Just half a degree Celsius could make a major difference when it comes to global warming, according to a new paper published by a collaborative research team based in China.
The study, which appears in Nature Communications on August 8, 2018, confirms the significance of the incremental global warming limits articulated by the Paris Agreement, an accord structured within the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. A total of 175 parties (174 countries and the European Union)* agreed to work to stop global warming from increasing more than 2°C, and every effort is to be made to limit the increase to 1.5°C and prevent the last half of a degree of warming. The half a degree Celsius is so significant that it could be the barrier preventing extreme precipitation events, according to Tianjun Zhou, the corresponding author on the paper.
Zhou is a senior scientist at the State Key Laboratory of Numerical Modeling for Atmospheric Sciences and Geophysical Fluid Dynamics at the Institute of Atmospheric Physics in the Chinese Academy of Sciences. He is also a professor at the University of Chinese Academy of Sciences.
“As the climate warms, both the mean state and the variability of extreme precipitation are projected to increase, inducing more intense and dangerous extreme events,” Zhou said. “Limiting global warming to 1.5°C, compared to 2°C, would reduce areal and population exposures to once-in-10-year or once-in-20-year extreme precipitation events by approximately 20 to 40 percent.”
Zhou and his team combined CMIP5, an archive of comprehensive climate models, with socio-economic projections to investigate future climate changes and the accompanying impacts. The researchers specifically examined extreme precipitation events in the global monsoon region, which sprawls north and south from the Earth’s equator and includes nearly two-thirds of the world population. This region is more impacted by extreme precipitation than any other land mass on Earth.
The scientists found that by reducing the global warming limit by 0.5°C, a significant number of extreme precipitation events and their impacts could be avoided.
“Realizing the 1.5°C low warming target proposed by the Paris Agreement could robustly benefit the populous global monsoon region, in terms of lower exposure to precipitation extremes,” Zhou said, referring to the severe floods, landslides and debris flows that can result from excessive rain. “[Our results] are robust across climate models, different definitions of dangerous events, future greenhouse gas emissions scenarios, and population scenarios.”
The researchers will continue to study the physical processes of how 0.5°C less warming affects dangerous precipitation extremes. They’re also calling others to attention and action in regions that are the most sensitive to the 0.5°C additional warming.
“Among the global land monsoon regions, the most affected sub-regions, the South African and South Asian monsoon regions, are already among the most vulnerable to adverse impacts of climate change,” Zhou said. “Our results call attention to more effective adaption activities in these sensitivity regions.”
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*The United States has announced it will withdraw from the Paris Agreement by 2020.
The paper: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-018-05633-3
Beware Climate Geeks bearing gifts.
I’m dyslexic. For example, when I see a Chick-fil-A sign, I see it as “Chick-A-fil.” It takes me almost a minute to unsee that, and recognize what it actually represents.
Whenever I see CMIP, I see it as “CHIMP.” That may be a more apt misreading than Chick-A-fil. It’s like the old saw of taking an infinite number of chimps and an infinite number of typewriters, and the result would eventually be that they would (by random chance) type all of the works of Shakespeare. The ensemble method of blending climate model outputs is strikingly similar, don’t you think? Eventually, by random chance, it might produce a result corresponding to reality.
It is interestingly referred to as 2 degrees…not 2.0 degrees. So is it a range of 1.5-2.4 degrees?
So how different from 2 is 1.5 degrees? Did they use 2.0 degrees in the model, or 2.4 degrees posing as 2 degrees?
It’s pretty amazing that the magic number for this study is exactly 1.5 degrees C. Funny how we always end-up with common digits and ratios in climate science.
These guys just make this s . . . . stuff up, and no one calls them on it.
that’s great. All we need to do is turn the sun down. Since it did that all on its own are we safe now?
1. Mathematical onanism.
2. China announces that the US must shut down its industries and bleed its economy dry to send money to third world kleptocrats who will use the money to buy stuff from China.
