October 2012 CO2 Concentrations: 391.07ppm

The Scripps Institution of Oceanography measured an average of 391.03ppm CO2 concentration at their Mauna Loa, Hawai’i’s Observatory during October 2012.

391.03ppm is the highest value for October concentrations in recorded history. Last year’s 388.92ppm was the previous highest value ever recorded.  This October’s reading is 2.11ppm higher than last year’s.  This increase is significant.  Of course, more significant is the unending trend toward higher concentrations with time, no matter the month or specific year-over-year value, as seen in the graphs below.

The yearly maximum monthly value normally occurs during May. This year was no different: the 396.78ppm concentration in May 2012 was the highest value reported this year and in recorded history (I’m neglecting proxy data).  If we extrapolate this year’s value out in time, it will only be 2 years until Scripps reports 400ppm average concentration for a singular month (likely May 2014).  Note that I previously wrote that this wouldn’t occur until 2015.  I’ve seen comments on other posts that CO2 measured at Mauna Loa should be higher than anywhere else because of its elevation and specific location.  It is important to understand that this statement exists somewhere between correct to purposefully confusing to outright deceitful.  CO2 is a well-mixed constituent of the atmosphere.  That means that emissions of new CO2 are quickly and pretty evenly distributed in space.  While point locations might vary between each other (differences between polar and tropical CO2 concentrations at the same point in time vary the most, for example), the observations at Mauna Loa are very representative of those found across the set of observation stations on the globe.  In addition, as the graphs below will help demonstrate, the historical record is very clear: concentrations have done only one thing in the past 50+ years at Mauna Loa (or any other station, for that matter): increased.  There has been no plateauing or decrease in that time period.  Moreover, concentrations at all the individual recording sites show the same long-term trend: an increase.

That being said, it is worth noting here that stations measured 400ppm CO2 concentration for the first time in the Arctic earlier this year.  The Mauna Loa observations represent more well-mixed (global) conditions while sites in the Arctic and elsewhere more accurately measure local and regional concentrations.

Judging by the year-over-year increases seen per month in the past 10 years, I predict 2012 will not see an average monthly concentration below 390ppm.  Last year, I predicted that 2011′s minimum would be ~388ppm.  I overestimated the minimum somewhat since both September’s and October’s measured concentrations were just under 389ppm.  So far into 2012, my prediction is holding up.  October’s concentration is typically the smallest of any individual month’s.  We will know for certain next month whether October’s 391.0ppm is the minimum this year or not.

Figure 1 – Time series of CO2 concentrations measured at Scripp’s Mauna Loa Observatory in October: from 1957 through 2012.

This time series chart shows concentrations for the month of October in the Scripps dataset going back to 1957. As I wrote above, concentrations are persistently and inexorably moving upward. Alternatively, we could take a 10,000 year view of CO2 concentrations from ice cores and compare that to the recent Mauna Loa observations:

Figure 2 – Historical (10,000 year) CO2 concentrations from ice core proxies (blue and green curves) and direct observations made at Mauna Loa, Hawai’i (red curve).

Or we could take a really, really long view into the past:

Figure 3 – Historical record of CO2 concentrations from ice core proxy data, 2008 observed CO2 concentration value, and 2 potential future concentration values resulting from lower and higher emissions scenarios used in the IPCC’s AR4.

Note that this graph includes values from the past 800,000 years, 2008 observed values (~6-8ppm less than this year’s average value will be) as well as the projected concentrations for 2100 derived from a lower emissions and higher emissions scenarios used by the IPCC.  Has CO2 varied naturally in this time period?  Of course it has.  But you can easily see that previous variations were between 180 and 280ppm.  In contrast, the concentration has, at no time during the past 800,000 years, risen to the level at which it currently exists.

Moreover, if our current emissions rate continues unabated, it looks like a tripling of average pre-industrial concentrations will be our reality by 2100 (278 *3 = 834).  This graph clearly demonstrates how anomalous today’s CO2 concentration values are (much higher than the average recorded over the past 800,000 years).  It further shows how significant projected emission pathways are.  I will point out that our actual emissions to date are greater than the higher emissions pathway shown above.  This reality will be partially addressed in the upcoming 5th Assessment Report, currently scheduled for public release in 2013-14.

