Climate change to continue to year 3000 in best case scenarios
New paper in Nature Geoscience examines inertia of carbon dioxide emissions
New research indicates the impact of rising CO2 levels in the Earth’s atmosphere will cause unstoppable effects to the climate for at least the next 1000 years, causing researchers to estimate a collapse of the West Antarctic ice sheet by the year 3000, and an eventual rise in the global sea level of at least four metres.
The study, to be published in the Jan. 9 Advanced Online Publication of the journal Nature Geoscience, is the first full climate model simulation to make predictions out to 1000 years from now. It is based on best-case, ‘zero-emissions’ scenarios constructed by a team of researchers from the Canadian Centre for Climate Modelling and Analysis (an Environment Canada research lab at the University of Victoria) and the University of Calgary.
“We created ‘what if’ scenarios,” says Dr. Shawn Marshall, Canada Research Chair in Climate Change and University of Calgary geography professor. “What if we completely stopped using fossil fuels and put no more CO2 in the atmosphere? How long would it then take to reverse current climate change trends and will things first become worse?” The research team explored zero-emissions scenarios beginning in 2010 and in 2100.
The Northern Hemisphere fares better than the south in the computer simulations, with patterns of climate change reversing within the 1000-year timeframe in places like Canada. At the same time parts of North Africa experience desertification as land dries out by up to 30 percent, and ocean warming of up to 5°C off of Antarctica is likely to trigger widespread collapse of the West Antarctic ice sheet, a region the size of the Canadian prairies.
Researchers hypothesize that one reason for the variability between the North and South is the slow movement of ocean water from the North Atlantic into the South Atlantic. “The global ocean and parts of the Southern Hemisphere have much more inertia, such that change occurs more slowly,” says Marshall. “The inertia in intermediate and deep ocean currents driving into the Southern Atlantic means those oceans are only now beginning to warm as a result of CO2 emissions from the last century. The simulation showed that warming will continue rather than stop or reverse on the 1000-year time scale.”
Wind currents in the Southern Hemisphere may also have an impact. Marshall says that winds in the global south tend to strengthen and stay strong without reversing. “This increases the mixing in the ocean, bringing more heat from the atmosphere down and warming the ocean.”
Researchers will next begin to investigate more deeply the impact of atmosphere temperature on ocean temperature to help determine the rate at which West Antarctica could destabilize and how long it may take to fully collapse into the water.
The paper “Ongoing climate change following a complete cessation of carbon dioxide emissions” by Nathan P. Gillett, Vivek K. Arora, Kirsten Zickfeld, Shawn J. Marshall and William J. Merryfield will be available online at http://www.nature.com/ngeo/index.html
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I really had to laugh at the headline provided with the press release:
Climate change to continue to year 3000 in best case scenarios
Let’s see, did the climate change at all during the last 1000 years?
It depends on who you ask.
The Hockey Team says no:
Others who are not members of the Hockey Teamsters Union of Concerned Scientists say yes:
History tells us the second graph is the more likely truth.
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The Carbon Cultists can’t even get their apocalyptic cult procedures right. You’re supposed to predict the end approximately two years from now, not a thousand years from now. “THE END IS NEAR!”, not “THE END IS FAR!”
Does this mean we will experience a 1,000 years of data adjustments so that the climate behaves like the model tells it to?
“A man’s got to know his limitations” – Clint Eastwood
It pays to exaggerate in advertisement. Test equipment used to have attenuators marked way into noise where no signal could be detected, auto speedometers showing above 100 MPH when the car would max out at 80 or 85, breakfast serial to make you feel like an athlete and so on. These were harmless claims that only concerned those willing to pay their own money for the product.
Global warming claims are advertisements that are not harmless. Their claims are intended for legislation, taxes, restrictions on choice of purchase and dictatorial regulations that give the consumer no choice of how to spend their money. Why are they advertisements, because they are presented as truth while the claims are not proven and the data and procedures are not reviewed and shown.
A scientific what if exercise is fine but not on the legislative floor.
“The inertia in intermediate and deep ocean currents driving into the Southern Atlantic means those oceans are only now beginning to warm as a result of CO2 emissions from the last century. The simulation showed that warming will continue rather than stop or reverse on the 1000-year time scale.”
That appears to support my earlier proposals that the rate of energy entering the oceans takes about 1000 years to transit the full length of the thermohaline circulation.
