From Simon Fraser University, a new paper says that the Canucks may as well just give up, because its going to warm up no matter what they do. Using powerful new geographic mapping tools on a big screen Mac and a #2 pencil, geographer Kirsten Zickfeld has it all figured out. This is apparently what will cause an end to outdoor ice hockey in Canada.
Warming of 2 degrees inevitable over Canada
Even if zero emissions of greenhouse gases were to be achieved, the world’s temperature would continue to rise by about a quarter of a degree over a decade. That’s a best-case scenario, according to a paper co-written by a Simon Fraser University researcher.
New climate change research – Climate response to zeroed emissions of greenhouse gases and aerosols — published in Nature’s online journal, urges the public, governments and industries to wake up to a harsh new reality.
“Let’s be honest, it’s totally unrealistic to believe that we can stop all emissions now,” says Zickfeld, an assistant professor of geography at SFU. “Even with aggressive greenhouse gas mitigation, it will be a challenge to keep the projected global rise in temperature under 2 degrees Celsius,” emphasizes Zickfeld.
The geographer wrote the paper with Damon Matthews, a University of Concordia associate professor at the Department of Geography, Planning and Environment.
The duo used an earth system climate model developed by the University of Victoria to study the impact of greenhouse gas and aerosol emissions on the world’s climate. The study was based on emission levels that are consistent with data from the 2007 report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
The removal of aerosols from the atmosphere would cause additional global warming in the short term, if all of those emissions were removed now. “The widespread presence of aerosols in the Earth’s atmosphere is effectively acting like a solar radiation blocking blanket right now,” explains Zickfeld.
“It’s preventing the Earth’s temperature from responding to the real effects of global warming. But once that aerosol-based blanket is removed the temperature will rise.”
Due to the emission of greenhouse gases, the world’s temperature has warmed by almost 1 ° C since the beginning of the industrial era. The study finds that elimination of all emissions would lead to an additional short-term warming by 0.25 to 0.5 degrees.
“One to 1.5 degrees of global warming may not seem like a great deal,” says Zickfeld. “But we need to realize that the warming would not be distributed equally over the globe, with mid to high latitude regions such as Canada, Alaska, northeastern Europe, Russia and northern China being most strongly affected.
“Our research shows that as a result of past emissions, a warming of at least 2 ° C will be unavoidable in those regions.”
Backgrounder: Study a first on many levels
This study is the first to find that if all greenhouse gas and aerosol emissions were halted now the Earth’s temperature would actually continue to rise by a few tenths of a degree over the next 10 years. Then it would begin to cool by a few tenths of a degree, coming down to its current level after about a century.
During the warming period the Earth’s temperature would rise to roughly 1.3-Celsius degrees higher than it was at the beginning of the industrial era.
In the northern hemisphere that peak temperature would be closer to 2 degrees higher. The reason is that the warming is not distributed equally over the globe, and is amplified at high latitudes.
“Two degrees is pretty significant,” notes Zickfeld, “when you consider the global temperature was only five degrees colder than today’s during the ice age.”
A decrease in greenhouse gases with short atmospheric lifetimes, such as methane and nitrous oxide, will cause the planet to gradually cool off after the warming phase.
The atmospheric concentration of long-lived greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide determines the world’s long-term temperature.
This study is also the first to quantify the extent to which past greenhouse gas and aerosol emissions will warm oceans, causing them to rise. Zickfeld and Matthews found emissions to date will lead to about a 25 centimeters sea level rise in 2200, and the sea level will continue to rise for several centuries after that date.
The study doesn’t analyse the impact of other factors, such as melting glaciers and ice sheets, on sea levels. These factors are expected to accelerate sea level rise further.
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Contact:
Kirsten Zickfeld, 778.782.9047 (w), 604.354.6214 (cell), kzickfel@sfu.ca; Vancouver resident, originally from Germany
Carol Thorbes, PAMR, 778.782.3035, cthorbes@sfu.ca
Note: Please contact the researcher directly for interviews and copy of paper
It is interesting that if believers from a soft science like geography write a paper that promotes AGW hype, it gets published in Nature as a great breakthrough. But if physicists or geololists write a paper doubting AGW alarmism, they are dismissed as non-experts and paid schills.
