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On May 1, 1967, Syukuro Manabe (真鍋淑郎) and Richard T. Wetherald published the landmark paper Thermal Equilibrium of the Atmosphere with a Given Distribution of Relative Humidity (DOI: 10.1175/1520-0469(1967)024<0241:TEOTAW>2.0.CO;2) (URLs shortened because the odd characters in the URL seem to break the links), which was the first major attempt to model the earth's climate. Now, fifty years later, the science can be robustly evaluated, and they got almost everything exactly right. Ethan Siegel has an article (Javascript required) looking back at this first major attempt at global climate modelling and how well it has turned out:
The big advance of Manabe and Wetherald's work was to model not just the feedbacks but the interrelationships between the different components that contribute to the Earth's temperature. As the atmospheric contents change, so do both the absolute and relative humidity, which impacts cloud cover, water vapor content and cycling/convection of the atmosphere. What they found is that if you start with a stable initial state — roughly what Earth experienced for thousands of years prior to the start of the industrial revolution — you can tinker with one component (like CO2) and model how everything else evolves.
The title of their paper, Thermal Equilibrium of the Atmosphere with a Given Distribution of Relative Humidity (full download for free here), describes their big advances: they were able to quantify the interrelationships between various contributing factors to the atmosphere, including temperature/humidity variations, and how that impacts the equilibrium temperature of Earth. Their major result, from 1967?
According to our estimate, a doubling of the CO2 content in the atmosphere has the effect of raising the temperature of the atmosphere (whose relative humidity is fixed) by about 2 °C.
What we've seen from the pre-industrial revolution until today matches that extremely well. We haven't doubled CO2, but we have increased it by about 50%. Temperatures, going back to the first measurements of accurate global temperatures in the 1880s, have increased by nearly (but not quite) 1 °C.
[Ed note: There seems to be an issue with the DOI link in that the URL itself contains both "<" and ">" characters. The actual URL is:
http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/abs/10.1175/1520-0469%281967%29024%3C0241%3ATEOTAW%3E2.0.CO%3B2
If you are uncomfortable following the provided bitly link, just copy/paste this link into your browser. --martyb]
(Score: 2) by ledow on Friday March 17 2017, @01:23PM (11 children)
I don't really think that anyone was done a disservice by mentioning drastic consequences that were potential outcomes, especially as it did motivate people to at least be aware.
The big problem I have with yesterday's and today's media - and science - is: Let's assume this is happening. 100%, as described, we're all gonna die.
What do you intend to do about that? Is knocking 1% off emissions going to do anything? What if it doesn't? What if we cut all the power, the world is plunged into darkness forever more, we never burn another nugget of coal, but the change STILL KEEPS HAPPENING? What if it's like trying to uncook an egg?
What, precisely, is our plan? When the whole world (yeah, right) goes "Okay, we need to save our lives first, here's all our money, fix the problem that's obviously occurring!" - what precisely are we supposed to do?
Because all the scaremongering gets attention but nobody follows it through to a conclusion other than "putting a bit of solar in your roof will save the world, magically, somehow!".
(Score: 3, Insightful) by inertnet on Friday March 17 2017, @02:06PM
I don't know how to resolve global warming, or climate control in general. But I agree that current methods aren't doing much. Leaving it to the politicians doesn't work because they mostly have a limited view (up to the next election) and, probably more than average, are opportunists. I live in Europe and when traveling from country to country, it's immediately obvious that policies are very different. In one country you see a lot of solar panels on roofs, or even in fields. In my own country solar panels hardly came off the ground because the subsidy system mostly benefits a limited list of installers and not the end users.
It's clear that if you really want to limit CO2 emissions, you have to quit the habit globally, meaning quit pumping and digging up hydrocarbons completely. It's also obvious that humanity needs time to adapt, so you can't do that abruptly. But I don't see any effort in that direction, new oil, gas and fracking fields are still hailed as beneficial, but the truth is they won't be good for us.
So I come to the same conclusion, there's no real plan. The politicians are too busy with other 'important' things, like fighting their little fights. Giving away all your money to politicians leads to insane systems like a CO2 market, where one can buy rights to produce CO2 that another doesn't need. It's a shady billion dollar business that was created to maintain CO2 levels instead of reducing them.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 17 2017, @02:37PM (1 child)
there are several points, not necessarily in this order:
1) research how agriculture can work best in the new climate
2) relocate people that need it: for instance coastlines will be much more vulnerable to flooding, some of them will go under water anyway due to sea-level rise.
3) make sure vulnerable regions do not turn into deserts.
4) actively maintain biodiversity, without it you will get new deserts.
