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Global Emissions Targets Will Lead to 4C Temperature Rise, Say Studies
Studies predict major extinctions and collapse of Greenland ice sheet with temperatures rising well above UN targets
The world is heading for an average temperature rise of nearly 4C (7F), according to analysis of national pledges from around the globe. Such a rise would bring a high risk of major extinctions, threats to food supplies and the near-total collapse of the huge Greenland ice sheet.
More than 100 heads of state agreed in Copenhagen last December to limit the rise in global temperatures to 1.5C-2C (2.7-3.6F) above the long-term average before the industrial revolution, which kickstarted a massive global increase in the greenhouse gases blamed for warming the planet and triggering climate change.
But six months on, a major international effort to monitor the emissions reductions targets of more than 60 countries, including all the major economies, the Climate Interactive Scoreboard, calculates that the world is on course for a rise of nearly double the stated goal by 2100.
Another study by Climate Analytics, at the Potsdam Institute in Germany, suggests there is "virtually no chance" world governments will keep the temperature rise to below 2C, and the rise is likely to be 3.5C (6.3F) by the end of the century.
In both analyses the current commitments suggest a much better outcome than the estimated business-as-usual temperature rise of 4.8C (8.6F), but are well above the 2C maximum the UN hoped would be agreed at the next major meeting this December in Cancún, Mexico - and even further from the 1.5C target many developing nations argue is needed to stop the worst impacts of climate change in their countries.
In its last assessment of the problem in 2007, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) forecasts that a rise of more than 2C would lead to potential increases in food production, but an increasingly high risk of extinction for 20-30% of species, more severe droughts and floods, and a unstoppable "widespread to near total" loss of the Greenland ice sheet over very long time periods. However, at 4C it predicted global food production was "very likely" to decrease, "major extinctions around the globe", and near-total loss of Greenland's ice, precipitating 2-7m of sea-level rise in the long term. As temperatures rose, the severity of floods, erosion, water pollution, heatwaves, droughts and health problems such as malnutrition and diarrhoea diseases would also increase, said the IPCC.
"We're looking at a level which is much more extreme and profoundly dangerous," said Ruth Davis, chief policy adviser for Greenpeace. "It's arguable the UN process has become dangerously cut adrift from the science of climate change."
The Department of Energy and Climate Change said that, based on national offers of emissions reductions made in Copenhagen, the United Nations Environment Programme (Unep) and other bodies had calculated that it was possible to meet the 2C target, although this would depend on the targets set beyond 2020.
"There's more work to do if we're going to avoid a 2C temperature rise which is why we're pushing the EU to cut its emissions by 30%," said a DECC spokesman. "Keeping below 2C is still possible from the high end Copenhagen accord offers, but will require steeper action after 2020."
However, many experts said the much higher temperature-rise estimates were a cause for serious concern that emissions cuts proposed for Cancún were too low and not enough was being done to prepare for further cuts beyond 2020, even though there are still nearly six months of negotiations before the talks.
"We've made progress but we're clearly not headed where we need to be," said Andrew Jones, co-director of Climate Interactive, which is backed by several universities including MIT. "No one is talking about changing any of the 2020 proposals, so we should be worried." Climate Interactive's model is also backed by a panel of experts including Prof Bob Watson, chief scientific advisor to the UK's Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra), and a former head of the IPCC.
The Climate Interactive Scoreboard, for which researchers check daily for updates in emissions or other targets which would reduce pollution such as reductions in energy intensity or increases in renewable energy, makes a medium-range prediction of a 3.9C increase in temperatures, with a range of 2.3-6.2C (4.2-11.1F), based on committed targets, and a more encouraging 2.9C (5.2F) average, with a range of 1.7-4.6C (3.1-8.5F) based on "potential" commitments suggested but not enacted by many nations.
One of the major barriers to setting higher emissions cuts was a great many countries, including Canada and the EU, have said they do not want to increase their targets until the US sets significant reductions, which is proving hard for President Obama to achieve, said Davis.
Climate Analytics and Ecofys, under the banner of Climate Action Tracker, estimate a range of 2.8-4.3C.
The principal differences between the two calculations are that they use different models, and made different assumptions about what countries will do after their current targets expire, said Jones.
In both cases, there has been no improvement to the forecast outcome since the experts assessed the prospects immediately after the Copenhagen conference.
