Photo of our Earth and moon taken by the Galileo probe as it flew by on its way to Jupiter in 1992. (Dr. Amanda Hendrix, quoted here, was co-investigator on Galileo’s ultraviolet spectrometer instrument.) All 5.5 billion humans in the universe in 1992 were in this image. Now there are 7.7 billion of us, and we’re all in the same place. Our collective future depends on our knowledge of that blue sphere and the actions we take together based on that knowledge.
“But will we choose a different road? Your guess is as good as any scientist’s. Human decisions remain the main source of uncertainty in climate change, not the physical response of the climate itself. The confidence level of the physical predictions for many years has exceeded the certainty we need for other big choices, such as when we decide economic policies or court cases. But predicting the human component of reducing carbon emissions depends on politics and social psychology, which constantly surprise the best experts.
Carbon reduction depends on peace between nations. And changing climate could be a great impetus to war. The physical sciences have found many feedback loops by which warming begets more warming, but the social science connection of carbon and conflict could be the most powerful of all.”
“Exercising my ‘reasoned judgement,’ … I have no doubt that the right to a climate system capable of sustaining human life is fundamental to a free and ordered society.”
-U.S. District Court of Oregon Judge Ann Aiken, November, 2016, in a 54-page opinion and order denying the U.S. federal government’s motion to dismiss a lawsuit, filed against the federal government by 21 kids currently ranging in age from 11 to 22, asserting that the federal government has “known for more than fifty years that the carbon dioxide … produced by burning fossil fuels was destabilizing the climate system in a way that would ‘significantly endanger plaintiffs, with the damage persisting for millenia’,” and demanding that the government desist from subsidizing the fossil fuel industry and begin regulating carbon dioxide emissions
Read here about the 36,000 pages of documentary evidence gathered by the plaintiffs for the case, much of it the government’s own documents spanning 50 years and 10 presidencies.
Since 2016, the Trump Administration has appealed Judge Aiken’s decision three times to the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals and twice to the Supreme Court. All 5 appeals failed.
The next oral arguments in Juliana v. United States are scheduled for June in Portland, Oregon.
Figure 1 from Santer, et al. (2019). Signal-to-noise ratios used for identifying a model-predicted anthropogenic fingerprint in 40 years of satellite measurements of annual-mean tropospheric temperature. The blue, red, and green lines are signal-to-noise ratios of tropospheric temperature data derived from microwave sounding units on National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) polar-orbiting satellites since 1979 by three different research groups: Remote Sensing Systems (RSS), the Center for Satellite Applications and Research (STAR), and the University of Alabama at Huntsville (UAH). The 3σ line represents a temperature 3 standard deviations above the average temperature of early measurements; based on random variation alone, a single measurement greater than 3σ from the average would only occur 3 times in every 1000 measurements. The 5σ line represents a temperature 5 standard deviations above the average of early measurements; based on random variation alone, a single measurement greater than 5σ from the average would occur no more than once in 3.5 million measurements. Two of the data sets had surpassed the 5σ threshold by 2005, and all three data sets had surpassed the 5σ threshold by 2016.
Well, the chances are just a little bit less than that.
On Monday, a group of 11 scientists from the United States, Canada, and Scotland published a paper in the peer reviewed and competitive journal, Nature Climate Change, reviewing key accomplishments in the past 40 years of climate science since 1979.
The first was the 1979 publication of a 22-page report by the National Research Council, known informally as the “Charney Report” after the meteorologist, Jule Charney, who chaired the “ad hoc study group on carbon dioxide and climate” that produced the report attempting to synthesize all available climate research to date, identify gaps in understanding for further study, and make preliminary predictions about the extent and effects of expected global warming. Though many gaps in understanding were identified, the group’s essential prediction has aged quite well, being consistent with both earlier 1956 calculations by the physicist, Gilbert Plass (using some of the world’s first computers), and current predictions (see figure below).
