[Vision2020] Scientific American 5-1-2013: "Global CO2 Levels Approach Worrisome Milestone:" GISS/Columbia Earth Institute Models Burning All Fossil Fuels

[Ted Moffett]

Please skip my comments to read Goddard Institute for Space Studies et. al.
science on the full potential for climate change extremes if we burn all
fossil fuels, which if plausible indicates Al Gore was correct in
describing climate change as a "planetary emergency."

The Scientific American article from the subject heading is at the bottom.

I think the Scientific American article does not address the full gravity
of the problem, and the GISS et. al. study referenced below supports this
claim.

Both articles have large type to introduce them.
-------------------------------
This Scientific American article is a welcome attempt to alert the public
about the continued increases in atmospheric CO2 level due to human
sourced  CO2 emissions and other impacts, which if not mitigated will
radically alter the surface of Earth due to extreme climate change,
negatively impacting the lives of most human beings, and the biosphere as a
whole.

The bottom line on progress to address anthropogenic climate change is at
least to stop atmospheric CO2 level from increasing.  Till this occurs,
there is no progress being made to stop catastrophic climate change, and
any spin on this issue to the contrary should aptly be termed "greenwash."

The mention of COe (factoring other greenhouse gas content, such as methane
and nitrous oxide, as though they were CO2, to reach an equivalent CO2
level) at 478 ppm should raise eyebrows.

Also, the discussion of carbon sink reversal, especially in the oceans,
which as they warm do not absorb CO2 as effectively, which is a
scientifically valid concept that can cause atmospheric CO2 levels to
increase even faster, even with no continued increases in human sourced
emissions, is even more reason to as rapidly as possible dramatically lower
emission rates.

However, I did not read any discussion of the long term potential for CO2
level increases, given total carbon stores in fossil fuels, and how fast
this can occur.

Climate change should always be approached as a problem extending over
centuries of human activity and resulting impacts.  Sea level rise
potentially could be much greater beyond 2100, for example, if we do not
lower emission rates, from melting of Greenland and West Antarctica, though
climate scientists are sometimes hesitant to model beyond 2100 due to
increases in uncertainties: research extending climate change beyond 2100
has been modeled:
Global Sea Level Likely to Rise as Much as 70 Feet for Future Generations
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/03/120319134202.htm

But f we continue with business as usual emissions rates, before 2100
atmospheric CO2 will have exceeded the first doubling above pre-industrial
levels, from 280 ppm beyond 560 ppm, and progress (sic) will be underway on
the next doubling of CO2 level.

Now this would truly be a "worrisome milestone," rendering 400 ppm tame by
comparison.  Odd how those promoting a view that climate change is not a
massive problem often mention the changes resulting from only a doubling of
atmospheric CO2 over pre-industrial levels, apparently conveniently
avoiding the potential to raise levels beyond this first doubling.

There is enough stored carbon in all traditional coal, oil, and  natural
gas, and non-traditional fossil fuels, such as tar sands and heavy oil,
especially when including methane hydrates, which contain more carbon than
all traditional fossil fuels combined, to, well, let experts phrase it:

http://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/1211/1211.4846.pdf

Climate Sensitivity, Sea Level, and Atmospheric CO2
James Hansen, Makiko Sato, Gary Russell and Pushker Kharecha

NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies and Columbia University Earth
Institute, New York

Excerpt below is from page 24-25 from the 38 page document:

(e) Global Habitability

Burning all fossil fuels would produce a different, practically
uninhabitable, planet. Let us first consider a 12 W/m2 greenhouse forcing,
which we simulated with 8×CO2. If non-CO2 greenhouse gases such as N2O and
CH4 increase with global warming at the same rate as in the paleoclimate
record and atmospheric chemistry simulations (Beerling et al., 2011), these
other gases provide ~25 percent of the greenhouse forcing. The remaining 9
W/m2 forcing requires ~4.8×CO2, corresponding to fossil fuel emissions as
much as ~10,000 GtC for a conservative assumption of a CO2 airborne
fraction averaging one-third over the 1000 years following peak emission
(Archer, 2005; Archer et al., 2009).

