Image Credit : SkepticalScience.com

It should come as no surprise that the United Nations (under UNFCCC) commissioned a report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), way back in 2007.

The revelation is that very few people appear to have read any of it.

So I thought I would present just a little about the “robust findings” of Working Group 1 (WG1 or WGI) of the Fourth Assessment Report (AR4). I think the IPCC’s science needs a wider public readership, and so I hope that this post in some way enables that.

The unpacking of the Working Group 1 report “Climate Change 2007 : The Physical Science Basis” could begin by looking at the Technical Summary, or the overall AR4 Technical Summary, or the Synthesis Report, or their respective Summaries for Policymakers.

These can all be found online, readable and downloadable without payment or subscription :-

http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/publications_and_data_reports.htm
http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/contents.html

http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar4/syr/ar4_syr.pdf
http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar4/syr/ar4_syr_spm.pdf

http://ipcc-wg1.ucar.edu/wg1/Report/AR4WG1_Print_SPM.pdf

I’m going to home in on the Working Group 1 Technical Summary :-

http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/ts.html
http://ipcc-wg1.ucar.edu/wg1/Report/AR4WG1_Print_TS.pdf

looking at Section TS.6 “Robust Findings and Key Uncertainties”, and more specifically Section TS.6.1 “Changes in Human and Natural Drivers of Climate” :-

http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/tssts-6.html#ts-6-1

ROBUST FINDING (1)

“Current atmospheric concentrations of CO2 and CH4, and
their associated positive radiative forcing, far exceed those
determined from ice core measurements spanning the last
650,000 years.”

ROBUST FINDING (4)

“The sustained rate of increase in radiative forcing from
CO2, CH4 and N2O over the past 40 years is larger than at
any time during at least the past 2000 years.”

The IPCC report gives a chart with three main high Global Warming Potential (GWP) Greenhouse Gases (GHG), Carbon Dioxide (CO2), Methane (CH4) and Nitrous Oxide (N20) :-

This graph shows asterisks for the current values, but does not plot them. That could be a little confusing, so to illustrate the IPCC’s statement, here are some other diagrams that include more recent values of Carbon Dioxide :-

http://cses.washington.edu/cig/figures/ipccar4co2big.gif

Less of a Hockey Stick, more of an Moon Rocket, as you can see.

And yes, it’s unprecedented. A recent research paper by Etkin (2010) chose a novel way to depict just how far the Earth’s Atmosphere is out of the normal, natural variations. Here’s a summary :-

SkepticalScience.com on Etkin (2010)

ROBUST FINDING (2)

“Fossil fuel use, agriculture and land use have been the
dominant cause of increases in greenhouse gases over the
last 250 years.”

http://www.skepticalscience.com/human-fingerprint-in-global-warming.html

http://www.eia.doe.gov/oiaf/1605/ggccebro/chapter1.html

ROBUST FINDING (3)

“Annual emissions of CO2 from fossil fuel burning, cement
production and gas flaring increased from a mean of 6.4
± 0.4 GtC yr–1 in the 1990s to 7.2 ± 0.3 GtC yr–1 for 2000
to 2005.”

ROBUST FINDING (5)

“Natural processes of CO2 uptake by the oceans and
terrestrial biosphere remove about 50 to 60% of
anthropogenic emissions (i.e., fossil CO2 emissions and
land use change flux). Uptake by the oceans and the
terrestrial biosphere are similar in magnitude over recent
decades but that by the terrestrial biosphere is more
variable.”

The discussion of the Global Carbon Cycle is riven with unintelligible diagrams, for example :-

or even, plain fanciful ones :-

The simpler, the better, in my view :-

There is a possibility that the Carbon Sinks are becoming less able to absorb all the Carbon Emissions we make :-

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v462/n7271/edsumm/e091119-10.html

Carbon Sinks in detail :-
http://www.scidev.net/en/policy-briefs/the-lowdown-on-carbon-sinks.html

ROBUST FINDING (6)

“It is virtually certain that anthropogenic aerosols produce a net negative radiative forcing (cooling influence) with a greater magnitude in the NH than in the SH.”

NH = Northern Hemisphere
SH = Southern Hemisphere

To understand this finding, you do need to understand what “aerosols” are :-

http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/Aerosols/

You also need to be clear about what “radiative forcing” means, and what the various contributions are from the various atmospheric components :-

The finding means, in colloquial terms, that “where there’s more stuff being burned, and there’s more gunk in the air, then warming is not so fast”.

The evidence for this comes from “Global Dimming” :-

US Version :-
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gUD66kjLVNw”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DZnnLnl8L2w
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eLLsTdaVgsc
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VcSW-ZsmpIY
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nucwkm1a1wA

BBC Version :-
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bLfBXRPoHRc
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2e_XBwPHqz8
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ueaib127Ebk
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ayd5R2NkVcA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yA74df19bWs

ROBUST FINDING (7)

“From new estimates of the combined anthropogenic
forcing due to greenhouse gases, aerosols and land surface
changes, it is extremely likely that human activities have
exerted a substantial net warming influence on climate
since 1750.”

What is known as “attribution” has been gaining pace in other parts of the field as well :-

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2010/05/on-attribution/

ROBUST FINDING (8)

“Solar irradiance contributions to global average radiative
forcing are considerably smaller than the contribution of
increases in greenhouse gases over the industrial period.”

And here’s the solar contribution compared to the volcanic contribution :-

Changes in the output of solar radiation have not been a major factor in the increased Global Warming seen in the last few decades. I think the two diagrams in this short paper make that absolutely clear :-

http://www.clas.ufl.edu

http://www.grist.org/article/its-the-sun-stupid

http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2009/01apr_deepsolarminimum/

http://www.nasa.gov/topics/solarsystem/features/sun-brightness.html

I distinctly recall the day I decided I needed to read the newspapers again. It was a chance glance at the Guardian Weekly, on the shelf in an international bookshop in Brussels. In there, I read a piece by George Monbiot, and my reaction was, in paraphrase, “how can he be allowed to write such a thing for publication ?” I was impressed, both at his audacity and his plainspeaking, and the facts to back up his position looked credible.

In overview, it was a good thing that I started to read the newspapers again, even though I have had to wade through interminable barrelloads of rotten opinions and poor research in following the public story of Climate Change and Energy Revival. I have traced the emergence of some almost acceptable Science and Environment writing in the Press, but there has been a remarkable turnaround just recently.

I blame Climategate, and its arch-proponent James Delingpole, the Daily Telegraph bloggista, for puncturing good Climate Change Media, and leaving us with a very poor public representation of the Science, and the way Science works. False information and illogical writing has appeared on a regular basis in some of the newspapers and on websites, including the BBC. You would expect the Daily Express to be hamfisted with the story, but The Times and The Guardian have also taken pratfalls of late.

After so much good and challenging, speaking-truth-to-power writing from George Monbiot, it seems sad, and rather poorly thought-out, to have put on his football scarf and joined those out on the sceptic terraces shouting abuse and villifying Professor Phil Jones. After calling for Phil Jones to resign several times already, yet again George Monbiot hurls match slang at Phil Jones, completely unjustifiably :-

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/apr/06/climate-change-emails-science-humanities

“The root of the climate email fiasco : Learning forced into silos of humanities and science has created closed worlds of specialists who just don’t understand each other : George Monbiot, The Guardian, Tuesday 6 April 2010 : The MPs were kind to Professor Phil Jones. During its hearings, the Commons science and technology committee didn’t even ask the man at the centre of the hacked climate emails crisis about the central charge he faces: that he urged other scientists to delete material subject to a freedom of information request. Last week the committee published its report, and blamed his university for the “culture of non-disclosure” over which Jones presided…”

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/georgemonbiot/2010/apr/08/hacked-emails-freedom-of-information

“Hacked climate science emails: were requests for information vexatious? Original requests for information from the Climatic Research Unit appear to have been genuine, but there are later enquiries that could potentially be seen as aggravating : George Monbiot Thursday 8 April 2010 : This is probably the last piece I’ll write on the hacked emails saga. Unless the two remaining inquiries throw up something unexpected, there is not a lot more to say. The one remaining, interesting question is this: to what extent were the Freedom of Information (FoI) requests, which Phil Jones and the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) handled so badly, vexatious? Were they genuine enquiries by seekers after truth, or were they designed only to mess the unit around?…”

George Monbiot appears to be unaware that the Climate sceptic-denier campaigns against Science have been waged for longer than the Internet has been in existence, and even before electronic mail existed, and that every single e-mail that Phil Jones ever wrote on the subject of Freedom of Information requests was in reaction to this ever-present sceptic-denier campaign, threatening to obstruct the course of Science.

Many enquirers after truth can vouch for ongoing Internet and e-mail wars in Climate Change Science that started way before the e-mails of Phil Jones that George Monbiot so criticises. George Monbiot’s interpretation of those e-mails is incorrect; to understand them, and the spirit in which they were written, he needs to have an appreciation of the context in which they were written.