The lack of critical thinking, and the obvious rent seeking by scholars like Zickfeld in tying her specialty- geography to climate predictions only shows that Gleick, and the sad support he receives from believers, is a symptom of a deep failure of ethics and norms.
Before I read any comments, let me say that the temperature here in Ottawa varies from -30C to +30C each six months, so two degrees is diddly squat … Hey, we’ll just move North a couple of hundred miles. And, what’s more, the second largest country, and one of the largest agriculture producers, might even get two growing seasons, and have vastly more land become arable.
Wot’s up with that!
John F. Hultquist says:
March 7, 2012 at 5:42 am
The local B.C. area is a hotbed of the hot-house (aka greenhouse) industry and they use . . .
Bud long ago replaced lumber as BC’s number 1 export crop. Nothing to do with global warming. The softwood lumber agreement forced the BC lumber industry to close and sell their mills and timber rights to the US. Unemployed BC loggers responded by converting their attics to hydroponics and driving the California pot industry out of business. This saved the housing market in BC while California lead the collapse in the US. For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.
rilfeld says:
March 7, 2012 at 5:51 am
“It’s OK. They play hockey indoors nowadays. Of course, the same computer model probably shows Toronto winning the cup.”
Probably the same models that said Tampa Bay could never win a Cup. Perhaps ya’ll up there should follow Vinny, Marty, Stammer & Guy and come on down.here. Another Cup coming soon to this area!
Is this the same alarmism language used about the oceans getting more acidic, when they are in fact only becoming more neutral.
As in, Cananda is not really getting warmer just not as damned cold.
I guess it is all relative to your baseline for panic and alarm!
Or the need to gain green grant dollars………………..
Surely “Climate response to zeroed emissions of greenhouse gases and aerosols” should have been entitled “University of Victoria’s climate model response to IPCC 2007 simulated data input and modelled responses to non-increases/decreases in programmed variables” I know it’s not as catchy but at least it’s accurate?
Perhaps I could get a grant on modelling the survival vectors dependant on starting criteria in Valve’s Left 4 Dead computer programme? I’m sure I could add in climate change somewhere……..
YES! A warmer Canada coming up and there’s beggar-all anyone can do anything to stop it anyway, so let’s drill, burn and be merry!
Paul Linsay says:
March 7, 2012 at 7:43 am
What’s this woman going on about? My late mother in law lived in Miami just north of Miami Beach. In the winter the place was so full of people from Quebec I had to learn how to say ‘Ay’ in French.
Clearly, hockey puck close watch on that word of yours. The spelling of the Canucklehead Sigh is “eh”, eh? Perhaps the Quebecois Twinge puts a bit of a zonk on your perceptions, eh? No worries, eh? Be thankful that those Miami invaders weren’t Newfoundlanders…becuz, Large e’s, ye’d be havin’ a toime of ‘er, eh?
I did a quick experiment using the deep-freezer out in my garage. I nudged the thermostat in it up two degrees.
Lo and behold, the stash of deer-meat from my brother-in-law that I keep out there REMAINED FROZEN.
I was gobsmacked.
The constant focus on the arctic region as being “hard hit” by climate change is preposterous. I don’t know of a single living thing in the Arctic that feeds on ice and thrives on cold. All animals in the arctic that even bother to stay in the arctic during the winetr, like all animals in the Antarctic, use the summers to bulk up in order to withstand the long winter hardship.
Milder winters in the arctic would result in the exact same reaction in polar species that a mild winter has with species all over the globe: population boom. Polar winters are an obstacle to survival that polar species have adapted to, but polar winters don’t, and never will, AID in any living thing’s survival.
I have read this article and the comments thereafter. Many of the commenter seem to like to slam the field of geography. Unfortunately, the field has been populated by many in the non-hardcore science fields in the past 40 years. But many geographers have very technical science in their backgrounds. They usually go out into the working world and apply their training. These “geographers” reflect the modern academic world. This is why students are not learning good scientific methods and applications. It also reflects where the money is.
I am trying in my “retirement” to give the ability of college students to be able to look at thing critically in all aspects of their lives. This includes looking at all sides of an issue. Then to make their own view points. But look at things very very logically (difficult for most to do) and critically.
