Climate Code Red: What we learned about the climate system in 2017 that should send shivers down the spines of policy makers

by David Spratt, Climate Code Red, January 15, 2018

Much of what happened in 2017 was predictable: news of climate extremes became, how can I put it … almost the norm. There was record-breaking heat on several continents, California’s biggest wildfire (extraordinarily in the middle of winter), an ex-tropical cyclone hitting Ireland (yes, Ireland) in October, and the unprecedented Hurricanes Harvey, Irma and Maria that swept through the Atlantic in August. The US government agency, the NOAA, reported that there were 16 catastrophic billion-dollar weather/climate events in the USA during 2017.

And 2017 “marks the first time some of the (scientific) papers concluded that an event could not have occurred — like, at all — in a world where global warming did not exist. The studies suggested that the record-breaking global temperatures in 2016, an extreme heat wave in Asia and a patch of unusually warm water in the Alaskan Gulf were only possible because of human-caused climate change,” Reuters reported.

At both poles, the news continues to be not good. At the COP23 in Bonn, Pam Pearson, Founder and Director of the International Cryosphere Climate Initiative, warned that the cryoshere is becoming “an irreversible driver of climate change.” She said that most cryosphere thresholds are determined by peak temperature, and the length of time spent at that peak, warning that “later, decreasing temperatures after the peak are largely irrelevant, especially with higher temperatures and longer duration peaks.” Thus “overshoot scenarios,” which are now becoming the norm in policy-making circles (including all 1.5 °C scenarios) hold much greater risks.

As well, Pearson said that 2100 is a misleading and minimizing measure of cryosphere response: “When setting goals, it is important to look to new irreversible impacts and the steady state circumstances. The end of the century is too soon to show that before but inevitable response especially for sea level rises.” Pearson added that: “What keeps cryosphere scientists up at night are irreversible thresholds, particularly West Antarctica and Greenland. The consensus figure for the irreversible melting of Greenland is at 1.6 °C.”

So what did we learn about the climate system in 2017? Here’s three that stand out, that should send shivers down the spines of policy makers. 

1.  2017 was the second hottest year on record and the hottest non-El Nino year on record

Whilst not all sources have yet released data on annual warming for last year, the Copernicus Climate Change Service, the first major international weather agency to report global 2017 temperatures, said they averaged 1.2 °C above pre-industrial times. 2017 was slightly cooler than the warmest year on record, 2016, and warmer than the previous second warmest year, 2015, Reuters reported.

Other organisations have unofficial figures which either agree with this assessment, or say that 2017 has tied with 2015. And last year was Australia's third-warmest year on record.

It is no surprise that the last three years have been the hottest on the instrumental record. What is remarkable is that 2017 was as hot, or hotter than 2015, because 2015 and 2016 were both El Nino years, and the evidence shows that El Nino years are, on average, about 0.15 °C warmer than La Nina years.In fact, a remarkably hot 2017 crushed the old record for hottest non-El Niño year (2014) by an astounding 0.17 °C.

The underlying temperature trend is being driven by continuing high levels of climate pollution: The UN says carbon dioxide levels grew at record pace in 2016. The atmospheric carbon dioxide  averaged 403.3 parts per million (ppm) over the year, up from 400 ppm in 2015. The growth rate was 50% faster than the average over the past decade.

And global carbon emissions are headed up again after three years in which human-caused emissions appeared to be leveling off. A 2% increase is projected overall, with the highest rise coming in China, according to new research presented at the climate talks in Bonn.

In 2017, we also learned that there was no pause in global warming: the so-called ’slow down' in climate change between 1998 and 2012 was caused by a lack of data from the Arctic.

2. It is likely to get hotter than we think

Two significant pieces of work released towards the end of 2017 suggest that warming is likely to be greater than the projections of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), on which climate policy-making and carbon budgets are generally based. 

This is because what is called Equilibrium Climate Sensitivity (ECS), an estimate of how much the planet will warm for a doubling in the level of greenhouse gases, is higher than the median of the IPCC’s modelling analysis. 

In “Greater future global warming inferred from Earth’s recent energy budget” published in Nature in December 2017, Brown and Caldeira compared the performance of a wide range of climate models (raw model projections) with recent observations (especially on the balance of incoming and outgoing top-of-the-atmosphere radiation that ultimately determines the Earth’s temperature), in order to assess which models perform best.

The models that best capture current conditions (the “observationally-informed” models) produce 15% more warming by 2100 than the IPCC suggests, hence reducing the “carbon budget” by around 15% for the 2C target.

 For example, they find the warming associated by the IPCC with RCP 4.5 emissions scenario would in fact “follow the trajectory previously associated with (higher emissions) RCP 6.0” scenario. 

They also find that the observationally-informed ECS prediction has a mean value of 3.7 °C (for a doubling of the atmospheric greenhouse gas level), compared to 3.1 °C used in raw models, and in the carbon budget analyses widely used by the IPCC, the UN and at climate policy conferences.

