Via press release from the Max Planck Society for the Advancement of Science
New carbon dioxide emissions model
Meteorologists have determined exactly how much carbon dioxide humans can emit into the atmosphere while ensuring that the earth does not heat up by more than two degrees
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) calculated projected temperature changes for various scenarios in 2007 and researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Meteorology in Hamburg have now gone one step further: they have developed a new model that specifies the maximum volumes of carbon dioxide that humans may emit to remain below the critical threshold for climate warming of two degrees Celsius. To do this, the scientists incorporated into their calculations data relating to the carbon cycle, namely the volume of carbon dioxide absorbed and released by the oceans and forests. The aim of the international ENSEMBLES project is to simulate future changes in the global climate and carbon dioxide emissions and thereby to obtain more reliable threshold values on this basis. (Climatic Change, July 21, 2010)
Fig.: Evolution of the carbon dioxide emissions calculated by the model (left) and the temporal development of the global mean annual temperature (right). In order to achieve the long-term stabilisation of the atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration, fossil carbon dioxide emissions must be reduced to around zero by the end of the century. The black lines represent the observed values. (GtC/year = gigatons carbon/year)
Image: Max Planck Institute for Meteorology
The concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere caused by the combustion of fossil fuels (gas, oil) has increased by around 35 percent since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution. If carbon dioxide emissions and, as a result, atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations continue to increase unchecked, a drastic increase in the global temperature can be expected before the end of this century. With the help of new models for a prescribed atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration, scientists from all over Europe have now calculated for the first time the extent to which the global carbon dioxide emissions must be reduced to halt global warming.
“What’s new about this research is that we have integrated the carbon cycle into our model to obtain the emissions data,” says Erich Roeckner. According to the model, admissible carbon dioxide emissions will increase from approximately seven billion tonnes of carbon in the year 2000 to a maximum value of around ten billion tonnes in 2015. In order to achieve the long-term stabilisation of the atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration, the emissions will then have to be reduced by 56 percent by the year 2050 and approach zero towards the end of this century. Although, based on these calculations, global warming would remain under the two-degree threshold until 2100, further warming may be expected in the long term: “It will take centuries for the global climate system to stabilise,” says Erich Roeckner.
The scientists used a new method with which they reconstructed historical emission pathways on the basis of already-calculated carbon dioxide concentrations. To do this, Erich Roeckner and his team adopted the methodology proposed by the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) for simulations being carried out for the future Fifth IPCC Assessment Report: earth system models that incorporate the carbon cycle were used to estimate the anthropogenic carbon dioxide emissions that are compatible with a prescribed concentration pathway. In this case, the emissions depend solely on the proportion of the anthropogenic carbon in the model that is absorbed by the land surface and the oceans. Repetition of the experiments using different pre-industrial starting dates enabled the scientists to distinguish between anthropogenic climate change and internal climate variability.
The model used for this study is based on a low-resolution spatial grid with a grid spacing of around 400 kilometres, which takes the atmosphere, plus the land surface, the ocean, including sea ice, and the marine and terrestrial carbon cycle into account.
The overall aim of the study is to simulate future changes in the climate and carbon dioxide emissions in a single scenario in which the carbon dioxide equivalent concentrations in the atmosphere are stabilised in the long term at 450 parts per million (ppm), so that global warming increases to a maximum of two degrees above the pre-industrial level. The data are currently being evaluated by other European climate centres. “As soon as all of the results are available, we can evaluate the spread between the models,” says Erich Roeckner. “The more significant the data we have, the more accurate our forecast will be.”
Related links:
[1] Website of the ENSEMBLES project
Original work:
Erich Roeckner, Marco A. Giorgetta, Traute Crueger, Monika Esch, Julia Pongratz
Historical and future anthropogenic emission pathways
Another one-size-fits-all concept that only works for the ‘average Joe’ is the Body-Mass index. One of my friends is a professional Personal Trainer and Sports Fitness Trainer. He is very well muscled and carries no surplas fat, but is well under 6 feet tall. His GP put the measurements into the BMI calculator and informed my friend that he was officially classified as ‘morbidly obese’. Utter nonsense, of course, and an example of mindless ‘groupthink’.
While this research by “scientists from all over Europe” (quite a trick for 5 people) appears to be the usual bollux, it’s equally depressing to me to see the enormous number of responses along the lines of “I’d better stop breathing, then”.
Surely WUWT readers are bright enough to know that breathing is part of the carbon cycle, so cancels out? That’s why CO2 from fossil fuel is different – it isn’t simply being recycled as plant-food-animal-Co2-plant-food-animal-Co2 ….
You guys must be able to find better reasons to discount this research.
Merovign: August 4, 2010 at 2:49 am
…junk science (the “BMI” measurement itself is meaningless rubbish – a large number of fit people are “obese” under that standard, and they changed the definitions in 1997, declaring 30 million people newly “overweight” in one day) – all that combined in one simple, stupid action.
