Global Warming's Terrifying New Math

The Maldives are using foreign grants to build up islands 2 m above sea level, for instance the island of Hulhumalé, which was originally intended for population overflow from the capital Male. Longer term, they've been in discussion with Sri Lanka as a future refugee destination. The Maldives are in a much better situation than Pacific atolls, given their high tourism income of nearly $US 1 billion/yr.

Paradise almost lost: Maldives seek to buy a new homeland

Kiribati's attempts to follow the Maldives: https://www.themonthly.com.au/issue/2014/december/1417352400/john-van-tiggelen/cold-comfort

...subsequently, the 1.5-2.5 sq km growth that pretty much always happens during October... just hasn't happened. Because Jul/Aug were the warmest months on record

Sorry "Mike Jones" (heh) but that doesn't seem accurate. Take a look here:

https://neptune.gsfc.nasa.gov/uploads/images_db/CSIC_figure1.png

While it's true that current Arctic sea ice extent is apparently the lowest ever for this time of year, there still has been a significant rebound in October from the summer low. I think what's actually making the difference, as Sanpaku seems to imply, is that the loss in the Antarctic sea ice extent is what's driving the global net low this year. It remains quite worrisome particularly because of the positive feedback due to the reduced albedo effect (meaning more heat is absorbed from sunlight by water than by ice). Still, when we hit a relative low in the Arctic in 2007 I was sure that by this time we'd have ice-free summers in the Arctic. I guess things could be worse.

[Source: https://neptune.gsfc.nasa.gov/csb/index.php?section=234]

And basically, if you're wondering about the difference between "extent" and "area", apparently extent is just based on actual sea ice coverage, while area factors in the sea ice concentration.

Right, gotcha. I was only going by that graph above, where there isn't the major upturn in *global* sea ice extent in the last 25 days that one would normally expect to see. Arctic sea ice, yes.

Business as usual models run 2.6-4.8° C in 2100. Now, paleoclimate data suggests a higher sensitivity to atmospheric carbon, leading to a higher projected range of 4.8°C to 7.4°C

Climate change may be escalating so fast it could be 'game over', scientists warn (The Independent)
The new paper has a more reserved title: Nonlinear climate sensitivity and its implications for future greenhouse warming

7°C, by the way, is roughly where large swathes of the American Midwest become uninhabitable in Summer due to continental climate+humidity: it becomes impossible to dissipate heat by sweating.

To any anyone stumbling across an archive of this in future decades: I'm so sorry.

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/projects/cp/opinion/election-night-2016/goodbye-to-the-climate

That a bit alarmist tbh. Yes things are bad but exactly how bad? That's the question. Frankly it seems like emotions are running high around here right now and maybe we all need to take a breather. Sanpaku I saw some of your remarks on the election thread, are you doing ok now? I'm probably going to have to stay away from the strictly political threads for now, they've gotten too emotional for me and I don't feel like it's good for my mental wellness at the moment. Nothing personal to anyone involved, just my POV.

"Alarmist" referring to the NYT commentary, not specifically to the article about sensitivity to carbon. Regarding that article, I'd just point out that there seems to be a significant amount of uncertainty in their models. Not wrong, just uncertainty.

which part of it was alarmist?

the only thing in it that doesn't seem like a foregone conclusion is the possible international unraveling of the Paris Agreement, and the writing on that isn't alarmist at all:

The incoming Trump administration simply can disregard America’s pledge to reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 26 to 28 percent below the 2005 level by 2025. That is bad enough. But the big worry is what other key countries, including the world’s largest emitter, China, as well as India and Brazil, will do if the United States reneges on its pledge. The result could be that the Paris agreement unravels, taking it from the 97 percent of global emissions currently covered by the pact to little more than the European Union’s 10 percent share.