In “Well below 2C: Mitigation strategies for avoiding dangerous to catastrophic climate changes,” published in September 2017, Xu and Ramanathan look at what are called the “fat tail” risks. These are the low-probability, high-impact (LPHI) consequences (“fat tails”) of future emission scenarios; that is, events with a 5% probability at the top end of the range of possible outcomes. 

These “top end” risks are more likely to occur than we think, so “it is important to use high-end climate sensitivity because some studies have suggested that 3D climate models have underestimated three major positive climate feedbacks: positive ice albedo feedback from the retreat of Arctic sea ice, positive cloud albedo feedback from retreating storm track clouds in mid-latitudes, and positive albedo feedback by the mixed-phase (water and ice) clouds.” 

When these are taken into account, the researchers find that the ECS is more than 40% higher than the IPCC mid-figure, at 4.5-4.7 °C. And this is without taking into account carbon cycle feedbacks (such as melting permafrost and the declining efficiency of forests carbon sinks), and increase methane emissions from wetlands, which together could add another 1 °C to warming be 2100. 

This work complements other recent work which also suggests a higher climate sensitivity:

• Fasullo and Trenberth found that the climate models that most accurately capture observed relative humidity in the tropics and subtropics and associated clouds were among those with a higher sensitivity of around 4 °C.

• Zhai et al. found that seven models that are consistent with the observed seasonal variation of low-altitude marine clouds yield an ensemble-mean sensitivity of 3.9 °C. 

• Friedrich et al. show that climate models may be underestimating climate sensitivity because it is not uniform across different circumstances, but in fact higher in warmer, inter-glacial periods (such as the present) and lower in colder, glacial periods. Based on a study of glacial cycles and temperatures over the last 800,000 years, the authors conclude that in warmer periods climate sensitivity averages around 4.88 °C. Professor Michael Mann, of Penn State University, says the paper appears "sound and the conclusions quite defensible."

• Lauer et al. found that climate models that most accurately simulate recent cloud cover changes in the east Pacific point to an amplifying effect on global warming and thus a more sensitive climate. 

And the bottom line?  If this work is correct, then the pledges made under the Paris Accord would not produce warming of around 3 °C as is widely discussed, but a figure closer to and even above 4 °C. And the total carbon budget would a quarter smaller than is generally accepted, or even less.

3. Climate models under-estimate future risks

This year, the Breakthrough Centre for Climate Restoration in Melbourne, published What Lies Beneath, on the scientific understatement of climate risks. The report found that human-induced climate change is an existential risk to human civilization, yet much climate research understates climate risks and provides conservative projections. Reports from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change that are crucial to climate policymaking and informing public narrative are characterized by scientific reticence, paying limited attention to lower-probability, high-risk events that are becoming increasingly likely. (Disclosure: I was a co-author of this report.) 

But don’t take my word.  At the climate policy conference in Bonn, Phil Duffy, the Director of the Woods Hole Institute, explained the scientific reticence regarding the biggest system feedback issues:

"The best example of reticence is permafrost…  It’s absolutely essential that this feedback loop not get going seriously, if it does there is simply no way to control it… The scientific failure comes in because none of this is in climate models and none of this is considered in the climate policy discussion… climate models simply omit emissions from the warming permafrost, but we know that is the wrong answer because that tacitly assumes that these emissions are zero and we know that’s not right…"

And the problems of underestimation of future climate impacts from current models was explicitly recognized by the US government in its Climate Science Special Report: Fourth National Climate Assessment. In a chapter on “Potential Surprises: Compound Extremes and Tipping Element,” two key findings were:

Positive feedbacks (self-reinforcing cycles) within the climate system have the potential to accelerate human-induced climate change and even shift the Earth’s climate system, in part or in whole, into new states that are very different from those experienced in the recent past (for example, ones with greatly diminished ice sheets or different large-scale patterns of atmosphere or ocean circulation). Some feedbacks and potential state shifts can be modeled and quantified; others can be modeled or identified but not quantified; and some are probably still unknown. (Very high confidence in the potential for state shifts and in the incompleteness of knowledge about feedbacks and potential state shifts).

• While climate models incorporate important climate processes that can be well quantified, they do not include all of the processes that can contribute to feedbacks, compound extreme events, and abrupt and/or irreversible changes. For this reason, future changes outside the range projected by climate models cannot be ruled out (very high confidence). Moreover, the systematic tendency of climate models to underestimate temperature change during warm paleoclimates suggests that climate models are more likely to underestimate than to overestimate the amount of long-term future change (medium confidence).

• The problem is that the notion that future climate changes may be faster and hotter than those projected by climate models is one rarely understood by climate policy-makers, and rarely discussed by those who do understand.

