Limiting temperature rise by 2100 to less than 1.5°C is feasible, at least from a purely technological standpoint, according to the study published in the journal Nature Climate Change by researchers at the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA), the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK), and others. The new study examines scenarios for the energy, economy, and environment that are consistent with limiting climate change to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels, and compares them to scenarios for limiting climate change to 2°C.
“Actions for returning global warming to below 1.5°C by 2100 are in many ways similar to those limiting warming to below 2°C,” says IIASA researcher Joeri Rogelj, one of the lead authors of the study. “However, the more ambitious 1.5°C goal leaves no space to further delay global mitigation action and emission reductions need to scale up swiftly in the next decades.”
The authors note, however, that the economic, political, and technological requirements to meet even the 2°C target are substantial. In the run-up to climate negotiations in December 2015, such information is important for policymakers considering long-term goals and steps to achieve these goals.
Key elements: accelerated energy efficiency gains and CO2 removal
The study identifies key elements that would need to be in place in order to reach the 1.5°C target by 2100. One fundamental feature is the tight constraint on future carbon emissions.
“In 1.5°C scenarios, the remaining carbon budget for the 21st century is reduced to almost half compared to 2°C scenarios,” explains PIK researcher Gunnar Luderer, who co-led the study. “As a consequence, deeper emissions cuts are required from all sectors, and global carbon neutrality would need to be reached 10-20 years earlier than projected for 2°C scenarios.”
Faster improvements in energy efficiency also emerge as a key enabling factor for the 1.5°C target. In addition, all the scenarios show that at some point in this century, carbon emissions would have to become negative at a global scale. That means that significant amounts of CO2 would need to be actively removed from the atmosphere. This could occur through technological solutions such as bioenergy use combined with carbon capture and storage–a technology that remains untested on a large scale, increases the pressure on food supply systems and in some cases lacks social acceptance–or through efforts to grow more forests, sequestering carbon in tree trunks and branches. Afforestation, however, just like bioenergy plantations, would have to be carefully balanced against other land use requirements, most notably food production.
Overshooting the limit–and declining to 2100
In contrast to many scenarios examined in recent research, which set 2°C as the absolute limit and do not allow temperature to overshoot the target, the current set of scenarios looks at a long term goal, and what would need to happen to get temperature back down to that level by 2100.
“Basically all our 1.5°C scenarios first exceed the 1.5°C temperature threshold somewhere in mid-century,” explains Rogelj, “before declining to 2100 and beyond as more and more carbon dioxide is actively removed from the atmosphere by specialized technologies”.
The recent IPCC fifth assessment report did not describe in detail the critical needs for how to limit warming to below 1.5°C as the scenarios available to them did not allow for an in-depth analysis. Yet over 100 countries worldwide–over half of the countries in the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), including the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS) and the Least-Developed Countries (LDCs)–have declared their support for a 1.5°C target on climate change. The target itself is also up for debate at the upcoming climate negotiations. This new study fills this gap.
The authors make clear that an increase of international efforts to curb greenhouse gases is imperative to keep the 1.5°C target achievable.
“The 1.5°C target leaves very little leeway,” says Luderer. “Any imperfections – be it a further delay of meaningful policy action, or a failure to achieve negative emissions at large scale – will make the 1.5°C target unattainable during this century.”
What do you mean by “scenario?”
Scenarios, like the ones described in this study, are not predictions or forecast, but rather, stories about potential ways that the future might develop, with specific quantitative elements and details about how sectors such as the economy, climate, and energy sector interact. By looking at scenarios, researchers look for insight into the paths and circumstances that might lead us to specific objectives.
###
Reference: Rogelj J, Luderer G, Pietzcker RC, Kriegler E, Schaeffer M, Krey V, Riahi K. (2015). Energy system transformations for limiting end-of-century warming to below 1.5°C. Nature Climate Change. 21 May 2015. DOI: 10.1038/NCLIMATE2572
This is a joint press release from the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA) and the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impacts Research (PIK).
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These people must be completely insane. It’s King Canute all over again – except that it’s costing us billions of $, £ etc. Oh, except also that the tide is not coming up the beach in the first place.
Utter, delusional nonsense.
King Knut was a sceptic as what he was proving was that he couldn’t control the tides to his courtiers who thought he could.
And King Canute didn’t actually believe he could stop the tide, but merely wanted to stop his advisors from fawning over him and telling him he could do anything.
Perhaps Obama could learn something there!
Couldn’t agree more!
Chris
They.Are.Mad.
Technically, we won’t have to do anything if the current trend continues.
And, besides, their whole premise relies on the unproven hypothesis that “carbon emissions” control the climate.
The premise also relies on “The new study examines scenarios for the energy, economy, and environment that are consistent with limiting climate change to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels,… ”
Hmmmm, “pre-industrial levels” that would be the levels immediately after the Little Ice Age.
Exactly my thoughts. Look at the data for the last 18 yeara
Could adjust the past so that it shows lower temps.
What is the climate sensitivity they used for this theoretical exercise which above all doesn’t take into account any natural variability? Is the assumed climate sensitivity supported by observational evidence?
