Climate scientists see 'tipping point' ahead

In summary

Lets find out what might make things happen,

That way if those things aren't something we like we can stop them.

I think.

Other papers

"Increased CO2, the paper contends, contributes to "a higher rate of global warming than occurred at the last global-scale state shift,"

Apparently, they missed the other paper that says the exact opposite.... http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/06/07/warmth_and_carbon_decoupled_miocene/

it's really easy guys and gals ..

as it warms, there is more evaporation of water .. warmer air holds more water vapor ..

but it has been found that the overall humidity has increased very little .. instead there is more cloud cover ....

... which reflects more solar energy back into space .. and increases rain and snowfall

so this is nature's balance as the air and oceans warm .. it is the negative forcing of water vapor and clouds by reflecting and scattering the more energetic shortwave spectrum .. and cloud albedo reflecting the suns energy back into space that not only balances water vapor's (50%) and clouds (25%) 75% of the greenhouse gas effect .. but also balances out CO2's 20% greenhouse gas effect

Warming causes CO2 rise because warmer oceans both release more, and absorb less CO2 than cooler oceans .. this is partially offset by trees absorbing CO2 faster, growing faster but still sequestering that carbon for an average of 200 years

BTW .. when you burn a HYDROcarbon .. you actually emit significantly more H2O than CO2 .. so by burning fossil fuels we emit more *trapped for 100 million+ years* H2O than CO2

let's see .. water (vapor and clouds) is 75% of the greenhouse gas effect ... we emit more H2O buning fossil fuel than CO2

CO2 is 20% (at most) of the greenhouse gas effect ..

yet we ignore man cause extra H2O emitted .. and don't call for reducing water vapor .. WTF?

and the "cleanest" fuel is methane .. one Carbon .. four Hydrogen .. burning creates one CO2 and two H2O .. OMG .. twice as much of a MORE dangerous greenhouse gas

We need to dry the earth's air before it's too late .. water vapor and clouds have almost 4 times the warming greenhouse effect as CO2 !

SIR is a title

If the tipping point is 'as-yet-undetermined', how can anyone say it's coming soon?

Penguin, 'cost it's the closest to the Chicken Little icon I was looking for.

I am reminded...

... of an interesting quote from Dr Stephen Schneider, of Stanford University, in a 1988 interview with 'Discover' magazine

"On the one hand, as scientists we are ethically bound to the scientific method, in effect promising to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but – which means that we must include all doubts, the caveats, the ifs, ands and buts. On the other hand, we are not just scientists but human beings as well. And like most people we’d like to see the world a better place, which in this context translates into our working to reduce the risk of potentially disastrous climate change. To do that we need to get some broad based support, to capture the public’s imagination.

That, of course, means getting loads of media coverage. So we have to offer up scary scenarios, make simplified, dramatic statements, and make little mention of any doubts we might have. This “double ethical bind” we frequently find ourselves in cannot be solved by any formula. Each of us has to decide what the right balance is between being effective and being honest. I hope that means being both."

Many would have read this quote minus the last 3 sentences. However, even with those sentences included, this seminal statement gives me grave doubt as to the many claims as to the nature & causality of anthropogenic climactic change. To "spin" scientific inquiry & the quantification of such, as this quote suggests, opens the interpretation of such inquiry to immediate abuse & opportunism, no matter how well intentioned the sentiment of that statement may be.

For me, the frailties of humanity have all but smothered any ongoing rational & meaningful research & analyses of this incredibly complex system. Ratings & earnings driven media & PR spin, individual & group self-interest, demonstrable financial opportunism & speculation - these are just a few things that have prompted me to mistrust the many "authoritative" statements, issued on an almost daily basis, as to the "urgency" of our global situation.

There are too many people on the planet

IF it is true that climate change is man made.

So as all good problem solvers know, fixing the root cause and not the symptoms, is the ONLY way to fix a problem.

The trouble is that there are far too many people who do not want to face up to this unpalatable fact. Scientists included.

Deniers, really?

It's a bit rich to ask people not to get their knickers in a twist whilst at the same time slinging mud yourself.

Nicely written.

This Rik Myslewski fella should do all El Reg's climate articles, he's done a good job of explaining a very wordy Nature article in an open-minded way. It's a plesant change from the heavily one-sided stuff I've seen too much of round here. Keep up the good work Rik!