If climate policymaking is to be soundly based, a re-framing of scientific research within an existential risk-management framework is now urgently required. This must be taken up not just in the work of the IPCC, but also in the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change negotiations if we are to address the real climate challenge.

http://www.climatecodered.org/2018/01/what-we-learned-about-climate-system-in.html

Climate Code Red: Climate change pushing floods, cyclones to new extremes, with worse to come

by David Spratt, Climate Code Red, April 1, 2017

With Australia experiencing the aftermath of Cyclone Debbie and record-breaking rains and severe flooding in southeast Queensland and along the north coast of New South Wales, here’s a look at how global warming has, and will, push floods and cyclones to new extremes.

Flooding extremes

Warm air can be more humid than cold air, that is, it can hold more water vapour in absolute terms. And atmospheric water vapour content increases 7% for each 1-degree-Celsius increase in global average temperature, establishing the conditions for more intense rainfall events. 

Flash floods are likely to sweep across the Australian landscape with increasing intensity, particularly in urban or residential areas. Peak rainfall is predicted to soar with rising surface temperatures as Australia experiences ever greater extremes of heat.  

The frequency of major flood events (defined as events which caused extensive flooding within 50 kilometres of the coast, or inundation that extended 20 kilometres along the coast) along Australia's eastern seaboard has doubled in last 150 years, with climate change one of the possible factors, senior Bureau of Meteorology researchers say. 

Record-breaking heavy rainfall and a clear upward trend in downpours over the last 30 years fits in with global temperature rise caused by greenhouse gases. Statistical analysis of rainfall data from 1901 to 2010 around the globe, shows that from 1980 to 2010 there were 12% more of these intense events than would be expected in a climate without global warming. Wet regions generally saw a bigger increase in deluges and drier regions a smaller one. In southeast Asia, the observed increase in record-breaking rainfall events is as high as 56%.

Giant air streams pushing new extremes: The increase of devastating weather extremes in summer, including floods, is likely linked to human-made climate change, mounting evidence shows, with the recent discovery of giant airstreams circling the Earth, waving up and down between the Arctic and the tropics. These planetary waves transport heat and moisture. When these planetary waves stall, droughts or floods can occur. Warming caused by greenhouse-gases from fossil fuels creates favourable conditions for such events.

 “The unprecedented 2016 California drought, the 2011 U.S. heatwave and 2010 Pakistan flood, as well as the 2003 European hot spell, all belong to a most worrying series of extremes,” says Michael Mann, a lead author of the study. “The increased incidence of these events exceeds what we would expect from the direct effects of global warming alone, so there must be an additional climate change effect. In data from computer simulations as well as observations, we identify changes that favour unusually persistent, extreme meanders of the jet stream that support such extreme weather events. Human activity has been suspected of contributing to this pattern before, but now we uncover a clear fingerprint of human activity.”

Attribution studies show how the risk of a particular event may have changed due to the human influence on climate. Some attribution results surveyed by the World Meteorological Organisation include:

• The US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration determined that human-caused climate change increased chances of the fatal and record rains in Louisiana by at least 40% and could have nearly doubled the odds of such a storm.
• A scientific analysis of devastating 2014 floods in the United Kingdom, which cost an estimated $646 million in insurance losses, found that human-caused climate change has increased the chance of the extreme rain event by 43%.
• In May–June 2016, portions of northeast France received 6 full weeks of rain in 24 hours. A formal attribution study released June 9, 2016, found that such extreme rains are at least 40%—and as much as 90%—more likely in some areas of France.

Cyclone extremes

Cyclones, in part, draw their energy from the temperature of the ocean's surface waters, so a warming climate and ocean puts more energy into storms, including cyclones, loading them with more rainfall, and stronger winds pushing more of a storm surge.
The recent Climate Council brief notes, “Increasing temperature of the surface ocean affects the intensity of cyclones, both maximum wind speeds and in the intensity of rainfall that occurs in association with the cyclone.”  The force exerted on buildings and structures when cyclones make landfall increases disproportionately with wind speed.

The Council also notes that: “Tropical cyclones form most readily when there are very warm conditions at the ocean surface and when the vertical temperature gradient through the atmosphere is strong. As this vertical gradient weakens as the climate continues to warm, it is likely that fewer tropical cyclones will form.”

Whilst the best evidence scientists have suggests cyclones are unlikely to increase in number, a 2013 study challenges the status quo, suggesting they will occur more frequently, as well becoming more intense. 

In 2013, researchers reported that the stronger hurricanes in the North Atlantic, the South Pacific, and South Indian Oceans have become more intense.  The same year, the UN meteorological agency concluded that climate change is making super typhoons worse. 

In 2015, an international research team found that a warming planet is already stoking the intensity of tropical cyclones in the northwest Pacific, and their ferocity will continue to increase even with moderate climate change over this century.