You saved me the trouble of making this same observation. If the recent work showing aerosols to be almost a non-factor in the climate is sustained by further study (so that the cooling attributed to aerosols by climate models is highly exaggerated and has to be canceled by equally exaggerated water vapor feedback in order to match the past climate in the unfortunately chosen “reference period”) then TCS is going to reduce to around 1.5 C per doubling, so one can manage this by simply limiting CO_2 to at most one doubling. This is likely to happen (IMO) if we do almost nothing — certain to happen if we do any of the following:
a) Discover commercially useful fusion. Lockheed-Martin has gone on public record that they will have this in five years or less. This isn’t the government or government supported research (which has made the famous “in 20 years” prediction for some 50 years now). This is a real company with investors for whom being wrong would be a serious blow to market confidence and hence stock price. I’m guessing LM isn’t alone, and that other companies and research groups are getting close, and there are some actual technologies out there that we are finally getting the compute power needed to solve the hard problems and develop. Maybe five years, maybe two years, maybe ten years, but at this point, with a trillion dollar payoff (at least!) I’m not seeing another 20 years without commercial fusion power.
b) Develop thorium e.g. LFTR. There is enough thorium to fuel civilization practically “forever” — tens of thousands of years — before we have to start working to extract it from the Earth’s crust. LFTR in particular is melt-down proof, comparatively clean (it burns basically all of the fuel and can actually be used to process old spent fuel to eliminate most of the need for massive spent fuel storage and cooldown), and while not impossible to use for nuclear proliferation, it is better than just cooking up plutonium as happens in all enriched uranium reactors by default (which is why the AEC, then the NRC/DOE, put the skids under thorium in favor of uranium for commercial nuclear power in spite of the substantial risks of high pressure reactors and solid fuel in the core).
c) Just wait, as photovoltaic solar and energy storage technologies continue to improve and become cheaper per watt. We are already at the point where PV solar is nearly break-even with respect to commercial grid power in many locations. It isn’t quite ready for prime time, but there is no hurry for it to be ready for prime time. Again, there are hundreds of billions to trillions of dollars at stake here in the long run, and sheer human greed and self-interest will cause the even more widespread adoption of rooftop and commercial solar as the technology makes enough progress to make it cost-competitive with other electrical power on a suitable amortization schedule. It is there already in many places (I’ve seriously thought about it on my own house, as the amortization is roughly equal to that of my recently replaced high efficiency HVAC units, but the fact that I did the AC and serious insulation first means that I already pay a lot less for power which in turn means I have less commercial power expense to amortize PV solar investment with). In a decade it will be a no-brainer in a large fraction of the world. A breakthrough (e.g. a cheap battery with energy density well within an order of magnitude of that of gasoline) could make that true in less than a couple or three years instead of a decade and change everything.
So the right thing to do — accepting the asserted risk at face value — is probably: DO NOTHING! Spend no special money, pass no special laws, take no special measures to combat evil CO_2. Just continue supporting research into energy generation technology at a generous level which it makes sense to do no matter what given energy’s pivotal role as the foundation of modern civilization and the obvious finitude of coal and oil as a resource (specifically, the predictable probable increase in cost of extracting it from dwindling natural reserves given the rates we consume it).
rgb
There is also the implied assumption by the “…researchers at the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA), the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK), and others…”, that 100% of the CO₂ in the atmosphere is under the control of mankind.
Estimates for mankind’s contributions run between 4% to 10% with absolutely no-one that really knows.
Even assuming the anthropomorphic contribution of 10%, that means mankind is currently in arrears for achieving their nonsensical consensual 1.5°C level, (consensical?).
After accounting for mankind’s contributions they’ll have to start removing CO₂ from the air.
Very much the Bjorn Lomborg message is it not?
Thorium molton salt reactors are presently a pipe dream because of the many many problems that one doesn not find discussed in the media. 1) Molton salt reactors have very serious materials problems – there are presently no proven materials that can function in the very hot molten salt and radiation environment for long, 2) Continuous processing of the fuel is needed to remove the fission products including nuclear poisons. Is it possible to design, build and operate reprocessing systems that will contain absolutely these nasty radioactive elements? We didn’t do well in reprocessing nuclear fuel off-line in years past and don’t do it at all at present. The French do (off line) and perhaps we can learn from them. 3) if a pipe of molten salt cools below abt 500C it freezes and can lead to all sorts of problems such as failure of the “fail safe” system. Pipe freezing, along with many other problems were likely the reason the Soviet lead-bismuth submarine reactors were so unreliable. 4) The reactor fluid systems will be intensely radioactive. So radioactive that anybody approaching them will be dead in seconds or minutes. The fluid is after all, a highly radioactive material. Think Chernobyl. A release of molten salt to the containment will contaminate the containment’s air so ventilation systems need to be appropriately designed to contain lots of nasty radioactive gasses. No maintenance will be possible except by robot. 5) …and on and on. Research is appropriate to see if these and many other problems can be resolved but its clearly not a given. On the other hand, water cooled reactors actually work, and one that breeds fuel from Thorium has already been built and tested. It too worked; making more fuel than it burned. Perhaps water breeder technology should be further developed as the chances of success seem higher.
The cost of solar panels is essentially immaterial. It’s the cost of storage or backup power that controls the cost of solar on the grid. Storage will likely prove very expensive to cover the tails of the problem – i.e., when the sun doesn’t shine for 3 days or more. We recently had a 3-day “cloud-out” in Maryland. Current backup power systems burning largely natural gas must cycle and in doing so, are less efficient. For the most part, a “backup” plant run at base load to generate all required power will release less CO2 than a combination of solar panels with a cycling backup. Again, research is appropriate, but don’t count on low priced electricity from such machines.
The solution? Temperature trends are already at abt +1.5C per century and with the sun getting so quiet, they may drop well below that. So do nothing. Problem solved.
Lockheed-Martin? please son, get a clue.
This october they will have consumed 20% of their 5 year schedule to produce a working prototype that operates for 10 seconds. To date since their announcement they have not hit any of their milestones.
They promised a flurry a publications ( we are going to do this in the open they claimed) and patents.
since oct 2014… largely crickets.. except for a rehashing of old PR.
