Keeping global warming to within 1.5-2 degrees C may be more difficult than previously assessed, according to researchers. An international team of scientists has published a study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) showing that even if the carbon emission reductions called for in the Paris Agreement are met, there is a risk of Earth entering what the scientists call “Hothouse Earth” conditions.
“Human emissions of greenhouse gas are not the sole determinant of temperature on Earth. Our study suggests that human-induced global warming of 2 degrees C may trigger other Earth system processes, often called feedbacks, that can drive further warming—even if we stop emitting greenhouse gases,” says lead author Will Steffen from the Australian National University and Stockholm Resilience Centre. “Avoiding this scenario requires a redirection of human actions from exploitation to stewardship of the Earth system.”
Currently, global average temperatures are just over 1 degrees C above pre-industrial and rising at 0.17 degrees C per decade.
The authors of the study consider 10 natural feedback processes, some of which are “tipping elements” that lead to abrupt change if a critical threshold is crossed. These feedbacks could turn from being beneficial, by storing carbon, to a source of uncontrollable emission in a warmer world. These feedbacks are permafrost thaw, loss of methane hydrates from the ocean floor, weakening land and ocean carbon sinks, increasing bacterial respiration in the oceans, Amazon rainforest dieback, boreal forest dieback, reduction of northern hemisphere snow cover, loss of Arctic summer sea ice, and reduction of Antarctic sea ice and polar ice sheets.
“These tipping elements can potentially act like a row of dominoes. Once one is pushed over, it pushes Earth toward another. It may be very difficult or impossible to stop the whole row of dominoes from tumbling over. Places on Earth will become uninhabitable if ‘Hothouse Earth’ becomes the reality,” adds co-author Johan Rockström, executive director of the Stockholm Resilience Centre and incoming co-director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research.
Hans Joachim Schellnhuber, director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, says, “We show how industrial-age greenhouse gas emissions force our climate, and ultimately the Earth system, out of balance. In particular, we address tipping elements in the planetary machinery that might, once a certain stress level has been passed, one by one change fundamentally, rapidly, and perhaps irreversibly. This cascade of events may tip the entire Earth system into a new mode of operation.”
“What we do not know yet is whether the climate system can be safely ‘parked’ near 2 degrees C above preindustrial levels, as the Paris Agreement envisages. Or if it will, once pushed so far, slip down the slope towards a hothouse planet. Research must assess this risk as soon as possible.”
Cutting greenhouse gases is not enough
Maximizing the chances of avoiding a “Hothouse Earth” requires not only reduction of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas emissions, but also enhancement and/or creation of new biological carbon stores, for example, through improved forest, agricultural and soil management; biodiversity conservation; and technologies that remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and store it underground, the paper says. Critically, the study emphasizes that these measures must be underpinned by fundamental societal changes that are required to maintain a “Stabilized Earth” where temperatures are ~2 degrees C warmer than the pre-industrial era.
“Climate and other global changes show us that we humans are impacting the Earth system at the global level. This means that we as a global community can also manage our relationship with the system to influence future planetary conditions. This study identifies some of the levers that can be used to do so,” concludes co-author, Katherine Richardson from the University of Copenhagen.
“… the climate system can be safely ‘parked’ near 2 degrees C above preindustrial levels”
What a load of BS, especially since we’ve been told all sorts of terrible consequences will occur at 2C and it is “officially unsafe“. Now apparently it’s “safe”. Got that folks? The climate pays attention to our history and the whims of the Schellnhuber pronouncements.
Note to my Internet stalker “Sou” aka Miriam O’Brien: I know you’ll want to jump all over this, please, be my guest. Make my day.
Of course they don’t bother to give a link to the paper in PNAS, and given the absurdity of the press release, I’m not going to bother looking for it. It’s not worth reading.
Here is the LINK to the PNAS paper.
Trajectories of the Earth System in the Anthropocene
http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2018/07/31/1810141115
The abstract is politically charged.
In case some user is interested in the full: https://workupload.com/file/rKyCzu9
The authors include Will Steffen, Johan Rockström, Katherine Richardson, Timothy M. Lenton, Diana Liverman and Hans Joachim Schellnhuber. They have published together variously on this theme for some time, common to all is Schellnhuber and his Potsdam Institute. The list is not exhaustive. Rockström is now taking over as Co-Director of Potsdam with Ottmar {Climate Change is now Wealth Distribution] Edenhofer.