Basic scientific prediction of global warming over 6 decades: • “The most recent calculations of the infra-red flux in the region of the 15 micron CO2 band show that the average surface temperature of the earth increases 3.6°C if the CO2 concentration in the atmosphere is doubled…” (G. Plass, 1956) • “We estimate the most probable global warming for a doubling of CO2 to be near 3°C with a probable error of ± 1.5°C.” (National Research Council, 1979) • “The equilibrium climate sensitivity [global average surface warming with doubling of CO2 concentration relative to pre-industrial] is likely in the range of 1.5°C to 4.5°C, extremely unlikely less than 1°C, and very unlikely greater than 6°C.” (IPCC, 2014)The claim often made or implied in popular discourse, that scientists have “changed their story” on climate change (e.g., which is it, climate change or global warming?…), is belied by the decades-long consistency of the above basic prediction, initially made simply based on a physical understanding of the absorption of infrared radiation by CO2 gas.
The second accomplishment reviewed in the article was the 1979 publication of a landmark paper by Klauss Hasselmann entitled, “On the signal-to-noise problem in atmospheric response studies.” Ideas in this paper led scientists afterward to test the “fingerprints” of various hypotheses about the external causes of observed climate change signals versus random noise in the climate system. From these initial ideas sprung an entire discipline of climate science that has resulted in the testing of numerous proposed hypotheses of external climate influence vs. random variations in observed climate data.
The third accomplishment reviewed was the implementation, since 1979, of microwave sounding units on NOAA polar-orbiting satellites which measure microwave emissions from oxygen molecules in earth’s atmosphere that are proportional to temperature. The results over decades from three independent research groups, analyzing this data, are shown at the top of this post.
In the new paper, the authors note the confluence of these 3 events 40 years ago. The Charney report of 1979 analysed the best available scientific data to date and made a bold prediction about future global warming on a “business as usual trajectory,” admitting significant uncertainties. The Hasselmann paper of 1979 suggested an approach of comparing various hypotheses and their expected resulting temperature changes with those due to random noise in the climate system. The activation in 1979 of satellite systems capable of measuring atmospheric temperature provided this framework with data.
As of Monday, this work has come to fruition in a compelling way. Using methods derived from Hasselmann’s, scientists analyze the satellite temperature data, showing that random climate noise alone would generate a single measurement of the past 3 annual measurements, from 3 independent research groups, at most one out of every 3.5 million times. This is a level of certainty known in science as a 5σ threshold. Unless you’re a big time gambler, this is a pretty sure thing.
And, as I’ve posted on before, explanations other than anthropogenic global warming fail to fit the climate data at all well. The only explanation that does fit the data, which we now know would occur randomly less than once in 3.5 million times, is this — we burn fossil fuels, which introduces ancient carbon dioxide back into the atmosphere, which increases the atmosphere’s retention of reflected infrared radiation from the sun.
The prediction has remained consistent for over 6 decades, even as the evidence supporting it has piled up to the point of statistical certitude. The reason for the success of the early prediction, based only on math, a knowledge of carbon dioxide’s infrared absorption, and the world’s first computers, lies in the fact that carbon dioxide, practically alone, drives the climate change we have experienced since the Industrial Revolution.
“We know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that human activities have changed the composition of Earth’s atmosphere. And we know that these human‐caused changes in the levels of greenhouse gases make it easier for the atmosphere to trap heat. This is not rocket science. It is simple, basic physics.”
“An anthropogenic fingerprint of tropospheric warming is identifiable with high statistical confidence in all currently available satellite datasets … In two out of three datasets, fingerprint detection at a 5σ threshold — the gold standard for discoveries in particle physics — occurs no later than 2005, only 27 years after the 1979 start of the satellite measurements. Humanity cannot afford to ignore such clear signals.”
–Benjamin D. Santer, Celine J. W. Bonfils, Qiang Fu, John C. Fyfe, Gabriele C. Hegerl, Carl Mears, Jeffrey F. Painter, Stephen Po-Chedley, Frank J. Wentz, Mark D. Zelinka & Cheng-Zhi Zhou, authors of the paper
To minimize her carbon footprint, Greta took a 32-hour train ride to Davos from her home in Sweden and slept in a tent while at the WEF Annual Meeting.
“Our house is on fire. I am here to say, our house is on fire.
