From NASA Goddard/GISS: same-o, same-o
Paleoclimate Record Points Toward Potential Rapid Climate Changes
New research into the Earth’s paleoclimate history by NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies director James E. Hansen suggests the potential for rapid climate changes this century, including multiple meters of sea level rise, if global warming is not abated.
By looking at how the Earth’s climate responded to past natural changes, Hansen sought insight into a fundamental question raised by ongoing human-caused climate change: “What is the dangerous level of global warming?” Some international leaders have suggested a goal of limiting warming to 2 degrees Celsius from pre-industrial times in order to avert catastrophic change. But Hansen said at a press briefing at a meeting of the American Geophysical Union in San Francisco on Tues, Dec. 6, that warming of 2 degrees Celsius would lead to drastic changes, such as significant ice sheet loss in Greenland and Antarctica.
Based on Hansen’s temperature analysis work at the Goddard Institute for Space Studies, the Earth’s average global surface temperature has already risen .8 degrees Celsius since 1880, and is now warming at a rate of more than .1 degree Celsius every decade. This warming is largely driven by increased greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, particularly carbon dioxide, emitted by the burning of fossil fuels at power plants, in cars and in industry. At the current rate of fossil fuel burning, the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere will have doubled from pre-industrial times by the middle of this century. A doubling of carbon dioxide would cause an eventual warming of several degrees, Hansen said.
In recent research, Hansen and co-author Makiko Sato, also of Goddard Institute for Space Studies, compared the climate of today, the Holocene, with previous similar “interglacial” epochs – periods when polar ice caps existed but the world was not dominated by glaciers. In studying cores drilled from both ice sheets and deep ocean sediments, Hansen found that global mean temperatures during the Eemian period, which began about 130,000 years ago and lasted about 15,000 years, were less than 1 degree Celsius warmer than today. If temperatures were to rise 2 degrees Celsius over pre-industrial times, global mean temperature would far exceed that of the Eemian, when sea level was four to six meters higher than today, Hansen said.
“The paleoclimate record reveals a more sensitive climate than thought, even as of a few years ago. Limiting human-caused warming to 2 degrees is not sufficient,” Hansen said. “It would be a prescription for disaster.”
Hansen focused much of his new work on how the polar regions and in particular the ice sheets of Antarctica and Greenland will react to a warming world.
Two degrees Celsius of warming would make Earth much warmer than during the Eemian, and would move Earth closer to Pliocene-like conditions, when sea level was in the range of 25 meters higher than today, Hansen said. In using Earth’s climate history to learn more about the level of sensitivity that governs our planet’s response to warming today, Hansen said the paleoclimate record suggests that every degree Celsius of global temperature rise will ultimately equate to 20 meters of sea level rise. However, that sea level increase due to ice sheet loss would be expected to occur over centuries, and large uncertainties remain in predicting how that ice loss would unfold.
Hansen notes that ice sheet disintegration will not be a linear process. This non-linear deterioration has already been seen in vulnerable places such as Pine Island Glacier in West Antarctica, where the rate of ice mass loss has continued accelerating over the past decade. Data from NASA’s Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) satellite is already consistent with a rate of ice sheet mass loss in Greenland and West Antarctica that doubles every ten years. The GRACE record is too short to confirm this with great certainty; however, the trend in the past few years does not rule it out, Hansen said. This continued rate of ice loss could cause multiple meters of sea level rise by 2100, Hansen said.
Ice and ocean sediment cores from the polar regions indicate that temperatures at the poles during previous epochs – when sea level was tens of meters higher – is not too far removed from the temperatures Earth could reach this century on a “business as usual” trajectory.
“We don’t have a substantial cushion between today’s climate and dangerous warming,” Hansen said. “Earth is poised to experience strong amplifying feedbacks in response to moderate additional global warming.”