Further the cheapest way to get more energy for the US… end use efficiency can save 3/4 of the electricity
use in the US for peanuts
http://www.forbes.com/sites/amorylovins/2014/09/07/fusion-power-the-case-of-the-wrong-competitors/
DHW:
Don’t be so negative regarding molten salt processes.
Molten salts are used in several industries as functional contributions to continuous or extremely difficult processes. It is neither a new nor unique process.
DHR:
My mistype, please accept my apology for getting your acronym wrong.
DHR,
Supposedly they will be using Zirconium Hydride in th molten salt reactors:
http://www.transatomicpower.com/the-science/
RGB
I agree 100% with all that and add the technology: thermoacoustic generators (TAG). It is a cousin of thermoacoustic refrigeration (TAR).
TAG is about twenty time more efficient than Peltier devices (TEG) and commercially available. There is a TAR lab at Los Alamos. They run in the 145 kW range for commercial use. That is enough to cool a meat packing plant.
Five kW TAGs are available for large vehicle installation to replace alternators with a 3% annual reduction in operating cost. TAGs can run on concentrated solar with a system efficiency substantially above the best PV and don’t involve steam. They are a heck of a lot simpler to make and don’t need crystalline components. I foresee TAGs being built into all natural gas appliances, especially furnaces, as the waste heat would be dumped into the home which needs it anyway. The system efficiency would be higher than central generation and distribution. TAGs can be added to wood and coal stoves easily.
I would not be holding my breathe for that big fusion breakthrough.
If they do it, it is 100% a game changer.
But saying they will do it, and doing it, are hardly the same thing.
Problem with nuclear is not technical, it is PR.
There is no movement in the direction of nuclear in the US.
Germany is dismantling their nuclear capacity.
It was just about to start getting some serious consideration when Fukashima happened, and now it seems we are back to Post Chernobyl/Three Mile Island in terms of public perception and acceptability.
Batteries that have energy density approaching gasoline?
Puh-leeze!
Again, it would be great…a game changer…but battery energy density increases have been incremental for decades and decades. Biggest breakthrough in about a century in regard to energy density was Lithium Ion technology. There is no indication that an energy density approaching liquid fuels is even possible, let alone feasible and scalable and rechargeable and inexpensive and all the other things it would need to be in order to allow dispensing with 100% back up capacity via conventional generation.
High hopes are all well and good. It is nice to hope for things. But planning on breakthroughs that have been unforthcoming despite intensive and decades long efforts is not a sane way to make energy policy.
That the current administration is working towards actively dismantling our current generating capacity with no alternatives in place is literally insane, IMO.
I have been hearing that “a Fusion reactor will be producing electricity in less than 20 years,” etc. etc. since I graduated from HS – in 1960. Every few years a new, more expensive project is described that again repeats that prediction. Seems to me just like the CAGW prediction and the various cult prophesies that the followers will be taken to the promised land that you read about.
Our betters have decided we’re going to spend $93,100,000,000,000 by 2030 on “climate finance”:
“Over the next 15 years, the global economy will require an estimated $89 trillion in infrastructure investments across cities, energy, and land-use systems, and $4.1 trillion in incremental investment for the low-carbon transition to keep within the internationally agreed limit of a 2 degree Celsius temperature rise.”
http://www.worldbank.org/en/news/feature/2015/04/18/raising-trillions-for-climate-finance
And hey, it’s only money, right? What’s an expenditure of 6 trillion dollars a year between friends? Lessee…
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_%28nominal%29
… apparently just under 10% of the GDP of the entire planet. Hmmm, I wonder how many poor people there are who won’t be contributing any of this money because if they did, they’d starve?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_%28PPP%29_per_capita
Oooo, looks like a lot! Maybe two or three billion of them? So it is more like 15 or 16% of the GDP of the wealthier countries on these lists? Except hmm, I wonder how many people in the developed countries have spare money. That is, GDP isn’t quite a fair picture, because a lot of human wealth is tied up in stuff like “food”, and “land”, and “capital resources” that are pretty inelastic and non-liquid. It won’t do to e.g. shut down Microsoft and sell it off to raise the money, it has to come out of elective/disposable income in “flow” in the overall economy. To raise 15 or 16% of the $17 trillion (give or take a bit) GDP of the US, I wonder how much we’d have to raise taxes, in other words?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_tax_revenue_as_percentage_of_GDP
Ain’t Wikipedia wonderful? We learn that the total tax burden in the US is around 25% of GDP, or (give or take a bit) around $4.25 trillion. To contribute our “share” of the needed annual capital, we’d have to increase this to (say) 40% of GDP, a bump of around $2.5 trillion, an increase of well over 50% in all tax rates. Even to manage “just our share” of the 6 trillion, we’d have to kick in liquid wealth to the tune of over $1 trillion a year, but you KNOW that we’d have to carry the lion’s share of the burden for the entire world because India with over 3x our population has a per capita income of around $5000 per year and can’t contribute anything significant, and China with 3x our population doesn’t give a damn and won’t contribute anything significant (and we could then go down the list).
One wonders if the people who write this stuff are rational. I mean, seriously. Can they do simple arithmetic? Finger and toe stuff? There literally isn’t enough disposable wealth in the world to fund this, and given a net negative ROI for almost all investments made in it relative to all sorts of opportunities you will have to force the investment with the threat of naked violence.
On the other hand, it is a simply gangbusters idea for a global con. How much of that $6+ trillion per year, one wonders, will actually go into infrastructure and how much will end up making the already rich much richer, while enriching all of those that get in on the ground floor because of political pull and are selected to receive the public monies earned by actual work and then extracted from the earners by force (or the threat of force)? I wonder how much political freedom will be lost along the way. I wonder if the world really will vote itself into chains.
