Dr. James Hansen: Right About Global Warming for 30 Years.
Icarus
2011/01/08 19:42:50
In 1981 Dr. James Hansen of NASA published 'Climate impact of increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide' and projected the anthropogenic (man-made) global warming we would expect to see under various scenarios in the growth of fossil fuel use, from fast growth through slow growth to no growth at all -
Since then, global fossil fuel use has seen fast growth as countries such as China and India have undergone rapid industrialisation. We can see how well Dr. Hansen's projections of global warming under this scenario have matched reality so far:
Observed global temperatures from 1950 to 2010 are shown in blue, and the red curve is a trendline fitted to the observations and projected into the future. Here is Dr. Hansen's projection of the 'slow growth' scenario just for the period to 2020, compared to observations:
Again, observations to 2010 are in blue, and the red curve is a trendline fitted to the data.
It's very clear that anthropogenic global warming is running at or above the highest projection in Dr. Hansen's paper, far outside the range of any natural variability, and that continued unrestrained CO2 emissions during this century will commit us to global warming of several degrees, and a climate not seen since the age of the dinosaurs.
The consequences of this for a human population of 7 billion and more will be disastrous. Modern human civilisation has developed in the relatively benign and unusually stable climate of the last 10,000 years, and will not cope well with a dramatically altered world of desertification, rising sea level, devastated agriculture, decimated ocean life and increasing extreme weather events. We can expect to see increasing famine, mass migration as large areas of cropland become unsuitable for cultivation, increasing resource wars, catastrophic water shortages, food crises even in the richest countries, and an increasing numbers of failed states which descend into chaos and pose an increasing security risk to other countries. The military of many countries now see global warming as the greatest security threat of this century.
Dr. Hansen and other climate scientists have been right about global warming for much longer than 30 years. It's about time we started taking them seriously.
Since then, global fossil fuel use has seen fast growth as countries such as China and India have undergone rapid industrialisation. We can see how well Dr. Hansen's projections of global warming under this scenario have matched reality so far:
Observed global temperatures from 1950 to 2010 are shown in blue, and the red curve is a trendline fitted to the observations and projected into the future. Here is Dr. Hansen's projection of the 'slow growth' scenario just for the period to 2020, compared to observations:
Again, observations to 2010 are in blue, and the red curve is a trendline fitted to the data.
It's very clear that anthropogenic global warming is running at or above the highest projection in Dr. Hansen's paper, far outside the range of any natural variability, and that continued unrestrained CO2 emissions during this century will commit us to global warming of several degrees, and a climate not seen since the age of the dinosaurs.
The consequences of this for a human population of 7 billion and more will be disastrous. Modern human civilisation has developed in the relatively benign and unusually stable climate of the last 10,000 years, and will not cope well with a dramatically altered world of desertification, rising sea level, devastated agriculture, decimated ocean life and increasing extreme weather events. We can expect to see increasing famine, mass migration as large areas of cropland become unsuitable for cultivation, increasing resource wars, catastrophic water shortages, food crises even in the richest countries, and an increasing numbers of failed states which descend into chaos and pose an increasing security risk to other countries. The military of many countries now see global warming as the greatest security threat of this century.
Dr. Hansen and other climate scientists have been right about global warming for much longer than 30 years. It's about time we started taking them seriously.
http://www.skepticalscience.c...
and on the other hand we have this discussion of a truly terrifying event-
The Pelaeocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM),
http://www.unh.edu/news/cj_nr...
and
http://www.unh.edu/news/cj_nr...
I really hope that the CO2 burp from 50 million years ago is now safely sequestered in carbonates, because the results of the PETM weren't pretty. Yes, life survived....but our civilization- now that's a question.
There is no alternative theory at present for these events that doesn't have climate sensitivity pegged at values higher than 2 C/doubling of CO2.
So it looks like there is enough permafrost today to cause the same kind of global temperature excursion as occurred in the PETM.
Permafrost at the PETM seems to be the culprit. The RC articles were to do with marine deposits of clathrates.
"The report includes the latest work from Natalia Shakhova, Igor Semiletov and others on East Siberian Arctic Shelf (ESAS) - particularly concerning the present large emissions of methane and the possibility of sudden release of much larger quantities. Large releases could also occur from Arctic lakes and wetlands, and this threat will also be assessed. Work by Isaksen and others suggests that if emissions are increased from present levels by a factor of 2 or more, then not only is the lifetime of methane in the atmosphere increased, thus increasing the methane’s global warming potential over time, but indirect radiative forcing is increased also [3]. If total methane emissions rise fivefold, as possible with a major discharge from ESAS, then the contribution to climate forcing, and hence global warming, could be greater than from the current level of atmospheric CO2."
http://tamino.wordpress.com/2...
Tamino is the pen name of a well-known statistician and his blog is a real education in the statistics of climate science and statistics in general.
In Kashmir, Indian and Pakistani troops have long faced off over the Siachen Glacier, at nineteen thousand feet the highest war zone on the planet. But now the glacier is melting so fast there's not much left to fight over. Millions of Pakistanis will face a severe water crises when it disappears.