Detailed considerations of a new warming target and how to get there are beyond the scope of this research, Hansen said. But this research is consistent with Hansen’s earlier findings that carbon dioxide in the atmosphere would need to be rolled back from about 390 parts per million in the atmosphere today to 350 parts per million in order to stabilize the climate in the long term. While leaders continue to discuss a framework for reducing emissions, global carbon dioxide emissions have remained stable or increased in recent years.
Hansen and others noted that while the paleoclimate evidence paints a clear picture of what Earth’s earlier climate looked like, but that using it to predict precisely how the climate might change on much smaller timescales in response to human-induced rather than natural climate change remains difficult. But, Hansen noted, the Earth system is already showing signs of responding, even in the cases of “slow feedbacks” such as ice sheet changes.
The human-caused release of increased carbon dioxide into the atmosphere also presents climate scientists with something they’ve never seen in the 65 million year record of carbon dioxide levels – a drastic rate of increase that makes it difficult to predict how rapidly the Earth will respond. In periods when carbon dioxide has increased due to natural causes, the rate of increase averaged about .0001 parts per million per year – in other words, one hundred parts per million every million years. Fossil fuel burning is now causing carbon dioxide concentrations to increase at two parts per million per year.
“Humans have overwhelmed the natural, slow changes that occur on geologic timescales,” Hansen said.
Patrick Lynch
NASA’s Earth Science News Team
If I am not mistaken, CO2 was much greater (more than 2x) than now in those previous warmer periods. This indicates much less sensitivity of climate to CO2 than speculated by Hansen and IPCC. It is amazing that he calls attention to previous warmer eras, which occurred in the virtual absence of human influence, and still claims current warming is unprecedented. Finally, if temperature has increased 0.8 degrees since 1890 and 1 degree = 4-6 Meters of increase in sea level, shouldn’t we have seen more than we have by now? Of course, he has learned to give himself some latitude by saying it may take centuries for this to occur. I doubt there is any observational basis for this, it just makes predictions convenient, because they cannot be disproved within the predictor’s lifetime.
I’m surprised that no one else pointed this out:
Notice the cherry-picked baseline period, 1950-1980, which was the cool cycle of the mid-1900s. This sort of cherry-picking was epidemic in warmist literature up until the skeptics called them on it. I haven’t seen such blatant cherry-picking of a baseline in probably five years. Formerly it was starting a graph in either 1900 or 1970, at or near the low points of the last two cooling periods.
Perhaps that is because Hansen has been relatively quiet.
And perhaps this is a reaction to Climategate 2.0 and all application of the PR-spin advice the Team got after Climategate 1.0.
Of course, we skeptics could use the 1910-1940 warming period as a baseline and show the 1950-1980 period as “proving” that CO2 doesn’t have any effect whatsoever. That is, IF we had a governmental agency at our disposal for press releases.
So, essentially, even a minute geological disturbance could catastrophically change the climate. Like for instance a ginormous, to human standards, earth quake that change the rotational speed of the planet, or its axis, or say land rise, shifting oceans, and all those other natural stuff that happens beneath the crust of a living planet.
But this time a around it has to be the present of man, not his statistical models. O.o
As science fiction humour goes, it’s not a patch on Robert Sheckley or Douglas Adams. Don’t give up your day job, Dr. Hansen.
Oh, wait …
Hansen says that we had 0.8C warming from 1880 until now. If I look at the graphs, such as http://i39.tinypic.com/o8t8qg.jpg that Bob Tisdale posted, I see that the “average” temperature was 0.2C below our baseline in 1880 (with HUGE error bars), and by 1940 or so the temperature had risen to 0.2C above the baseline. This is a time when we were emitting little CO2 compared to today.
If 0.4C of the warming was pre-1940, and therefore probably not all CO2 related (if any) then maybe we can only consider the rest of the warming from 1940 to 2012 to be CO2 caused? What’s average temperature today? I believe it’s somewhere between 0.4C and 0.6C, if you use the range indicated by the graph, with an average being around 0.5C. This is if you trust the temperatures presented by GISS, which include the ironic adjustments that actually raise temperatures. I personally feel the GISS temperatures are high, but let’s use them anyway.