George Monbiot writes, “The Canadian mining investor Steve McIntyre, who runs the website Climate Audit, was also fobbed off. In another email, Phil Jones reveals: “Think I’ve managed to persuade UEA [the University of East Anglia] to ignore all further FOIA requests if the people have anything to do with Climate Audit.” That doesn’t seem right either. Just because you don’t like someone doesn’t mean you can refuse to answer their FoI request.”

George Monbiot poorly interprets Phil Jones’ attitude, and seems to have no overview of the history of Steve McIntyre’s obstructive behaviour as regards Climate Change Science, which knowledge would definitely and clearly explain why Phil Jones would prefer the UEA to refuse to offer cooperation with ClimateAudit.

Phil Jones is innocent of wrongdoing. The Climate Change denier-sceptics have been waging a war against Science. Somebody needs to tell that story, and re-tell it, and keep talking about it until the Climate Change communications problem gets put right. Somebody who has done more research than George Monbiot.

Here at the Church of Holy Science, we believe the precept of Following the Truth of the Data, wherever that data leads us.

The two month period January to February 2010 was the (wait for it…) third warmest January-February out of the whole 131 years of the instrumental record.

Yeah, I know what you’re thinking. It was cold where I was, as well. But cold here does not mean cold everywhere.

The Blog Chart tells the story of the warming trend of Earth, and February 2010 gets a resounding HOT marker :-

The surface of the Earth is warming up. It’s our fault. We need to slow down and reduce Carbon Dioxide emissions.

http://www.newsweek.com/id/233887

“…he says, people tend to use hockey-stick graphs when they are trying to pull one over on you. “Reality usually isn’t so tidy.”…”

Er, no. Nobody could rightly assert that Climate scientists have been trying to trick anybody. Why does Newsweek not decline his argument ?

And another thing. In point of fact, nobody, not even Steven McIntyre, who does a good impression of conniving with any ignorant, mealy-mouthed, cynics he can find, has managed to unseat the Hockey Stick :-

http://climateprogress.org/2010/02/04/penn-state-michael-mann-hockey-stick-science/

A year of so back, you could trust “shoddy research” Melanie Phillips to be on the wrong side of nasty about it though – and she still seems to know nothing about Climate Change science even though she seems to know a lot about the emotive use of language to push her apparently jaded opinion :-

http://www.spectator.co.uk/melaniephillips/3332616/that-famous-consensus.thtml

And of course, James Delingpole, another non-scientist, doesn’t know how to interpret the facts emerging from Climate science either, nor recognise the authority of the data, and instead bangs on about a methodological mindspace called “post-normal science” as a ruse in order to avoid looking at the facts :-

http://www.spectator.co.uk/columnists/all/5780868/part_4/postnormal-science-is-perfect-for-climate-demagogues-it-isnt-science-at-all.thtml

Post-Normal Science enquiry was proposed to increase engagement with science and navigate safely around risks and uncertainties, so it is a supreme irony that James Delingpole has not been able to use this method to dodge his personal fact-free conclusion icebergs.

The minor headline of the Newsweek article repeats a recent viral phrase that has absolutely no basis :-

“Iceberg Ahead : Climate scientists who play fast and loose with the facts are imperiling not just their profession but the planet.”

Let me repeat : there is absolutely no evidence that Climate scientists have “played fast and loose with the data”.

That accusation must have originated in the mouth of Steve McIntyre, or one of his little cohort of email analysts, and like most of their pronouncements on the motivations, agenda and modus operandi of Climate scientists, it is pure bilge.

There is evidence of minor issues in the gathering, sampling and processing of Climate data, that much has been admitted – it’s a global job and you can’t be everywhere at the same time – it was bound to be problematic.

However, the analysis of Climate data is still sound, and Steve McIntyre should back away from the charts. His seemingly closed mind makes him unqualified to contribute helpfully. I think that most people studying his involvement in Climate science would conclude that his agenda is to deliberately create setbacks. This is unacceptable interference.

We’re still going to get the same outcomes, even if we get there a few years late thanks to the bad attitude of Climate deniers, who increasingly have to rely on the techniques of mind-control psychologists to create false impressions and insecurities that keep the general public from accepting reality.

The world is warming. It’s caused by humans burning Fossil Fuels and cutting down trees and making chemicals and cement. Admit it, Steven McIntyre.

I want to pose a general question to Climate denier-sceptics : you want us to believe that you have a reasonable position from which to critique Climate science, but your input seems to consist mostly of personal smears, unfounded accusations and false assertions. How can you be such brazen myth-tellers ? Who sanctions you to create such a divisive mess ?

Steve McIntyre, as a retired mining geologist probably relies on the profits from his mining investments to keep him into his potentially feebleminded, delusional old age. He could be living on the proceeds of the strong share price of such things as Petroleum Oil and Natural Gas. Can he be relied on to be fair with the facts and the figures ? Why does anyone believe him and his ilk ?

As one of the key people responsible for the mass movement of anti-science hysteria known as “Climate scepticism”, can Steve McIntyre be successfully and finally challenged to quit stirring up suppositions ?

One Hot Year

1998 was a very hot year. Worldwide, the land and sea surface temperatures spiked sharply upwards. Scientists said it was supposed to get hot, but not this hot. Yet by the year 2000, things had cooled back down again. In fact, they were a little cooler than 1995. [1] The detailed analysis made it seem like a murder mystery – who killed the heat ? What happened to Global Warming ?

Part of the forensic evidence came from analysis of Mount Pinatubo. On 15th June 1991, it experienced massive volcanic eruption causing an enormous plume in the sky, easily visible from space. [2] [3] The sulphur dioxide in the plume deflected the sun’s heating rays from Earth, and temperatures on the ground plummeted around the world. Yet, despite this cooling effect, land and sea surface temperatures were back to normal by around 1995, just in time for the sizzle of 1998. [4]

It seemed likely that spikes and slumps were just natural cycles; the climate systems moving from one stable pattern to another. For years, big loops of wind will rotate in one direction, and weathermen know what the temperatures and rainfall will look like. And then the whole setup will flip and change, and temperatures, rainfall and winds will all be different. [5]

Research showed that the El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO) created drought weather conditions in 1997, causing massive forest fires in Indonesia that helped drive up worldwide temperatures in 1998. [6]

A “nuclear winter” from the occasional volcanic eruption, or a “fry up” from flip-flops in big climate circulations only have a short-term impact on global temperatures. [7] The Climate is always changing. There are ups, and there are downs, but no permanent changes. Don’t believe the spikes.

However, a truly astonishing fact emerged. Almost hidden underneath the spikes and slumps of the 1990s, the Earth was continuing to warm up. There was a clearly detectable, relentless trend. [8] [9] [10] [11] This upwards slope had been particularly steep since the early 1970s. [12] And incredibly, although there was debate about exactly how much faster, [13] [14] the data said that the rate of change was increasing. [15] [16] Global Warming had arrived, and it was accelerating.

The mystery deepened. Which part of the Earth system could be responsible for holding on to this extra heat ? Large-scale changes in weather systems and volcanic eruptions would only affect the surface of the land and sea. [17] What was missing were temperature readings deep down in the ocean, where the real, long-lasting signature of Global Warming was to be found.

Ocean Watching

Anybody who has ever waited for a kettle to boil knows that things take time to warm up. And any person who has watched a detective drama on television knows that feeling a coffee cup for residual warmth tells you how long the victim has been gone from their house – things take time to cool down.

It’s this “thermal inertia” that dictates, for example, why the sea can be too cold to swim in, even on a hot June day when the beach is blistering; and why, potentially, there’s more Global Warming coming than the Earth has seen so far.

The World Ocean is so big, you can’t argue with it. It takes a lot to warm this enormous bath up, yet several kilometres down the temperatures are rising steadily, with some variations, but not the wild spikes and slumps seen on the surface of the seas. [18]

Under the sea, although the changes are small, the temperatures just keep going up and up, and they have been doing so, pretty much uninterrupted since the 1950s. [19] [20]

The instrumental record of the deep ocean temperature shows that heat is being locked away down there; most of the total heat from Global Warming eventually ends up there – over 90% of it. [21]

Increase the atmospheric levels of Greenhouse Gases and there will be an imbalance between the sun’s energy coming in and Earth energy escaping. [22] Observation satellites in geostationary orbit confirm that the Earth glows more as it heats up, trying to radiate extra heat away. It will take time to find a new equilibrium, and in the meantime it’s heating the Earth up – just like the Laws of Physics said it would. [23]

It’s as if somebody put a huge fire under the World Ocean, except the heat is not coming from the centre of the Earth, [24] [25] and it can’t all be explained by changes in the sun or deforestation. [26] [27] Global Warming is mostly due to carbon dioxide emissions, from burning Fossil Fuels. [28]

The oceans are heating slowly; the heating seen now is 25 to 50 years behind time. [29] [30] [31] This “time lag” is crucial. The ocean “thermal inertia” means that the whole Earth will continue warming up, and not settle down quickly, even with controls on Fossil Fuel emissions.

