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
Why am I reading this bs? “WUWT?” “WUWT?” “WUWT?” Not a single idea or argument worth examining from you WUWT commenters, just smarty-pants smear by innuendo, displays of ignorance and sheer laziness. “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.” — do you really think so? Keep on with the self-reinforcing garbage, hope ya’ll enjoy yourselves here.
What are geographers doing in the geological sphere? Geography means drawing a map of the earth. Geography is an anachronism like alchemy without the latter’s knowledge of science. I remember as a geology student back in the 60s a geography student came over to the geology department to get some data on the glacial history of North America for his thesis. A professor of quaternary geology found that the fellow was several courses short of understanding the material he was asking for. He wound up switching to geology where he picked up courses in math, chemistry and physics along with sedimentology, glaciology, etc and then went on to obtain his degree in geology. It is a geographer from my alma mater (Manitoba) who is running around charting rotten ice – remember him. Geography is fine for school kids who need to learn that Colombia grows coffee and has such and such a population but otherwise it should be given a decent burial. If supposed real scientists seem to make a ballsup of climatology, we surely don’t need liberal arts researchers to help. Imsuspiciouss that it is the U of Exeter, where down the hall we have the meeting of the global temp osterizers deciding whether they were doing a good job or not. Watch for the outcome of this meeting to be that we missed a decimal point in one of the temps and other few small errors but this doesn<t alter the trend of the last 100 years significantly – and Gee new research suggests we have already reached our 2 C limit.
Is ‘centimeters’ in paragraph 3 a typo for ‘millimeters’?
I have a problem when they say that while the temperature at the equator does not go up much, the temperature at the poles goes up a lot.
Now polar air below zero does not contain much heat, and so requires a tiny amount of heat to change the air temperature a considerable amount. But tropical air above zero contains a lot of moisture, and so requires a lot of heat to change its temperature.
So , isn’t the whole concept of an average global temperature, based on measurements of the temperature of air, not too relevant?
“both from the University’s Department of Geography.”
Geography has been prostituted. An inspection of the contents of the NSW curriculum for Geography will demonstrate that. What is supposed to be a descriptive discipline has been turned into a prescriptive and judgemental discourse full of all sorts of agenda driven ideology such as
• ecological sustainability
• a just society
• intercultural understanding
• informed and active citizenship
http://www.boardofstudies.nsw.edu.au/syllabus_sc/pdf_doc/geography_710_syl.pdf
I have now regretfully discouraged my boys from taking Geography electives.
“a rate of rise of between 60 to 90 centimetres per decade — more than double that recently observed.”
I can beat that easily…….
The last time I went to the beach, sea levels rose by 3 metres in just six hours!
Don’t these people realise the enormity of the problem?
What’s the lower limit? 15 degrees below industrial age, I bet the ice causes quite a stir.
Since the thirty year trends for MSU ( middle and lower, UAH and RSS ), Land Ocean ( CRU and GISS) and SST are all at or BELOW 1.7 C per century,
it looks like doing nothing has got us below 2 C!!!!!
RE: “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.”
Recently observed is more like 30 millimetres a decade, but these metric units can be confusing.
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 a surprise at all. Equatorial Atlantic is heated by the solar output which is more or less constant.
Arctic is warmed by inflow of the Gulf stream, speed it up over the Greenland – Scotland ridge (currently ~ 8 Sv) and the Arctic will go up, Canadian and USA north Atlantic shore will cool down by the extra ice cold water coming back, but the Mid Atlantic will not even notice it (Florida current ~ 30 Sv).
Doug Proctor says:
October 1, 2010 at 1:53 pm
“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.
————-
Yeah OOps. What an inflated load of {insert local term for Bovine waste here}
Only off by a factor of ten
on observations of current reality.
We can trust this guy’s interpretation of archeological ClUES as to what causes what in the climate. He’s a genius.
So “world temperature” was nearly 2 Kelvins higher during the (uncivilized) last interglacial, but civilization must be responsible for any warming during this one?
Do these folks even read what they write?
And the whole 6-9 m of sea level rise will take just 100 years……. Wow, the resolution of their historical reconstruction is fabulous!
I’m thinking 6-9 mm per decade is what they meant, based on a 6-9 m rise over a millennium (which they might just be able to resolve). Still complete rubbish of course as an arctic melt will do nothing for seal level and the antarctic is stubbornly refusing to follow the script.
Besides, I’m pretty sure we can survive a 9m rise in sea levels over the next 1000 years. Considering what we have achieved in the last 1000 years, this is a piece of ****!
“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.”
This is obviously being promoted by a cabal of boat & inner tube manufacturers.
Jonathan Drake says:
October 1, 2010 at 1:42 pm
‘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.’
I wonder if his side-kick who co-authored the paper is the same Dr Richard Jones, of Met Office Hadley Centre, Exeter??? – Nah… must be a coincidence!
“the planet will be allowed to warm…”
I wonder if the person who wrote this copy actually read it back, out loud?
…planet….allowed…
…8 world leaders…will…allow the planet….
…allow the planet?
Huh?
Everything looks bad through the AGW lens. Hard to believe this qualifies as research….
So now these pointy heads are ‘telling’ the climate how much it’s ‘allowed’ to warm? I have to go outside and tell my grass how tall it’s allowed to grow – because I’m tired of cutting it.
Now that was funny.
Hahah! That is great! He even admits its happened before (2x as fast as today?)! Why is this a bad thing? Means its going slower right? Why presume different! This makes me happy.
What is with this measly 2C BS? The nations of the world need to immediately agree to outlaw winter. That’s right, let’s face it, winter is just a pain in the arse. What the world really needs is global year-round growing seasons with pleasant temperatures.
There would then be plenty of food for everyone, no need for heating or A.C., and life for all would be just peachy.
Oh, and let’s not forget about precipitation. You know, sometimes it rains too much, and sometimes not enough. We need to fix that too.
That is the problem with the so-called “environmentalists”, they just don’t see the “big picture”.
/sarc
I don’t mean to sound condescending, but these are professors of geography. Do most people know “climatologists” are relegated to the geography departments of most universities. Not that these people are stupid, but…
Ok. I’m not going to question their mental abilities–just their outlandish conclusions as already pointed out by several of the comments above.
Does this mean that if we burn enough fossil fuels and keep the temperature 2C above where it would normally be (not that I agree we have actually done that) we can put off an ice age?
Sweet.
Why do our politicians listen to this crap?
Only the idea that humanity is able to control the temperature of our oceans and our atmosphere is too stupid for words.
It exposes our political elite as incompetent and their policies as a total fraud.
Vote them out of office at the first possible opportunity, fight them and prosecute them for treason of their country and their electorate.
These people belong behind bars.
I am simply disgusted that such clearly politically biased scientific rubbish can be produced by so called scientists – mind you, geography and REAL science are only very loosely connected!