From 1940 or so at 0.2C through this year’s 0.5C is three tenths of a degree of warming in only 72 years. That’s a whopping 0.042C warming per decade. Everybody panic!
If we consider a shorter time period, say 1962 though this year, we still have just 0.1C per decade of warming. The only way we EVER get an alarming rate of warming that is correlated with high CO2 emissions is if we consider very short timescales and make sure to include the 1979 to 1998 time period. If we compare 1880 to 1940 we have a high rate of warming with a low rate of CO2 rise, if we compare 1940 to 1980 we have a very low rate of warming with a higher rate of CO2 rise, and if we look at the 12 years of highest rate of CO2 emissions ever recorded, we find no rise in temperature.
Yes, it’s true that in the decade post 2000 the temperatures were higher than the decade pre-2000, but what does that really mean? In this case, it just means that all of the temperature rise was in the decade pre-2000 and the temperatures have not fallen back. So many people are saying “the decade after is higher than the decade before” as if that indicates that it’s still going up. Bullshit, it doesn’t work that way.
If a child grows until his 19th birthday, then stops growing, someone cannot come back when he’s 27 and claim he’s still growing at an alarming rate because “his average height in his twenties was higher than his average height in his teens.”
Sorry, long post. To sum up, more than half of the “warming” was pre-1940, when manmade CO2 was 80% less than it is today. If CO2 does contribute to warming, it’s only responsible for a small portion of the 0.4C of that early rise. If we are responsible for ALL of the post 1940 rise (which I doubt), then all of our CO2 since 1940 is only responsible for 0.3C of warming. This give a lie to Hansen’s entire line for reasoning.
They, including Hansen, continue to make predictions that don’t come true. Then, they follow these with more shrill predictions that don’t come true.
They remind me of the religious loons who, based on some new interpretation of the Bible, keep predicting a date when the world will end. It never does, but they keep trying.
Could someone please tell me what planet Earth Hansen lives on? It most certainly not the same one I’m on! Short of all out nuclear war, Man’s overall impact is negligible. Looking at something that recently occurred on a relatively small scale, the Northwest recovered fairly quickly after Mount St. Helens. On a larger scale, the Earth seems to have recovered fairly well after whatever it was that occurred about 65 million years ago. Those are two examples of how resilient planet Earth is. To this planet, we really don’t count.
Will said: “These guys can’t even tell a believable lie. It hasn’t warmed a tenth of a degree in the last decade, that’s nonsense.”
Well Willis, it hasn’t but everywhere Hansen doesn’t have any data his models say temps are going through the roof. Not a believable lie, except it gives cover to lame brain journalists and politicians. And he can measure global temps to within .1 degree to demonstrate that the last decade was the hottest ever recorded……well at least warmer than the decades that Hansen adjusted the temps down for. But anyway saving the planet requires that the ends justify the means.
Hansen is wrong
Until the 1990’s, it was thought that climate changed slowly, over the course of centuries.
When ice cores were studied, the shock came that climate changed dramatically over very short time periods: within 10 years.
tty says:
December 9, 2011 at 4:07 am
Think about it, do you think that a 1 degree higher temperature would be enough for:
– hippopotamus in Yorkshire
– water buffaloes on the Rhine
– monkeys in Bavaria
– capybaras in Florida
– forests on the arctic coast of Siberia
all of which happened during the last interglacial
Not forgetting the contents of the stomachs and gullets of the flash frozen Mammoths in northern Siberia that belong to this interglacial, just prior to the Younger Dryas…
Kevin MacDonald says:
“Stawman, Hansen doesn’t claim that it has warmed a tenth of a degree in the last decade, a decadal rate of change refers to the mean and that is not required to be met in every decade to be true.
So, “now” doesn’t have to include the last and current decade? How many decades of a different rate does it take for the decadal rate to be in question? How many years of divergence is required before the entire CO2 driven global average temperature hypothesis is declared worthless?