Given our historical emissions to date and the likelihood that they will continue to grow at an increasing rate for at least the next 25 years, we will pass a number of “safe” thresholds – for all intents and purposes permanently as far as concerns our species. It is time to start seriously investigating and discussing what kind of world will exist after CO2 concentrations peak at 850 and 1100ppm. I don’t believe the IPCC or any other knowledgeable body has done this to date. To remain relevant, I think institutions who want a credible seat at the climate science-policy table will have to do so moving forward.  The AR5 might possibly fill in some of this knowledge gap.  I expect most of that work has recently started and will be available to the public around the same time as the AR5 release, which is likely to cause some confusion in the public.

As the second and third graphs imply, efforts to pin any future concentration goal to a number like 350ppm or even 450ppm will be incredibly difficult – 350ppm more so than 450ppm, obviously. Beyond an education tool, I don’t see the utility in using 350ppm – we simply will not achieve it, or anything close to it, given our history and likelihood that economic growth goals will trump any effort to address CO2 concentrations in the near future (as President Obama himself stated recently).  That is not to say that we should abandon hope or efforts to do something.  On the contrary, this post series informs those who are most interested in doing something.  With a solid basis in the science, we become well equipped to discuss policy options.  I join those who encourage efforts to tie emissions reductions to economic growth through scientific and technological research and innovation.  I am convinced that path is the only credible one moving forward.

Climate Change Solutions – Where We Need To Go

Climate change is a monumental problem.  I characterize it by saying that it is our species’ greatest confirmed threat.  Nuclear war?  Possible but unlikely in any given decade.  An asteroid/comet collision with Earth resulting in an extinction level event?  Possible but unlikely in any given decade.  I would, however, rate the asteroid/comet threat above nuclear war.  One day, the former will happen, we just don’t know when; the latter can be held off and eliminated based on our own decision making.  In a way, climate change combines aspects of both of these threats.  Climate change (at a level that will challenge our civilizations) is both possible and likely in a given decade; it is currently happening and its magnitude will only increase each decade during the rest of this century unless and until we decide to do something about it.

It should not be surprising then that, given the sheer magnitude of catastrophic climate change, solutions addressing it are also monumental in scale.  That’s the root of why so many climate change activists have been calling for a “climate-Manhattan Project” or a “climate Apollo Project”.  My view on climate change actions has shifted somewhat from thinking a bunch of personal actions will eventually accumulate enough inertia to reduce our climate forcing to recognizing that the number of actions will require large-scale policy shifts – something that requires governments to act.  That’s why the U.S. Senate’s recent failure to seriously address this developing crisis is so maddening.  The status quo approach to policy will not work with climate change, mostly because we’re dealing with physical systems that respond to forcing, not people’s tender egos and greed.

21st Century Sea-Level Rise: More Than IPCC 4AR Projected

New research was published a few months ago that provides additional evidence that sea-level projections made by the IPCC’s 4th Assessment Report are likely too conservative: sea-levels are more likely to be 1 meter higher than they were in 1990 (Vermeer and Rahmstorf), rather than only 0.5m higher, as projected by the IPCCs multi-model ensembles.

There was nothing inherently bad about the IPCC’s 4AR; I and others simply feel that their final report had to include more conservative estimates and projections in order for world governments to sign off on its language.  That does the world’s citizens an injustice, however.  In order to correctly assess risk, people need best- and worst-case scenarios available to them.  The most likely amount of sea-level rise by 2100 provided by the 4AR came out to between 0.2m and 0.6m.  Those estimates have implications to world societies, conservative though they were.  Additional implications will enter into our lives if there is 0.4-0.8m additional rise.

I want to stay on the IPCC projections for another moment.  The 2007 estimates included rates of sea level rise between 1980 to 1999 and 2090 to 2099 in metes and mm/yr.  The mm/yr rates in particular interest me because they allow for both the IPCC projections and the updated projections from the Vermeer and Rahmstorf paper to be placed in context with actual observations.  The six emissions scenarios examined by the IPCC had rates of 1.5, 2.1, 2.1, 1.7, 3.0 and 3.0mm/yr.  Satellite observations indicate that there has been approximately a +3.2mm/yr change in sea level (linear fit since 1993).  Only two IPCC emissions scenarios are close to the observed rate, and both of them underestimate them, albeit very slightly.  It is worth pointing out that the IPCC wrote:

The global average sea level rose at an average rate of 1.8 [1.3 to 2.3] mm per year over 1961-2003.

Averages over longer periods of time like this will, by nature of the averaging, tend to reduce extreme values that are small in number, as in the case of sea-level rise in the past 10 years or so.

Onto the new research findings.  Vermeer and Rahmstorf developed and tested an updated methodology to project future sea levels based on projected changes in temperature that was originally presented by Rahmstorf in a separate paper.  The original technique was based on the assumption that the sea level response time scale was long compared to the time scale of interest.  The updated technique allows for some sea level components to change quickly to a given temperature change.  The updated technique is shown to agree very well with historical data (82% of sea-level rate variance from the year 1000 to 2000).