Ah well, time to go do something constructive. I might as well worry about being killed by gamma ray bursts or falling asteroids.
rgb
“rgbatduke
May 22, 2015 at 7:16 am
And hey, it’s only money, right? What’s an expenditure of 6 trillion dollars a year between friends? Lessee…
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_%28nominal%29
… apparently just under 10% of the GDP of the entire planet. Hmmm, I wonder how many poor people there are who won’t be contributing any of this money because if they did, they’d starve?”
Already happening. Food prices in Ethiopia are now so high many people simply cannot afford their staple grain, teff!
LOL, they are fracking idjit’s
Thanks.
RGB you are in a writin’ mood for today!
My best guess is that the temp will drop to the pre-industrial level by 2035 without a drop in CO2 and they public will declared victory and rebel.
With a billion dead from WW III the rest will be content to federate and end war permanently. That would free about 1.5 trillion dollars a year to spend on development instead of military junk.
Someone will make a lot of money from this. Won’t be me.
How much are the leaders of those poor 3rd, 4th , 5th world nations going to skim off for their own use and then the corruption inherent with cash giveaways like this Any UN effect similar to this will give you an idea. Like the average telemarketing scam, 90% will be “expenses” and less than 10% will actually help CO2 changes. I say CO2 changes as I seriously doubt there will be any reduction in a majority of the countries receiving MONEY.
So based on the unproven connection between rising global temperature (now only rising in the falsified surface records) and human emissions of CO2 they urge us to wreck our economies? How much more of this taxpayer funded drivel will we have to endure in the run up to Paris?
“you ain’t seen nothing yet”
Isn’t the answer: Absolutely nothing.
Yep
It only recently dawned on me that all the talk of limiting temperature rises “to 2C by the end century”, is not rises above present temperatures but above 1850 levels (pre industrial). So this new figure of 1.5C actually means 0.7C warmer than today and the scare campaign of 2C is actually 1.2C higher temperatures than today. Not so scary at all really. I suppose it’s all in the marketing.
If climate sensitivity is just a little above 1 C, the “2C target” may be reached without any effort at all, so introducing a 1.5C target into the discussion is probably just a hedging strategy.
“what do we mean by”Scenario””
A lot of gobledy hook by the sound of it.
Scenarios, like the ones described in this study, are not predictions or forecast, but rather, stories about potential ways that the future might develop.
Important word is STORIES. They admit it is all a work of fiction.
And still computer games… I have decided not to talk about models but call them by their proper name – computer games. Elaborate, expensive but ultimately just games.
“In addition, all the scenarios show that at some point in this century, carbon emissions would have to become negative at a global scale”.
And still CO2 will be emitted and as naturally required. No policy available to ever control that.
We will either fry or freeze…in between will be a bit of weather.
Uh, assuming they mean anthropogenic carbon emissions/CO2 emissions, how do they become negative?
Would that require all of us to stop exhaling?
Technologies exist which can remove CO2 from the atmosphere. They are not efficient and their implementation would not be inexpensive; but, they do exist.
firetoice
It is not only a question of price in money, but price in energy. We don’t afford the energy, (if) we’ve produced enough CO2 already, and we need power to remove CO2 from air.
“Limiting temperature rise by 2100 to less than 1.5°C is feasible, at least from a purely technological standpoint, according to the study published in the journal Nature Climate Change by researchers at the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA), the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK), and others.”
And if CO2 does not do what they think it does? What if the real atmospheric greenhouse effect is instead “entirely explainable on the basis of atmospheric mass/gravity/pressure/heat capacity/adiabatic lapse rate, and the “ocean greenhouse effect” explainable on the basis of the ~0.76 – 0.89 far-IR emissivity of the oceans, which “traps” heat from solar radiation in the oceans.”? What if reducing CO2 emissions mainly hurts plant life and does little else? We have spent over 30 years now assuming the Hansen – Arrhenius – Sagan theory of CO2 and back radiation is correct. What if it is wrong?
What if climate sensitivity to CO2 is zero?
Indeed
The range over Earth’s ancient past, and over the last 150 years, is 1.5 – 4.5C+, with 3C the highest probability, and the probability distribution not normal, but tilted toward the upper end. What if climate sensitivity is actually 4.5C?
Good point, warrenlb. You should stop using your computer to reduce emissions and help avoid that scenario.
“What if climate sensitivity is actually 4.5C?”
If it is, then explain the flat temperatures for nearly two decades as CO2 levels skyrocketed. Besides, since there is no proof what-so-ever of any climate sensitivity over zero, there is no reason to undo the industrial revolution to satisfy the religious needs of people like you.
“The range over Earth’s ancient past, and over the last 150 years, is 1.5 – 4.5C+” … that is mere conjecture and not science. You have no idea what caused the temperature changes.
Warrenlb,
I think, if the sensitivity’d be 4.5C / doubling, we just drowned some towns. Simple as that.
What if climate sensitivity is actually 4.5C? And if more then 1.5C above preindustrial temp is disasterios? Then we are DOOMED. Nothing at this point would actually stop us going over 1.5C. Hell, we’re already half way there according to NASA, and getting closer every year (because the past keeps getting colder, not because the present is getting hotter).
Of course, if the sensitivity was really 4.5C, then life on earth couldn’t have survived the 1200 ppm of CO2 that all plant life is clearly designed and/or evolved for. As any biologist know.
Who says? How was that measured?
“warrenlb
May 22, 2015 at 5:50 am
The range over Earth’s ancient past…”
Sorry Anthony and mods, this “postie” is an idiot! Of proportions only created in a computer model, gone real wrong! IPCC material. Warrenlb you may still have a job!
