From NOAA News, Susan Solomon predicts the future with certainty. In other news, on the same day Caterpillar, Sprint, Texas Instruments, and Home Depot announce massive layoff plans to the tune of 50,000 people, unemployed climate modelers get a government bailout today courtesy of our new president to the tune of 140 million dollars. That should be just enough to pay the electric power bill for the new supercomputer I’m sure NOAA will just “have to have” now to keep up with the new toy for the Brits at Hadley. (h/t to Ed Scott for the NOAA pr)
New Study Shows Climate Change Largely Irreversible
January 26, 2009
A new scientific study led by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration reaches a powerful conclusion about the climate change caused by future increases of carbon dioxide: to a large extent, there’s no going back.
The pioneering study, led by NOAA senior scientist Susan Solomon, shows how changes in surface temperature, rainfall, and sea level are largely irreversible for more than 1,000 years after carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions are completely stopped. The findings appear during the week of January 26 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
“Our study convinced us that current choices regarding carbon dioxide emissions will have legacies that will irreversibly change the planet,” said Solomon, who is based at NOAA’s Earth System Research Laboratory in Boulder, Colo.
“It has long been known that some of the carbon dioxide emitted by human activities stays in the atmosphere for thousands of years,” Solomon said. “But the new study advances the understanding of how this affects the climate system.”
The study examines the consequences of allowing CO2 to build up to several different peak levels beyond present-day concentrations of 385 parts per million and then completely halting the emissions after the peak. The authors found that the scientific evidence is strong enough to quantify some irreversible climate impacts, including rainfall changes in certain key regions, and global sea level rise.
If CO2 is allowed to peak at 450-600 parts per million, the results would include persistent decreases in dry-season rainfall that are comparable to the 1930s North American Dust Bowl in zones including southern Europe, northern Africa, southwestern North America, southern Africa and western Australia.
The study notes that decreases in rainfall that last not just for a few decades but over centuries are expected to have a range of impacts that differ by region. Such regional impacts include decreasing human water supplies, increased fire frequency, ecosystem change and expanded deserts. Dry-season wheat and maize agriculture in regions of rain-fed farming, such as Africa, would also be affected.
Climate impacts were less severe at lower peak levels. But at all levels added carbon dioxide and its climate effects linger because of the ocean.
“In the long run, both carbon dioxide loss and heat transfer depend on the same physics of deep-ocean mixing. The two work against each other to keep temperatures almost constant for more than a thousand years, and that makes carbon dioxide unique among the major climate gases,” said Solomon.
The scientists emphasize that increases in CO2 that occur in this century “lock in” sea level rise that would slowly follow in the next 1,000 years. Considering just the expansion of warming ocean waters—without melting glaciers and polar ice sheets—the authors find that the irreversible global average sea level rise by the year 3000 would be at least 1.3–3.2 feet (0.4–1.0 meter) if CO2 peaks at 600 parts per million, and double that amount if CO2 peaks at 1,000 parts per million.
“Additional contributions to sea level rise from the melting of glaciers and polar ice sheets are too uncertain to quantify in the same way,” said Solomon. “They could be even larger but we just don’t have the same level of knowledge about those terms. We presented the minimum sea level rise that we can expect from well-understood physics, and we were surprised that it was so large.”
Rising sea levels would cause “…irreversible commitments to future changes in the geography of the Earth, since many coastal and island features would ultimately become submerged,” the authors write.
Geoengineering to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere was not considered in the study. “Ideas about taking the carbon dioxide away after the world puts it in have been proposed, but right now those are very speculative,” said Solomon.
The authors relied on measurements as well as many different models to support the understanding of their results. They focused on drying of particular regions and on thermal expansion of the ocean because observations suggest that humans are contributing to changes that have already been measured.
Besides Solomon, the study’s authors are Gian-Kasper Plattner and Reto Knutti of ETH Zurich, Switzerland, and Pierre Friedlingstein of Institut Pierre Simon Laplace, Gif-Sur-Yvette, France.
NOAA understands and predicts changes in the Earth’s environment, from the depths of the ocean to the surface of the sun, and conserves and manages our coastal and marine resources.
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I can’t help but feel what with the latest Nature article on the Antarctic, and now this new incredible doomsaying study, that the eco weenies must be feeling the heat of probable cooling and are scrambling to stir up the masses. They have to save their scientific (script-writing) careers so they won’t have to learn how to fry chicken. Oh? Those jobs are drying up as well, eh?
I was naive enough to think the stable (and declining) world temperatures might win the day for us evil skeptics. Boy I am stoopid. Maybe it is because because my brain is frozen solid from one of the coldest winters in a few years.
