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 Update: The Fundamental Things Still Apply, and Honest Cost-Benefit Analyses Are Dangerously Flawed

It has been hard to find a good reason to post an update on climate change, although superficially there is a lot of relatively good news.  Climate change is now an acceptable part of TV “nature” documentaries, to which so many are addicted; for the first time, China has committed to less coal use and has delivered in a measurable fashion; there is the outline of a global plan for carbon-emission reduction as we head into the latest climate-change summit; and even the rhetoric of the Republican party has allowed for a candidate (Kasich) who admits that serious climate change is happening and something needs to be done about it.  And then there is Pres. Obama, who is the first major political figure afaik who has admitted that we not only need to cut back on carbon emissions but also keep a large chunk of our remaining fossil fuels in the ground indefinitely.

The Fundamental Bad News Still Applies

So why do I feel that these are not significant enough to discuss in detail?  For this simple reason:  as far as we can tell, the rise in atmospheric carbon continues not just in a straight (rising) line, but in a slow acceleration.  To put it another way, if atmospheric carbon simply kept increasing at its present rate of about 2.5 ppm per year, by 2100 it would reach about 625 ppm, corresponding to (as per Hansen) to a 4.4 degrees C or 7.6 degrees F global temperature rise.  If, however, it continues to accelerate at its present rate, according to one estimate it will reach 920 ppm by 2100, baking in a whopping 7.5 degrees C or almost 14 degrees F increase.  When I say “baked in”, I mean that we may not see that amount of temperature increase in 2100, but in the 30-50 years after 2100, much of that temperature increase will show up.

Meanwhile, the climate change this year is unfortunately proceeding as seemed likely 5 years ago.  The El Nino that causes temperature spikes was delayed, but as a result is now almost certain to be the strongest on record, causing an inevitable huge new high in global land temperatures (last year was the previous record) of about 2/3 of a degree F above the old record.  Moreover, it now seems that the El Nino will continue for quite a few months next year, almost guaranteeing a 2016 global land temperature significantly above 2015. It would not be surprising if 2015 plus 2016 totaled a full 1 degree F jump. 

And finally, the “strange” rebound in Arctic sea ice volume after 2012 is clearly over, and our best prognostication suggests that 2016 volume at minimum will be in second place after 2012 – suggesting that at least a linear reduction in volume over the last 40 years continues.  As a result, Greenland’s glaciers continue collapsing and should contribute several feet to sea level rise this century.  Some forecasts even contemplate a 26-foot rise from all sources (Greenland and Antarctica, primarily) by 2100, although more sober analyses still suggest somewhere between 6 and 16 feet.

In other words, the fundamentals of human-caused climate change continue to apply, however we may delude ourselves that our measures up to now have had a significant impact.  Like Alice in The Looking Glass, we will probably have to run twice as fast to get anywhere, and then four times, and then ...

Honest Cost-Benefit Analysis Continues to be Flawed

To my mind, the only really good news, if good news there be, is that I am beginning to see honest cost-benefit analyses – the analyses that potentially really try to face the costs and benefits of the mitigation required to do something significant about climate change.  For example, one blog post noted that most analyses failed to reflect people’s difficulties in moving when climate change or climate change mitigation requires it (meaning that a few do).  It has been absurd, watching commentators assuming that loss of 50-90% of present arable land and the necessary water translate easily into new but temporary growing spots, with the costs of moving to those locations vanishing by the magic of the so-called free market.

However, an analysis published in MIT’s Technology Review identified one barrier that, in the author’s mind, doomed any near-term conversion to solar energy:  Faced with utilities’ resistance to meshing the existing electrical grid with individual solar installations, homeowners are faced with a large installation cost that make solar uncompetitive in the home in the near to medium term.

I don’t think the author’s cost-benefit analysis – for that is what it boiled down to – is obviously flawed.  But I do believe that it suffers from several key flaws specific to climate change:

1.       It assumes a certain infrastructure (the existing grid) without considering the ways in which that grid will become comparatively more and more costly, despite temporary fixes, as changes in climate make some locations so hot that air conditioning costs shoot through the roof, some locations underwater or damaged by storms, and some locations with a different mix of heat and cooling that the grid was designed for.  A solar arrangement is not affected as much by this, because it is necessarily more distributed, can de-novo provide better architecture-based earth-derived heating and cooling, and involves less sunk-cost coal/oil/gas storage for heating.

2.       It fails to handle the “disaster scenario” in which the benefits of present cheaper energy fail to outweigh the future costs of disaster caused by everyone coming to the same don’t-change conclusion.  In other words, each decision analyzed is not a one-off nor is it isolated – most if not all people will come to the same conclusion and act the same way, and that is the situation that must be modeled.  If we all conclude that sea-level property will be fine for 40 years and can be sold thereafter to a greater fool, in a global context we quickly run out of fools, and then we can sell to nobody.

3.       It assumes governments will be able to act as the backstop/insurer of last resort.  To put it another way, in the typical situation, if businesses fail, governments are expected to handle a portion of the costs of bankruptcies (or to backstop those who do, as in the case of AIG), to provide unemployment benefits so that a pool of labor remains, and to support repair of “common” infrastructure such as roads and heating/cooling when businesses can’t.  However, when the effects are close to simultaneous and truly global, most governments are hard put to come up with the necessary support.  This, in turn, creates chaos that makes the next (and greater) crisis harder to handle.  Effectively, there is a point beyond which all countries are under such stress that despite reallocation of business investment, economies start shrinking and the ability to handle the next stress becomes less and less.  Some estimates put that point as early as the 2060s, if we continue as we are going.  So the cost of each individual decision that affects carbon pollution mitigation should be factored into a cost-benefit analysis, as well.

Recommendation:  Face The Facts

In this situation, I am reminded by an episode in fantasy author Stephen Donaldson’s first series.  He posited a leper placed into a world in which an evil, powerful character seeks to turn a wonderfully healthy world into a reflection of the leper’s symptoms:  rotting, smelling, causing numbness – and a prophecy says that only the leper can save this world.  The leper befriends a “High Lord” dedicated to fighting the evil character, and says, essentially, “Look, you’re trying you’re best but you’re failing.  Face facts!”  The High Lord, hearing this from the one person who can save his world, says, very carefully, “You have a great respect for facts.”  “I hate facts,” was the passionate response, “They’re all I’ve got.”
The point, as I see it, is not to look a grim outlook in the face and give up.  It is, rather, in everything done about climate change to understand how a particular effort falls short and how even grimmer forecasts should be factored into the next effort.  It is understanding that even as we fail to avoid the consequences of the first 4 degrees C of global warming, we redouble our efforts to avoid the next 4 degrees.  It is cutting away the non-essentials of curbing population growth and of dealing with immediate crises such as the Paris bombings, and seeing that in part these are manifestations of stresses in society that global warming is exacerbating, and therefore the primary focus should be solar now now now, or a reasonable equivalent.  And it is performing, individually and collectively, the kinds of honest cost-benefit analyses that will confront us with facts that we might not want to face, but which will lead us as quickly as possible in the right direction.

I hate climate change facts.  They’re the closest thing to hope I have.  Season’s greetings.