February 2005
Breaking News – Only huge emissions cuts will curb climate change
https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn6964-only-huge-emissions-cuts-will-curb-climate-change/
“To have half a chance of curbing global warming to within safe levels, the world’s greenhouse gas emissions need to fall dramatically to between 30% and 50% of 1990 levels by 2050, a new study suggests.” This was actually Meinshausen, who then joined Potsdam in 2006. Formerly worked for Greenpeace and WWF as a “consultant”, has been the Director of the Australian-German College [Potsdam] at The University of Melbourne since 2012
February 2008
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18258748
Lenton TM, Held H, Kriegler E, Hall JW, Lucht W, Rahmstorf S, Schellnhuber HJ.
“Here we introduce the term “tipping element” to describe large-scale components of the Earth system that may pass a tipping point. We critically evaluate potential policy-relevant tipping elements in the climate system under anthropogenic forcing, drawing on the pertinent literature and a recent international workshop to compile a short list, and we assess where their tipping points lie. An expert elicitation is used to help rank their sensitivity to global warming and the uncertainty about the underlying physical mechanisms”.
March 2009 Pre-Copenhagen
https://www.pik-potsdam.de/news/press-releases/files/synthesis-report-web.pdf
Rapid, sustained, and effective mitigation based on coordinated global and regional action is required to avoid “dangerous climate change” regardless of how it is defined.
Weaker targets for 2020 increase the risk of serious impacts, including the crossing of tipping points, and make the task of meeting 2050 targets more difficult and costly.
Authors include: Katherine Richardson, Will Steffen, Hans Joachim Schellnhuber, Diana Liverman
April 2009
Climate chaos predicted by CO2 study
“If we continue burning fossil fuels as we do, we will have exhausted the carbon budget in merely 20 years, and global warming will go well beyond 2C,” said Malte Meinshausen of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research in Germany, who led the study, published in Nature.
More pre-Copenhagen – September 2009
A safe operating space for humanity
https://www.nature.com/articles/461472a#author-information
Authors include:
Rockström, Johan
Steffen, Will
Lenton, Timothy M.
Schellnhuber, Hans Joachim
Hansen, James
Liverman, Diana
Richardson, Katherine
Anthropogenic climate change is now beyond dispute, and in the run-up to the climate negotiations in Copenhagen this December, the international discussions on targets for climate mitigation have intensified. There is a growing convergence towards a ‘2 °C guardrail’ approach, that is, containing the rise in global mean temperature to no more than 2 °C above the pre-industrial level.
Now Only Two Years Left
July 2017 – “Three years to safeguard our climate”
http://www.stockholmresilience.org/research/research-news/2017-07-02-three-years-to-safeguard-our-climate.html
Johan Rockström, Christiana Figueres, Hans Joachim Schellnhuber, Gail Whiteman, Anthony Hobley and Stefan Rahmstorf
They will never give up as long as the funding is there.
They are a dearh cukt like Pol Pot’s Khmer Rouge ir Jonestown’s Jim Jines.
Only much more dangerous since they are lustened to by Popes and Presidents.
Yet there is no such thing as the “Anthropocene”, according to geologists who are in charge of naming geological periods.
This will cause those Germans to build even more windmills.
No Trump is forcing them to quit Russian gas, as a national security issue, America are going to generously supply Europe with gas.
Win for Trump….= win for Americans.
Given that for much of the time during the Holocene the Earth has been warmer than that 4C above pre-industrial levels and 2C above current temps…And that we aren’t currently in a “Hot House Earth” environment…I would say that the Feedbacks inherent in the Earth System will not allow for any runaway conditions. Now that doesn’t say anything for potential sea levels with potential additional polar melt, odds are, throughout history, the sea level is quite capable of being higher and far lower than it is now just by natural processes. Eventually we will need to do something to protect our cities that we built far too close to the waters edge. We can’t just pick up a 50 story condominium and move it inland.
Might be time to start that coastal Sea Wall and Lock system
Maybe they have never heard of an interglacial period. Maybe they have no basic understanding of geological history or knowledge of long-term celestial mechanics. Or maybe they are bad actors, as some earlier posts suggest, deliberately making these absurd claims to further the cause of global socialism. Whichever it is, these nut jobs are all over the media at the moment.
This morning on the BBC’s Today programme there was some Israeli nut job breathlessly explaining to the credulous presenter that Neolithic man was actually happier than humans are today. “Have you got that?”, I called to my wife upstairs: “When we were freezing to death in our caves, and dying from pestilence and starvation, and having our skulls caved in by the neighbouring tribes, and being eaten by sabre-toothed tigers we were actually HAPPIER than we are today when all we have is warm housing, healthcare services, plentiful food supplies, systems of justice and protection plus all the cultural benefits of civilised society. Who’da thunk it?!?”
How can apparently educated people be so irredeemably stupid?
Dont forget we died at the ripe old age of 25,too.
There is a scene in the animated movie, Early Man, where they divvy up the playing positions. The the grizzled old tribal chief is assigned as goalie so he doesn’t have to run around so much. “That’s right”, he says, “don’t forget, I’m nearly 32!”
