On the eating of crow...

[GliderGuider]

Last edited Fri Nov 23, 2012, 11:56 AM - Edit history (1)

My +10C scenarios were developed based on my misreading of McKibben's statement of how much carbon there is available to be burned in fossil fuel reserves. The Rolling Stone article was unclear, and said 2,795 Gt of carbon, when in fact they meant 2,795 Gt of CO2. The true number they meant therefore is less than 1/3 the amount I was working with. So the actual warming potential if we burned it all is in the range of +5 degrees or so. It's still too high for the continuation of civilization as we know it but not quite the planetary existential calamity I was worried about.

Mea culpa for not cross-checking the numbers before I ran with them.

This also points out the risk associated with having a doomer mentality. The ability to accept extremely negative information can result in believing erroneous information just because it presses one's "confirmation bias" buttons.

I withdraw the OP. Back to the drawing board for me...

My apologies to all who were misled by me error.

[CRH]

1. The IPCC seems to have hunkered down, ...

around the 3*C per doubling, so your graph shows 2070 for 4*C global rise and 7*C at 2100.

That leaves 'civilization' basically unsustainable from 2050 - 2070.

Hope for a quicker collapse, is hope for a higher possibility of survival.

Hunter - gatherer will be much harder this time around, and in my visions, I question if it will even be sustainable for the few. With climate zones rapidly changing, differing and limited mature flora and fauna yield much less for sustenance than the near pristine conditions 15,000 years ago. Even if our 'new bodies' allow the athletes to survive, it sure won't be easy

[GliderGuider]

2. I personally think we'll see a shift from the +3 curve to the +4.5 curve

As the methane begins to hit, probably beginning in 2030. That's more in line with the "long feedback" processes that Hansen talks about, that boost the paleo sensitivity. Although it will happen faster than expected in this case.

I wonder if that's what the AR5 surprise is going to be, the thing that Kohl says is going to scare the wits out of everyone? I think it has to be something around feedbacks speeding up.

I agree that H-G is largely going to be a non-starter in the next cycle.

[CRH]

3. Have a question for you on sensitivity, ...

Does the methane have anything to do with the sensitivity of forcing, or rather just increase the concentrations of CO2e. It is interesting, I was questioning the same thing the other evening, while in contemplation.

[GliderGuider]

4. It's probably a bit of both.

But that's next on my list for investigation. Of course I'll post here as I find out more...

[NickB79]

11. I suspect hunter-gatherers are more resiliant than you give them credit for

If they could make it living in places like central Australia and the Kalihari, I think that a few bands could find ways of surviving in a shifting climate. The biggest problem would be the loss of the knowledge that enabled that survival. It's not an easily acquired skill to learn how to dig up a toad and suck the water out of it, for example.

[NoOneMan]

5. We may have a social collapse before 2050

In terms of disasters, we haven't seen "bad" yet (especially as far as a drought is concerned). If this continues and our crop yields make China's 3 Years of Famine look like a Ramadan fasting, the elites will be scrambling to maintain order among a hungry population while building levies and dykes. There will be no energy left for economic growth, further exacerbating the social problems. In a few decades, we may be doubling our energy expenditure to simply keep peasants down, the water back, and most bellys full. And at some point, it will simply not be economically feasible to keep on keeping on. Cities and infrastructure companies will start going bankrupt. Services will break down. The will to fix these issues, and the energy to do it, will be sapped from the people who are swimming in their own existential crises, as they see the futility in the underpinnings of civilizations.

This is probably the most preferable scenario we could envision.

[GliderGuider]

6. I think it's virtually guaranteed.

I tend to focus more on food supplies, but I expect that all social issues will be boiling over by 2030 or so. Given the inertia and growth of FF usage, that's far more likely than any mitigation by windmills.

[GliderGuider]

7. I think the decade around 2050 is when the wheels will fall off

CO2 will be at 550, the temperature will be closing in on +2.5C. All the dangers we were warned about for the end of the century will have arrived 50 years early. We won't be able to mitigate fossil fuel consumption to any appreciable degree before then, because people in general won't believe the problem is really this bad until after 2030. By that time we'll be even more locked into the pattern than we are today.

It's not about how hot it will be by the end of the century, it's about how hot it will be in less than 40 years.

I think the graph in the OP actually tells us when the end of civilization will happen. Not extinction - that will come some unknowable time later - but all the things that make civilization what it is will end. This realization is where the whole exercise of the last few days/weeks/years has been leading me.

"Be careful what questions you ask. You might not want to know the answers."

[NoOneMan]

8. Its all about food. Its about how humans get their energy

And it could even happen sooner than anyone predicts.

We know that it will not get cooler from this point on in the next few decades. We know we are already in severe drought in our food producing regions, and crops are already experiencing heavy inflation due to the deficits. The chance and severity of drought is only guaranteed to increase from this point forward.

Between increased warming, fresh water shortages, soil breakdown and potash depletion, the entire centralized food production model can experience a disaster level failure in a very short amount of time. The sooner it happens, the greater chance of survival for people like me (who can live off an ecosystem that isn't yet damaged beyond repair). The longer it takes is the closer we move towards human extinction.

This is another reason I think the cornucopiasts (BAU, but "greener&quot are missing the point. The unwillingness to re-engineer how civilization works ignores this problem, which is virtually unavoidable at this rate despite how much we can lower the carbon intensity of energy. In fact, the very momentum of civilization is preventing anyone from doing anything about this (which involves creating local, redundant food systems optimal for regional climates). Food production is becoming more and more centralized/monopolized, simply due to money and politics--yes, politics, which people are putting their faith in as a mechanism to save humans.

In any case, keep your eye on the food supply. This will do us in before hurricanes, fires, earthquakes, wars, declining EROEI, etc.

