by Rob Painting, via Skeptical Science  

Main points

• Development of El Niño in 2014 continues to edge closer with sea surface temperature in the key indicator equatorial regionapproaching El Niño thresholds.

• The discharge of ocean heat to the atmosphere associated with the build-up of the El Niño phenomenon has predictably seen a rise in global surface temperatures, resulting in May 2014 being the warmest May ever recorded.

• Despite the strong initial build-up of a large warm water volume anomaly (WWV) in the equatorial subsurface ocean earlier in the year, the atmosphere has so far not provided sufficient reinforcement to maintain this large pool of warmer-than-average water and a substantial portion has been eroded.

• The last half-century of observations, however, still favour the development of an extreme El Niño event, but the substantial reduction of the warm water volume anomaly (thankfully) diminishes the odds of a powerful event rivaling that of 1997-1998 from taking hold.

My presentation on “No carbon budget left to burn” at the opening session of the Breakthrough2014 climate conference is now available as audio plus slides. It is 18 minutes:

No Carbon Budget Left to Burn from Breakthrough on Vimeo.

LISTEN
Listen to David’s carbon budget interview on Radio EcoShock
RELATED POST
The real budgetary emergency and the myth of “burnable carbon”
RELATED POST
Carbon budgets, climate sensitivity and the myth of “burnable carbon”

by David Spratt

“A game changer” is how climate scientist Dr Malte Meinshausen describes newly published research that West Antarctic glaciers have passed a tipping point much earlier than expected and their disintegration is now “unstoppable” at just the current level of global warming. The research findings have shocked the scientific community. “This Is What a Holy Shit Moment for Global Warming Looks Like,” ran a headline in Mother Jones magazine.

by David Spratt

Breakthrough National  Climate Restoration Forum 21-22 June,  Melbourne

In my previous post explaining why there is no carbon budget left for burning fossil fuels for a 2-degree Celsius (°C) target, I explained that these carbon budget calculations are expressed in probabilities of not exceeding the target. This reflects a number of uncertainties in understanding, including climate sensitivity, ocean heat uptake inertia, the influences of non-carbon dioxide forcing agents, and because results vary somewhat among model ensembles.

Of these, climate sensitivity is the biggest issue, because of the possibilities that climate change might proceed more rapidly than currently estimated because of reinforcing feedbacks, thresholds or tipping points in the climate system, or less rapidly because of dampening feedbacks.

by David Spratt

How fast and how profoundly we act to stop climate change caused by human actions, and work to return to a safe climate, is perhaps the greatest challenge our species has ever faced, but are we facing up to what really needs to be done?

LISTEN
Listen to David’s carbon budget interview on Radio EcoShock
RELATED POST
Carbon budgets, climate sensitivity and the myth of “burnable carbon”
WATCH PRESENTATION
No carbon left to burn (audio + slides, 17 minutes)

We have to come to terms with two key facts:  practically speaking, there is no longer a “carbon budget” for burning fossil fuels while still achieving a two-degree Celsius (2°C) future; and the 2°C cap is now known to be dangerously too high.

No Carbon Budget Left – David Spratt from Breakthrough on Vimeo.

For the last two decades, climate policy-making has focused on 2°C of global warming impacts as being manageable, and a target achievable by binding international treaties and incremental, non-disruptive, adjustments to economic incentives and regulations (1).

Research has identified a number of psychological barriers that can prevent people from believing in or acting on messages about climate change. Luckily, it has also suggested strategies for overcoming these barriers. Second of a two-part report by Paul Connor.

Second of 2 parts | Part 1

5. Some messages can get through to conservatives! Sort of…

One of the most common analyses one hears about the social psychology of climate change is that the issue has become increasingly politicised over the last decade. More and more, it is said, people are making up their minds on the issue according to their political allegiance, and not by an objective assessment of the facts. And certainly, there has been an observable trend for opinions on the issue to increasingly diverge across political and ideological lines.

Research has identified a number of psychological barriers that can prevent people from believing in or acting on messages about climate change. Luckily, it has also suggested strategies for overcoming these barriers. First of a two-part report by Paul Connor.

