Via Eurekalert: Avoiding dangerous climate change: An international perspective
The world will need to make substantial reductions in greenhouse gas emissions below current levels over the next few decades if the worst impacts of dangerous climate change are to be avoided. This was a key conclusion from UK and US climate scientists at an international workshop on the UK AVOID program in Washington, DC exploring the most policy-relevant aspects of understanding dangerous climate change.
Latest results from AVOID have shown that strong mitigation action to limit temperature rise to below 2 °C avoids many of the climate impacts, but not all of them. Examples show that 50% of the impact of water scarcity, and almost 40% of the impact of decreasing crop suitability can be avoided through early action on greenhouse gas emissions. Time is short and delaying action reduces the chance of limiting temperature rise to 2 °C and increases the chance of significant impacts.
The AVOID program is a unique inter-disciplinary research collaboration across the physical sciences, climate impacts and the technical and socio-economic implications of climate change. AVOID is targeted to provide policy-focused research and evidence needed to allow policymakers to develop mitigation and adaptation policy that is strongly grounded in scientific evidence. This workshop, the first international meeting of AVOID, was designed to discuss, engage and partner with US scientists.
Jason Lowe, Head of Mitigation Advice at the Met Office, United Kingdom, and Chief Scientist for the AVOID program, said “This workshop has provided the opportunity to compare approaches in the UK and US to identify the results that are the most robust. The aim now is to work together to find concrete ways of taking forward the best UK and US science for the benefit of policymakers.
“Such work is essential to inform government policies both in the UK and the US with robust and up-to-date evidence.”
Peter Backlund, Director of Research Relations at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) in Boulder, Colorado, and Director of NCAR’s Integrated Science Program, said “Designing mitigation and adaptation strategies to avoid dangerous climate change is a major challenge for the US, the UK, and other nations. Scientific research is critical for informing this process, but the scientific community needs to do a better job in focusing research efforts on issues that are central to making decisions about how to respond to climate change.
“The UK AVOID program, with its integration of research from multiple institutions across the physical, social, and economic sciences, is one of the best examples of delivering advice that is directly relevant to policymakers. The program is producing useful information about the probabilities of achieving emissions reductions, the consequences of different levels of emissions, and options for reducing impacts. I am hopeful that we can create a similar program here in the US.”
Participating UK and US scientists agreed to explore further options for collaboration in this area of science of relevance to policymakers.
I’m glad to hear that they are finaly giving mitigation some attention. I’m wondering how they will explain to the public the manner in which they are going to mitigate the top few effects of global warming:
o longer growing seasons
o increased crop yields
o reduced extreme weather events
o increased total arable land
o increased precipitation
I’m in particular confused on that last one as they keep talking about positive feedback from increased water vapour and then babbling about decreased precipitation. Perhaps they have the prefixes “in” and “de” reversed?
I’m also very concerned about “decreased crop suitability”. I think that’s a big one. Farmers have a great deal of expertise in growing low value grain crops on land marginaly capable of supporting it. It would be a shame if all that expertise went to waste just because they could start growing high value fruits and vegetables instead, and that’s a different skill set from grain so they probably couldn’t do it anyway, or the change would be so stressfull, the increased income in particular, that they would have to take increasingly extravagent vacations in exotic locations during the decreasing winter season to get rid of their stress.
Awful this global warming stuff. All out on the mitigation effort I say!
Okay, Anthony links to http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2010-09/ncfa-adc091610.php and that links to http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2010-09/ncfa-adc091610.php and that (the NCAR & UCAR News Center) has nothing of interest on that page other than “Arctic sea ice: the Great Recession continues” and “Rescue Plane En Route to Evacuate Man in Antarctica.”
I’ll send Email dave.britton@metoffice.gov.uk asking if he has a better link.
Whats wrong here, developing the information needed for policy makers to limit global warming. Have policy makers not done enough by forcing green technology that does not work . And they done it based on flawed information, never checking the facts or other views. They tried this in the old USSR and look what policy makers did for them.
Of course research should continue but the results should be determined by the research and honestly reported. Not reported to satisfy a pre determined outcome.
Oops – the second link in my last comment should be http://www.ucar.edu/news
Time is short and delaying action reduces the chance of limiting temperature rise to 2 °C and increases the chance of significant impacts.
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Since they haven’t gotten it right so far, actually they got it as wrong as they could..
Who in their right mind still thinks they could get the future right?
Truth is, we’ve done nothing so far, changed nothing, and they still can’t get their temperature predictions right………and it’s a travesty
AVOID the Pizza Noid.
