Climate Change: More “Business As Unusual”

The extreme highs in atmospheric carbon continue to occur.  This week is virtually certain to surpass 408 ppm, and therefore the month as a whole is virtually certain to surpass 407.6 ppm, a new historic high, and probably more than 4 ppm greater than last year.  If trends continue, the increase in ppm will probably set another new record, being much greater during the first five months of this year than last year’s average gain of 3.05 ppm (my off-the-cuff estimate so far is 3.5 ppm).  To repeat, this is a greater increase and percentage increase than that during the last comparable el Nino.  This calls into question, I repeat, whether our present efforts (as opposed to those to which Paris climate talks committed) are really doing anything significant to avoid “business as usual.”

Meanwhile, Arctic sea ice extent is far below even the previous record low for this time of year.  The apparent cause is increased sea and air temperatures plus favorable melting conditions in both the North Atlantic and North Pacific, partially supplemented by unusually early “total melt” on land in both Canada/Alaska and Scandinavia/Russia.  Unless present weather trends sharply change over the next 3 months, new record Arctic ice lows are as likely as not, and “ice-free” (less than 1 million sq kilometers) conditions are for the first time a (remote) possibility.

Finally, here are the climate change thoughts of the Republican candidate for next President of the United States, with commentary (which I echo) from David Roberts:

[The excerpt starts with footage from a press conference, followed by an introduction, followed by Trump’s speech]

This is ... not an energy speech.

Trump now arguing that coal mining is a delightful job that people love to do.

Trump wants the Keystone pipeline, but he wants a better deal -- 'a piece of the profits for Americans.'

Facepalm forever.

'We're the highest taxed nation, by far.' That is flatly false, not that anyone cares.

75% of federal regulations are 'terrible for the country.' Sigh.

'I know a lot about solar.' Followed by several grossly inaccurate assertions about solar.

I can't believe I just got suckered into watching a Trump press conference.

And now I'm listening to bad heavy metal as I wait for the real speech. This day has become hallucinatory.

Speech finally getting under way. Oil baron Harold Hamm here to introduce Trump.

Oh, good, Hamm explained energy to Trump in 30 minutes. We're all set.

Here's ND's [North Dakota] own Kevin Cramer, representing the oil & gas industry. Thankfully, he's gonna keep it short.

What even is this music?

Trump loves farmers. 'Now you can fall asleep while we talk about energy.' Wait what.

Trump now repeating Clinton coal 'gaffe,' a story the media cooked up & served to him. Awesome, media.

Honestly, Trump sounds like he's reading this speech for the first time. Like he's reacting to it, in asides, as he reads it.

Trump promises 'complete American energy independence -- COMPLETE.' That is utter nonsense.

This is amazing. He is literally reading oil & gas talking points, reacting to them in real time. We're all discovering this together.

Clinton will "unleash" EPA to "control every aspect of our lives." Presumably also our precious bodily fluids.

Trump is having obvious difficulty staying focused on reading his speech. He so badly wants to just do his freestyle-nonsense thing.

Can't stop laughing. He's reading this sh** off the teleprompter & then expressing surprise & astonishment at it. Reading for the 1st time!

He can't resist. Wandering off into a tangent about terrorism. Stay focused, man!

Oh, good, renewable energy gets a tiny shoutout. But not to the exclusion of other energies that are "working much better."

We're gonna solve REAL environmental problems. Not the phony ones. Go ahead, man, say it ...

(1) Rescind all Obama executive actions. (2) Save the coal industry (doesn't say how). (3) Ask TransCanada to renew Keystone proposal.

(4) Lift all restrictions on fossil exploration on public land. (5) Cancel Paris climate agreement. (6) Stop US payments to UN climate fund.

(7) Eliminate all the bad regulations. (8) Devolve power to local & state level. (9) Ensure all regs are good for US workers.

(10) Gonna protect environment -- "clean air & clean water" -- but, uh, not with regulations!

(11) Lifting all restrictions on fossil fuel export will, according to right-wing hack factory, create ALL THE BILLIONS OF US MONIES.

Let us pause to note: this is indistinguishable from standard GOP energy policy, dating all the way back to Reagan. Rhetoric unchanged.

"ISIS has the oil from Libya."

Notable: not a single mention of climate change, positive or negative. Just one passing reference to "phony" environmental problems.