I have a friend in the aviation department of the NJ State Police who, at six feet, three inches tall and 220 pounds, was declared “obese” and required to take an annual water-immersion test in order to maintain flight status.
He’s a body-builder and has 3% body fat…
steveta_uk: August 4, 2010 at 3:41 am
Surely WUWT readers are bright enough to know that breathing is part of the carbon cycle, so cancels out?
Zero emissions means zero emissions — unless there’s a new and improved definition of “zero” or “emissions” that I’m unaware of (which is entirely possible).
That’s why CO2 from fossil fuel is different – it isn’t simply being recycled as plant-food-animal-Co2-plant-food-animal-Co2 ….
Why is CO2 from fossil fuel different from CO2 from decaying organic matter or different from CO2 from biological exudations or different from CO2 from inadvertently-discharged fire extinguishers?
First: Has their computer model ever been independently V & V ?
Second: How many of the “Principles of Forecasting” targets have been met?
Two questions:
1. Where are the data for 2001-2009 in their “study”?
2. What is so “magical” about 2 degrees C???? (Did the World vote on this number?)
Sorry about the 3rd question.
IWTWT……
This is not research, it is computer modeling, which in reality does not produce evidence.
Northern Exposure says: “… zero emissions by the end of the century…”
No problem – according to this lot we can make the UK zero carbon in a mere 20 years…
http://www.zerocarbonbritain.com/ – Download their full report (PDF) if you want a good laugh.
Some day soon we’ll breathe in CO2 and breath out oxygen There’s got to be another Nobel prize in all this for Gore and Pachauri.
What is the earth’s optimal global average temperature and why?
For the true tree hugger, which I am, it must be that marked by the Eocene Climatic Optimum about 50 million years ago. The earth was ice-free and green from pole to pole. It was about 11F warmer than today.
To the CAGW crowd I say this:
“You want a green earth? YOU CAN’T HANDLE A GREEN EARTH!”
So there.
Scott Ramsdell says:
August 3, 2010 at 6:55 pm
Thank you Scott! I can now get out of mowing the lawn. Not only does this cut down on CO2 emissions from the lawnmower, the extra grass will produce oxygen.
Something tells me the wife won’t buy into this.
“Stephen Brown says:
August 4, 2010 at 2:58 am
“The answer, sir, is in the plural. And they bounce.”
W. S. Churchill.”
A colleague of Churchills wanted to write ‘balls’ in the margin of a memo, to show his opinion of the content, but thought it prudent to write ’round objects’ instead . When Churchill saw it he commented ” Who is this Round and what does he object to?”
cheers David
Surely the only issue with CO2 is if it comes from sequestered sources i.e. fossil fuels, or not. If it does it adds to the system and the consequences can be argued over.
If it doesn’t it’s just part of the closed system and of no consequence.
cheers David
Well…they’ve certainly accomplished that on Mars. Earth next….
And surely the CAGW scientists are bright enough to know that the greenest time for the earth in the last 100 million years was the Eocene Optimum which was some 11F warmer than today and was accompanied by, wait for it now,
1000 years of rising CO2 at a rate commensurate with the rate of rise today.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paleocene%E2%80%93Eocene_Thermal_Maximum#Setting
The Paleocene–Eocene Thermal Maximum lasted around 20,000 years, and was superimposed on a 6-million-year period of more gradual global warming,[7] peaking later in the Eocene at the “Eocene climatic optimum”. Other “hyperthermal” events can be recognized during this period of warming, including an event now called ETM-2 (also referred to as H-1, or the Elmo event). During these events – of which the PETM was by far the most severe – around 1,500 to 2,000 gigatons of carbon were released into the ocean/atmosphere system over the course of 1,000 years. This rate of carbon addition almost equals the rate at which carbon is being released into the atmosphere today through human activity. [8]
So maybe if we’re lucky and have enough fossil fuel to burn at current rate for 900 more years we can recreate the Eocene epoch and have a truly green earth instead being in a continuing cycle of 10,000 cool interglacial years followed by 100,000 cold glacial years.
Unfortunately we don’t have anywhere near 900 years worth of fossil fuel left at current rate of consumption. We’ll be lucky if we can maintain it for 100 more years. The only plan we need to halt CO2 emission from burning of fossil fuels is to keep burning them at the current pace for 100 years and then there won’t be any economically recoverable fossil fuel left to burn.
Friends:
I write to make two points concerning the paper from the Max Planck Institute that is the subject of this thread.
Firstly, the paper attempts to assess emission constraints that would control global temperature such that it does not rise above 2 deg.C. However, global temperature rises by nearly double that (i.e. by 3.8 deg.C) from June to January each year and falls by the same amount from January to June each year. And the global temperature does this every year but nobody notices.
This raises several questions; e.g.
(a) Why is a rise of 2 deg.C thought to be problematic?
(b) From what base is the 2 deg.C rise to be assessed?
(c) How would it be determined that such a problematic rise had happened?
(d) etc.
The paper is meaningless unless and until these (and similar questions) are answered.
