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.
— 30 —
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
To echo the other Canadians who’ve posted eloquent comments, Canada wants warming!!! 2c? Nah! Bring the tropics to the great white north please! If they won’t make The Turks and Caicos Islands part of Canada (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turks_and_Caicos_Islands#Proposed_union_with_Canada) then bring the tropics on with this imagined Canadian Warming! PLEASE!
By the way a 2c warming in Canada wouldn’t even melt a snow man let alone an ice rink. While it would warm Vancouver up a bit, 2c isn’t much at all, we’d need more like a 10c winter warmup. Other parts of Canada would need a 20c to 30c warmup or more just to get to a balmy 0c.
Anybody who uses IPCC-type models to forecast climate (and all Zickfeld is doing is playing with the aerosol forcings) is committing omitted variable fraud. They assume in the parameterization of their models that the sun has 1/14th the effect on climate that CO2 does, despite the mountain of evidence that solar activity is the primary driver of climate, evidence that is not even mentioned in the IPCC reports. All they look at is the evidence for particular possible mechanisms by which a solar driver might operate, declare this evidence to be slight, and use that as an excuse for omitting the massive evidence that some such mechanism is at work.
In other words, they use their opinion of particular theories as a grounds for dismissing evidence, exactly inverting the scientific method, which demands that empirical evidence always trump theory. They are pure definitional anti-scientists, and this Zickfeld woman is typical of the breed. They are like amoebae dividing in a culture dish, fattened from the alarmist-establishment’s tens of billions to proliferate applications of the established fraudulent model, extrapolating it to new supposed threats or, in Zickfeld’s case, adapting it to try to evade the ever more obvious falsification of the alarmist model as the lack of global warming continues.
Aerosols are hiding the warming! It’s old and busted, but more importantly, the underlying model is already falsified by its total failure to account well evidenced solar effects on climate. It is a FRAUD, and so is everyone who uses it.
As long as there is public funding of research like this. The research will ALWAYS end up with a result that will require more public funding.
They will never allow a result that says “Nope, nothing really going on here.”
This is Big Science
If that is true (which I doubt), then the solution to warming is obvious: add more aerosols to the atmosphere to counteract additional CO2. Wouldn’t that be a better solution than shutting down industry and plunging us all back to the stone age? We seem to be doing just fine with the “aerosol-based blanket” we have in place now. Why remove it?
“Doctor it hurts when I do this.”
“Then stop doing it!”
pwl says
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/03/07/give-up-canada-youre-toast/#comment-915304
it is not going to happen
http://www.letterdash.com/HenryP/henrys-pool-table-on-global-warming
She also predicted in thirty years time skiing on the mountains above Vancouver and at Whistler will get a might rocky. Might not be a good idea to buy one of those overpriced condo’s at Whistler.
This is also the area of Andrew Weaver, David Suzuki and the carbon tax which diverts money to fancy resorts for energy efficiency. Also the BC government gives out 5000 dollars to the buyers of 100,000 dollar electric vehicles.
“Wouldn’t that be a better solution than shutting down industry and plunging us all back to the stone age?”
You are thinking rationally. Enviro-activists (which is what this study is, it’s not science) do not think that way. To them Man and Nature cannot co-exist. Only by diminishing man, can Nature truly be ‘protected’. So shutting down industry and plunging us all back to the stone age IS the goal. In their utopian fantasy minds, that was the only time in history that Man and Nature truly co-existed
They WANT to destroy industry, that is the whole point behind this AGW hysteria. Before you can destroy something, you must control that something.
My first question would be: why all of a sudden all these reports coming out of my native land?
Would it have something to do with the federal budget and ways and means coming at the end of this month? Does it have something to do with “adjustments” to funding and the tax free status of certain institutions? In fact, the Univ. of Victoria has a whole bunch of institutes and “Centres”:
UVic Research Initiatives
Some of the campus research institutes that emphasize sustainability include:
BC Institute for Cooperative Studies
Office of Community-Based Research
Centre for Earth and Ocean Research
Centre for Forest Biology
Centre for Global Studies
Climate Modelling Group
Community Health Promotion Research
Innovation and Development Corporation
Integrated Energy Systems
NEPTUNE
POLIS Project on Ecological Governance
Pacific Climate Impacts Consortium
Pacific Institute For Climate Solutions
VENUS
Water and Climate Impacts Research Centre From their website: http://web.uvic.ca/sustainability/research.php
Most of these “Research” facilities are funded at least in part by Environment Canada.
Since their budget will almost certainly get a “haircut”, guess what is going to happen to all these institutes of lower learning? Not only in Victoria but across this warming country.
Reply to ‘Anopheles’, re. Canadians moving north (4.55 am):
“Land is cheap up there, and there is a lot of it.” No, actually the earth gets thinner as you approach the north pole (scientific fact). Not only will Canadians be dying of heatstroke, they’ll be crammed together. It’ll be like Bangladesh up there.