And please note that those numbers do not include the aspect of equity, which is absolutely necessary to make the Paris agreement work on a global scale. Nor does it include tipping points or feedback loops like the extremely powerful methane gas being released from the thawing Arctic permafrost.
At places like Davos, people like to tell success stories. But their financial success has come with an unthinkable price tag. And on climate change, we have to acknowledge that we have failed. All political movements in their present form have done so, and the media has failed to create broad public awareness.
But Homo sapiens have not yet failed.
Yes, we are failing, but there is still time to turn everything around. We can still fix this. We still have everything in our own hands. But unless we recognize the overall failures of our current systems, we most probably don’t stand a chance.
We are facing a disaster of unspoken sufferings for enormous amounts of people. And now is not the time for speaking politely or focusing on what we can or cannot say. Now is the time to speak clearly.
You say nothing in life is black or white. But that is a lie. A very dangerous lie. Either we prevent 1.5 °C of warming or we don’t. Either we avoid setting off that irreversible chain reaction beyond human control or we don’t.
Now we all have a choice. We can create transformational action that will safeguard the future living conditions for humankind. Or we can continue with our business as usual and fail.
That is up to you and me.
Some say that we should not engage in activism. Instead we should leave everything to our politicians and just vote for change instead. But what do we do when there is no political will? What do we do when the politics needed are nowhere in sight?
Here in Davos – just like everywhere else – everyone is talking about money. It seems that money and growth are our only main concerns.
No other current challenge can match the importance of establishing a wide, public awareness and understanding of our rapidly disappearing carbon budget, that should and must become our new global currency and the very heart of future and present economics.
We are now at a time in history where everyone with any insight of the climate crisis that threatens our civilization – and the entire biosphere – must speak out in clear language, no matter how uncomfortable and unprofitable that may be.
We must change almost everything in our current societies. The bigger your carbon footprint is, the bigger your moral duty. The bigger your platform, the bigger your responsibility.
Adults keep saying: “We owe it to the young people to give them hope.” But I don’t want your hope. I don’t want you to be hopeful. I want you to panic. I want you to feel the fear I feel every day.
And then I want you to act.
I want you to act as you would in a crisis. I want you to act as if the house was on fire. Because it is.”
-Greta Thunberg, 16-year-old Swedish climate activist who has inspired teens around the world with her Climate Strike campaign. Full text of her speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, January 25, 2019.
I hate you and love you
all at the same time
I’m sorry, I don’t mean to
but we tend to leave you behind
These hands were made for loving but all we do is fight
I wish we could combat the monsters inside
and love was made for people but people are filled with greed
we take what we want and expect it to be free
Now our hearts are empty, now our hearts are bare but we still take what we want and expect it to be there
It’s just plain and simple, we lost everything
and now we can’t hear the song that human nature sings
It goes
Oh
save me
help me
Caged in this life we try to hide behind TV’s it’s all about me perpetuate the planet ’till it’s gone, and then we’ll have it
won’t we?
it’s all about me
These hands were made for loving but all we do is fight I wish we could combat the monsters inside
and love was made for people but people are filled with greed
we take what we want and expect it to be free
Now the world is empty, now the world is bare
but we still take what we want and expect it to be there
It’s just plain and simple, we lost everything
and now we can’t hear the song that human nature sings
It goes
Oh save me help me oh
oh
save me
help me
save me
help me
-Lane Burke and Eliot Hester. “Human Nature.” Novel, Vol. 1, The 5th Records, 2019.
Beautiful song, worth a listen. Insightful lyrics, worth some thought. Check it out on iTunes.
This reverses 3 consecutive years of decline and a general declining trend averaging 1.6% per year since 2007. The pace of emissions decline had slowed since 2016 prior to the strong reversal in 2018.
Continuing a trend in previous years, power generation from coal declined significantly in 2018, as an estimated 13.7 gigawatts of U.S. coal-fired capacity was retired. Most of this retired power generation capacity, as well as a significant increase in power demand in 2018, was provided by natural gas combustion.