Especially happy for Neolithic women, with yeast infections, vaginas torn during childbirth and risk of death at each birth. Not to mention being raided for marauding tribes.
Then there was malnutrition:
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2015/sep/10/neolithic-skeleton-oldest-case-rickets-hebrides
And of course agriculture led to more tooth decay and grinding down.
John,
Maybe you should read the paper or even just look at Fig 1 at
http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2018/07/31/1810141115/tab-figures-data
it clearly shows the interglacial period and where the earth is in relationship to that.
And as for happiness it doesn’t depend on material processions or wealth but comes from a state of mind so there is no reason to suppose that Neolithic humans were unhappier than we are. There is plenty of evidence to suggest that people are happier and less stressed when living in a equitable society so they may well have been happier in the past when there were fewer rich people to be envious of.
Dr. Schellnhuber CBE (Commander of the British Empire) openly states 1 billion might be tolerable to his highness. 99% of those with short brutal lives, never seeng their grandchildren have very little time for pursuit of happiness.
Pursuit of happiness is incompatible with such an, unfortunately traditional , oligarchy.
There is evidence people are generaly not happier in the presence of such genocidalists.
Yes even Professors seem that way too.
I used to admire Prof.JimAl-Khalili, but then he goes & tweets this non-science today:
‘Credit where it’s due. @BBCr4today had an item on climate change this morning and didn’t feel the need to have a denier on in the name of ‘balance’. Both contributors agreed it was happening and each had something intelligent to say. No conflict required.’
Prof.BriCox another presenter in UK also bangs this CAGW drum recently on the BBC: https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p01d56f7/in-search-of-science-2-method-and-madness
No wonder ordinary folk believe this CAGW non-science when 2 major players will ‘full access’ to the airwaves tell all it’s the case.
Economic warfare
+1 ……………
2 ºC of warming relative to pre-industrial doesn’t even get us out of the Pleistocene ice age climate…
How *do* these people get around? How do they get through doorways or even manage to get up out of a chair?
The chips on their shoulders are simply gargantuan.
It’s not just the chips.
It’s also their swollen egos that impede their passage through doors, down streets, and block interaction with normal folk.
Don’t worry, they have well balanced opinions with a chip on each shoulder!
Nobody has proven a feedback effect.
And they never will.
The lead author, Will Steffen, is a utter socialist nutter. Always needs to be at the centre of attention, but no one in their right mind could ever find the time to give him a serious job. In the old days (95-99) he was a sad lost fish out of water in Stockhom without a friend. The academic community avoided him like the plague, and “even” the student community considered him a simpleton. A lightweight chemical engineer dreaming of being the Tsar?
To get 2C above the pre-industrial level due to CO2, all else remaining equal, the atmospheric concentration must reach ~1120 ppm, to get 4C the concentration must reach to ~4480 ppm, given the current known reserves of fossil fuels that is impossible.
Prove it.
Ludicrous X-Box climatology seems destined to create a parimutuel betting category that I would be happy to play on the no worries side of the bet. Even if they hedge their bets by using a less extreme model output it would be like taking candy from a baby.
The “vigorish”, which will perforce come out of the pockets of the X-Box losers could go to pay the carbon tax. Id be all for this personally enriching situation. Everyone could he happy about the price of carbon and those betting on saving the planet would be paying for it. We would have to have a well paid third party with no skin in the game to curate the goal posts and record in advance what constitutes a win. Whats not to like?
Obviously “Hothouse Earth” is just another “Wacky Claim” but it’s an important part of the Al Gore climate narrative and therefore will receive the desired media coverage. As is always the case with AGW, perception trumps reality.
The following is a quote from last Sunday’s editorial in the Toronto Star criticizing Ontario Premier Doug Ford’s proposal to fight the Federal Government’s Carbon Tax.
“In the real world, not acting on climate change will lead to catastrophe. The Trudeau government is putting Canadian jobs and families first by taking measures to curtail the devastating effects of climate change, such as rising sea levels, droughts, fires, flooding and species extinction”
Wow, just wow…unless we pay more taxes a man-made humidification apocalypse will destroy the planet.
Yes, but think of all the Canadian jobs lost to species extinction! Wait, how does that work gain?
“The Trudeau government is putting Canadian jobs and families first by taking measures to curtail the devastating effects of climate change, …”
Climate change is a global phenomenon; what Canada (or the U.S.) does to mitigate it doesn’t matter given the developing world’s much greater increasing emissions. If the cost were minor, it wouldn’t matter if we made a futile gesture, but the cost is high, and the risks of grid failures is another downside.
I’m sick to the back teeth with all this cynical, opportunistic scaremongering from the global warming hoaxers: It seems to be on every newsfeed at the moment.