@schitzree
‘Plant life designed for…’ ?? Are you into Intelligent Design? If not you should have said ‘evolved for’, and of course today’s plant life was not evolved during a time of 1200 ppmv CO2.
warrenlb says:
of course today’s plant life was not evolved during a time of 1200 ppmv CO2.
What is this, “Say Anything” Day? As usual warrenlb is clueless.
Today’s plant life evolved from all previous plant life. 99% of the time CO2 was much higher than now. And greenhouses use CO2 because it works.
That is because plant life evolved during times of much higher CO2.
@Patrick
You say: “Mods, this postie is an idiot!” (about CS).
Really? Try out this explanation, and supporting peer-reviewed science papers. Of course, if you reject Science, you’ll be having trouble with any of the research:
“as climate science has developed and advanced over time , estimates have converged around 3°C. A summary of recent climate sensitivity studies can be found here: http://skepticalscience.com/climate-sensitivity-advanced.htm“
warrenlb quotes a small propaganda blog:
as climate science has developed and advanced over time , estimates have converged around 3°C.
Estimates? No, they are merely guesstimates.
If the sensitivity number was accurately known, then ∆T from ∆CO2 would be known. And from that, we could quantify AGW as a percent of total global warming from all sources, because we know the percentage of CO2 emissions due to human activity.
But sensitivity guesstimates range from 0.0ºC (Miskolczi et al) to more than 6ºC, and everything in between depending on who you ask.
The “3ºC” number is equally guesswork. It is also clearly wrong, because if the sensitivity number was 3ºC or anything close to that, then there would have been some serious global warming over the past 12 – 18 years due to the large rise in CO2 during that time.
So as usual, nothing that warrenlb posts stands up to scrutiny. That’s why he always falls back on his appeal to authority logical fallacies. They are all he has to argue with.
@warrenlb
Actually I said “designed and/or evolved” because this is one of those wonderful times when what you personally believe about Creation and Evolution DOESN’T MATTER. However the plants got here, they are clearly adapted to a significantly higher CO2 level then is present today. Which fits in nicely with what our geologist believe was the probable CO2 level for much of the past few Million Years.
Isn’t it wonderful when we can put aside our personal hang-ups over Faith (or lack there of) and look at the Data clearly? Now if only we can teach the Climate Faithful this simple truth.
On closer consideration warren’s question about ID may be more important then I had at first believed. You see, the only way that the higher adapted level of plants to CO2 DOESN’T emphatically prove that life on earth is both compatible and even preferential to a CO2 level of around 1200ppm is if we believe, as the Young Earth creationists do, that the earth is only about 6000 years old. Then it would be true that the earth is in fact MEANT to have a CO2 level under 350. It is, as the say, preordained, for that is the level that god created it at. And who is man to undo the CO2 level of God.
So how about it Warren, Are you into Intelligent Design? Do you subscribe to the Young Earth theory? It’s alright if you do. Unlike many I hold no fault with someone for believing something I do not, at least when there is little hard evidence to disprove it. That’s part of the scientific method you know. Just as no theory is ‘settled science’ because even one contrary fact can disprove it, no Theory is false UNLESS it has been disproven by uncontested facts.
There is, always, room for debate. It’s what makes Science interesting. ^_^
Almost certainly not true. It is really very unlikely that TCS is less than the baseline expected from CO_2 alone. Even if there were net negative feedbacks, though, they are still feeding back on a positive number.
The correct question is: What if the TCS is less than or the same order as the natural climate variability, so that correctly resolving it is a signal to noise problem both ways?
This is the statement that IIRC even the AR SPM — not known for its honesty or statistical rigor — seems to be backing off on. They used to be extremely confident (in human terms, as there is no valid statistical basis for their statement) that over half of the warming observed over the last umpty years is CO_2 driven. Now they are just mostly confident, or pretty confident. If the pause stretches out a few more years, they’ll be simply confident. Another decade, maybe, and they’ll be down to just “plausible”. Of course any actual cooling would knock the legs out from under them regardless, unless they manage to “hide the decline”.
The next few years will be very interesting. On this list, numerous individuals both pundit and layman have not hesitated to assert without any doubt that e.g. the magnetic state of the Sun has nothing to do with climate or that it (equally certainly) does have something to do with climate as observed in global average temperature. I myself haven’t a clue, not being able to solve the coupled magnetohydrodynamic equations for solar state and the coupled Navier-Stokes equations for the Earth’s Ocean-Atmosphere system in my head, but I am still of the facts talk, bullshit walks as far as my fundamental personal ontology is concerned. I will watch, with popcorn, as the sun enters what is believed to be a prolonged solar minimum followed by what is expected to be an extremely low solar maximum in the next cycle. No matter what happens, it should be great fun to listen to those whose “certainty” was vindicated puff up and those who lost out puff up even more with a bad case of cognitive dissonance.
rgb
[snip – your repeated violations of site policy are going to earn you a permanent ban if it continues – stick to discussing science, not hurling smears – mod]
With the Solar output dropping, the Earth’s temperature could drop by 2C. Are we talking about limiting the temperature rise to -2.5C [2100] or -0.5C from today temperatures. They make predictions; so can I.
Given that there is genuine doubt about the sensitivity of global average temperature to CO2, how doe this article have any credibility? That is only one question of several that poses the same question.
No doubt among actively publishing climate scientists– 1.5C – 4.5C with a highest-probability midpoint of 3C. As summarized in the IPCC 5th Assessment, from 10,000 peer-reviewed journal papers. The doubting comes from the amateurs.