Party While You Can

Even if we knew what to do and when, there is no political will to fix anything!

So the only two strategies that are rational are:-

1) Prepare for the worse

2) Party while you can

BTW, Have you a 6 month food store?

Most people spend £100s insuring their house for fire on a 1 in 100year probability

In the last 100 years there were two world wars... and rationing. And 6 months basic rations costs less than £200 ( Plus another £200 for the beer)

The point has already tipped...

Anyone who has a window, should take a look outside…

It's really s*it out there.

Don't talk to me about global warming!

Computer Models.....

I was running a computer model the other night - no matter what variables I changed the Reapers still destroyed life in the known universe.

Just because a model fits at the time (looks realistic) doesn't mean it has any predictive abililties.

Do something.

Back in 1981 there was a book called "Entropy: a new world view" I'm not going to defend the central focus on the laws of thermodynamics but the facts about energy use and its consequences were startling then. I remember reading about 40 humans in the developing world fed a year on a single Americans air-conditioning bill. Back then we fixed things (rather than throwing away) and Air-con was rare in the UK so it seemed a bit fantastic, now we are at the forefront of the energy ignorance and any concept of moderation is treated as fanciful posturing and counter progressive. We are in the asylum setting fire to the roof arguing over whether that is a good or bad thing.

I have made choices over the years in line with personal responsibility on energy use, where possible reduce. I have travelled less than 100 motorised miles a year for the last four and half years.

It's not really a mystery that changing energy from one form to another on massive scale causes consequences we have become lazy stupid and self obsessed monkeys.

Recommendations good regardless of climate

I'm skeptical about both what the politicians say we should do, and about the predictive power of models based on cherry-picked data, about climate change, but I don't think anyone would argue against the proposals for:

* reducing world population,

* reducing per-capita resource use,

* reducing the role of fossil fuels,

* improving energy efficiency,

* increasing the efficiency of food production and distribution,

* "and enhancing efforts to manage as reservoirs of biodiversity and ecosystem services, both in the terrestrial and marine realms, the parts of Earth's surface that are not already dominated by humans."

since all of these make us less likely to *run out of things*. Even totally absent climate change, they're a good idea. No?

And the next one please?

First it was Global Warming, when that turned out rubbish predictions it became Climate Change. Now that is found to be rubbish, we have:

Blast of trumpets.....Climate Disruption.

And the next one will be???

Solution

What we need is zombies, skeletons, spiders that come out at night and kill people.

That should keep the population down.

The people sneaking up to you and then blowing up, we appear to be managing already :-/

Video games have the answer

Since the problem is caused by us humans breeding like mad, the first thing we need to do is slow the birth rate. Solution? We need to cause a genophage similar to that from mass effect.

Second part of the problem, it will hit us with little to no warning, and we have no idea what form "it" will take. Solution? Suvival Valuts ala Fallout

Deniers, ye shall burn in Hell for eternity

We must heed the prophecy. End of Days is upon us.

Those amongst us who have sinned. Those amongst us who given birth to the beast that is the baby human. Ye shall burn in Hell for eternity.

For none is more guilty than the woman who brings upon the Earth the pestilence that is the human being. Who by its biological nature breathes out the very poison that is killing our planet.

Carbon, my friends, is the evil by which the Earth shall be delivered to the Devil. And ye who create it with your motor vehicles and your electric lights, ye shall be punished.

I urge you to repent before all is lost.

The only path to salvation is through flagellation in the form of taxation.

We must pay more. More for everything. And worry. Worry about everything.

It is the word of our prophets.

Obviously false...

"...43 per cent of the earth's land having been converted to agricultural and urban use..."

Obviously false. I doubt it's even half that.

The only answer to all the problems Soylent Green.

How about Home Brew and Soylent Green, solve the population problem and satisfies world hunger, think of the take aways, we could have a British a bit fatty and slightly stodgy, Chinese small snacks, Indian takeway that delivers itself. It's endless an American that can baste itself in it's own fat. And lets not just pick on the poor and downtrodden roast a Bank manager today self marinated in expensive wines and cognacs....Solves so many problems..