Speaking of India , they spent the last five years building a 2,500 mile long wall along the Bangledesh India border to keep the inevitable hordes of Bangladeshi climate refugees at bay. It's the most densely populated region on earth and already climate refugees are on the move, after floods drowned crops in recent years. About half a million arrive in Dhaka each year. Melting glaciers upstream and rising oceans ruining farm land with sea water is getting people on the move. The story is repeated in a thousand trouble spots around the globe. Why are we still debating this. ? When will we see some action.
I'd be keen to see any research on this. (Have lately acquired a bit of an obsession with Arctic ice.)
I am interested in the project of forcing people who enage in your kind of thnking to face facts. It seems that pointing out your moral failings does relate to your world view.... admittedly it's only a guess that being accused of deadly sins would be a hot button with you....but ruralntexas is suggestive. But my context for this is clear: you won't do the work, some simple math, to test your own ideas, you won't look things up, and you think you are owed answers on a silver platter. Sloth and pride.
Now the question, will you change...or is the project of identifying your moral failings in this discussion merely an entertainment...and a way to make clear to everyone that the accusations of wanting to pick your pockets (that people on the warmist side of things are using global warming as a trojan horse) are at the very leas...
I am interested in the project of forcing people who enage in your kind of thnking to face facts. It seems that pointing out your moral failings does relate to your world view.... admittedly it's only a guess that being accused of deadly sins would be a hot button with you....but ruralntexas is suggestive. But my context for this is clear: you won't do the work, some simple math, to test your own ideas, you won't look things up, and you think you are owed answers on a silver platter. Sloth and pride.
Now the question, will you change...or is the project of identifying your moral failings in this discussion merely an entertainment...and a way to make clear to everyone that the accusations of wanting to pick your pockets (that people on the warmist side of things are using global warming as a trojan horse) are at the very least balanced (if not overwhelmed) by the immorality on your side of things.
Now, put your little substituion judgement bug to rest...I'm priveleged to have done a fair number of things in my career that save energy on a large scale...I continue to do so.
Yep, that's kind of the point. Life survived when CO2 was higher and the planet was much warmer, but that warming took tens of millions of years - enough time for life to move, to adapt, to evolve. Now we're heating up the climate thousands of times faster than is natural. We're going to have a hell of a job coping with that, let alone other species.
When RuralT actually talks about any facts, and stops confusing facts with his baseless speculations, then maybe we'll have something to talk about.
Please stop being paranoid, Tex. I’m not one, but there’s a half dozen PhDs in my near family (siblings, nieces and nephews), and I have worked with many scientists over the years. They are no more or less evil than any other group of people. And they have an extremely strong system of ethical check against bad behavior. It’s similar to what I have as a lawyer: if you publish based on fraudulent data or other unethical behavior, your career is toast.
Tex, there’s so much out there, please spend some time digging around. If this site lets me include them, here’s some sites that might be helpful:
http://www.youtube.com/user/p... (deconstructs BS coming from deniers)
http://www.amazon.com/Merchan... (about the organized, corporate funded attack on AGW science)
http://www.realclimate.org/in... (the one and only basic AGW site run only...
Please stop being paranoid, Tex. I’m not one, but there’s a half dozen PhDs in my near family (siblings, nieces and nephews), and I have worked with many scientists over the years. They are no more or less evil than any other group of people. And they have an extremely strong system of ethical check against bad behavior. It’s similar to what I have as a lawyer: if you publish based on fraudulent data or other unethical behavior, your career is toast.
Tex, there’s so much out there, please spend some time digging around. If this site lets me include them, here’s some sites that might be helpful:
http://www.youtube.com/user/p... (deconstructs BS coming from deniers)
http://www.amazon.com/Merchan... (about the organized, corporate funded attack on AGW science)
http://www.realclimate.org/in... (the one and only basic AGW site run only by climate scientists)
You can insist until the cows come home that you have to model weather in order to model climate.....but you're simply wrong in that opinion.
We can total up all you have failed to respond to, all that it's demonstrated that you don't know (like what ROI is), the energy content of hydrogen vs gasoline and so forth, what the CO2 content of ice is....and you don't blink. You think you see something in a statement about modeling that I don't agree with and you declare victory. I suspect you chronically engage in this kind of mishapen score keeping as a way of coping with life. But my goal is simply to point out I'm deaing with a person who is out of touch with many kinds of reality.
I have a Bachelors degree from the University of North Texas in Business Finance. I assure you that I do indeed understand ROI and the time value of money.
I know that hydrogen is not going to have as much bang as gasoline, but for short trips, it might charge batteries. I can't miss, the main question is whether it is worth doing. If it isn't, I can always blow it into the wood stove to make the fire hotter faster. Either way, I will have accomplished storing excess energy. If the MIT egg heads ever perfect a fuel cell, I will know how to make the fuel for it.
I think your real goal is to appear bigger, smarter and fancier than you really are. Maybe some one reading this will say "GOSH what a smart guy that Gremville dude is! "