And this, in the Senate and House of Representatives, is what keeps the US from far more effective action on climate change.  To slightly alter George Lucas in the Star Wars series, this is how humanity ends most of itself --- to thunderous applause.

That is all.

And the CO2 Keeps Rising Faster

It appears pretty evident from the Mauna Loa weekly data that the April CO2 level will average around 407.5.  That’s more than 4 ppm more than April 2015.  Moreover, with March having come in below 405 ppm, it will be the first time on record that we have passed the 405, 406, and 407 ppm mark on a monthly basis.  Based on past behavior, it seems likely that May 2016 will be above 408 ppm.  If memory serves me right, that will be less than 1 ½ years since the monthly average was less than 400 ppm.  And finally, given that the CO2 underlying “rate of rise” is much greater than in 1998, there is a strong possibility that we will cross 410 ppm on a monthly basis next April or May – less than 2 ½ years since we were under 400 ppm.

Guesstimating and extrapolating the new “underlying rate of rise” farther out into the future at a conservative 2.5 ppm/year to a still realistic 3.3 ppm/year, we reach 420 ppm in 2020 or 2021.  Why is this significant?  It marks the point at which atmospheric carbon reaches 50% above its pre-industrial value of about 280 ppm.  Most estimates of the warming effect of atmospheric carbon base themselves on a doubling, with somewhere between 2 and 2.8 degrees C  warming as a direct effect of the carbon, and between 4 and 5 degrees C (delayed) due to related increases in other GHGs (greenhouse gases) and additional warming due to changes in the Earth’s albedo.  The best estimates are based on previous episodes of large global warming 55 and 250 million years ago, which according to Hansen et al. resulted in about 4 degrees C increase in global temperature eventually per doubling of atmospheric carbon.  [Note that this may underestimate the effect of today’s atmospheric carbon increases over a 100s of times shorter period compared to previous global warming episodes] If we follow Hansen et al., then, we will have 2.67 degrees C of warming already “baked in” as of 2121.  Somewhere between 1.33 and 1.75 degrees C will happen pretty quickly, apparently, by 2050; and while we don’t know how fast the rest will happen, much of it will happen in the period 2050-2100. 

We may also note a recent Hansen et al. article that revises the estimated sea level rise due to this warming to between 5 and 9 feet by 2100 – and, again, the model that projects this, as noted by the authors, may still underestimate the effects of “business as usual”.   Finally, scientists have now noted several new catastrophes that would happen even with a 2 degrees C rise.

We continue to underestimate what the planet will do to us on our present path.

That is all.

CO2 and Climate Change: Our Partial Data Promises Hope, Our Best Measure Insists Alarm

For the last five years or so, I have been watching the measures of atmospheric carbon as measured at the peak of Mauna Loa in Hawaii (where contaminating influences on measurements are minimal).  I have become accustomed to monthly reports where CO2 has increased a little more than 2 ppm over the same month the previous year.  This year, things have changed drastically.

On Wed. Apr. 13, for example, I found that (a) monthly CO2 last month had increased by 3.6 ppm year to year; (b) the previous three days had been recorded as about 409.4, 409, and 408.5 ppm, of which the first measurement was about 5 ppm above the same day last year and about 10 ppm above the monthly average 1 ½ years ago, and (c) last year’s average increase had been confirmed as 3.05 ppm, breaking the record set in 1998 for greatest CO2 increase (the data from Mauna Loa go back to 1959).

[UPDATE:  3 weeks ago was the first weekly average above 405 ppm.  Last week was the first weekly average above 406 ppm.  This week was the first weekly average above 408 ppm – 4.59 ppm above the same week last year]

Meanwhile, figures gathered by IEA suggest that fossil-fuel carbon emissions essentially were flat over the 2014-15 time period.  Other studies by CarbonTracker suggest that other net sources and sinks of atmospheric carbon (uptake by the land and the oceans taking carbon from the atmosphere, “fire” [e.g., forest fires on land] acting as a source of atmospheric carbon) have been essentially flat for 15 years or more. 

What is going on?  Why the apparent large rise in Mauna Loa CO2 growth rates over 2014-16 and the apparent flat rate of growth in atmospheric carbon in 2014-15 according to IEA’s data supplemented by CarbonTracker?   Far more importantly, why does the first seem to signal an alarming development in global warming, while the second seems to promise that our efforts in sustainability and global compacts to combat global warming are beginning to bear fruit? And finally, which is right?

