Research suggests climate change target ‘not safe’
From the University of Exeter via Eurekalert
An analysis of geological records that preserve details of the last known period of global warming has revealed ‘startling’ results which suggest current targets for limiting climate change are unsafe.
The study by climate change experts at the University of Exeter has important implications for international negotiators aiming to agree binding targets for future greenhouse gas emission targets.
Professor Chris Turney and Dr Richard Jones, both from the University’s Department of Geography, have reported a comprehensive study of the Last Interglacial, a period of warming some 125,000 years ago, in the latest issue of the Journal of Quaternary Science.
Caption: This is Professor Chris Turney in the field in Svalbard. Credit: University of Exeter
The results reveal the European Union target of limiting global temperature rise to less than 2°C above pre-industrial levels shouldn’t be considered ‘safe’.
From their analysis, the scientists found 263 estimates of the conditions when sediments and ice were laid down during the Last Interglacial, allowing them to reconstruct past temperatures around the globe. To compare the reconstructed estimates with today, they took the Last Interglacial values away from modern temperatures averaged over the period 1961 to 1990.
The results show temperatures appear to have been more than 5˚C warmer in polar regions while the tropics only warmed marginally; strikingly similar to recent trends. Not only this, but taken together, the world appears to have been some 1.9˚C warmer when compared to preindustrial temperatures. Critically, the warmer temperatures appear to have resulted in global sea levels some 6.6 to 9.4 metres higher than today, with a rate of rise of between 60 to 90 centimetres per decade — more than double that recently observed.
The higher temperatures seen during the Last Interglacial are comparable to projections for the end of this century under the low emission scenarios contained within the recent Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
Professor Turney said: “The results here are quite startling and, importantly, they suggest sea levels will rise significantly higher than anticipated and that stabilizing global average temperatures at 2˚C above pre-industrial levels may not be considered a ‘safe’ target as envisaged by the European Union and others. The inevitable conclusion is emission targets will have to be lowered further still.”
The full paper, Does the Agulhas Current amplify global temperatures during super-interglacials?, appears in the latest edition of the Journal of Quarternary Science. It can be viewed here: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/jqs.1423/abstract
Notes for editors:
A blog by Professor Chris Turney on this subject, called A Lesson from Past Global Warming, can be viewed on his website at www.christurney.com
We can seriously promise an average 2 degrees Celsius less for sure and without the need of carbon sequestering . 🙂
Professor Chris Turney:
“I’m a Professor of Physical Geography at the University of Exeter where I’m focussing my efforts on … To do something positive about climate change, I’m a Director of a small company called Carbonscape which has developed technology to fix carbon from the atmosphere and make a host of green bi-products, helping reduce greenhouse gas levels.”
No vested interests here … move along people.
Which of the many climate prediction models will be used to determine CO2 quantity needed to raise the (adjusted) temperature by 2 degrees?
Hope I’m the 1st: “IT’S WORSE THAn we thought!!!!!”
“… with a rate of [sea level] rise of between 60 to 90 centimetres per decade — more than double that recently observed”
Yeah, right. Slightly more than double. LOL. Trying to imply that someone has recently observed sea level rises of 30-45 cm per decade? It really is unbelievable that two professors can present information with this degree of inaccuracy.
“Two degrees C. That’s the amount the planet will be ALLOWED to warm.”
From WiKi: “Hubris often indicates being out of touch with reality and overestimating one’s own competence or capabilities, especially for people in positions of power.”
Professor Chris Turney:
“Most recently I’ve been scientific advisor on a new Channel 4 TV series Man on Earth, presented by Tony Robinson, looking at the impact of past climate change on our ancestors.”
That will be Tony Robinson of Blackadder which was written by Richard Curtis. I seem to recall hearing that Richard Curtis has written another comedy recently. Was it a success?
http://eureferendum.blogspot.com/2010/10/enemys-true-face.html
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/blog/2010/sep/30/10-10-no-pressure-film?showallcomments=true#start-of-comments
It seems NOT!
Exactly 6 months from April Fool’s Day today. Sounded like a joke at first, but unfortunately, these folks are serious. To paraphrase Twain: “Amazing what a wholesale return of conjecture we can get from such a tiny investment of fact.”
The planet was 10 degrees C warmer than today for 300 million years since the Cambrian. That is, 22 degC, exactly room temperature. That is probably optimum. It is also a maximum as feedback mechanisms prevent it from rising any higher than that.
These alarmists are making out higher temperatures to be bad, but actual science shows that higher temperatures mean fewer extinctions and greater vitality.