Once carbon dioxide is put up into the air, it stays up there for a long time, continuing to force more warming. [32] [33] [34] [35] This long “lifetime” makes carbon dioxide different from other Greenhouse Gases that decompose, or come out of the air in days, months or years. [36]

The extra heat will continue to work its way through the Earth systems, causing more of the same damage done so far to weather systems, basic geological processes, and plant and animal life. [37]

Longlife Greenhouse Gas

Carbon dioxide is a truly “naughty” Greenhouse Gas. It caused over three times as much heating in 2005 as methane, [38] and somewhere near half of all extra heat in the oceans since 1950 came from the build-up of this one gas in the air. [39] [40]

During the period 1959 to 2008, carbon dioxide in the atmosphere rose by 22%. [41] Mankind was responsible for a large portion of the extra. [42] Just like cholesterol where there are good fats (natural) and bad fats (processed), in carbon dioxide there are telltale chemical markers called “isotopes”. Research showed some carbon dioxide is natural; some comes from burning Fossil Fuels. [43]

Although an individual molecule of carbon dioxide will find its way in around four or five years into something else, like a leaf or a wave, [44] [45] carbon dioxide is shared amongst all parts of the Earth system. Some of the carbon dioxide piling up in the air will get sucked up by “carbon sinks” on land and at sea; but some will get pushed back out, by trees at night, for example, when they’re not photosynthesising sunlight. If we added no more, the total in the air would stay the same for decades.

Even were emissions to become under control, the fraction of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere could take centuries to pass through the global carbon cycle, lower and level off. Total elimination from the atmosphere could take tens of thousands of years, as carbon dioxide gets taken into rocks and sediments. [46]

Global Warming Carries On

The Global Warming problem will not be over when carbon dioxide emissions are reduced, even if atmospheric concentrations of the gas are stabilised. [47] [48] Carbon dioxide will hang about, recycled in and out of the atmosphere. The oceans and the atmosphere will carry on warming until the Earth’s energy balance is regained. [49] Not as much as at the moment, but still warming up. It’s worse than putting an extra blanket on your bed. It’s like putting an extra blanket on each night.

Stopping the heating effect is crucial, and stopping it soon. [50] [51] The longer it goes on, the worse it will be. [52] [53] Bear in mind that warming seems to be getting faster, and the exponential rise in carbon dioxide emissions is mostly to blame. Unfortunately, there is also
another dangerous factor at work.

Since 1950 it is estimated that about 10% of the heat from Global Warming ended up in the oceans. Most of the rest was reflected back out into space. [54] A large part of this was because of airborne particles; “global dimming” shielded the Earth from the full effects of Global Warming. As industry is cleaned up, these “aerosols” have reduced and Global Warming has accelerated. [55]

The heating effect could be here a long while. Temperatures will slope upwards, and could stay there. Unavoidable warming yet to come is called “commitment”, [56] and everyone should be scared of it. Climate Change “commitment” implies continuing changes to the environment, which may become less able to support Life on Earth in the way it does now. The lingering effects of the shift in temperature will trigger long, slow climate changes that will go on for possibly hundreds (or thousands) of years. And the risk is that some of the rolling changes could become permanent. [57]

In the short-term, the “transient climate response” would add about three degrees of Global Warming to the Earth before 2100. [58] [59] In the longer term, the temperature at which the Earth settles down, the “equilibrium climate response”, could be several degrees higher than the first three degrees, depending on how long humanity keeps slow-cooking the Earth. [60]

The warming oceans will continue to expand and so sea levels will continue to rise. [61] And to make it worse, the warming atmosphere will cause continued melting of the major ice sheets and ice caps, which could melt completely away. [62] But that’s not all.

Climate Change Carries On

During hundreds of millions of years, the Earth went through periods of warming (and cooling) of a similar magnitude to the current risk, but they mostly took millions of years to happen. That’s plenty of time to adjust to new temperatures. If warming happens really fast, much of Life on Earth might not survive. Problems pile upon problems, “positive feedbacks”, which confusingly, often have negative consequences.

For example : higher carbon dioxide levels cause Global Warming, which causes Earth processes to change, which causes more carbon dioxide Emissions from natural sources, which causes further Global Warming. And so on.

Which Earth processes change ? Included on the upward slope of change are things growing and grazing on land, at sea. Melting ice caps, glaciers. Wilder weather, changing habitats. Some alterations may take time to make an appearance, but could become permanent changes.

Climate Change in the weather systems is already causing extreme weather events and making rainfall random, [63] increasing risks of flooding and droughts.

High up in the mountains and at the poles, a process of meltdown has started : ice and glaciers are melting away, gradually disappearing over the cycle of the seasons. [64] Some high parts of the world may lose most of their snowfall, and so never build up ice again. [65]

Sea levels are rising, [66] and there is stress on fresh water supplies in many river systems; both effects threaten food security. Deserts are already on the move, adding to the farming problems caused by warming temperatures and changes in rainfall. [67] Even if carbon dioxide levels were to be reduced to a flatline “safe” level, the oceans would still rise for centuries. [68] Where people live will need to change.

With more carbon dioxide building up in the air, more ends up in the seas. Around the world seawater is more acidic. In the longer term, as the oceans get hotter and more sour, this endangers marine life everywhere. Much of the excess carbon dioxide is mopped up by creatures in the oceans, so if the sea cannot support so much life, more carbon dioxide will be left floating in the air. [69] On land, in the longer term, forests may get much smaller, limiting their ability to store carbon dioxide; again, leaving more in the air. [70]

At the North Pole in particular, as the Arctic Ocean receives all the ice and glacier meltwater from the land, and as increased rainfall in the region runs off into the sea, the sea will become more fresh, less salty. It could interfere with the massive overturning currents of seawater that keep heat travelling from the Equator to the North. [71] [72]

As Climate Change takes hold, the pattern of the seasons and rainfall is changing, meaning that whole colonies of plants and animals must migrate or perish. Trees, in particular, migrate very slowly from danger zones. Over the next hundreds and thousands of years, the distribution and variety of plants and animals will change over the whole Earth. [73]

The overall impact could be devastating.

Gaps in understanding

There are still some fuzzy areas in Climate Change Science, some “known unknowns”. For example “climate sensitivity”, how sensitive the whole Earth system is to heating from higher Greenhouse Gases levels. Work needs to be done to explain the exact contribution from clouds and airborne particles, the “aerosols”. [74] There needs to be more work on closing the energy and carbon “budgets”, to understand where all the heat and carbon go in the highly complex Earth system. [75]

Is there an absolute temperature rise for added atmospheric carbon dioxide ? James Hansen’s research suggests that the Earth can expect, long-term, a total of six degrees of warming unless mankind reduces carbon dioxide concentrations to 350 parts per million. [76] The current level today is 384.38 parts per million. [77]

There is not a clear picture on how large geographical areas will respond in detail. [78] One critical case is the Amazon rainforest; if permanently lost, the Earth may have crossed over into an entirely new state from which it can never recover. [79]

In some respects, data collection has been poor. [80] Until recently there have not been enough monitoring stations on land or at sea. [81] Even though international space programmes have caused megatonnes of carbon dioxide emissions, satellites are proving highly helpful, filling in gaps in knowledge. [82]

Some research has shown that seismic activity, and therefore earthquakes and volcanoes, could increase with rapid Global Warming, in which case there might be a “negative feedback” from the increased upheaval, keeping things from warming. [83] Or not. [84]

The “animal inertia” of the cutesy bears and little furry things – their inability to migrate to escape the inhospitable heat is of concern. [85] But by far the most worrying thing is the inability of plant life to adapt or move to the poles fast enough. [86] This inertia could really knock a hole in photosynthesis and destroy the “carbon sink” effect. [87]

However, it is not yet known if carbon sinks are degrading at the rates suggested; [88] [89] and some may be balanced out by increased vegetation growth from the “fertilisation effect” [90] and new ecological niches as permafrost and ice thaws. [91]

In the end, the most important issue is probably “social inertia” : the speed at which humanity can change its behaviour as a species. The Earth is already committed to a changing Climate. The question is : “to what extent” ? The answer depends largely on how rapidly knowledge of the risks can be translated into industrial and social change.

