Climate Change: Road to Copenhagen I

Ronald Bailey | June 11, 2009

With this post I am initiating a periodic update of various landmarks along the road toward the United Nations' Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen. Known in UN jargon as the 15th Conference of the Parties (COP-15) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), the conference will convene in Denmark this coming December. Today's update features a new statement on climate change issued by the scientific academies of the world's 13 largest economies, including the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, the Royal Society, the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the Indian Academy of Sciences. Among many other things, the statement declares:

...climate change is happening even faster than previously estimated; global CO2 emissions since 2000 have been higher than even the highest predictions, Arctic sea ice has been melting at rates much faster than predicted, and the rise in the sea level has become more rapid. Feedbacks in the climate system might lead to much more rapid climate changes.

The need for urgent action to address climate change is now indisputable. For example, limiting global warming to 2°C would require a very rapid worldwide implementation of all currently available low carbon technologies.

According to the science academies' statement, all governments should

...agree at the UNFCCC negotiations in Copenhagen to adopt a long-term global goal and near-term emission reduction targets that will deliver an approximately 50% reduction in global emissions from 1990 levels by 2050 ...

Curiously, the statement doesn't talk about actual global temperature trends.

Read the whole statement here. Look for coming updates detailing various scientific and policy landmarks as the world wends its way toward Copenhagen in December.

Comments

Kyle Jordan|6.11.09 @ 10:15AM|#

"Curiously, the statement doesn't talk about actual global temperature trends."

What, you expect actual, good science to be part of The New Religion?

And for the record, I'm not a Climate Change denier. Just fed up with the onesided, ram it down our throats, control-Control-CONTROL bullshit that seems to spring up from most large bodies when it comes to handling Climate Change.



Oh and if you like folding pocket knives, you better stop. Homeland Security and Customs want to ban 'em.

|6.11.09 @ 10:20AM|#

climate change is happening even faster than previously estimated; global CO2 emissions since 2000 have been higher than even the highest predictions, Arctic sea ice has been melting at rates much faster than predicted, and the rise in the sea level has become more rapid.

Which one of these things is not evidence of an actual change in the climate?

I thought that the Arctic sea ice was staging a comeback the last few years?

Xeones|6.11.09 @ 10:22AM|#

I hope it snows really, really hard in Copenhagen this December.

Kyle: most of us here are already illegal, according to the DHS.

|6.11.09 @ 10:31AM|#

Well, I suppose they took the time out to specially commend Bush and the US for slowing the pace of US CO2 emissions since 2000, then? No?

They also fail to note that Antarctic sea ice is growing, though that's because Antarctica is still really cold, so increased water vapor elsewhere can mean extra ice in Antarctica even if the planet warms some.

Arctic sea ice is complicated. We had a really really melty year back in 2007. 2008 was fairly close to normal for most of the year, but then in the lowest ice months of September and October, a lot of melting occurred. This is believed to be because 2007 had so little ice, comparatively more of the ice in 2008 was thinner first-year ice and so it melted more rapidly. However, 2008 didn't reach the lows of 2007.

2009 so far is even closer to normal than 2008, though people are still waiting to see what will happen in September. Did 2007 cause a tipping point, or will it repair.

It is pretty crazy that they can say that "climate change is accelerating faster than expected" and completely leave out temperatures.

|6.11.09 @ 10:35AM|#

Artic Sea Ice Extent graph from 2002 onwards.

Chad|6.11.09 @ 10:52AM|#

Ron, of course they don't talk about global temperature trends, as this is old news. Temperatures have been slowly rising for the last 150 years.

Or are you complaining about no comments about the last 5-10 years? That's because if you look in terms of 5 year averages, rather than day-to-day data, there is nothing new. Temperatures keep climbing.

http://news.mongabay.com/2009/0127-temperature.html

And I find it interesting that you consistently post tropospheric temperatures, not surface temperatures, which are the ones that really matter. After all, we live in the surface, not in the middle of something that averages 11 miles deep.

Yes, there is a disagreement betweeen surface and satellite measurements, but there is no doubt that surface temperatures are rising. Glaciers, icecaps, and wildlife do not have an ideology - and they are voting with the surface measurements.