[Note:  Because of time constraints, I won’t be able to discuss things in depth.  However, I feel it is important that readers understand the general reasons for my conclusions]

Implications of Hope and Alarm

Let’s start with the second question:  Why does the IEA data seem to offer hope of significant progress in combating global warming, while the Mauna Loa CO2 data seems to signal alarm about the progress of global warming?
If the IEA is right, then over the last 2 years we have begun to make significant progress on reducing fossil-fuel pollution – despite a global economy that grew significantly in 2014 and 2015.  The result is that the rate of growth of CO2 has been flat the last two years.  Because of the recent global climate agreements, we can expect future years to slow the rate of growth, and in the not-too-distant future to begin to actually decrease atmospheric CO2.  Optimistically, we can hope to reach atmospheric stasis at 500 ppm, which will not keep global warming below 2 degrees C, according to Hansen and others, but should keep it below 4 degrees C, where the consequences become much worse.

If the ML CO2 data is right, then we are not only making no significant progress in combating global warming, we may very well be at the start of more rapid warming.  For the last 15 years or so, the rate of growth of atmospheric CO2 has been slightly more than 2 ppm (the previous 15 years saw a growth rate slightly more than 1.5 ppm per year).  A bit more than 2 ppm per year for 15 years translates into about 1 degree Fahrenheit of average global warming.  If we now shift to a bit more than 2.5 ppm per year, that should translate into about 1.3 degrees Fahrenheit of warming over the next 15 years.  It will also mean that we “bake in” 2.67 degrees C of warming since 1850, most of it in the last 60 years, and will be well on the way to about 4 degrees C of warming (blowing past 500 ppm easily) by the 2050-2060 time frame, if we continue with present efforts rather than increasing them.

Which Is Right?

Now let’s tackle questions 1 and 3:  what are the characteristics of the IEA and ML data that lead them to apparently different conclusions, and which of the two is more likely to be right?

Start with the IEA data on fossil-fuel emissions per year.  IEA depends primarily on self-reporting by nations of their use of electricity and heating, supplemented by extrapolation based on prior experience of the amount of CO2 released by coal/gas/oil-based heating and electricity generation. 

There are several reasons to view this data as likely to underestimate actual fossil-fuel emissions, and likely to have that underestimate increase over time.  First, the IEA data does not cover emissions during fossil-fuel production and refining.  The upsurge in fracking would show up in the IEA data as a net decrease in pollution (switching from use of oil to natural gas), while independent studies of wellhead-to-shipment emissions suggest that their total use-plus-produce emissions are almost equivalent to that of oil.  Second, there has been an ongoing shift in business’ fossil-fuel use from Europe/the US to developing countries like China and India.  Not only is these countries’ ability to report the full amount of fossil-fuel emissions less, they are probably less efficient in using fossil fuels to heat and generate electricity in comparable facilities – and the IEA appears to apply the same efficiency standards to comparable facilities in both places.

Now let’s turn to the Mauna Loa CO2 data.  Long experience has determined that any additional CO2 detection from nearby sources is transitory and will wash out in the monthly average.  Likewise, on average, Mauna Loa tracks near the center of Northern Hemisphere response to fossil-fuel emissions primary sources, and can be cross-checked against a global CO2 measure which is one month behind in reporting but has been showing a comparable upsurge (3.4 ppm in February). [Note:  The IEA shows 0% increase in fossil-fuel emissions in 2015, while global and Mauna Loa data show a 0.75% increase in total CO2 emissions]

What are possible causes of the discrepancy aside from underestimated emissions data?  There could be increased “oceanic upgassing” as melting of sea ice allows release of carbon from plants in the newly exposed ocean – not likely, as it is an effect not clearly detected before.  There could be decreased “uptake” from the oceans as they reach their capacity to absorb carbon from the air – but such an uptake slowdown should happen more gradually.  And then there is the el Nino effect.

I haven’t found a good explanation yet of just how el Nino affects CO2 positively, much less how it affects CO2 proportionally to the strength of the effect.  However, the largest recorded el Nino up to this time happened in 1998, data indicate that the 2015-16 el Nino is about as strong, and the 1998 el Nino produced approximately the same outsized jump in CO2 relative to the previous year as the 2015-2016 one has, according to the helpful folks at Arctic Sea Ice (neven1.typepad.com).  So Mauna Loa recent data could be explained as (constant underlying CO2 growth rate) plus (2015-2016 el Nino effect). 