A bit of hot summer weather across parts of the NH, and all the spittle-flecked thigh-rubbers are shrieking about Catastrophic AGW again. It’s so 2007.
}:o(
Dreadnought
Agree – totally.
However, I suspect that another ten years (perhaps fewer) will show [Some of] the CAGW watermelons the error of their models.
For the populace as a whole, REAL cooling will – always – trump modelled warming.
Especially as so much of the ‘West’ is living on borrowed money [In the UK, thanks to the horrific money-spraying of the Brown-Blair regime, with annual deficits exceeding 100,000 million pounds . . . . ; that has to be reined in, then minimised.
And, eventually, refinanced or repaid.]
A terrifying inheritance for the nation.
Auto
Didn’t we just get rid of a Potsdamer nut through retirement. The real tipping point is the Institute sliding into an insane asylum with symptoms like this.
If 7000ppm couldn’t put the earth into a hot house state, how is 500ppm going to do it?
I think that Kristi or somebody once told us that the sun was, like, 200 times dimmer back then, basically just a dim star in the darkened sky 🙂
No, no, no! It’s not the sun! It’s CO2 dammit……./s
“… tipping elements… once a certain stress level has been passed, one by one change fundamentally, rapidly, and perhaps irreversibly. This cascade of events may tip the entire Earth system into a new mode of operation.”
— It doesn’t sound like much of a balance, with all these dominoes just waiting to fall in a cascade.
Get in line fellas. The number of folks predicting doom based on nothing but brain farts stretches around the block. Get to the end of the queue and wait your turn.
And of course the Australian ABC ran this nutball piece with great glee in their morning news bulletins today. Fits in well with the “worst ever drought” we are currently experiencing oops we really meant worst in 50 years.
Keith, I had the displeasure this morning of waking up to that little piece of propaganda on the ABC. Unfortunately it’s going to get worse here if El Niño thresholds are reached which is looking to be likely the case.
It just appeared in New Zealand Stuff.co.nz Big headline .
Scientists need to realise, that the entire earth is NOT warming at the same rate. “Global” warming is NOT “Global”, it is “Regional”.
I divided the earth up into 8 regions, of equal area, by latitude. They are:
– 90N to 48N
– 48N to 30N
– 30N to 14N
– 14N to Equator
– Equator to 14S
– 14S to 30S
– 30S to 48S
– 48S to 90S
As you move from north to south, the warming rate decreases consistently. From
+3.98, to –(most Northern)
+2.53, to
+1.99, to
+1.63, to
+1.61, to
+1.29, to
+1.07, to
+0.26 ——(most Southern)
(all in degrees Celsius per century).
The most Northern region (1/8 of the earth), is warming at a rate 15.3 times faster, than the most Southern region (1/8 of the earth). Nearly 16 times faster!!!
Isn’t CO2 meant to be a well mixed gas? The CO2 concentration should be just over 400 ppm everywhere. Why is the CO2 in the southern hemisphere, not having the same effect as the CO2 in the northern hemisphere?
Look at the brightly coloured Global Warming Contour Maps, which show the decreasing warming rates from north to south, as colours. They go left to right, and top to bottom. Look at the legend, to see what warming rates each colour represents.
There are full sized versions of these global warming contour maps on my website:
https://agree-to-disagree.com/regional-warming
Here is the legend:
Awesome graphics Sheldon. You may have unintentionally shown us clearly what AGW with Arctic amplification looks like.
https://nsidc.org/about/monthlyhighlights/2009/09/arctic-amplification
All those high rise condos along the coasts, just live in the upper floors and park your submarine-car in the bottoms floors.
Stop assuming these people are either out of their mind, stupid, climate change fanatical, or poor excuses for scientists. Start assuming they are after control of your energy and life. Now does it make sense?
Just so, markl!
Farming entire Antarctica, Greenland and Siberia would not be so bad outcome in return for a little bit of flooding elsewhere.
My studies show, that any day now, my dogs are going out of balance and will start shaking back and forth uncontrollably.
Can we arrange for Schellnhuber to going on a speaking tour of China, India and the Third World? I am certain (ha!) those countries would all change their behavior immediately after hearing him pontificate about “hot house earth.”
Again why haven’t such idiots ever taken any history? It is like the Earth only came into existence the day they were born.
“Can we arrange for Schellnhuber to going on a speaking tour of China, India and the Third World?”
In one of his books, PJ O’Rourke suggested that any such speaker had better have a rescue helicopter on call to save him from mobs angered at being told there was no upward mobility for them.
I could care less what Schellnhuber says. He’s just showing off his PNAS.
As the great Skeletor once remarked, I could write a book about what they don’t know.