[CRH]

10. Spot on GG. n/t.

[CRH]

9. yeah , that is kinda what we be seein' for a while. ...

It is why when some of us see someone like the family Bush buy a gazillion hectares over the largest aquifer in a militarist police state, sentiments of survival kick in. Others see it coming just like you, but fascism keeps marching on. Even at this time of obvious climate stress, the science is still being controlled. The public is being fed nothing more than observation to the obvious.

You have already made your move, I hope your island has altitude, and is sustainable unto itself.

[wtmusic]

15. Who are "we"?

Most of southwest Africa and a good part of the Middle East are already in a state of partial or complete social collapse. In all cases hunger is an element.

In first world countries we're still a long way from social collapse, although more of the poor will simply starve, and the rich will have to devote more resources ($) to feeding themselves. Agriculture will move north; the Dakotas, Montana, Iowa, California, Oregon will take over whatever farming is left in Texas, Arizona, Oklahoma.

Billions of individuals living in more fragile economies and ecosystems will die before social unrest in the US is an issue.

[NoOneMan]

16. I meant we as in first world nations

The food system in the US is very vulnerable to shock by design, despite our current comfort level and its output.

I do understand much of the rest of the world is already experiencing a food crisis. But some poor nations will fare better than the US, depending on their ecosystems, population density and the ability of the people there to form contingent, redundant food supplies.

[GliderGuider]

12. Regarding climate sensitivity...

I've been thinking about the "slow feedback" term that falls out of the paleoclimate work of scientists like Hanson and Kiehle. In their assessment that term raises the climate sensitivity from +3C to +6C. On reflection, I think it probably only acts over geological time scales - too long to matter if the human shit hits the fan in 2050 or so

However, this has me thinking about methane feedbacks. We all seem fairly convinced that methane is going to start belching into the atmosphere any day now, and this process will only speed up as things get warmer.

The +3 curve I have drawn above takes into account only the CO2 released from burning fossil fuels, along with whatever feedbacks that has been generating up to now. For these effects +3C seens like an appropriate sensitivity - unless AR5 has a surprise in stoe for us. In order to account for positive feedbacks we are aware of but are only beginning to enter the picture, I propose to add a second temperature curve that branches off from the +3 curve right about now, and adds an increasing factor to the sensitivity to simulate the addition of methane (and other potential positive feedbacks).

What feels right to me is to gradually increase in the sensitivity from +3 today to +4 over the next 50 years. It won't make a hill of beans difference to what happens between now and 2050, but it will give an indication of what the methane could eventually do to the temperature.

In the process, the current +4.5 curve would disappear.

Any thoughts?

[joshcryer]

22. I don't think climate sensitivity is 3.0C.

When I saw you state that 5.0C is still possible I questioned what number you used for climate sensitivity. As we have a good idea that clouds are not going to be a negative feedback, it stands to reason that climate sensitivity is probably closer to 4.0C or maybe higher.

I like your approach. Something the CO2 balance is that people don't understand that we have clathrates and permafrost that are on the precipice. If they go all bets are off. The tipping point is reached. It doesn't matter if we keep burning or not.

[GliderGuider]

13. It's time for me to walk back some of my alarmism

My +10C scenarios were developed based on my misreading of McKibben's statement of how much carbon there is available to be burned in fossil fuel reserves. The Rolling Stone article was unclear, and said 2,795 Gt of carbon, when in fact they meant 2,795 Gt of CO2. The true number they meant therefore is less than 1/3 the amount I was working with. So the actual warming potential if we burned it all is in the range of +5 degrees or so. It's still too high for the continuation of civilization as we know it but not quite the planetary existential calamity I was worried about.

Mea culpa for not cross-checking the numbers before I ran with them.

This also points out the risk associated with having a doomer mentality. The ability to accept extremely negative information can result in believing erroneous information just because it presses one's "confirmation bias" buttons.

Back to the drawing board for me...

[NoOneMan]

17. There have been "doomers" for millenia

And I am pretty sure that they were wrong.

Its very difficult to distinguish between objective fact when dealing with confirmation bias, and I view this as a very real threat to the truth. Likewise, its just as likely that diminishers will believe moderate climate reports that support their entire worldview that man can and will always fix any problem with ingenuity. Everyone is in this same boat.

On a positive note, there is a group of doomers who do actually try and use science and are willing to re-evaluate their information. There are plenty of technologist adherents who will not even do that.

I am somewhat ambivalent to all new information coming in at this current time, as I think it is difficult to project anything with our current information and the complexity of the system. I think it is more appropriate to study the system and see where and if the problems can actually occur (and it may not be within my lifetime). Whether its a 10C or a 3.5C world is rather irrelevant in my view, as the modern system will probably not be able to handle either (or neither) for an infinite amount of time in a finite world.

[GliderGuider]

20. It's a tightrope, all right.

It's much easier to recognize confirmation bias in others.

Unfortunately, I'm still pretty sure that this changes nothing about the outlook for the next 30 years, which is when all the damage will happen. If we have around 2800 Gt of still available; and anything over 600 is deadly; and there is no slowdown in consumption on the horizon; we're in desperate trouble in 15 to 20 years anyway.

[joshcryer]

23. Pfft, I'm the alarmist here, you're the doomer.

[GliderGuider]

24. Hmmm. You have a point there.

Although after AR5 comes out I may have to relinquish my status to the IPCC. Then what will I do for fun?

[joshcryer]

25. Sit back and watch the world burn.

'cause ain't shit being done about it.

[GliderGuider]

14. Kick to make sure people see my error and apology nt

[pscot]

18. Emily Litella would be

proud of you.

[GliderGuider]

21. ;-)

Never mind...

[Odin2005]

19. I thought that didn't sound right!