Message from the Eemian: too late to stop significant sea level rise

Time to focus on adaptation. (But bye bye Miami)

Jim White in the field
Jim White leaning on the wing of an airplane at the North Greenland Ice Core Project site in 2004. (Yes, paleoclimatologists do have fun!) He has just returned from another trip to Greenland — this time with a sober assessment of where we’re headed with climate change

This morning I interviewed James White, the director of the Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research here in Boulder, for KGNU radio’s “How on Earth” science show. White is a paleoclimatologist — he studies ancient climates to understand better how Earth’s climate system works. He has just journeyed back from the Greenland ice sheet, where he has been part of an international science team working on the North Greenland Eemian Ice Drilling project, or NEEM.

The “lede” for the story I would write based on this interview is pretty astonishing: In White’s view, it’s already too late to turn back the clock on climate change to save low-lying coastal cities like Miami. The ice cores that he and his colleagues drill from Greenland and Antarctica tell us that the last time greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere were as high as they are today, the world was even warmer than it is now, Greenland was largely deglaciated, and sea level was 10 to 15 feet higher.

In the interview, White barely mentioned reducing our emissions of greenhouse gases to mitigate climate change, although I know he thinks this would be a very good idea. Instead, he emphasized the need for societies to adapt to what he considers to be inevitable and very significant changes.

Click here for MP3 audio of the entire science show, including the interview. (The recording actually includes quite a bit of other material from before the science show, so scroll forward to about 13 minutes into the program, where the White interview begins.)

Below are some of the most significant moments from the interview. I’ve also included some context and my questions (which are not verbatim):

I pointed out that after two summers of work, the NEEM team has drilled down more than 1.5 miles through the Greenland ice sheet, reaching bedrock just last week. The ice Jim White and his colleagues have recovered originally fell as snow during the Eemian interglacial period, from 115,000 to 130,000 years ago. It contains valuable clues about the climate and environment at that time.

I asked White why recovering ice from the Eemian is significant.

“The Eemian, or the last interglacial period, is the last time climate was as warm as it is today. in fact, it was warmer than it is today. And that’s important because as climate warms, we want to know what the impacts are going to be. How much ice is going to melt, how are the climate patterns going to change, are the agricultural areas going to stay the same or are they going to change. And the last interglacial period, being warmer, is a good analogue for the future.”

The Eemian was as warm and perhaps even warmer than it is today. So what insights might the NEEM ice core give us about what could be in store for us in the future?

“First let me make the point that the Eemian . . . was indeed warmer. We have multiple lines of evidence for that . . . We also know that sea level was higher in the Eemian — in the neighborhood of 10 to 15 feet higher than today. Ten to 15 feet may not sound too impressive to us here in Colorado. But, for example, 10 to 15 feet would mean no Miami, no Norfolk Virginia, even Washington D.C. — the Mall would be underwater with 10 to 15 feet of sea level rise.

That’s important because it tells us that these interglacial periods, and climate in general, is not a static thing. We should expect change. We should expect that sea level will change. We should expect that temperatures will change. We should not be surprised that climate changes when we do something as fundamental as adding greenhouse gases to the atmosphere.”

White then pointed out that the 10 to 15 feet of sea level rise that occurred during the Eemian came from ice melting in Greenland and Antarctica. But scientists want to know what were the relative contributions from these ice sheets. And here is where the interview got very interesting:

“If sea level is rising at the rate that it is today, this is something that we can deal with. We’ll lose Miami, for example, but we can perhaps pay for that if we decide that’s the way we want to go. If sea level is rising very rapidly then that makes adaptation more difficult and more expensive.”

That really stopped me. My response: “Lose Miami? Really?”

White responded that most predictions are for roughly 3 feet of sea level rise by the end of the century.

“Go to Google Maps and plug that in and see what Miami looks like. And that’s just by the end of this century. Nobody that I know thinks that sea level is going to stop at a 3 foot rise. It’ll go maybe 10 or 15 feet at least in the next few hundred years. So most coastal cities around the world are going to have to be moved and repopulated elsewhere.