More broadly, a 2010 study found that "future projections based on theory and high-resolution dynamical models consistently indicate that greenhouse warming will cause the globally averaged intensity of tropical cyclones to shift towards stronger storms, with intensity increases of 2–11% by 2100...higher resolution modelling studies typically project substantial increases in the frequency of the most intense cyclones, and increases of the order of 20% in the precipitation rate within 100 km of the storm centre.

Recent records

With sustained wind speeds of more than 310 kilometres per hour, Typhoon Haiyan in the Philippines in November 2013 was the most powerful tropical cyclone to make landfall in recorded history. The previous record was held by Hurricane Camille, which in 1969 hit the state of Mississippi with wind speeds of just over 300 km/h. Data compiled from the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration shows sea temperatures were about 0.5–1.0 degree Celsius above normal in the waters to the east of the Philippines as Haiyan began forming. The waters cooled in the storm's wake, an indication of how the storm sucked up energy.   

Hurricane Patricia which hit Mexico in October 2015 achieved a record peak intensity with maximum sustained winds 345 km/h, making it the most intense tropical cyclone on record in the Western Hemisphere, and the strongest globally in terms of 1-minute maximum sustained winds. Cyclone Winston in February 2016 was the strongest tropical cyclone to make landfall in Fiji and the South Pacific Basin in recorded history.

Attribution studies 

• Superstorm Sandy which hit the northeast coast of the USA with devastating effect in October 2012 was made worse by unusually warm waters which increased the hurricane’s intensity. As well, human-caused sea level rise added to the storm surge, and on the stretch of the Atlantic Coast that spans from Norfolk to Boston, sea levels have been rising four times faster than the global average. Researchers say that “It is possible that subways and tunnels may not have been flooded without the warming-induced increases in sea level and storm intensity and size.”  More broadly, the authors say that “‘snowmaggedon’ in February 2010, superstorm Sandy in October 2012 , supertyphoon Haiyan in November 2013, and the Boulder floods of September 2013 were all influenced by high sea-surface temperatures that had a discernible human component.
• The Climate Council reported that climate change exacerbated the damage caused by Cyclone Pam, which left a trail of destruction across Vanuatu in 2015.

Damage 

Reinsurance giant, MunichRe, says that "nowhere in the world are weather risks changing faster than in Eastern Asia," and concludes that "as a result of climate change... the intensity of typhoons will increase" in Eastern Asia.  On 11 November 2013, in the aftermath of super-typhoon Haiyan, MunichRe surveyed losses:

Eastern Asia has been hard hit by weather-related loss events in the past three decades. Their number has increased by more than a factor of four, causing overall losses from weather-related events of some US$ 700bn during this period. The insured losses of US$ 76bn amounted to only around 10% of overall losses, with 62% of these attributable to Japan. Floods caused 56% of the overall losses in Eastern Asia, but only 30% of insured losses. The number of floods has increased strongly and is expected to increase further in the coming decades. With insured losses of US$ 16bn, the 2011 Thailand floods caused the biggest-ever weather-related insured loss in the region. After floods, it is typhoons that cause the greatest weather-related losses. New analyses indicate a clear cycle of activity for typhoons, and increased typhoon activity is expected over the coming years..."

And in Australia, The Age reports that new modelling has shown that a cyclone the size of Debbie could have catastrophic consequences on the Gold Coast and as far as Brisbane, with winds of 260km/h, in areas where many homes and towers do not meet cyclonic safety standards. As climate change pushes cyclones further south, tens of billions of dollars worth of infrastructure is at risk. Actuaries, who predict and model scenarios for banks and insurers, have warned properties could become "uninsurable" as premiums rise up to 250% to meet this global warming challenge.

http://www.climatecodered.org/2017/04/climate-change-pushing-floods-cyclones.html

David Spratt, Climate Code Red: Public ideas leadership on climate? The truth rarely sees the light of day

by David Spratt, Climate Code Red, March 4, 2016

One of the most disturbing aspects of the public discussion of the climate change is its delusional character. The truth rarely sees the light of day.

Propositions that are entirely scientifically valid — such as there being no risk-averse carbon budget remaining for limiting warming to two degrees Celsius, or that the world has already passed a tipping point for a civilization-threatening sea-level rise of several metres from the West Antarctic Ice Sheet at less than one degree of warming — are rare to non-existent in public discourse in Australia.

The idea that more than 1.5 degrees Celsius of warming is already locked into the system without geo-engineering would be a shock to most participants in public debate and policy, judging from the warm and fuzzy afterglow from the Paris conference's vague commitment in words to 1.5 degrees Celsius (though in deeds the outcome was 3.5 degrees Celsius) and the widespread opposition to geo-enginerring within the climate justice movement.   

The same is true of harsh political truths: how the December 2015 Paris accord locked out a less than two-degree outcome; or that there are no viable solutions within the free-market paradigm in which policy is being constructed; or that we too infrequently have evidence-based policy, and too often have policy-based science.