The predictions will be particularly worrying for many watchers because the 2C target was based on research which suggested that at that level there was only a low to medium risk of key changes to the conditions in which humans survive; however an update of the "burning embers diagram" by the authors, published last year by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences in the US, suggested that at 2C there greater risk in all categories, including a significant to high risk to unique and threatened ecosystems, of extreme weather events and a global distribution of the worst threats.
Climate Interactive Scoreboard
26 Comments so far
Show AllDoes no one in Juliette Jowit and Christine Ottery's circle pay attention to what the rest of the world thinks? Using IPCC forcasts, especially prior forcasts, generates disbelief rather that concern.
Its as if no one involved ever studied psycology or sociology, let alone political realities.
Their information is sourced from several organizations. As for the IPCC, the errors they made were, relative to the body of work, insignificant. The main point here is that there is little political will to address and act on the problem.
Then I guess that means we all go down.....including the elites.
I'm afraid the conundrum is far deeper and more complex than that.
Conscientious hard scientists (those not bought and paid for) tend to be naive rationalists and more or less ignorant about the workings of socio-political power. For them addressing prospective climate catastrophe is mainly an issue of "getting the truth out" -- a sticky matter in and of itself when dealing with probabilistic forecasting. For them, once the "truth" is "out" courtesy of a million reports and press releases, solutions will naturally pose themselves. That's what makes even the most (although not all) principled climatologists easy marks for the GHG cap-and-trade scammers, perpetual motion machine fantasists, green entrepreneurs, etc.
Then you've got the more progressive "climate justice" activists, who correctly recognize the insufficiencies and inequities of market and technical fixes. The problem is, many (not all) of them are comfortably ensconced inside the international NGO complex. Their location inside this complex sometimes compels them to over-hype the coming apocalypse, on the one hand, and sometimes to make noxious compromises with the philanthropic foundations, on the other. Their busybody round-the-clock activism is its own form of denial, in a way.
I'm not sure any major player in the climate science and policy scene should be let off the hook, really...
Those that don't believe in a major climate catastrophe
are mere amusements.
Those that believe that man has a say so in the temperture
rise, 1.5C or 2C, need to ask themselves how this is going
to be done and what happens if the planet doesn't sign this
treaty.
And finally, Hanson, Gore, McKibbon, and the rest of the
world scientists and climageologists need to quit lieing to
the world.
Man cannont , and it is impossibe , to bring down the C02ppm
even just 1ppm. They know this as well as I do.
The climate collapse has become nothing but a money making
tool, especially for Hanson and Gore.
It's better not to risk those who say global warming is taking place are wrong, and I have no reason to believe they are. If we want to get a solution, we had better be willing to do something besides just talk about studying the problem.
Jesse Jackson Sr would call this a paralysis of analysis. Rev Jackson is right!
AD
According to Naomi Klein's "The Shock Doctrine" the elites use massive dislocation, or shock, to ram their economic strictures down the throats of those who would otherwise be unwilling.
Does Global Warming sound like the neocons greatest shock dream come true or what? No wonder none of them are doing anything about Global Warming, they are looking forward to it.
One of the most important lessons from that book, is that the Chicago Boys were ready with their plans when the opportunities arose. Where are our plans to counter theirs?
I agree with this. The idea is to inculcate chaos and then charge for stability. The rich will get a lifeboat for a price, the poor will drown.
Currently I'm looking for land at least above twelve hundred feet above sea level. That is the bottom estimate of water level rising as a result of global warming. Then I'm going to look for a small patch of land fifty six hundred feet above sea level. That is seen by some as the safe zone in a worst case scenario. Currently I'm on a ridge that is six hundred feet above sea level. Not so good unless your a fish.
Massive flooding historically causes extinction events. We have had five or six such events in our history. That is why so many Amerindian creation stories center around water and a myth for land creation. In our wisdom we have allowed science and technology to accelerate our next extinction event based upon flooding resulting from purposeful global warming. Mass suicide is insanity. Insanity is why nothing makes sense today. Worse yet, insanity is speeding up. Today, sanity is abnormal.
you're fine where you are max sea rise is only 240ft (80m)
http://www.smith.edu/libraries/research/class/idp108USGS_99.pdf
but you need to move north of 58. unfortutunately there is very little decent, farmable land up there.
Actually, if great Permian extinction is any guide, atmospheric oxygen levels will drop so low (due to the development of an acid, anoxic ocean) that you will need to be near sea level to have enough oxygen to breathe.
Sea level will not rise nearly as high as you are stating. If it did rise as high as you state, my local borough and its main street will be sitting on a pretty penensula on the edge of a great, shallow island-dotted sea that divides north America into two seperate lands.