Don't forget, Trump once actually called for urgent action on climate change:

http://grist.org/politics/donald-trump-climate-action-new-york-times/?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=sailthru-post-notifications&utm_source=notification&utm_term=u%28Donald%20Trump%20once%20backed%20urgent%20climate%20action.%20Wait%2C%20what?%29

Granted I don't see him backing this position now, but surely he is absolutely full of shit on most of what he says, so, y'know....*pukes in corner*

xpost
but the adoption of "climate change is a hoax" as the official position from the President of the United States, the rescission of obama's environmental executive orders, dropping support of the clean power plan, gutting of EPA, pulling the plug on methane regulations (among others), fastlane approval of keystone and DAPL (which will at least make some ilxors happy), increasing subsidies for oil and gas? yeah, that's all going to happen.

Right, it was mostly the headline that seemed alarmist. I agree that the discussion of the most significant issues, mostly the Paris Agreement, but also Obama's Clean Power Plan, are not sensationalist. Even his conclusions seem fairly measured. What we're really talking about here is Obama's legacy. I'm not sure four years is really enough to completely change the prognosis for the climate. I should probably stop talking now because I have a feeling Sanpaku is going to come and make me feel stupid soon. As he well should.

It's no secret that the Republicans are the party of the energy industry. This is what we're going to get as long as Republicans hold power at the national level. It's really embarrassing from an international standpoint.

yeah, agree that the title isn't exactly aligned with the writing underneath. i think editors choose the titles and subheds for articles, not the authors, so they went for the more clickbaity one (worked for me!)

i won't speak for sanpaku, but i think the issue is that the current period we're living in, meaning things we're doing this year, things that effect the next 5-10 years, really are critical. a lot of people are warning that we're already PAST the point of no return - the point where more feedback loops start to kick in and it's no longer even possible to reduce ghg concentrations. if we're not already there, even more people are warning that we are very, very close. loose, faulty analogy here, but imagine that we're riding in a car in the desert, and the dust is kicking up everywhere so it's hard to see, and it's likely we're headed toward the edge of a canyon. some people are saying we're actually already flying through the air. others say the cliff is coming up in 25 ft and we'd better slam on the brakes ASAP. it's possible the cliff is more like 75 ft away, though. that would be nice. the driver (obama) starts to put the brake on. then a guy on PCP rips open the car door, takes over the drivers seat and says that cliffs don't exist as he presses on the pedal.

(^now THAT's alarmist. and not far from the reality)

Yes I've thought about the car going over a cliff metaphor too. The dust in the air is a good touch. 75 ft though, that's pretty close. I'd say it's probably a clown car, and yeah half the clowns are on acid.

I can't say I've seen a lot of people saying we're already past the point of no return in the sources I pay attention to. Ok, admittedly that's mostly the Guardian these days but they have pretty good coverage of climate issues.

How the hell do we not succumb to despair now?

because humans strangely have reserves of strength and optimism that prevail against all available evidence?

http://33.media.tumblr.com/831d67561a29402a83433a1683b072da/tumblr_n6enlgTEoD1smcbm7o1_500.gif

viborg, its depressing, its all depressing, but its been so for at least 27 years for me. I'll be alright. Frankly, I haven't believed our species will do enough, soon enough, for a very long time. All Trump's election does is slightly hasten the timetable for the worst effects to appear.

I feel my obligation as an aware human is to minimize my personal footprint, advocate for measures that might buy time (green energy, conservation), and measures that preserve some biodiversity and knowledge through the coming centurys' bottleneck, and document both the effects, and what the world once looked like, for future generations. Those future lives will be under poorer circumstances, but hopefully it won't be a dark age, but rather a far wiser one, for our experience.

Humans may learn for the better momentarily, but complacency is also a trait of ours and we'll be back to where we are now, in some way.

because humans strangely have reserves of strength and optimism that prevail against all available evidence?

Humans will also dig their own graves at a murderer's gunpoint, believing somehow against all the evidence that things will turn out OK before it's too late

u know that gravediggin' Nazi joke, right?

?