Climate Lobby nonsense

It's all nonsense from the climate lobby!!

It's a generally known fact that there where fabricated graphics and emails were intercepted. We can therefore infer that the emails do exist. I have never seen one, but I have a friend of a friend who claims to have seen a female email with to cubs roaming near his hut in the Catskills.

But the green lobby wants us to believe all this crap about climate and orbits and stuff while we all know that it's absolutely not true. I will only believe that such things as the climate or the orbits exist when I see one with my own eyes!

What I still fail to understand is what the green lobby actually wants... that we all dress in green as in the Wizard of Oz?

Well, I wish you all a happy weekend and don't forget to adjust your tin foil hats... and mind the black helicopters and the chemtrails!!

G

I suggest doing nothing. It'll all work out in the end; geological time permitting. I've always vicariously fancied having any surviving offspring (yea unto the nth generation) live in a brutally hot/cold/wet/dry environment under a tribal or feudal regime, assuming they can find anyone to be in a tribe with. I'm sure cockroaches and rats are nutritious and tasty, if that's all there is?

Anyhow... So-long and thanks for all the fish!

Not to worry !

The Reg - courtesy of AO and LP - have conclusively shown that people like Anthony D. Barnosky, Elizabeth A. Hadly, Jordi Bascompte, Eric L. Berlow, James H. Brown, Mikael Fortelius, Wayne M. Getz, John Harte, Alan Hastings, Pablo A. Marquet, Neo D. Martinez, Arne Mooers, Peter Roopnarine, Geerat Vermeij, John W. Williams, Rosemary Gillespie, Justin Kitzes, Charles Marshall, Nicholas Matzke, David P. Mindell, Eloy Revilla & Adam B. Smith are all «hippies», whose views on these matters are to be disregarded in favour of those promoted by such experts as AO and LP themselves....

Henri

future "tipping point" as a scientific argument

The "common sense" conclusions are not to be argued with. Pollution is bad, M'Kay?

That goes without saying.

But the "we can't see any effect today but once the tipping point is reached we're doomed" is incredibly bad science. Actually it's not science at all, it's baseless fearmongering.

Photosynthetic organisms today are litterally starving by lack of CO2. CO2 is currently the limiting factor for photosynthesis, any serious plant (or algae) biologist will tell you that. It doesn't mean that pollution is good. It, however, means that the buffering capacity of the biosphere is massively underestimated by the fearmongerers. They also tend to forget a little thing called "albedo" which has a major effect on how Mommy Earth deals with incoming solar energy (much more important than that "greenhouse effect" that gets much media attention". Basically deserts reflect a lot more energy than oceans or "planted" areas (be it forests, cultivated ares, and everything inbetween). When you reduce ice- or snow-covered areas, you decrease albedo, surface warms but the greenhouse effect is decreased. Concurrently, you might ingrease (or decrease, the numbers are not clear on that) the area of "hot" deserts (such as Sahara, areas in Central/ North America -Mexico, Arizona, ...-, large areas of China etc) which increases albedo, decreases the surface temperature, and increase the influence of the greenhouse effect. In turn, the oceans, which are by far the biggest store of CO2 on earth, do tend to release CO2 when surface temperature rises, and absorb more when temperatures go down. That's only a direct effect of CO2 solubility in water. Phytoplankton in surface waters show increased photosynthesis when CO2 rises, which has a buffering effect. But CO2 also increases water acidity (decrease in pH), with more acidic pH leading to realease of CO2 from accumulated seashells (basically, chalk in the making) as well as possibly slowing down seashel formation in the live biomass. No one, absolutely noone, nobody, not a soul on Earth, can pretend with a semblancy of likelyhood that they can put figures on all that. Conjectures and supputations is all we can deal with for the moment. Political pressure has a very deleterious effect on the advancement of knowledge in that area -in ANY area. Unfortunately, that nascent area of science is under overwhelming political pressure, even more so than biomedical research.

I am not arguiing one way or another, my personnal "carbon footprint" is pretty modest (but that's coincidental to my quite frugal lifestyle, not the result of a militant AGW position). All I am saying is, please let the scientists do their job. Socio-political pressure is ADVERSE to scientific progress. And yes, I do have a horse in that race. In the biomedical field rather than in the climate field, though.