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
These people at the Max Planck Institute are simply *EU money launderers.
* The organization that has failed to produce acceptable annual accounts for over 12 years.
The ENSEMBLES project, to which they refer in the present tense, finished last year. The report (50MB) is full of red coloured regional maps of Europe showing the horrible things that are going to happen in 2021-2100. Unfortunately, we have to wait 10 years to find out how horribly wrong they were.
“”” Henry Pool says:
August 4, 2010 at 2:39 am
Here we go again!!. Can ANYONE here help me with the questions that I have been posting ? “””
Henry, I don’t know if I can help you with all of your questions; I can’t even finish reading through them actually, but somethings you seem to have a bit wrong.
The lab experiment with the CO2 filled flask and the light bulb; is not as you suppose. It is supposed to be a demonstration of GHG warming by CO2.
So the light bulb DOES NOT represent the sun in these experiments because the sun is not the source of GHG warming.
The radiant energy that causes GHG warming is emitted by the surface of the earth or the oceans or other layers of the atmosphere. And none of those are any where near a shot as an incandescent light bulb which may be 2800 K.
On average in fact per trenberth’s global energy balance model; the source is likely to be at about 288 K; the global mean (supposed) surface temperature.
So instead of putting an incandescent light bulb by the CO2 filled flak to watch it warm up; yopu need to place something like a brick there; after cooling it down to about 15 deg C. Only then will it be radiating the same spectrum as the earth’s surface is on average emitting.
So give that a shot, and report back to us; how much atmospheric heating occurs due to radiation from a brick at 288 K.
Here’s a quote from the ENSEMBLES report:
Generally, in the mid-latitudes, skill from seasonal forecasts is relatively low or current forecasting systems have no skill. Through spatial disaggregation of the datasets and the use of local target data from long-term established weather station sites, it is possible to both improve the skill in the ensemble forecasts and provide datasets at local scales, which thus become useful for impacts studies.
Is that indistinguishable from magic or what?
“”” cleanwater says:
August 4, 2010 at 2:51 pm
As a climatologist have you had any education in physics and thermodynamics? From my reveiw of many individual that claim knowledge in climatology they are very lacking in knowlege of the basic laws of physics. The ghg effect has been proved to not exist as early as 1909 by R.W. Wood an American physisist and expert in IR and UV radiation. “””
Well cleanwater; if that is the hill you choose to die on, be my guest. For myself if that hill were covered in snow; I personally would not even ski on it.
In fact, my second attempt at winning a Darwin Award actually occurred while I was President of the University Ski Club, and I actually did ski across a steep sloped (40 deg) traverse; and yes I actually made turns on it, that had me going straight down the fall line in the middle of those turns. Had I fallen on (or off) my skis, there was a 1000 ft cliff entrance to oblivion at the bottom of that slope and maybe 200 feet of slding room to get stopped before going over.
So today I stay off hazardous slopes; and defending some of the authors whose writings you cite, is not something I would undertake; even on a bet. One of them in particular I actually tried to save from himself but he would have none of it.
So good luck on that project; I personally would not live on this planet or any other that did not enjoy a greenhouse effect that kept it warmer than its equilibrium black body temperature.
Ed Reid says:
August 3, 2010 at 6:26 pm
You’re aiming high!
DaveE.
Arno Arrak says:
August 3, 2010 at 7:33 pm
Keep it coming Arno. It may take a while, but the truth always wins. Always!
They should turn their model to something more valuable, like determining how much emissions should be increased to end the CO2 famine and return us to .1%.
“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.”
I don’t think so – we’re only producing 3% of the total volume of CO2. Even if our miniscule contribution to the total volume rose to 4% (as claimed by some), it couldn’t have caused an increase of 35% of the total volume of CO2. I believe that would be an impossibility.
Ale Gorney says: August 3, 2010 at 9:47 pm
I have to agree with the assessment of this report. Far too many people are living in a land of denial. We need stop producing CO2 right now or human civilization is toast. Its up to you now.
