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‘Abrupt Climate Change’ may turn out to be an IPCC own goal
Guest essay by Barry Brill
It’s one thing to terrify the populace with apocalyptic rhetoric and images of collapsing ice sheets or tsunamis. It’s quite another to gain ratification of a treaty obligation imposing huge costs on both the future economy and the individual voters.
The 2015 COP in Paris is scheduled to finalise a climate change treaty which imposes CO2-mitigation obligations on all 194 member countries. Members have four years to ratify the whole agreement before it supposedly comes into force in 2020.
The process has many aspects of the prisoner’s dilemma, in that no country will want to ratify unless it believes others will do likewise. Nobody believes the majority will sign up in the absence of a benefit-cost analysis which can at least make sense to an alarmist.
These analyses are undertaken in economic models, which ascertain the present value of net impacts of expected temperatures, determined by climate models that are driven by CO2-e concentrations and sensitivities. The impacts will be taken from AR5 WG2 which should reflect the basic science in the WG1 draft released this week.
The prognosis for alarmists is not good. Richard Tol’s literature survey produced a well-known graph of 14 estimates of the global economic impact of climate change, expressed as the welfare-equivalent income gain or loss.
www.aeaweb.org/articles.php?doi=10.1257/jep.23.2.29
This graph shows that net damages from warming don’t accrue until temperatures increase about 2.2°C from 2009, or 3°C from the usual 1850 baseline. However, after a very benign start, it is true that incremental welfare losses do begin to appear after temperatures have risen about 2°C from 1850 levels.
Tol’s graph accounts for the 2°C upper limit adopted by the G8, which was proposed to the UNFCCC at Copenhagen, and adopted at Cancun (2010; COP16).
However, that 2°C target is becoming further and further out of reach. No progress at all has been made in the past 17 years and these doldrums may continue indefinitely. The SREX report has knocked over swathes of impact possibilities. And now there’s an inescapable need to reduce ECS by half, or at least a third!
This was a terribly dispiriting outlook for the climate industry – so it was essential that AR5 pull something out of the hat.
One area had potential for improvement. The “tipping point” or “irreversible” events that all previous reports had treated as too far-fetched to warrant much attention could be added into impact valuations if they were accorded a percentage probability. Insurance underwriters suggested “high-impact, low-probability risks” (eg http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/37612) might supply the best hope to justify imposition of an expensive premium payment under a global risk management plan.
AR5 duly introduced some new definitions and came up with the Table 12.4 discussed at the Royal Society meeting reported by Bishop Hill:
Here we see a familiar list – collapse of ice-sheets, release of permafrost and clathrate methane, forest die-back and loss of monsoons. Sure they have low probabilities and varying confidence levels, but the impacts will run to trillions of dollars. Even 5% of one of these events is a very large number.
A great deal depends upon whether the probabilities are temperature-factored. If, for example, monsoonal collapse is included as a small risk from a low threshhold temperature, it might avoid much of the time-discounting effect. This could make it a major NPV player in future economic models. Such prospects explain why Table 12.4 held such an important place in the agenda of the Royal Society meeting.
There is also a (weak) philosophical argument that irreversibilty should overcome the usual effect of time-discounting. No doubt this will be a topic addressed by Oxford moral philosopher, John Broome, who is to be a lead author of WG3.
But Table 12.4 might be a double-edged sword. The IPCC has given full rein to its penchant for sweeping and unusual definitions. Thus, TFE.5 says:
“Abrupt climate change is defined in AR5 as a large-scale change in the climate system that takes place over a few decades or less, persists (or is anticipated to persist) for at least a few decades, and causes substantial disruptions in human and natural systems.”
A change is said to be irreversible if the recovery timescale from this state due to natural processes is significantly longer than the time it takes for the system to reach this perturbed state.
“A few decades” is apparently capable of relating to each phase in a long-term process, because, for example, it does not omit the near-complete disintegration of the Greenland ice sheet. “Or less” covers things that take place instantaneously. So the occurrence time element seems to be a red herring.
The persistence time element won’t exclude much either, as the ‘commitment’ concept assumes the continuance of any damaging impact. “Large-scale change” only allows small regional effects to fall outside the ambit of the definition.
So, by and large, this Table 12.4 should include every expected large-scale change in the climate system that “causes substantial disruptions in human and natural systems”. If a feared impact is not mentioned in the table, it is reasonable to conclude that the IPCC does not expect that its “disruption” potential is “substantial”.
‘Abrupt climate change’, as defined, is a useful concept.
Lukewarmers (the majority of skeptics) do not generally hold dogmatic views that anthropogenic global warming (AGW) could never cause small-scale or medium-term changes capable of causing minor disruptions in existing systems. Where they differ from the IPCC is in disagreeing that any such disruptions would be “substantial”. This is usually expressed by saying that skeptics don’t believe in catastrophic (CAGW) or dangerous (DAGW) warming.