In short, we lack brutally honest public ideas leadership on climate change. How many figures of public standing in Australia are prepared to consistently canvas the issues discussed here, or in the work of Professors Kevin Anderson, James Hansen and Michael E. Mann, to name but three? 

In Australia, you could count them on one hand, and have some fingers to spare. 

Timidness and a relentless bright-siding infuse the public conversation, as if people cannot bear to hear the truth.

But what if public is more prepared for the conversation than are our public ideas leaders?

Recent work by Melanie Randle and Richard Eckersley investigated the perceived probability of threats to humanity and different responses to them (nihilism, fundamentalism and activism) in the US, UK, Canada and Australia:

Overall, a majority (54%) rated the risk of our way of life ending within the next 100 years at 50% or greater, and a quarter (24%) rated the risk of humans being wiped out at 50% or greater. The responses were relatively uniform across countries, age groups, gender and education level, although statistically significant differences exist. Almost 80% agreed “we need to transform our worldview and way of life if we are to create a better future for the world” (activism). About a half agreed that “the world’s future looks grim so we have to focus on looking after ourselves and those we love” (nihilism), and over a third that “we are facing a final conflict between good and evil in the world” (fundamentalism). The findings offer insight into the willingness of humanity to respond to the challenges identified by scientists and warrant increased consideration in scientific and political debate.

So here is the great irony: people have got a fair, intuitive sense of what might be coming, but our ideas leaders can’t talk about it.

Now is the time to press those who aspire to leadership on climate issues and action to ask the questions that very few are willing to consider, including many identified as leaders of the climate action movement. If the propositions are contentious, let’s debate them rather than keeping them hidden under a cone of silence. Repressing troubling thoughts does not resolve them, but means only they will come back to haunt us in an increasingly intense manner.

This point was made recently by Ken Ward, the US-based activist and former senior Greenpeace manager. In a "Letter to Oregon Environmental and Climate Action Leaders" on the proposed “Healthy Climate Bill,” he said activists’ state legislative agenda struck him  "as utterly inadequate in the circumstances": 

I have no doubt that you are advancing the strongest possible measures winnable in present political conditions, and doing so meets organizational needs to offer a hopeful public face and demonstrate concrete accomplishments. But haven’t we reached the point where short term winnability should not be our top priority? Isn’t the implicit promise of these bills, that they are significant steps towards addressing climate change, fraudulent? And, because of this, are we not further demoralizing our strongest supporters? 

If the story behind these bills was something along the lines of... “Look, we’re in a terrible crisis, about to crash global systems that make civilization possible and we’re going to have to make monumental changes in energy generation, forestry, agriculture, transportation, consumer habits and so on, which are impossible at the moment, so in the meantime, let’s pass what we can with the understanding that this is pitifully inadequate but at least we will be doing something until things get desperate enough to force the nation to take effective action,” I’d still disagree as to the value of the approach, but it wouldn’t be disingenuous. 

The entire thrust of our present approach is a sophisticated form of climate denial. We seek to broaden the appeal of averting cataclysm by making it sound less scary, hence the name “Healthy Climate Bill,” and we studiously avoid comparing our proposed policies with global imperatives. In the absence of a target, let alone a target based on the best available climate science, any emission reductions may be presented as a victory.
Environmentalists and climate activists have pursued incrementalist climate solutions for nearly three decades and failed. It’s time to pay attention to that dismal record and to recognize the disproportionate value of approaches, especially climate disobedience, that have worked… 

We are pushing an ineffectual agenda that obfuscates and ignores climate science and confuses the public debate, partly because doing so advances organizational interests.

Ward proposes an alternative approach, of issuing a new agenda and action plan: issue a new agenda and a campaign for it.  That agenda would include

a brief statement of the problem and scope of a solution, including a sketch of state emissions cuts and carbon banking now required, covering fossil fuels and sectors not now included and chooses, say, 10 specific approaches which would, taken together, make a great leap toward meeting that state goal, including forest sequestration mandates, mandatory passivhaus-level construction standards, a ban on all new fossil fuel infrastructure, 100% transition to renewables, 2-year phaseout of coal-based electrify, and other practical, and necessary objectives.

Ward's proposed action plan can be read in more detail here.  He says it could:

almost overnight rewrite the public narrative and reset the terms of the debate, create a vital, honest model of engagement, see almost immediate returns from our investment in what works, gain national and international attention, and potentially spark similar re-imaginings in other states. 

The barriers to such an undertaking are entirely internal; they are the cognitive buffers which keep us from contrasting what is necessary, if risky, to the easy paths before us, and the organizational demands of raising grants, maintaining political access, mass fundraising and so on, which reinforce conformity.

A recent submission by grassroots climate action groups to the Victorian government review of climate policy also emphasized that the implications of the climate science are not often spelled out, in part for fear of causing panic or despondency, and noted that the real circumstances we now face are "unpleasant and create fear and resistance."  But, it said,  downplaying the risks is not the answer:

Leadership is required to help us face the truth, so that we can address the scale of the problem. If the severity of the problem is not explained to those in power, there is no chance of planning for effective action and of gathering public support. When their leaders show they understand the problem and its implications for people’s lives, and the community see that commensurate action is being taken, this will help people come to terms with the climate reality.