[1] NASA (2009)
[2] Geological Society (The) (Accessed 26 November 2009)
[3] About.com (2007)
[4] NASA (2009)
[5] IPCC (2007b) Section 3.6, Box 3.4
[6] Bowman et al. (2009)
[7] Japan Meteorological Agency (Accessed 26 November 2009)
[8] Meteorological Office (2009) Figure 1 “Global ranked annual HadCRUT3″
[9] Forecast Earth (2009)
[10] von Schuckmann et al. (2009)
[11] Domingues et al. (2009) Fig. “Comparison with previous upper-ocean (0–700 m) estimates”
[12] ClimateProgress (2008)
[13] Vose et al. (2005)
[14] IPCC (2007a) AR4 WG1 Chapter 3 Supplementary Materials Section 3.B.1
[15] IPCC (2007b) Table 3.2, Table 3.3, FAQ 3.1
[16] Houghton J., (2009) p. 71
[17] RealClimate (2005)
[18] Domingues at al. (2008) Figure 1 : “Estimates of ocean heat content and sea surface temperature”
[19] Levitus et al. (2005)
[20] Levitus et al. (2009)
[21] IPCC (2007f) Section 5.2.2.3
[22] Archer D., (2007) p. 148
[23] Archer D. (2007) Chapter 3 “The layer model”
[24] Huang S., (2006)
[25] Barnett et al. (2005a)
[26] Royal Society (2008)
[27] IPCC (2007g) AR4 Synthesis Report : Summary for Policymakers : Section 2
[28] IPCC (2007h) AR4 WG1 Chapter 7 Frequently Asked Questions 7.1
[29] Hansen J. et al. (2004)
[30] NOAA (2001)
[31] Archer D., (2007) Chapter 12, pp. 148, 150
[32] Houghton J., (2009) p. 47
[33] Nature Magazine Online (2008)
[34] Archer et al. (2009)
[35] Matthews and Caldeira (2008)
[36] IPCC (2007d) AR4 WG1 Chapter 10 Frequently Asked Question 10.3
[37] IPCC (2007d) AR4 WG1 Chapter 10 Section 10.7
[38] IPCC (2007c) Table 2.1
[39] Murphy D. M. et al. (2009) Figure 6a “Cumulative energy budget for the Earth since 1950″
[40] NOAA ESRL (Accessed 26 November 2009)
[41] NOAA (2009)
[42] Houghton J., (2009) Figure 3.4
[43] Climate Central (2008)
[44] Houghton J., (2009) p. 37
[45] Nature Magazine Online (2008)
[46] Global Warming Art (Accessed 26 November 2009)
[47] Meehl et al. (2005)
[48] IPCC (2007d) Section 10.3.1
[49] Friedlingstein and Solomon (2005)
[50] Meinshausen et al. (2009)
[51] New Scientist (2009b)
[52] IPCC (2007j) AR4 WG1 Chapter 9 Section 9.6.1 Methods to Estimate Climate Sensitivity
[53] Anderson and Bows (2008)
[54] Murphy D. M. et al. (2009) Figure 6b “…positive forcings…balanced by stratospheric aerosols”
[55] IPCC (2007e) AR4 WG1 Technical Summary : Section TS.3.1.3
[56] IPCC (2007d) AR4 WG1 Chapter 10 : Executive Summary : Mean Temperature
[57] Solomon et al. (2009)
[58] IPCC (2007j) p. 666 Executive Summary “Estimates of climate sensitivity”
[59] National Centre for Atmospheric Science (2009)
[60] Hansen et al. (2008)
[61] Wigley T. M. L., (2005)
[62] Lenton et al. (2008)
[63] IPCC (2007d) AR4 WG1 Section 10.7
[64] Borgerson S. (2008)
[65] Barnett et al. (2005b)
[66] IPCC (2007d) AR4 WG1 Executive Summary : Radiative Forcing
[67] ABC Rural (2009)
[68] Reuters (2009)
[69] WBGU (2006)
[70] Jones C. et al. (2009)
[71] Toggweiler (2008)
[72] IPCC (2007e) Technical Summary : Section TS.6.2.3 : Robust Findings
[73] IPCC (2007d) AR4 WG1 Executive Summary : Climate Change Commitment (Temperature and Sea Level)
[74] IPCC (2007e) Technical Summary : Section TS.6.1 : Key Uncertainties
[75] IPCC (2007g) AR4 Synthesis Report : Summary for Policymakers : Section 3
[76] Hansen et al. (2008)
[77] CO2Now (Accessed 27 November 2009)
[78] Lenton et al. (2008)
[79] Jones C. et al. (2009)
[80] IPCC (2007b) AR4 WG1 Chapter 3 Section 3.2
[81] Argo (2009)
[82] Rahmstorf et al. (2007)
[83] New Scientist (2009a)
[84] PhysOrg.com (2009)
[85] Home Office (2006)
[86] CBS News (2009)
[87] The Daily Climate (2009)
[88] van der Werf et al. (2009)
[89] Knorr W., (2009)
[90] Lewis S. et al. (2009)
[91] Natural Environment Research Council (2009)

Acronyms

IPCC = Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
AR4 = Fourth Assessment Report
WG = Working Group (on the IPCC)

References

ABC Rural (2009)

“Livelihoods under threat as lands turn to desert”
Wednesday, 17/06/2009

http://www.abc.net.au/rural/news/content/200906/s2600709.htm
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About.com (2007)

“Mount Pinatubo Eruption : The Volcanic Mount Pinatubo Eruption of 1991 that Cooled the Planet” By Matt Rosenberg, About.com Guide : Aug 5 2007

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Anderson and Bows (2008)

“Reframing the climate change challenge in light of post-2000 emission trends”
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“…concludes that it is increasingly unlikely any global agreement will deliver the radical reversal in emission trends required for stabilization at 450 ppmv carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e).”

Archer D., (2007)

“Global Warming : Understanding the Forecast” 3rd Imprint 2008 ISBN-13: 978-1405140393

Chapter 12 “The forecast”

p. 148 “The energy budget of the Earth today, based on satellite measurements, is out of balance by about 0.75 W/m2. The excess heat is being absorbed into the ocean.”

p. 150 “So the amount of time it will take to balance the energy budget depends on two things. One is the heat uptake by the ocean, and the other is the strength of the feedbacks
such as water vapor. One estimate of the equilibrium time for climate is about 60 years…The best guess is that about 40% of the warming that will occur from the CO2 already released, what is called committed warming, has yet to take place. We have paid for 1deg C warming, but we have so far received only 0.6deg C.”

Archer et al. (2009)

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Argo (2009)

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Borgeron S. (2008)

“Arctic Meltdown : The Economic and Security Implications of Global Warming”
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Bowman et al. (2009)

“Fire in the Earth System”
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CBS News (2009)

“The Migration of Trees … With Some Help”

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/07/20/tech/main5174392.shtml
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Climate Central (2008)

“Fossil fuel use has driven the recent jump in atmospheric CO2″
June 01, 2008

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(Accessed 30 November 2009)

ClimateProgress (2008)

“Very warm 2008 makes this the hottest decade in recorded history by far”
December 7, 2008

http://climateprogress.org/2008/12/07/very-warm-2008-makes-this-hottest-decade-in-recorded-history-by-far/
(Accessed 26 November 2009)

NOTE : The tightening of upward-”ness” in the charts and graphs implies acceleration due to feedbacks.

CO2Now (Accessed 27 November 2009)

384.38 ppm

http://www.co2now.org/
(Accessed 27 November 2009)

Domingues et al. (2008)

“Improved estimates of upper-ocean warming and multi-decadal sea-level rise”
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Domingues et al. (2009)

“Improved estimates of upper-ocean warming: implications for climate models and sea-level
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Poster from CSIRO Marine and Atmospheric Research

http://www.cmar.csiro.au/sealevel/downloads/Poster_Improved_estimates_of_upper-ocean_warming_and_multi-decadal_sea-level_rise.pdf

Forecast Earth (2009)

“Statisticians reject global cooling” Tuesday, October 27, 2009

http://climate.weather.com/articles/Statisticians-reject-global-cooling.html
(Accessed 26 November 2009)

Friedlingstein and Solomon (2005)

“Contributions of past and present human generations to committed warming caused by carbon dioxide”
Pierre Friedlingstein and Susan Solomon (2005)

PNAS August 2, 2005 vol. 102
no. 31 : www.pnas.org/cgi/doi/10.1073/pnas.0504755102

http://www.pnas.org/content/102/31/10832.full.pdf

Geological Society (The)(Accessed 26 November 2009)

“Hazardous effects of super-eruptions”

http://www.geolsoc.org.uk/gsl/education/page3042.html
(Accessed 26th November 2009)

Global Warming Art (Accessed 26 November 2009)

“Carbon Dioxide Residence Time”

http://www.globalwarmingart.com/wiki/File:Carbon_Dioxide_Residence_Time_png#Copyright
(Accessed 26 November 2009)

Hansen J. et al. (2004)

“Earth’s Energy Imbalance: Confirmation and Implications”

Science Express Research Article
www.sciencexpress.org / 28
April 2004 / Page 1 doi:10.1126/science.1110252

http://meteora.ucsd.edu/cap/pdffiles/Hansen-04-29-05.pdf

Hansen et al. (2008)