I see from the comments that geography is thought of as a “soft science”. But realize that almost all sciences (including the hard sciences) have originated from geography in the past (beyond anyone’s life time here).
A red flag for anyone who is tempted to believe in CAGW should be that according to CAGW orthodoxy, nowhere on earth is better with warming. Not northern Canada. Not Siberia. Nowhere.
That makes perfect sense. When you perform a cost/benefit analysis, just be sure to leave out the “benefit” portion. I don’t think I’ve seen a single study or article that attempts to take into account or quantify benefits that could result from increased temperatures.
Unrelated question: What is the response to the argument that the temperature rise is being masked by aresols?
“Give up”? I would think they would celebrate!
I figured it out!
I KNOW why Canada will fry!
I KNOW why the Artic ice cap will melt and pitch cuddly wuddly poley bears into the wasser!
Its obvious isnt it?
Dont be unkind to me, its only cos you didnt think of it first.
Its because …………hot air rises…. muhahahaha!
I could be a climate scientist at UEA or Penn State!
Fame, riches and fortune now await!
Reading between the lines of this study I think there is a greater worldwide disaster brewing.
It appears temperatures are dangerously climbing within computers. Having just experienced overheating of my own computer which resulted in constant crashing and loss of data, this could be the precursor for a complete global computer meltdown over this next century.
Maybe this is what the models are trying to tell us in their own way, and we’re simply misinterpreting their signals to us.
A global computer meltdown would be even more catastrophic than a few warmer winter days in Canada.
Proof of how serious this situation is? My computer just told me (via a quick Google search) there are 149,000 results for “computer is overheating” while there are only 7,130 hits for “world is overheating.”
What more proof do we need?
Just looked up the temps for my favorite Canadian fishing hole. Record high was in 2001. Record Low in 2003. Based on the same scientific standards as this report, there is a sharp downward trend detected.
Seriously, this looks just like the Austrailians hyping drought. But in the event they are right, there will be even more arable land and chaper food for more population. Worst case is it balances out. How disappointing.
“I don’t know of a single living thing in the Arctic that feeds on ice and thrives on cold.”
http://tinyurl.com/7dtagy6
Here in southern Manitoba, where we’ve had one of our warmest (and most enjoyable) winters in many years, probably 4-5C above normal, most of the outdoor rinks are still in use. As is the Real longest ice skating rink in the world on Winnipeg’s 2 major rivers, not Ottawa’s Rideau canal. Theirs is wider, ours is longer so it all comes back to that size thing. 🙂 So should we worry about an imaginary long term 2C? Certainly not here. Most of us would welcome it.
“Maybe this is what the models are trying to tell us in their own way, and we’re simply misinterpreting their signals to us.”
Finally. After. All. These. Years. One. Of. You. Understands.
What me worry?
Seriously, everything ‘predicted’ is within normal variability.
A little warmer in Canada? This would mean that Canada might be able to grow a little more of their own food. So, what’s not to like about that? Warmer has historically always been better than colder. Better hope the sun cycle does not accomplish what it looks like it’s going to or we may actually be in for a real climate disaster.
jeff said: “I don’t think I’ve seen a single study or article that attempts to take into account or quantify benefits that could result from increased temperatures.”
Jeff, jeff, you need to take climate sciece a little more seriously and to at least pretend to have some sympathy for us Canadians up here as we howl with terror at the immanent arrival of warmer winters. By a whopping two degrees, no less. And yes, there are studies and disaster projections, such as millions of additional hectares of wheat polluting our landscape and catastrophic social disintegration with the predicted loss of outdoor ice rinks in Southern Ontario.
So Zickfeld is from SFU. Perhaps she should SFU.
But … she looks so sincere …
By the way, where are all the alarmist trolls who should be jumping to her defence, has she even embarrassed them?
saltspringson says:
March 7, 2012 at 8:42 am
It’s worse than we thought. Overheating PCs is one thing, but overheating laptops is where the danger lurks. When placed in the manner suggested by their name, these devices have been over-heating many a family jewel, leading to lower sperm counts.
Enjoy your beautiful SSI, btw. Haven’t been back in 3 years, but have inlaws there on the water side of Roland Road. If wife and kids cajole me into joining them for their annual trip there, I’d love to meet for a beer in Ganges!