Plate tectonics was a “no no” for 60 years, until sea floor spreading showed that Plates were moving. They had 10,000 papers saying the Plates don’t move. Your comment is “so what”.
Yes, Scientific researchers in Geology eventually found enough evidence to dispel nearly all remaining doubts among Earth Scientists, and Plate Tectonics is now an established science in which there are essentially no peer-reviewed papers disputing it, although a few non-publishing scientists and several amateurs still cast doubt.
Scientific Researchers in Climate eventually found enough evidence to dispel nearly all remaining doubts among Climate Scientists, and AGW is now an established Science in which there are essentially no peer-reviewed papers disputing it, although a few non-publishing Climate scientists and several amateurs still cast doubt.
“warrenlb
May 22, 2015 at 6:13 am
Yes, Scientific researchers in Geology eventually found enough evidence to dispel nearly all remaining doubts among Earth Scientists, and Plate Tectonics”
Actually, it was the US Navy during the cold war. But don’t let historical fact get in your way.
You mean the IPCC 4th assessment. That most-probable 3.0 degree figure was quietly dropped in AR 5. Presumably because of a large number of recent peer-reviewed (ta-da!) papers that all indicate much lower sensitivities.
warrenlb:
There are 10,000 peer-reviewed papers estimating TCS?
warrenlb:
“The doubting comes from the amateurs.”
Amateurs like Richard Lindzen, and many more? Doubting the doubters is done by amateurs like you.
Oh, please. The only source of the assertion for all “10,000 peer reviewed papers” is 36 climate models in CMIP5, many of them with heavy code and parameter dependencies so there aren’t even 36 independent models, and there are nowhere near 10,000 papers containing their results. Those 36 models suck in detail at predicting the climate. This is a simple empirical fact. The Monte Carlo Grand Ensemble averages of this individual models, for the most part, suck at predicting the actual empirically observed climate. There is no good reason to expect the Grand Ensemble average to predict the climate so this too is no real surprise. The Multimodel “Ensemble” unweighted superaverage of the sucky grand ensemble averages of the individual models — no real surprise — sucks at predicting the observed climate. The individual models fail in almost every way they can fail — they have the wrong smoothed trend, make incorrect predictions for things like rainfall and drought, have VERY wrong fluctuation properties (which via the fluctuation-dissipation theorem means that they are getting the fundamental physics wrong, BTW), and of course their predictions are diverging systematically from the actual temperature.
There is absolutely no rational basis for thinking that the superaverage of a bunch of grand averaged runs from a bunch of dysfunctional models that are attempting to solve the most difficult mathematical problem the world has ever attempted at a scale that is truly absurdly coarse grained compared to the scale of known heat transport structures that dominate large parts of the correct solution, with parameters that are no better than guessed at as they are nearly impossible to measure, started with initial conditions that are nothing like the actual initial conditions or state of the planet is going to do anything but output a crude mean field resolution of the assumptions put into it, and that is exactly what is happening. You could do just as well — and many do just as well — proposing a simple one layer greybody model with some absorptivity and emissivity and computing the fixed point.
So piffle.
Logical fallacy piffle at that.
rgb
Strangely, that figure hasn’t altered in 36 years, warren.
The original 1.5- 4.5°C estimate came from the Charney report 36 years ago in 1979.
http://web.atmos.ucla.edu/~brianpm/download/charney_report.pdf
So, despite the expenditure of many billions of dollars on research, estimates of the low and high limits of this essential parameter have not changed in 36 years.
Do you work for them, by any chance?
“rgbatduke
May 22, 2015 at 9:13 am
There is absolutely no rational basis for thinking that the superaverage of a bunch of grand averaged runs from a bunch of dysfunctional models that are attempting to solve the most difficult mathematical problem the world has ever attempted at a scale that is truly absurdly coarse grained compared to the scale of known heat transport structures that dominate large parts of the correct solution, with parameters that are no better than guessed at as they are nearly impossible to measure, started with initial conditions that are nothing like the actual initial conditions or state of the planet is going to do anything but output a crude mean field resolution of the assumptions put into it, and that is exactly what is happening. You could do just as well — and many do just as well — proposing a simple one layer greybody model with some absorptivity and emissivity and computing the fixed point.
So piffle.
Logical fallacy piffle at that.”
And that rgb is well said!
@tty
The IPCC stated in AR4 that climate sensitivity was likely (i.e. with a likelihood of 66%) between 2.0 and 4.5 °C, with a ‘best estimate’ of 3 °C. AR5 stated a range of 1.5 to 4.5 °C without giving a ‘best estimate’. The reason for the downward adjustment of the lower limit to 1.5 °C (at which it had been estimated since 1990) originated from a number of studies that pointed to the possibility of a low climate sensitivity. The ‘best estimate’ was not provided “because of a lack of agreement on values across assessed lines of evidence and studies”. All this, however, does not mean climate sensitivity was ‘less than expected’. In fact, the only thing that can be concluded is that the value of climate sensitivity has become more uncertain.
@catweazle666
You say: “estimates of the low and high limits of this essential parameter have not changed in 36 years.”
Nor have estimates of the gravitational constant. Could it be that research keeps confirming the original estimates for both?
“Nor have estimates of the gravitational constant. Could it be that research keeps confirming the original estimates for both?”
It may have escaped your attention, but the gravitational constant is a single measurable parameter known to a high level of precision.
The spread of the estimates of climate sensitivity couldn’t be more different.
So the answer is clearly ‘NO’, it couldn’t.
warrenlb once again posts his carefully cherry-picked appeal to authority:
…among actively publishing climate scientists
And:
…Scientific Researchers in Climate eventually found enough evidence to dispel nearly all remaining doubts among Climate Scientists, and AGW is now an established Science…&blah, blah, etc.