IMO, it is inherently dishonest to claim an average rate over a long time span is happening “now” as opposed to happened even if it were not stalled, to say it’s happening is a statement of faith not science, and zohnerism.
This Geologist is embarrassed by such foolishness. This is not science and shows no true understanding of geologic time either. The ancients called it Metaphysics, the moderns call it Cosmology. You can call it anything you can get away with except science.
If temperatures have risen so much, please explain why for the past 10 years we have had the best skiing in the past 50 years in the pacific northwest. The only poor year was the 2008, when it rained solid for 2 months Jan-Feb which warmed things up. 50 years ago we got rained out much more often than now.
It seems much more likely that temperatures have risen where thermometers are located, which seems likely as they tend to located where people are using energy, land and water, which cannot help but have some effect.
As far as the changes being unusual, there is no way for Hansen to demonstrate this is true. There are no proxies as sensitive as thermometers which we can compare to thermometers. It is an apples to oranges comparison.
We do know from the paleo records than temperature swings greater than 2C have occurred over periods that may be as short as a few decades, but it is hard to know this with confidence. The paleo temperature proxies simply don’t have that sort of time resolution.
“same-o, same-o”
I think you mean “same old”, as in “same old stuff, nothing new”.
Anthony,
After reading the 9 December 2011 post, I was struck by the similarity to Harold Camping’s prediction and response. I thought, what if this James E. Hansen is really a smart guy, and a good guy, but feels his impending mortality so strongly that he is projecting it into his work. So I asked “my friend” google about “doomsday prediction mortality psychology”. Among the responses was “http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doomsday_cult”.
Social scientists have found that while some group members will leave after the date for a doomsday prediction by the leader has passed uneventfully, others actually feel their belief and commitment to the group strengthened.[27] Often when a group’s doomsday prophesies or predictions fail to come true, the group leader will simply set a new date for impending doom, or predict a different type of catastrophe on a different date.[27] Niederhoffer and Kenner attribute this motivation of the charismatic leader to maintain a consistent belief structure as due to a desire to save sunk cost: “When you have gone far out on a limb and so many people have followed you, and there is much “sunk cost,” as economists would say, it is difficult to admit you have been wrong.”[28] In Experiments With People: Revelations from Social Psychology, Abelson, Frey and Gregg explain this further: “..continuing to proselytize on behalf of a doomsday cult whose prophecies have been disconfirmed, although it makes little logical sense, makes plenty of psychological sense if people have already spent months proselytizing on the cult’s behalf. Persevering allows them to avoid the embarrassment of how wrong they were in the first place.”[29] The common-held belief in a catastrophic event occurring on a future date can have the effect of ingraining followers with a sense of uniqueness and purpose.[27][30] In addition, after a failed prophesy members may attempt to explain the outcome through rationalization and dissonance reduction.[21][31][32] Explanations may include stating that the group members had misinterpreted the leader’s original plan, that the cataclysmic event itself had been postponed to a later date by the leader, or that the activities of the group itself had forestalled disaster.[21] In the case of the Festinger study, when the prophecy of a cataclysmic flood was proved false, the members pronounced that their faith in God had prevented the event.[24] They then proceeded to attempt to convert new members with renewed strength.[24]
Notice any similarities? Maybe one of your readers can shed some more light on the subject, however it seems to me that the discussion may have moved from hard science to the ephemeral stuff of belief. Perhaps John Lofland at UC Davis can explain what may be happening?
1. Temperature in central Greenland
Column 1: Age (thousand years before present)
Column 2: Temperature in central Greenland (degrees C)
Age Temperature (C)
0.0951409 -31.5913
7.74695 -29.1532
Last reading about 100 years ago? So now about 30.5913.
ftp://ftp.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/paleo/icecore/greenland/summit/gisp2/isotopes/gisp2_temp_accum_alley2000.txt
“P Wilson says:
December 9, 2011 at 7:23 am
Hansen is wrong. Until the 1990′s, it was thought that climate changed slowly, over the course of centuries. When ice cores were studied, the shock came that climate changed dramatically over very short time periods: within 10 years.”