Applying the technique to future conditions provides another potential case against which real-world observations can be compared.  By the year 2100, three different IPCC emissions scenarios generate a range of sea level projections: 1.0m, 1.2m and 1.4m, as the figure below (from the paper) shows.  That’s a big difference between the AR4 projections, using the same emissions scenarios, of 0.2-0.4m.  That extra potential meter of sea level rise will indeed have large implications across the world.

The figure shows the possible range of sea level rise values for 3 emissions scenarios considered by the IPCC: B1 in green, A2 in blue and A1F1 in yellow.  The observed emissions to date is represented by the red curve.  One important detail to note is our actual emissions rate is currently at the high end of all those considered by the IPCC (Copenhagen Diagnosis Figure 1, after Le Quere et al. 2009).

The IPCC projected a higher future rate of sea-level rise than was observed from 1961-2003.  1.8mm/yr equals 0.18m after a century (by linear extrapolation), slightly below the 0.2 minimum projected by all emissions scenarios.  Recent observations of 3.2mm/yr equals 0.32m after a century – well within the IPCC range, but well below the Vermeer and Rahmstorf range.  So what will it take to get 1.0-1.4m of sea level rise by 2100?  10mm-14mm/yr or 3-4X as much per year as is currently being observed.  There are some important details involved with that projection.  First of all, sea level change is not linear.  It varies year to year and decade to decade.  There has to be a transition from today’s 3.2mm/yr to the 10mm/yr necessary to achieve 1m sea level rise by 2100.  The rate of sea level rise would therefore have to increase over time.

Given the state of today’s atmosphere, oceans and cryosphere, a drastic change would have to occur for sea levels to rise by 10mm+ per year by the end of this century.  It is widely known that the IPCC’s science basis did not include a number of processes and feedbacks to the globes’ continental ice sheets, glaciers and sea ice (cryosphere).  Again, that wasn’t their fault – it just happens to be a weak link in the climate community’s research.  Work has been conducted since the IPCC 4AR to rectify those shortcomings.  Much more work will have to be done in the future.  Once that area is fleshed out further, I expect the IPCC’s projections to be more closely aligned with the leading research of today.

h/t RealClimate

http://sealevel.colorado.edu/

Rising Sea Levels: Disappearing Islands & Underestimation

Word came yesterday of an island in the Bay of Bengal that has quietly slipped beneath rising seas.  New Moore Island was a rocky island that was 2 miles long and 1.5 miles wide.  This isn’t the first island to succumb to rising sea levels, nor will it be the last, especially since we continue to belch greenhouse gas pollution into the atmosphere.  Indeed, 10 additional islands in the same area continue to face submersion in the near future.  This news isn’t a surprise to any reputable scientist who has studied climate change, nor to any activist who has followed the state of the science.

Also unsurprisingly, Sen. James Inhofe’s family was not photographed on New Moore Island constructing a building in further efforts to misinform the fringe anti-science crowd.  I’m sure the lunatic Senator would cite his favorite conspiracy of global economic domination as the real topic to be discussed.  It wasn’t his island that disappeared, after all.  You’ll also note that the disappearing islands don’t garner much corporate media attention.  Since the stenographers look for controversy, there must be a lack of dimwits who are willing to go record disputing these events.

What Are the Costs of Acting Against Climate Change?

I wanted to collect some information I’ve seen about climate change action costs.  Some of it is right-wing propaganda, some of it is reality-based facts from large-scale studies that have been done.  The short answer is what I’ve been writing for a while: it is far cheaper to act than not to act.

Beginning with the right-wing, extremist, denier propaganda:

On the subject of a still-in-the-works cap-and-trade plan, Con-servatives are running around screaming about a $3,128 tax that would befall the American people.  As usual, they’re trying to work up their base over … nothing.  As usual, they’re misquoting a scientific study by MIT that examined what a potential cap-and-trade plan would do to the “average American”.  As usual, they’re promoting a three-word catch-phrase designed to fool people into buying into their b.s.  They’re calling the cap-and-trade plan a light-switch tax.  What is the true number from the MIT study?  $79 per family (based on 2.56 people, just as the Con-servatives did) in 2015.  The long-term cost to a household?  $215.05.  That’s 6.9% of what the Cons are talking about.  They’ve boosted the number over 14 times its true cost – purposefully lying to generate fear and anger.  As usual, that’s disgusting behavior from the “family-values” crowd.