The alarmists admit that CO2 cannot do it by itself. It has to create more warming by forcing more water vapour in a supposedly viscious runaway scenario. However since water vapour is lighter than air, the water vapour air rises by convection and thus the heat is lost to higher and higher regions of the troposphere and stratosphere. The hottest places on the planet are deserts; not tropical rain forests. When it rains almost all of the latent heat that is then released ( not all of it, because we know that when that rain water that makes it to the ground and if it then freezes it releases latent heat) must go into the higher atmosphere. If it made its way back to the lower troposphere, there would be runaway global warming ~ 86.4 W/m^2 based on the ~486000 – 577000 km^3 of water ( depending on which source) of evaporation/transpiration globally per year. The hydrological cycle is fairly constant (NASA couldnt prove any increase in over 20 years of trying). This is the cycle that releases most of the heat from the surface of the earth. Planets without oceans become either ovens or refrigerators. CO2 has little to do with heat on the earth. Its place in the world is photosynthesis and combustion activities like breathing and fossil fuel burning. IT IS ABOUT TIME THAT Mr. CO2 BE LET OUT OF JAIL.
Even if the modeling is correct (ho ho), he said the wrong thing and won’t be getting any Christmas cards from the Western Khmer-Vert because he used the A-word: Adapt.
If we simply adapt to these modest putative changes in climate then the Greenies will have to wave goodbye to all those draconian new laws designed to roll back the industrial revolution (and also forgo all that lovely money, influence, and power to make our lives miserable). I am sure the good Professor is also aware that rolling back the Asian industrial revolution, and all the benefits it brings, is a complete non-starter in Chinese politics.
The fight has gone way past your point. The greenies wont be satisfied until every fossil fuel is left in the ground. It isnt really about climate change anymore. It is whether a society can be 100% renewable or not. We skeptics know that is impossible but the Greenies have faith you see. How does the saying go? Faith conquers all before it; Truth or Not.
They have reached the “bargaining” stage of grief, soon to be followed by despair, then acceptance that their science is rubbish and their careers were a waste of time.
Models R Us, maybe one day they will end up like the other sales outfit:
https://www.toysrus.co.uk/pages/closing-down-sale
https://www.uea.ac.uk/study/study-abroad/partnerday/dialogue-groups/china
UEA engaging in China
CMIP5 example:
https://ueaeprints.uea.ac.uk/53787/
“Abnormal westward extensions of ENSO patterns are a common feature of all CMIP5 models, while the warming of the Indian Ocean that happens during El Niño is not correctly reproduced. This could impact the teleconnection between ENSO and Southern African rainfall which is represented with mixed success in CMIP5 models.
Large-scale anomalies of suppressed deep-convection over the tropical maritime continent and enhanced convection from the central to eastern Pacific are correctly simulated. However, regional biases occur above Africa and the Indian Ocean, particularly in the position of the deep convection anomalies associated with El Niño, which can lead to the wrong sign in rainfall anomalies in the northwest part of South Africa.
From the near-surface to mid-troposphere, CMIP5 models underestimate the observed anomalous pattern of pressure occurring over Southern Africa that leads to dry conditions during El Niño years.”
Where does one buy one of these crystal balls? – I need one!
When people talk about changes in atmospheric temperatures I always look at the absolute temperatures in Kelvin. It is usually most enlightening.
‘An analysis of 50 years of rainfall data in arid regions by researchers at Cardiff University and the University of Bristol in the UK has shown a decline in rainfall intensity, despite an increase in total rainfall. The findings run counter to research that suggests that global warming causes heavier rainfall, because a hotter atmosphere can hold more moisture, and warmer oceans evaporate faster, thus feeding the atmosphere with more moisture. ‘
http://www.meteorologicaltechnologyworldexpo.com/en/industry-news.php?release=d2cdf047a6674cef251d56544a3cf029
We need to look at the effect of over doing the clean air acts on rainfall before going onto more obscure effects of climate.
In the utterly failed world of predicted climate dooms:
Zhou adds another modeled absurdity to their lists of failed predictions.
As other astute commenters point out, it’s all a demand for more funding for researchers working in isolation fantasy loops.
A) Require and evaluate all products used and produced by this group.
B) Require certification of all involved models’ code.
C) Account for and certify expenditures, including travel.
Unable to comply?
Defund them!
Glad we don’t live in a climate model. It sounds really rough in there.