Zeb|6.11.09 @ 11:03AM|#

"Oh and if you like folding pocket knives, you better stop. Homeland Security and Customs want to ban 'em."

So, they only like fixed blade knives? Do you have a link to anything more specific on this?

creech|6.11.09 @ 11:10AM|#

This deal in Copenhagen is a video conference, right? I mean the delegates aren't actually going to fly there on carbon-emitting airplanes and dine on delicacies brought in from the far corners of the world are they?

engineer|6.11.09 @ 11:18AM|#

"Temperatures have been slowly rising for the last 150 years."

That's becase we're in an upswing from a previous down temperature cycle.

Chad|6.11.09 @ 11:20AM|#

2009 so far is even closer to normal than 2008, though people are still waiting to see what will happen in September. Did 2007 cause a tipping point, or will it repair.

Repair in the long term? Highly unlikely. "Repair" a bit for the next year or two, until the current La Nina phase and low-activity phase of the sunspot cycle ends? Probably.

Either way, the thick old ice is largly gone.

|6.11.09 @ 11:27AM|#

Temperatures have been slowly rising for the last 150 years.

So even if we cut back to Civil War-era CO2 emissions, temperatures are going to keep rising anyway? That's disappointing.

|6.11.09 @ 11:27AM|#

Chad:

"And I find it interesting that you consistently post tropospheric temperatures, not surface temperatures, which are the ones that really matter."

Actually, if you're looking for evidence of temperature change specifically attributable to the Greenhouse Effect, the troposphere would be the first and best place to look, since it's the exact location that GHGs would be working their IR spectrum absorbing magic.

If the earth's surface is warming, but the troposphere (the source of the Greenhouse Effect) is not warming as much, then at least some of the warming must be attributed to some other cause.

The added benefit of satellite trophosphere measurements is that they aren't influenced by sampling distribution irregularities (e.g the greater concentration of temperature stations in the northern hemisphere than the southern hemisphere) and certain elements of non-GHG related noise (e.g. the Urban Heat Island effect).

What, in your opinion, would be the advantage(s) of using surface measurments? One would be a longer data history, predating satellite measurements, but apart from that, I can't really think of any others.

engineer|6.11.09 @ 11:43AM|#

So...Farming temperatures in Greenland for almost a century didn't irreparably damage the Arctic environment, but slightly higher temperatures than existed in the 70's do?

Plus,Chad, the 150-year stat undermines your argument, since that means the warming started before there was a significant change in atmospheric CO2.

|6.11.09 @ 11:55AM|#

"That's because if you look in terms of 5 year averages, rather than day-to-day data, there is nothing new."

really ? so the statement that "climate change is happening even faster than previously estimated" is a lie? or does "nothing new" = "faster than previously estimated" in newspeak.

|6.11.09 @ 12:04PM|#

Repair in the long term? Highly unlikely. "Repair" a bit for the next year or two, until the current La Nina phase and low-activity phase of the sunspot cycle ends? Probably. Either way, the thick old ice is largly gone.

Chad, did you look at the graph? The 2007 minimum was almost one-third less than the traditional minimum. I'm not sure under what definition "one-third" is equal to "largely." (Or even "largly," for that matter.) The 2008 minimum recovered about a third of that third, contrary to (seemingly reasonable) predictions that the ice, left thinner after 2007, would all melt in 2008. It's ridiculous to say categorically that the thick old ice is largely gone. We don't know for certain, and the hypothesis that it was was the one that led the to assumption that 2008's ice extent would be even lower than 2007's. But it wasn't.

It's certainly true that the ice extent doesn't measure thickness, and that thinner ice will melt more in the summer, which is why ice extent appeared normal for most of 2008 but then dropped fairly rapidly towards the end of summer. But it didn't reach the 2007 lows, so we should certainly expect that we started this year with more ice than we started 2008 with. It still bears watching.

I'm glad to see that you're admitting that the sunspot cycle and La Nina has an effect. Shouldn't that surely mean that people who denied in 1998 that El Nino and sunspots had an effect were exaggerating the warming slightly? Shouldn't that mean that, on average, our opinion of how fast warming is occurring should have decreased compared to the predictions of those people?