Just today, I looked up all agencies on http://www.grants.gov to see about USA government grants, and two items on the first page mentioned “climate change.” One guess about whether they are looking for “its good” results.
We have to turn this black is white stuff around for the well-being of Earth’s inhabitants, including you.
I was expecting this right after the Copenhagen confab, if the parties had signed their 2 degree agreement. I wonder if they delayed it after the failure there.
Now they get to announce it right before the IPCC Cancun round – I am sure its not intentional.
Seriously though, when was the 2 degree target anything other than an arbitrary goal? Something the politicians could use for a sound bite.
“Critically, the warmer temperatures appear to have resulted in global sea … rise of between 60 to 90 centimetres per decade — more than double that recently ”
We’re at 1.8 – 3.2 mm/year, or 1.8 to 3.2 CM/Decade. 6.0 – 9.0 cm/decade.
Ooops.
But, but… before the industrial revolution was as the Little Ice Age ended and you want to kill the opportunity this world has to live in the glorious Modern Warming Period where food and water is plentiful and busted pipes from frigid nights are rare and give nature even a chance to send us back to that horrid period by turning the thermometer back down?
Science leaders, you are all going crazy!! Most people here like the Earth 2° warmer than the Little Ice Age. ☺
Exeter is a nothing uni in the SW of england and this rubbish confirms that assessment. My god these people are arrogant and thick as two short planks.
“Critically, the warmer temperatures appear to have resulted in global sea levels some 6.6 to 9.4 metres higher than today, with a rate of rise of between 60 to 90 centimetres per decade — more than double that recently observed.”
Where did that come from? A rate of 3.2mm per year is no more than 32mm per decade. A far cry from what is indicated above. On the other hand the chap is indirectly admitting that natural climate disruption is nothing new.
Does this not smack of a typical “negotiation strategy” commonly employed when bargaining, given the coming Mexico summit? Go in with inflated demands, and eventually, after a suitable “tough approach” settle for what was always on the table. This way policy makers can claim that “they wanted more”, but we reached agreement on x, thereby (hopefully) appeasing/BS-ing opponents. There’s also a lot of the usual “estimates” and “appears”, together with the obligatory “fear factor” – it’s worse than we thought. Well you know what thought did?
Well, at least one of them is a geographer… I know that’s a lame excuse, not having expertise in or about the subject of one’s paper.
I’d rather see this sort of work done by geologist(s). But wait, we’re trained to draw lessons from the past records, which is why most of us are unimpressed by the ‘evidence’ as squeezed from ‘data’ by the AGW crowd. And like historians, why our opinions are not welcomed or valued by the samesuch folks.
Tom Bakewell
Exeter University is next door to the Met Office. Both are full of CAGWers, all paid for by taxpayers.
Johnathan Drake:
dang you beat me to it
Maybe yes and maybe no but man had no hand in the last interglacial and does not appear to have much of one in the present one. Hubris is perhaps a little kind for anything thinking humanity has more then a marginal, if that, influence on global climate. I suggest if we are truly concerned about sea level rises we should do two things. First get out the shovels and pumps. Second move our collective butts to higher ground. Lets see how that sells in the world of politics.
“Get along little Hagen, get along…I’m snuffing my last Copenhagen…going to saddle old Al for the last ride tonight”
EU is nothing to worry an old Cowpoke like MEeeeee!
I’ snuffing the last Copenhagen…Copenhagen!
Get along little Hagen, get along.
60 to 90 millimeters per decade would be double recently observed rises, right?
Fairly sure water levels haven’t been rising by 1 foot/decade where I live.
“Physical Geography” – does that mean that he just holds the map for someone else to read?
Or is there more to the (presumably) ‘descriptive science’ of “Physical Geography”?
Anything to get your name in the media , I suppose !!!
I remember reading in Der Speigel that the 2C figure was “plucked out of the air” by a top German climatologist who did it for the politicians. They had said that all the scientific detail was too hard to use in selling the message. We need a catch phrase or simple “fact”, they said to him. So the guy said use 2C. He had the honesty to tell the interviewer in Der Spegel that he could not scientifically verify the figure.
Hmmmm. No accurate studies on arctic temperatures (ice appears to be a proxy). Antarctica is getting marginally colder and has been trending such for 50 years. Yet the poles are on there way to a 5C temperature hike? Because of CO2 forcing that is so tenuous that it cannot be mathematically described in the real world or even duplicated by actual experimentation (versus computer modeling). Forgive me if I seem uninterested in these gents hysteria.
Everybody wants to draw parallels between 125,000 years ago & today for the scary stuff, while totally ignoring the most important item – the planet warmed, naturally, all on its own, there is GW without the A, and it’s a normal cycle.