In 2007, the United Nations Environmental Program released the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report presenting the overwhelming weight of scientific evidence of global warming. Since then, scientific specialists have murmured about various findings being worse than predicted by the IPCC. Today, the IPCC releases a report confirming that it's worse than we thought. A lot worse.
We've already incurred irreversible changes. The AP reports today:
Global warming is speeding up, especially in the Arctic, and that means that some top-level science projections from 2007 are already out of date and overly optimistic. Corell, who headed an assessment of warming in the Arctic, said global warming "is accelerating in ways that we are not anticipating."
Because Greenland and West Antarctic ice sheets are melting far faster than thought, it looks like the seas will rise twice as fast as projected just three years ago, Corell said. He said seas should rise about a foot every 20 to 25 years.
"The era of procrastination, of half measures, of soothing and baffling expedience of delays, is coming to its close. In its place we are entering a period of consequences.... We cannot avoid this period, we are in it now..."
-- Winston Churchill, November 12, 1936
Times have changed. Today at the G-20 meetings, nations bicker over money: whether Guyana deserves forest protection funds, whether G-20 countries are providing fair stimulus funds, and similar matters.
The stated goal of the Copenhagen treaty, if one comes to pass, is to keep temperatures down to 2 degrees Celsius. However, the first section of the report explains why that probably won't happen, no matter what we do. General observations from today's report:
* Carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuel burning and industrial processes have accelerated globally, from 1.1%/year in the 1990s to 3.5%/year from 2000-2007. Nearly constant or slightly increasing trends in carbon intensity of energy have been observed in both developed and developing worlds due to increasing reliance on coal.
* Observed increase in greenhouse gas concentration since 1750 has most likely committed the world to a warming of 1.4 to 4.3 degrees Celsius; of that, we've so far warmed only 0.6 degrees C. The equilibrium warming is 2.4 degrees C if greenhouse gases had been fixed at 2005 levels.
* Sea levels will rise as much as one foot every 20-25 years, and can continue for several centuries.
* Even the most aggressive carbon dioxide mitigation steps can only limit additions to the 2.4 degrees we're already committed to experience, but will not reduce that rise.
Meanwhile, today Senator Richard Lugar announced that he (R-IN) won't back emissions caps in the climate change bill, ACES, because "the bill’s problems include provisions that would give too many benefits to non-coal-dependent states to help in the transition away from fossil-fuels and not enough to coal-dependent states like Indiana."
The UNEP explains "tipping elements" as "a critical threshold at which a tiny perturbation can qualitatively alter the state or development of a system." For example, the Arctic sea ice's tipping point is 0.2 to 2 degrees C.
Of the nine different tipping points identified by the UNEP, the three requiring the smallest temperature increases are the Arctic summer sea ice, the melting of the Himalayan/Tibetan glaciers that provide drinking water to one billion people, and the melting of the Greenland ice sheet.
The range of 1.4 to 4.3 degrees Celsius in the committed warming overlaps and surpasses the currently perceived threshold range of 1-3 degrees Celsius for dangerous anthropogenic interference with many of the climate-tipping elements such as the summer Arctic sea ice, Himalayan glaciers, and the Greenland Ice Sheet.
In other words, Arctic summer sea ice, drinking water for an unstable region of the world, and Greenland's ice are most likely gone no matter what we do.
Meanwhile, Senator Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) had a heated discussion today with other Senators who wisely rejected her proposal to delay EPA regulations of greenhouse gases; the threat of EPA regulations and grassroots activism are the two principal reasons why the climate bill hasn't died yet this year.
On a kinda, sorta, maybe positive note, the die-off of the Amazon rain forest, the permanent El Nino oscillation, the shutting down of the North Atlantic thermohaline circulation system, and breakup of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet all require temperatures at the high end of the UNEP predictions (3-5 degrees Celsius). We might get lucky.
The first section of the report concludes:
Perhaps experiences in everyday life have led us to believe that slow processes such as climate changes pose small risks, on the assumption that a choice can always be made to quickly reduce emissions and reverse any harm within a few years or decades.
This assumption is incorrect for carbon dioxide emissions, because of the longevity of their effects in the atmosphere and because of ocean warming. Irreversible climate changes due to carbon dioxide emissions have already taken place. Continuing carbon dioxide emissions in the future means further irreversible effects on the planet, with attendant long legacies for choices made by contemporary society.
Applying discount rates to future costs with the assumption that more efficient climate mitigation can occur in a future world that is wealthier than ours ignores the irreversibility of the effects as well as the devastating consequences they will have on the wealth of future generations. We have already committed our civilization to considerable deficits in how Earth systems respond. These dangers pose substantial challenges to humanity and nature, with a magnitude that is directly linked to the management practices we choose to retreat from further tipping points and irreversible changes from GHG emissions.
Meanwhile, Glenn Beck tosses a (fake?) frog into a pot of boiling water as part of the day's entertainment.
The UNEP report has detailed, sobering sections on ice, oceans, and ecosystems. The report concludes by describing "systems management": business as usual will not work. The report goes through the usual blather about water management, vegetation management, management for resilience, and the like. However, some items smack of desperate measures for these desperate times:
* Gene banks for up to 4.5 million crop varieties
* Assisted colonization: forcibly relocating animals and plants
* Managed agricultural adaptation when the amount of available cropland per person drops to 0.1 hectares per person
* geoengineering by injecting aerosols into the atmosphere
* geoengineering by large vertical pipes in the sea to keep upwelling and downwelling moving
* "Sunshade geoengineering"
Got that? Things are so irreversible that we need to consider gene banks for seeds and sunshades in the sky!
"It is better to be making the news than taking it; to be an actor rather than a critic."
-- Winston Churchill, 1898
I'm normally an optimist, not a pessimist; an activist, not a passivist, and a fighter, not a wailer. I'm on DailyKos with the goal of convincing Senators to vote for a loophole-riddled, imperfect bill, in the hopes that something can be done. Today's report illustrates the scope of the climate change we face. Be afraid...very afraid.