While my favorite tweet this morning called climate “the third rail” (i.e. don’t touch the electrified rail or it will kill your presidential bid, there’s even a Wiki entry on it) the reality seems to be simply that it is too late to do much about ‘GHG induced climate change’.
From the University of the Witwatersrand
Too late to stop global warming by cutting emissions
Scientists argue for adaption policies
Governments and institutions should focus on developing adaption policies to address and mitigate against the negative impact of global warming, rather than putting the emphasis on carbon trading and capping greenhouse-gas emissions, argue Johannesburg-based Wits University geoscientist Dr Jasper Knight and Dr Stephan Harrison from the University of Exeter in the United Kingdom.
“At present, governments’ attempts to limit greenhouse-gas emissions through carbon cap-and-trade schemes and to promote renewable and sustainable energy sources are prob¬ably too late to arrest the inevitable trend of global warming,” the scientists write in a paper published online in the scientific journal, Nature Climate Change, on Monday, 14 October 2012.
The paper, entitled The Impacts of climate change on terrestrial Earth surface systems, is published in the Perspective section of Nature Climate Change and argues that much less attention is paid by policymakers to monitor, model and manage the impacts of climate change on the dynamics of Earth surface systems, including glaciers, rivers, mountains and coasts. “This is a critical omission, as Earth surface systems provide water and soil resources, sustain ecosystem services and strongly influence biogeochemical climate feedbacks in ways that are as yet uncertain,” the scientists write.
Knight and Harrison want governments to focus more on adaption policies because future impacts of global warming on land-surface stability and the sediment fluxes associated with soil erosion, river down-cutting and coastal erosion are relevant to sustainability, biodiversity and food security. Monitoring and modelling soil erosion loss, for example, are also means by which to examine problems of carbon and nutri¬ent fluxes, lake eutrophication, pollutant and coliform dispersal, river siltation and other issues. An Earth-systems approach can actively inform on these cognate areas of environmental policy and planning.
According to the scientists, Earth surface systems’ sensitivity to climate forcing is still poorly understood. Measuring this geomorphological sensi¬tivity will identify those systems and environments that are most vulnerable to climatic disturbance, and will enable policymakers and managers to prioritise action in these areas.
“This is particularly the case in coastal environments, where rocky and sandy coastlines will yield very different responses to climate forcing, and where coastal-zone management plans are usually based on past rather than future climatic patterns,” they argue.
The recent Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change special report on extreme events and disasters and the forthcoming fifth assessment report, due 2013, include more explicit statements of the role of Earth surface systems in responding to and influencing climate forcing.
“However, monitoring of the response of these systems to climate forcing requires decadal-scale data sets of instrumented basins and under different climatic regimes worldwide. This will require a con-siderable international science effort as well as commitment from national governments,” Knight and Harrison urge.
Link to the paper: http://www.nature.com/nclimate/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nclimate1660.html
ABOUT DR JASPER KNIGHT
Dr Jasper Knight is a Senior Lecturer in Physical Geography in the School of Geography, Archaeology and Environmental Studies at Wits University in Johannesburg, South Africa. As a geoscientist, Knight’s research interests are on landscape responses to climate change during the last 15 000 years. He focusses on glaciers, coasts and mountains and their responses to climate change. Geographically, his focus is on the UK and Ireland, northwest USA, Australia, the European Alps, New Zealand, Spain and southern Africa.
Pardon if this reply appears twice.. the first appears lost to me.
You guys still aren’t getting it. The idea is to regulate carbon on a carbon based planet. Co2 was just the in. The truly scary part is “calculating your carbon footprint” .. that means they can tax you for everything you do, eat or breathe.. I’m pretty sure that agenda is slithering by unnoticed at the moment, waiting for the sky is falling, pass this now mentality to be evoked. .
“Governments and institutions should focus on developing adaption policies to address and mitigate against the negative impact of global warming”
Next step: React to things that really happen and build a dike, dig a canal, drill through a mountain, move when the water is too high or when there is too little of it, etcetera, just like we did the past thousands of years. That’s what always has worked and what will work in the future.