Chad, one can certainly agree that warming has been on a 150 year upward trend, and that anthropogenic CO2 seems to have an effect (though the 150 years predates the really massive increase in human emitted CO2), but still agree that the pace of warming seems somewhat slower than according to the most dire predictions in 1997.

|6.11.09 @ 12:08PM|#

Since ice extent did not drop as low in 2008 as in 2007, it's certainly quite possible that 2009 started with thicker ice than 2008 did. We need to see what the data shows this year.

The point of "old" ice is that it's generally thicker. If old ice melted but the ice recovered to be thicker in the start of 2009 than at the start of 2008, then it doesn't matter that it's "young," thick ice. Scientifically speaking, age is only a proxy. Ice doesn't have memories.

Jordan|6.11.09 @ 12:14PM|#

For a look at just how hilariously pathetic the science behind the IPCC report is, take a look at this report by Drs. Fred Singer and Craig Idso. It's 880 pages of delicious schadenfreude. Executive summary available at the website.

|6.11.09 @ 12:21PM|#

Darnit! Stop all this blasphemy, it is despicable. We know what we have to do and all this debating is just anti-scientific. We need to cut to the chase and implement a one child policy pronto.

|6.11.09 @ 12:25PM|#

Presumably, the COP15 folks will let us know what the carbon footprint of their little confab is, right?

hrky|6.11.09 @ 12:44PM|#

Hey Ronald Bailey,
I'm a global warming skeptic like you, but what makes you think this satellite derived average global tropospheric temperature is a good metric for tracking global warming? I would think the part of global warming that really matters is the temperature at or near the surface. The whole 55,000 foot column of the troposphere wouldn't really be important. The link (http://discover.itsc.uah.edu/amsutemps/execute.csh?amsutemps+001) that Dr. Spencer gives shows the middle and upper troposphere has been average or cooler than average the past few years, while the layer nearest the surface that satellite has been measuring the temperature for since since the late 70's, the roughly 900 mb layer has had temperatures the past few years higher than the 1978-98 record highs. I don't know why a warmer surface and cooler mid and upper levels would exist or that it would support carbon dioxide (and methane) induced global warming, but it exists according to this satellite derived data (and btw, that temperature profile of the troposphere would support more severe thunderstorms). I would love to hear a reaction from you.

Chad|6.11.09 @ 1:16PM|#

I'm glad to see that you're admitting that the sunspot cycle and La Nina has an effect. Shouldn't that surely mean that people who denied in 1998 that El Nino and sunspots had an effect were exaggerating the warming slightly? Shouldn't that mean that, on average, our opinion of how fast warming is occurring should have decreased compared to the predictions of those people?

Can you cite for me anyone of importance who claimed that 1998 was NOT El-Nino related? Please give me the names of these deniers, who I believe are straw-men that you just constructed. 1998 was not a solar maximum, however.

The important point is that the last few years have been La Nina + low solar activity, which causes cooling. This is holding temperatures down, but will likely change in the next year or two.

Chad, one can certainly agree that warming has been on a 150 year upward trend, and that anthropogenic CO2 seems to have an effect (though the 150 years predates the really massive increase in human emitted CO2), but still agree that the pace of warming seems somewhat slower than according to the most dire predictions in 1997.

It is well within the range estimated, and the estimates keep getting worse, not better. Trying to extrapolate anything from a 10-year-span is beyond dangerous.

Gimlet|6.11.09 @ 1:28PM|#

"really ? so the statement that "climate change is happening even faster than previously estimated" is a lie? or does "nothing new" = "faster than previously estimated" in newspeak."

Scientists: Universe Now Twice as Old as Previously Thought

mark|6.11.09 @ 1:45PM|#

hrky, perhaps the surface temperature record is unreliable (google it) and troposphere temps would make just as good a "fingerprint" of climate change?

VM|6.11.09 @ 1:52PM|#

Hay Xeones - probably wont - rarely snows in Cph. But at least it'll be dark :)

StormFrontalNudity|6.11.09 @ 1:52PM|#

Kyle: most of us here are already illegal, according to the DHS.

