The impact of climate change is greater than feared or widely expected. This post contains an editorial from what is probably the best website that publishes news from all the sciences. It has many worthwhile quotes and observations, all of which converge on an understanding that the 2C target that was set in Paris, and seemed so acceptable really may be a good bit too high. The lower 1.5C target that some were pushing for, but few took seriously, is suddenly being upgraded to more of a primary position. As the author says, “Nearly every day, peer-reviewed studies on global warming warn that deadly impacts will come sooner and hit harder than once thought.”
https://phys.org/news/2018-10-climate-faster.html
https://phys.org/news/2018-10-climate-faster.html
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Comment: What happened? In several recent climate letters I have tried to explain why using a “global average” temperature increase was not appropriate, because the number has no real meaning. The globe is divided into two primary surfaces, land and ocean, which are vastly different from each other, in more ways than one. The simple data that is available, but regularly overlooked, is that air temperatures over land have been rising at a much faster rate than those over the oceans for the last forty years. So fast that they have already slipped past 1.5C for several years, relative to the preindustrial norm. We are seeing impacts just as they are supposed to be for that kind of temperature, not the impacts widely associated with 1.1C, which is the average only found by including the much milder gains in ocean air temperatures. Why are the oceans so far behind? Because they keep passing much of the extra energy collected at the surface down into the depths below instead of bouncing it back into the air, the way things work on land. That will change over time as more and more heat builds up down below, effectively stopping the downward flow of energy and adding to the amount that must move outward through the air and toward space. This will take some extra time because there is still quite a bit of interference expected from all the polar ice that will be collapsing into the oceans and cooling the water as it melts.
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From this perspective it is right to conclude that with all the greenhouse gas that humans have added to the air we have already caused the warming of the lower atmosphere everywhere to eventually increase by 1.7C, actually a bit more, once the temporary imbalance created by the deep oceans and their currents has been overcome. That last part could take a century or more but is locked in unless we somehow manage to reduce the greenhouse gases from where they are right now, which at the moment looks unlikely. Meanwhile the air temperatures over land are likely to keep edging higher in a more direct way, right in step with any increases in greenhouse gas. My calculations (see below) show that the very first indications of a permanent 2C warming will be in place when CO2 passes 415 ppm, with actual 2C average readings over land showing up about ten years later. In order to avoid this happening we would need to set up a carbon budget that will prevent CO2 from reaching 415 on a yearly average, which would be quite a tall order.
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Now, about my calculations, they begin by taking a position on climate sensitivity. That position is a little higher than the conventional figure of 3.0C for a doubling of CO2, but not much, at 3.5C. One reason is simply to find a way to accommodate all of the unusually high readings of other, non-CO2 greenhouse gases like methane that are closely partnered with CO2 increases. Another is that 3.5 fits so well with the actual data curve for average temperatures on land. You can split 3.5 into seven increases of one-half degree each, and because of the logarithmic nature of greenhouse gas effectiveness that means each successive gain of 10.4% in the CO2 level should be enough to raise the average air temperature over land by one-half degree after a brief delay. Starting with CO2 at the preindustrial level of 280 there have been three of these gains completed so far, the most recent one ending in 2004 at 376 ppm. In each case land air picked up a full one-half degree within just about 10 to 12 years of the CO2 marker, and meanwhile the oceans have been swallowing heat at a rate which by observation seems to be following a parallel course although by a wholly different measure. That’s it.
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If there is a recommendation to be made, it is that the science community should downplay the emphasis on “global average” air temperature, because of the way it is held down by ocean air averages, and downplay all the talk about carbon budgets, which at best are imprecise and confusing, and just set targets for CO2, one that must not be exceeded for any reason—which can be explained in full—and another that we have gone far past (like 350 or less) and must strive to get back to.
Carl
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Now, about my calculations, they begin by taking a position on climate sensitivity. That position is a little higher than the conventional figure of 3.0C for a doubling of CO2, but not much, at 3.5C. One reason is simply to find a way to accommodate all of the unusually high readings of other, non-CO2 greenhouse gases like methane that are closely partnered with CO2 increases. Another is that 3.5 fits so well with the actual data curve for average temperatures on land. You can split 3.5 into seven increases of one-half degree each, and because of the logarithmic nature of greenhouse gas effectiveness that means each successive gain of 10.4% in the CO2 level should be enough to raise the average air temperature over land by one-half degree after a brief delay. Starting with CO2 at the preindustrial level of 280 there have been three of these gains completed so far, the most recent one ending in 2004 at 376 ppm. In each case land air picked up a full one-half degree within just about 10 to 12 years of the CO2 marker, and meanwhile the oceans have been swallowing heat at a rate which by observation seems to be following a parallel course although by a wholly different measure. That’s it.
.
If there is a recommendation to be made, it is that the science community should downplay the emphasis on “global average” air temperature, because of the way it is held down by ocean air averages, and downplay all the talk about carbon budgets, which at best are imprecise and confusing, and just set targets for CO2, one that must not be exceeded for any reason—which can be explained in full—and another that we have gone far past (like 350 or less) and must strive to get back to.
Carl