However, aside from all the reasons cited above for being mistrustful of the IEA data, there is another reason to feel that fossil-fuel emissions have actually been going up as well: 1996-99 were years of big economic growth almost certainly leading to large increases in fossil-fuel emissions and thus the underlying CO2 growth rate.  In other words, to be truly compatible with 1998, the equation more likely should be (constant underlying CO2 growth rate) plus (significant 2013-16 increase in fossil-fuel emissions and hence CO2 growth rate) plus (2015-16 el Nino effect).

All this reminds me of the scene in Alice Through the Looking-Glass where Alice starts walking towards her destination and finds herself further away than before.  You have to run much faster to stay in the same place, another character tells her, and much faster than that to get anywhere.  I view it as more likely than not that we are continuing to increase our fossil-fuel contribution, and that we will have to run much harder to keep the CO2 growth rate flat, much harder than that to start the growth rate decreasing, and much harder even than that to begin to decrease overall CO2 any time in the near future.

Facts and the Habit of Despair

In one of Stephen Donaldson’s first books, he imagines a world beset by evil whose only hope is a leper from Earth.  In those days, leprosy had no treatment and the only way for lepers to survive was to constantly survey oneself to detect injuries that dead leprous nerves failed to warn oneself of, every waking second of every day – to constantly face one’s facts.  In the new world, he tells the leader of the fight against evil “You’re going to lose! Face facts!” The leader, well aware that only the leper can save his world, says very carefully, “You have a great respect for facts.”  “I hate facts,” is the response.  “They’re all I’ve got.”

I have concluded above that it is more likely than not that fossil-fuel pollution and therefore the underlying CO2 growth rate continues to grow – and that appears to be the fact delivered by the best data we have, the Mauna Loa and global CO2 measurements.  I hate this fact; but it seems to be what we have. 

And yet, Donaldson’s same series delivers an additional message.  At its improbable world-saving end, the leper asks the Deity responsible for his being picked why he was chosen.  Because, says the Deity, as a leper you had learned that it is not despair, but the habit of despair, that damns [a leper or a world].  To put it in global warming terms:  Yes, the facts are not good.  But getting into the habit of giving up and walking away in despair whenever you are hit by these facts is what will truly damn our world.  Because the horrible consequences of today’s facts are only a fraction of the horrible consequences of giving up permanently because of today’s facts.

To misquote Beckett:  I hate these facts.  I can’t go on.

I’ll go on.

Climate Change Bulletin 2016 #2: CO2

The initial estimate for the 2015 yearly increase in CO2 as measured from Mauna Loa, Hawaii, is now available.  It set a new record for amount of increase:  3.17 ppm.  This was the first increase above 3, and was 0.25 above the second biggest increase (1998). It also represented the first time the increase had surpassed 2 in either three or four consecutive years.  Increases in 1959-1964 averaged about 0.6 ppm per year, so that in the last 50 years the yearly increase has more than quintupled – a doubling approximately every 20 years. 

Projecting forward 40 years, the increase in 2055 would therefore be in the area of 12 ppm, and the total carbon in the atmosphere would be in the 600 ppm range, or more than double the pre-industrial value.  Projecting forward another 40 years, the yearly increase would be in the area of 45 ppm, and the total carbon ppm in the atmosphere would be about 1040 ppm, or four times the preindustrial value.  Acorrding to the estimate of James Hansen et al that each doubling of CO2 in the atmosphere historically corresponds in the long run to a 4 degrees C (7.2 degrees F) increase in global land temperature, and twice that in the far north/south, We are therefore talking about an increase of 8 degrees C or 15 degrees F from 1850 to 2100 "baked in" (that is, not achieved in 2100 but very likely to be reached 100-200 years later) on average and 16 degrees C or 29 degrees F in the far north/south. 

Already 1/2 of arable land has been lost to soil erosion, according to a recent study.  1/3 of the remaining land would be under threat from rising salt-water seas and storm surges due to the increased heat, by some estimates as high as 30 feet of seal-level rise by the end of the century.  Much of the rest would be under threat from massive droughts affecting all of the US except New England/NY/PA, most of Europe, much of the Middle East, India, most of Africa, Australia, and most of China.

That is all.