Yowza, I better cover up my Rape A DHS Agent For Hitler bumper sticker.

hrky|6.11.09 @ 2:15PM|#

mark,
That could be the case. I just looked in an atmospheric radiation book of mine and it says that CO2 "is evenly mixed throughout the atmosphere." From that, one would conclude that warming should be the same throughout the atmosphere. But all this global warming science is pretty complex and murky.

Sam Grove|6.11.09 @ 2:22PM|#

I'm a global warming skeptic like you, but what makes you think this satellite derived average global tropospheric temperature is a good metric for tracking global warming?

Perhaps you didn't read earlier comments addressing this matter.

The tropospheric temperatures are what were predicted to rise from increased atmospheric CO2, not the surface temperatures (which are suspect).

The lack of tropospheric warming makes the models also suspect.

|6.11.09 @ 2:28PM|#

Glad to see that you've admitted defeat on the ice issue, Chad.

It is well within the range estimated, and the estimates keep getting worse, not better.

The models are showing worse estimates, yes, but reality is also agreeing with the models less. The actual data measurements still show some warming, yes, but they aren't getting worse like the models say. Is it reasonable to assume that our measurements and reality is wrong, or the models? That's including HadCRUT and NOAA, both of which use land temperatures.

There was reasonable disagreement on the extent of the effect of El Nino/La Nina, the ENSO, solar intensity, etc. The greater that you admit that those have an effect, then the more it's reasonable to attribute 1999 to other factors.

It's not a straw man; there were plenty of people downplaying the role of sunspots in 99 and 2000 (cycle 23 had started its uptick by 1998, and hit its max in 2000; 1998 wasn't a solar maximum, but it was a lot more sunspots than the last few years). They were either downplaying it then or are over-emphasizing it now.

Trying to extrapolate anything from a 10-year-span is beyond dangerous.

But trying to extrapolate from one year of Arctic ice in 2007 and refusing to see if 2009 will continue the rebound that 2008 had == brilliant. As is extrapolating from a seven year span of temperatures from 1992 to 1999, as many people did.

There's a limit to what you can extrapolate from a ten-year-span, but surely in all cases it gives some evidence. It's completely absurd to pretend that the last decade shouldn't somewhat decrease one's opinion of global warming,

Thanks to the last decade, if you now look at the last thirty years, there hasn't been a warming, because the existing effect was small enough and based on twenty years of extrapolation, so ten years of less warming wiped it out. Of course, if you look at 27 there is a definite warming effect, because 1972 was a cold year. If this is a cold year in a cycle then, yes, there's still a warming trend. Just not as big as the models predict.

Mike Laursen|6.11.09 @ 3:26PM|#

I hope it snows really, really hard in Copenhagen this December.

It would be taken as proof of increased climate instability. What you want is a completely average, non-remarkable winter.

|6.11.09 @ 3:28PM|#

I hope it snows really, really hard in Copenhagen this December.

If Al Gore is there, you can bet on a freakin' blizzard.

But, of course, if the snowfall exceed expectations, climate change blah blah snore.

Mike Laursen|6.11.09 @ 3:33PM|#

Hey Ronald Bailey, I'm a global warming skeptic like you...

You probably haven't been following Bailey regularly, so you aren't aware that he declared that he is convinced that global warming is real. Lately, though, he has been posting some of this contrary evidence.

hrky|6.11.09 @ 4:06PM|#

Sam grove,
After reading yesterday's comments, I assumed there wouldn't any very substantive comments, especially not from "Chad." Thanks for pointing that out.

Ebeneezer Scrooge|6.11.09 @ 4:54PM|#

This deal in Copenhagen is a video conference, right?

Are you kidding? This is so important that they get an over-ride. Like Al Gore does, you know?

It doesn't freaking matter if China and India aren't going to be playing along with this "Save the Planet, Kill Yourself" economic policy they want to impose on us.

The real goal is to finish killing the US economy now, before it has a chance to regenerate itself yet again.

|6.11.09 @ 5:01PM|#

I was looking at the COP15 logo, trying to figure out what it was supposed to represent.