Is there anything we can do not simply to adapt but to prevent climate change and sea level rise?

“Carbon dioxide levels, methane levels, are already very high relative to what we know existed for the last million years. I don’t think that we’re going to turn that around very quickly. We could get into some very serious geoengineering in terms of removing these greenhouse gases from the atmosphere. Very expensive things to do.

My feeling is we just need to understand what the science is telling us and make intelligent decisions. I don’t really believe that it’s my role as a scientist to tell policy makers what to do. My role is to tell them this is the information you’re going to get, and we need as a society to make decisions. My pitch as an educator, as a professor, is that those be educated decisions. And whether it’s we’re going to adapt or we’re going to deal with this from a geoengineering sense, it doesn’t really matter to me . . . What matters to me is that we do this with intelligence and that we don’t just deny the obvious.

So we should pay more attention to adaptation?

“I think that adaptation is in our future whether we like it or not. We’re going to have to deal with this problem. You can’t stop physics. You can argue all you want. You can say global warming is not happening all you want, but that’s not going to stop global warming. So we’re going to have to deal with it. We’re going to have to adapt to it. And as I said I think it’s just important for us to do that adaptation with some intelligence. We’re going to have to make choices . . . How are we going to spend our money? We only have so much.”

And then came the kicker:

“We’re the only creature on the planet that can actually think through these things, and we ought to start thinking”

The Key to the Secrets of the Troposphere
Filed under:

* Climate Science

— rasmus @ 13 August 2010

World's coral faces second mass die-off
Scientists fear situation could be worse than '98, when 16 percent of coral was lost
By JUSTIN GILLIS
updated 9/21/2010 5:19:20 AM ET

This year’s extreme heat is putting the world’s coral reefs under such severe stress that scientists fear widespread die-offs, endangering not only the richest ecosystems in the ocean but also fisheries that feed millions of people.

From Thailand to Texas, corals are reacting to the heat stress by bleaching, or shedding their color and going into survival mode.

Many have already died, and more are expected to do so in coming months. Computer forecasts of water temperature suggest that corals in the Caribbean may undergo drastic bleaching in the next few weeks.

What is unfolding this year is only the second known global bleaching of coral reefs. Scientists are holding out hope that this year will not be as bad, over all, as 1998, the hottest year in the historical record, when an estimated 16 percent of the world’s shallow-water reefs died.

But in some places, including Thailand, the situation is looking worse than in 1998.

Scientists say the trouble with the reefs is linked to climate change.

...continues...

The UK’s leading scientific body has been forced to rewrite its guide on climate change and admit that it is not known how much warmer the Earth will become.

The Royal Society has updated its guide after 43 of its members complained that the previous version failed to take into account the opinion of climate change sceptics.

Now the new guide, called ‘Climate change: a summary of the science’, admits that there are some ‘uncertainties’ regarding the science behind climate change.

It impossible to know for sure how the Earth's climate will change in the future nor what the possible effects may be.

There is very strong evidence to indicate that climate change has occurred on a wide range of different timescales from decades to many millions of years; human activity is a relatively recent addition to the list of potential causes of climate change.'
’It is not possible to determine exactly how much the Earth will warm or exactly how the climate will change in the future, but careful estimates of potential changes and associated uncertainties have been made.

‘Scientists continue to work to narrow these areas of uncertainty. Uncertainty can work both ways, since the changes and their impacts may be either smaller or larger than those projected.’

Acidification of Oceans May Contribute to Global Declines of Shellfish

ScienceDaily (Oct. 3, 2010) — The acidification of the Earth's oceans due to rising levels of carbon dioxide (CO2) may be contributing to a global decline of clams, scallops and other shellfish by interfering with the development of shellfish larvae, according to two Stony Brook University scientists, whose findings are published online and in the current issue of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).

Professor Christopher J. Gobler, Ph.D., and Ph.D. candidate Stephanie C. Talmage of the School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences at Stony Brook conducted experiments to evaluate the impacts of past, present and future ocean acidification on the larvae of two commercially valuable shellfish: the Northern quahog, or hard clam, and the Atlantic bay scallop. The ability of both to produce shells partly depends on ocean water pH. Previous studies have shown that increases in atmospheric CO2 levels can lower the ocean's pH level, causing it to become more acidic.

"In general, the study of ocean acidification on marine animals is a relatively new field. Ocean acidification has been going on since the dawn of the Industrial Revolution but it has been investigated as a process for less than a decade," Dr. Gobler said. "People have known about rising levels of CO2 and have been talking about that for decades but had originally assumed the oceans would be able to maintain their pH while they were absorbing this CO2." The largest contributor to CO2 in the atmosphere and oceans is the burning of fossil fuels, Dr. Gobler said.

...continues...

Climate Change Target 'Not Safe', Researchers Say

ScienceDaily (Oct. 3, 2010) — An analysis of geological records that preserve details of the last known period of global warming has revealed 'startling' results which suggest current targets for limiting climate change are unsafe.

The study by climate change experts at the University of Exeter has important implications for international negotiators aiming to agree binding targets for future greenhouse gas emission targets.

Professor Chris Turney and Dr Richard Jones, both from the University's Department of Geography, have reported a comprehensive study of the Last Interglacial, a period of warming some 125,000 years ago, in the latest issue of the Journal of Quaternary Science.

The results reveal the European Union target of limiting global temperature rise to less than 2°C above pre-industrial levels shouldn't be considered 'safe'.

From their analysis, the scientists found 263 estimates of the conditions when sediments and ice were laid down during the Last Interglacial, allowing them to reconstruct past temperatures around the globe. To compare the reconstructed estimates with today, they took the Last Interglacial values away from modern temperatures averaged over the period 1961 to 1990.

...continues...

Alarming Increase in Flow of Water Into Oceans Due to Global Warming, Accelerated Cycle of Evaporation, Precipitation

ScienceDaily (Oct. 4, 2010) — Freshwater is flowing into Earth's oceans in greater amounts every year, a team of researchers has found, thanks to more frequent and extreme storms linked to global warming. All told, 18 percent more water fed into the world's oceans from rivers and melting polar ice sheets in 2006 than in 1994, with an average annual rise of 1.5 percent.

"That might not sound like much -- 1.5 percent a year -- but after a few decades, it's huge," said Jay Famiglietti, UC Irvine Earth system science professor and principal investigator on the study, which will be published this week in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. He noted that while freshwater is essential to humans and ecosystems, the rain is falling in all the wrong places, for all the wrong reasons.

"In general, more water is good," Famiglietti said. "But here's the problem: Not everybody is getting more rainfall, and those who are may not need it. What we're seeing is exactly what the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change predicted -- that precipitation is increasing in the tropics and the Arctic Circle with heavier, more punishing storms. Meanwhile, hundreds of millions of people live in semiarid regions, and those are drying up."

...continues...

River. Freshwater is flowing into Earth's oceans in greater amounts
every year, a team of researchers has found, thanks to more frequent
and extreme storms linked to global warming. All told, 18 percent more
water fed into the world's oceans from rivers and melting polar ice sheets
in 2006 than in 1994, with an average annual rise of 1.5 percent.
(Credit: iStockphoto/Johnny Lye)

Climate Change Affects Horseshoe Crab Numbers

ScienceDaily (Oct. 4, 2010) — Having survived for more than 400 million years, the horseshoe crab is now under threat -- primarily due to overharvest and habitat destruction. However, climatic changes may also play a role. Researchers from the University of Gothenburg reveal how sensitive horseshoe crab populations are to natural climate change in a study recently published in the scientific journal Molecular Ecology.

The horseshoe crab is often regarded as a living fossil, in that it has survived almost unchanged in terms of body design and lifestyle for more than 400 million years. Crabs similar to today's horseshoe crabs were walking the Earth long before the dinosaurs.

"Examining the genetic variation in populations of horseshoe crabs along the east coast of America has enabled us to track changes in population size over time," says Matthias Obst from the Department of Zoology at the University of Gothenburg, one of the authors of the study published in Molecular Ecology. "We noted a clear drop in the number of horseshoe crabs at the end of the Ice Age, a period characterised by significant global warming."

...continues...

Horseshoe crab.
(Credit: Photo: University of Gothenburg)

Climate Change Hits Southeast Australia Fish Species

ScienceDaily (Oct. 5, 2010) — Scientists are reporting significant changes in the distribution of coastal fish species in south-east Australia which they say are partly due to climate change.

CSIRO's Climate Adaptation and Wealth from Oceans Flagships have identified 43 species, representing about 30 per cent of the inshore fish families occurring in the region, that exhibited shifts thought to be climate-related.

These include warm temperate surf-zone species such as Silver Drummer and Rock Blackfish that are breeding and have become more abundant, and range increases in Snapper and Rock Flathead. There is also a greater abundance of warm water tunas and billfishes and occasional visits from Queensland Groper and Tiger Sharks.

"Furthermore, up to 19 species, or 5 per cent, of Tasmanian coastal fish fauna have undergone serious declines or are possibly extinct locally," says the Curator of the Australian National Fish Collection, Dr Peter Last. "At the same time many warm temperate species have moved in and colonised the cool temperate Tasmanian region.

"Shifts in the distribution of marine animals in response to climate change can be detrimental to some species. The problem is that in southern Tasmania, shallow cold water species have nowhere to escape warmer conditions in the sea," Dr Last says.

...continues...

The Maugean Skate – currently listed as Endangered by
the IUCN Red List of Threatened Animals. (Credit: CSIRO)

Scientists found that a decline in the Sun's activity did not lead as expected to a cooling of the Earth, a surprise finding that could have repercussions for computer models on climate change.

Greatest Warming Is in the North, but Biggest Impact on Life Is in the Tropics, New Research Shows

ScienceDaily (Oct. 6, 2010) — In recent decades documented biological changes in the far Northern Hemisphere have been attributed to global warming, changes from species extinctions to shifting geographic ranges. Such changes were expected because warming has been fastest in the northern temperate zone and the Arctic.

But new research published in the Oct. 7 edition of Nature adds to growing evidence that, even though the temperature increase has been smaller in the tropics, the impact of warming on life could be much greater there than in colder climates.

The study focused on ectothermic, or cold-blooded, organisms (those whose body temperature approximates the temperature of their surroundings). Researchers used nearly 500 million temperature readings from more than 3,000 stations around the world to chart temperature increases from 1961 through 2009, then examined the effect of those increases on metabolism.

"The expectation was that physiological changes would also be greatest in the north temperate-Arctic region, but when we ran the numbers that expectation was flipped on its head," said lead author Michael Dillon, an assistant professor of zoology and physiology at the University of Wyoming.

...continues...

New research finds that even though the temperature increase
has been smaller in the tropics, the impact of warming on life
could be much greater there than in colder climates.
(Credit: iStockphoto/Jan Rysavy)

Population Change: Another Big Influence on Climate Change

ScienceDaily (Oct. 11, 2010) — Changes in population, including aging and urbanization, could significantly affect global emissions of carbon dioxide over the next 40 years, according to a new study.

The study, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), was conducted by researchers from the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR), the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA), and the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration. It was funded by a European Young Investigator's Award*, the Hewlett Foundation, and the US National Science Foundation.

By mid-century it is estimated that global population could rise by more than three billion people, with most of that increase occurring in urban areas. The study showed that a slowing of that population growth could contribute to significantly reducing greenhouse gas emissions. By 2050, the researchers found that if population followed one of the slower growth paths foreseen as plausible by demographers at the United Nations, it could provide 16 to 29 percent of the emission reductions thought necessary to keep global temperatures from causing serious impacts. The effect of slower population growth on greenhouse gas emissions would be even larger by the end of the century.

"If global population growth slows down, it is not going to solve the climate problem, but it can make a contribution, especially in the long term," says the study's lead author and NCAR scientist Brian O'Neill.

...continues...

Changes in population, including aging and urbanization,
could significantly affect global emissions of carbon dioxide
over the next 40 years, according to a new study.
(Credit: iStockphoto)

Huge Parts of World Are Drying Up: Land 'Evapotranspiration' Taking Unexpected Turn

ScienceDaily (Oct. 11, 2010) — The soils in large areas of the Southern Hemisphere, including major portions of Australia, Africa and South America, have been drying up in the past decade, a group of researchers conclude in the first major study to ever examine "evapotranspiration" on a global basis.

Most climate models have suggested that evapotranspiration, which is the movement of water from the land to the atmosphere, would increase with global warming. The new research, published online this week in the journal Nature, found that's exactly what was happening from 1982 to the late 1990s.

But in 1998, this significant increase in evapotranspiration -- which had been seven millimeters per year -- slowed dramatically or stopped. In large portions of the world, soils are now becoming drier than they used to be, releasing less water and offsetting some moisture increases elsewhere.

Due to the limited number of decades for which data are available, scientists say they can't be sure whether this is a natural variability or part of a longer-lasting global change. But one possibility is that on a global level, a limit to the acceleration of the hydrological cycle on land has already been reached.

If that's the case, the consequences could be serious.

They could include reduced terrestrial vegetation growth, less carbon absorption, a loss of the natural cooling mechanism provided by evapotranspiration, more heating of the land surface, more intense heat waves and a "feedback loop" that could intensify global warming.

"This is the first time we've ever been able to compile observations such as this for a global analysis," said Beverly Law, a professor of global change forest science at Oregon State University. Law is co-author of the study and science director of the AmeriFlux network of 100 research sites, which is one major part of the FLUXNET synthesis that incorporates data from around the world.

"We didn't expect to see this shift in evapotranspiration over such a large area of the Southern Hemisphere," Law said. "It is critical to continue such long-term observations, because until we monitor this for a longer period of time, we can't be sure why this is occurring."

Some of the areas with the most severe drying include southeast Africa, much of Australia, central India, large parts of South America, and some of Indonesia. Most of these regions are historically dry, but some are actually tropical rain forests.

...continues...

The soils in large areas of the Southern Hemisphere, including major
portions of Australia, Africa and South America, have been drying up
in the past decade, a group of researchers conclude in the first major
study to ever examine "evapotranspiration" on a global basis.
(Credit: iStockphoto/Domenico Pellegriti)

Coral Records Show Ocean Thermocline Rise With Global Warming

ScienceDaily (Oct. 11, 2010) — Researchers looking at corals in the western tropical Pacific Ocean have found records linking a profound shift in the depth of the division between warm surface water and colder, deeper water traceable to recent global warming.

The finding is the first real evidence supporting what climate modelers have been predicting as the effects of global climate change on the subsurface ocean circulation.

The report by researchers from Ohio State University and the University of Toronto was published in the latest online edition of the journal Geophysical Review Letters.

"We're trying to find a way to understand how the warm water in the tropical Pacific has changed in the last century, but more importantly during the last several decades," said Branwen Williams, who conducted this research while a doctoral student at Ohio State. Williams is now a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Toronto.

"The Pacific is really important since it serves as a strong driver and changes in this ocean can have a very strong impact on global climate and oceanography."

What plagues modelers and researchers alike is the limited amount of information available about the ocean when studying climate change. Satellite data and physical measurements are mainly restricted to the ocean's surface waters. What happens deeper in the waters is often an unknown.

Williams and Andrea Grottoli, an associate professor of earth sciences at Ohio State and Williams' former advisor, turned to a prolific form of soft coral, the Gorgonians, growing on a reef off the island nation of Palau.

"These corals 'sway' with the current underwater," Grottoli explained, "like trees in the wind. Since they aren't restricted to shallow and warmer surface waters like other tropical corals, they provide an opportunity to reconstruct a picture of subsurface ocean circulation in a region."

Specifically, the researchers were interested in how the boundary layer between the warmer, shallow water and the colder deeper water -- the thermocline -- has changed. But directly measuring that over time and across a broad area is impossible.

...continues...

Researchers Branwen Williams and Andrea Grottoli with soft coral and black
coral specimens collected offshore of Palau in the western tropical Pacific.
(Credit: Image courtesy of Ohio State University)

Ancient Animal Urine Provides Insight Into Climate Change

ScienceDaily (Oct. 12, 2010) — Scientists at the University of Leicester are using an unusual resource to investigate ancient climates -- prehistoric animal urine.

The animal in question is the rock hyrax, a common species in countries such as Namibia and Botswana. They look like large guinea pigs but are actually related to the elephant. Hyraxes use specific locations as communal toilets, some of which have been used by generations of animals for thousands of years. The urine crystallises and builds up in stratified accumulations known as 'middens', providing a previously untapped resource for studying long-term climate change.

Funding from the Leverhulme Trust and, more recently, the European Research Council has allowed the Leicester group to join an international team led by Dr Brian Chase, from the Institut des Sciences de l'Evolution de Montpellier, to study these unique deposits. With Dr Chase, Drs Andrew Carr and Arnoud Boom from the University of Leicester's Department of Geography are engaged in exploring novel records of past environmental change preserved within the middens.

Their work has recently been published in the journals Quaternary Research, Palaeogeography Palaeoclimatology Palaeoecology and Geology.

"In order to study past environmental changes scientists typically acquire samples from deposits laid down in bogs or lakes, within which organic matter, which can be dated is preserved," explains Dr Carr. "But in dryland environments such as southern Africa this isn't possible. Fortunately it seems that hyrax urine preserves organic matter over timescales of tens of thousands of years, which provides remarkable insights into past environmental changes within the hyrax habitat."

...continues...

Dr. Brian Chase is abseiling to sample a midden.
(Credit: University of Leicester)

Tyrannical wrote:http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=CNG.6f90940f6d9bb44d73f1c586d3a44fbb.8c1&show_article=1
Solar surprises raise questions for climate models

Scientists found that a decline in the Sun's activity did not lead as expected to a cooling of the Earth, a surprise finding that could have repercussions for computer models on climate change.

Every Solar Surprise is just more evidence that global warming alarmist theory is based on bad science.

Insisting on caution, Haigh said that if the Sun turned out to have a warming effect during the "waning" part of the cycle, it might also turn out to have a cooling effect during the "waxing" part of the cycle.

In that case, greenhouse gases would be more to blame than thought for the perceptible rise in global temperatures over the past century.

"We cannot jump to any conclusions based on what we have found during this comparatively short period," Haigh said. "We need to carry out further studies to explore the Sun's activity, and the patterns that we have uncovered, on longer timescales."

DanDare wrote:

Tyrannical wrote:http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=CNG.6f90940f6d9bb44d73f1c586d3a44fbb.8c1&show_article=1
Solar surprises raise questions for climate models

Scientists found that a decline in the Sun's activity did not lead as expected to a cooling of the Earth, a surprise finding that could have repercussions for computer models on climate change.

Every Solar Surprise is just more evidence that global warming alarmist theory is based on bad science.

Quote mine. From the same article:

Insisting on caution, Haigh said that if the Sun turned out to have a warming effect during the "waning" part of the cycle, it might also turn out to have a cooling effect during the "waxing" part of the cycle.

In that case, greenhouse gases would be more to blame than thought for the perceptible rise in global temperatures over the past century.

"We cannot jump to any conclusions based on what we have found during this comparatively short period," Haigh said. "We need to carry out further studies to explore the Sun's activity, and the patterns that we have uncovered, on longer timescales."

Large Gaps Found in Public Understanding of Climate Change

ScienceDaily (Oct. 14, 2010) — Sixty-three percent of Americans believe that global warming is happening, but many do not understand why, according to a national study conducted by researchers at Yale University.

The report titled "Americans' Knowledge of Climate Change" found that only 57 percent know what the greenhouse effect is, only 45 percent of Americans understand that carbon dioxide traps heat from the Earth's surface, and just 50 percent understand that global warming is caused mostly by human activities. Large majorities incorrectly think that the hole in the ozone layer and aerosol spray cans cause global warming. Meanwhile, 75 percent of Americans have never heard of the related problems of ocean acidification or coral bleaching.

However, many Americans do understand that emissions from cars and trucks and the burning of fossil fuels contribute to global warming and that a transition to renewable energy sources is an important solution.

...continues...