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.
The arguments made by the two scientists is convincing and well outline but they fail to mention who will fund the new policies because new policies will require more research and this will cost the government more money. I think it’s better to improve the methods that are already in place. Like how to reduce more carbon emission and capping more greenhouse gas emission. People in different areas are affected by global warming differently so instead of trying to solve the problem in a global scale they should try to solve it on a local scale first.
climate change is something we cannot ignore. we are now experiencing the impacts. there intensity of natural disasters have increased as well as the severity therefore we do really need to start focusing on mitigation and adative methods that are sustainable. first world countries are not that worried because they are developed and they have the necessary measures to adapt to climate change impacts while third world countries are the most vulnerable to the impacts. if the cost of implementing climate change mitigation measures is lower that the cost of the damages caused by climate change then we really have to start working on those measures. i think what needs to be done is to find cheap and efficient alternatives to climate change impacts because there really is warming. if there wasnt then what is causing the recent droughts, high frequency of floods and other natural disasters. we need to start acting now for our sake and the future generations sake.
pkatt says:
October 17, 2012 at 12:28 pm
“You guys still aren’t getting it.”
_______________
We get it.
Third rail, indeed.
Leroux is like a third rail in Wikipedia. Hope to do an article about my recent experiences there, and what I’m proposing, in order to preserve and honour Leroux and his work. He really deserves to be better known, not just as a name, but for the work he did, both for Climate Science in its pure state, and for opposing the IPCC corruption with the arguments from the science itself.
Lady R and ruthless;
limiting carbon emissions has NO data to support it. It is pointless, and murderously costly. Emissions rose fast for the last 16 years, and temperature flatlined, and looks to be headed downwards for a few decades. This is FATAL to the whole decarbonization meme and agenda.
It is therefore URGENT that we stop p***ing trillions of dollars up against the wall by mandating anything whatsoever to do with CO2.
ruthless:
At October 18, 2012 at 1:24 am you assert
Climate has always changed everywhere and it always will.
There is no evidence of man-made global warming from emissions of fossil fuels; none, zilch, nada.
The intensity of natural disasters has not increased but they now have more “severity” because there are more people to be affected by them than in the past.
Please provide evidence if you want to make further fallacious assertions on WUWT in future.
Richard
Adaption policies to mitigate the negative effects of global warming are important because of the supporting evidence of climate change,example increased frequency of heavy rainfall in Cape Town.Adaption policies are important in preparing affected areas in terms of required infastructre, natural disaster management response time and other sectors that may be afected by subsequent floding e.g. farming.This is a short term way of dealing with the climate changes on a local scale and a smaller time scale because as the local climate continues to change,at varying rates with varying locations adaption policies will have to evolve to accomodate “new “local climate forced by global warming.
Promoting the capping of carbon emmisions contributes towards lessening or slowing down the effect of global warming in years to come i.e. on a longer time scale.This means that the effect of capping carbon emmisions may possibly not be observed in the lifetime of todays adult but rather in their children or grand childrens lifetime.Increased carbon dioxide in the atmosphere results in intensified greenhouse effect that will result in heating up of the earth.
“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”
There it is.
The decree that there is a lot of “stuff” for all the regimes (bureaucrats, academia, friends & family) to do forever.
They just make up continuous reasons to keep making things up, so they can keep monitoring all things weather and yammering on about climate with lofty certainty they are doing something besides nothing.
They aren’t.
Take every shred of climate work over the past 25 years by everyone and stack it all up. All the money, time, people and is has to be worst investment in human history by an enormous margin.
I’ll presume it has produced something.
But there is no other human activity which has invested so much to produce so little for mankind.
This record will stand deep into the future. I know I’ve been there. 🙂
Another record is the amount of shame shared by so many. As diluted as it is over the many every individual involved earned their hefty share of blame and shame.
Take any sizable share of that waste of biblical proportion and commit it to worthy work and imagine what it could have produced. Opportunities for medical advancement, energy development and societal progression around the world was ripped off. For what? For monitoring weather that just happens.
They might as well have been monitoring the shifting sands of the Sahara or stars in the night sky for astrological meanings.
Amy says: ”Adaption policies to mitigate the negative effects of global warming are important because of the supporting evidence of climate change,example increased frequency of heavy rainfall in Cape Town”
Amy, because is no such a thing as GLOBAL warming – cannot have any effect on the climate; only effect is on people that believe in those lies.
B] ”supporting ”evidence of climate change” – that is completely separate issue, one doesn’t need evidences that the climate is changing – climate is in constant change – big / small climatic changes – good / bad climatic changes are happening on different places on the planet all the time. BUT, using ”climatic changes” to con about the phony GLOBAL warming; is the mother of all lies!!! The most destructive lie since the Homo-erectus invented the language.
.c] ”example increased frequency of heavy rainfall in Cape Town”
does that mean: if frequency of heavy rain decreases – should be a proof of GLOBAL cooling?! On many places around the planet, rainfall is decreasing = today we have few global warmings and dozen global coolings on the planet, simultaneously…?! see how stupid your lies sound?
Localized warmings / coolings happen always; GLOBAL, NEVER!!! But, because the shonky science in the past has being confusing ”localized” as GLOBAL; is the precursor of all Warmist evil. Please, don’t put climatic changes together with the phony GLOBAL warmings! Climatic changes are a natural phenomena / GLOBAL warmings are a phenomenal LIE! All proven, beyond any reasonable doubt, on my website.
ruthless on October 18, 2012 at 1:24 am,
Amy on October 18, 2012 at 5:00 pm…
At least the auto-scripts are getting better, as in the second one capitalized the first letter of the sentences. Why they can’t get the space after the sentence-ending period is a small mystery. Perhaps the script kiddie’s algorithms get confused, as they are using spaces after abbreviation periods, and the context checker can’t handle spaces after other periods.
Meanwhile I still do as I was taught long ago in typing class, and use two spaces after a sentence-ending period, even though the comment systems will compress to a single space.
So if the robo-commenter’s programmer can’t handle a simple carriage return at the end of a sentence (if they even know what a CR is), try double spaces, see how that works. The content will still be laughable with the automated assembly detectable, but people will be more likely to read it instead of immediately dismissing it as incoherent ranting.
Afterward you can work on incorporating apostrophes.
[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?]
Don’t forget the “Great Lakes”. We need to prepare now to stop another glaciation.
/sarc
I believe the best ‘conservative’ response to the question “Do you believe in Global Warming?” would be something like “Yes, I believe the Climate Research scientists are essentially correct when they report that average global temperatures have risen about eight-tenths of a degree C since 1880.”
http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/data/temperature/nhshgl.gif
http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/data/temperature/