CO2 Now

Earth more sensitive to CO₂ than previously thought

December 7, 2009  SCIENCE DAILY  – In the long term, the Earth's temperature may be 30-50% more sensitive to atmospheric carbon dioxide than has previously been estimated, reports a new study published in Nature Geoscience.  Alan Haywood, a co-author on the study from the University of Leeds, said "If we want to avoid dangerous climate change, this high sensitivity of the Earth to carbon dioxide should be taken into account when defining targets for the long-term stabilisation of atmospheric greenhouse-gas concentrations."  >>>> Read the full article in Science Daily.

Science Daily  |   Earth more sensitive to carbon dioxide than previously thought

Journal Reference  |  Daniel J. Lunt, Alan M. Haywood, Gavin A. Schmidt, Ulrich Salzmann, Paul J. Valdes and Harry J. Dowsett. Earth system sensitivity inferred from Pliocene modelling and data. Nature Geoscience, 6 December 2009.

World's chief climate scientist endorses '350' target for atmospheric CO₂

August 25, 2009  PARIS (AFP) – The UN's top climate scientist has, for the first time, backed ambitious goals for slashing greenhouse gas emissions that many climate negotiators say are beyond reach.

"As chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), I cannot take a position because we do not make recommendations," Pachauri told AFP when asked if he supported poorer nations calling for atmospheric CO2 levels to be held below 350 parts per million (ppm).

"But as a human being I am fully supportive of that goal. What is happening, and what is likely to happen, convinces me that the world must be really ambitious and very determined at moving toward a 350 target," he said by telephone from New Delhi.

In its benchmark 2007 report, the IPCC said that the key for preventing dangerous global warming was to keep CO2 concentrations below 450 ppm.

Above that level, average global temperatures are likely, by 2100, to increase by more than 2.0 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit), a threshold G8 leaders agreed last month must not be crossed.

But a growing body of scientific evidence suggests that even these hard-to-reach goals may not be ambitious enough, prompting many of the nations most threatened by global warming to set the bar even higher.

More than 80 of the world's poorest and most climate-vulnerable nations have now declared that CO2 concentrations must be scaled back to below 350 ppm, and that temperatures cannot rise more than 1.5C by century's end.  >>> read full APF article

AFP  |  UN scientist backs '350' target for CO2 reduction
Romm & McKibben  |  Pachauri endorses 350 ppm, not as IPCC Chair but as human being
350.org  |  Top UN scientist endorses 350!

Science Daily  |  Carbon dioxide higher today than last 2.1 million years

June 21, 2009   Researchers have reconstructed atmospheric carbon dioxide levels over the past 2.1 million years in the sharpest detail yet, shedding new light on its role in the earth's cycles of cooling and warming.

The study, in the June 19 issue of the journal Science, is the latest to rule out a drop in CO2 as the cause for earth's ice ages growing longer and more intense some 850,000 years ago. But it also confirms many researchers' suspicion that higher carbon dioxide levels coincided with warmer intervals during the study period.

The authors show that peak CO2 levels over the last 2.1 million years averaged only 280 parts per million; but today, CO2 is at 385 parts per million, or 38% higher. This finding means that researchers will need to look back further in time for an analog to modern day climate change.  Full article in Science Daily  >>>>The Earth Institute | Columbia University  >>>>Science | Abstract | Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide Concentration Across the Mid-Pleistocene Transition

The Monthly  |  Tim Flannery reviews The Vanishing Face of Gaia

June 2009   James Lovelock's latest book, The Vanishing Face of Gaia: A Final Warning (Allen Lane, 192pp; $29.95), has an important message. In a few years, or a few decades at most, abrupt changes in Earth's climate will begin, which will end up killing almost all of us and cause the extinction of almost all life on Earth. The tropics and subtropics will be rendered uninhabitable by this shift, and the few survivors will cling to favoured regions such as Britain and New Zealand. Lovelock believes there is little we can do to avert our fate, for the causes of the climatic shift are now so entrenched that they are in all likelihood irreversible. In his view the best we can hope for is personal survival in a world of warring nations or, if we are particularly unfortunate, a world ruled by warlords.

Apocalyptic visions such as this are usually the province of doomsday cults or writers of science fiction. It's unusual to find a scientist advancing one. Yet James Lovelock's scientific credentials are impeccable.  Full article in The Monthly

BNET Energy  |  Deutsche Bank launches giant greenhouse gas counter in US

June 18, 2009   Deutsche Bank’s ginormous “Carbon Counter” — unveiled Thursday in New York City — is the type of in-your-face campaign passers-by will find nearly impossible to ignore.  The towering electronic billboard — with its 13-number red digital display and ‘Climate Change Affects Everyone’ message perched on top — is more than an ever-growing tally of greenhouse gases released into the atmosphere.

It’s also a sign — and a very large one at that — of the growing interest and investment surrounding climate change.  Full article in BNET  | Deutsche Bank: Know the Number 

Abrupt Climate Change report goes to US President and Congress

ClimateScience.gov  In December 2008, a synthesis and assessment report, Abrupt Climate Change, was transmitted from the US Climate Change Science Program to the United States President and Congress.  The report was prepared by the US Geological Survey, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the National Science Foundation (NSF).  A link to the report is provided below, along with an excerpt from the synopsis.  

"For this Synthesis and Assessment Report, abrupt climate change is defined as:

A large-scale change in the climate system that takes place over a few decades or less, persists (or is anticipated to persist) for at least a few decades, and causes substantial disruptions in human and natural systems.

This report considers progress in understanding four types of abrupt change in the paleoclimatic record that stand out as being so rapid and large in their impact that if they were to recur, they would pose clear risks to society in terms of our ability to adapt:

(1) rapid change in glaciers, ice sheets, and hence sea level;

(2) widespread and sustained changes to the hydrologic cycle;

(3) abrupt change in the northward flow of warm, salty water in the upper layers of the Atlantic Ocean associated with the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC); and

(4) rapid release to the atmosphere of methane trapped in permafrost and on continental margins.

This report reflects the significant progress in understanding abrupt climate change that has been made since the report by the National Research Council in 2002 on this topic, and this report provides considerably greater detail and insight on these issues than did the 2007 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Fourth Assessment Report (IPCC AR4). New paleoclimatic reconstructions have been developed that provide greater understanding of patterns and mechanisms of past abrupt climate change in the ocean and on land, and new observations are further revealing unanticipated rapid dynamic changes of moderns glaciers, ice sheets, and ice shelves as well as processes that are contributing to these changes."

ClimateScience.gov  |  Report: Abrupt Climate Change  |  December 2008
Solve Climate  |   Science Sheds Light on Abrupt Climate Change   |  December 2008 

John Holdren  |  Update on Climate Science: What has been learned lately? 

February 15, 2007   John P. Holdren's Presidential address before the audience of the 2007 American Academy for the Advancement of Science's annual meeting on the state of climate science. 

Full Text and Graphics for the Presentation (3.4 MB PDF) 

Harvard Kennedy  |  Online Source for the 2007 Presentation

Harvard Kennedy  |  John Holdren Named Obama's Science Advisor  |  December 2008