Reality-based details can be found below.

Wilkins Ice Shelf Bridge Collapses

The state of the Antarctic ice shelves continues to deteriorate.  Following the end of the 2008-2009 Southern Hemispheric melt season, a bridge holding the Wilkins Ice Shelf to an island off the coast of Antarctica has finally collapsed.  I wrote about the worsening conditions that the Wilkins Ice Shelf was facing here and here (this second post was written just about one year ago, actually).  The Wilkins Ice Shelf will now be able to calve (break up and float away in ocean currents) allowing continental ice to flow to the ocean more quickly.

The National Snow and Ice Data Center in Boulder, CO has the following two pictures – the first from two months ago (Feb 3) and the second two weeks thereafter (Feb 17):

Since the 2nd picture was taken, the ice bridge collapsed.  It was providing stability to the Wilkins Ice Shelf behind it.  In the 1990s, the Wilkins Ice Shelf measured about 5,000 square miles in area.  In 2008 alone, nearly 14% of the ice mass (~700 square miles) melted.  The Western Antarctic area has seen the largest amount of warming of all of Antarctica.  Similar, though much smaller shelves have broken off in recent years as warming air temperatures and warming sea temperatures attack them from two sides.  This BBC article describes the situation:

Many of its ice shelves have retreated in that time and six of them have collapsed completely (Prince Gustav Channel, Larsen Inlet, Larsen A, Larsen B, Wordie, Muller and the Jones Ice Shelf).

When Wilkins calves, it is expected to be the largest calving event seen by modern people.  Once that happens, ice sheets on continental Antarctica nearby this shelf won’t have thousands of square miles of ice holding them back from the ocean.  This acceleration phenomenon and its effects were not included by IPCC) when it made its latest projections on likely future sea level rise. Its 2007 assessment acknowledged that ice dynamics were poorly understood.  More recent studies recognize that warmer polar conditions will also lead to 30% less ice coverage in the Arctic, due in no small part to the very thin ice volume left after recent melt seasons.

These events are occurring many years ahead of recent projections.  The state of the climate system is worse than many assume.  We are running out of time to act and actions like Democratic Senate “moderates” forcing 60 votes to pass meaningful climate legislation clearly are not taking into account the following:

* Staggeringly high temperature rise, especially over land — some 15°F over much of the United States
* Sea level rise of 5 feet, rising some 6 to 12 inches (or more) each decade thereafter
* Widespread desertification — as much as one-third of the land

These impacts and more will be the results we witness by 2100 if we don’t act to stop them today, as I think the Obama administration believes.  Read this quote from Sec. of State Clinton at a two-week conference of parties to the 50-year-old Antarctic Treaty:

“With the collapse of an ice bridge that holds in place the Wilkins Ice Shelf, we are reminded that global warming has already had enormous effects on our planet, and we have no time to lose in tackling this crisis,” she told the first-ever joint meeting of Antarctic Treaty parties and the Arctic Council at the State Department.

I certainly can’t imagine any Bush “administration” officials saying such a thing.  In this sense, change has come to Washington.  Will Sens. Udall and Bennet agree when the time comes to make the hard votes?  Forcing 60 votes to maintain tradition and come across as “bipartisan” sounds really good.  5 feet of sea level rise, desertification of U.S. land and 15°F warmer temperatures do not sound really good.  When the time comes to make those hard votes, not only do I expect Sens. Udall and Bennet to vote to do something concrete, I also expect them to bring more than enough Republican votes over to the same side.  That’s the frame they wanted to work from.  They upped the bid and I’m seeing them.

Cross-posted at SquareState.

Climate Change Occurring Faster Than Predicted & Other Climate-Related News

Additional examples of how out-of-date the 2007 IPCC’s Fourth Assessment Report was at the time of release continue to be issued.  The latest: a World Wildlife Fund report which acts as a summary of recent scientific papers and reports.  The summary: climate change is occurring faster than was presented by the IPCC last year.  Indeed, NOAA recently released an arctic report that identifies stronger effects of warming on Greenland and permafrost.  The next IPCC Report will be released in 2013, meaning most of the work towards it will be done during the next President’s term.  Actions taken during the next four years will have ramifications on the future state of the climate.  Recognizing that the 2007 Report has already underestimated the impacts of human-forced climate change should harden the next administration’s actions.

On a related note, a slowing economy won’t help the climate.  Emissions don’t just have to dip for a short while.  They have to stop.  Then the GHGs that we have already emitted have to be put into a emission-sink.  The oceans are nearly at capacity for carbon, so large challenges remain.