During the first 10 months of 2018, gas-fired power generation increased by an amount three times as large as the decline in coal-fired generation and four times as large as the combined increase in solar and wind generation (left graph above).
Progress relative to targets
The 2018 increase in CO2 emissions will make it more difficult for the U.S. to meet its emissions targets according to international agreements, which are based on target reductions relative to a 2005 benchmark level. After the increase last year, the U.S. ended 2018 with energy-related emissions 11.2% lower than the 2005 level.
Under the Copenhagen Accord, the U.S. has a target of reducing all greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 17% by the year 2020, relative to 2005 levels. Assuming non-energy related GHG emissions reductions are proportional to energy-related reductions, the U.S. will need to reduce energy-related emissions by an average of 3.3% per year in 2019 and 2020 to meet this target. (Non-energy related GHG emissions reductions have historically lagged energy-related reductions.)
As reported by both the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and a consortium of 13 U.S. federal agencies, scientists widely agree emissions targets under the Paris Agreement are inadequate to that agreement’s stated goal of limiting global warming to 2 degrees Celsius, or better yet 1.5 degrees Celsius, above pre-industrial levels to avoid the most calamitous consequences of climate change. Instead, scientists say global GHG emissions need to be cut in half by about 2030 and reach net zero emissions by no later than about 2055 to meet those stated goals, as shown in the lower left panel below.
Of the possibility that the U.S. can meet its Copenhagen and Paris emissions targets, the Rhodium Group report concludes,
“It is certainly feasible, but will likely require a fairly significant change in policy in the very near future and/or extremely favorable market and technological conditions.”
Meeting the more difficult stated global warming targets under the Paris Agreement will require a concerted, global effort characterized by political and technological boldness and a commitment to placing a price on carbon emissions, which are externalized in the current global economy.
Very sad day & night in Paris. Maybe it’s time to end the ridiculous and extremely expensive Paris Agreement and return money back to the people in the form of lower taxes? The U.S. was way ahead of the curve on that and the only major country where emissions went down last year!
The first half of this tweet by President Trump, referencing “yellow vest” riots in Paris in late 2018, has the effect of insulting a NATO ally and a recent partner in the U.S. fight against ISIS. The second half, as we have seen above, has the defect of being totally unrelated to facts.
Indeed, the difficulties in France result partially from popular opposition to its government’s implementation of an intensifying carbon tax in efforts to meet its ecological targets. These are real challenges. They are complex challenges. They should be discussed and debated with an intention oriented to solutions.
But our current discourse in this country is inadequate to the challenges and not oriented to solutions. Consider the state of our discourse:
“My name is Greta Thunberg. I am 15 years old. I am from Sweden.
I speak on behalf of Climate Justice Now.
Many people say that Sweden is just a small country and it doesn’t matter what we do.
But I’ve learned you are never too small to make a difference.
And if a few children can get headlines all over the world just by not going to school, then imagine what we could all do together if we really wanted to. But to do that, we have to speak clearly, no matter how uncomfortable that may be.
You only speak of green eternal economic growth because you are too scared of being unpopular. You only talk about moving forward with the same bad ideas that got us into this mess, even when the only sensible thing to do is pull the emergency brake.
You are not mature enough to tell it like it is. Even that burden you leave to us children. But I don’t care about being popular. I care about climate justice and the living planet.
Our civilization is being sacrificed for the opportunity of a very small number of people to continue making enormous amounts of money.
Our biosphere is being sacrificed so that rich people in countries like mine can live in luxury. It is the sufferings of the many which pay for the luxuries of the few.
The year 2078, I will celebrate my 75th birthday. If I have children maybe they will spend that day with me. Maybe they will ask me about you. Maybe they will ask why you didn’t do anything while there still was time to act.
You say you love your children above all else, and yet you are stealing their future in front of their very eyes.
Until you start focusing on what needs to be done rather than what is politically possible, there is no hope. We cannot solve a crisis without treating it as a crisis.
We need to keep the fossil fuels in the ground, and we need to focus on equity. And if solutions within the system are so impossible to find, maybe we should change the system itself.
We have not come here to beg world leaders to care. You have ignored us in the past and you will ignore us again.