——————————————————————————-
Ale Gorney. Of course you are talking tongue in cheek! Otherwise your statement is just daft. But if you are serious, and I can’t believe you are, why stop at just living in a land of denial? Why not go the whole hog Ale and say far too many people are living. Period! That would really sort things out. Of course then I would expect you to lead by example.
Doug
Henry@george Smith
There is cooling caused by CO2 (by re-radiating sunshine) and there is warming caused by CO2 (By re-radiating earthshine, “the brick”). Now, WHAT IS THE NETT EFFECT?
Obviously I need to see the test procedure and I need to see these results in the right SI dimension. I think it may be that you assess this in two different tests.
Here is a link as to what I think, trying to keep everything simpe…
http://letterdash.com/HenryP/more-carbon-dioxide-is-ok-ok
Models again. There is an unwritten rule in mathematics that you do not interpolate beyond the data points of a graph. You can only interpolate between known data points. Models do exactly that- interpolate beyond known data points. Add to that the fact that the model inputs are not true and the desire of the ‘scientists’ for a heating result and you get the rubbish that you deserve. I love CO2, without it this planet would be a desert with no life at all.
Doug;
Don’t pick on Al like that. He just misunderstood the statement. The original refers to a % multiplicative increase of a %, not an additive % of the total atmosphere, but he misread it. You must be really desperate to put down us Denialists.
Personally, I think a 300% increase of the present .038% to .11% would be great! End the CO2 famine!
Of course, given the strong negative feedbacks in the system, a CO2 increase to 0.11% would probably trigger the long-overdue Global Cooling. It’s those darn “tipping points”, y’know?
If average temperatures were reduced by 2 degrees C, and it resulted in daily highs and daily lows each being lowered by that amount, the great majority of people living in temperate zones would shortly die. Starvation, effects of famine, and probably most in wars fought over the little food crops which could be harvested.
Much later killing frosts in spring and much earlier killing frosts in autumn would shorten the growing season in temperate zones to where few crops could grow to be harvested.
Larry;
the (deluded) mandate of the CAGW Cult is to limit the INCREASE to 2°C this century, not to reduce the temperature.
There are so many levels of nonsense embedded in that it’s pointless to debate them. It assumes CO2 is a “forcing driver”, that humanity can affect the levels significantly, that warming is bad, that draconian carbon cutbacks are survivable, and more. None of those are true.
Dave Lowery says:
August 4, 2010 at 10:34 am
that was puntastic 🙂 a good laugh is always appreciated in the morning.
From estimation to exactitude. With skills like this, these guys should be spending their time at the race track.
“”” Henry Pool says:
August 5, 2010 at 12:18 am
Henry@george Smith
There is cooling caused by CO2 (by re-radiating sunshine) and there is warming caused by CO2 (By re-radiating earthshine, “the brick”). Now, WHAT IS THE NETT EFFECT?
Obviously I need to see the test procedure and I need to see these results in the right SI dimension. I think it may be that you assess this in two different tests.
Here is a link as to what I think, trying to keep everything simpe…
http://letterdash.com/HenryP/more-carbon-dioxide-is-ok-ok “””
WellCO2 has very little interraction with sunshine since very little sunshine is at wavelengths that CO2 can absorb; and CO2 most certainly cannot re-radiate sunshine.
Now the brick at 15 deg C will radiate a near black body spectrum putting out about 390 W/m^2 with a peak emission wavelength near 10.1 microns.
Sorry George. I am afraid this is where most scientists made their mistake. You should try to read and understand my complete post.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/08/03/new-carbon-dioxide-emissions-model/#comment-447343
There is sunshine re-radiated by CO2. How else can we measure it as it bounces off the moon? Thus, there must be cooling caused by CO2. And because everybody forgot about this, they only measured the warming effect. My question is: what is the nett effect of the cooling and warming properties of CO2?
I always said that these new highspeed computers would be a curse. If the “scientists” who make these calculations had to do it by hand, on paper, we wouldn’t have to put up with all the drivel. By the time the stuff was published, nobody would care. “The train would have left the station” so to speak.