From: E.M.Smith on September 18, 2010 at 5:29 am
I have long heard the limiting factor to extraction of gold from seawater is the energy cost, from decades past when gold was far cheaper than today. So we’ll use solar, which is free energy. We can start the development of ocean-based photovoltaic-powered electrolytic harvesters, small and unmanned, for which federal research funding is assured as they will use clean green carbon-free power. They can be free-floating as buoys, although tethered to a GPS-equipped solar-powered tender vessel that would hold position would be better. Rather than be specifically limited to gold, they can be more generally set towards heavier elements thus also collecting uranium, which I understand would normally only be marginally more expensive than mining thus the use of free energy should make seawater extraction equally or more profitable.
So we announce that by the use of clean green carbon-free energy, the world will soon have a practically-unlimited supply of gold, as well as a bonanza of other heavier elements, including uranium thus there also will be a nigh-infinite supply of cheap energy for those countries willing to use nuclear power.
Problem solved.
Mikael Pihlström says: If I am not mistaken the argument in China and India is: you first.
You might be mistaken.. Have you read this account of how China wrecked the Copenhagen talks:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/dec/22/copenhagen-climate-change-mark-lynas?CMP=AFCYAH
I notice two phrases in the story. “that is strongly grounded in scientific evidence” and “the consequences of different levels of emissions”. It seems to me that these are mutually exclusive. You cannot have consequenses unless you make predicitons. However, there are no validated models when it comes to AGW, and, therefore, any predicitions cannot be “scientific”.
Mitigation is nonsense. I found an article and wrote a post about how one mitigation program, concocted by some political masterminds, will lead to a tripling of apartment rental costs.
http://notrickszone.com/2010/09/18/co2-ordinances-will-cause-apartment-rentals-to-triple/
Policymakers aka crooks, thieves, liars, cheats and scoundrels
Ammonite
” Where will dry season waters come from if source glaciers melt too far? China, Vietnam, Laos, Thailand, Cambodia, Bangladesh, India, Pakistan etc all rely on this mechanism to keep their major rivers flowing consistently.”
Get with the program, it’s 2C for the tipping point, not 3C. You must use “studies with robust results”, to indicate truth; “conglomeration of studies” doesn’t even sound scientific.
Haven’t you heard, Pachauri was wrong? Himalayan glaciers melting by 2035?
BTW: River water supplies for these countries come from the monsoons, not the glaciers.
So, fp, @ur momisugly 6:49 AM, is Maurice Strong in China advising them on climate policy or is he there being advised of his rights?
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The people writing the agit-prop of which this AVOID conference is an example are simply making junk up and calling it science to give it an air of authority.
It is long past time to reject this and demand our money back. It was, after all, paid for by tax payer money.
We deserve our money back.
“…science for the benefit of policymakers…”
Yep.
Ammonite
“Where will dry season waters come from if source glaciers melt too far?”
You got it the wrong way. The more they melt, the more water they spend. The more they grow, the less.
BTW, we don’t use glaciers to regulate water flow, we use dams.
Anyone else feel we’re on board the Titanic during her maiden voyage across the Pond, going full speed and avoiding all caution to slow down; that the crew is busy shoveling away, be it coal or wine or food; that the band is playing a beautiful song and that the passengers are blissfully unaware that fools are in command and danger lurks dead ahead? What we’re about at the dawn of this new century sounds more and more of Classic Titanic Anthropogenic Global Suicide than anything else.
“Full Speed Ahead!!!”
“Aye! Aye! Captain. Aye! Aye!
C R A S H… G R I N D… S N A P… C R A C K L E… P O P…
CRS, Dr.P.H. at 1:18 am –
You’re absolutely right!
Mikael Pihlström at 4:02 am
Except for the potential of renewables you’re absolutely wrong!
E.M.Smith at 4:41 am
Thank you for saving me a lot of typing. And you’re absolutely right about Strong, Soros and the Chinese, which leads us to what –
Cassandra King said at 6:16 am
The ONLY way to ensure adequate supplies of water is by…. THAT is exactly what the likes of Strong, Soros and the Chinese do NOT want: adequate supplies that are easily accessible to the masses of anything that perceptually is needed to survive. Therein it’s all about sources and distribution which can be summed into one word-
“FLOWS”! Control the flow of whatever a given population needs and you control that population. And think about it for a moment: that is what this whole “climate” issue is about. The environment of the Earth IS all about the flow/distribution of energy – in the oceans (including ice), the atmosphere (including water vapor & clouds) and the total mass of life forms on the planet. And it’s so dynamic and massive it’s impossible to model! The scientist and a few smart politicians know this AND they know therefore it’s NOT possible to disprove anything they say about it.