We have run out of excuses and we are running out of time.
We have come here to let you know that change is coming, whether you like it or not. The real power belongs to the people.
Image credit: John D. Sutter. A group of students, inspired by Greta’s climate movement, who walked into the COP24 conference center in Katowice, Poland on Friday and held signs that, together, say “12 years left,” a reference to the recent IPCC climate report which concludes global climate goals to avoid the worst consequences of climate change could become impossible to achieve in about 12 years without swift actions to decarbonize the world economy.
“We think that this is the most extreme version and it’s not based on facts … It’s not data driven. We’d like to see something that is more data driven. It’s based on modeling, which is extremely hard to do when you’re talking about the climate.” –White House press secretary, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, speaking at a White House press briefing on Nov. 27 about the Trump Administration’s assessment of the Trump Administration’s recently released climate report
The publicly available report she’s talking about:
Well, the folks writing the report were asked to make projections about the impacts of climate change on American life, depending on various policy choices we might (or might not) make now. You can’t make a forecast — in any aspect of life — without some sort of modeling. You might forecast how much money you’re going to have at the end of the month. Even if you do this in your head, you will be using something we could call a model. Typically, models involve two main ingredients: (1) relevant data from past experiences, and (2) knowledge or assumptions about how future conditions will likely evolve. You will probably factor into your monetary forecast what you usually spend per week on groceries — that would be (1) data. If it’s December, and you use typical monthly data to make your forecast, you might come up short if you end up spending a lot of money on the Holidays. That would represent a deficiency in part (2), knowledge and assumptions.
Generally, a model is only as good as the data, knowledge, and assumptions on which it’s based, so judging the quality of a model means judging the quality of those.
The recent climate report uses, yes, modeling to project future living conditions in the United States based on various assumptions about policies we might select now. As I pointed out in my last post, this is necessary. If our objective is to ensure we don’t select policies that will result in hundreds of billions of dollars in costs to our economy, the deaths of thousands of Americans, and the displacement of millions more, we can’t just wait and see what happens. That’s because many of the changes caused by climate change, under the worst scenarios, will be irreversible on any time scale of interest to us. If the entire Greenland ice sheet were to melt, for example, sea level would rise an estimated 23 feet. This might make us regretful of the policies we chose which led us to that result. If, learning the error of our ways, we then set about reducing our greenhouse gas emissions, it’s pretty easy to understand the ocean wouldn’t just slither back uphill onto Greenland and re-freeze. The Greenland ice sheet we have now (the one that’s melting) is the result of gradual past snowfall accumulation over millions of years.
So, when Sarah Huckabee Sanders represents that the climate report is not trustworthy because it’s “based on modeling” and “not data driven,” she’s setting up a false choice. We have no alternative but to use modeling! That is, unless the alternative is to bury our heads in the sand and pretend we don’t know anything (which would seem to me outrageously irresponsible). She’s also setting up a false comparison, because the modeling is rigorously derived from past data, as we’ll see below.
And, when she says modeling of the climate is “extremely hard to do,” we should feel gratitude for the wisdom of the many folks who have funded, sponsored, advocated for, and conducted climate research for years — decades!, as summarized (with links to original references) in my Brief History of Climate Change Evidence — who have given us very well developed knowledge and capabilities with respect to climate modeling.
New climate study, Volume II, Figure 2.2. Observed (black) and projected (colored) global temperature changes based on observed (black) and projected (colored) emissions of greenhouse gases from fossil fuel combustion and other human activities. Colored lines represent projections based on 3 different scenarios.
The black lines are data — known fossil fuel emissions (left) and measured temperatures (right). (For details on how the temperature measurements were done, see here.)
The red, blue, and green projections in the left panel are 3 different assumptions about our future carbon emissions, called Relative Concentration Pathways (RCPs). These have been standardized, and their numbers represent the change in radiative forcing in the year 2100 in Watts per square meter of the Earth’s surface. Thus, RCP8.5 (red line) means the “future storyline of fossil fuel emissions” that would result in an additional 8.5 Watts per square meter of energy across the Earth’s surface in the year 2100. Yeah, it’s technical. But, basically, RCP8.5 is the “business as usual scenario.” The one in which we pretend climate change is a hoax, talk about “clean coal” as if burning coal doesn’t produce carbon dioxide (it does, it always does), just go on doing like we’re doing.
