometimes I feel like saying you know I could get hit by a car , isn't that hopeful. I'm sorry I can't help my self. I could be , being sarcastic or maybe I've lost a few marbles.

[OKIsItJustMe]

11. You're welcome

We actually are diverting from “Business-As-Usual.”
https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/overview-greenhouse-gases


We can argue about whether we are doing it fast enough or not to avoid some given undesirable fate.


By-the-way, if emissions are dropping, why are CO₂ levels still climbing?

https://scripps.ucsd.edu/programs/keelingcurve/2016/05/23/why-has-a-drop-in-global-co2-emissions-not-caused-co2-levels-in-the-atmosphere-to-stabilize/

[NickB79]

14. No only still rising; rising faster than ever

3ppm per year now. At current rates, we'll be approaching 500 ppm within 30 years.

Our remaining carbon sinks are saturating, former sinks are now turning into carbon sources, and positive feedbacks are driving tundra melting and forest fires. We may be diverting from BAU, but unaccounted for effects of a warming climate in earlier models mean we're for all intents and purposes still on the BAU path.

[Boomer]

12. Missed points and pointless victories

I think you're arguing another agenda entirely, one that really has nothing to do with me, but I'm willing to concede that it's because I didn't fully articulate my own argument.

There is a popular culture meme of "we have ten years left to avert climate change" that has been floating around for several decades. It's ubiquitous and anyone who has read the DU Environment forum for the past 10-15 years (as I have) is more than familiar with that meme.

It's a silly and irritating meme, and does more harm than good. It creates this false impression that present day actions will prevent change, when we're not even certain to what degree we can mitigate the changes already in progress. I'm not uttering a "oh woe is me we're doomed" lament or using it as an excuse for not moving ahead with green initiatives. (Going green is an excellent idea with its own merits, whether or not it mitigates climate change.) That's another issue entirely.

What I'm arguing is this notion that we have any window left at all. We don't. We're in the thick of it already. If we have any hope at all of developing realistic strategies for survival, we have to acknowledge "our time is up." Anything we do from now on is scrambling from behind, not ahead, of climate change.

[OKIsItJustMe]

13. "What I'm arguing is this notion that we have any window left at all."

I understood that. I believe you are incorrect.

On the other hand, if we become nihilistic, “screw it all, it’s too late to do anything!” then, our prophecy will be self-fulfilling.

Will meeting the Paris agreements prevent “Climate Change?” (No, it cannot. The climate is already changing.) Can it avoid worse effects of “Climate Change” than if we simply follow “Business-as-Usual?” (Yes! Of course it can!)

[OKIsItJustMe]

3. It's worth noting that this refers specifically to "meeting the limits set by the Paris Agreement"

“Deadlines” are not what they appear to be on TV. I am always frustrated by this exchange:

Hero: How much oxygen do they have?
Tech: They have a day’s worth of oxygen (an approximation)

At this point, a countdown appears on the screen, [tt]23:59:59[/tt]

For dramatic reasons, the hero averts disaster with just 3 seconds “to spare…” as if the victims will all die exactly at the stroke of [tt]00:00:00[/tt], but at [tt]00:00:03[/tt] they will not suffer brain damage, or any other ill effect.

[NNadir]

4. It's pretty easy to predict 600 exajoules of solar energy"by 2100," since everyone making the...

...claim will be dead.

(High RE, Table 2, 425-603 exajoules solar).

The fact is that similar claims made in the late 20th century did not end up with the solar scam producing even 2 exajoules of energy per year.

It would be interesting to explain why, after 50 years of mindless cheering for it, solar doesn't produce even 20 exajoules per year.

Of course, we have many people coming here, year after year, decade after decade announcing "solar breakthroughs," none of which pan out.

How is this different from announcing that "by 2100" a magic giant fairy will appear in the sky and suck all the CO2 out of the air?

This paper should not have been published. It's garbage, since it relies on wild speculation.

[hatrack]

5. I'd say the last ten years were critical . . .

And we didn't pass the test.

[OKIsItJustMe]

6. I'd say the last 40 years were critical...

http://dx.doi.org/10.1175/2008BAMS2370.1

[font face=Serif][font size=5]The Myth of the 1970s Global Cooling Scientific Consensus[/font]

…

Published Online: 1 September 2008

[font size=4]Abstract[/font]

[font size=3]Climate science as we know it today did not exist in the 1960s and 1970s. The integrated enterprise embodied in the Nobel Prizewinning work of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change existed then as separate threads of research pursued by isolated groups of scientists. Atmospheric chemists and modelers grappled with the measurement of changes in carbon dioxide and atmospheric gases, and the changes in climate that might result. Meanwhile, geologists and paleoclimate researchers tried to understand when Earth slipped into and out of ice ages, and why. An enduring popular myth suggests that in the 1970s the climate science community was predicting “global cooling” and an “imminent” ice age, an observation frequently used by those who would undermine what climate scientists say today about the prospect of global warming. A review of the literature suggests that, on the contrary, greenhouse warming even then dominated scientists' thinking as being one of the most important forces shaping Earth's climate on human time scales. More importantly than showing the falsehood of the myth, this review describes how scientists of the time built the foundation on which the cohesive enterprise of modern climate science now rests.

…[/font][/font]

[hatrack]

7. Certainly nearly 30, since Hansen went to Capitol Hill . . .

No excuses since have really held water; we can't say that we weren't warned.