New research suggests the Earth's climate could be more sensitive to greenhouse gases than thought, raising the spectre of an 'apocalyptic side of bad' temperature rise of more than 7C within a lifetime

News report: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/climate-change-game-over-global-warming-climate-sensitivity-seven-degrees-a7407881.html
Full text: http://advances.sciencemag.org/content/2/11/e1501923.full

sanpaku linked to those a couple days ago

trying to figure out if it would be just as ignored by people in the united states if the trump catastrophe hadn't happened.

probs

I really don't know what it would take for people to pay attention. I almost wish for three really awful hurricanes this summer just so we can go, "hmmm, maybe they were on to something". With zero casualties of course.

Miami drowns while the Trump Administration can't figure out how to answer the phone.

> I really don't know what it would take for people to pay attention

Jobs, national defense and crime are visceral issues.
They have deep analogs in our ancestors, in hunger and violence, both clan and personal.

We lack instinctual fears of distant threats.
The pace of warming is around 1 °C per 30-40 years, and looks to remain roughly so.
For each generation, the visible changes from their baseline memories will be incremental.
There's nothing visceral about incremental change.

Hence for most, even the well-informed, climate change will remain a perennial #4 issue.
No emotional traction.

I wonder if the only people wired to get it,
to follow predictions for lost crop yields and coastal cities and have a visceral response,
are people like me on the autistic spectrum,
who've had to think about what emotion to feel, for a very long time.

The calculation is clear,
climate change will ultimately kill or prevent the existence of
orders of magnitude more than terrorism or economic depression.
Only global thermonuclear war comes close.
But its so slow, and so removed from the nasty brutish life we're evolved for,
that only for human outliers will climate change
have the emotional weight it deserves.

the visible changes from their baseline memories will be incremental.

the one significant exception to this may be when the increment of loss is a coastal city with a large population, representing a high concentration of capital investment. but for those not directly involved in the loss, it will be less visceral, even though there may well be 40-story buildings abandoned and moldering for decades after they become unusable. see 'abandoned amusement park' thread.

The problem with that is that there's a long lag between emissions and loss of coasts.

Business as usual emissions, at worst, will result in about 2 m mean sea level rise this century. Look at what 2 m means. It means New Orleans loses its wetlands buffer, Norfolk has to build a seawall, and Battery Park will be built up, but in most places, its survivable. Even if those emissions halted in 2100, Antarctica and Greenland continue melting inexorably, with most gone over the next millennium, and the seas thermally expand as they warm to the bottom over the next several millennia. What was 2 m when we had an opportunity to change the trajectory is more like 40 m in the year 3000, and perhaps 60 m by the time everything fully equilibrates.

Gore took the wrong tack entirely in focusing on sea-level in Inconvenient Truth. The focus needs to be on droughts and the food system, as these will be visible this century. With stagnant and declining yields, food prices will rise to require ever more income in the developed world, but in the developing world, climate change will manifest as famine, civil collapse, and refugee crises. Developed nation militaries already think in terms of walls and lethal force against climate refugees, and I expect European navies to start sinking refugee boats in my lifetime.

But, will Joe Blow in Wisconsin connect his energy use with these outcomes? I'm not so sure.

By the way, has this thread mentioned the new documentary Age of Consequences, which focuses on the national security consequences of climate change?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dnvrJ0vkPAM

The Age of Consequences website

NYC premiere at the IFC is Monday, November 14. Its the sort of film I'd hope might get through to GOP mindsets.

https://twitter.com/PaulHBeckwith/status/797369336612716544

Its the sort of film I'd hope might get through to GOP mindsets.

I've been in arguments with conservatives before who've brought up the Navy researching algae-based biodiesel as an example of budgetary pork, so I don't have high expectations that DOD-based projections will do much to sway them.

The difference is the DOD studies report on consequences that matter to them: millions, billions of brown skinned people, at the borders.

I've been thinking about asking this here for a while, and now seems like a particularly good time: are there any nonprofits that any of you would recommend donating to? I'd be interested in basically any angle on the issue: helping populations threatened by changes like sea levels or droughts, land conservation, legal initiatives, disseminating alternative energy tech, etc.