Part 1 of 2 parts | Part 2

1. Climate change activists are pretty decent social psychologists. Social psychologists are terrible activists.

Most climate change activists I know are at least to some degree also social psychologists. They constantly consider questions like ‘how can we change the way people think’, ‘how can we make people care more’, and ‘what is the sound bite that is going to be most effective for this campaign?’. Generally, they hold reasonable theories about human psychology and societies. And for the most part, they’re willing to revise these theories as experience dictates.

Forget the cost of mitigating climate change, say two researchers. It’s impossible to work out how much it will be – and whatever it is, we should do it anyway.

By Alex Kirby, Climate News Network

Two researchers who tried to work out the economics of  reducing global climate change to a tolerable level have come up with a perhaps surprising answer: essentially, we do not and cannot know what it would cost.

It has been a busy few weeks. All sorts of things have become apparent: Climate change is real, and it man-made, Australia’s policies are a joke, renewable energy investment is leaving Australia, wind and solar do not add costs to the grid, they don’t need new back-up, and they have been reducing prices. And the world is changing while Australia stands still. So, what’s the problem? Clarke and Dawe have the answer.

Source: Climate Council

The planet is warming, and so is Australia
The latest survey compiled by the CSIRO and the Bureau of Meteorology – two institutions that the Abbott government has yet to remove or successfully muzzle – shows that Australia is almost a degree warmer, on average, than it was a century ago. And that is roughly in line with global rates of atmospheric warming. And, it is set to continue warming at a rate that depends on how fast greenhouse emissions can be reduced.
The report says seven of Australia’s 10 warmest years have happened since 1998; over the past 15 years, very warm months have occurred at five times the long-term average, while very cool months have declined by a third; and by 2070, temperatures will be anywhere between 1C and 5C warmer than the 1980-1999 average, depending on future emissions cuts. Note the link between rising temperatures and emissions.

by Gabrille Kuiper, first published in Overland

Four Degrees of Global Warming: Australia in a hot world Peter Christoff (ed), Earthscan/Routledge, 2013

The book Four Degrees or More? Australia in a hot world, edited by political scientist Peter Christoff, is a timely overview of what we know currently about both global and local predicted impacts of climate change.

As Christoff notes, ‘this four-degree world is one of almost unimaginable social, economic and ecological consequences and catastrophes’ but, given current international and Australian energy and climate policies, it is “an impending reality”. The book contains contributions by Australia’s leading scientists and economists, including Ross Garnaut, David Karoly and Will Steffen, setting out a four-degree future across the ecological, social and economic impacts, and the adaptation that will be required.

by David Spratt

On 20 March I spoke, together with Adam Bandt MP, at a forum in Melbourne on Global warming, Tony Abbott and the need for climate action.

The second half of my presentation was on how to turn the tide, looking at the “middle third” in recent polling and Tony Abbott’s and his government’s vulnerability on climate, and what they are desperate to not talk about:

• More and more intense extreme weather events (exemplified by their silence on the spring 2013 fires, and record January 2014 heat);
• A public conversation that “connects the dots” between extreme events and climate change, and which gives immediacy to the perception of climate impacts;
• Constructing a climate narrative about human climate impacts, rather than electricity prices and taxes;
• Public focus on the responsibility of political leaders to “protect the people” from climate change; and
• Close attention being paid to the efficacy of their “direct action” climate plan.

First posted at robertscribler

What’s the difference between a majestic layer of white sea ice and an ominous dark blue open ocean?

For the Arctic, it means about a 30 to 50 per cent loss in reflectivity (or albedo). And when seasonal sea-ice states are between 30 and 80 per cent below 1979 measures (depending on the method used to gauge remaining sea ice and relative time of year), that means very, very concerning additional heating impacts to an already dangerous human-caused warming.

A dark and mostly ice-free Arctic Ocean beneath a tempestuous swirl of clouds on September 1, 2012, a time when sea ice coverage had declined to an area roughly equal to the land mass of Greenland. Image source: Lance-Modis/NASA AQUA.

How concerning, however, remained somewhat unclear until recently.