If all you care about is your own personal fortunes I wouldn't worry. The really dire life-ending effects are not going to happen in anyones lifetime today - they will happen to future generations. The inability to get people to take serious the direct casusual connection between their activities today and the end of the human species several centuries or even millenia out, is why there will be little action on climate change.
I place more stock in prophecy than most people do. I do believe that the Mayans and others have calculated their clock to end on December 21, 2012 for a purpose. That purpose is a warning. No one knows what the effects of the planets in our solar system aligning with the center of the Milky Way will be. That will happen on December 21, 2012. Some predict a magnetic pole reversal. If that happens then all bets are off. Prophecy predicts catastrophic events at this time. So, an extinction event could be on our doorstep. Natural and man made disasters are accelerating. Man is being challenged. I know the world of Spirit and will not discount it through scientific denial. I encourage people to have an open mind.
Mumbo Jumbo.
Magnetic reversals happen often over geologic time, and have never been associated with extinction events. Of course, there is always a non-zero probability of some catastrophic astronomical event happening on that date. But an alignment of the planets with the galactic center will be as harmless as them aligning with any other direction.
Recall the Nostradamus' "the "King of Terror will come from the skies in 1999 and seven months" prediction? Then again, he was just 14 months off from Sept. 11, 2001. a 14-month error over 405 years isn't bad. And, he did say that Mars would reign before and after, that has sure been accurate, but here are few times when Mars isn't reigning.
I hear where your coming from and I do understand your reaction. I view this from a very different cultural perspective and have experienced the power of Spirit. I do not try to change anyone but merely state an alternative viewpoint.
last I heard, the IPCC had not included rising atmospheric methane levels in their forecasts...
has any reputable body run models that include methane increases in the forecast?
I see they are having heat advisories on the East Coast
this week... I spent most of my life there but have been
residing here in the Midwest the last twenty years.
The temps here are going to probably hit the 100f
range today. Before we had a little break from this,
we had a two week spree that the temperature hit 100
everyday....not much was reported on this.....
A friend (my ex-wife), was calling time & temp up everyday.
(please don't ask why, I don't know, never did understand her
she has a thermom right on her porch) but anyway, she
noticed that after the first week of these abnormal temps,
that as soon as they reported 100f, the next hour they would
drop the temp ten degrees...She said they did this for over
a week.. She would call and they would give a 102 temperature
then on hour later would report the temperature 93 degrees.
Now I don't know if there is some sort of conspiracy here,
but who knows anymore just what these rascals will do.
i believe it............here too, they are giving the temps at 10 degs lower than it is on the local website...............
Pittsburgh seems to escape the worst of the heat waves - just 91F today - compared to 102 for Philadelphia. Pittsburgh isn't very high (700 to 1300 feet), but it is on the western side of the Applalacians - so the air is ascending and forming clouds, not descending and cloudless like it is on the coastal plain. Oakland, Maryland, on the Allegheny Plateau SE of here, got to 82 today - very hot for that neck of the woods. It would be a good time to get away to the WV Dolly Sods, probably no warmer than 75 there.
Air conditioning can be very addictive, and prevents acclimation to the heat. Use the AC only enough to lower the humidity and lower the temperature a few degrees - no more.
The cicadas arrived earlier here in Queens, NY, this year, during the last two weeks of June, that's when I heard the first singer. Unless I'm wrong, they usually arrive here around mid-July or later, when it's really hot and humid.
A cicada (pronounced /sɪˈkɑːdə/ or pronounced /sɪˈkeɪdə/) is an insect of the order Hemiptera, suborder Auchenorrhyncha, in the superfamily Cicadoidea, with large eyes wide apart on the head and usually transparent, well-veined wings. There are about 2,500 species of cicada around the world, and many remain unclassified. Cicadas live in temperate to tropical climates where they are among the most widely recognized of all insects, mainly due to their large size and remarkable acoustic talents. Cicadas are sometimes colloquially called "locusts", although they are unrelated to true locusts, which are a kind of grasshopper. They are also known as "jar flies". Cicadas are related to leafhoppers and spittlebugs. In parts of the southern Appalachian Mountains in the United States, they are known as "dry flies" because of the dry shell that they leave behind.
Cicadas are benign to humans in normal circumstances and do not bite or sting in a true sense, but may in fact "sting" after mistaking a person's arm or other part of their body as a tree or plant limb and attempt to feed. Cicadas have a long proboscis under their head that they use for feeding on tree sap, and if they attempt to inject it into a person's body it can be painful, but is in no other way harmful. This "sting" is not a defensive reaction and should not be mistaken for aggression, it is extremely uncommon, and it usually only happens when they are allowed to rest on a person's body for extended periods of time.