It calls on the Victorian Government to:

begin a process of considering how best to convey the need for large scale transformation to members of the public, so that they are inspired by the possibilities of transformation and reassured that the government recognises the seriousness of the threat.

We cannot find answers to difficult challenges if we cannot honestly articulate, to ourselves in the first place, what is the real nature of the problem we face. Until we do, we will not begin solve the climate crisis, and if we never do, we will drive ourselves to a collective insanity. 

http://www.climatecodered.org/2016/03/public-ideas-leadership-on-climate.html

Climate Code Red: Dangerous climate change: Myths and reality. Part 3.

by David Spratt, Climate Code Red, August 24, 2014

Myth 6: Long-term feedbacks are not materially relevant for carbon budgeting

Some elements of the climate system respond quickly to temperature change, including the amount of water vapour in the air and hence level of cloud cover, sea-level changes due to ocean temperature change, and the extent of sea-ice that floats on the ocean in the polar regions. These changes amplify (increase) the temperature change and are known as short-term or “fast” feedbacks.

There are also long-term or “slow” feedbacks, which generally take much longer (centuries to thousands of years) to occur. These include changes in large, polar, land-based ice sheets, changes in the carbon cycle (changed efficiency of carbon sinks such as permafrost and methane clathrate stores, as well as biosphere stores such as peat lands and forests), and changes in vegetation coverage and reflectivity (albedo).

 The IPCC’s 2013 assessment did not account for long-term feedbacks. Prof. Will Steffen (2013) notes that: "This budget may, in fact, be rather generous. Accounting for non-CO2 greenhouse gases, including the possible release of methane from melting permafrost and ocean sediments, or increasing the probability of meeting the 2 °C target all imply a substantially lower carbon budget." The question is whether these feedbacks are materially relevant for this century's time-scale, and the evidence is in the affirmative.

Take one example, that of Arctic carbon stores:

• As discussed above, permafrost and methane clathrate stores are already being mobilised, though the scale is not yet large. However a UNEP report (2012) on "Policy implications of warming permafrost" says the recent observations “indicate that large-scale thawing of permafrost may have already started.” And Schaefer, Zhang et al. (2011) found that: "The thaw and release of carbon currently frozen in permafrost will increase atmospheric CO2 concentrations and amplify surface warming to initiate a positive permafrost carbon feedback (PCF) on climate…. [Our] estimate may be low because it does not account for amplified surface warming due to the PCF itself….  We predict that the PCF will change the Arctic from a carbon sink to a source after the mid-2020s and is strong enough to cancel 42–88% of the total global land sink. The thaw and decay of permafrost carbon is irreversible and accounting for the PCF will require larger reductions in fossil fuel emissions to reach a target atmospheric CO2 concentration" (emphasis added).
• Paleoclimatology (study of past climates) suggests that if longer-term feedbacks are taken into account, then the Earth's sensitivity to a doubling of CO2 could itself be up to double that of the "fast" climate sensitivity used by most climate models, in the range 4.5–6.0 °C (The Geological Society, 2013). These "slow" feedbacks amplify the initial warming burst. A measure of these effects for a doubling of CO2 is known as Earth System Sensitivity (ESS). Longer-term ESS is generally considered to come into play over periods from centuries to several millennia, depending on how fast is the rate of change in greenhouse gas levels and temperature. The problem is that the rate of climate change now being driven by human actions may be as fast as any extended warming period over the past 65 million years, and it is projected to accelerate in the coming decades. This means that longer-term "slow" events associated with ESS – such as loss of large ice sheets, and changes in Arctic and biosphere carbon stores – are starting to occur now, are happening much more quickly than expected, and likely will proceed at a significant scale in the current century. We face an event unprecedented in the last 65 million years of "fast" short-term and "slow" long-term climate sensitivity events occurring alongside one another in parallel, rather than one after the other in series as is usually the case. Thus, even as some of the "fast" warming is still to occur, some of the "slow" feedbacks are already coming into play, as is now evident (Previdi, Liepert et al., 2011; Hansen, 2013).

Myth 7: There is time for an orderly, non-disruptive reduction in emissions within the current political-economic paradigm

Advocates for climate change action often emphasise the positive economic consequences, such as a boom in “green” jobs, the clean energy industrial revolution, or the great investment opportunities.

But there is another economic component to the discourse. It is the view that actions should not be undertaken that would be economically disruptive, and therefore the range of actions to be considered should only be those which do not challenge overall economic growth.

The unfortunate consequence of this framing is that actions that are necessary are not advocated, as was demonstrated in their respective reports to the UK and Australian governments by Sir Nicholas Stern and Prof. Ross Garnaut.