“Target Atmospheric CO2: Where Should Humanity Aim?”
James Hansen et al.
The Open Atmospheric Science
Journal, 2008, 2, 217-231

http://pubs.giss.nasa.gov/docs/2008/2008_Hansen_etal.pdf

http://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/0804/0804.1126.pdf

http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/2008/TargetCO2_20080407.pdf

Home Office (2006)

“Changing migration patterns of the pied flycatcher”
Date: Tue Aug 29 14:18:16 BST 2006

http://scienceandresearch.homeoffice.gov.uk/animal-research/publications-and-reference/001-abstracts/abstractsfrom2009/06abstractsfromjune2009/254-09?view=Html
(Accessed 30 November 2009)

Houghton J., (2009)

“Global Warming : The Complete Briefing : Fourth Edition”
John Houghton
ISBN-10: 0521528747
ISBN-13: 978-0521528740

p. 37

“It is important to realise that on the timescales with which we are concerned anthropogenic carbon emitted into the atmosphere as carbon dioxide is not destroyed by redistributed among
the various carbon reservoirs. Carbon dioxide is therefore different from other greenhouse gases that are destroyed by chemical action in the atmosphere…About 50% of an increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide will be removed within 30 years, a further 30% within a few centuries and the remaining 20% may remain in the atmosphere for many thousands of years. Although a lifetime of about 100 years is often quoted for atmospheric carbon dioxide so as to provide some guide, use of a single lifetime can be very misleading.”

p. 47 “Suppose, for instance, that all emissions into the atmosphere from human activity were suddenly halted. No sudden change would occur in the atmospheric concentration, which
would only decline slowly. We could not expect it to approach its pre-industrial value for several hundred years. But emissions of carbon dioxide are not halting, nor are they slowing; their increase is, in fact, becoming larger each year. The atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide will therefore also increase more rapidly. Later chapters will present estimates of climate change…prerequisite for such estimates is knowledge of likely changes
in carbon dioxide emissions…”

p. 71 Figure 4.1a Variations of the globally averaged Earth’s surface temperature (combined land surface air temperature and sea surface temperature).

Huang S., (2006)

“1851–2004 annual heat budget of the continental landmasses”
Shaopeng Huang

Geophysical Research Letters
VOL. 33, L04707, doi:10.1029/2005GL025300, 2006

http://www.geo.lsa.umich.edu/~shaopeng/2005GL025300.pdf

IPCC (2007a)

IPCC Fourth Assessment Report Working Group 1
Chapter 3 Supplementary Materials : “Observations: Surface and Atmospheric Climate Change”

http://ipcc-wg1.ucar.edu/wg1/Report/suppl/docs/AR4WG1_Pub_Ch03-SM.pdf

IPCC (2007b)

IPCC AR4 WG1 Chapter 3 : “Observations: Surface and Atmospheric Climate Change”

http://ipcc-wg1.ucar.edu/wg1/Report/AR4WG1_Print_Ch03.pdf

IPCC (2007c)

IPCC AR4 WG1 Chapter 2 : “Changes in Atmospheric Constituents and in Radiative Forcing”

http://ipcc-wg1.ucar.edu/wg1/Report/AR4WG1_Print_Ch02.pdf

IPCC (2007d)

IPCC AR4 WG1 Chapter 10 “Global Climate Projections”

http://ipcc-wg1.ucar.edu/wg1/Report/AR4WG1_Print_Ch10.pdf

IPCC (2007e)

IPCC AR4 WG1 Technical Summary

http://ipcc-wg1.ucar.edu/wg1/Report/AR4WG1_Print_TS.pdf

IPCC (2007f)

IPCC AR4 WG1 Chapter 5 : “Observations: Oceanic Climate Change and Sea Level”

http://ipcc-wg1.ucar.edu/wg1/Report/AR4WG1_Print_Ch05.pdf

IPCC (2007g)

IPCC AR4 Synthesis Report : Summary for Policymakers

http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar4/syr/ar4_syr_spm.pdf

IPCC (2007h)

IPCC AR4 WG1 Chapter 7 : “Couplings Between Changes in the Climate System and Biogeochemistry”

http://ipcc-wg1.ucar.edu/wg1/Report/AR4WG1_Print_Ch07.pdf

IPCC (2007j)

IPCC AR4 WG1 Chapter 9 : “Understanding and Attributing Climate Change”

http://ipcc-wg1.ucar.edu/wg1/Report/AR4WG1_Print_Ch09.pdf

Japan Meteorological Agency (Accessed 26 November 2009)

Climate Prediction Division, Japan Meteorological Agency
“El Niño Monitoring and Outlook”

http://ddb.kishou.go.jp/climate/ElNino/elmonout.html
(Accessed 26 November 2009)

Jones C. et al. (2009)

“Committed terrestrial ecosystem changes due to climate change”
Chris Jones, Jason Lowe, Spencer Liddicoat and Richard Betts

Letters to Nature GeoScience : published online 28 JUNE 2009 | DOI: 10.1038/NGEO555
(Requested by e-mail from Chris Jones at the Met Office)

Lenton et al. (2008)

“Tipping elements in the Earth’s climate system”

PNAS February 12, 2008 vol. 105 no. 6 www.pnas.org/cgi/doi/10.1073.pnas.0705414105

http://www.pnas.org/content/105/6/1786.full.pdf

Levitus et al. (2005)

“Warming of the world ocean, 1955–2003″
S. Levitus, J. Antonov, and T. Boyer

National Oceanographic Data Center, NOAA, Silver Spring, Maryland, USA

Geophysical Research Letters : VOL. 32, L02604, doi:10.1029/2004GL021592, 2005

http://atmosdyn.yonsei.ac.kr/nrl/seminar/Levitus_etal_GRL2005.pdf

Levitus et al. (2009)

“Global ocean heat content 1955–2008 in light of recently revealed instrumentation problems”
S. Levitus, J. I. Antonov, T. P. Boyer, R. A. Locarnini, H. E. Garcia, and A. V. Mishonov

Geophysical Research Letters : VOL. 36, L07608, doi:10.1029/2008GL037155, 2009

ftp://ftp.nodc.noaa.gov/pub/data.nodc/woa/PUBLICATIONS/grlheat08.pdf

Lewis S. et al. (2009)

“Increasing carbon storage in intact African tropical forests”
Letter to Nature 457, 1003-1006 (19 February 2009) | doi:10.1038/nature07771

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v457/n7232/abs/nature07771.html

Knorr W., (2009)

“Is the airborne fraction of anthropogenic CO2 emissions increasing?”
Wolfgang Knorr, Department of Earth Sciences, University of Bristol, Bristol, UK

Geophysical Research Letters 36, L21710, doi:10.1029/2009GL040613.
published 7 November 2009.

http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2009/2009GL040613.shtml

http://www.bris.ac.uk/news/2009/6676.html

http://www.bris.ac.uk/news/2009/6649.html
(Accessed 30 November 2009)

Matthews and Caldeira (2008)

“Stabilizing climate requires near-zero emissions”
H. Damon Matthews and Ken Caldeira

Geophysical Research Letters
35, L04705, doi:10.1029/2007GL032388.

http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2008/2007GL032388.shtml

Meehl et al. (2005)

“How Much More Global Warming and Sea Level Rise?”

http://www.cgd.ucar.edu/ccr/publications/1769.pdf

Meinshausen et al. (2009)

“Greenhouse-gas emission targets for limiting global warming to 2deg C”

Letters to Nature : Vol 458 30 April 2009 doi:10.1038/nature08017

http://www.iac.ethz.ch/people/knuttir/papers/meinshausen09nat.pdf

Meteorological Office (2009)

“Global temperature slowdown — not an end to climate change”

http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/climatechange/policymakers/policy/slowdown.html
(Accessed 26 November 2009)

NOTE : The hottest recorded 15 years (including the projection for 2009) have been during the last 2 decades.