People are an adaptive and inventive species,
quite capable of making and keeping places livable.
So Mr president, what is your plan for mitigating the effects of no temperature increase in 16 years?
“Great” I say. That means we can stop talking about it and move on.
According to the Democrats, the Grand Canyon is Bush’s fault.
“Monitoring and modelling soil erosion loss, for example, are also means by which to examine problems of carbon and nutri¬ent fluxes, lake eutrophication, pollutant and coliform dispersal, river siltation and other issues.”
Other issues? The ones mentioned (as fabricated as they are…) aren’t enough? Hmmmm, yes, let’s get after developing a coliform dispersal model….then we can fertilize oceans and watch the pretty colors.
Hansen and cronies told us human-caused global warming was happening, and we had to act now to cut CO₂ levels to stop it, before it became catastrophic.
As seen by the rising atmospheric CO₂ concentrations, we have done nothing. In response, global warming stopped.
Now we are told the global warming is unstoppable, it will continue even if we cut emissions, so we are left with adaptation. We know global warming is unstoppable as science luminaries from Al Gore to Prince Charles told us we only had X days to act to stop it before COP (fill in the number), or by voting for this piece of legislation, or before or by (fill in the blank). And we didn’t act. The deadlines passed. Therefore it is unstoppable and will continue, even if it has stopped.
Somewhere someone tried folding the (C)AGW paradigm back onto itself, and didn’t notice the logic break when it snapped.
Wow “geomorphological sensitivity”. That phrase will surely keep me up late tonight.
/sarc
“Too late to stop global warming by cutting emissions…”
Lets expand that for you. What it’s ‘too late for’ is that it’s too late to make vast sums out of schemes to cut emissions. People have cottoned on to that scam. And the temperature isn’t supporting us any more.
So we need to move onto the next scam – making lots of money by selling fake schemes to ‘adapt’ to climate change. With any luck we can milk that for longer….
They have begun to notice, that we have begun to notice that World temperatures have not gone up as they forecast and indeed have not gone up for 16 years or so. To salvage anything from their self-made disaster they have to embark on a new variant of the original scam. The climate scientists are beginning to wake up and have seen the writing on the wall. The World is bankrupt! The World hasn’t the money to fund pointless climate schemes. They hope to switch to equally useless adaption technologies to continue the flow of subsidies from a UN sponsored Climate Adaption Committee. Your taxes may be at work again creating further mischief.
What are the negative impacts of global warming? Less ferocious polar bears? Less icebergs to sink ships? Different beachfront property? Less reliance on fossil fuels for heating homes in the winter? Less tornadoes and hurricanes? Longer growing seasons and larger crop yields? I’m terrified!!!!
Zeke says:
“Repackaging wind and solar as bringing “energy independence” was the sales pitch made during the debates…..”
Associating wind and solar with energy independence is utterly ridiculous. If one takes the time to look at the Energy Information Agency’s website (www.EIA.gov), you can see that ALMOST NONE of the crude oil we import is used to generate electricity. And you can’t run your car or truck on wind and solar unless you happen to have an electric one that can plug into a outlet that provides juice from a wind or solar farm I suppose. But you probably won’t get that far on one charge, and electric cars have never taken off in the automobile market anyway—not even the Chevy Volt. Plus you can’t easy recharge away from home. I have yet to see a recharging station anywhere I’ve driven in my state.
The deception from the Green Movement almost makes me sick.
Thanks to natural gas and the market, US emissions of CO2 are at 1992 levels. http://bigstory.ap.org/article/ap-impact-co2-emissions-us-drop-20-year-low
Government keeps picking losers (Solyndra and A123, electric car battery manufacturer) when it should get out of the way. Without market distortions, the US might have millions of natural gas cars, like the natural-gas powered Honda Civic, for which Honda is offering a $3000 incentive. Natural gas is clean, plentiful, and inexpensive at $2 a gallon; it has the fewest externalities of any fuel source. Without market distortions, we might have been well on our way to energy independence and free of foreign oil.
Thanks government!
Jarmo says: October 17, 2012 at 10:28 am
Anybody with grade school calculus and ….