Save that I assert that solely or overwhelmingly natural changes are the cause.
Oh you really should’ve had a title like:
“In the year 2525….”
(youtube took down the best video of this song)
How do they deal with the reality that the Earth has had fluctuations in CO2 in the past that did not trigger runaway anything and did not wreak havoc?
Why are junk studies like this getting published if the peer review process is still functional?
someone give em a shovel and point them at the warming…
ludicrous.
North Africa was savanna, nor desert, when it was warmer last time. But hey, they got a model.
Olaf Koenders, some years ago I was decorating a living room which contained an electric power meter mounted on a board against the wall. I detached the board from the wall and tilted it forwards to decorate the wall.
Imagine my surprise when I discovered the meter didn’t work when tilted forwards!
It took AGES to decorate that room.
“an eventual rise in the global sea level of at least four metres”
That is a rise of about 16 inches per century, about the worst case IPCC Scenario. It is also the about the height of waves you get from about 7 mph winds, as predicted by the Beaufort Scale.
Pamela Gray says:
Mark my words, one of these idiots will revise the move “The Day After Tomorrow” by saying they predicted it. “Cold” equals warming and is the shivering lull before the fire and brimstone.
You know, for some reason, I never quite made this obvious connection:
The warmists are predicting fire and brimstone for humanity if we don’t change our ways and stop sinning against the earth. Yet another similarity with traditional religion.
I very much doubt that.
Brilliant post! I’ve been saying this since Climategate that it’s the skeptics that have been leading the charge proclaiming that climate **changes**. The alarmists were saying “no, it has remained static for the past 1000 years (or more)” and that the recent “surge” in temperature is exceptional and must be due to human activity.
This kind of long term predictions is part of their strategy to move the “problem” outside the scope of our mortal populations but keep the “problem” alive.
The odds they will be able to motivate the masses to accept harsh measures and regulations to prevent a possible disaster in the year 3000 is ZERO.
But watch out. It makes the odds for “The Great Transformation” (the abolishment of democracy = totalitarian rule) much higher.
http://www.greattransformation.eu/index.php/about-the-conference
On the other hand, the growing gap between the climate change science and the real world and politicians and the real world, I really wonder how long the public is going to take it.
“Science” of this nature based on convoluted computer models reminds me of the roulette system one of my friends said was “fool proof.” He was heading to the casino floor to execute a strategy of betting on red and tripling the bet everytime he lost. After about 20 minutes, he reappeared looking flummoxed. I asked him how the new “system” worked. He said he had to suspend the experiment because he ran out of money, then added: “I am sure it is a sound formula, but you have to have a lot of money and courage to stick with it.” He should have been one of the “scientists” who published this article. You get all the money you need for free and you don’t need any courage because your peers who judge your work won’t ridcule you.
I wonder if it’s known whether there is a different averaged surface temperature for the Northern versus Southern Hemisphere as things stand right now.
“Let’s see, AD 3000, 4 meters, about 13 feet.”
That’s about 4 mm/yr. The oceans had better start hustling as the rate has been slackin’ recently and has an average of 1.8 mm/yr for the past century.
E-mail to myers@ucalgary.ca:
“Praise Jebus that we closed hospital beds so that we could continue funding your important work studying the bloody obvious. We’re all waiting with baited-breath for your next treatise: The sun is projected to continue rising in the east and setting in the west until year 2075 at least”.
1,000 years from now?
BAH! All the cool kids want to know the temps 10,000 years from now!
Please ask these gentlemen to flush their credibility down someone else’s drain. It clogs up the toilet.
It’s time to draft some legislation based on simulations of climate in the year 3000!
Each day facts are superseding fantasy, colder reality replacing the hottest dreams.
This is the state of higher education in my home country.
Are taxpayers really getting ANY value for their money?
Nick Bentley says:
January 10, 2011 at 7:34 am
(full disclosure: I believe climate change is a big problem, so I feel odd posting here, but I’m interesting in better understanding those who disagree. If you reply, go easy!)
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Nick, don’t worry, it’s only a computer monitor…..
I don’t really believe either side of the science. The side that says we’re all going to die, and the science that says we’re not.
I don’t think either side knows enough to claim science shows anything.
If anything is happening at all, it’s happening so slowly that no one can even really measure it. Everything is within the margin or error. So there’s nothing to worry about.