2014 Sets Another Heat Record. Are We Doing Anything About It? Apparently, Not Much

2014, according to Japanese, NOAA, and NASA measurements, was approximately 0.2 degrees Fahrenheit warmer than any previous measured year, or about 2 degrees Fahrenheit warmer globally than the early 1900s.  6 of its 12 months set monthly heat records.  Scientists are now confident about asserting that this is the warmest it has been in the past 50,000 years, and we are rapidly closing in on clearly being warmer than at any time in the last 5 million years.

As James Hansen has recently noted, the global temperature more or less parallels the increase or decrease in carbon in the atmosphere, with each doubling being associated with a 4 degrees Centigrade (about 7 degrees Fahrenheit) increase in global temperature.  About 2/3-3/4 of this is from the effects of atmospheric carbon dioxide itself, and 1/3-1/4 due to linked increases in black carbon, methane (CH4), and the like.  Thus, since we are about halfway between our 1800s starting point of 250-280ppm of atmospheric carbon and a doubling of that amount, we have essentially “baked in” an increase of about 2.3 degrees Centigrade or 4 degrees Fahrenheit – the level at which, according to some scientists, catastrophic effects start to occur.  What consequences?  Movement of drought-ridden subtropical zones north to encompass much of the US except the Northeast, much of Southern Europe through France and Germany, and places such as the Fertile Crescent, India and Southern China.  Loss of all Arctic sea ice as well as some Greenland and Antarctic ice, for a potential total (including expansion of the ocean through warming) of perhaps 25-80 feet.  Loss of at least 1/3 of presently arable land, to be replaced by Canadian, Argentinian, and Siberian land that is presently mostly tundra and permafrost, and which would likely become fly-ridden, easy-to-burn-via-methane, peat swamps.  Speed of winds in storms on average might increase by 10 mph.

But the “worst consequences” occurring if we go ahead and use more than 17% of present coal reserves, more than 50% of available oil and natural gas, and more than a small fraction of tar sands and oil shale, are far more dire.  A rise in sea level of 216-240 feet.  Possibly, iron blooms periodically releasing unbreathable sulfuric acid, making living near the new sea coasts impossible.  Loss of perhaps 90% of arable land, making it impossible to feed more than about 1 billion people on minimal rations.  Acidification of oceans that means destruction of all ocean-based food sources.  Heat that makes working outside during 6 months of the year a death sentence.  Storms in which the wind speed increases by more like 40 mph, so that the average high wind is a 110-mph hurricane, and somewhere in the world just about every year there is a 200-mph hurricane bearing down on humanity. 

So how are we doing in avoiding “worst consequences”?  Well, there are lots of encouraging superficial signs, including international agreements, preliminary data suggesting that Europe and the USA are decreasing their carbon emissions in constant terms, and so on.  The problem is that such data is partial – for example, the emissions data just tracks carbon emissions via industry-based estimates and for those sources we don’t know about.  There’s really only one holistic indicator, approximate as it is:  the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere measured at the Mauna Loa volcano in Hawaii.  You can find the data by googling “CO2 Mauna Loa”.

This set of measurements was started by Charles Keeling in 1950, and he picked  a spot high on Mauna Loa because it was out of the way of the kind of things that would contaminate measurements.  Interestingly, it has been joined in the last few years by a new measure based on widely dispersed global sites, which until recently had tracked 10 ppm less than Mauna Loa.  In the latest data, it is now virtually identical at at 400 ppm, suggesting that the original global sites were contaminated more than expected and biased in a downward direction.  At any rate, the new global measurements, like the old, tend to “smooth out” the more jagged spikes and dips in CO2 ppm yearly growth as measured by Mauna Loa.  So Mauna Loa is more volatile, but the two agree in both the amount and trend over periods of perhaps 5 years or so.

What is Mauna Loa saying about the last 3 years?  These years, in which the world economy is mostly flat or down – which should lead to decreased carbon emissions – and various policies have been implemented to reduced emissions, notably in Europe, are also the first years in which the CO2 growth has been above 2 for each year.  In fact, according to the global “smoothed” data, it has been above 2.4 ppm each year.  Not only are we not making progress; things are getting worse.

How can this be?  Speculation is a bit early, but what it suggests is that US efforts are counteracted by attempts to “grow domestic oil production”, and that European efforts are more than counteracted by Chinese increased coal use (despite its rhetoric).  I conclude that we must run faster to fall behind slower, and at an amazing speed just to stay in the same place.  Happy New Year.