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New Study Shows Climate Change Largely Irreversible, Climate Modelers Given $140 Million Bonus
Watts Up With That?
Tuesday, Jan 27, 2009
From NOAA News, Susan Solomon predicts the future with certainty. In other news, on the same day Caterpillar, Sprint, Texas Instruments, and Home Depot announce massive layoff plans to the tune of 50,000 people, unemployed climate modelers get a government bailout today courtesy of our new president to the tune of 140 million dollars. That should be just enough to pay the electric power bill for the new supercomputer I’m sure NOAA will just “have to have” now to keep up with the new toy for the Brits at Hadley. (h/t to Ed Scott for the NOAA pr)
New Study Shows Climate Change Largely Irreversible
January 26, 2009
A new scientific study led by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration reaches a powerful conclusion about the climate change caused by future increases of carbon dioxide: to a large extent, there’s no going back.
The pioneering study, led by NOAA senior scientist Susan Solomon, shows how changes in surface temperature, rainfall, and sea level are largely irreversible for more than 1,000 years after carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions are completely stopped. The findings appear during the week of January 26 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
“Our study convinced us that current choices regarding carbon dioxide emissions will have legacies that will irreversibly change the planet,” said Solomon, who is based at NOAA’s Earth System Research Laboratory in Boulder, Colo.
“It has long been known that some of the carbon dioxide emitted by human activities stays in the atmosphere for thousands of years,” Solomon said. “But the new study advances the understanding of how this affects the climate system.”
(ARTICLE CONTINUES BELOW)
The study examines the consequences of allowing CO2 to build up to several different peak levels beyond present-day concentrations of 385 parts per million and then completely halting the emissions after the peak. The authors found that the scientific evidence is strong enough to quantify some irreversible climate impacts, including rainfall changes in certain key regions, and global sea level rise.
If CO2 is allowed to peak at 450-600 parts per million, the results would include persistent decreases in dry-season rainfall that are comparable to the 1930s North American Dust Bowl in zones including southern Europe, northern Africa, southwestern North America, southern Africa and western Australia.
The study notes that decreases in rainfall that last not just for a few decades but over centuries are expected to have a range of impacts that differ by region. Such regional impacts include decreasing human water supplies, increased fire frequency, ecosystem change and expanded deserts. Dry-season wheat and maize agriculture in regions of rain-fed farming, such as Africa, would also be affected.
Climate impacts were less severe at lower peak levels. But at all levels added carbon dioxide and its climate effects linger because of the ocean.
“In the long run, both carbon dioxide loss and heat transfer depend on the same physics of deep-ocean mixing. The two work against each other to keep temperatures almost constant for more than a thousand years, and that makes carbon dioxide unique among the major climate gases,” said Solomon.
The scientists emphasize that increases in CO2 that occur in this century “lock in” sea level rise that would slowly follow in the next 1,000 years. Considering just the expansion of warming ocean waters—without melting glaciers and polar ice sheets—the authors find that the irreversible global average sea level rise by the year 3000 would be at least 1.3–3.2 feet (0.4–1.0 meter) if CO2 peaks at 600 parts per million, and double that amount if CO2 peaks at 1,000 parts per million.
“Additional contributions to sea level rise from the melting of glaciers and polar ice sheets are too uncertain to quantify in the same way,” said Solomon. “They could be even larger but we just don’t have the same level of knowledge about those terms. We presented the minimum sea level rise that we can expect from well-understood physics, and we were surprised that it was so large.”
Rising sea levels would cause “…irreversible commitments to future changes in the geography of the Earth, since many coastal and island features would ultimately become submerged,” the authors write.
Geoengineering to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere was not considered in the study. “Ideas about taking the carbon dioxide away after the world puts it in have been proposed, but right now those are very speculative,” said Solomon.
The authors relied on measurements as well as many different models to support the understanding of their results. They focused on drying of particular regions and on thermal expansion of the ocean because observations suggest that humans are contributing to changes that have already been measured.
Besides Solomon, the study’s authors are Gian-Kasper Plattner and Reto Knutti of ETH Zurich, Switzerland, and Pierre Friedlingstein of Institut Pierre Simon Laplace, Gif-Sur-Yvette, France.
NOAA understands and predicts changes in the Earth’s environment, from the depths of the ocean to the surface of the sun, and conserves and manages our coastal and marine resources.
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12 Responses to “New Study Shows Climate Change Largely Irreversible, Climate Modelers Given $140 Million Bonus”
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January 27th, 2009 at 7:42 am
There’s so much wrong with this article I would have to write a book to show what a crock of nonsense it is. Ludicrous psychobabble pushed by the latest resident greedy nutcase global warming fraudster.
