Arguments
Several years ago, I wrote about the five stages of climate denial. To date, the Trump administration has pinballed between Stages 1, 2, and 3, calling climate change a Chinese hoax, disputing the degree of human causation (100% since 1950), and claiming it’s not a threat. But the purpose of climate science denial is to obstruct climate policies, and science denial doesn’t hold up in court. Unlike in the political realm, judicial decisions are generally based on evidence.
The Trump administration wants to roll back the Obama administration’s increased vehicle fuel efficiency standards. But under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), “if a proposed major federal action is determined to significantly affect the quality of the human environment,” the agency has to publish an environmental impact statement (EIS).
Vehicle fuel efficiency standards to date (blue) and required under the Obama administration rules (green) and the Trump administration’s proposal (red) Illustration: National Highway Traffic Safety Administration
And so, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) was required to publish an EIS detailing how the proposed fuel efficiency rollbacks would impact the environment, including via climate change. Here, the Trump administration shifted to Stage 4 and 5 climate denial.
2018 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming Digest #40
Posted on 7 October 2018 by John Hartz
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A major climate report will slam the door on wishful thinking
The IPCC is likely to say that even the most optimistic scenario for climate change isn’t great at all.
The leading international body of climate change researchers is preparing to release a major report Sunday night on the impacts of global warming and what it would take to cap warming at 1.5 degrees Celsius, or 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit, above pre-industrial levels, a goal that looks increasingly unlikely.
The report is from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, an international consortium of hundreds of climate researchers convened by the United Nations. Authors are meeting this week in Incheon, South Korea, to finalize their findings, but Climate Home News obtained an early leaked draft.
Why examine the prospects for limiting global warming to 1.5°C? Because under the Paris agreement, countries agreed that the goal should be to limit warming to below 2°C by 2100, with a nice-to-have target of capping warming at 1.5°C.
According to the drafts, the report finds that it would take a massive global effort, far more aggressive than any we’ve seen to date, to keep warming in line with 1.5°C — in part because we are already en route to 3°C of warming. And even if we hit the 1.5°C goal, the planet will still face massive, devastating changes. So it’s pretty grim.
But this is also a thunderous call to action, laying out what tools we have at our disposal (we have plenty) to mitigate global warming and to accelerate the turn toward cleaner energy. Let’s walk through the basics.
A major report will slam the door on wishful thinking by Umair Irfan, Energy & Environment, Vox, Oct 5, 2018
2018 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #40
Posted on 6 October 2018 by John Hartz
Editor's Pick
The Nihilism of Trump’s Climate Policy
The administration cites the likelihood of catastrophic global temperature rise to justify gutting fuel-efficiency standards. Yes, you read that correctly.
A firefighter works to control the Delta Fire in the Shasta-Trinity National Forest, California, in September 2018. Noah Berger/AP
The Washington Post dove deep into a draft statement issued by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration last week and found buried within it a startling admission.
Planet Earth, the agency’s analysts observed, is currently on track to warm by approximately 4 degrees Celsius by the end of the century. But that’s not the startling thing I’m referring to. This is: The statement’s authors were passing along this bit of news in order to lend support to the administration’s decision to weaken fuel efficiency standards for cars and light trucks built after 2020.
That’s right: The United States government is basically making the argument that reducing carbon pollution from cars can’t save us—so why bother?
This is, to put it mildly, a twist on the usual rules of engagement between those who advocate for climate action and those who don’t. We’re used to fighting skepticism. But outright nihilism? That’s a new one.
The Nihilism of Trump’s Climate Policy by Jeff Turrentine, On Earth, NRDC, Oct 5, 2018
New research, September 24-30, 2018
Posted on 5 October 2018 by Ari Jokimäki
A selection of new climate related research articles is shown below.
