The study warns that,
given no change in greenhouse gas emissions in the near future, around 99 percent of the glaciers around the world's tallest mountain will melt, drastically changing the surrounding environment.
Question: What does your study conclude about Climate Sensitivity (e.g., how much warming we expect for
a given change in greenhouse gasses)?
Almost all the SOD's 10.2 % error standard deviation for greenhouse gas AF relates to the AF magnitude that
a given change in the greenhouse gas concentration produces, not to uncertainty as to the change in concentration.
Not exact matches
We'll need to come back to this at the next conference of the climate
change convention, to be held
in Doha this December — a curious choice,
given Qatar's position close to the top of the league table for
greenhouse gas emissions per head.
Biello: A lot of scientists that I've spoken to think we have no chance of meeting 450 ppm
given that we haven't done hardly anything to
change our course and there are other scientists who say that we have already well past kind of the safe point for concentration of the
greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.
A few of the main points of the third assessment report issued
in 2001 include: An increasing body of observations
gives a collective picture of a warming world and other
changes in the climate system; emissions of
greenhouse gases and aerosols due to human activities continue to alter the atmosphere
in ways that are expected to affect the climate; confidence
in the ability of models to project future climate has increased; and there is new and stronger evidence that most of the warming observed over the last 50 years is attributable to human activities.
Given the country's status of being the largest
greenhouse gas emitter
in the world, Greenpeace says, a tiny drop
in China's carbon emissions could translate into a big
change in the international stage.
The science has
given us now probability distributions of various different kinds of outcomes
in terms of temperature and climate
change in relation to
given stocks of
greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.
Climate
change scenarios are based on projections of future
greenhouse gas (particularly carbon dioxide) emissions and resulting atmospheric concentrations
given various plausible but imagined combinations of how governments, societies, economies, and technologies will
change in the future.
If we knew ocean heat uptake as well as we know atmospheric temperature
change, then we could pin down fairly well the radiative imbalance at the top of the atmosphere, which would
give us a fair indication of how much warming is «
in the pipeline»
given current
greenhouse gas concentrations.
Given that H2O is the dominant
greenhouse gas in the tropics, doubling CO2 levels will not
change temperatures much there.
Paul Voosen, one of the most talented journalists probing human - driven climate
change and related energy issues, has written an award - worthy two - part report for Greenwire on one of the most enduring sources of uncertainty
in climate science — how the complicated response of clouds
in a warming world limits understanding of how hot it could get from a
given rise
in greenhouse gas concentrations:
The only
change I'd suggest is to drop the words «by industry,»
given that everyone
in societies thriving on fossil fuels has harvested the present benefits while largely discounting, so far, the need to invest against long - term risks from the resulting buildup of
greenhouse gases.
Previous work by Barnett's group showed that coupled models when forced with
greenhouse gases did
give ocean heat content
changes similar to that shown
in the data.
As I wrote when I last cited this, «The only
change I'd suggest is to drop the words «by industry,»
given that everyone
in societies thriving on fossil fuels has harvested the present benefits while largely discounting, so far, the need to invest against long - term risks from the resulting buildup of
greenhouse gases.
I doubt that anything would
change my cousins mind, however I would like to
give others (to whom my cousin has preached) the details
in order to put them straight on the issue of whether or not Carbon dioxide is a «
greenhouse»
gas.
The IPCC 2001 report states «Several recent reconstructions estimate that variations
in solar irradiance
give rise to a forcing at the Earth's surface of about 0.6 to 0.7 Wm - 2 since the Maunder Minimum and about half this over the 20th century... All reconstructions indicate that the direct effect of variations
in solar forcing over the 20th century was about 20 to 25 % of the
change in forcing due to increases
in the well - mixed
greenhouse gases.»
In the meantime, it
gives clear insights into what scientists see happening to the planet's climate as human industrial activities, as well as land - use
changes, pump increasing amounts of carbon dioxide and other
greenhouse gases into the air.
What you're doing
in that equation is exactly a numerical integration: you take the
change in greenhouse gas forcing at a
given point
in time.
Given the magnitude of potential harms from climate
change, those who make skeptical arguments against the mainstream scientific view on climate
change have a duty to submit skeptical arguments to peer - review, acknowledge what is not
in dispute about climate
change science and not only focus on what is unknown, refrain from making specious claims about mainstream science of climate
change such as the entire scientific basis for climate
change has been completely debunked, and assume the burden of proof to show that emissions of
greenhouse gases are benign.
Given the strictures on shareholder proposals, it's common for investor advocates to push not for specific
changes, but for analyses of risk: asking companies to publicly measure their
greenhouse gas emissions, to analyze the environmental impact of their global supply chains, or,
in a strategy pioneered last year, to quantify their exposure to «stranded assets,» such as fossil fuel reserves that would exceed the world carbon budget.
For instance, US Senator James Imhofe of Kansas called climate
change «the greatest hoax ever» (Johnson, 2011) To claim that climate
change science is the greatest hoax ever is at minimum, if not a lie, reckless disregard for the truth
given the number of prestigious scientific organizations that have publicly supported the consensus view, the undeniable science supporting the conclusion that if
greenhouse gases increase
in the atmosphere some warming should be expected, the clear link between rising
greenhouse gas concentrations
in the atmosphere and increases
in fossil fuel use around the world, as well undeniable increases
in warming being that have been experienced at the global scale.