5) move to a culture of "use until it's broken, and then fix it", unlike the current "replace as soon as new shiny is available".
6) educate as many people as possible, that will get the birthrate down, which is crucial in the long term.
7) give more money to controlled fusion research, and enforce efficiency standards for as many machines as possible (refrigerators, cars, etc)
obviously, if you gather enough scientists in a room, and organize them a little bit, they will come up with a better list and more concrete ordered steps to take.
please note that you can already work towards some of these points, and tell your friends.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 17 2017, @09:59PM
1) Grow hemp. It can grow pretty much anywhere and outproduces any other plant.
Before USA.gov completely stuck its head up its ass, it was celebrating this miracle plant.
Hemp for Victory (1942) - US Government asks farmers to grow it [youtube.com] 14 minute video
2) Relocate NYC's 8.4M inhabitants for starters.
3) Grow hemp on the edge of the desert [google.com] and watch how quickly it reclaims that "waste" land.
Eritrea has converted saltwater and desert into productive farms by planting mangroves.
A Little Environmental Role Model in the Horn of Africa [dankalia.com]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gordon_H._Sato#The_Manzanar_Project [wikipedia.org]
7) Find someone who is willing to take the financial risk to build thorium-reactor plants (which -consumes- the nuclear "waste" of 7 decades of nuke plant operations).
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 3, Interesting) by DeathMonkey on Friday March 17 2017, @03:24PM (5 children)
I don't really think that anyone was done a disservice by mentioning drastic consequences that were potential outcomes, especially as it did motivate people to at least be aware.
In the case of acid rain it did more than just make people aware. It led to the regulations that directly prevented the problem from happening.
We don't hear about acid rain anymore. It's not because acid rain was alarmist. It's because we FIXED THE PROBLEM.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 17 2017, @08:34PM (4 children)
I have a magic rock which keeps tigers away...
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Friday March 17 2017, @10:45PM (3 children)
I have a magic rock which keeps tigers away...
Good for you.
I have scrubbers. [wikipedia.org]
They're a bit more effective at keeping corrosive compounds out of the atmosphere.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 17 2017, @11:01PM (2 children)
Has anyone looked into how much pollution is generated by the manufacture of these scrubbers and extra testing, inspections, etc they entail? The advantage will be offset somewhat, but it may be negligible. I just don't know.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 17 2017, @11:30PM (1 child)
Since you're so curious, why don't you find out and submit an article about it?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 17 2017, @11:34PM
I did a quick search but didn't find anything. I am not willing to put forth more effort towards it because it is the type of topic that will be overrun by low quality info.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 17 2017, @03:44PM (1 child)
What, precisely, is our plan?
In order to keep warming under the 2°C (3.6°F) threshold agreed on by the world’s governments at a 2009 meeting in Copenhagen, greenhouse gas emissions in 2050 will have to be 40 to 70 percent lower than what they were in 2010. By the end of the century, they will need to be at zero, or could possibly even require taking carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere, a controversial proposition.
http://www.climatecentral.org/news/major-greenhouse-gas-reductions-needed-to-curtail-climate-change-ipcc-17300 [climatecentral.org]
What will it take to fix global warming? Scientists say the world, within a few decades, will need to switch to energy that doesn't emit greenhouse gases. Even the optimists agree, it won't be easy.
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/12/30/climate-change-technologies/4041931/ [usatoday.com]
The US, Europe, and China will use up the world's carbon budget by 2030
The science here is pretty straightforward: If we want decent odds of avoiding more than 2°C (or 3.6°F) of global warming — which has long been the stated goal — then there's only so much more carbon dioxide we can put into the atmosphere. The world's annual CO2 emissions will need to shrink to zero to stay within this "carbon budget."
In their paper, Peters and his co-authors sketch out a plausible carbon budget if we want a 66 percent chance of staying below 2°C. (Because there's some uncertainty around climate sensitivity, this is couched in terms of probabilities.) Roughly speaking, the world has just 765 gigatons of CO2 left to emit. We currently emit about 35 gigatons per year and don't (yet) have large-scale carbon removal technology.
" rel="url2html-24263">http://www.vox.com/2015/10/19/9567863/climate-change-ambitious-cuts
Because all the scaremongering gets attention but nobody follows it through
As you can see, they do follow it through. The problem is that the carbon industry fights it tooth and nail so that the people who can and should be acting on it, our government, are hobbled.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 18 2017, @08:29AM
Above post includes " rel="url2html-24263">
I doubt the AC posted that. I've seen similar stuff in a preview of my comment that had a link in it. I wonder whether having a link and a quote combine to give this problem somehow. Needs some eyeballs.