Our calculated global warming in this case is 16°C, with warming at the
poles about 30°C. Calculated warming over land areas averages ~20°C. Such
temperatures would eliminate grain production in almost all agricultural
regions in the world (Hatfield et al., 2011). Increased stratospheric water
vapor would diminish the stratospheric ozone layer (Anderson et al., 2012).
More ominously, global warming of that magnitude would make much of the
planet uninhabitable by humans (Sherwood and Huber, 2010; McMichael and
Dear, 2010).

----------------
And further on in this study:

Let us now verify that our assumed fossil fuel climate forcing of 9 W/m2 is
feasible. If we assume that fossil fuel emissions increase 3% per year,
typical of the past decade and of the entire period since 1950, cumulative
fossil fuel emissions will reach 10,000 GtC in 118 years. However, with
such large rapidly growing emissions the assumed 33% CO2 airborne fraction
is surely too small. The airborne fraction, observed to have been 55% since
1950 (IPCC, 2007a), should increase because of well-known non-linearity in
ocean chemistry and saturation of carbon sinks, implying that the airborne
fraction probably will be closer to two-thirds rather than one-third, at
least for a century or more. Thus the fossil fuel source required to yield
9 W/m2 forcing may be closer to 5,000 GtC, rather than 10,000 GtC.

Are there sufficient fossil fuel reserves to yield 5,000-10,000 GtC? Recent
updates of potential reserves (GEA, 2012), including unconventional fossil
fuels (such as tar sands, tar shale, and hydrofracking-derived shale gas)
in addition to conventional oil, gas and coal, suggest that 5×CO2 (1400
ppm) is indeed feasible. For instance, using the emission factor for coal
from IPCC (2007b), coal resources given by GEA (2012) amount to
7,300-11,000 GtC. Similarly, using emission factors from IPCC (2007b),
total recoverable fossil energy reserves and resources estimated by GEA
(2012) are ~15,000 GtC. This does not include large “additional
occurrences” listed in Ch.7 of GEA (2012). Thus, for a multi-centennial CO2
airborne fraction between one-third to two-thirds, as discussed above,
there are more than enough available fossil fuels to cause a forcing of 9
W/m2 sustained for centuries.

Most remaining fossil fuel carbon is in coal and unconventional oil and
gas. Thus, it seems, humanity stands at a fork in the road. As conventional
oil and gas are depleted, will we move to carbon-free energy and efficiency
-- or to unconventional fossil fuels and coal? If fossil fuels were made to
pay their costs to society, costs of pollution and climate change,
carbon-free alternatives might supplant fossil fuels over a period of
decades. However, if governments force the public to bear the external
costs and even subsidize fossil fuels, carbon emissions are likely to
continue to grow, with deleterious consequences for young people and future
generations.

-------------------------------------------------
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=global-co2-levels-approach-worriesome-milestone
Global CO2 Levels Approach Worrisome Milestone

Concentrations of greenhouse gases in Earth's atmosphere will surpass 400
parts per million in the next month. Nations could have a hard time keeping
global warming in check at that level

 By Richard Monastersky<http://www.scientificamerican.com/author.cfm?id=3166>and
Nature
magazine <http://www.scientificamerican.com/author.cfm?id=3044>

Near the moonscape summit of the Mauna Loa volcano in Hawaii, an infrared
analyzer will soon make history. Sometime in the next month, it is expected
to record a daily concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere of more
than 400 parts per million (p.p.m.), a value not reached at this key
surveillance point for a few million years.

There will be no balloons or noisemakers to celebrate the event.
Researchers who monitor greenhouse gases will regard it more as a
disturbing marker of humanity’s power to alter the chemistry of the
atmosphere and by extension, the climate of the planet. At 400 p.p.m.,
nations will have a difficult time keeping global
warming<http://www.scientificamerican.com/topic.cfm?id=global-warming-and-climate-change>in
check, says Corinne Le Quéré, a climate researcher at the University
of
East Anglia in Norwich, UK, who says that the impact “is getting very
dangerously close to reaching the 2 °C target that governments around the
world have pledged not to exceed”.