I’ve been out of school for a long time; but grade school calculus. Times have really changed.
”Green energy” is just another name for ”laundering taxpayer’s money”
More CO2 + water vapor in the air = healthier and more productive crops and trees.
Governments should do absolutely nothing, but let the market decide. Market solutions are far more adaptable and ingenious than governments ever can be. As has been noted, look at Obama’s record – all his ‘green’ interventionist choices have failed or are failing.
So basically it’s too late to do anything to prevent that thing that doesn’t appear to be noticeable or causing any serious problems, so instead we must apply vast resources to adapt to the thing that doesn’t appear to be noticeable or causing any serious problems.
I don’t *ever* want to hear the question “why do people distrust scientists” again. Ever.
If you want trust, be trustworthy. It’s not rocket science.
Seems that the authors have decided to vote for the “adaptation” rather than the “dirty weather” meme, Trenberth & Gore are pushing the latter, not so many (yet) attempting to hijack the former?
The Matthew England approach. Suddenly discovering earth systems as if this is something new, but morphing it with ” … future impacts of global warming on land-surface stability .. ” [oops – GW instead of CC] and “Earth surface systems’ sensitivity to climate forcing is still poorly understood.”
“This is particularly the case in coastal environments, where rocky and sandy coastlines will yield very different responses to climate forcing, and where coastal-zone management plans are usually based on past rather than future climatic patterns,”
Wow. Is this supposed to be some sort of revelation?
Tens of thousands of people have been studying coastal geomorphology for decades … centuries …
The rent seekers are still in town, but have moved to another neighborhood.
And here I thought the earth had quit warming 16 years ago.
So are these measures 16 years too early, or 16 years too late?
“should focus on developing adaption policies to address and mitigate against the negative impact of global warming,”
Of course, this sounds good until you realize that there is no adaptation to be done, as we are not warming. Thus, their needs relating to mitigating warming or developing green alternative energies will be nothing but another excuse for a government boondoggles and crony capitalism. WInd and solar simply cannot and will not survive except in rare specific conditions as any sort of useful energy sources. They will always be ancillary sources to take the load off the grid, but they cannot constitute the grid itself. The sun sets and the wind dies. Of course the myth and lie that we are running out of carbon fuels will persist despite the reality to the contrary.
YOU CANNOT BUILD A RELIABLE ENERGY SUPPLY FROM UNRELIABLE ENERGY SOURCES.
thelastdemocrat says:
October 17, 2012 at 11:42 am
It is about time. If only we had acted sooner, we could have avoided the tragedy that came to be known as “The Grand Canyon.” See what happens when you don’t prepare for soil erosion?
——
Sad but true
cn
“According to the scientists, Earth surface systems’ sensitivity to climate forcing is still poorly understood.”
I’m not even a scientist and I knew that. He must have just started reading WUWT. It’s one of the “unknowns that are known” here.
“Measuring this geomorphological sensi¬tivity will identify those systems and environments that are most vulnerable to climatic disturbance, and will enable policymakers and managers to prioritise action in these areas.”
Not being a scientist or policymaker or manager, I have a minor level of confusion as to what the author intended to convey. How do they recognize and measure geomorphological sensi¬tivity? And specifically, what constitutes a climatic disturbance?
cn
Well spoke!
But is it rocket surgery?
:p
Grant says:
October 17, 2012 at 2:14 pm
Thanks to natural gas and the market, US emissions of CO2 are at 1992 levels. http://bigstory.ap.org/article/ap-impact-co2-emissions-us-drop-20-year-low
Government keeps picking losers (Solyndra and A123, electric car battery manufacturer) when it should get out of the way. Without market distortions, the US might have millions of natural gas cars, like the natural-gas powered Honda Civic, for which Honda is offering a $3000 incentive. Natural gas is clean, plentiful, and inexpensive at $2 a gallon; it has the fewest externalities of any fuel source. Without market distortions, we might have been well on our way to energy independence and free of foreign oil.
Thanks government!
——————————–
Grant, you sound surprised. That’s how the system works. We still own GM (another loser)