From the University of Exeter , more Durban PR rampup:
Limited options for meeting 2°C warming target, warn climate change experts
We will only achieve the target of limiting global warming to safe levels if carbon dioxide emissions begin to fall within the next two decades and eventually decrease to zero. That is the stark message from research by an international team of scientists, led by the University of Exeter, published today (20 November) in the journal Nature Climate Change.
The research focuses on the scale of carbon emission reduction needed to keep future global warming at no more than two degrees Celsius over average temperatures prior to the Industrial Revolution. This target is now almost universally accepted as a safe limit.
The team examined the extent to which carbon emissions should be reduced, how steep this reduction needs to be and how soon we should begin. They used mathematical modelling techniques to construct a number of possible future scenarios, based on different assumptions on emissions reduction. They accounted for a likely range of climate sensitivities: the amount of warming for a given increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide.
The research shows how quickly emissions need to drop in the next few decades. It also highlights how remaining emissions could cause the two-degrees target to be exceeded in the long term, over the next few hundred years.
The researchers found that zero or negative emissions are compatible with this target if we reduce our global carbon emissions by at least three per cent per year within the next two decades.
In a worst-case scenario of high climate sensitivity, we need to work towards negative emissions if we are to have a chance to keeping temperatures within the two-degrees target. This would mean using carbon-capture-and-storage technology combined with aggressive mitigation rates starting in the coming decade. The best-case scenario of low climate sensitivity allows longer delays and more conservative mitigation rates, but still requires emissions to be eventually cut by at least 90%.
The results clearly show that if we delay reducing global emissions by just ten or twenty years we will then need to make much steeper reductions in order to meet a two-degrees warming target.
Lead author Professor Pierre Friedlingstein of the University of Exeter said: “When I analysed these results, I was surprised to see so few options available to us. We know we need to tackle global warming, but our research really emphasises the urgency of the situation. The only way for us to achieve a safe future climate will be to reduce emissions by at least three per cent, starting as soon as possible. The longer we leave it, the harder it will be.”
Countries currently have different targets for carbon emission reductions. For example, the US proposes a 17 per cent reduction by 2020, the EU has set a target of a 20 to 30 per cent reduction by 2020 and Australia has an objective of a five to 25 per cent reduction by 2020, depending on other countries commitment.
“The good news is that it’s not too late,” said co-author Professor Susan Solomon of the University of Colorado. “The interesting news is that we really need to think in the very long-term as well as the near-term. Even a small amount of remaining emissions would eventually mean exceeding the target so we need to ensure that technologies are available to make our world carbon-free in the long run.”
The research was carried out by the University of Exeter (UK), University of Colorado (USA), University of Bern (Switzerland), ETH (Switzerland), CEA-CNRS (France) and CSIRO (Australia).
Send more money!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Get a proper job Friedlingstein and stop wasting my time and my money with this Durban rampup
“The good news is that it’s not too late,”: it’s never going to be “too late”, because once the researchers declare that it is too late, the funding gravy train will grind to a halt: no point in doing further research if we can no longer avert the worst that could happen.
Meanwhile, what is mother nature doing about all this? Has she just opted out and left it to us?
I don’t like the sound of a carbon free world.
The bad news is it is too late for science. Even though the Warming Alarmists will cry “it’s only pausing!” as the Dalton minimum takes over, and a few years without summers occur, the plethora of balderdash about “proven science” and CO2 will leave it’s mark.
The real problem is Entropy, which cannot be reversed, but in a system can be made to look like it is going backward by the input of clean energy.
The public is/will be totally confused about “clean energy” and may tend to make the situation worse. Even inventions like http://ecat.com/ecat-technology will be quaranteed and looked down upon at first. But if we are going to withstand a mini-ice age and live with 8E9 million souls on earth, we will need highly polished science and well trained scientists.
I fear it will not happen in the good-old USA, which doesn’t really exist any more.
“The good news is that it’s not too late,” said co-author Professor Susan Solomon of the University of Colorado. “The interesting news is that we really need to think in the very long-term as well as the near-term. Even a small amount of remaining emissions would eventually mean exceeding the target so we need to ensure that technologies are available to make our world carbon-free in the long run.”
Carbon free????, what is she going on about, we are a carbon based life form, we breath co2.
She must be completely off her trolley!
“The only way for us to achieve a safe future climate will be to reduce emissions by at least three per cent, starting as soon as possible. The longer we leave it, the harder it will be.”
When, exactly is “as soon as possible”
I have been trying to find the answer to that for many many years.
Does anybody know?