Total B.S., and I can prove it: neither warrenlb nor anyone else has ever produced a verifiable measurement quantifying ‘man-made global warming’.
In science, DATA IS ESSENTIAL. Measurements are data.
But there is not one measurement of MMGW. Thus, it is nothing but a conjecture. An opinion.
After decades of searching by thousands of highly educated scientists and engineers using the best equipment, NO ONE has been able to measure AGW!
Conclusion: AGW may exist. But if so, it is so minuscule that it can be completely disregarded for all practical purposes.
warrenlb is encouraged to try and prove me wrong. All he has to do is produce a testable measurement of MMGW.
If he can do that, he wins the debate. If he can’t, he loses the debate.
Simple as that.
That is the problem Warren. There needs to be doubt, also in their minds, because the actual recorded temperatures do not correspond to the IPCC projections!
What does that mean? Possibly that the actively publishing scientists should be applying genuine scientific processes to either explain the variance, OR correcting their suspect projections and conclusions!
Think about it.
That is the problem Warren. There needs to be doubt, also in their minds, because the actual recorded temperatures do not correspond to the IPCC projections!
What does that mean? Possibly that the actively publishing scientists should be applying genuine scientific processes to either explain the variance, OR correcting their suspect projections and conclusions!
Think about it.
@catyweazzle666.
You have trouble comprehending that the Range hasnt changed since its original 36 years ago. Get it now?
warrenlb
You have trouble comprehending that there is only one Earth so there is only one value of its climate sensitivity to CO2.
The value of climate sensitivity to CO2 does not have a range: it has a value.
The value of climate sensitivity to CO2 has an associated error estimate and that estimate has a range. Successful research of the climate sensitivity would have reduced the range of the error estimate.
Research of climate sensitivity has been a total failure for 36 years because there has been no reduction to the range of the error estimate of climate sensitivity for 36 years.
Richard
TITTER!
@richardscourtney
You say: ” there has been no reduction to the range of the error estimate of climate sensitivity for 36 years”
To which I reply: Thereby confirming the original estimates were quite good, and remain so!
“To which I reply: Thereby confirming the original estimates were quite good, and remain so!”
To which I reply: You still think a wide estimate derived from computer
gamesmodels is comparable to a precisely measured parameter derived from empirical instrumental scientific research?You just don’t understand the first thing about science, do you?
And at this rate, you never will.
warrenlb
You really, really don’t understand science.
The estimate for climate sensitivity has enormous error: two values within the estimated error range can differ by a factor of 3. That is not an estimate which is “quite good”. It is a rubbish estimate.
And there has been no improvement to the rubbish estimate over the last 36 years. This lack of any improvement is stasis in the science. It is total failure for 36 years.
And I don’t comprehend how you fail to understand this.
Richard
Global warming is a sure thing. North Korea and Iran Nukes.
I think we should attempt to change the Earth’s orbit around the sun.
“Actions for returning global warming to below 1.5°C by 2100 are in many ways similar to those limiting warming to below 2°C,”
Some of the ways they are similar: 1) Completely arbitrary 2) Based on unfounded science 3) Defy all laws of economics 4) Require brutal dictatorships to enforce
@PhilCP
It seems you’re oblivious to the Science re: points 1 & 2.
And here’s the contradictory evidence for 3 and 4: http://citizensclimatelobby.org/carbon-fee-and-dividend/
Have you read their policy statements?
1) They claim increased taxes and tarrifs are “Good for the economy”. Basic economics disagrees
2) They want a tarrif on imports from any nation not imposing carbon taxes, which requires undoing most of the free trade agreements that are behind current growth. This would make EVERYTHING from computers to cars to houses significantly more expensive
3) They claim that fossil fuels are ” artificially cheap” based on something other than market price, which is bogus. There’s no such thing as a ‘fair price’, only a price at which the market clears, and other, wrong, prices where it does not.
4) Rather than a fixed price on carbon, already a bad economic policy, they suggest starting at $15/ ton, and escalating that by $10 per year. Do you have any idea how much stress that would put on business when it tries to forecast forward 5 and 10 years? Future forecasts are both hard and necessary as is; adding a cost that escalates with forward time makes the error bars on those forecasts unmanageable. This discourages investment.
If the US implements their proposed policies, it will be economic suicide. Except that it’s more like economic homicide, given that a large number of us don’t agree, and aren’t willing participants.
@Jason
See my later post on the supportive positions of Conservative Economists, including Milton Friedman, who cites the price mechanism working with a Carbon Tax. Or read “The Climate Casino” by Yale’s William Nordhaus, whose analysis concludes that world’s economies will continue to grow, and grow faster with less Economic impact from the costs of adaption, than if AGW were allowed to continue without mitigation. Or similar analysis by Adele Morris of Brookings.
PhilCP,
If you want to see a great example of Propaganda 1A, click on warrenlb’s link.
You’re right about “completely arbitrary”. They can see that global warming will never go up 2ºC this cycle, so now they arbitrarily ratcheted it down to 1.5º. I don’t think that will happen, either. But you never know.
Re: economics. Those fools have no clue about economics if they believe their own propaganda. The whole push is for carbon taxes, which will balloon the bureaucracy while not making one-one thousandth of a degree difference. It is stupidity doubled and squared: hobbling the economy for nothing. Only fools think that would be a good idea.
When the real fools post nonsense that contradicts both Science AND Economists, then we know they’ve now gone off the deep and ignorant end.
warrenlb: “When the real fools post nonsense that contradicts both Science AND Economists, then we know they’ve now gone off the deep and ignorant end.”
