“Seconds later, as if in answer to my thoughts, a suicide bomber detonated himself among those we had just passed …” Benjamin Gilmour writes from Peshawar.
Copenhagen’s climate message: the worst case confirmed
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The key message of the concluding communication from the Copenhagen Climate Science Congress, attended by some 2000 scientists and others, 11-12 March, 09, reads:
The worst case scenario of the IPCC-2007 (AR4) is defined as “scenario A1F1”, which assumes global CO2-equivalent emissions (CO2-e = CO2 + methane + nitric oxide) will grow from the current level of about 40 billion ton CO2-e per year (GtCO2-e/year) to near 130 GtCO2-e/year through the 21st century. The consequences of this IPCC Special Report on Emission Scenario (SRES) is a mean global temperature rise of between about 2.4 and 6.5 degrees Celsius by 2090-2099 relative to the period 1980-1999, taking the albedo effects of atmospheric aerosols (industrial haze, dust, carbon particles) into account. However, the IPCC-2007 AR4 Report takes only limited account of carbon cycle feedback effects and ice/water interaction feedback effects in raising global temperatures. It also acknowledges limited information regarding ice sheet melt and breakdown dynamics. The last time mean global temperatures reached 2 to 3 degrees Celsius above present levels — in the mid-Pliocene (3 million years ago), an event associated with CO2 levels of about 400 parts per million — polar regions were heated by near-8 degrees C and sea levels rose by 25+/-12 meters relative to the present. This represents near-total melting of Greenland and west Antarctica ice sheets. A rise of mean global temperatures above 4 or 5 degrees Celsius would shift the atmosphere to pre-glacial/interglacial conditions, which dominated the Earth from about 34 million years ago (end-Eocene). Key message No. 5 of the Copenhagen Congress reads:
Whereas at Copenhagen hopes the December meeting of world governments in the same city will make the difference are limited, the role of climate scientists in explaining the implications of non-decision is critical. According to Senator Christine Milne “Australia’s climate scientists have been remarkably reticent to publicly criticise what they have in private slammed as a totally unacceptable and inadequate target”. |
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6 Comments
How sad all this is becoming. Not only are the climate doubters getting half of the publicity, in some kind of strange attempt at fairness by journalists, but the worl is literally dying at our feet.
What will it take to result in a general acceptance of the facts? Riots in the streets in Western nations? It appears likely that this will indded be necessary, because our civilisation, dominant on this small planet, has ignored failure of society on whole continents such as Africa for a hundred years or more, is incapable of sorting out even the relatively small Israel-Palestine problem, apart from selling arms to both sides, and has for half a century now spent large portions of its treasure on making war in Vietnam through to the middle east.
So, my grandchildren are probably going to receive an inheritance consisting mainly of a depleted planet, warfare over land and water, and short and brutal lifespans for most of the world’s inhabitants.
For those who either don’t know or don’t care about climate change:
Rational folks change their view when new facts are proved by science.
To not adopt to new information, but to continue previous behaviour and beliefs in the face of new data is not scientific or rational - in fact it is a good working definition of insanity.
Climate change sceptics are thus certainly insane.
What the rest of us (perhaps 95% of rational folk) need to work out, is where and how to lock up the sceptics, so that we can set about fixing this planet.
Climate change will almost certainly make the current economic crisis, which is primarily just a sideshow, staged on Main Street by economic vandals and thieves, who know no limits to their vanity and desire for wealth. This will pass.
Climate change, meanwhile is getting bigger, meaner and faster than predicted.
And we allow “balance” interfere with this struggle, which is the largest matter of life and death ever confronted on the planet in the time of human inhabitation!
Problem is that the noisy minority (a) have no comprehension of the root cause(s) behind global temperature variation, and (b) that the root cause(s) are likely to be of a nature that mankind is incapable of modifying. Our energy is best to be spent on determining the best ways of adapting and living with natural climatic variations such as we presently experience - both cooling (the medium term scenario) and warming. Engineers really ought to know better.
Could Dr Glickson provide us with some references into his original research into atmospheric research. As I understand it the prime focus of investigations of anthropogenic global warming is the ‘anthropogenic’ component rather than the natural events of the geological past which are rightly the subject of studies in paleoclimates.
If there is no such involvement by Dr Glickson can he explain why filtering of these critical issues by someone from a different discipline is relevant. What is the agenda? Is it to demonstrate that the workers in this field are bad at self promotion, or incapable of communicating their work to the broader public?
Spotlighting any canon of work by Dr Glickson relevant to the manmade aspects of this crisis will help overcome the view of some associates that he is just a rent seeker trying to get a grip on the shirt tails of those actually doing the original research into the human causes of global warming and climate change.
Referring to the comment by Rider X, any reader who wishes to have copies of the latest peer-reviewed scientific papers, as well as articles, regarding climate change, can send me a request to: andrew.glikson@anu.edu.au
climate change caused by human activity is a theory that depends upon weather modelling that is, despite the rhetoric on both sides, still very much under dispute.
a not insignificant, and surprisingly well informed, body of scientists say that climate change is driven by solar activity, sun spots in particular, solar winds, and ocean currents, all vast and natural phenomena and not man made co2 emissions.
co2 was found in the natural environment many many years before man produced such emissions and, the skeptics will say, is a result of natural climate change and not a cause. it seems to me that the debate is far from won and therefore both sides well deserve 50% of the publicity..
it must seem to every generation that weather events that THEY experience are the most extreme, the worst ever and so on but how are we to really know that when accurate records are barely more than a hundred years old in this country? and is such an historically small statistical sample really a proper basis for making extrapolations like “the world will over heat in 50 years and we’ll all die?”
and btw Engineer, it’s not the silly benighted people who are preventing peace in palestine. there would be peace there tomorrow if america stopped arming israel to the teeth, pure and simple.
One problem is that people see the modelling about what might happen as being the proof of climate change, and that does have some uncertainty. However, that the climate has changed is a matter of present observation - the modelling is only about how had it might get in the future. No-one has ever modelled a good outcome so the uncertainties are fairly irrelevant. The second argument for those arguing for inactivity is that its all natural. I wonder what comfort climate change being natural is supposed to provide. Most of the CO2 in your bloodstream is produced by essential metabolic consumption of carbohydrates, but its the 10% rise you can control which will kill you so most people chose not to hold their breath. Which brings me to the CO2 is natural argument - which is true but ignores a fairly basic distinction between sufficient and ‘too much’. Ask the good folk of Lake Nyos how healthy natural CO2 can be if it is in excess.
The debate is endless not because the facts are in dispute but because ‘presenting the controversy’ has become the delaying tactic of choice for people who just don’t want to take action. With tobacco it just cost individual lives, with evolution it doesn’t really matter what fundementalists want to believe. But I don’t think people are going to want to debate grade-school scientific mistakes for too much longer for the comfort of people who can’t realise the status quo is dead. If you doubt me, find me a climate change denier under 20.