Global Warming's Terrifying New Math

I worried about Indonesian peat fires as a positive feedback upthread.

I'm not alone.

The fires in Indonesia are more than just a threat to endangered orangutans. They have shortened by up to two years the window to reduce carbon emissions and avoid runaway climate change, according to one of the CSIRO's leading climate scientists.

The head of the Global Carbon Project at the CSIRO, Pep Canadell, said the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere may have exceeded 400 parts per million for the first time in 2 million years, because of the 1 billion tonnes of carbon released by the fires in a two-month period.

Dr Canadell said the daily emissions of the Indonesian fires had been equal to the daily emissions of the US, accelerating humanity's progress along the upward line of global emissions by about one to two years.

Oh, and this from January:

Peatland loss could emit 2,800 years’ worth of carbon in an evolutionary eyeblink

Of the 3,300 tons of carbon per hectare stored in Indonesia’s coastal peatland areas, up to half would be released into the atmosphere over the 100 years following conversion to oil palm plantations—the equivalent of 2,800 years worth of accumulated carbon

The study in question.

The European tactic of fueling their cars with palm oil to meet renewables targets may be the most misguided environmental policy, ever.

this fuckin guy (slightly googleproofed)

hxxp://wattsupwiththat.com/2015/06/30/bloombergs-alarming-graph-are-we-really-on-track-for-4c-global-warming-by-2100/

where do you even start?

why googleproof it? for years he's had one of the leading climate change denier websites (in some years the very highest, by traffic) and the internet is full of people going "ANTHONY WATTS IS A COMPLETE FUCKING IDIOT"

I knew you would have some insight, ty

so many great links come up

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Anthony_Watts

haha, i didn't copy and paste the link until now and just realized it was a guest post by Christopher Monckton

http://www.desmogblog.com/christopher-monckton
https://www.skepticalscience.com/Monckton_Myths.htm

joe romm (of ThinkProgress/ClimateProgress) and watts were archenemies for a long time (probably still are) but things really heated up in 2008-2011, when watts' blog was overtaking romm in terms of traffic. the comments section of climateprogress was full of watts people invading with complete nonsense on nearly every post, and then occasionally Watts and Romm themselves would trade barbs in epic comment section faceoffs. it was like a continual trainwreck for several years, and even though Romm was right on the merits, i think in engaging watts so frequently he ended up giving him more of a platform than he should have.

I know that to make remarks about his appearance is irrelevant to the issue, but Monckton is a pop-eyed fuckwit

2015 is possibly the hottest year since we invented agriculture

http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2015/11/10/huge_el_nino_pushes_climate_toward_records.html

a 2 degree centigrade increase in average temperature spells disaster for civilization and we are already halfway there. go humans

http://www.engadget.com/2015/11/11/6-insane-plans-to-hack-the-planets-ecosystems/

Kinda digging the seawater idea (backed by Bill Gates).

I hate the title, as there's nothing insane about thinking through necessary measures. If economists would simply include the discounted current cost of maintaining habitability into their cost/benefit analyses, then immedicate decarbonization of the energy sector would be a no brainer.

If sulfur is added to jet fuel/balloons etc., then maybe 5 billion can live at carbon levels that would otherwise result in 4+ degree warming. If not, I think we're down below 2 billion. You can't feed populations where nighttime temperatures are too high for grain germination, or the aquifers are exhausted and rain no longer falls. Stratospheric sulfur aerosol seeding is cheap enough for greatly affected countries (like Bangladesh) to do unilaterally, so barring some epidemic that wipes out most of us, sulfur albedo geoengineering looks pretty inevitable.

As for planting redwoods where they might survive, that's perfectly sensible. IIRC, climate patterns (for a given elevation) in the American West will move around 600 miles north this century. Too fast for normal seed dispersal. We should be planting trees as far north as they can survive current winters, and continue doing so.

Stratospheric sulfur aerosol seeding is cheap enough for greatly affected countries (like Bangladesh) to do unilaterally, so barring some epidemic that wipes out most of us, sulfur albedo geoengineering looks pretty inevitable.

Sure will be fun living with whatever catastrophio unintended consequences unfold out of this

what will the decay of 4 billion corpses do to temperatures? just curious

Not much. Assuming complete combustion:

16 kg C * 4 billion = 64 Mt C = 85 Mt CH4 or 234 Mt CO2. Annual CO2 emissions are 10 Gt = 10000 Mt CO2.

i myself have vast quantities of methane sequestered

really putting the thread title to work now, nice

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CT8Z4CcUEAA99Up.jpg

Yikes. Has another year ever eclipsed 1997, even for a week?

