A few weeks ago an independent team of scientists funded by a prominent foundation announced to great twitter, "Global warming is real." The news itself wasn't surprising to anyone close to the problem; this is something the rest of the scientific community has known for two decades. But the source of the news was noteworthy: one lead scientist of the study was a self-proclaimed climate skeptic, and the study was funded in part by the Charles G. Koch Foundation, which, among other things, has funded efforts to derail climate-related state legislation.
This team duplicated earlier studies that showed the Earth has warmed by about 1 degree C (1.8 degrees F) since the 1950s. The present decade is the warmest in over two centuries. Earlier allegations that climate scientists conspired to manufacture data were, and still are baseless. This new result confirms the point and "leaves little room for doubters," as The Economist neatly summarized.
This warming trend presents real and present risks to things that really matter: the security of food, water, and land. Most people are not gravely concerned that global temperature will be X degrees warmer in the coming decades. But rising temperature is a harbinger of associated risks to things we utterly depend upon as individuals and nations.
Food. Crop yields decrease by about 10% for every 1°C of warming. The reduced yield is due to crop stunting during extreme heat events -- and these will increase in frequency as climate warms up. A recent analysis showed that the hottest seasons presently on record for the breadbasket regions of the world will become the seasonal norm by the end of the 21st century. For reference, the severe drought and heat wave that struck Texas this summer caused $5 billion in combined agricultural and livestock losses. A separate but related issue is that fish provide roughly one-quarter of the world's protein. Ocean acidification due to human carbon emissions impacts the growth of marine plankton that form the base of the food chain.
Water. One of the real power plays in future climate change involves changes in access to water. Under greater greenhouse gas emission scenarios, climate models consistently show a tendency for wet regions to become wetter, and dry regions to become drier and to expand. For the semi-arid expanses of the American West and northern Mexico, for example, climate change will establish a new climate, with annual water availability reduced by amounts equivalent to those seen in the historic droughts of the 1930s and 1950s. Warming and moistening of the atmosphere is also expected to lead to more intense weather and climate extremes -- more heavy rainstorms, more floods and more droughts. In addition, more of the very strongest and most destructive hurricanes are expected.
Land. About 10% of the world's population lives within 10 meters elevation of the coastline. Sea-level response to a warming world remains one of the more vexing quantities to estimate, but the average estimates are about one-half meter rise by the end of this century. But that estimate does not account for melting ice sheets. Recent observations show that both the Greenland and West Antarctic ice sheets are disintegrating at record paces. Each ice sheet represents the equivalent of roughly 5 to 7 meters of potential sea level rise. Coastal cities will battle floods from storms and tidal surges as average sea levels creep higher.
Climate and life have been intertwined throughout Earth's history. Seasons pace the cycle of death and renewal; the diversity of life is highest in the warm tropics; and taking the longest possible view, each of the "big five" mass extinctions of life on Earth (times when over 50% of animal species became extinct) were each associated with environmental crises.
Climate change modifies humanity's access to food, water, and land, and it does so with cruel inequality. Developed nations responsible for most of the carbon emissions have a surfeit of food, water, and, in North America, space, but the rest of the world lives in constant, acute need of these. They have done little to cause the problem of climate change but will suffer the most -- an environmental injustice on a planetary scale.
It's time to shift the discussion to what people hold dearest, for these are the things in play in the coming decades. We evidently agree now that global warming is real. Now, it's time to move on and discuss what's really at stake. As the world population passes 7 billion, it is imperative to advance the discussion beyond a simple chart of Earth's surface warming to illuminate our true concern -- the security of food, water, and the very land on which we live.
On the path we are on now we will fly by one tipping point of 450ppm C02 in the early to mid 2030s-
trouble is, that will be in the 'pipeline' warming. C02 today at over 390ppm will be seen in 2030!
A doubling of C02 to 550ppm from the PI era is now highly likely. What a mess the future will be- perhaps Hell is a better word.
To watch a documentary visit- http://www.cultureunplugged.com/play/7294
Why was life good back then?
You will find the answer in the literature.
Black Death - The Black Death was one of the most devastating pandemics in human history, peaking in Europe between 1348 and 1350.
What concerns me personally about climate change is wondering where am I going to move. I don't like Texas summers anyway, and since it looks like it's going to get drier and hotter, I'd prefer to settle somewhere moister. Of course, other people are going to be having the same idea.
For me, moving would be more or less a matter of convenience and comfort. For a lot of people around the globe, moving in response to climate change is going to be a matter of life and death.
A lot of my conservative compadres say we should ignore all that, that we should just keep burning rocks and not worry about any unintended consequences, especially if those consequences affect poor foreigners. I say that kind of aggressive, cruel ignorance has no place in 21st century America, or anywhere else on the globe for that matter. We've collectively created a problem, and it's our responsibility to collectively fix it.
Too bad so few of my conservative compadres believe in responsibility these days...
Also, plenty of bogs. ;)
It also has a vibrant academic and arts community spread through the unesco heritage and colonial landscape of the towns and cities. I would retire home now if I could.
I'd love to sometime. The fishing sounds especially tempting, since fishing in Texas these days is basically just archeology: digging through sediments looking for dessicated remains of once living creatures.
But I'm still leaning toward the Ouachita Mountains in Arkansas and Oklahoma as a place to settle. It's a sort of karst-ish place, so there are a lot of springs. You can also find property there that's surrounded by national forest except along the road frontage. It's the ultimate privacy fence!
The greenhouse effect is simply a mechanism for transporting energy from the ground which radiates the energy photonto the GHG to space where the CO2 or greenhouse gas eventually radiates it to. It is an energy transfer/transport mechanism just like convection, conduction and friction. It can NOT create warming energy. No-one can. Isaac Newton said energy can not be created nor destroyed.. it must be transferred in and out.
The second point is that you have not the first idea about the greenhouse effect. The Greenhouse effect does not primarily refer to energy transfer, except to the extent that it is about retaining energy that would otherwise escape to space.
AGW, is solely about the Earth radiating less energy into space that it receives from the sun. The additional CO2 is what causes the Earth to retain more heat from the sun, and therefore warm up.
There is no suggestion that CO2 creates energy.
2/ Which natural cycles are causing the current warming? Name them. So far, you have always failed to do so. We might be mislead into thinking you don't know what you're on about.
If the green jobs bullshit is real you won't need a subsidy will you?