NASA: 'Disasterous effects' of warming closer than thought
(May 30, 2007) A new NASA study says that we are nearing critical global warming “tipping points” that will have disasterous consequences for the planet.
Even moderate additional greenhouse gas emissions are likely to result in increasingly rapid sea–level rise, frequency of droughts and floods, and shifting climate zones that will stress wildlife and plants, according to the NASA announcement.
Studies released earlier this month report human–made emissions are spiraling upward at an accelerating rate much faster than scientists expected only a few years ago.
Scientists have been warning for several years that tipping points are the greatest threat from manmade global warming and what makes it potentially catastrophic for civilization, according to an ABC News report.
James Hansen, director of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies and lead author of the study explained for ABC News that as the tipping points pass, “there is an acceleration, potentially uncontrollable, of emissions of vast natural stores of greenhouse gas.”
The new NASA release emphasizes the danger of “strong amplifying feedbacks” are pushing the planet past these tipping points.
Hansen explains that such feedback loops are already being observed various regions of the planet, phenomenon such as thawing tundra, seabeds and drying forests, as well as disappearing Arctic sea ice and snow, whose reflectivity has helped cool the planet by bouncing warm sunlight straight back into space.
These feedbacks all produce more heat, thus all reinforcing each other
This research wasconducted by NASA and the Columbia University Earth Institute. The study appears in the journal Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics.
Dear Friends,
Over the course of my lifetime good science has been repeatedly presented to the Masters of the Universe in my not-so-great generation of elders. We and they have been warned by Rachel Carson and many other faithful scientists of potential threats posed to humanity, biodiversity, the integrity of Earth and its ecosystems by distinctly human-driven activities associated with the unbridled increase of per human consumption of Earth’s limited resources, the unrestrained expansion of industrialization in this relatively small finite world in which we live, and the unchecked rise of absolute global human population numbers.
Great scientists have been villified and good science has been discredited, eschewed, ignored and the seeds of uncertainty otherwise sown by the “powers that be” and their many minions in the mass media. Magical thinking, contrived logic, rhetorical devices, biases, misrepresentations and disinformation have been employed for the sake of making that which is known to be false appear true and what is known to be real, according to the best available scientific research, appear illusory.
So preoccupied have many elders been by adamantly growing the world economy and by incessantly living without regard to Earth’s limitations or human limits that they overlooked the potentially pernicious consequences resulting from the current scale and growth rate of human enterprise now overspreading Earth. These leaders have repeatedly refused to acknowledge and accept that there can be no manmade economy in the planetary home God has blessed us to inhabit without adequate natural resources and frangible ecosystem services of Earth, upon which any human economy depends for its existence.
Perhaps I am not understanding what looks to me like a human predicament, one that appears to loom ominously before humanity on the far horizon.
Sincerely,
Steve
The thing that worries me is that the results of this study seem to show that things are worse than we thought just yesterday. So, where do we really stand? It seems that in just a few years we’ve gone from some awareness of the problem to this study that shows we’re past the point of no return. Apparently even scientists are surprised by the results which they didn’t expect. It really worries me.
Erika, the release of one study in science doesn’t necessarily mean that things are “worse than we thought yesterday.” It just means that – according to this group of scientists – the potential for dire consequences to occur has been verified yet again. Other scientists continue to disagree.
But let’s assume for a moment that this study is correct. Let’s assume that we are near a “tipping point” with respect to global warming.
Then all we can do is try – as we have been trying, as a species and as individuals – to do our best. We humans are an adaptable species. We can adapt to global warming, assuming its effects are within the boundaries outlined by scientists of the IPCC. The issue for James Hansen and others, I think, is that, in order to adapt most effectively, we in the U.S. need to stop arguing about global warming and start doing something!
Deborah
“While we are postponing, life speeds by.” – Seneca (3BC – 65AD)
Yes, definitely yes, we do need to do something good and scientifically sound, in keeping with universally shared human values.
The world and particularly the US needs visionary leaders now. The Texas legislature shocked me when they failed to pass environmental bills because of political bickering. When will politicians get their heads right on this? Too late to make a difference? I too believe humans are very adaptable and will survive. But we sure could do it in a more effective manner if we had policies in place to force corporate compliance.
Why isn’t this news on the front page of every newspaper?
Dear Katch,
Great question! So obvious a question. Unfortunately, the leaders of my self-centered generation of elders do not to see it, hear it or speak of it. They and their minions in the mass media have chosen instead to remain willfully blind, hysterically deaf and electively mute.
