“Climate change is no longer some far-off problem; it is happening here, it is happening now,”Obama said. “We’re not acting fast enough.”
Can we agree that if humans are responsible for the changes in the climate over the last 60 years of human CO2 emissions that we should see this in unprecedented and accelerating signals of change?
Climate sensitivity is the supposed response of the climate to a doubling of CO2 in the atmosphere. Pre-industrial CO2 is said to be 280 ppm. A doubling would be 560 ppm. We are currently at 400 ppm. That is almost halfway to a doubling.
A summary of values for climate sensitivity found by the IPCC and as reported in the first, fourth and fifth climate assessment reports are summarised below.
- Based on current models, we predict: under [BAU] increase of global mean temperature during the [21st] century of about 0.3 oC per decade (with an uncertainty range of 0.2 to 0.5 oC per decade); this is greater than that seen over the past 10,000 years; under other ... scenarios which assume progressively increasing levels of controls, rates of increase in global mean temperature of about 0.2 oC [to] about 0.1 oC per decade.
- Our judgement is that: global mean surface air temperature has increased by 0.3 to 0.6 oC over the last 100 years...; The size of this warming is broadly consistent with predictions of climate models, but it is also of the same magnitude as natural climate variability. Thus the observed increase could be largely due to this natural variability; alternatively this variability and other human factors could have offset a still larger human-induced greenhouse warming. The unequivocal detection of the enhanced greenhouse effect is not likely for a decade or more.
- under the IPCC business as usual emissions scenario, an average rate of global mean sea level rise of about 6 cm per decade over the next century (with an uncertainty range of 3 – 10 cm per decade), mainly due to thermal expansion of the oceans and the melting of some land ice. The predicted rise is about 20 cm ... by 2030, and 65 cm by the end of the next century.
- The 1990 IPCC First Assessment Report estimated that equilibrium climate sensitivity to CO2 doubling lay between 1.5 and 4.5 °C, with a "best guess in the light of current knowledge" of 2.5 °C.[19 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_sensitivity#Consensus_estimates
Climate sensitivity is defined as the amount of global average surface warming following a doubling of carbon dioxide concentrations.[12] It is likely to be in the range of 2 to 4.5 °C, with a best estimate of about 3 °C.[12] This range of values is not a projection of the temperature rise we will see in the 21st century, since the future change in carbon dioxide concentrations is unknown, and factors besides carbon dioxide concentrations affect temperature.[12]
- The global surface temperature increase by the end of the 21st century is likely to exceed 1.5 °C relative to the 1850 to 1900 period for most scenarios, and is likely to exceed 2.0 °C for many scenarios
- The IPCC Fifth Assessment Report stated: Equilibrium climate sensitivity is likely in the range 1.5°C to 4.5°C (high confidence), extremely unlikely less than 1°C (high confidence), and very unlikely greater than 6°C (medium confidence).
An article on Jo Nova’s blog summarises recent research into climate sensitivity and shows a convergence toward the low end of the IPCC range.
We are almost halfway to a doubling of CO2 and we can ask Mother Nature: How fast is the Earth warming? The graph below provides an answer. Not very.
The current rate of change in Global Mean Temperature is not unprecedented or accelerating but well within range of natural variability
“The rate of warming curves for all 4 major temperature series show that there has been a significant drop in the rate of warming over the last 17 years. Now, in 2015, it is between +0.5 and +0.8 °C per century. The rate now is only about 30% of what it was in 1998.”
This rate is close to the 1.64 for a doubling of CO2 found by Curry and Lewis.
There is no reason to divest - CO2 is not cigarette smoke; it is not arsenic; it is not cancerous. If fact, the greening of Earth is a sign that CO2 is benign
CO2, an invisible trace gas essential to life on Earth, is plant food. We exhale CO2 and help to feed the flora. In return they slip us oxygen of which we are rather fond in a mutually beneficial and amicable symbiotic relationship. From this evil comes?
Future generations will look back at this time and wonder how so many people could be taken in by the ‘hate fossil fuel’ hysteria. It will be the focus of Phd studies on how people could fall for the delusion that CO2 is a toxic pollutant. We exhale it people. It is in your lungs in concentrations approaching 40,000 ppm. How are you feeling? It is in the ambient air at 400 ppm and has been as high as 8000 ppm within the last 570 million years. We are here. There was no tipping point no runaway global warming beyond which the planet became uninhabitable.
Plants grow better, stronger, faster because of the increasing concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere.
In concluding, the U.S. research team declares that "from this remarkable 30-year archive of satellite imagery, we thus see evidence of a greening trend," which clearly indicates that the net result of the climatic and physiological effects of atmospheric CO2 enrichment on Earth's terrestrial plant life has in the mean been decidedly beneficial.
CO2 is clean and green. We need more of it not less. The globe is greening. This is a sign that CO2 is benign. CO2 has been exhaled during the creation of this post. No living thing was harmed. Some even liked it. Let the plants dance.
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