It will be a while, perhaps a few years, before the global
CO2concentration averaged over an entire year, passes 400 p.p.m.. But
topping
that value at Mauna Loa is significant because researchers have been
monitoring the gas there since 1958, longer than any other spot. “It’s a
time to take stock of where we are and where we’re going,” says Ralph
Keeling, a geochemist at the Scripps Institution of
Oceanography<http://www.scientificamerican.com/topic.cfm?id=oceanography>in
La Jolla, California, who oversees that center’s CO
2 monitoring efforts on Mauna Loa. That gas record, known as the Keeling
curve, was started by his father, Charles Keeling.

 When monitoring started, the CO2 level stood at 316 p.p.m., not much
higher than the 280 p.p.m. that characterized conditions before the
industrial revolution. But since the Hawaiian measurements began, the
values have followed an upward slope that shows no sign of leveling off
(see ‘On the rise<http://www.scientificamerican.com/media/inline/global-co2-levels-approach-worriesome-milestone_3.jpg>’).
Emissions of other greenhouse gases are also increasing, pushing the total
equivalent concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere to around 478 p.p.m. in
April, according to Ronald Prinn, an atmospheric scientist at the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge.

Data compiled by Le Quéré and other members of the Global Carbon Project
suggest that humans contributed around 10.4 billion tons of carbon into the
atmosphere in 2011. About half of that is taken up each year by carbon
‘sinks’ such as the ocean and vegetation on land; the rest remains in the
atmosphere and raises the global concentration of CO2.

 “The real question now is: how will the sinks behave in the future?” says
Gregg Marland, an environmental scientist at Appalachian State University
in Boone, North Carolina, who helps to compile the emissions data.

The sinks have grown substantially since Keeling began his measurements,
when carbon emissions totalled about 2.5 billion tons a year. But climate
models suggest that the land and ocean will not keep pace for long.

“At some point the planet can’t keep doing us a favor, particularly the
terrestrial biosphere,” says Jim White, a biogeochemist at the University
of Colorado Boulder. As the sinks slow down and more emitted CO2 stays in
the atmosphere, levels will rise even faster.

Some researchers have suggested that the sinks have already started to clog
up, reducing their ability to take up more CO2 (J. G. Canadell *et al.
Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA **104,* 18866–18870;
2007<http://dx.doi.org/10.1073/pnas.0702737104>).
Others disagree.

Ashley Ballantyne, a biogeochemist at the University of Montana in
Missoula, worked with White and others to examine records of emissions as
well as CO2 measurements made around the globe. They found no signs of
sinks slowing down (A. P. Ballantyne *et al. Nature **488, *70–72;
2012<http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/nature11299>).
But it is difficult to be sure, says Inez Fung, a climate modeler at the
University of California, Berkeley. “We don’t have adequate observing
networks.” The largest global network, operated by the US National Oceanic
and Atmospheric Administration, had to trim 12 stations in 2012 because of
budget cuts.

Some of the most crucial areas, such as the tropics, are also the least
monitored, although researchers are seeking to fill in the gaps. Scientists
from Germany and Brazil are building a 300-meter tower to keep tabs on the
Amazon (see *Nature **467, *386–387;
2010<http://www.nature.com/uidfinder/10.1038/467386a>).
And Europe’s Integrated Carbon Observation System is setting up stations
throughout the continent and at some marine sites to measure CO2 and other
greenhouse gases.

Satellites, too, could monitor carbon sources and sinks. Two orbiters are
already providing some data, and NASA plans to launch the much anticipated
Orbiting Carbon Observatory-2 next year (see page
5<http://www.nature.com/uidfinder/10.1038/497005a>).
An earlier version of that satellite failed during its 2009 launch.

Even as new resources come online, however, researchers are struggling to
keep the Mauna Loa station going. “The amount of money that I’m able to
obtain for the program has diminished over time,” says Keeling, whose group
monitors CO2 concentration at 13 sites around the world.

“It’s kind of silly that we chose to go all ostrich-like,” says White of
the funding difficulties. “We don’t want to know how much CO2 is in the
atmosphere, when we ought to be monitoring even more.”

This article is reproduced with permission from the magazine
*Nature*<http://www.nature.com/news>.
The article was first
published<http://www.nature.com/news/global-carbon-dioxide-levels-near-worrisome-milestone-1.12900>on
April 30, 2013.
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Vision2020 Post: Ted Moffett
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