Stern (2006) said keeping the rise to 2 °C was "already nearly out of reach" because it meant emissions "peaking in the next 5 years or so and dropping fast," which he judged to be neither politically likely nor economically desirable. He said that annual emission reductions of more than one per cent a year “have historically been associated only with economic recession or upheaval,” and that it would be “very difficult and costly to aim to stabilise at 450 ppm CO2e” (viewed as a 2 °C target). So he nodded towards a higher target where “the annual costs of achieving stabilisation between 500 and 550 ppm CO2e are around 1% of global GDP” because “stabilisation of greenhouse gas concentration in the atmosphere is feasible and consistent with continued growth.”

Likewise, Garnaut was drawn to the politically pragmatic in his work. Whilst it was clear by the end of 2007 that 450 ppm was far from a safe or reasonable target, the Review did not heed strong calls from advocates to model and consider a safer 350 ppm scenario and, like Stern, it stuck to the 450 and 550 ppm targets. And whilst describing the action necessary for Australia to play a reasonable part in holding to 450 ppm, Garnaut then suggested that as interim measure, pending global agreement, that Australia should act only for the 550 ppm target.

Prof. Kevin Anderson notes that:

Reductions in emissions greater than 3–4% per annum are incompatible with a growing economy (or so we’re repeatedly advised). From Stern and the UK’s Committee on Climate Change through to virtually every 2 °C emission scenario developed by ‘Integrated Assessment Modellers,’ reductions in absolute emissions greater than 3–4% year on year are judged incompatible with a growing economy… we have found no examples of economists suggesting that prolonged emission-reductions above 3–4% per annum are economically sustainable (Anderson, 2013).

Whether fast rates of de-carbonisation are incompatible with a growing economy is not established, because they may be possible in a highly-regulated economy, even if not in the deregulated economies about which Stern and Garnaut were writing. But the practical consequence is that few advocates want to push high de-carbonisation rates because of the perception of negative economic consequences.

For industrialised nations with high per capita emissions, adhering to the 2 °C target (even with high risks of failure) requires emissions reductions of round ten per cent a year (see Figure 4). But very few participants in climate policy-making are prepared to even whisper about such a scale of action, less they be considered economic vandals.

Anderson and Bows (2012) conclude that:

…academics may again have contributed to a misguided belief that commitments to avoid warming of 2 °C can still be realized with incremental adjustments to economic incentives. A carbon tax here, a little emissions trading there and the odd voluntary agreement thrown in for good measure will not be sufficient… as the remaining cumulative budget is consumed, so any contextual interpretation of the science demonstrates that the threshold of 2 °C is no longer viable, at least within orthodox political and economic constraints… Acknowledging the immediacy and rate of emission reductions necessary to meet international commitments on 2 °C illustrates the scale of the discontinuity between the science (physical and social) underpinning climate change and the economic hegemony. Put bluntly, climate change commitments are incompatible with short- to medium-term economic growth (in other words, for 10–20 years). Moreover, work on adapting to climate change suggests that economic growth cannot be reconciled with the breadth and rate of impacts as the temperature rises towards 4 °C and beyond 6 °C — a serious possibility if global apathy over stringent mitigation persists. Away from the microphone and despite claims of 'green growth,' few if any scientists working on climate change would disagree with the broad thrust of this candid conclusion. The elephant in the room sits undisturbed while collective acquiescence and cognitive dissonance trample all who dare to ask difficult questions.

 Todd Stern, the U.S. Special Envoy for Climate Change contrasts the 2 °C target with “the art of the possible”:

For many countries, the core assumption about how to address climate change is that you negotiate a treaty with binding emission targets stringent enough to meet a stipulated global goal — namely, holding the increase in global average temperature to less than 2 °C above pre-industrial levels — and that treaty in turn drives national action. This is a kind of unified field theory of solving climate change: get the treaty right; the treaty dictates national action; and the problem gets solved. This is entirely logical. It makes perfect sense on paper. The trouble is it ignores the classic lesson that politics — including international politics — is the art of the possible (Rigg, 2012).

And the bottom line is that the “art of the possible” means one thing above all other: no economic disruption.

Figure 4. Emissions reduction paths for 2 °C target (66% probability). Examples of per capita emissions paths of CO2 for three groups of countries according to the WBGU budget approach without emissions trading. Although they allow compliance with national budgets, they would only be partly practicable in reality. The countries are grouped according to their annual CO2 emissions per capita from fossil sources, whereby the CO2 emissions are estimates for 2008 and the population figures are estimates for 2010. Red: Country group 1 (greater than 5.4 t CO2 per capita per year), mainly industrialised countries, (e.g., EU, USA, Japan) but also oil-exporting countries (e.g., Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Venezuela) and some newly industrializing countries (e.g., South Africa, Malaysia). Orange: Country group 2 (2.7–5.4 t CO2 per capita per year), which includes many newly industrializing countries (e.g., China, Mexico, Thailand). Green: Country group 3 (less than 2.7 t CO2 per capita per year), mainly developing countries (e.g., Burkina Faso, Vietnam) but also large newly industrializing countries (e.g., India, Brazil). Source: WBGU, 2009.