In the past, idealized climate simulations and physical model runs had produced about a two per cent overall loss in Arctic albedo based on observed sea ice losses. This decline, though minor sounding, was enough, on its own, to add a little more than a 10 per cent amplifying feedback to the already powerful human atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO₂) forcing during recent years. Such an addition was already cause for serious concern and with sea ice totals continuing to fall rapidly, speculation abounded that just this single mechanism could severely tip the scales toward a more rapid warming.

by Lindsay Abrams, via Salon.com 

Think global climate change hasn’t been very noticeable from where you’re standing? Down in the oceans (which is to say, over the majority of Earth’s surface), temperatures spiked last year, as warming proceeding at an incredibly rapid pace.
Skeptical Science calls attention to the oceans’ temperature rise for the final quarter of 2013, which literally was almost off-the-charts:

(via the National Oceanic Data Center)

Second in a series | Part 1

On 10-11 December 2013, a Radical Emissions Reduction Conference was held at the Royal Society, London under the auspices of the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research at the University of East Anglia. In this blog, we look at a presentation by Professor Corinne Le Quere, of the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, University of East Anglia on “The scientific case for radical emissions reductions”.

Le Quere framed “radical emission reductions” as reductions consistent with a two-in-three chance of keeping global warming to less than 2 degrees Celsius (°C), saying that there is no surety that 2°C is a safe threshold, but according to the geological record, there have been periods of up to 2°C warming during the past 800,000 years that did not trigger any “nasty or unexpected” feedbacks, though sea-levels were 5–10 metres higher than today.

The head of the World Meteorological Organization says there is no standstill in global warming, which is on course to continue for generations to come.
By Alex Kirby, Climate News Network

The planet is continuing to warm, with implications for generations ahead, and temperatures are set to rise far into the future, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) reports.

Global surface temperatures relative to 1951-1980. The Niño index is based on sea surface temperature in the Niño 3.4 area (5N-5S, 120-170W) in the eastern tropical Pacific for 1951-1980 base period. Green triangles mark times of volcanic eruptions that produced an extensive stratospheric aerosol layer.

It says 2013 was among the ten warmest years since modern records began in 1850, equalling 2007 as the sixth warmest year, with a global land and ocean surface temperature 0.50°C above the 1961–1990 average and 0.03°C higher than the most recent 2001–2010 average.

[ Updated 2 February 2014]
NOTE: This blog was originally drafted as notes for a small group discussion in Melbourne. It is in part a situational analysis, covering the need to engage with conservative voters, the fragmentation of our efforts, and the growing gap between what is scientifically necessary and what is considered politically possible, resulting in a cognitive dissonance which is structurally embedded in the climate discourse. At first, I was reluctant to publish these notes because they are pretty blunt, but a number of people thought they were worth an airing, especially because the Abbott government is waging an all-out “shock and awe” war to destroy climate and environment public policy, for which much of our side appears ill-prepared.

• Related Post: A sober assessment of our situation (July 2012)

by David Spratt

“Honesty about this challenge is essential, otherwise we will never develop realistic solutions. We face nothing less than a global emergency, which must be addressed with a global emergency response, akin to national mobilisations pre-WWII or the Marshall Plan… This is not extremist nonsense, but a call echoed by an increasing numbers of world leaders as the science becomes better understood… In the face of catastrophic risk, emission reduction targets should be based on the latest, considered, science, not on a political view of the art-of-the-possible.”
— Ian Dunlop, formerly senior oil, gas and coal industry executive and CEO of the Australian Institute of Company Directors,  “Global warming is a global emergency”, Crikey, 25 February 2009

Australia’s climate action movement is diverse: from large, professional national organisations to local volunteer community groups; from issue-specific campaigns focussing on coal, coal seam gas (CSG) and renewables to sector-specific groups; from organisations focused on policy-makers to activists directly confronting the fossil fuel industry. The election of the Abbott government has created a moment of crisis and a chance to review.

The state of the Australian climate movement as Labor falters and the conservatives gain ascendancy in mid-2012, some harsh realities and ways forward.

Arctic sea-ice melt record more than broken, it’s being smashed
The extraordinary events of the 2012 northern summer and their consequences.

Brightsiding is a bad strategy (5 parts)
Why all “good news” and no “bad news” is a bad climate action and communications strategy?