Murphy D. M. et al. (2009)

“An observationally based energy balance for the Earth since 1950″

D. M. Murphy, S. Solomon, R. W. Portmann, K. H. Rosenlof, P. M. Forster, and T. Wong

http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2009/2009JD012105.shtml

http://www.agu.org/sci_soc/prrl/2009-24.html

http://blogs.physicstoday.org/update/2009/09/earths-energy-balance-since-19.html

(Requested by e-mail from Piers Forster at the University of Leeds)

NASA (2009)

NASA GISS Surface Temperature Analysis Graphs and Plots : National Aeronautics and Space
Administration, Goddard Institute for Space Studies, Data and Images

http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs/
(Accessed 26 November 2009)

Global Annual Mean Surface Air Temperature Change

http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs/Fig.A2.txt

Global Temperature (Meteorological Stations)

http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs/Fig.A.txt

Annual Mean Temperature Change for Land and Ocean

http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs/Fig.A4.txt

Natural Environment Research Council (2009)

“Ice retreat opens new shores for carbon storage”

9 November 2009, by Sara Coelho
PlanetEarth online : Environmental Research News

“Negative feedback in the cold: ice retreat produces new carbon sinks in Antarctica.”

doi:10.1111/j.1365-2486.2009.02071.x

http://planetearth.nerc.ac.uk/news/story.aspx?id=594
(Accessed 30 November 2009)

National Centre for Atmospheric Science (2009)

NCAS National Centre for Atmospheric Science
NERC Natural Environment Research Council

http://ncas-climate.nerc.ac.uk/ncas-research/69/165-observational-estimates
(Accessed 30 November 2009)

Nature Magazine Online (2008)

“Carbon is forever” by Mason Inman
Nature Reports Climate Change

Published online: 20
November 2008 | doi:10.1038/climate.2008.122

http://www.nature.com/climate/2008/0812/full/climate.2008.122.html

(Accessed 26 November 2009)

New Scientist (2009a)

“Climate change may trigger earthquakes and volcanoes”
23 September 2009 by Richard Fisher
Magazine issue 2727

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20327273.800-climate-change-may-trigger-earthquakes-and-volcanoes.html

New Scientist (2009b)

“Instant Expert: The Copenhagen climate change summit”

http://www.newscientist.com/special/copenhagen-climate-change-summit

Diagram “Carbon Budget for 2deg C” :-

http://www.newscientist.com/data/images/archive/2733/27333301.jpg

NOAA (2001)

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory
NOAA Research Newsletter
April 2001

“Global Warming Commitment: Temperatures Would Rise Even With No Additional Greenhouse Gas Increases”

http://www.gfdl.noaa.gov/cms-filesystem-action?file=/user_files/kd/pdf/onepageb01.pdf
(Accessed 26 November 2009)

NOAA (2009)

NOAA Earth System Research Laboratory Data

1959 315.98 ppm; 2008 385.57
ppm; difference = 69.59 ppm

ftp://ftp.cmdl.noaa.gov/ccg/co2/trends/co2_annmean_mlo.txt
(Accessed 25 November 2009)

NOAA ESRL (Accessed 26 November 2009)

NOAA Earth System Research Laboratory : Global Monitoring Division
Trends in Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide – Mauna Loa

http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/trends/
(Accessed 26 November 2009)

PhysOrg.com (2009)

“Ancient volcano may have caused mass extinction”
May 28, 2009

http://www.physorg.com/news162738601.html

(Accessed 30 November 2009)

Rahmstorf et al. (2007)

Recent Climate Observations Compared to Projections”

www.sciencemag.org SCIENCE VOL 316 4 MAY 2007

http://pubs.giss.nasa.gov/docs/2007/2007_Rahmstorf_etal.pdf

RealClimate (2005)

“Why looking for global warming in the oceans is a good idea”
Gavin A. Schmidt
23 February 2005

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2005/02/why-looking-for-global-warming-in-the-oceans-is-a-good-idea/

RealClimate (2009)

“Hey Ya! (mal)”

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2009/09/hey-ya-mal/

http://tamino.wordpress.com/2009/09/11/arctic-analysis/

NOTE : All the charts and graphs show temperatures going up. These confirm the “Hockey Stick”.

Reuters (2009)

“Two meter sea level rise unstoppable: experts”
Wed Sep 30, 2009 9:12am EDT
By Gerard Wynn

http://www.reuters.com/article/scienceNews/idUSTRE58S4L420090930

Royal Society (2008)

“Recent oppositely directed trends in solar climate forcings and the global mean surface air temperature. II. Different reconstructions of the total solar irradiance variation and dependence on response time scale”
Mike Lockwood and Claus Fröhlich

Proceedings of the Royal Society A : 2008 464, 1367-1385 : doi: 10.1098/rspa.2007.0347

http://rspa.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/464/2094/1367.full.pdf
(Accessed 26 November 2009)

Solomon et al. (2009)

“Irreversible climate change due to carbon dioxide emissions”
Susan Solomon, Gian-Kasper Plattner, Reto Knuttic, and Pierre Friedlingstein

doi: 10.1073/pnas.0812721106 PNAS February 10, 2009 vol. 106 no. 6 pages 1704-1709

http://www.pnas.org/content/106/6/1704.full.pdf

The Daily Climate (2009)

“Climate change has doubled forest mortality”
22 Jan 2009
By Douglas Fischer

http://wwwp.dailyclimate.org/tdc-newsroom/trees/climate-change-has-doubled-forest-mortality
(Accessed 30 November 2009)

Toggweiler (2008)

Opening Remarks for Ocean Circulation Session
Cambridge 10 March 2008
J. R. Toggweiler

Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory / NOAA
Princeton, NJ 08542 USA

http://www.leverhulmeclimatesymposium.org/uploads/documents/cambridge_programme/Toggweiler.doc

van der Werf et al. (2009)

“CO2 emissions from forest loss”
Nature Geoscience 2, 737 – 738 (2009) : doi:10.1038/ngeo671

http://www.nature.com/ngeo/journal/v2/n11/abs/ngeo671.html
(Accessed 29 November 2009)

von Schuckmann et al. (2009)

“Global hydrographic variability patterns during 2003–2008″
K. von Schuckmann, F. Gaillard and P.-Y. Le Traon

http://www.ifremer.fr/docelec/doc/2009/publication-6802.pdf

Vose at al. (2005)

“An intercomparison of trends in surface air temperature analyses at the global, hemispheric, and grid-box scale”
Russell S. Vose, David Wuertz, Thomas C. Peterson, P. D. Jones

http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2005/2005GL023502.shtml
(Accessed 28 November 2009)

http://www.climatesciencewatch.org/file-uploads/Vose-etal-TempTrends-GRL2005.pdf
(Accessed 28 November 2009)

WBGU (2006)

“The Future Oceans – Warming Up, Rising High, Turning Sour”

http://www.wbgu.de/wbgu_sn2006_en.pdf

Wigley T. M. L., (2005)

“The Climate Change Commitment”
T. M. L. Wigley et al.

DOI: 10.1126/science.1103934 : Science 307, 1766 (2005)

http://dancingflames.org/dancingflames/EnvSci/Articles/EnvScipdffiles/OceanClimate_LatentForcing.pdf

Video Credit : Asia Society

The satellites and cameras do not lie : glaciers in the Himalayas are melting, and the loss of any part of this “third pole” ice cover threatens the freshwater supply for billions.

This weekend’s Media clamour on the subject focuses on the trail of a mis-attribution of a claim regarding the complete meltdown of the mountain glaciers.

Just because somebody’s got their references wrong, doesn’t mean that the glaciers have magically not been melting after all.

Yes, the IPCC process has failed to pick up this prediction error. No, it doesn’t throw the whole of the IPCC reports into the trash can.

You know exactly what the Climate Change Deniers are going to do with this story : run with it as far as they can.

They want scalps. They go about trying to collect them. It’s clear they want Dr Rajendra Pachauri out of the picture.

It remains to be seen exactly how bad the Himalayan melt becomes, but the plain fact is : the glaciers are clearly melting, and no amount of spin can bring them back !

The newspaper articles that will fuel so much Climate Change Denial include one from The Sunday Times, by a usually perceptive reporter Jonathan Leake. How he has failed to spot the denial spin machine in action is disappointing.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article6991177.ece

“From The Sunday Times : January 17, 2010 : World misled over Himalayan glacier meltdown”

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1243963/UN-science-report-stated-Himalayan-glaciers-melt-25-years-guess.html

“UN science report which stated Himalayan glaciers would melt within 25 years ‘was a guess’ : By DAVID DERBYSHIRE : 17th January 2010″

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/geoffreylean/100022501/good-news-for-the-world-bad-news-for-official-climate-scientists/

“Good news for the world: bad news for official climate science body : By Geoffrey Lean Last updated: January 17th, 2010 : It’s the best news of the decade so far, but not for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the official ultimate authority on climate science, for it poses a much greater threat to its credibility than the much-hyped “Climategate” emails and puts further questionmarks over its embattled chairman, Dr Rajendra Pachauri. Reports today suggest that the IPCC may soon retract one of the more alarming predictions in its latest massive review of climate science, that the glaciers of the Himalayas are very likely to disappear by 2035, after it was found to be unjustified…Leading glaciologist Prof Graham Cogley of Ontario’s Trent University – who says that, at current rates, the melting might take ten times longer – has been worried for some time about the prediction. At one stage he thought IPCC had wrongly transposed two figures in the date from a 1996 scientific paper that forecast the glaciers’ disappearance by 2350. But the truth is even more embarrassing. It goes back to a story published in New Scientist in 1999 by its excellent environment specialist, Fred Pearce, which reported an Indian glaciologist Syed Husnain as saying they could be gone by 2035. This was mentioned six years later in a campaigning document by the environment group, WWF, and the IPCC then picked it up. This is serious, as the authority of the IPCC rests on meticulously basing its reports on peer-reviewed literature and, indeed, on taking a conservative view. Traditionally it has erred on the side of caution, sometimes excessively so. In the same report, for example, it grossly underestimated future sea-level rise, by excluding contributions form melting ice from the Greenland and Antarctic ice-sheets, though these would be major factors: last December a highly authoritative report suggested that its forecast level should be doubled. Dr Pachauri may be even more damaged, thanks to his reported reaction to an Indian paper late last year which suggested that the glaciers were not disappearing rapidly, leading the country’s environment minister, Jairem Ramesh to accuse the IPCC of being “alarmist”. Pachauri was widely reported as dismissing the paper as “voodoo science”, adding: “We have a very clear idea of what is happening” in the Himalayas…”