Obama is set to declare CO2 a dangerous pollutant.  Good.  The action could stop plans to build dozones of coal plant.  Obama’s energy adviser, Jason Grumet, said that if Congress didn’t act within 18 months, Obama would take action by himself.  My question: why wait 18 months?  We simply don’t have the time.  I understand that Obama is making clear his respect for the legislature’s role, but 18 months is a ridiculous amount of time when the Bush administration has spent the past 8 years making sure we took no action.  At the same, I realize how important it is to have a Presidential candidate with a serious energy adviser.

Europe toughens GHG goals, not allowing economic slowdown to delay their activities.  Good for them.  Plenty of CONServatives in the U.S. are already saying the recession precludes any action on GHG emission goals, or any other climate change action.  Will America follow Europe’s lead?

“Think-tank” Parrot at Denver Post: David Harsanyi

The previous post dealt with the Denver Post’s editorial board’s take on the Climate Security Act, S.2191. One of their column writers, David Harsanyi, wrote a column today at the Denver Post about the same bill. David is one of many conservative columnists at the Post that gets space, both in print and in pixels, to share his views.

One of the pillars of his argument today is a familiar one to anybody who has heard right-wing talking points in the past 30 years: the government can’t govern. Which is exactly why Republicans lost control of Congress and a number of state governorships and state legislatures in 2006. And it’s exactly why they’ll lost even more seats this year as well as the White House. The American public is tired of hearing how government can’t do x, y or z. The public knows it can and wants to hear instead candidates’ plans to get government to work for them again.

Then, another big right-wing boogeyman talking point: “de facto taxes”. Interesting that Harsanyi brings up taxes in the climate change realm. I can’t remember seeing a piece by him written on the Iraq occupation taxes that are sucking the Social Security fund dry. Or how about all the de facto taxes that your phone company charges, or your bank, etc. Those are alright because they’re levied by corporations, not by the government. Guess which entity we the people have control over? Here is what it realistically boils down to: pay a little now to introduce a carbon market or pay everything you have and more in the future when the climate system shifts and we’re forced to deal with millions of people affected by them. Harsanyi mentions that the Wall Street Journal estimates the auctions of the credits will net $6.7 trillion for government coffers by 2050 before launching into his anti-investment talking point. Once again, it’s interesting that the $3 trillion the Iraq occupation is costing taxpayers doesn’t warrant the same level of attention, isn’t it?

Much more below the fold.

Kevin Lundberg Makes Anti-Science Comment

They never stop do they? I’m talking about fringe right-wingers’ constant attacks on anything to do with global warming. One of the easiest and most used attacks is the scientific underpinnings behind policy initiatives. Rep. Kevin Lundberg (R-Berthoud, H.D.49) said yesterday that the research underlying Gov. Bill Ritter’s Climate Action Plan is … flawed.

“We can’t lose sight of the fact that it’s predicated on junk science,” [he] said.

‘Lundberg said it has not been settled scientifically that man-made carbon-dioxide emissions contribute to global warming.’

Wrong. A key finding of the IPCC’s Fourth Assessment was that warming of the climate system is unequivocal. Another key conclusion was that most of the increase in world temperatures was due to the corresponding increase in human greenhouse gas concentrations. Thousands of scientists worldwide were involved in the research leading up to the latest IPCC report. The IPCC is made up of representatives sent by governments and organizations across the world.

But let’s entertain for one moment the fantasy that Lundberg is correct. What would that mean? That a global, intergovernmental conspiracy exists with the goal of fooling everyone else about what’s going on in our climate system. Is Rep. Lundberg a conspiracist? Or is he parroting talking points developed by the fossil fuel industry to forestall a change in our energy policy?

Maybe Rep. Lundberg has outstanding qualifications to be able to evaluate the integrity of the science underpinning Gov. Ritter’s plan. He holds a B.A. from Rockmont College (formerly the Denver Bible College) in history and social science. Wait, he has a Bachelor of Arts in history and social science? Not a B.S. or an M.S. or a Ph.D. in atmospheric science or climate science? What science classes has Rep. Lundberg completed? No, Rep. Lundberg is not qualified to objectively determine the validity of science involved in Gov. Ritter’s plan. He’s another fringe rightist looking for some attention and now he’s got some.

By the way, Lilias Jarding has said she’s running against Lundberg in this fall’s election. “When people do not have healthy food, a safe place to live, quality education and an adequate income, they cannot enjoy the blessings of liberty and their rights as Americans,” she said to a group last month. Sounds like a much better representative for H.D.49.