The blue and green projections are scenarios in which we act like we give a crap about future humans.
It’s critical to understand that the red, blue, and green lines in the left panel are not yet modeling. They are 3 different assumptions about how we might behave in the future. They represent different policies and actions we might select. For more detailed information about RCPs, see Volume I of the new climate report, Chapter 4.
The modeling appears as the red, blue, and green projections (and the shaded plume associated with each) in the right panel. But, here’s a critical fact. Each one is not just one model. Modeling in the new climate report relies on the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project, Phase 5 (CMIP5). The Coupled Model Intercomparison Project was organized by scientists in 1995 to aggregate and compare the results of the world’s best climate models. Under the administrative leadership of the U.S. Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, it’s been through 5 refinement phases since, Phase 5 starting in 2010.
If you have a climate model and you want to get it in CMIP5, here’s the price of admission. (1) Your climate model has to mathematically account for physical climate processes in a way that can stand up to scientific scrutiny according to the peer review process. (2) Your climate model needs to fit past historical measurements well. As I touched on in my last post on the new climate report, here are the CMIP5 models (orange cross-hatched band) fitting the past data (black line):
Here’s how those projections in the top graph are made. Many, many CMIP5 simulations are run. Here’s what that looks like:
New climate report, Volume I (2017), Figure 4.2. Global mean temperature increases for four RCP scenarios, 2.6 (green), 4.5 (yellow), 6.0 (orange), and 8.5 (red). Each line is an individual model from the CMIP5 archive.
On the right panel of the graph at the top, the plumes around the red and green lines are not just artistic renderings of uncertainty. They are the regions within which 95% of the CMIP5 models fall for each scenario.
So, when Sarah says, “It’s not data driven,” I strenuously dispute that claim. It is extremely data driven, in the sense that the climate models being used accurately fit our historical temperature data. And that is a result of decades of data gathering and analytical work refining our ability to understand account for the physical processes that influence global temperature.
When Sarah says, “this is the most extreme version,” I strenuously dispute that claim. The colored plumes around each of the projections in the right panel in the graph at the top represent all of the versions. That’s the range of outcomes predicted by all the world’s climate models! Ok, let’s say we choose “business as usual” (RCP8.5). The “most extreme version” says the average surface temperature of the Earth will increase by almost 10 degrees Fahrenheit by 2100. The least extreme version says the average increase will be around 5 degrees Fahrenheit.
Both of these outcomes, and any of the more probable ones in between, would be terrible! And would be attended by ever more hurricanes, wildfires, droughts, coastal floods, and refugee crises.
…as shown in the rest of the new climate report. More to come.
A new study released today by the Global Carbon Project forecasts that global annual carbon emissions will increase by an expected 2.7% in 2018, with a range between 1.8% and 3.7%. 2018 will be the second consecutive year of global carbon emissions increases following a flat trend between 2014 and 2016.
Globally, fossil fuel carbon dioxide emissions are expected to reach 37.1 billion metric tons in 2018, a new record.
In order of emissions contributions, the 10 highest carbon emitters in 2018 are China, the U.S., India, Russia, Japan, Germany, Iran, Saudi Arabia, South Korea, and Canada.
Carbon emissions from coal combustion have increased in 2018, reversing a previously decreasing trend. Emissions from oil and gas combustion have continued to rise unabated for years.
Energy use from renewable sources is on the rise, and per capita carbon emissions are falling in many parts of the world. However, these efforts have not yet been sufficient to cause global carbon emissions to peak or begin declining.
According to a recently released report by the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), in order to meet the Paris climate agreement goals of holding global warming to 1.5°C or 2°C above the pre-industrial average temperature, global yearly carbon dioxide emissions from all sources, including fossil fuel combustion, will need to peak by 2020, decline to 50% of the peak value by around 2030, and reach net zero emissions no later than around 2055, as shown in the lower left panel below.