Flashback to November 2009, when the dispute broke onto the world stage :-

http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/indias-environment-minister-under-fire-over-glaciers-1817968.html

http://iplextra.indiatimes.com/article/04OQ6ck339gkH?q=Dalai+Lama

http://www.alertnet.org/db/blogs/60714/2009/10/23-150801-1.htm

http://www.hindu.com/seta/2009/11/19/stories/2009111950131200.htm

One of the pieces of media the Climate Change Deniers seem so worried about : a short film with expert commentary :-

http://www.asiasociety.org/onthinnerice

From EuropeImages, part of the film “HIMALAYAS: THE ROOF OF THE WORLD IS MELTING” :-

http://www.europeimages.com/en/programmes/4675-himalayas-the-roof-of-the-world-is-melting-the/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PS64CiMrXbg

Mark Lynas on this subject, referring to the Indian Government report :-

http://www.marklynas.org/2009/11/20/melting-glaciers-on-the-roof-of-the-world

And as regards Dr Rajendra Pachauri and the media campaign against him. Well, there is strong evidence that this is happening. :-

http://www.ptinews.com/news/472747_Pachauri-accuses-UK-daily-of–sustained-vendetta-

“Pachauri accuses UK daily of ‘sustained vendetta’ : STAFF WRITER : H S Rao : London, Jan 17 (PTI) Rajendra Pachauri, the chief of the UN panel on climate change, today accused a leading British newspaper of carrying out “a sustained vendetta” against him even though he does not receive any payment, honoraria or compensation for work done for the IPCC. Pachauri, Chairman of the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), accused the The Sunday Telegraph of running a sustained vendetta against him. “I have been reading with growing indignation what appears to be a sustained vendetta against me in The Sunday Telegraph and on your blogs,” Pachauri said in his letter to the editor. The letter of the Indian scientist was published in the newspaper today while in a separate story the daily said “million of pounds of British taxpayers’ money is being paid to a research institute headed by Dr Pachauri.”

http://www.hindustantimes.com/Himalayan-glaciers-won-t-melt-by-2035-says-new-finding/H1-Article1-498686.aspx

“Himalayan glaciers won’t melt by 2035, says new finding : Chetan Chauhan, Hindustan Times : New Delhi , January 18, 2010 : A United Nations body is expected to retract its oft-repeated prediction that most of the Himalayan glaciers will melt by 2035. Two years ago, the UN’s Nobel prize-winning body — Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) headed by R.K. Pachauri — had warned of the melting of glaciers, which would have far-reaching consequences for India. Now, evidence has emerged to suggest that the IPCC may have been mistaken. “We are studying the new evidence,” Pachauri. The IPCC’s claim was based on an article in the New Statesman, London, which relied on an estimate made by India’s leading glaciologist and Padamshree recipient Syed Iqbal Hasnain. “Pachauri said IPCC would issue a statement on the glaciers “by the middle of this week”.”

At the turn of every month, I check the websites of the agencies charged with collecting and analysing the available data on Global Warming, to find out what the latest position shows.

Some agencies update their online resources faster than others. For example, as of today, the Hadley Centre of the Meteorological Office has produced a summary of the Central England Temperature (HadCET, or CET) for both December 2009 and the whole of 2009 :-

http://hadobs.metoffice.com/hadcet/cet_info_mean2009.html

And so has the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) – finally :-

http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/?report=global&year=2009&month=13&submitted=Get+Report

“Global Highlights : Global land and ocean annual surface temperatures through December tied with 2006 as the fifth warmest on record, at 0.56°C (1.01°F) above the 20th century average. The 2000-2009 decade is the warmest on record, with an average global surface temperature of 0.54°C (0.96°F) above the 20th century average. This shattered the 1990s value of 0.36°C (0.65°F)…Please Note: The data presented in this report are preliminary. Ranks and anomalies may change as more complete data are received and processed…Global Temperatures : The years 2001 through 2008 each rank among the ten warmest years of the 130-year (1880-2009) record and 2009 was no exception. The global combined land and ocean surface temperature was 0.56°C (1.01°F) above the 20th century average, tying with 2006 as the fifth warmest since records began in 1880. Globally averaged land temperature was 0.77°C (1.39°F) above average, resulting in a tie with 2003 as the seventh warmest on record. The ocean temperature was 0.48°C (0.86°F) above average—tying with 2002 and 2004 as the fourth warmest since records began in 1880. The 2000s decade (2000-2009) is the warmest on record for the globe, with a surface global temperature of 0.54°C (0.96°F) above the long-term (20th century) average. This shattered the 1990s value of 0.36°C (0.65°F)…”

But the American National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) is still mostly lingering in November 2009 from the online point of view, although I am assured that people have been working on the underlying data analysis this week :-

http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs/

The satellite data for January 2010 shows that even while a whiteout has taken place in medium latitudes North, the surface temperatures are still higher than the same time last year :-

http://climateprogress.org/2010/01/15/paging-neil-cavuto-uah-global-satellite-data-has-record-warmest-day-for-january/

It’s quite disturbing when one of the scientists involved in this work fiddles with the trend lines :-

http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/01/roy_spencer_hides_the_increase.php

Despite the cold snap for large parts of the inhabited Northern Hemisphere in December 2009, the average over the whole year, over the whole globe, was still a good half a degree Celsius or Centigrade above the long-term average.

The Earth’s a big place. The oceans and atmosphere are big volumes. I know the temperatures we are looking at here are just for the near-surface of the oceans and atmosphere, but warming up by that much, and staying that warm, is highly significant.

Another pretty poor headline from the Daily Express (and we all know that outrageous headlines sell newspapers), but the majority of the article is OK, until the almost inevitable signs of “balance” by quoting Piers Corbyn and Christopher Booker :-

“…Long-term forecaster and trends analyst Piers Corbyn, of WeatherAction, said: “Global warming is a failed science built on falsified data. It is a sham to say that man has caused it.”…”

Most serendipitously, the Global Warming Science that the genuine research community have been slaving away at for the last, ooo, 25 years, has not been undermined by one freakily cold Northern Hemisphere Winter, or they’d all be out of jobs pretty sharpish.

“…Christopher Booker, author of The Real Global Warming Disaster, said: “It is amazing how this scaremongering from climate change lobbyists keeps arising even though they are constantly being proved wrong. Last year there was snow in Saudia Arabia and still they persist in saying the temperature is going up.”…”

As time goes by, and more evidence is collated and analysed and more theoretical branches are investigated, the more Climate Change Science is shown to be accurate, both in projection and qualitative prediction.

Unfortunately, the temperature on the whole is still going up, so Christopher Booker is on the wrong track with his claim.

Both Piers Corbyn and Christopher Booker should, in my view, not be quoted, when newspapers are discussing Global Warming Science. They do not participate in Global Warming Science, neither do they have any positive collaboration with the Climate Change research community, as I understand it. Their viewpoints are isolated from mainstream science, and I feel that their opinions should be kept out of serious articles about Global Warming.

If the newspapers want to demonstrate debate in Climate Change Science, they should interview researchers who have differences about the level of the Climate Sensitivity of the Earth system, or differences about the exact size of the Carbon Budget we should set for human emissions; differences about how various parts of the Earth system are able to soak up excess Carbon Dioxide from the atmosphere as the situation changes; or differences about how much Carbon Dioxide should be allowed to accumulate in the atmosphere as a “safe” level.

These are where the major debates are in Climate Change Science. There is no longer any debate whatsoever that Global Warming is here, it’s caused by us, and it’s getting worse.

For the record, Saudi Arabia has been subject to increasing temperatures and a constant trend of changes in rainfall over a period of decades :-

http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/122294469/abstract?CRETRY=1&SRETRY=0

“Temperature and rainfall variation over Dhahran, Saudi Arabia, (1970-2006)”

http://www.springerlink.com/content/v2p8747p8258100m/

“Estimation of climatic transition in Riyadh (Saudi Arabia) in global warming perspectives”

This is an interesting perspective on water in Saudi Arabia :-

http://dlcvm.dlib.indiana.edu/archive/00002987/01/Reproduced.pdf

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/8322513.stm
“In praise of scepticism”, 23 October 2009

and yet he still continues to pass judgement on the way the Science is conducted, and accepts the validity of the arguments of the Climate Change deniers :-

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/8408386.stm
“Climate change – a story too often told the same way”, 11 December 2009

I ask you this : since he knows nothing about Climate Change Science, how can he possibly justify accepting the views of the Climate Change deniers ?