Not til late February, I think:

https://www.climate.gov/sites/default/files/styles/inline_all/public/weeklyNin34_compare_v3.jpg

I think Lamar Smith's hairpiece will outlast the polar icecaps and humanity.

http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/news/a39779/congress-climate-scientist-hearings/

https://i2.wp.com/4.bp.blogspot.com/-LeMQP7eH2Zc/VkqUFZD9Q3I/AAAAAAAADPc/lf71invhXy0/s1600/u96yg.gif

The magnitude of the anamolies in August-September-October . . .

*anomalies

Personally, I've been in a state of abject terror since May.

tear gas in Paris

http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2015/11/french-police-fire-teargas-disperse-climate-protest-151129132752492.html

all that outsourced unrest finally knocking at the gates of the west

alberta carbon tax is very sweet and encouraging

are there any other oil-rich places with conservative governments who have fallen out of power since oil prices declined? would be extra encouraging if the alberta sequence happened in other places, too

a short summary of what is and isn't at stake at the paris talks: http://www.vox.com/2015/11/30/9818582/paris-cop21-climate-talks

and for those who find this kind of stuff dry, a pretty good summary of the past 25 years of international (in)action in comic form: http://www.nature.com/news/the-fragile-framework-1.18861

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/02/us/politics/as-obama-pushes-climate-deal-republicans-move-to-block-emissions-rules.html

in the inevitable authoritarian children of men-style society we will live in after the effects of climate change are more fully felt, these guys will probably all be put up against a wall and shot

in the meantime, despair.

Speaking of which, I recommend Star's Reach: A Novel Of The Deindustrial Future by John Michael Greer (of the Archdruid Report). The narrative, set 400 years into a post AGW, post-Limits to Growth collapse, jumps needlessly about in time (due to its origins as a blog serialized novel), but touches on ideas from Heaven's Gate-like cults to isostatic rebound, and ties it all into the Fermi paradox.

Transgressors against Mam Gaia (down to glassblowers tapping natural gas wells) are buried in Her belly, alive. Alas, our generation is beyond reach.

Goals Of The Paris Climate Talks (Onion infographic)

Over 150 world leaders are meeting in Paris this week to address the global effects of climate change in the hopes that a unified international effort can avert grave future consequences for the planet. Here are the major goals of the Paris climate talks:

*Pledge to create one new ecosystem for every ecosystem destroyed by climate change
*Provide aid to help developing island nations transition into fully underwater economies
*Make shortlist of species actually worth saving at this point
*Give every world leader nice little non-binding agreement to take back to country as small keepsake
*Destroy the livelihood of 47-year-old Indiana coal miner and father of four Kevin O’Riley
*Finalize battle lines for when water wars begin
*Conceive of, design, and develop reliable, affordable, carbon-neutral source of clean energy capable of powering entire world before conference concludes next Friday
*Provide political cover for next round of fossil fuel subsidies
*Settle on scapegoat nation to pin blame on in the event of a worst-case scenario
*Find most rhetorically effective way to push problem onto next generation
*Above all to have fun, meet new people, and forge friendships that will last a lifetime

so uhhhh anybody been paying attention to the paris talks

yep. but they're still ongoing and farily secretive, so

About all there is to pay attention to are the efforts of activists to budge governments toward something approaching a sufficient response. This is both heartening and disheartening to watch, because however brave their efforts, the response will be nearly undetectable.

also (obvious point but since it hasn't been made) main contours of the international agreement are already in place, with a reliance on voluntary reduction commitments from each country. i believe that every single UN country has submitted a plan. if you had up all the voluntary reduction agreements, though, they don't come close to what's needed to have a good chance of avoiding 2C of warming. so an important part of the Paris talks is coming to agreement on mechanisms to "ratchet" down the emissions over time by revising the commitments so that they're reasonably suitable to achieve the goal. so there's not a lot of news coming from the actual conference because a) they're having a secret negotiation party in there, and b) the actual progress being made isn't likely to be groundbreaking or especially headline-worthy according to the standards of most media outlets.

the efforts of the activists may be especially futile for this meeting, even compared to other ones, because the template - voluntary reduction agreements - is already established. the jury is out on whether a voluntary bottom-up scheme is more workable than a mandatory centralized scheme, but it undoubtedly makes things more difficult for protesters because they need to individually pressure each country in the entire world to improve their voluntary agreement (obviously they'd want to focus in on the biggest players but still)

sorry for stupidity+typos. the latter can be blamed on iphone at least

The commitments, if kept, commit us to the 3-4°C path (5-7°C on land, without considering some positive feedbacks).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NmL4t8TclGU

yeah, and at least before the meetings started, it seemed like the bounds of debate were between updating the commitments every 10 years (with more industrialized countries in support) or every 5 years (with more countries anticipated to be completed fucked by climate change in support).