Then it hit me: its the earth, with an overlay showing all the airplane trips taken by warmenistas.

mark|6.11.09 @ 6:27PM|#

Speaking of surface temperatures, check out this collection of rural weather stations with temperature readings from the past 100 years. For a good example of the "urban heat island" effect, see West Point, NY vs. Central Park over nearly 200 years. Please note that climate modelers have already attempted to account for this heating effect via statistical manipulation, rather than simply throwing out the bad data. Whether they did a good job of that or not, I can't tell you. These experts on forecasting seem to think the models are, to put it nicely, flawed.

Chad|6.12.09 @ 12:18AM|#

mark | June 11, 2009, 6:27pm | #
Speaking of surface temperatures, check out this collection of rural weather stations with temperature readings from the past 100 years.

Yes, it is clearly the urban heat island effect. No scientists would have thunk of dat!

And you do know that warming has been strongest in the Arctic. Please explain how a Moscow heat island warms Siberia. All the world's scientists are waiting to hear your theory.

Chad|6.12.09 @ 12:20AM|#

Glad to see that you've admitted defeat on the ice issue, Chad.

Uh?


But trying to extrapolate from one year of Arctic ice in 2007 and refusing to see if 2009 will continue the rebound that 2008 had == brilliant. As is extrapolating from a seven year span of temperatures from 1992 to 1999, as many people did.

We aren't extrapolating from 2007. We are extrapolating decades worth of data. It is YOU who is grasping at single year straws.

|6.12.09 @ 1:53AM|#

Time to fire up The Reason Index, Ron:

Rate of temperature rise through the year 2100 presumed by UN press release, in Microdegrees per day: 50

Rate of fossil fuel reduction UN press release seeks to mandate to achieve 2050 goal, in parts per million per day: 350

Rate of increase of radiative forcing from current fossil fuel burning, in microwatts per square meter per day: 35

Number of decades before temperature increase reaches 2 degrees at .04 K rate of rise of the last decade: 80




~30 microwatts

|6.12.09 @ 2:10AM|#

Continued:

Since ~ 30 microwatts per day is, at the scientific margin ,just about all that the publicists on both sides have to work with, it's the last statistic anyone wants publicized, because it fits no one's political timeline.

Sorry for the page break, Ron.
RS

|6.12.09 @ 7:51PM|#

Estimations, models and suspisions do not work when considering the integrity of old ice formations, neither do visual topo sources.
Massive old ice formations certainly lost mass over the years and many of the largest formations that hadn't moved for centuries were able to move throughout the arctic over the past two summers, but gone completely; no way.
We had -62 degrees at the house this winter, with 10 days at -50F. And this trend has moved from shorter periods with lows around -45f from 1998 through 2003, but since then we have consistently been returning to normal.
keep an eye on the Arctic station monitor and you'll see what I mean.
The Arctic sea temperatures at depth (below 600mm)have an unknown history, but you can bet they rose for several years, but not anymore...

MK
Gakona Alaska

http://www.athropolis.com/map2.htm

|6.14.09 @ 4:17PM|#

What I find is the public has lost trust. They do not trust the UN IPCC regarding climate science because they state that the money will be transferred to poor countries (the Dictators of which will take the money gladly). Sounds like the UN IPCC has an ulterior motive other than saving the environment. The public doesn't trust Gore anymore because, as the primary salesman, he stands to make way too much money from Cap&Trade. Sounds like Gore has an ulterior motive as well. They don't trust the politicians because there is something fishy about the present RUSH to get this new tax scheme passed through Congress. If it is such a good idea why is the Climate Bill now almost 1000 pages? Why is it that no one, including the people who wrote the bill, can say reasonably accurately what it will cost? All this sneaking around trying to get a bad bill through Congress makes me extremely suspicious. Sorry but 'Saving the Planet' with Cap&Trade, I just don't buy it anymore. Cap&Trade is about a new tax scheme, it's about the money not the planet.

mark|6.14.09 @ 7:04PM|#

And you do know that warming has been strongest in the Arctic. Please explain how a Moscow heat island warms Siberia. All the world's scientists are waiting to hear your theory.

Did you see the Siberia weather stations I linked to? Where is the warming?