Wow.
Just – WOW!
warrenlb
Chapter 2 from Working Group 3 in the IPCC’s Third Assessment Report (2001) says;
which in plain language means nobody knows what if any effect altering human emissions of CO2 will have on the CO2 in the atmosphere.
No subsequent IPCC Report has amended that, and to this day nobody has yet published a systematic analysis on the relationship between mitigation and baseline scenarios.
But you, warrenlb, say
So, either
(a) you are admitting that you are a real fool who posts nonsense that contradicts both Science AND Economists and has gone off the deep and ignorant end
OR
(b) you are claiming you alone represent Science AND Economists.
In either case, you are an arrogant, ignorant and hubristic fool.
Richard
@warrenlb,
Clearly there is a consensus here: you’ve been labeled the f-word by everyone else.
Is a consensus great, or what?
What they are calling for in terms of global emission reduction is in the fig here:
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-DC4t1sqx7sg/VV3gZK1-K7I/AAAAAAAAEtY/oxIIOBLB5S8/s1600/20150521-emission-scenarios.png
No mention that I can see of the China problem, and without resolving that question the probability of achieving zero effective emission by 2070 must be very low.
The math to limit temperatures to 1.5C by 2100 (assuming 3.0C per doubling and 20 years extra to reach equilibrium) is the following —>
—> 4.33*ln(CO2-2080ppm / 280ppm)
—> 4.33*ln(396ppm / 280ppm) = 1.50C
So, we have to reduce CO2 levels to last year’s number, 396 ppm, by the year 2080.
I don’t think their math is right on what we would have to do to reach those levels. We do NOT need to cut emissions to Zero. Only below what the net natural absorption rate is which is 1.7% per year of the excess CO2 over 280 ppm.
If we start reducing emissions by about 1.4% each year starting now, we would be at about 396 ppm by 2080. The natural absorption rates from vegetation, soils and oceans would continue on and would completely offset our emissions by about 2045 if we started reducing them by 1.4% per year starting now. That is still no mean feat considering emissions are growing by 2.0% per year, but we do not have to get to Zero.
http://s10.postimg.org/5deljcizd/Reduce_CO2_to_396ppm.png
Climate science is always off in their math. It is like, students who are bad at math, seem to migrate to this profession (environment science is always soft-side) so they always get the number crunching wrong. This is what this science is based on. Poor math students becoming the professors and the gate-keepers of the consensus.
So, have the Chinese agreed? Thought not.
We have to wonder what world these people live in. Even the Phil Jones adjusted dataset, Hadcrut4, shows no warming this century.
http://s10.postimg.org/64lz3lyu1/HADCRUT4_from_2000.png
That is in spite of CO2 emissions having increased by over 35% and CO2 levels being at a record high.
All recent papers on Climate Sensitivity now estimate it to be below 2 degrees. In its latest report the IPCC couldn’t actually bring itself to acknowledge this directly and so, instead, it said
So what do these people think they are doing? No action is required to limit temperature increase to 1.5 degrees, it is not going to be exceeded anyway (according to the settled science).
@MikeB.
You say: “Even the Phil Jones adjusted dataset, Hadcrut4, shows no warming this century.”
A news flash for you:
“In late 2009, PBL climate researcher Bart Strengers had an online discussion with climate sceptic Hans Labohm on the website of the Dutch news station NOS. This discussion, which was later also published as a PBL report, ended in a wager. Strengers wagered that the mean global temperature over the 2010–2014 period would be higher than the mean over 2000 to 2009. Hans Labohm believed there would be no warming and perhaps even a cooling; for example due to reduced solar activity.
At the request of Labohm, it was decided to use the UAH satellite temperature data set on the lower troposphere (TLT) (roughly the lowest 5 km of the atmosphere). These data sets are compiled by the University of Alabama in Huntsville. Satellites are used to measure radiation in the atmosphere, after which the temperature of the various layers of the atmosphere is derived using a complex algorithm.
According to the UAH today, temperatures appear to have been an average 0.1 °C warmer over the past five years than over the 10 years before that. Thus, Strengers has won the wager. The stakes: a good bottle of wine.”
UAH has recognized that its adjustments to the observed data have introduced a warming bias, and are refining its algorithms to bring their results more in line with RSS. The bettors chose the wrong “data” set. RSS shows cooling.
Any estimates on cost are as empty as the entire global warming farce. We can’t know what it might cost because we have no clue at all what is needed to achieve that goal and, moreover, we don’t even know if there is anything we can do to even come close.
What we do know very well is that climate scientists are among the worst scientists in the history of science. Best guesses do not equate to knowledge or understanding, yet that is all they have. This can’t be fixed because they don’t believe any of this. The true climate deniers are those who believe they’re doing good work. The reality is they can’t do good work because they don’t understand their subject. This is evident in the body of their work. Any solution they come up with for any climate problems they perceive should be considered dangerous voodoo science until they get at least one GCM to work. They can’t be taken seriously until every GCM works.
“In 1.5°C scenarios…”
Thanks, read enuff.
What would it take to limit temperature to a rise of 1.5c? Since no one truly understands all aspects of the natural variability of the climate, the only way we could know what it would take is by Divine intervention, though it is possible that Satan knows as well. One thing is certain, since we have no true understanding of the climate, they can write a “SimCity” style program to simulate it, but there is no where near enough knowledge to model it, thus there is no way of knowing if there is ANYTHING we could do to limit the rise of temperature to 1.5c this century – or, for that matter the fall of 1.5c.
Yes, this!
There is first of all not going to be any further warming going forward from this point in time and even if there should be there is nothing that we would be able to do to stop it.