This is so because
in addition to the theological reasons
given by Pope Francis recently: (a) it is a problem mostly caused by some nations and people emitting high - levels of
greenhouse gases (ghg)
in one part of the world who are harming or threatening tens of millions of living people and countless numbers of future generations throughout the world who include some of the world's poorest people who have done little to cause the problem, (b) the harms to many of the world's most vulnerable victims of climate
change are potentially catastrophic, (c) many people most at risk from climate
change often can't protect themselves by petitioning their governments; their best hope is that those causing the problem will see that justice requires them to greatly lower their ghg emissions, (d) to protect the world's most vulnerable people nations must limit their ghg emissions to levels that constitute their fair share of safe global emissions, and, (e) climate
change is preventing some people from enjoying the most basic human rights including rights to life and security among others.
The presence of feedback effects and tipping points calls into question some of the most fundamental assumptions of climate
change negotiations, including the belief that we can «overshoot» to, say, 550 ppm and then work back to 450 ppm (the path advocated
in the Stern and Garnaut reports), that
greenhouse gas concentrations
in the atmosphere can be stabilised at some level, and the belief that we can adapt to some
given degree of warming.
On June 25th, President Obama
gave a major speech on climate
change in which he announced what his administration would do to reduce
greenhouse gas (ghg) emissions
in the United States.
Given the growing urgency of the need to rapidly reduce global
greenhouse gas emissions and the hard - to - imagine magnitude of global emissions reductions needed to stabilize atmospheric concentrations at reasonably safe levels, the failure of many engaged
in climate
change controversies to see the practical significance of understanding climate
change as an ethical problem must be seen as a huge human tragedy.
Given the magnitude of potential harms from climate
change, those who make skeptical arguments against the mainstream scientific view on climate
change have a duty to submit skeptical arguments to peer - review, acknowledge what is not
in dispute about climate
change science and not only focus on what is unknown, refrain from making specious claims about the mainstream science of climate
change such as the entire scientific basis for climate
change that has been completely debunked, and assume the burden of proof to show that emissions of
greenhouse gases are benign.
Radiative Heat Transfer is a fast response mechanism and there is no basis for the idea that it would take decades for warming to take place for any
given change to the
greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.
And it played a major role
in the early stages of the global negotiations on
greenhouse gas reduction, hosting the UNFCC gathering at Kyoto
in 1997, which
gave its name to the first global climate
change protocol.
At some level this may be true, but
in practice it's not, otherwise the argument about saturation would be correct, and nobody would
give a damn one way or the other about further
changes in greenhouse gases.
More than a decade later,
in 1988, NASA professor Jim Hansen
gave the issue of climate
change a boost, linking
greenhouse gas emissions to global warming
in a testimony to the US Congress.
On the other hand, scattering sulfate aerosols are less efficient than
greenhouse gases in changing the surface temperature for a
given forcing.
Given this, the challenge we face as a species is to roughly double global energy production by mid-century while simultaneously cutting
greenhouse gas emissions
in half worldwide (and about 80 percent
in the United States), so that we can avoid the worst consequences of climate
change.
Given that > 93 % of warming is going into the oceans, ~ 2.3 % into the atmosphere, even a small rate
change in ocean warming relative to the total
greenhouse gas imbalance will have a huge effect on air temperatures.
1950s: Research on military applications of radar and infrared radiation promotes advances
in radiative transfer theory and measurements = > Radiation math — Studies conducted largely for military applications
give accurate values of infrared absorption by
gases = > CO2
greenhouse — Nuclear physicists and chemists develop Carbon - 14 analysis, useful for dating ancient climate
changes = > Carbon dates, for detecting carbon from fossil fuels
in the atmosphere, and for measuring the rate of ocean turnover = > CO2
greenhouse — Development of digital computers affects many fields including the calculation of radiation transfer
in the atmosphere = > Radiation math, and makes it possible to model weather processes = > Models (GCMs)-- Geological studies of polar wandering help provoke Ewing - Donn model of ice ages = > Simple models — Improvements
in infrared instrumentation (mainly for industrial processes) allow very precise measurements of atmospheric CO2 = > CO2
greenhouse.
I find it difficult at best to comprehend your position on human - induced climate
change,
given the fact that every science academy across the globe, including the NAS, AAAS, AMA, AMS, AGU, and countless other scientific bodies, ALL agree that AGW is happening, it is already bad, it is going to get worse, and we should be doing everything
in our power to cut down our emissions of
greenhouse gases and pollution
in general.
There is no doubt that we should aim to limit
changes in the global mean surface temperature to 2C above pre-industrial [levels], but
given this is an ambitious target, and we don't know
in details how to limit
greenhouse gas emissions to realise a 2 degree target, we should be prepared to adapt to 4C.
Paolo Frankl, Head of IEA's Renewable Energy Division, commented: «
Given that global energy demand for heat represents almost half of the world's final energy use - more than the combined global demand for electricity and transport - solar heat can make a significant contribution
in both tackling climate
change and strengthening energy security, The IEA's Solar Heating and Cooling Roadmap outlines how best to advance the global uptake of solar heating and cooling (SHC) technologies, which, it notes, involve very low levels of
greenhouse -
gas emissions.
This categorization is problematic because this classification into these two categories arguably made some limited sense when the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate
Change was opened for ratification
in 1992, but it doesn't now
given that some of the countries that were initially classified as developing countries, including India and China, are quickly emerging as the among the largest emitters of
greenhouse gases (ghg).
Besides the information about
greenhouse -
gas levels from the trapped air bubbles at Vostok, a sediment core from the bottom of the Red Sea indicates
changes in sea level, which
in turn
give an approximation of ice sheet area.