Conclusion

The stated purpose of international climate negotiations is to avoid “dangerous” climate change or, more formally, to prevent “dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system.” But if conditions existing today are already sufficient to push more climate system elements past their tipping points and create “catastrophic” breakdown without any further emissions, what then is our purpose and what do we say?

The following seems consistent with the research surveyed above:

• At just 0.8 °C of warming and with temperatures just above the Holocene zone, climate change is already dangerous with tipping points passed for significant earth system elements, including West Antarctic glaciers and summer Arctic sea-ice. The last time greenhouse gases were this high, temperatures were 3+°C degrees higher, and sea levels 25–40 metres higher.
• 2 °C of warming is the boundary between dangerous and very dangerous climate change, and the non-dangerous (safe) zone is well under 1 °C and in the Holocene range, yet the present level of greenhouse gases is sufficient to produce more than 2 °C of warming.
• We have already gone too high with greenhouse emissions, and practically speaking there is no carbon budget available for burning more fossil fuels for the 2 °C target, and no carbon budget available if catastrophic risk management methods (low rates of failure) are applied.
• Australia is just 0.3% of the world's population but counts for 1.5% of emissions, 5 times the global average, and one of the world's highest per capita emitters. Taking the IPCC's too optimistic carbon budget at face value, and allowing equal global per capita emissions, Australia's carbon budget for 2 °C runs out in 6 years.
• To minimise climate change damage and avoid reaching 2 °C — by which time many significant tipping points and carbon cycle feedbacks will likely have been triggered — it is necessary for a global emergency response which aims to de-carbonise as fast as humanly possible, plus build large carbon drawdown capacity, to try and keep warming below 1.5 °C and then return to the Holocene zone. 

Many participants in global discussions and debates say such a scale of action is not possible in a non-disruptive manner within the current political-economic frame.  If this is the case, we face a choice of challenging this frame, or accepting that we must fail in our goal.

Whether or not there is yet the political power or support for actions consistent with the science, it is important that they be articulated so that understanding and support for them can grow. As just one example, Anderson (2014) outlines a radical emissions reduction plan:

In essence a 2 °C energy agenda requires rapid and deep reductions in energy demand, beginning immediately and continuing for at least two decades. This lengthens the window of opportunity in which to transition to a low carbon energy supply system (almost zero-carbon for 2 °C). Nevertheless, and counter to most low-carbon scenarios, if poorer nations are to be ‘given’ a longer period for de-carbonisation, a genuinely 2 °C energy supply system for the majority of Annex 1 nations would need to be virtually zero-carbon by around 2030; in effect a Marshall plan for energy supply.

Such immediate cuts in energy demand will require around two decades of revolutionary reductions in energy consumption from high-energy users, and a substantial, but evolutionary, reduction from those with more moderate consumption habits.

My headline (and very provisional) framing for the UK, or similar Annex 1 nation, would include a suite of regulatory measures, buttressed where necessary with price mechanisms. In addition it would be important to understand the role of behaviours and practices both in helping frame effective legislation, but also in fostering a deeper civic and institutional engagement with the low-carbon agenda. At the risk of being either shot down for absence of detail or deliberately quoted out of context, a provisional and partial list of low-carbon regulations offers a flavour of what such an iterative de-carbonisation agenda may include:

• Strict energy/emission standards for appliances with a clear long-term market signal of the amount by which the standards would annually tighten, e.g., 100 g CO2/km for all new cars commencing 2015 and reducing at 10% each year through to 2030
• Strict energy supply standards, e.g., for electricity 350 g CO2/kWh as the mean emissions level of a suppliers’ portfolio of power stations, tightened at ~10% p.a.
• A programme of rolling out stringent energy/emission standards for industry equipment
• Stringent minimum efficiency standards for all properties for sale or rent
• World leading low-energy standards for all new-build houses, offices, etc. 
• Moratorium on airport expansion
• Technological and operational standards for shipping operating in UK waters
• A suite of iterative mechanisms to counter, or at least alleviate, issues of rebound, this may include price mechanisms, progressive metering tariffs, etc.
• Revisit the viability of Personal Carbon Trading as a mechanism for improving societal engagement in non-marginal change
• Appoint a senior minister with the principal responsibility for maintaining an equitable transition to a low-carbon society.

Anderson says that such a proposal “will be dismissed by many as naïve or impossible – but to some extent dismissals should be taken as recommendations for this agenda – at least for a 2 °C future. The political and economic hegemony has procrastinated for too long for it to be able to deliver on its own 2 °C promises (on its own terms).”

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http://www.climatecodered.org/2014/08/dangerous-climate-change-myths-and_24.html