Anthony … Keep up the solid work here. I enjoy your site immensely. Thank you!
Clive
Alberta, Canada
Regarding Michael D Smith (20:29:42)
Absolutely correct. All of these recent “no turning back now” stories are specifically designed for algore to bring up in his congressional hearing this week (I think it’s this week).
Meanwhile, I’m freezing my tookas off shoveling snow in -2F right now.
evanjones (20:38:12) :
Being a long time member of Mensa (thank whomever that there is no periodic retest), I’ve concluded that intelligence is the MSG of aptitudes. I.e. it lets you do more with the other aptitudes you have. If you don’t have any other aptitudes (I think “common sense” is one), you’re just a waste of carbon footprint.
Mensa was originally founded to provide a resource for the British government to help solve all its problems. People quickly discovered that more than intelligence was required, but a lot of people had interests other than solving all the British government’s problems.
BTW, I think a lot of people here would readily qualify for Mensa (Evan, for example). You’d be surprised at how average we are. 🙂
I can think of a few Mensans who’d make or are good leaders. They generally lack the patience for dealing with politics and have enough intelligence to not want the job….
BTW, Icecap seems to take a dim view of this work too.
Ouch.
Smokey (19:51:43) :
Segalstad paper at http://folk.uio.no/tomvs/esef/ESEF3VO2.htm shows a number of studies of CO2 residence time from 2 to 15 years and comes up with a 5 year average. Four different methods were cited: natural carbon-14; including living and dead biosphere; Suess Effect; bomb carbon-14; and carbon-13/carbon-12 mass balance. The last 2 from 1992 both came up with 5.4 years.
They summarize;
“The short atmospheric CO2 lifetime of 5 years means that CO2 quickly is being taken out of the atmospheric reservoir, and that approximately 135 giga-tonnes (about 18%) of the atmospheric CO2 pool is exchanged each year. This large and fast natural CO2 cycling flux is far more than the approximately 6 giga-tonnes of carbon in the anthropogenic fossil fuel CO2 now contributed annually to the atmosphere, creating so much political turmoil (Segalstad, 1992; 1996).”
I wonder how Susan Solomon comes up with 1000 years if CO2 residence time is only 5 years?
They must maintain the State of Fear. Only when the people are in full panic mode, will they permit what the leftists have in mind for the US. It will only take a few months for the administration to make irreversible changes.
Here come the Greenshirts!
Well, folks, if those Daily UAH Temps are right we have had a very hot January.
Not a single positive thing can happen according to NOAA if temperature rises together with CO2. Everything will be worse.
To make me belive that their study is serious they need to throughly examine positive and negative effects but they don’t. It is all catasroph reporting all the way. I guess that gives more government money.
Wow, I feel much better now that that little problem has been answered and that the bailout money is being used for some great science. Does anyone that actually paid attention in High School Chemistry really believe this stuff anymore?
And thanks Anthony for answering a question that I have had for a long time. As a suburban dweller in several cities over the past few decades it always baffled me as to how we could get 6 inches of snow or an on 1.5 inches of rain and the official amount would be 2/10ths of an inch or something so far off as to make you wonder if they were in the same State.
Asphalt, concrete, and city bubbles do seem to answer that which is what I had always seemed me to be a problem of lack of common sense in the first place. I had not realized it was an policy to exclude where I was living most of the time.
I appreciate you shedding light on the station situation.
Keep up the good work.
Cheers,
Andrew
Now they are predicting climate 1000 years into the future. How can anybody believe this stuff anymore? I like that last bit – “NOAA understands and predicts changes in the Earth’s environment…” Sure they do.
Mike Ford (20:52:13) :
“for algore to bring up in his congressional hearing this week (I think it’s this week).”
(Posted on Drudge Report this afternoon)
GORE HEARING ON WARMING MAY BE PUT ON ICE
Mon Jan 26 2009 17:59:26 ET
Al Gore is scheduled before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Wednesday morning to once again testify on the ‘urgent need’ to combat global warming.
But Mother Nature seems ready to freeze the proceedings.
A ‘Winter Storm Watch’ has been posted for the nation’s capitol and there is a potential for significant snow… sleet… or ice accumulations.
“I can’t imagine the Democrats would want to showcase Mr. Gore and his new findings on global warming as a winter storm rages outside,” a Republican lawmaker emailed the DRUDGE REPORT. “And if the ice really piles up, it will not be safe to travel.”
A spokesman for Sen. John Kerry, who chairs the committee, was not immediately available to comment on contingency plans.
Global warming advocates have suggested this year’s wild winter spells are proof of climate change.
Developing…
Is there a law against Government employees publishing propaganda?