Cicadas can cause damage to several cultivated crops, shrubs, and trees, mainly in the form of scarring left on tree branches while the females lay their eggs deep in branches. Many people around the world regularly eat cicadas; the female is prized, as it is meatier. Cicadas have been (or are still) eaten in Ancient Greece, China, Malaysia, Burma, Latin America, and the Congo. Shells of cicadas are employed in the traditional medicines of China.
where i am in southern europe, they arrived during the last two weeks of june. and as you say, they are not seen (just heard) until the empty shell is left. the rate we are going, that's all that will remain of earth........just an empty shell.
the temps these past two days have been abnornally high (39 degs c and above)
we'd better get used to it..............it's not going to get any cooler in the summers!!!!
I heard my first dog-day Cicada a few days ago her in the Pittsburgh area - you are right; they don't mormally come out until the dog-days - August.
Picked some tomatos already too, and local peaches were ready for picking before July 1.
The 17-year cicadas come out in huge noisy numbers only every 17 years, and much earlier - just after the trees leaf out. Our local brood came out around 2000, so we still have 7 years beore we see them again.
An interesting editorial from the 1969 film Paint Your Wagon:
God made the mountains
God made the sky
God made the people
God knows why
He fixed up the planet
As best as He could
Then in come the people
And gum it up good
The first thing you know
They civilized the foothills
And every weary put hills
The mountains and valley below
They come along and take 'em
And civilize and make 'em
A place where no civilized
Person would go
The first thing you know
The first thing you know
They civilize what's pretty
By puttin' up a city
Where nothin' that's
Pretty can grow
They muddy up the winter
And civilize it, into a place
Too uncivilized
Even for snow
The first thing you know
They civilize left
They civilize right
Till nothing is left
Till nothing is right
They civilize freedom
Till no one is free
No one except
By coincidence, me
The first thing you know
The boozer's in prison
And the criminally isn't
And only the rascals have gone
When I see a parson
I gotta put my arson in
A wagon that follows the tail of a crow
The first thing you know
I pick up a growl
The first thing you know
If you can read a chart, look carefully at the IPCC/Gore chart of global temp deviation from mean, and the CO2 concentration (featured in his movie as a 20' projection on a studio wall). Best studied by getting a printed copy.
Ask yourself the questions presented by that simple information. Clue: the movie/book does NOT, in my view, address that info in the proper way.
Consider what kind(s) of climate change trigger(s), and tipping point(s) would produce the results depicted in the historical record.
We are not getting the true skinny from either Gore, etal, or the government.
Read: Under a Green Sky by Ward; and The Great Iceage by Chapman/Drury if you can find it. Make periodic visits to USGS and take a look at seismic activity.
i looked at the usgs you suggested. unfortunately it's all very technical and not easy to interpret for a 'layman'............
i've got and read 'under a green sky'........intruiging!!!
USGS/earthquake hazards, then real time world or USA and 8-30 days record.
It seems that just as water freezes suddenly, climate systems can change state instantly as well. Water has intersting physical characteristics as it changes states as far as energy lost and gained.
The long term cycle of change in location of water mass, globally, must play into this senario, too, as it relates to seismic /tectonic forces and ecosystem heat gain from magma flows, etc.
The chart shows several examples of quick time defeat and reversal of temp and CO2 spikes over the last few ice age cycles. Granted, the time scales are compressed, but sometimes that serves to reveal the character/type of changes or tipping pts we may expect.
Low probability, high risk events rule the process is my bet, and the system is in many ways on edge/at the brink of phase change and imbalance.
The climate change response paradox is the most severe.
The more change we avoid doing now, the more change is later required
Its the carbon credit limits and temperature interest rates we fear.
So why do we keep on spending now? To create hell for our bodies to be fired?
Or is hope lost, and a trite illusionary comfort we seek.
While grows the greatest ever burning of fossil fuels.
The whirring of our machines of power have yet to reach its peak.
as we feast on our planet, we billions of human fools.
So greatly adaptable are we, but so addicted to an easy life.
That we cannot stop our fuel burning that causes climate strife.
In the far future humans burning carbon fuel in denial can even be seen.
After the oceans have become purple, and the sky becomes green.
Then Gaia turns into Medea, and wipes out this higher life batch
No humans will be left to see new evolutionary life hatch.