Has he analysed the history of Climate Change denial (as known as “scepticism”) ?

Does he know how some Climate Change denier-sceptics have been funded, and the influence they have in the networks they have built ?

If he were to do even just a smidgen of research he would find that the Climate Change denier-sceptic network is rather like a wart – a viral infection that does one no good whatsoever.

There are not two sides to the Climate Change “debate”. The “debate” is an artefact. It’s not real.

Let me point at a few things that Clive James errs on, in my humble opinion.

“a story too often told the same way” : well, that’s because the data only points in one direction : the only way is up with the temperatures. Yes, of course there’s some localised variability, but the upwards slope of the temperatures is clear.

“one-sided discussions” : there isn’t another “side” to the discussion. There’s only one side : the Science of Global Warming.

“an impressive way of talking about the future, a way of sounding impressive that sounded less impressive only when you realised that sounding impressive was its main motive. Big things would happen. It was big talk. And it paid the penalty of all big talk. As you got used to it, you got tired of it.”

Let’s be clear here : Climate Change is a big story. You cannot diminish it by claiming to be bored or unimpressed. And it’s not going away. It’s no longer a question of whether or not the biosphere has been wrecked : it’s now a question of exactly how much the biosphere has been wrecked. How wrecked are we ?

“the globe uncooperatively declined to get warmer during the last 10 years” : factually incorrect : 2005 was possibly warmer than 1998 and 2007 could have tied with 1998. The last decade has been the hottest on record.

“Today, after recent events at the University of East Anglia’s Climate Research Unit, that supposedly settled science is still the story, but the story is in question.” : incorrect : the story is not in question.

“Suddenly there are voices to pronounce that the reputation of science will lie in ruins for the next 50 years.” Which voices, Clive ? People we can trust ? I doubt it.

“My own view is that true science, the spirit of critical inquiry that unites all scientists, or is supposed to, is reasserting itself after being out-shouted by at least half a Hermie of uninterrupted public relations.” Here, Clive James is showing that he is clearly unaware of the continual sniping that Science has taken from the Climate Change denier-sceptics.

Ever since I learned about the Science of Global Warming in the early 1980s, I have known genuine sceptics and outright deniers of the Science.

Clive, if you want to do some “critical inquiry” you will discover just how long the denier-sceptics have been chipping away at public opinion of Climate Change and Global Warming Science.

And as for “public relations”, well, the Climate Change denier-sceptics have been dominating the mindscapes of people through the Media for way too long. Scientists do factual explanations. Denier-sceptics do propaganda.

“I thought the reported scientific unanimity that global warming is man-made, and likely to be catastrophic, was always a more active area of scientific debate than you would have guessed from the way the media told the story.” Yes, Climate Change Science is a very active area of scientific debate, but the things debated are not the fact of Global Warming (it is a fact), but things slightly more esoteric like – exactly how much the Earth will heat up given current emissions trajectories.

“…he said my scepticism about the settled science was a wilful defiance of established fact. Unfortunately the fact had been established largely by the media, who had been telling only one story.” Wrong again, Clive. The Media have been prone to being used as a platform by the Climate Change denier-sceptics. That’s an established fact that has been demonstrated by research. Global Warming is an established scientific fact, yet the Media still behave as if the matter hasn’t been settled. And that includes the BBC. And your writing for the BBC. You are denying established scientific fact.

“If you said the story might have two sides, that sounded like scepticism. People in my position had to get used to being called sceptics, as if scepticism were a bad thing. We even had to get used to being called denialists, although clearly it was an unscrupulous word.”

A Climate Change sceptic is not the same as a Climate Change denier. A Climate Change sceptic is someone who is genuinely not appraised of the full narrative and so genuinely cannot make up their minds. A denier is someone who denies the Science outright.

For example, the other week I was talking to a family friend and he said, “I don’t think it’s going to warm up as much as they say it will”. And I asked him, “on what do you base your assessment ?”

Of course, he’s a busy guy, and just skims the Media, so that’s the only way he gets any opinion-forming information. He’s a sceptic, and has the audacity to have made up his mind on the basis of his own judgement, basing it on a shallow reading from the Media, without basing it on fact.

A denier is another kettle of worms. A denier denies established facts.

“the more absolutist man-made global warming case has always looked sufficiently vulnerable just by the way it has been reluctant to listen to opposing voices no matter how well qualified.”

And which “opposing voices” do you mean, Clive ? Go on, name names and I’ll tell you if I think they’re sufficiently qualified to comment on established facts.

“All you ever had to do was notice how their more strident representatives didn’t want to hear any other opinions, even when the opinions came from within their own ranks.”

And which people “within their own ranks” could you possibly be referring to ? I think you’re bluffing. Have you seen how many scientists in the ranks support the science ?

http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/climatechange/news/latest/uk-science-statement.html

“Far from there having been unanimity among scientists on the subject of catastrophic man-made global warming, there has scarcely been unanimity among climate scientists. It only takes one dissenting voice to punch a hole in the idea of unanimity, if that voice has a chance of being right.”

There’s no need for 100% unanimity on all matters and their details. There is a broad consensus on the basic established facts of Global Warming. This is sufficient to press for policy.

“You could say that the number was small, and a few of them were vengeful because they had been sidelined for not being sufficiently doom-laden in their claims.”

No, they were vengeful because they were sidelined by their own unverifiable claims.

“It could be said that few of them had expertise in climate science, but that argument looked less decisive when you considered that climate science itself was exactly what they were bringing into question.”

The basis of Climate Change Science includes the Sciences of Physics, Chemistry and Biology, so you’d have to have an entirely different Universe if you wanted to invalidate it.

“So science was not speaking with one voice on the matter. It only seemed to be, because the media, on the whole, was giving no other story.”

Wrong again, Clive. It has nearly ten years to get Climate Change the emphasis it needs in the Media, and even now, denier-sceptics get the opportunity to write nonsense on the wide range of Press platforms.

“Then this Climate Research Unit thing happened, and it was the end of the monologue. The dialogue has begun again.”

Not at all. What you call “dialogue” never ceased. The denier-sceptics have been snapping at the heels of Science for just about ever.

“The scientists are arguing on the matter, which is the proper thing for science to do, because in science the science is never settled.”

You’re wrong, Clive. The Science is often settled. It is for this reason that we give antibiotics to those with bacterial infections. The science is sufficiently settled for us to do all manner of things, like make computer chips, send rockets to the Moon, make nuclear submarines, that kind of thing. If the Science wasn’t sufficiently clear we wouldn’t even attempt to vaccinate children, or eliminate wheat from the diet of those suffering gluten intolerance.

We know enough to know that Global Warming is a fact. Climate Change is real and it’s happening now.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/dec/11/science-climate-change-phil-jones

He might need to wake up to the fact that the British Press are being misled, and in turn, misleading the country.

He ascribes Climate Change scepticism, “denier-tribe”, in print and online, to the Media’s fondness for the “narrative of the fallen idol”. He blames journalists for maintaining the assault on scientists, and says the journalists “know perfectly well” that they are being inaccurate, and asks why they continue to do it.

What Myles Allen perhaps misses is an analysis of where journalists get their information from. Has he not realised that the average reporter knows nothing about the Science of Global Warming, nor the Phenology of Climate Change ? They will react to whomever is talking loudest this week in order to get a “story”, it seems to me.

Thus you have the Daily Mail being quite accurate on the Science one day :-

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1233622/Copenhagen-climate-summit-Q-A.html

and then publishing the personal views of Dr David Whitehouse the next, which paint a completely different picture :-

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1235126/What-told-Global-Warming–missing-facts.html

Could this have something to do with Nigel Lawson and Christopher Monckton ? You bet it does. Dr David Whitehouse is the “adviser to the Global Warming Policy Foundation”.

My question is this : where is the Public Relations campaign for Climate Change Science to counteract this confusing state of affairs ?

Oh yes, nearly 2,000 scientists have signed a statement to support the science of Climate Change :-

http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/climatechange/news/latest/uk-science-statement.html

But that’s really not enough.

The Media should tell us the truth on matters of import. In my view it is ridiculous, and dangerous, for the Media to continue to publish the views of Climate Change denier-sceptics. It is incredibly socially destabilising to influence large numbers of people, leading them to deny the science.

At the very least, the Media should employ mainstream scientists to write and edit on Global Warming.

Moreover, somebody has to run a Public Relations campaign to bring the real Science to the Media.

The UK Government’s ActOnCO2 is not up to this task. Who is ? And who will pay for it ?