Once this vital discussion of global warming and climate change that is occurring here and now, thanks to Earth & Sky, is on the front page day after day in every newspaper on the planet, in the same way we see news coverage of not-nearly-so-vital discussions of the status and accumulating wealth of the global economy, then we will begin to see real forward movement to protect biodiversity, to conserve rather than dissipate limited natural resources, to preserve the integrity of Earth and its ecosystems, and to maintain the planetary home in which we live as a fit place for human habitation by our children and coming generations. Once Earth’s ECOLOGY receives the attention and financial support paid to the world’s human ECONOMY, we can be certain that necessary change is in the offing.
Sincerely,
Steve
I think too many politicians in the US have ignored the reality of this problem for their own reasons, and, by deliberately keeping their population in ignorance, have done their country and citizens great harm, not to mention the rest of the planet. George Bush is late convert…but cynically the rest of the world is asking why. Though there is some hope to be found in his late conversion to the facts, he does not inspire confidence.
A Way Not to Go?
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=6146160026172748084&q=what+a+way+to+go
Remember, this is just one study.
Deborah
it’s unfortunate that corporate greed has brought us to this place. we as a society have known for decades the effects of our actions; take the discontinuation of most if not all cfc’s in our products. however, the steps needed to cut back the greenhouse gas emissions are by and large too expensive for company ceo’s to want to consider. this has brought about the whole anti-warming arguement as their defense for not taking these steps, and by not acting, their companies still make their profit.
as a species that actually can make a difference, these actions are not expensive at all. in fact, they are a bargain. the biggest price will be paid by our children, along with the other inhabitants of our world. unfortunately, many lesser life forms are already writing checks they cant cash.
Dear Bob Young,
Thanks for sharing your views.
My generation of elders is thoughtlessly and selfishly mortgaging the future of its children. Our children may look back at us in anger for so much that we recklessly commandeered from this good Earth and for so many of our failures to do what was necessary to preserve the Earth and its environs as a fit place for them to inhabit.
The masters of the universe in my not-so-great generation have evidently chosen to continuously ignore the vital lessons to be learned from the once vainglorious and now “wrecked” Ozymandias, king of kings.
With thanks to all for this discussion,
Steve
The only real argument (proof) of man-made Global Warming is: There is no argument. But that is not good science.
In 1983, Dansgaard & Oeschger were among the first people to examine two ice cores, each approximately one mile long, brought up from the Greenland Ice Sheet. Laborious studies of the cores proved that global warming occurs every 1500 to 2500 years – even during the Ice Ages and interglacial climate swings the 1500-year cycle was superimposed in the core.
The Earth’s elliptical orbit is on a 100,000-year cycle. The axial tilt variation is on a 41,000-year cycle. The “wobble” of the Earth on its axis is on a 23,000-year cycle. But it is the 1,500 year solar-driven cycle that is responsible for our “global warming” – which cannot be prevented. However, history proves that it will bring benefits to man, especially a reduction in famine/hunger, species survival, and a longer worldwide life expectancy.
The “sky is not falling”.
According to Okolono, “History proves that it (global warming) will bring benefits to man, especially a reduction in famine/hunger, species survival, and a longer worldwide life expectancy.” I’m sure all of us would like to believe this is true. Whether true or not historically, I’m afraid the burning of fossil fuels and the enormity of human-induced CO2 emissions are totally without historical precedent.
Bruce
Response to Mr. Bruce McClure:
Most of the current warming occurred BEFORE 1940. AFTER 1940 temperatures DECLINED until 1975, despite a HUGE surge in industrial CO2 during that period. As a result of numerous studies of isotopes of oxygen, carbon, beryllium, and argon trapped in glacier ice, of fossil pollen records, and of algae cyst assemblages in lake and seabed sediments, researchers such as Nicolas Caillon of the French Atomic Energy Commission have concluded that CO2 is not the cause of global warming but instead CO2 is the result of global warming. The ocean gives up CO2 when it and the atmosphere warm – simple as that.
The Roman empire flourished in a warm climactic period, and collapsed during the colder Dark Ages, which was followed by The Medieval Warming (950 – 1300), a period of abundant crops and stable weather.
The climate event that we should worry about is the inevitable next big Ice Age. Humanity and food production will be forced closer to the equator. Ohio and Indiana will be encased in mile thick ice. Wildlife will become extremely challenged and keeping warm will become a critical issue day and night. Could it be guilt or a desire for a one-government world that is causing humans to panic about the planet returning to the finest climate the planet has known in a million years?