Please can we have the mathematical proofs for these claims.
Just how does carbon dioxide warm the atmosphere and then warm the surface?
“The research was carried out at … University … University … University …”
All you need to know. No valid research occurs at universities now. If any valid research is going on, it’s outside of Big Academia.
I reckon that I am at least 70% carbon, when do I get taxed directly for being me?l
Greg Holmes 4:39am:
“…when do I get taxed directly for being me?”
Don’t give them any more ideas, Greg.
The easiest option (and most logical, too), is to just turn off the computers they’re running these crazy models on. No garbage in; no garbage out. Academia is then cleansed from a festering blight they’re attempting to foist on humanity.
It is as simple as that! Of course, that means these people stuck on fairy-tale models would have to fall back into the world of reality, which might be a bigger jolt than their egos could take, but that’s their problem. Our problem was giving them any credability in the first place.
The moment I see Uinversity of Exeter or University of East Anglia I lose all interest. These two are if not AGW cheerleaders then willing shills. Not worth listening to anything they have to say. They really are only in it for the money.
How do these university folks reconcile their “scientific study” with the fact that CO2 has been 10 to 20 times higher than now and that lifeforms similar to us seemed to have had no problem ?
Could someone please inform Susan Solomon that even if we reduced our emissions to zero, that would only decrease global emissions by 3%, as the natural world will still be emitting CO2.
Only climate hysterical alarmists can call themselves experts even though they always end up not really knowing anything about why climate, and still claim with certainty the doom and gloom of tomorrow. It’s like they suffer hubris at the same time being utterly depressed paranoiacs. :p
here in australia the ABC Climate Change Orchestra is in full flow.
every hilarious morsel of scary global warming drivel is carefully inserted into their news items with the rythmic precision of pizzicato strings, their financial features are underscored with the comic, basso profundo of renewable energy while the percussion section bangs away on the benefits of a carbon tax. It’s a scary soundtrack alright…but all that rain over Sydney and Melbourne…the late cool spring…the dams all full and the drought long forgotten…somehow they just no longer seem to be able to hit the right note!
2 degrees C, yes at a stretch, but that is 2C down
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/CET-NVa.htm
Slowly the AGW governments are being kicked out (ie Spain, next USA, next Australia ect). Temps are not rising (in fact November anomaly is going to come in negative if anything). It will still take another 3-4 years for the whole thing to completely stop, unless some smart lawyers start acting now to stop further waste of public monies (ie hansen et al)
“When I analysed these results, I was surprised to see so few options available to us. We know we need to tackle global warming, but our research really emphasises the urgency of the situation. The only way for us to achieve a safe future climate will be to reduce emissions by at least three per cent, starting as soon as possible. The longer we leave it, the harder it will be.”
… says Professor Numpty Friedlingbum …
Really … you only became surprised when you analysed “these results” ? What the hell have you been doing man ? Have you had your head in the sand …… .for 20 years now we have been up the creek without a paddle …. and you only find out now … after your analyses ?
Honestly … its pathetic.
‘Greg Holmes says:
November 21, 2011 at 4:39 am
>>> I reckon that I am at least 70% carbon, when do I get taxed directly for being me?l’
OK – you are Sooty : I claim my five pounds (Sterling, not Avoirdupois!).
If they want to make the world carbon-free, they should set an example and stop exhaling immediately.
I’ll take bets that my projections are better than Susan’s. Click on my name to see those projections.
Do they really believe it? Anyway, they can stop breathing NOW!
“The good news is that it’s not too late,” said co-author Professor Susan Solomon ———-“
Before the “Copenhagen Love-in” the then UK prime minister Gordon Brown, who was briefed by the “world’s leading scientists”, told us that “Copenhagen” was our last chance to tackle “Climate Change” – So why can’t Susanna understand that it is too late? – We’re Dooooomed!
By the way, I wonder if the BBC is, once again, going to broadcast their very informative production called “Earth; The Climate Wars” (just as they did the week before the Copenhagen Conference.)
Well, ‘The Climate Wars’ programs informed me that when it comes to “AGW” – or even just warming by gases, ‘The BBC’ manages to do all their experiments completely wrong, or else draw the wrong conclusions from the results.
The snow pack is returning to the Blue Mountains of NE Oregon, the stream flows are coming up, and we had a burst of late season pasture grass thanks to a bit of rain late in September and October. This isn’t new. 35 years ago we had this same cool moist pattern (green pea weather) till it suddenly went dry and hot, and peas didn’t grow worth a damn for decades. If CO2 is to blame, God bless CO2.