Climate change mitigation
Climate change communication
Enduring Extremes? Polar Vortex, Drought, and Climate Change Beliefs
Not in my back yard: Egocentrism and climate change skepticism across the globe
Climate Policy
Environmental integrity of international carbon market mechanisms under the Paris Agreement (open access)
Altruism and Global Environmental Taxes (open access)
Energy production
Current perspectives on nuclear energy as a global climate change mitigation option
Changes in soil organic carbon stocks after conversion from forest to oil palm plantations in Malaysian Borneo (open access)
Curtailment of renewable energy in Northwest China and market-based solutions
How Arctic lakes accelerate permafrost carbon losses
Posted on 3 October 2018 by Guest Author
This is a re-post from Carbon Brief. Dr Ingmar Nitze is a postdoctoral researcher at the Alfred Wegener Institute Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI); Dr Guido Grosse is head of the Permafrost Research Section at AWI and professor of permafrost in the Earth system at the University of Potsdam; Dr Thomas Schneider von Deimling is a senior scientist at AWI; and Dr Katey Walter Anthony is an aquatic ecosystem ecologist at the University of Alaska Fairbanks.
As the climate warms, there is increasing concern around thawing of carbon-rich permafrost across the Arctic. Carbon emissions from this perennially frozen land have the potential to reinforce global warming.
Adding to this risk, the Arctic is also pockmarked by millions of small ponds and lakes, formed as the frozen soil thaws, collapses and fills with melted ice, snow and rain. These lakes accelerate thawing of the surrounding land, ramping up how much carbon the land emits.
In our recent study, published in Nature Communications, we have – for the first time – estimated the global carbon emissions from permafrost thaw beneath and around Arctic lakes.
And our findings suggest this rapid thaw has the potential to double how much permafrost carbon is released this century.
Giant freezer
Permafrost covers around a quarter of the non-glaciated land in the northern hemisphere, including large parts of Siberia, Alaska, northern Canada and the Tibetan plateau.
Permafrost soils lock in old plant and animal remains like a giant freezer. This a carbon-rich combination of roots, leaves and peat that covered the vast tundra-steppe and interspersed wetlands of the last ice age. It also includes mammoths and other iconic animals of the time.
As its name suggests, permafrost is permanently frozen, However, during the short summer season, the uppermost part of the soil – known as the “active layer” – briefly thaws. This layer is, perhaps, just a few tens of centimetres deep.
However, a warming climate puts an increasing amount of permafrost at risk of thawing. And it is not only contending with the steady rise in global average temperatures, but also “Arctic amplification” – the rapid warming in the Earth’s northernmost latitudes in response to melting sea ice and declining snow cover.
New study finds incredibly high carbon pollution costs – especially for the US and India
Posted on 1 October 2018 by dana1981
The social cost of carbon is a measure of the economic damages caused (via climate change) by each ton of carbon pollution that we produce today. It’s difficult to estimate because of physical, economic, and ethical uncertainties. For example, it’s difficult to predict exactly when various climate tipping points will be triggered, how much their damages will cost, and there’s also a question about how much we value the welfare of future generations (which is incorporated in the choice of ‘discount rate’).
In 2013, the Obama administration set the federal social cost of carbon estimate at $37 per ton of carbon dioxide (up from the previous estimate of $22). That was a conservative estimate – in recent years, research has pegged the value closer to $200 because recent research has shown that global warming slows economic growth, which makes it quite expensive. A majority of economists in a 2015 survey believed the federal estimate was too low, but Republicans have recently been trying to dramatically lower it anyway.
The Republican argument is twofold. First, that we should only consider domestic climate costs (the federal estimate is of global costs, because our carbon pollution doesn’t just hover in the air above America). Second, that instead of trying to stop climate change now, we should just save our money and let future generations pay for its costs (by using a high discount rate).
The social cost of carbon is much higher yet
A new study led by UC San Diego’s Katharine Ricke published in Nature Climate Change found that not only is the global social cost of carbon dramatically higher than the federal estimate – probably between $177 and $805 per ton, most likely $417 – but that the cost to America is around $50 per ton. That’s the second-highest in the world behind India’s $90, and is also higher than the current federal estimate for the global social cost of carbon.
