Climate Letter #1010

The existing idea of a carbon budget is not properly conceived, and should be replaced.

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That is the conclusion I have come to in recent days.  The most obvious reason is because the budget is so highly restricted to human activity, and thus about things that are almost completely under our control.  We have an ability to set limits on those activities, which is great, and we can establish plans for doing so, knowing full well how many impediments are in the way and how hard they will be to enforce.  Moreover, we have excellent knowledge of ways to make credible measurements covering all aspects of carbon emissions related to human activity.  Setting aside the issue of enforcement, none of that is in need of change
There is a weak spot in the way the budget is now adjudicated that should be changed, and that is the translating of emission numbers directly into a temperature target using the concept of sensitivity, which is wrong because of the way it overemphasizes short-term results.  There are all kinds of feedbacks and balancing effects that normally take a hundred years or more to reach equilibrium once there is a significant change in the original conditions, especially that cited by CO2 level.  Whenever you reach or predict a new level it’s best to try to see what that particular figure may have meant for climates in the past.  With a higher number this is difficult to do, but we are getting better at it.  A lower number for CO2, like 200 ppm, would be much easier to interpret because we have such a perfect historical record of many instances.
Another problem with current budgets, though not all of them, is the way negative emissions get plugged in as a way to lower the predictions of human activity on a net basis. At this point anything in that line is a myth.
Now for the biggest problem.  Human activity of one kind or another probably accounts for over 99% of the CO2 change of about 130 ppm since 1750.  That means we have added 275 billion tons of carbon to the atmosphere in the form of CO2 alone, plus that of methane, created by emitting about 550 billion tons of carbon before the natural sinks on the surface took their usual 50% cut.  This activity will now supposedly be winding down, but here comes Round 2, emissions from carbon soil, especially from that found in permafrost regions that have begun thawing.  Round 2 was created by all the heat generated by the emissions produced during Round 1.  After being quiet for untold thousands of years the thawing process just got started a few decades ago as the needed heat became available.  We could compare its current situation with that of Round 1 at the time of the American Revolution.
How big is Round 2 going to be?  By all accounts that I’ve seen, over time, about the same as Round 1.  How long will it take to fully unload?  Again, about the same amount of time, but there are wide differences of opinion about that, and a great many scientists are working on it in one form or another.  One thing I want to point out is that most scientists seem to think that the unloading time depends to some extent on how fast air temperatures in the Arctic will be further warming up from the present through this century and beyond.  That of course brings us back to how quickly Round 1 and its effects can be wound down, which is still being debated.
Anyway, Round 2 is here, mostly out of our control, and not going away.  It will be adding numbers to the CO2 level that we will eventually find by observation whether or not we have put them in our budgets.  We need to get a better handle on those numbers, especially those coming due in the current century.
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My one link today is to a paper from three scientists at a Canadian university, published in 2012.  Their view of the potential for emissions from permafrost thawing, employing a unique model the results of which are wide in range, offers exceptional numerical support for the parameters of the outlook I have been expressing.  The most you can read for free is the study’s abstract, which is short and clear.  Remember that the symbol Pg, for petagram, means the same as billions of tons.  These researchers are unfortunately less sanguine than most others about the ability of humans to make a difference in this process.
Carl

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