Seen from Australia, an extra 2 or 3 degrees of temperature seems to be just what Canada needs to make its climate more liveable. They could do with a fair bit more in winter too. Bring on the SUV’s and A/C Units, I say.
This lady is pictured wearing a cardigan while pointing to either Iran or Canada displayed on a very sophisticated computer screen with an implement which demonstrates she can use the writing and numbers. I’m convinced.
the question not one single person can answer is this: why did emmissions of CO2, methane, and other greenhouse gasses not decline during the great recession. Industrial production, vehicle miles, etc etc all declined the most (%) in 70 years. So wheres the blip in CO2 from 2008-2010?! None. not there.
At best, this means that even if humans are causing CO2 to rise, carbon taxes and cap and trade wont effect it because the largest decline in energy use in a generation did nada.zip zilch.
At worst, it means no one has any idea why CO2 is rising.
Incidentally, the rate of rise (about .42% annually) is lower than population growth or world GDP growth.
I’d love to hear some serious theories. This is a serious, serious flaw.
Most Canadians I know, and plenty in this comment page, would love a bit of Warming.
As for ice-hockey, the kids can find something else to do, and why grown-ups should care is beyond me.
Hasn’t anybody told geographers yet that since the advent of GPS and Google Earth, they”re now completely irrelevant?
The worst thing is that she may actually believe all she says in the paper
Its Gaia’s will, or something. If we Canadians would only repent and clean up that massive oilspill at Fort McMurray all will be forgiven. Tough decision who can we sell the waste oil to? After all someone needs to pay for our saintly conduct in clensing the stained sands of this foul pollutant.Once we do this sanity will return to our deranged allocades of Muther Erff. and ice hockey can return to the frozen ponds. Do I need sarc on/off?
@geography lady.
Good points! Indeed the new science has parachuted “climatologists” everywhere usually with no degree in the field but an appetite for revolution. It is in fact hilarious to see that it was geographers such as Martine Tabeaud who debunked the claims of water shortage due to himalayan glaciers melting against the IPCC BS…
Let’s not poke fun at the pencil. This is almost certainly just some photographers idea of what would make a good picture. We are all vulnerable to photographers with strange ideas about what makes a good picture getting us to do silly things.
The geography lady is relying on people at the University of Victoria like Andrew Weaver, whom I believe is one of the folks suing Tim Ball. Andrew Weaver a strong warmist advocate and a Climate Modeller. Listening to him talk is frightening, and not because of his technical knowledge. At least that is my personal opinion, having heard him a number of times.
Anyone relying on UVIC information on climate has been sniffing the Lotus blossoms.
Just back from skiing in 44 inches of fresh snow today in Banff, Alberta and heading out again tomorrow. Got 18 inches on the farm this week. Looks like “weather” to me.
I used to live in Vancouver – we used to say that the rain causes brains to get covered with moss and go mouldy – it’s why we call the Lower Mainland Lotus Land – the people in the Vancouver Metropolitan area live in a climate that is conducive to a different way of seeing the world.
Just hope the Harper Conservative government doesn’t get to hear about this or they’ll be shutting down the Alberta oilsands, rejoining Kyoto, teaming up with the Brits by floating wind turbines across the North Atlantic and inviting the Liberals to come back and bring their carbon tax with them.
I guess the only way to get ahead in our universities now is to be firmly on the AGW bandwagon, even if it has lost 3 of it’s 4 wheels and all the horses are lying down dead.
And my son wants to go to UVIC. I just hope he doesn’t choose to join this bozo’s department.
Just hope the Harper Conservative government doesn’t get to hear about this or they’ll be shutting down the Alberta oilsands, rejoining Kyoto, teaming up with the Brits by floating wind turbines across the North Atlantic and inviting the Liberals to come back and bring their carbon tax with them.
I guess the only way to get ahead in our universities now is to be firmly on the AGW bandwagon, even if it has lost 3 of it’s 4 wheels and all the horses are lying down dead.
And my son wants to go to UVIC. I just hope he doesn’t get tangled up with this bozo.
As CO2 is supposedly 95%+ natural and we could only stop producing the remaining 5% or so, how would this stop the world from heating/cooling as she is predicting (or is this another ‘scenario’?).
Also, as the IPCC does not perform any original research, why is this supposed professional using secondary sources as inputs to her model? Shouldn’t she be quoting the original sources?
The picture reminds me of the test card picture the BBC used many years ago…. Ah in the days of good telly. http://www.bing.com/images/search?q=test+card&view=detail&id=127B88FBE0F2CF0E8ED12C3FE370C2FAF3EAC928&first=0
Anything is possible says:
March 7, 2012 at 10:35 am
Very nice! (minor correction above).
May I suggest you complete this and send to Minnesotans 4 Global Warming?