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).
This is research? Running computer models based on deep ignorance of most of the highly complicated weather systems that constitute climate? Given that the models are built to ascribe warming to CO2 levels (despite all the evidence that CO2 levels rise in response to warming), is it any cause for astonishment that they predict ever-increasing temperatures with rising CO2 levels?
C- See me.
Please refer to Donna Laframboise’s new book, The Delinquent Teenager’, for a view into the integrity of Susan Solomon. It is not a pretty view.
The Japanese people would sure feel better if Fukushima-Daichi had been a good old coal plant…
ferd berple says:
November 21, 2011 at 7:01 am
You’re right. And here’s an enlightening view about it (and the reason Ms. Solomon is wrong):
http://www.nypost.com/p/news/opinion/opedcolumnists/global_warming_we_can_all_cheer_YuaZ4rbJSEIerSIa8Ij25I
(The above link has Dante’s description of Hell, which is something the enviros apparently want.)
Does pandering qualify as research? Perhaps it should be in their job description or fixed to their diploma to establish qualification and an ethical level of conduct.
Reading chicken bone patterns came to mind, the result are known before the throw and the art of divination has been performed by revealing future events.
Has divination now entered the realm of mathematics and computer models or is it only pandering. It gives new meaning to over the top, proves some lies are not believable no matter how big or many times told and proves unlike the long held belief promoted in movies there is more than one nutty professor.
Or perhaps when they look at the world all they see is carbon taxes and regulation.
The one thing that has the ability to eventually beat this nonsense is oceanic surface tension. You can heat gases in the atmosphere but to get that heat into the ocean you need to raise the temperature enough to reduce the surface tension and get the heat into the water.Try heating a bucket of water with a heat gun, you’ll find that you have to blast away for about 10 to 12mins before the heat starts to penetrate the surface. Thats at 450 degs. the only way the ocean gets heat is from the suns rays which can penetrate the surface tension. Vale agw.
@Bill Illis: November 21, 2011 at 6:51 am
Bill,
I hate to burst your bubble, but your own comment contains the reason you are incorrect. CO2 absorption would increase as CO2 concentrations rose, but it would also fall as CO2 concentrations fell. Therefore, anthropogenic CO2 emissions would have to approach zero asymptotically to halt the rise in atmospheric CO2 concentrations, ignoring the long term CO2 decay in the atmosphere. Atmospheric CO2 concentrations did not begin to rise when annual emission rates were ~60% of current emissions rates; they began to rise when we began emitting CO2 into the atmosphere in significant quantities (~1750), with inflection points in the rate of increase at ~1850 and ~1950.
Oh, don’t forget that UN FAO says ~20% of global annual GHG emissions are from animal husbandry. Therefore, prepare to go vegan along the way. Also, remember that the “consensus” appears to be that a global population of ~1 billion is the maximum sustainable population, at least in a zero carbon emissions world.
I know that it is difficult to envision free people eliminating carbon emissions, adopting veganism and reducing global population by ~86% based on data that aren’t and models that don’t. However, who said that we’d always be free? Tyrannical individuals have sought global governance previously. Our world is not without its tyrants today; or, its advocates of global governance.
Jeffrey Davis says:
November 21, 2011 at 6:48 am
When tundra and taiga warm, they give up their embedded greenhouse gases. As they warm more, they contribute more. At 2C, the gases from natural sources will equal those from human sources. There’s hardly anyone who sees 2C of warming as “safe”. I have no idea how that idea gained any traction at all. 2C isn’t a natural plateau. It’s a number dreamed up like an advertising slogan. Since human contributions are actually accelerating, BAU scenarios which were once seen as dire are perversely “optimistic”. We’ll blow past 2C of warming like a sprinter going through a finish line tape.
________________________________
OH, good grief we are in an overall COOLING mode. If you want to get hysterical about the future worry about the coming Ice Age that is around the corner.
GRAPHS:
(542 million years) Phanerozoic Climate Change – Present on RIGHT: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9c/Phanerozoic_Climate_Change.png
50,000 yr Greenland Ice Core – Present on RIGHT: http://i90.photobucket.com/albums/k247/dhm1353/DO.png
15,000yr Greenland Ice core: http://c3headlines.typepad.com/.a/6a010536b58035970c0120a719dbb4970b-pi
10,000 yr Vostok Ice Core – Present on LEFT: http://mclean.ch/climate/figures_2/Vostok_to_10Kybp.gif
3,000 years d18O (oxygen 18 proxy) http://www.greenworldtrust.org.uk/Science/Images/Main/Warm_periods.jpg
2000 years from 18 proxies: http://www.plusaf.com/pix/2000-years-of-global-temperatures.jpg
The climate changes naturally and an insignificant effect from a minor component of the atmosphere is not what is causing it. Heck 95% of the greenhouse gas effect is from WATER VAPOR not CO2. Mankind’s contribution to Green House Gases” (total) is about 0.28%. Also the effect is not linear. Most of the effect is from the fist couple of 100 ppm and then saturation is achieved so the effect declines rapidly after that (logarithmic)
This is an excuse to raise prices, taxing people and the next big economic bubble. Shell Oil and BP have been in on it from the beginning. They FUNDED the Climate research Unit at East Anglia and now the World Bankers are salivating at the thought of all the money they can make ripping people off with the carbon credit bubble.