That’s a remarkable conclusion worth repeating. Ricke’s team found that the cost of carbon pollution to just the United States is probably higher than its government’s current estimate of costs to the entire world. And the actual global cost is more than 10 times higher than the federal estimate. And yet Republican politicians think that estimate should be much lower.
2018 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming Digest #39
Posted on 30 September 2018 by John Hartz
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World 'nowhere near on track' to avoid warming beyond 1.5C target
Exclusive: Author of key UN climate report says limiting temperature rise would require enormous, immediate transformation in human activity
Avoiding a temperature increase of more than 1.5C will be ‘extraordinarily challenging’, says the report’s author. Photograph: Matt Brown/AP
The world’s governments are “nowhere near on track” to meet their commitment to avoid global warming of more than 1.5C above the pre-industrial period, according to an author of a key UN report that will outline the dangers of breaching this limit.
A massive, immediate transformation in the way the world’s population generates energy, uses transportation and grows food will be required to limit the global temperature rise to 1.5C and the forthcoming analysis is set to lay bare how remote this possibility is.
“It’s extraordinarily challenging to get to the 1.5C target and we are nowhere near on track to doing that,” said Drew Shindell, a Duke University climate scientist and a co-author of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report, which will be unveiled in South Korea next month.
“While it’s technically possible, it’s extremely improbable, absent a real sea change in the way we evaluate risk. We are nowhere near that.”
World 'nowhere near on track' to avoid warming beyond 1.5C target by Oliver Milman, Guardian, Sep 27, 2018
2018 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #39
Posted on 29 September 2018 by John Hartz
Editor's Pick
Trump administration sees a 7-degree rise in global temperatures by 2100
Firefighters from Brea, Calif., inspect and cut fireline on Aug. 1, 2018, as the Ranch Fire burns near Upper Lake, Calif. A day earlier, it and the River Fire totaled more than 74,000 acres. (Stuart W. Palley/For The Washington Post)
Last month, deep in a 500-page environmental impact statement, the Trump administration made a startling assumption: On its current course, the planet will warm a disastrous 7 degrees by the end of this century.
A rise of 7 degrees Fahrenheit, or about 4 degrees Celsius, compared with preindustrial levels would be catastrophic, according to scientists. Many coral reefs would dissolve in increasingly acidic oceans. Parts of Manhattan and Miami would be underwater without costly coastal defenses. Extreme heat waves would routinely smother large parts of the globe.
But the administration did not offer this dire forecast as part of an argument to combat climate change. Just the opposite: The analysis assumes the planet’s fate is already sealed.
Trump administration sees a 7-degree rise in global temperatures by 2100 by Juliet Eilperin, Brady Dennis & Chri Mooney, Health & Science, Washington Post, Sep 28, 2018
New research, September 17-23, 2018
Posted on 28 September 2018 by Ari Jokimäki
A selection of new climate related research articles is shown below.
Climate change impacts
Mankind
Effects of climate change-related heat stress on labor productivity in South Korea
Climatic preferences for beach tourism: an empirical study on Greek islands
Unavoidable solutions for coastal adaptation in Reunion Island (Indian Ocean)
Behavioral adaptation to climate change in wildfire‐prone forests
Assessing real options in urban surface water flood risk management under climate change (open access)
Climate change impact on Mexico wheat production
Climate change as a motivating factor for farm-adjustments: rethinking the link (open access)
New research shows the world’s ice is doing something not seen before
Posted on 26 September 2018 by John Abraham
In this warming world, some parts of the planet are warming much faster than others. The warming is causing large ice bodies to start to melt and move rapidly, in some cases sliding into the ocean.