I don’t see much here to refute the claims in Solomon’s paper, especially given that the lifetime of CO2 in the atmosphere is hundreds or thousands of years. What’s your counter argument? And, please, some facts instead of vague conspiracy theories.
Amazing. All this time they are modeling an overheated planet, but when it comes time for them to fork over the Final Solution, they balk.
“It’s too late, we’re going to overheat I mean freeze, oh I don’t know”.
What shall we call this new climate modeling computer system?
Backpeddler? Global CO2 Coolermaster with Fan/Heatsink?
Run for your lives?
Faster, Faster, you fool!
I’m melting, freezing. Oh, what a world !
Livermore Laurentide Ice Lancer?
Parboiled Popsickle Predictor?
Well if it is irreversible and too late… F it! Lets have a party around a bonfire, invest in summer clothing businesses, soon to be beach front property, and roll with the changes!
So if the standard # of years for a single generation = 40 years, then the next 25 generations are screwed, even if we stop all CO2, and remove the existing CO2.
By then, we’ll be listenening to Al Gore the 25th, and the Hockey team will be off the ice. Synchronized swimming, anyone?
$140M for a new climate modeling scheme.
Why would they need a new model if their current one is as rock solid as they have been preaching?
Maybe somebody called thier bluff.
Al Gore cannot save them now, for his magic only works on heat.
It’s too late, remember?
So, would this be a super co2 particle with a super expanded life time?
They don’t have enough tar sands in Canada to melt an Ice Sheet.
Perhaps in the next Millenia Al Gore the Ice Slayer will arise to save mankind.
Where is Richard Feynman when science needs him?
vg is right, this kind of nonsense will provide laughs for at least 3000 years.
Umm… aren’t you the guys who are always pointing out that CO2 lags temperatures by 800 years in the ice cores?
It seems to me that that’s how long it took for the carbon cycle to re-establish equilibrium. So that “1000 year” lifetime for CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere looks pretty reasonable to me.
I think guys like Dyson who claim an atmospheric persistence of 12 years for CO2 are confusing the lifetime of an individual molecule of CO2 with the lifetime of a certain concentration of CO2- and they are definitely NOT the same thing!
It’s the old, ‘we’re ruining the future for our children’ argument in the guise of a scientific study by experts. Chosen for this work undoubtedly because they volunteered to work without pay, just to save the planet for their progeny. Right?
Surely nobody would accept money in pursuit such a noble cause.
In the spreadsheet linked above, the 140,000,000 in climate data modeling is noted in a comment left by j.p.emanuel on Jan 16, whoever that is…
I guess you can just go in and comment a cell, and BANG, $140,000,000 is YOURS, baby! Sorry about all that real data guys, 140 Larg(esse) is for vaporware! Who is this guy, an intern?
Does anyone know who made this spreadsheet? And PLEASE tell me there is some detail backing up this exercise? Is this a private citizen summarizing the spending proposal, (if so, thanks), or is this a real government document amassed after serious deliberation / negotiation (and please just shoot me dead right now)? And why does it all go to the government?
Does the smallest unit of measure really have to be $1,000,000? Could we put some of that whiz-bang climatology horsepower into breaking this out into a few smaller eigenvectors describing exactly what kind of hockey stick or doomsday scenario the thing is supposed to produce next? I’d like to know what I’m paying for up front. For that kind of money, I want REAL sea level rise, hundreds of feet, all in one wave. Volcanoes. Icebergs! LOCUSTS! I want RESULTS, so let’s quit messing around!!!
Now seriously… How would one go about tracking that exact $140,000,000 over the next few years, to the penny. I think that would make an incredibly interesting story.
Joe
I do not see anything in that Nature article to uphold Solomons assertations.
Joe (21:45:14) :
I don’t see much here to refute the claims in Solomon’s paper, especially given that the lifetime of CO2 in the atmosphere is hundreds or thousands of years. What’s your counter argument? And, please, some facts instead of vague conspiracy theories.
Link leads to an article that states:
“The effects of carbon dioxide on the atmosphere drop off so slowly that unless we kick our “fossil fuel addiction”, to use George W. Bush’s phrase, we could force Earth out of its regular pattern of freezes and thaws that has lasted for more than a million years. “If the entire coal reserves were used,” Archer writes, “then glaciation could be delayed for half a million years.”
This is a bad thing?
This reminds me of the scare stories in the 70-ties about the heavy smog in California at the time which also was deemed to have become “irreversible” and would persist for thousands of years even if humankind would disappear tomorrow. In the event it only took cleaner cars and a few heavy rainstorms to clear the lot.
What a load of crap! These people must be desperate to get their funding and so hang on to their job.