Secondly, there was a Climate Conference held in Stockholm on 11 & 12 September 2006. It was addressed by – among others – a representative of the Max Planck Institute and myself.
On the first day of that Conference I presented the findings of one of our studies
(ref. Rorsch A, Courtney RS & Thoenes D, ‘The Interaction of Climate Change and the Carbon Dioxide Cycle’ E&E v16no2 (2005)).
The synopsis of my presentation said;
“It is commonly assumed that the rise in atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) concentration during the twentieth century (approx. 30% rise) is a result of anthropogenic emissions of CO2). However, the annual pulse of anthropogenic CO2 into the atmosphere should relate to the annual increase of CO2 in the atmosphere if one is causal of the other, but their variations greatly differ from year to year. This presentation considers mechanisms in the carbon cycle and uses the model studies of Rörsch et al. (2005) to determine if other factors may be significant contributors to the observed rise to the atmospheric CO2 concentration. These considerations indicate that any one of three natural mechanisms in the carbon cycle alone could be used to account for the observed rise. This indicates that the observed rise may be entirely natural; indeed, it suggests that the observed rise to the atmospheric CO2 concentration most probably is natural. Hence ‘projections’ of future changes to the atmospheric CO2 concentration and resulting climate changes have high uncertainty if they are based on the assumption of an anthropogenic cause.”
The next morning a representative of the Max Planck Institute gave another presentation to the Conference. His only mention of my presentation was to assert that it was “emotional” (this was a surprising assertion because (i) my presentation consisted of 17 pages of mostly calculations and (ii) others criticised my presentation for being “too technical”). However, his presentation asserted that his Institute was to produce a new model of climate change that would input the emissions of CO2 from human activity as a cause of climate change.
So, the work reported in the paper that is the subject of this thread was known to be based on debateable assumptions before the work was conducted. But the Max Planck Institute has decided to ignore that and to make no mention of the problems with the assumptions adopted in their paper.
Richard
Merovign says:
August 4, 2010 at 2:49 am
Arno Arrak says:
August 3, 2010 at 7:33 pm
It sounds like the sort of thing I should know more about. I’ve heard the general point made before, but not with 61 years of data. You’d *think* all those iconoclastic sciencey-types would want to follow up on that, but perhaps that’s just a little conceit.
Here’s a link to the paper for those remaining who haven’t read it.
http://www.friendsofscience.org/assets/documents/E&E_21_4_2010_08-miskolczi.pdf
(h/t to friendsofscience)
(PS: He spells his name with an “i” not a “y”)
They might as well base their predictions on chicken entrails as their inadequate models.
steveta_uk says:
August 4, 2010 at 3:41 am
While this research by “scientists from all over Europe” (quite a trick for 5 people) appears to be the usual bollux, it’s equally depressing to me to see the enormous number of responses along the lines of “I’d better stop breathing, then”.
Surely WUWT readers are bright enough to know that breathing is part of the carbon cycle, so cancels out? That’s why CO2 from fossil fuel is different – it isn’t simply being recycled as plant-food-animal-Co2-plant-food-animal-Co2 ….
You guys must be able to find better reasons to discount this research.
—————Reply:
Think, man–think global and eternal; think like a geologist. You see, all this “new” and “different” carbon you’re complaining about was in the atmosphere at one time or another, causing concentrations far, FAR above what we currently have. And you know what? It never caused a tipping point. How do I know? Because the sky is blue and the oceans are deep–i.e., the earth didn’t heat up to the point that the oceans all boiled away, forever to be found as thick pea-soup fog in the atmosphere.
So there you have it. Your bright sunny day is sufficient and necessary evidence that the hysteria you believe in is total bunk.
I can only imagine that Ol’ Max is spinning in his grave.
Der Max fragt- “Was it loss?”
Die MPI antworten – “Der Hund, dumbkaupfh, der Hund! Wir sind Bannanen! Ho! Ho! Wir sind Bannanen! Ho! Ho! Wir sind Bannanen und der Hund is loss!”
How the West has fallen! Now even the Germans have gone crazy, again! Decadance! Sin! Sex! Und Lies, Lies, Lies raus die Deueschen Maxenplanckenklappentrappenheissweltklimapsyentiesten!…
Anyone speak Chinese?
PS: No offense intended to anyone who speaks the Mother Tongue of English, I haven’t tried to sprechen in many, many years; and my spelling and cases and endings never were any good.
So what happens if at 1980, the onset of UHI, MMTS, and general fudging of temperatures, .5°C is subtracted from the rise as that seems to be good estimate of the error in the records. Presto-chango, CO2 appears to have negligible to zero effect.
http://i33.tinypic.com/14madh.jpg
All I can say is
Garbage in, Garbage out, for typical climate computer simulation
RockyRoad says: Your bright sunny day is sufficient and necessary evidence that the hysteria you believe in is total bunk.
Hang on a mo, I said up front that I think it’s all bollux. My only complaint was with the “better stop breathing” comments, which are basically nonsense by any standards.