Goldman Sachs engineered the 2008 Food crisis/riots: http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2011/04/27/how_goldman_sachs_created_the_food_crisis?page=0,1
Goldman Sachs, engineering a carbon credit bubble? http://www.alternat1ve.com/biofuel/2009/07/04/goldman-sachs-engineering-a-carbon-credit-bubble/
It has been my theory for some time that the Blue Mountains are not mountains at all, they are in fact gigantic heaps of compressed tumbleweeds — meaning that the variety of Mother Nature’s own methods of carbon sequestration may be much more extensive than is presently believed.
The public can expect a “doom and gloom “article per day as the Durban meeting gets closer and the requests for more free escalete . Solomon is the same scientist that was making predictions a thousand years ahead about the effect of rising carbon dioxide yet the AGW scientists seem to be incapable even getting the current decade right. I would like to see these scientists make credible global temperature predictions 1 ,3,5 and 10 years ahead to first establish their scientific credibilty before making these exaggerated forecasts . Until that day , these latest articles seem to be just requistions for more money for unproven science in my opinion.
The planet cares not a twit what you say or do… and neither do I. GK
@jeffrey Davies
“When tundra and taiga warm, they give up their embedded greenhouse gases.”
++++
When tundra and taiga warm, they produce a massive increase in plant growth. This embedded GHG scare looks like nonsense. It is not even cherry picking – it is just stoopit.
You have to look at all the outcomes of a temperature change, not just one (increased rotting of biomass). The biomass got there, right? It grew there on the tundra, right? How? It grew when it was a heck of a lot warmer than it is now. When it warms it will start growing again (well it does now but slowly). Natural variation, my man. Natural variation dominates. When it gets warmer the tundra turns into a vast forest like northern Alberta-to-Manitoba. That causes a massive carbon sequestration – the very carbon you now fear coming back. If it gets warmer and stays warmer (which is the promise) the effect will be to greatly increase biomass accumulation. Biomass is just about 50% Carbon by mass.
Fred says:
November 21, 2011 at 8:03 am
http://e360.yale.edu/feature/massive_oyster_die-offs_show_ocean_acidification_has_arrived/2466/
__________________
AHHhhh I was right! Ocean neutralization is going to be the next scam. They forget that we chemist and others are very well aware the oceans are a BUFFERED system and so it is so much easier to disprove this.
Ocean buffer system explained here: http://www.co2web.info/np-m-119.pdf
The oceans are alkaline -pH over 7.0. When an acid is added to an alkaline solution it is neutralized not acidified until it reaches a pH of 7.0 or less. It seems they can not even get the scientific nomenclature right.
“According to a new U.N. report, the global warming outlook is much worse than originally predicted.
Which is pretty bad when they originally predicted it would destroy the planet.”
[Jay Leno]
We don’t want to hear from “climate change experts”. We want to hear what genuine scientists prove using real evidence, not models.
“to make our world carbon-free in the long run”…
Idiots, dressed like monkeys, yelling murder, drinking wine.
Lost me right there.
The lunatic greens have taken over the planet, key areas of policy are dictated by them. Stupid wind turbines despoil the countryside, damage wildlife and actually increase CO2 emissions. Not that an increase in emissions matters anyway as CO2 apparently does not cause global warming because spectral overlap with H2O reduces the latter’s effective emissivity/absorbtivity leading to a cooling effect ( see recent ‘Trenberth post’ by Bob Fernley Jones).
Ed Reid says:
November 21, 2011 at 8:58 am
==============================
Ed, what was the natural rate of CO2 increase or decrease prior to 1750, or was it stable?
I just watched a Futurama cartoon on global warming.
Apparently the robots’ exhaust valves caused global warming. As usual, Al Gore starred as the holy, enlightened one.
It all made perfect sense to me, much more than this typical, unfounded, scary forecast from grant addicted, ‘climate scientists’ – best of all, there were no dodgy models or dubious assumptions in the cartoon.
One thing I am convinced of : there will be batteries that will be ten times cheaper and with ten times the capacity and will recharge 20 times faster within 2 to 4 years from now. At that point gasoline powered vehicles become totally obsolete , although it will take a few years before most will get off the roads. What effect that will have on carbon emissions obviously depends upon
how much carbon was emitted creating the electricity versus the amount emitted when gasoline was burned. For electrical production, I would prefer nuclear , perhaps using modular technologies, or Thorium reactors.
An earlier article said:
“Our results show that temperature records of at least 17 years in length are required for identifying human effects on global-mean tropospheric temperature.”
So presumably Santer will wait for UAH to have 17 years of no warming, or whatever, to identify if there are indeed any “human effects on global-mean tropospheric temperature”.
So isn’t Solomon jumping the gun a little bit with: “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.”?
Does the right hand not know what the left is doing?
I’m rooting for the +2 degrees. It’s cold outside.
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?
We on the average are 18% carbon by weight, second only to Oxygen.
My guess is that negative carbon input means our smokestacks have to be sucking it up and “sequestering” it for a time when the climate gets colder. The real carbon reserves are in our limestone and dolomite formations. These all need to be capped off or they might leak! (Sarc)
Steve from Rockwood @ur momisugly November 21, 2011 at 9:41 am
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/1c/Carbon_Dioxide_400kyr.png