With the introduction of these innovative definitions, the lexicon can be re-framed. “Skeptics don’t accept that fossil fuel usage gives rise to any realistic or actionable threat of Abrupt Climate Change (ACC)” is a statement that even the mainstream media might come to understand.
The items missing from Table 12.4 are like Sherlock Holmes’ “curious incident of the dog in the night-time”. They are not even “exceptionally unlikely” or “low confidence” possibilities. They just don’t exist as real threats.
Few of the large number of previously accused items are expected by the IPCC to cause “substantial disruption”. Some excluded favourites are:
• persistent tornadoes or flooding or hurricanes (only droughts make the cut);
• non-ice-fed (thermic) sea level rise;
• productivity of food-producing land;
• spread of vector diseases;
• stoppage of Gulfstream flow;
• climate migration and warfare;
• melting of Antarctic sea ice;
• melting of the East Antarctic ice-sheet;
• interference with thermohaline circulation; and
• large-scale species extinction.
And the other good news is that every one of the “substantial disruption” possibilities are seen as “unlikely” by the IPCC except* Arctic Sea Ice melting. This is mainly positive in opening up new sea lanes – while albedo effects have low significance in a slow-warming world.
(*The low-confidence possibility of “permafrost carbon release” has been rendered toothless by its definition as ‘a net source of emissions’. I thought it already was.)
So, now remind me: why do some see AGW as ‘the greatest moral challenge of our times’?
Related articles
- Judith Curry: Despite hysteric claims, IPCC models incapable of producing abrupt climate change (junkscience.com)
- IPCC says abrupt irreversible clathrate methane, ice sheet collapse are unlikely. (joannenova.com.au)
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1. Whether “lukewarmers” are a majority is irrelevant, unscientific, pseudo-argument.
2. It is most certainly not “dogmatic” to hold the view that the unmeasurable (so far, anyway) human impact on any “global warming” cannot cause any “minor disruptions” of any significance. Au contraire, such a view simply acknowledges the reality that there is no evidence that humans have any significant impact on the climate of the earth.
@Eliza
We have no historical precedent for catastropic warming damaging human society, but we do have historical accounts as to what even a 2 degree C drop will do from the Little Ice Age and the cooling period inbetween the Roman Warm Period and the Medieval Warm Period. As for the reality of a major glaciation period coming, unless this present Ice Age in which we live has ended, which it has not, the consequences will be devastating to us.
Human civilization was born during the Holocene Optimum period when it was much warmer than it is today.
In support of and further to Bishop Hill’s response to David Cameron’s comment (same position as stated above) and in response to the IPCC report. Bishop Hill says:
“Do you see how he (William: David Cameron which is the same position as the IPCC) equates strong certainty that mankind is affecting the climate with strong certainty that this means disaster? This is a statement of such startling foolishness that it almost defies belief to hear it from someone who wields such power.”
William: Reason and logic are lost during periods of a mania. Reality however does not change just because it is ignored. When a person considers buying insurance (David Cameron’s useful analogue) for anything, the yearly cost of the insurance and what the insurance covers is considered. People make their decision to purchase insurance based on facts and logic. People would not pay a yearly insurance premium that was half the value of their house, to insurance their house against the possibility of nuclear war or a massive solar flare. That would be idiotic, irrational, and absurd. Cost is part of equation, what the insurance covers, the likelihood of actually collecting on the insurance, and the realistic likelihood that the event will occur are all considered. Do any of those arguing the IPCC’s position (catastrophic AGW, CAGW) dispute that?
A) What is the estimated cost of the ‘war on CO2 EMISSIONS?’
How much is the war on CO2 emissions going to cost and how will fighting that war affect the general public? The developing countries have spent $2 trillion dollars on greens scams that are comically ineffective (comical if your idea of comedy is massive deficits and extraordinary high energy costs for little benefit). The unintentional consequences and the limitations of the green scams (biofuels, wind power, and solar) are being hid in the mania as is the schemes actual reduction in CO2 emissions. Green energy is green wash. Countries and taxpayers have limited funds to spend on everything. Engineering facts such as intermediate power sources require power storage to significantly reduce CO2 emissions do not go away just because they are ignored. Higher energy costs are a type of taxation. There are no engineering or economic magic wands.
The US conversion of 40% of the US corn crop to ethanol is a great example of a scheme’s problems; there is almost no net reduction in CO2 emissions to convert corn to ethanol if honest accounting is done, taking into account all energy inputs. Ignoring that fact, the big picture issue for all of the biofuel scams is as they require agriculture land, there is no surplus agriculture land, and people still need to eat (providing all transportation fuel from biofuel for the western countries would require roughly the entire world’s current agriculture land) biofuel has and will require that virgin forests be cut down. Ironically loss of habitat is the single most important factor for extinction of land based wild life. There will be food wars and mass extinction wild life if the biofuel scam is not stopped. That is madness.