Oil, coal, water, power in all forms, food, products, gold, money, even services (like medical care & insurance), the magical CO2, copper, uranium, on & on & on – – control the flow and you control the population. But how can you “control” the flow of energy in something so massive as the environment? YOU CAN’T! But “make” something you can control into something that is “scientifically proven” to negatively modify the flow – Ah Ha! Now we have something to control the population with and – with control comes trillions! And I’m not talking beans here…
H.R. says:
September 18, 2010 at 5:11 am
“[…] Examples show that 50% of the impact of water scarcity, […]“
Dang! E.M. beat me to it.
Warmer world means more water liberated from ice means more ocean surface area to evaporate water vapor means more clouds means it has to rain more somewhere.
You mean denialist blog forecasts catastrophic floods with warming of 2C surely?
Remember whatever the climate does there is no good news it is change that is bad – only if everything remains in perfect stasis will the fixed-climate people be content.
The unfortunate reality of “dry season waters” coming from “source glaciers” is that if the glaciers have to melt to supply this water they will also have to disappear, and if mountain glacier ice increases then the water for the dry season won’t be available either. Two situations work. One is for lots of snow at high elevations that then melts late in the year. As some commenters here think – warming should do that. Situation two is a cyclical pattern where massive mountain glaciers build during one time period and then melt in the next. While they are building there are “lean” years, to be followed by the “good” years. Which pattern has the world seen in the last 30 years? Which do we see next?
Mikael Pihlström says:
September 18, 2010 at 4:02 am
“[…]If I am not mistaken the argument in China and India is: you first.
Given that we (USA, Europe, USSR) have emitted the great share
of the carbon already in the atmosphere, it is indeed a good argument
and a prerequisite for any progress.”
It’s the argument that China uses. The Chinese government is concerned about maintaining a high growth rate. They need this to keep the people on their side; they can’t afford failure. They will use all tricks they have available – snatching up cheap Australian coal, undervalue the Renminbi, buy African land to produce food there – to maintain their growth rate. Their last concern is CO2 emissions. And their argument – “the developed world has to de-industrialize first” – is simply tactics. They could just as well say “look at the poor baby seals” or whatever they deem likely to resonate in the brain-dead media of the West.
Cluck, cluck, cluck. Courtesy of Walt Disney. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vnp4kj5lLOU&feature=player_embedded
Milwaukee Bob;
Control the flow of whatever a given population needs and you control that population.>>
I believe the term is “water empire” used to describe the practice of several Chinese dynasties. They would dam all the rivers and build huge resevoirs ostensibly to control damage from flooding and so on. Then when some foolish province was fomenting rebellion, up go the dam levels, cutting off fresh water for crops, livestock, and people just long enough to put down the rebellion without so much as stringing a bow.
May I also suggest that for those that think the Chinese position is reasonable, that you read Art of War by Sun Tsu. It isn’t as much about war on the battlefield as it is about winning at minimum cost, without a battle at all if possible. The most important part of the strategy is to sew disinformation that leads your opponent into bad decision making regarding his own resources, as well as disinformation about what you are doing with yours.
Ignore what China says they are doing, ignore what they say about what we should be doing, ignore all the logic they present. Study instead what they are actually doing. Building fossil fuel infrastructure, investing in foreign fossil fuel reserves, and signing long term contracts. They’re even funding exploration as joint venture partners with western companies. So put aside what they say about what we should or should not do and why. It has little or nothing to do with their actual strategy, which is fossil fuel. The more we damage our own economy by accepting the AGW premise, the better it is for them, and they will be happy to lend us the money to buy the windmills and the rest of their manufactured goods until we go bankrupt.
Attention People of Earth: Climate Disruption is nigh. Throw away your energy sources used to duck the wrecking ball heading straight for you, and succumb. It’s all your fault. Survival is now a privilege granted by the government, not a right.
Report to the DNA screening center nearest you. We will decide if you meet the qualifying criteria for the
Superraceauthorized gene pool. Successful candidates will be issued a survival ration card.Oh, and did we mention it’s all your fault?
John F. Hultquist says:
September 18, 2010 at 8:26 am
It works much the same way as El Nino/La Nina as regards ocean heat content delta.
What monkeywrenches the GCM’s is that there are far more than 2 states to consider.