Hansen got his degree before the 1990’s. He is believes what he was taught. The error must be in the new study, not in his beliefs.
Hansen has overwhelmed the natural slow changes in science that occur on a rational timescale.
================
Question from a Fine Arts Major.
Why are RSS and UAH lower trop global so different?
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/uah/mean:12/plot/rss/from:2001/trend/plot/uah/from:2001/trend
How are we doing on Hansen’s other famous prediction? Is the water over the highway outside his office? In 20+ years can anyone in NY see any difference?
Anyone can make predictions. There is no shortage of quack theories. What is the difference between AGW and Relativity? AGW on occasion can be shown to be right. Relativity has never been shown to be wrong. I have a broken watch that has on occasion been shown to be right. Does that make it any good for determining what time it is?
It isn’t the number of times a theory is shown to be right that is important. Any theory that has been shown to be wrong ONE TIME is a failed theory. Current temperatures, especially Argo and the satellites, which are largely outside of Hansen’s control, have shown AGW is not correct. The model projections completely missed the mark post 2000.
GISS temperatures are going up because Hansen expects them to and he is controlling the experiment. It is called the experimenter-expectation effect. It is well known outside of climate science. When Columbus sailed to discover a new route to India, he discovered Indians.
Steve Garcia says:
December 9, 2011 at 7:02 am
I’m surprised that no one else pointed this out:
The average global surface temperature of Earth has risen by .8 degrees Celsius since 1880, and is now increasing at a rate of about .1 degree Celsius per decade. This image shows how 2010 temperatures compare to average temperatures from a baseline period of 1951-1980, as analyzed by scientists at NASAs Goddard Institute for Space Studies. Credit: NASA GISS
Notice the cherry-picked baseline period, 1950-1980, which was the cool cycle of the mid-1900s.
—
No, this wasn’t cherry-picked. You see, the period 1950-1980 corresponds to the childhood and young adult periods of most of these climate scientists’ lives. And, as they remember those days, they were the ideal climate period for ALL of human history! Our climate CAN NOT GET ANY BETTER THAN THAT WHICH WE HAD FROM 1950 – 1980!! That is why it is considered the “norm”. Anything different is “anomalous”. And “anomalous” is BAD! Right? And humans MUST now adopt insane sacrifices* to put our climate back to the halcyon days of 1950 – 1980. That’s what Durban is all about…
* Please remember that sacrifices do NOT apply to climate scientists, particularly their research and travel budgets, modes of transportation, salaries, benefits, and other forms of income, all of which generally obtained by taxation of the commoners.
How many large grass land warm blooded aminals where on planet earth say about 40,000 years ago. How many trees, how many things in the seas. All of them giving off their fair share of CO2.
Compare and Contrast those numbers with we later day warm blooded aminals even together with the boost of fosil fuels.
Why is there not evidence of “warm blooded Billions and Billions of aminals” causeing a “WBB&BoA” global warming event in the climate records.
There CO2 grant seekers an new line to cash idea.
David Chamness says:December 9, 2011 at 7:12 am
Exactly correct. Did you work in Ft. Collins, CO in the 80s, making ICs? I knew a fellow there of the same name back then.
Regardless of what many eminent people think the peak sea-level of the `last interglacial`/MIS 5e or 5.5, ~ 124 ka is not known definitively. Insufficient attention has been paid to short and long term tectonics driven by variability in Earth`s mantle which means that the geological evidence for that sea-level may be found at different elevations above or below present sea-level
He is a coyote howling at the moon. President Obama and everyone in government should be deeply embarrassed.
From Hansen’s political perspective, he is running up a trial balloon to see who among the media will bite. If someone bites, he will begin a new howl.
The whole thing is beneath contempt.