Is someone ‘pinging’ the Sun?
http://www.rense.com/general84/solar.htm
storky Reply:
January 27th, 2009 at 11:11 am
I agree with the poster regarding the flawed nature of the report, but I don’t believe he’s qualified to debate the science.
Furthermore, why does Prison Planet adopt the OPINION of blogger in addition to the original source of the article? Are they afraid we might think for ourselves?
Why is UNSUBSTANTIATED BULLSHIT like “That should be just enough to pay the electric power bill for the new supercomputer I’m sure NOAA will just ‘have to have’ now to keep up with the new toy for the Brits at Hadley,” considered part of the story. That’s not science! That’s not journalism either.
Tainted stories like this further diminishes what little credibility this site ever had.
Frogz Reply:
January 28th, 2009 at 4:30 am
You’re right. It’s science politicizing for monetary gain. The entire drive behind any Global warming alarmism propaganda is just that. Using science to create and nurture the publics view to support the politics to increase the research fund to increase the funds for more research to continue nurturing the public to further.. well. you can see where it never ends. Sure there are, for the most part, plenty of legit researchers that use just this method to get their research funds, but how many bad apples do you think it takes abusing that methodology before you have a domino effect affecting it to the point where science is no longer science? If only the energy put into raising the flags of doom for global warming were placed into the issues of pollution instead.
storky Reply:
January 28th, 2009 at 5:43 am
Well, its a win-win-win-win situation then. We spend money to research and develop new energy efficient products and less destructive energy alternatives which pollute less, contribute less greenhouse gas emissions. sparks the economy and reduces our dependence on foreign oil.
January 27th, 2009 at 1:11 pm
GWScam Says:
January 27th, 2009 at 7:42 am
There’s so much wrong with this article I would have to write a book to show what a crock of nonsense it is.
—————
Agreed.
The NOAA ’scientists’ ignored much of history to arrive at their ‘conclusions.’
ONCE AGAIN: 1000 years ago, it was warm enough for the Norse to settle —and farm— the southern reaches of Greenland.
THAT feat has not been attained since.
1000 years ago there was NONE of the carbon producing activity we now have.
800 years ago the northern hemisphere cooled to produce the ‘Little Ice Age.’
If carbon production was supposed to be any kind of ‘global warming’ agent, then pray tell: WHY IS IT that during that period known as the ‘Little Ice Age,’ when carbon emissions would have been FAR GREATER than the preceding period of warming —because of the need to keep warm— didn’t the Earth’s northern hemisphere warm within a decade of increased burning of wood and fossil fuels?
WHY is the literature COMPLETELY SILENT on that matter?
Would it be that the facts are just too freaking inconvenient to talk about?
storky Reply:
January 27th, 2009 at 1:43 pm
Actually, paleoclimatology IS the study of the history of climate. What makes you think paleoclimatologists’ data was disregarded from the study?
January 27th, 2009 at 5:02 pm
storky Reply:
January 27th, 2009 at 1:43 pm
Actually, paleoclimatology IS the study of the history of climate. What makes you think paleoclimatologists’ data was disregarded from the study?
——————————————————————————————————
Once again:
——————
1000 years ago, it was warm enough for the Norse to settle —and farm— the southern reaches of Greenland.
THAT feat has not been attained since.
1000 years ago there was NONE of the carbon producing activity we now have.
800 years ago the northern hemisphere cooled to produce the ‘Little Ice Age.’
If carbon production was supposed to be any kind of ‘global warming’ agent, then pray tell: WHY IS IT that during that period known as the ‘Little Ice Age,’ when carbon emissions would have been FAR GREATER than the preceding period of warming —because of the need to keep warm— didn’t the Earth’s northern hemisphere warm within a decade of increased burning of wood and fossil fuels?
WHY is the literature COMPLETELY SILENT on that matter?
Would it be that the facts are just too freaking inconvenient to talk about?
storky Reply:
January 28th, 2009 at 5:12 am
Again, what evidence do you have that such data was omitted, suppressed or otherwise disregarded?
If you can’t substantiate your claim, you’re a FRAUD and a LIAR!
January 28th, 2009 at 6:53 am
see planet nibiru and haarp and cern. interesting. love annie
January 28th, 2009 at 6:55 am
see planet eris.
January 28th, 2009 at 6:56 am
wow, see how fast i can type. pretty sensitive about nibiru, eris, haarp and cern huh. figure out whom i work for friends.
January 28th, 2009 at 4:24 pm
Thanks for the 140 million. Here’s your global warming report you ordered. Looks hopeless hey Fred, yeah but this 140 million will help. Thanks . Don’t mention it.
Security : Nothing to see here…move along. Hey no pictures, just move along nothing to see here.