This movement is the topic of a very new scientific study that was just published in the journal Earth and Planetary Science Letters. The Arctic is warming much faster than other parts of the planet and the ice there is showing the signs of rapid warming. This fact has serious consequences. First, melting ice can cause sea levels to rise and inundate coastal areas – it also makes storms like hurricanes and typhoons more destructive. Melting ice also causes a feedback loop, which can cause more future warming and then more ice loss.
It should be noted that there are different types of ice. Some ice floats on water and is called sea ice. When it melts, the ocean water level hardly budges because the ice is already in the sea displacing liquid water. But, sea ice is really important for this feedback loop I mentioned above.
Other ice is on land and may be a large ice sheet or a smaller glacier. These ice bodies sit atop the land and “rest” there. In some cases, they extend out off the land and into the ocean where they partly float on liquid water. When this land ice melts, the liquid flows into the oceans and can cause significant ocean level rising.
So, the importance of ice depends on what type it is, where it is located, and how fast it is melting. And this brings us to the new paper.
Retraction of Florides et al. (2013)
Posted on 25 September 2018 by Ari Jokimäki
About a year ago I wrote about my dealings with a paper by Florides et al. in a four part article here at SkS (part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4). I had found out that the paper in question was largely created by copy/pasting passages of texts from various sources and that the paper contained a lot of false claims and other flaws.
I had communicated my findings to Elsevier, who originally had published the paper, but as I described in part four of the article series, Elsevier did not do anything about the paper.
Since publishing my article series there have been some developments, which I will describe briefly below, but the most recent development is that the paper got retracted three and a half years after I lodged a complaint.
Recent developments
First of all, there was an article on this in Retraction Watch. The article describes mainly the same issues as my article series, but there's also some new information, such as the mention that the Editor-in-Chief of the journal had been replaced.
The new Editor-in-Chief, Professor Aoife M. Foley, contacted me to let me know that they will have another look at the issue. After that I didn't hear from the journal again, but recently I noticed that the journal page for the paper in question now says that the paper has been retracted.
The retraction
Apparently, the paper was retracted on August 23, 2018, or at least the retraction notice shows that date. The reason for the retraction is given as:
New study reconciles a dispute about how fast global warming will happen
Posted on 24 September 2018 by dana1981
We’re currently on pace to double the carbon dioxide-equivalent (including other greenhouse gases) in the atmosphere by around mid-century. Since the late 1800s scientists have been trying to answer the question, how much global warming will that cause?
In 1979, top climate scientists led by Jule Charney published a reportestimating that if we double the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere from pre-industrial levels of 280 ppm to 560 ppm, temperatures will warm by 3 ± 1.5°C. Four decades later, ‘climate sensitivity’ estimates remain virtually unchanged, but some climate contrarians have argued that the number is at the low end of that range, around 2°C or less.
It’s an important question because if the contrarians are right, the 2°C resulting global warming would represent significantly less severe climate change consequences than if mainstream climate scientists are right and temperatures rise by 3°C. It would also mean our remaining carbon budgetfor meeting the 2°C Paris target is about twice as large than if the mainstream consensus is right. If the consensus is correct, we’re on pace to blow through the remaining Paris carbon budget by around 2030.
Another nail in the contrarian ‘low sensitivity’ coffin
Studies published in March 2014, May 2014, and December 2015 identified two critical flaws in the contrarians’ preferred so-called ‘energy balance model’ approach: it doesn’t account for the fact that Earth’s sensitivity can change over time, for example as large ice sheets continue to melt, or that the planet responds differently to different climate ‘forcings’.
Last week, the journal Earth’s Future published a study by the University of Southampton’s Philip Goodwin that took both of these factors into account. Goodwin ran climate model simulations treating every forcing separately, including changes in greenhouse gases, solar activity, particulates from volcanic eruptions, and from human fossil fuel combustion. For each, he included feedbacks from changes in factors like atmospheric water vapor, clouds, snow, and sea ice, including how these factors change over different timescales, as Goodwin explained:
