Tag: Hansen

On fire inside a snowball

Fire: NOAA’s National Climate Data Centre has posted its report on global climate for July (press release). The combined global land and sea surface temperature of 16.5ºC was the second warmest in the NOAA record, 0.66°C above the average for the last 100 years of 15.8°C. The January to July period was the warmest in the record. The map below shows the anomalies for the month — spot the heatwave in Russia.

NOAA201007.gif

Meanwhile, NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) has posted its take on the the July numbers: What Global Warming Looks Like. Click on the thumbnail image at the top of the post to see their map of July temperatures. One striking point they comment on:

…the area warmer than climatology already (with global warming of 0.55°C relative to 1951-1980) is noticeably larger than the area cooler than climatology. Also the magnitude of warm anomalies now usually exceeds the magnitude of cool anomalies.

GISS also note that the 12-month running mean (below) of global temperature is well into record territory, and that it’s possible that calendar 2010 could also set a record.

GISSglobalrmJul2010.gif

Meanwhile, up North….

Continue reading “On fire inside a snowball”

Hansen in Norway

James Hansen has reported on his recent visit to Norway to receive the Sophie Prize. Hope springs eternal, he comments, and in spite of his disappointments with other world leaders, even those purported to be of the “greenest” variety, he wrote a letter to the Prime Minister of Norway prior to his visit.

“As you know, I am fond of Norway, and have great respect for your country and its citizens, as well as for your personal ambitions to protect global climate. Your recent rainforest initiative is a splendid example of leadership the world desperately needs. And your commitment at the Copenhagen climate talks to reduce Norway’s emissions 40 per cent by 2020 was exemplary.

“However, and especially in light of that, I am disappointed to learn that Statoil, Norway’s state-owned oil company, has taken such backward strides through its strategic decision to invest in Canada’s destructive tar sands industry. As the most energy-intensive source of oil, this project represents the worst of what humans are doing to the planet in a quest to prolong our global addiction to fossil fuels.

“It is still feasible to stabilize the climate, but only if we leave the tar sands in the ground. The massive greenhouse gas amounts from the tar sands surely would cause the climate system to pass tipping points, while also trampling on the human rights of Canada’s First Nation communities and greatly damaging the Canadian boreal forest.”

He went on to urge that the government, which owns two thirds of the shares of Statoil, support a resolution at the AGM that Statoil pull out of the tar sands engagement.

His reply came from the Deputy Minister of Petroleum and Energy, and after opening pleasantries got down to business:

“As you now know from the results of the Statoil Annual General Meeting, we see Statoil’s oils sands investment as a commercial decision which is within the Statoil board’s area of responsibility. We are of the opinion that such decisions should not be overturned by the AGM. It is our opinion that this is in line with good corporate governance, a view that is also shared by a vast majority in the Norwegian Parliament. I can however assure you that we will continue our offensive stance on climate change issues both at home and abroad, and we look forward to your continued engagement.”

Hansen offers the wry comment that a Norwegian grandfather, upon reading the Deputy Minister’s letter, quoted Saint Augustine: “Hypocrisy is the tribute that vice pays to virtue.”

In his acceptance speech Hansen said:

“The Norwegian government’s position is a staggering reaffirmation of the global situation: even the greenest governments find it too inconvenient to address the implication of scientific facts. Perhaps our governments are in the hip pocket of the fossil fuel industry – but that is not for science to say.

“What I can say from the science is this: the plans that governments, including Norway, are adopting spell disaster for young people and future generations. And we are running out of time.”

The Hansen et al 2008 paper Target Atmospheric CO2: Where Should Humanity Aim? set out the need for CO2 to be reduced to 350 ppm if we wish to preserve a planet similar to that on which civilisation developed. He sees this target carrying three essential policy requirements:

  • coal emissions must be phased out rapidly
  • unconventional fossil fuels, such as tar sands, must be left in the ground
  • we should not pursue every last drop of oil and gas, especially in pristine regions

That is the message from science to politicians as Hansen sees it. Politicians everywhere seem to be still finding reasons to reject it. Whether the excuse is preserving “good corporate governance” in Norway, or Gillard’s procrastinating argument that Australia needs a ”deep and lasting community consensus”, or Brownlee’s determination in New Zealand to extract wealth from deep sea drilling and coal exploitation, or American senators’ sectional loyalties, there’s still a very large gap between what the science says is necessary and what governments are prepared to do.

“I have been disappointed in interactions with more than half a dozen nations. In the end, each offers only soothing words, “goals” for future emission reductions, while their actual deeds prevent stabilization of climate.

“The glib response of Norway’s Prime Minister is that we are ‘future pessimists’. Clever engineers, he says, will solve the problem, perhaps with carbon capture. Meanwhile it is o.k. to develop tar sands and go after the last drop of oil in the Arctic. This is nonsense of course. Even if they use nuclear power to squeeze the oil from tar sands, the CO2 will come out of tailpipes. Also, the environmental destruction in Canada would never be allowed by Norwegians in Norway.”

Hansen not only reiterated the scientific message in Norway, but also hammered another constant refrain, that the only way to put a sensible price on carbon is by a carbon fee on oil, gas and coal, with the proceeds returned to the population on a per capita basis to allow lifestyle adjustments and spur clean energy innovations. His insistence on this has been criticised by fellow activists who favour cap-and-trade approaches and who accuse him of straying into the policy field where he lacks expertise.

But he is convinced that “cap-and-trade-with-offsets” is a system rigged by big banks and fossil fuel interests. He sees it as inviting corruption. “Worse, it is ineffectual, assuring continued fossil fuel addiction to the last drop and environmental catastrophe.”

Whether he is right about that seems to me to remain an open question. But he is certainly right about the imperative to reduce emissions sharply, and about the evasiveness of politicians who say the right things but do something different.

It’s as simple as that

As a former English teacher I naturally take pleasure from the presence of literary people in the battle for action on climate change. Andy Revkin’s DotEarth blog drew my attention to one this week.  He’s the Norwegian novelist Jostein Gaarder, the famed author of the novel Sophie’s World which since publication in 1995 has run to an extraordinary sales figure of 30 million copies worldwide, in 53 different languages. Taking a teenage girl through a discovery of the history of philosophy hardly seems the stuff of best-selling fiction, but it was in his case. And if you’re wondering what an author does with all that money, one of the uses it has been put to is the setting up of an annual US$100,000 international environment and development prize, the Sophie Prize. This year it has been awarded to climatologist James Hansen. “He receives the award for his clear communication of the threat posed by climate change and for his genuine commitment to future generations.”

Gaarder was invited as one of the speakers at a panel on global warming at this year’s PEN World Voices Festival, at which Revkin also spoke. The participants were asked to respond to the question “What can we do about climate change?”  Revkin commented that Gaarder stole the show in his “impassioned, humorous and biting talk’.

Continue reading “It’s as simple as that”

Talk in the town

Last night’s session with the Skeptics in the Pub in Christchurch was an interesting experience (some nice feedback too, thanks). It gave me a chance to develop a few of the thoughts that have been running through my mind recently — and it’s good to do that by presenting them to an audience willing to explore and challenge ideas. The question session at the end ran for about 40 minutes, and the best moment came when one sceptic (no “k”, he was clearly of the “not persuaded” variety) had been pushing me for a worst case. I said that it was conceivable that climate change could end our civilisation. The questioner turned to the rest of the audience and asked them if they really believed that, to receive a chorus of agreement and nods. That’s what happens in the real world: when sceptics leave the comfortable certainty of Wishart-world or Treadgold territory, µWatts or Morano’s depot, they find that the rational world is coming to terms with the real risks.

I promised the group I would make my slides available: they’re here [3.3MB pdf]. The first half of the talk dealt with some basics, and ended with a Katey Walter earth fart lighting session. I then moved on to explore some of the reasons why there is so much manufactured doubt about the reality or seriousness of climate change. The slides are reasonably self-explanatory, happy to discuss in comments.