The developing world is developing. Developing requires energy. Small very, very, very, expensive reductions in CO2 emission in the developing world are not even sufficient to stop the rise in world CO2 emission. Green scam energy will never stop the increase in world CO2 emissions. It does not work. Ignoring that fact does not change that fact.
The only viable energy policy change that has a chance of significant reduction in world CO2 emission (assuming that is what an informed public wants to do) is a massive conversion to nuclear power along with a war time like reduction in standard of life (end of air travel for tourism for example) and the threat of actual military action to get world compliance for the war on CO2 emissions. That is the big picture cost of the war on CO2 emissions. Massive investment in green wash in response to endless propaganda will not significantly reduce CO2 emissions in the developing world and has no chance of stopping the increase in world CO2 emissions.
What would the public’s reaction be if they are told that they will be required to make wartime like sacrifices in their standard of life and two or three new nuclear reactors will need to be placed in service every week for twenty or thirty years, to fight the war on CO2 emissions? The reaction would be hold on, let’s re-look at what we are trying to protect against.
Question: Does anyone writing in this forum dispute the above? Is there is a CAGW straight shooter in the house? Note James Hansen states over and over that nuclear power is the only viable option to fight the war on CO2 emissions, as do a number of prominent CAGW environmentalists and top academics.
The analysis for B and C changes if A is reality.
B) Risks and benefits of increased CO2 and lukewarm warming Vs the same for higher warming.
C) Scientific evidence to support lukewarm warming LAGW Vs CAGW.
Janice Moore:
Thankyou for your excellent post at October 3, 2013 at 12:23 pm.
Clear, succinct, and accurate. Thankyou.
Richard
Richard!
Wow. Here I was, just hoping someone might acknowledge my post. You are so kind and generous to tell me that. That quote really irked me.
If you can say, how is your friend you were worried about (cancer scare) about 3 weeks ago? I’ve been praying. I hope all is well. And with you, too.
Enjoy that lovely beach.
With gratitude,
Janice
@Phil 11:02 am
I was taught that to calculate the cost of a probabilistic event, one multiplied the cost of the event should it occur by its probability of happening (i.e. its risk) to obtain the “expected value.”
That is correct, but it is also necessary to do the same calculation on all branches of the probability and decision tree.
The Expected Value of a 10 km asteroid impacting the Earth is one “astronomical” cost times a 100-million to on1 probability and it is definitely a big negative number. On the other hand, almost any action we undertake on the decision tree arrives at the same big negative number MINUS the cost of the impotent action, resulting is a bigger negative number than doing nothing.
The same realization needs to be applied to the ACC danger table. “High-Impact, Low Probability” evens are often better than “High-Impact, Low Probability events that still happened despite High-Impact, High Probability, Ineffectual, Impoverishing Government boondoggles.”
Stephen Rasey (at 12:45pm) — Well said. Applause.
Janice Moore:
You ask me
She needs 24 hour care. A District Nurse visits twice a day to aid washing etc. but a rota has been established for her full-time care. I drive up there tomorrow to do my stint so will probably not have time to come here again until the middle of next week.
Sincere thanks for your remembering her.
Richard
Thx, Janice.
Another way to bring the IPCC ACC Table 12.4 to a personal level:
Stephen Rasey said on October 3, 2013 at 12:45 pm:
I apologize for not saying this explicitly. You are, of course, correct. Thank you for stating this point so clearly.
Even 5% of one of these events is a very large number….
obviously not, we’re $ trillions in debt and no one even seems to notice
Bob B. says: @ur momisugly October 3, 2013 at 10:11 am
I wonder what the damage from cooling will be when reality strikes.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
We have already had a taste in 2008 with food riots in 60 countries. You can then add in the deaths in the UK from fuel poverty. About 2,000 extra deaths were registered in just the first two weeks of March compared with the average for the same period over the past five years. Depending on the slant you get One in four households suffer from fuel poverty in the UK.
The only questions are how soon and if cooling will strike, how deep and long the cooling is and how angry people become over being mislead.
The power grids in the EU and the USA have been weakened enough that a prolonged cold snap, especially with ice could be devastating. A bad cold snap after planting season, drought or a cold wet nasty harvest in several areas around the globe would also be devastating because we no longer have a strategic grain reserve. In the USA you also have the unknown results of the Food Safety Modernization Act as it kicks in and farmers sellout to developers, switch to biofuel/forest products or drop out of commercial food production entirely.
There is a lot of nasty stuff going on behind the scenes concerning the food supply that most people are unaware of and could come back to bite us. Who’s controlling the global food supply?