To Okolona,
I appreciate your response to my query. The Wikipedia graph quite concurs with your statement that after 1940 temperatures declined until 1975. But despite this fluctuation, I can’t see that this negates the fact that global warming is happening as we speak, and that many scientists believe human-induced CO2 emissions are at least partly responsible for the present-day global warming phenomenon.
If I understand you correctly, you are saying that CO2 emissions have NO effect whatsoever on global warming. “The ocean gives up CO2 when it and the atmosphere warm – simple as that.” And even if the dramatic increase in CO2 concentrations in our atmosphere is responsible for global warming, there is nothing to worry about because global warming is a good thing – simple as that.
It’s my understanding that ice core studies have shown that in the last several hundred thousands of years, varying CO2 levels have peaked out at about 280 parts per million. Presently, the CO2 levels are around 380 ppm and are projected to climb to 450 to 550 ppm by 2050.
To the best of my knowledge and understanding, this spite in CO2 levels is totally unprecedented in modern geological history. Please correct me if I’m wrong, but I believe you’re saying we needn’t even pause over the implications of these increasing CO2 levels, because the ocean gives up CO2 when it and the atmosphere warm – simple as that.
Bruce
Bruce check out: http://www.spacecenter.dk/research/sun-climate/other/global-warming-and-cosmic-radiation
Also:http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=PressRoom.Blogs&ContentRecord_id=0df9b3cd-802a-23ad-4984-5ac0c6d42605
Both good places to start your journey towards truth; and rid yourself of junk science and wasted worry about human induced global warming. To paraphrase Mark Twain: “My life has been full of horrible things – and some of them even happened!”
Hope others read my posts – and start thinking and researching for themselves.
Gotta Go! Will be driving my Hummer to the mountains for some weekend dayhiking!
See ya on the trails,
Okolona
Okolona,
If you’d be so kind, you can tell me in your own words. Have ice core studies shown or not shown that CO2 levels have cycled from roughly 180 to 280 parts per million over the last several hundred thousand years? (See green line on graph) Are present CO2 levels somewhere around 380 ppm? Do scientists project atmospheric CO2 concentrations to climb to 450 to 550 ppm by 2050?
I’m quite aware that you think this spike in CO2 levels need not concern us. Fine and good. I simply want to ask you if the huge spike in present-day CO2 levels is unprecedented in modern geological history, as revealed by ice core samples?
Thank you.
Bruce McClure
Dear Okolona and Bruce,
Perhaps the time is drawing nigh for some serious discussion of what we are to do about the human predicament that is presented to humanity by the unbridled growth of the human species and its large-scale business enterprises engulfing the Earth in Century XXI.
Just as a way of beginning to take hold of this distinctly human predicament, I would like to present a scenario to which I welcome responses. It seems that one way to start such a “movement” from problem identification to solutions could be by considering how to address a situation like the one that follows.
Let us consider for a moment that the future of our children is being mortgaged and ultimately put at risk by a relatively small group of powerbrokers who manage the unbridled global political economy as a colossal pyramid scheme. While they recklessly go about their potentially pernicious business, many too many of our elected and appointed leaders maintain their silence about the challenges unrestrained global human production, consumption and propagation present to humanity, even though a calamity is already visible in the offing. By posing as people who are blind and mute, the deafening silence of these bought-and-paid-for leaders serves to fill their pockets and pockets of their benefactors and minions with that which is golden…......... for now…............. and for a while longer, I suppose.
Could these promoters of endless wealth accumulation and ever expanding business enterprise be adamantly pursuing an unsustainable course to the future, one that no sensible and reasonable human being would ever choose to take?
Would you recommend that we “stay the course” by promoting more business as usual, human overgrowth activities or would you suggest a change in course that eschews unchecked economic globalization?
If necessary change of some sort appears to loom on the horizon, then what changes in course would you recommend?
Sincerely,
Steve
Steve,
I think too many people mistake overconsumption for luxury and the good life, when it’s anything but. For people who believe the measure of happiness and joy is endless consumption, I suggest taking time out to watch a sunset.
Bruce
Studies have shown that – up to a certain point – money does buy happiness. That point comes when we have a roof over our heads, food to eat, and clothes to keep us warm. Billions of people on Earth don’t have that …
But after those basic necessities are acquired, additional material acquisition doesn’t make one happier, according to preliminary research on these issues …
I hope that as the 21st century progresses, we’ll see more scientists studying what makes people happy.