References/credits:

Many thanks to John Cook at Skeptical Science for making so much of the necessary material so easy to find and use. And for the iPhone app…

[The (older) Pretenders]

Hansen: it can be cold in a warming world.

“If it’s that warm, how come it’s so darned cold?” is the heading James Hansen has given to a recently finalised essay circulated to his email list. In more sober terms he subtitles it Regional Cold Anomalies within Near-Record Global Temperature. 

The essay explains how the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) goes about analyzing global temperature change, using electronic receipt of data from three sources: (1) weather data for several thousand meteorological stations, (2) satellite observations of sea surface temperature, and (3) Antarctic research station measurements. And for those who might suggest that there’s secret manipulation going on Hansen makes it clear that the data is available for others who want to use it:

 

“Although the three input data streams that we use are publicly available from the organizations that produce them, we began preserving the complete input data sets each month in April 2008. These data sets, which cover the full period of our analysis, 1880-present, are available to parties interested in performing their own analysis or checking our analysis. The computer program used in our analysis can be downloaded from the GISS web site.”

The results are that 2009 tied (with 1998, 2002, 2003, 2006 and 2007 – differences too close to matter) as the second warmest year in the 130 years of global instrumental temperature record.  The warmest was 2005.  Hansen discusses the variance of the GISS figures with the Hadley Centre (HadCRUT) which has 1998 as the warmest year, and which has been used so frequently to support claims that the globe since 1998 is now cooling. After careful comparison he concludes that the differences that have developed between the GISS and HadCRUT global temperatures are due primarily to the extension of the GISS analysis into regions that are excluded from the HadCRUT analysis. He expresses a reasonable degree of confidence in the GISS preference for 2005. Over the decade the conclusion is easier: the world has become warmer, not cooler.

What about that cold 2009 December?  There was an unusual exchange of polar and mid-latitude air in the northern hemisphere, related to the most extreme Arctic Oscillation since the 1970s. His conclusion is that December 2009 was a highly anomalous month. High pressure in the polar region can be described as the “cause” of the extreme weather. There is no apparent basis for expecting frequent repeat occurrences of December 2009 conditions, though high winter variability including cold snaps will surely continue.

Further discussion of seasonal temperature anomalies leads to the observation that the change in the probability that the seasonal mean temperature at any given location will fall in the category that was defined as unusually warm during 1951-1980 has increased from 30 percent during that period to about 60 percent today. This will be illustrated in an upcoming publication.

The bottom line?

“The Earth has been in a period of rapid global warming for the past three decades. The assertion that the planet has entered a period of cooling in the past decade is without foundation. On the contrary, we find no significant deviation from the warming trend of the past three decades.”

I haven’t attempted to offer any of the detail with which Hansen builds his conclusions, but can report it as readily accessible to the lay person prepared to give it reasonably patient attention. The essay is another example of his skill in communicating serious science to non-scientists and of his laudable willingness to do so.

His preliminary remarks are worth separate attention. He notes that scientists reporting global warming have come under attack for a supposed conspiracy to manufacture evidence of global warming. Vicious personal messages are sent to the principal scientists almost daily.

“The spiral into an almost surrealistic situation with ad hominem attacks on scientists may have originated in part with vested interests who do not want society to address climate change. But there is more than that – including honest, wishful thinking that climate change is not really happening. But wishing does not alter facts.”

He stoutly supports the work of scientists:

“The scientific method practically defines integrity… All scientists make honest mistakes, but the scientific method is designed to correct them. The skeptical nature of the scientific method causes conclusions to be reexamined as new data appears. Cases of deliberate fudging of data, of scientific fraud, are so rare that these infrequent episodes live in infamy for decades and even centuries.”

He knows of no cases of fraud in analyses of global temperature measurements. In the face of unfounded accusations “our best approach is simply to continue to report our scientific results as clearly as possible.”

He thinks that most of the public continue to respect scientists for what they do and how they do it. I hope he’s right. Sometimes I think the forces of denial have taken on the aspect of a rampaging demonic power, against which the forces of quiet reason are for the time being ineffectual.