On the political side, I recommend Citizen's Climate Lobby.

And after the Sierra Club opposed I-732, I sent them a letter and won't contribute again.

sanpaku, how do you feel about capitalism's relationship to climate change? is fighting to end capitalism a worthwhile -- if quixotic -- political goal?

I'm currently reading Felicity Scott's (great) Outlaw Territories - very 'academic' (Zone Books) and she's an architectural historian by discipline, but one of the threads running through it is the development in the early 1970s of a certain, very delimited, official version of what the problems of the 'environment' were, and what kind of solutions would work on it. She's good at tracing different groups and concerns - hippie back-to-the-land characters, Nixonian politicos, dyed-in-the-wool technocrats, white people who read The Population Bomb and locked onto fears of ~teeming, starving Third World hordes~ surging onto their shores - and how they ended up converging in certain spaces and times. Basically, you end up with global capital preferring to imagine environmental problems as ones solved by adding more neo-colonial developmentalism, with negative externalities borne by the developing world.

She also marks exceptions, and moments where other narratives break through, as where Asian, African and South American delegations to UN conferences challenge the assumed problems and solutions and basically pointed out that their environmental problems are caused by the logics of First-World corporations and capitalism generally. Not expressly on-topic for this thread, but several of the last few posts have kind of reminded me of this.

xp
thanks Sanpaku. Looking at that site also reminded me to check what happened to that Florida solar power amendment; some good news there at least: http://www.miamiherald.com/news/politics-government/election/article114377458.html

mbison: Capitalism (by which I mean directing investment through financial intermediaries) is the only alternative to command economies to redirect large scale investment to worthwhile goals. It will work for public goods with the right incentives. And command economies have a very bad record for improving general prosperity. What works is regulated captitalism with social safety nets.

Right now, the incentives favor ignoring the external cost of carbon emissions, but this can in theory easily be fixed. Only a few entities are extracting fossil fuels from the ground or import fossil fuels from overseas. That carbon can be taxed at a rate commensurate with the environmental costs. Its a regressive tax, so to limit the effects on the poor we cut other regressive taxes like sales and payroll taxes. This sort of approach is better than grants for green energy, as it changes the economic landscape for all in a predictable way. It doesn't pick winners with dubious economics, like rooftop solar. It provides incentives for conservation measures (improving insulation with spraycrete, etc), which are at least half the game.

I'm almost as disappointed in the defeat of I-732 (Washington state carbon tax), in which the Sierra Club joined the Koch Brothers in opposition, as I am with the presidential election.

mbison: Capitalism (by which I mean directing investment through financial intermediaries) is the only alternative to command economies to redirect large scale investment to worthwhile goals. It will work for public goods with the right incentives. And command economies have a very bad record for improving general prosperity. What works is regulated capitalism with social safety nets.

Right now, the incentives favor ignoring the external cost of carbon emissions, but this can in theory easily be fixed. Only a few entities extract or import fossil fuels. That carbon can be taxed at a rate commensurate with the inherent environmental costs. Its a regressive tax, so to limit the effects on the poor we cut other regressive taxes like sales and payroll taxes. This sort of approach is better than grants for green energy, as it changes the economic landscape for all in a predictable way. It doesn't pick winners with dubious economics, like rooftop solar. It provides incentives for conservation measures (improving insulation with spraycrete, etc), which are at least half the game.

I'm almost as disappointed in the defeat of I-732 (Washington state carbon tax), in which the Sierra Club joined the Koch Brothers in opposition, as I am with the presidential election.

Sorry for the dupe. At least I corrected some of my grammatical errors in the second.

bise: I think to put a different spin in on capitalism, I'm a lot more dubious than Sanpaku, especially if we're talking about:

1. the consumption-based capitalism that is backing a lot of the resistance to large-scale changes (mitigation/adaptation);
2. and the focus on economic growth, which itself, as I understand it (admittedly weakly), is predicated both ever-expanding extraction of resources to eventually sell to ever-expanding (consumer) markets.