Here are some articles on this subject, for those who are interested:
Well-being, hard choices and deep change
Values shift ahead? What is happiness, anyway?
Hi to all,
The following article may not belong here in this discussion; however, it is sufficiently related to this and other valued commentaries, thanks to Earth & Sky, and strikes me as extremely significant not only for its content but for who is saying such things.
Steve
Start article
A Sudden Change of State
A new paper suggests we have been greatly underestimating the impacts of climate change – and the size of the necessary response.
By George Monbiot. Published in the Guardian 3rd July 2007
Reading a scientific paper on the train this weekend, I found, to my amazement, that my hands were shaking. This has never happened to me before, but nor have I ever read anything like it. Published by a team led by James Hansen at Nasa, it suggests that the grim reports issued by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change could be absurdly optimistic(1).
The IPCC predicts that sea levels could rise by as much as 59cm this century(2). Hansen’s paper argues that the slow melting of ice sheets the panel expects doesn’t fit the data. The geological record suggests that ice at the poles does not melt in a gradual and linear fashion, but flips suddenly from one state to another. When temperatures increased to 2-3 degrees above today’s level 3.5 million years ago, sea levels rose not by 59 centimetres but by 25 metres. The ice responded immediately to changes in temperature(3).
We now have a pretty good idea of why ice sheets collapse. The buttresses that prevent them from sliding into the sea break up; meltwater trickles down to their base, causing them suddenly to slip; and pools of water form on the surface, making the ice darker so that it absorbs more heat. These processes are already taking place in Greenland and West Antarctica.
Rather than taking thousands of years to melt, as the IPCC predicts, Hansen and his team find it “implausible” that the expected warming before 2100 “would permit a West Antarctic ice sheet of present size to survive even for a century.” As well as drowning most of the world’s centres of population, a sudden disintegration could lead to much higher rises in global temperature, because less ice means less heat reflected back into space. The new paper suggests that the temperature could therefore be twice as sensitive to rising greenhouse gases than the IPCC assumes. “Civilization developed,” Hansen writes, “during a period of unusual climate stability, the Holocene, now almost 12,000 years in duration. That period is about to end.”(4)
I looked up from the paper, almost expecting to see crowds stampeding through the streets. I saw people chatting outside a riverside pub. The other passengers on the train snoozed over their newspapers or played on their mobile phones. Unaware of the causes of our good fortune, blissfully detached from their likely termination, we drift into catastrophe.
Or we are led there. A good source tells me that the British government is well aware that its target for cutting carbon emissions – 60% by 2050 – is too little, too late, but that it will go no further for one reason: it fears losing the support of the Confederation of British Industry. Why this body is allowed to keep holding a gun to our heads has never been explained, but Gordon Brown has just appointed Digby Jones, its former director-general, as a minister in the department responsible for energy policy. I don’t remember voting for him. There could be no clearer signal that the public interest is being drowned by corporate power.
The government’s energy programme, partly as a result, is characterised by a complete absence of vision. You can see this most clearly when you examine its plans for renewables. The EU has set a target for 20% of all energy in the member states to come from renewable sources by 2020. This in itself is pathetic. But the government refuses to adopt it(5): instead it proposes that 20% of our electricity (just part of our total energy use) should come from renewable power by that date. Even this is not a target, just an “aspiration”, and it is on course to miss it. Worse still, it has no idea what happens after that. Last week I asked whether it has commissioned any research to discover how much more electricity we could generate from renewable sources. It has not(6).
It’s a critical question, whose answer – if its results were applied globally – could determine whether or not the planetary “albedo flip” that Hansen predicts takes place. There has been remarkably little investigation of this issue. Until recently I guessed that the maximum contribution from renewables would be something like 50%: beyond that point the difficulties of storing electricity and balancing the grid could become overwhelming. But three papers now suggest that we could go much further.
Last year, the German government published a study of the effects of linking the electricity networks of all the countries in Europe and connecting them to North Africa and Iceland with high voltage direct current cables(7). This would open up a much greater variety of renewable power sources. Every country in the network would then be able to rely on stable and predictable supplies from elsewhere: hydroelectricity in Scandanavia and the Alps, geothermal energy in Iceland and vast solar thermal farms in the Sahara. By spreading the demand across a much wider network, it suggests that 80% of Europe’s electricity could be produced from renewable power without any greater risk of blackouts or flickers.
At about the same time, Mark Barrett at University College London published a preliminary study looking mainly at ways of altering the pattern of demand for electricity to match the variable supply from wind and waves and tidal power(8). At about twice the current price, he found that we might be able to produce as much as 95% of our electricity from renewable sources without causing interruptions in the power supply.