No!!!! What could possibly go wrong??!! (/sarc, for the terminally dense)
Dear Richard, good for you. I’ll keep on praying.
***************
Stephen Rasey! Aaack! Great analogy for what Doctor Dope is prescribing for the U.S. economy, though.
************************
Phil — You were just fine — (You: “differences in either the guesstimated cost or the guesstimated risk can make large differences in the “expected value.”) — you had the cost – benefit ratio in there, you were just more verbose, multiplying your enthusiasm, which is not a bad thing, per se. And you are obviously pretty cool. Not many WUWT posters respond to a semi-correction as graciously as you.
FYI — you might consider embellishing your fine name (there is a real creep calling “himself” “Phil.” who regularly posts, here. I nearly skipped over your post, thinking you were he (what he writes is virtually always intentional mischaracterization of another’s post and/or speculation smothered in copious quantities of greasy arrogance).
“Lukewarmers (the majority of skeptics) do not generally hold dogmatic views that anthropogenic global warming (AGW) could never cause small-scale or medium-term changes capable of causing minor disruptions in existing systems.”
Straw man argument. Also, it’s absurd, and unscientific to say that AGW (which has never actually been shown) could cause some future event, much less could never cause one. Whatever effect man has had on climate to date appears to be so small as to be of no concern whatsoever. Instead of worrying about that pebble of AGW rolling towards us, we should instead concern ourselves with the boulder of natural cooling.
“So, now remind me: why do some see AGW as ‘the greatest moral challenge of our times’?”
Because they thought that would allow them to take over the world.
Nice analogy, Bruce Cobb.
How about this one? Taking measures to prevent conjectured human-caused global warming is like pausing on your front porch to take off your red shoes just in case they make Weather Wolves angry instead of stepping inside your house and closing the front door to keep the Weather Wolf racing across your lawn from killing you.
Well, it was fun to try! #(:))
Matt S (at 1:56pm). Precisely. Way to cut to the dark, cold, heart of the matter.
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The “terminally dense” may need more than just one “/sarc”.
so…..they kinda sorta maybe think the Arctic might be ice free in some summer….
…but they’re not willing to put any money on it
And Julienne defines “ice free” as 1 million sq k, which is the size of Egypt….and hardly “ice free”
Calling 1 million sq k “ice free” is like saying the dog only has a few fleas….
The trend shown in this graph for 2013’s re-freeze is a thing of beauty! I enjoy reviewing this daily. http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/
Stephen Rasey — ““Let us stipulate that as long as you have two feet, you run the low probability, high impact risk of stepping off a curb and getting hit by a bus. This is indeed a very negative event to be avoided.
To prevent that undesirable outcome,
should we amputate your legs this evening?””
Brilliant and worth a good chuckle. Well played.
Latitude says:
October 3, 2013 at 2:26 pm
CRS, DrPH says:
October 3, 2013 at 2:33 pm
1. Thank you.
Please note that 1,000,000 sq km of ice (whether “extents” or “area” will be polished over the minute the CAGW press can declare ‘The Arctic is ice free!!!” ) corresponds to the Arctic area between 85 degrees north latitude and the pole! Quite a large amount of sea ice that would remain, would it not?
2. But, most importantly, from mid-August through the minimum sea ice extents at the equinox (Sept 22) about 5 weeks later, every sq meter of sea water exposed by the “catastrophically melted sea ice” is losing more heat energy by long wave radiation out, evaporation, convection, and conduction through the 24 hours of every day that water is exposed to the air than it can absorb by sunlight. This is because at these very low solar elevation angles at this time of the year, there is actually a very, very small difference in albedo of open water and the typically dirty sea ice actually present in June, July, and August to direct solar radiation. If cloudy, there is no direct solar radiation of course, but then again, if it is cloudy, then only 30 – 33% of the potential inbound solar radiation can get through the clouds to be absorbed.
Janice Moore says:
October 3, 2013 at 2:07 pm
Janice! I am, for the first time, disappointed in your cultural reference about red shoes! (I was expecting you to point out “As a hurricane approaches Australia, taking measures to prevent potential human-caused global warming effects is like pausing on your front porch in Kansas to take off your red shoes, just in case your house lands on the wrong person when it hits the ground.”)
Do you mean it is true that Tol projects incremental welfare losses about about 2°C from 1850 levels? Or do you mean that it is true that incremental welfare losses do begin to appear after temperatures have risen about 2°C from 1850 levels?
I have wondered about the 3 previous interglacials, which looked like they were warmer than the Holocene by an average of over 2°C. Will 2.5°C mean the destruction of the biosphere? Was there widespread desertification? Did the biosphere thrive?
————————
Here are what some warm periods did to some tropical places. I have been told that AGW is supposed to make its presence felt mostly in the higher latitudes.