either one of those targets seems way too far away to me. it's difficult not to be demoralized, even in the midst of unprecedented attempts of global cooperation

it's understandable that few countries would want to deal with a system that sets new goals on a yearly or biannual basis and would require a rewrite of an emission reduction plan from each country in response. but it's tough to balance that with climate science (where new findings tend to offer MORE support for immediate action rather than less) and the consensus among modelers that the longer we delay in reaching peak emissions and beginning the decline, the harder it will be to reach the goal. a lot of the models specify a specific year or set of years in which we should begin the decline if we want to have a decent chance. time is of the fucking essence here, and there are plenty of people who think it's too late, so to propose meeting again in TEN YEARS to assess progress on the voluntary emissions reduction targets is just bonkers

Somewhat Aus-centric summary of current state of play, from behind the paywall at Crikey

Sleepless nights and saving the world in Paris

ERWIN JACKSON
Deputy chief executive of The Climate Institute

Another draft of the final COP21 climate agreement is out. There were a lot of bleary eyes at the conference centre today after negotiators worked through the night. Parties first met as a cohort to give “indaba” responses to the draft released yesterday, and then split up to smaller groups to hash out the areas that will need more work to find consensus.

“Indaba” refers to a process where each member at the table gets to speak and be heard. The inclusive process has a Zulu name that first appeared in the 2011 Durban meeting. That meeting provided the key breakthrough that recognised that all countries, including China and India, would offer broad climate action commitments. The Kyoto model, where only developed countries make emission reduction commitments, formed the basis pf a major argument used by some against the UN process and climate action more generally.

Among the usual lamentations about the exhausting negotiation process, there were also murmurs of agreement that yesterday’s text was an improvement. But not everyone saw their priorities in there yet.

As Thursday has now drawn to a close with a text that is mostly clear of square brackets (which highlight disagreements or alternative options). It suggests broad agreement on a range of issues but the following remain clearly contested:

how to build a common system of transparency for country actions;
how to address unmanageable climate change impacts in vulnerable nations; and
how to financially support poor nations participate in climate change solutions.
This is a strong, carefully balanced text. It includes the formal review and updating of targets every five years starting, in 2019. This would be done against the reference to limiting global warming below 1.5-2oC by the end of the century and achieving net zero emissions or ‘emissions neutrality (the science on this suggests all greenhouse gases would need to be at net zero by 2050 to have a chance at 1.5°C and between 2060 and 2070 for 2°C. CO2 emissions from energy and industry, which last longer in the atmosphere, would need to be at zero earlier than other gases). Finance contributions would be scaled up to the poorest and this would be tracked through time.

There are a number of challenges in here for Australia, which will need to recognise that its pollution reduction targets are more aligned to 3 to 4 degree warming and would leave us with the petro state of Saudi Arabia as the highest per capital polluters in 2030.

However, this text is not the final agreement. With a desire to present a penultimate version in the morning and make history by closing the meeting on time, with a final agreement Friday evening Paris time, the French president of the COP has called for “solutions indabas”.

The journey to where we are now in Paris has been a long and difficult one; ministers could still tumble at the final hurdle.

In what would be a victory for small island nations, the draft includes a section highlighting the losses they expect to incur from climate-related disasters that it's too late to adapt to. However, a footnote specifies that it "does not involve or provide any basis for any liability or compensation" — a key U.S. demand because it would let the Obama administration sign on to the deal without going through the Republican-led Senate.

hey so did everyone just agree to optimistically write & highlight & underline ~#1.5C!~ on the top of a report that otherwise makes no movement toward reaching that kind of cut?

I think so

Indonesian forest still burning btw.

They've subsided somewhat. Mostly its the usual suspects:
http://macc.copernicus-atmosphere.eu/d/getchart/macc/gac/nrt/nrt_fields_ghg!Carbon%20dioxide!Total%20column!36!Global!macc!od!enfo!nrt_fields_ghg!2015102600!!chart.gif

this is basically a non-binding bullshit "pledge", right?

paris i mean...

like the guardian calls it "legally binding" but in the same article says "And while there will be no legal obligation for countries to cut emissions, the agreement includes a five-yearly global stocktake and a review mechanism to assess each country’s contributions."

So basically it's just a formal acknowledgment of the problem and an agreement as to what would, in theory, be the solution.