Now a new study by the Centre for Alternative Technology takes this even further(9). It is due to be published next week, but I have been allowed a preview. It is remarkable in two respects: it suggests that by 2027 we could produce 100% of our electricity without the use of fossil fuels or nuclear power, and that we could do so while almost tripling its supply: our heating systems (using electricity to drive heat pumps) and our transport systems could be mostly powered by it. It relies on a great expansion of electricity storage: building new hydroelectric reservoirs into which water can be pumped when electricity is abundant, constructing giant vanadium flow batteries and linking electric cars up to the grid when they are parked, using their batteries to meet fluctuations in demand. It contains some optimistic technical assumptions, but also a very pessimistic one: that the UK relies entirely on its own energy supplies. If the German proposal were to be combined with these ideas, we could begin to see how we might reliably move towards a world without fossil fuels.
If Hansen is correct, to avert the meltdown that brings the Holocene to an end we require a response on this scale: a sort of political “albedo flip”. The government must immediately commission studies to discover how much of our energy could be produced without fossil fuels, set that as its target then turn the economy round to meet it. But a power shift like this cannot take place without a power shift of another kind: we need a government which fears planetary meltdown more than it fears the CBI.
George Monbiot’s book Heat: how to stop the planet burning is now published in paperback.
www.monbiot.com
References:
1. James Hansen et al, 2007. Climate Change and Trace Gases. Philiosophical Transactions of the Royal Society – A. Vol 365, pp 1925-1954. doi: 10.1098/rsta.2007.2052. http://pubs.giss.nasa.gov/docs/2007/2007_Hansen_etal_2.pdf
2. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, February 2007. Climate Change 2007: The Physical Science Basis – Summary for Policymakers. Table SPM-3. http://www.ipcc.ch/SPM2feb07.pdf
3. I am grateful to Marc Hudson for drawing my attention to this paper and giving me a copy.
4. James Hansen et al, ibid.
5. In the Energy White Paper it says the following: “The 20% renewables target is an ambitious goal representing a large increase in Member States’ renewables capacity. It will need to be taken forward in the context of the overall EU greenhouse gas target. Latest data shows that the current share of renewables in the UK’s total energy mix is around 2% and for the EU as a whole around 6%. Projections indicate that by 2020, on the basis of existing policies, renewables would contribute around 5% of the UK’s consumption and are unlikely to exceed 10% of the EU’s.” Department of Trade and Industry, May 2007. Meeting the Energy Challenge: A White Paper on Energy, page 23. http://www.dtistats.net/ewp/ewp_full.pdf
6. Emails from David Meechan, press officer, Renewables, Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform.
7. German Aerospace Center (DLR) Institute of Technical Thermodynamics Section Systems Analysis and Technology Assessment, June 2006. Trans-Mediterranean Interconnection for Concentrating Solar Power. Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety, Germany. http://www.dlr.de/tt/Portaldata/41/Resources/dokumente/institut/system/projects/TRANS-CSP_Full_Report_Final.pdf
8. Mark Barrett, April 2006. A Renewable Electricity System for the UK: A Response to the 2006 Energy Review. UCL Bartlett School Of Graduate Studies – Complex Built Environment Systems Group. http://www.cbes.ucl.ac.uk/projects/energyreview/Bartlett%20Response%20to%20Energy%20Review%20-%20electricity.pdf
9. Centre for Alternative Technology, 10th July 2007. ZeroCarbonBritain: an alternative energy strategy. This will be made available at www.zerocarbonbritain.com
Dear Friends of Earth & Sky,
Lyrics follow to the Roger Waters song, AMUSED TO DEATH, thanks to John C. Feeney, Tim Delaney and, perhaps, the great global thinker, David Delaney of Ottawa, Canada.
We watched the tragedy unfold
We did as we were told
We bought and sold
It was the greatest show on earth
But then it was over
We oohed and aahed
We drove our racing cars
We ate our last few jars of caviar
And somewhere out there in the stars
A keen-eyed look-out
Spied a flickering light
Our last hurrah
And when they found our shadows
Groups ’round the TV sets
They ran down every lead
They repeated every test
They checked out all the data in their lists
And then the alien anthropologists
Admitted they were still perplexed
But on eliminating every other reason
For our sad demise
They logged the only explanation left
This species has amused itself to death
No tears to cry
No feelings left
This species has amused itself to death
Amused itself to death.
Sincerely,
Steve