What would 3 degrees mean?
The astounding global impacts of 2, 3 and 4 degrees of warming.

by David Spratt

It’s a cliche that a picture tells a story better than a thousand words, and it’s really true in the case of this extraordinary map of weather modelling of northern hemisphere temperature anomalies (variations from the expected values based on climate records) for 29 January 2014:

Prof. Kevin Anderson

First in a series

On 10-11 December 2013, a Radical Emissions Reduction Conference was held at the Royal Society, London under the auspices of the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research at the University of East Anglia. The conference’s purpose was described as:

Today, in 2013, we face an unavoidably radical future. We either continue with rising emissions and reap the radical repercussions of severe climate change, or we acknowledge that we have a choice and pursue radical emission reductions: No longer is there a non-radical option. Moreover, low-carbon supply technologies cannot deliver the necessary rate of emission reductions – they need to be complemented with rapid, deep and early reductions in energy consumption – the rationale for this conference.

US, US News

Last Updated: August 1, 2014 4:46 pm

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The Yellowstone volcano is an increasing source of interest, being perceived as one of the volcanoes most likely to erupt in the United States and the subject of a number of articles, videos, and blog posts.

People have been sharing advice on how to survive if the volcano does end up erupting anytime soon. Now it’s worth looking at the potential effects of an eruption.

Many U.S. residents would be at risk of dying or suffering from the results of an eruption. When volcanoes erupt, they shoot out lava, which becomes ash during the eruption as it’s shattered into tiny particles. Volcanic ash is made up of tiny, dust-like fragments of jagged rock, minerals, and volcanic glass.

Volcanic ash is a big mess, being hard, abrasive, and not dissolving in water, according to the National Geographic encyclopedia. It can also conduct electricity when wet.

The main concern with an eruption at Yellowstone revolves around the span of the ash. How far away could it get?

Most of the United States could get covered with the ash, as it was in the previous large eruptions at Yellowstone. More than a dozen states could be covered entirely or partially with ash and debris.

Places nearby the eruption would also have to deal with the pyroclastic flow, which is basically an avalanche of the ash, gases, and rock mixed together. The flow can raze buildings, uproot trees, and cause massive damage and loss of life. In addition, calderas would form across areas in Montana, Idaho, Wyoming, and other states. These are broad volcanic depressions created as the ground collapses.

“The ash is thick (more than about 30 centimeters of ash) near the eruption source and a small fraction of a millimeter once you move 2,000 miles away. It’s fair to say that a trace of ash would be found over most of the United States, though it would only be thick enough to collapse roofs in the states closest to Yellowstone,” Jacob Lowenstern, scientist-in-charge at the Yellowstone Volcano Observatory, told Live Science.

The ash would also hang in the air for several days, blocking sunlight and making it difficult to breathe. The ash would decimate crops and make it near-impossible to grow food for a period of time. ”A lot of people would perish,” said Stephen Self, director of the Volcano Dynamics Group at the Open University in the U.K, noting that if an eruption happened he would predict American refugees lining up at the Mexican border.

This map from the U.S. Geological Service shows the range of the volcanic ash and debris that was deposited after the three large Yellowstone volcano eruptions over the last 2.1 million years. as well as the Mount St. Helens eruption. (USGS)

Volcanic ash. (USGS)

Ash particle magnified about 200 times. (USGS)

A plume of ash from the volcano under the Eyjafjallajokull glacier covers the farm of Pall Eggert Olafsson, in Thorvaldseyri, Iceland, Monday, April 19, 2010. Meteorologists in Iceland said eruptions from the volcano were weakening and the ash was no longer rising to a height where it would endanger large commercial aircraft. (AP Photo/Brynjar Gauti)

More importantly for those outside the U.S., the effects of a Yellowstone eruption would be worldwide, according to the U.S. Geological Service, including the “injection of huge volumes of volcanic gases into the atmosphere could drastically affect global climate.”

Volcanic expert Harldur Sigurdsson highlighted the worldwide effects of volcanic eruptions to CBS earlier this year. He and the CBS team were in Iceland watching the Eyjafjallajokull volcano shoot out the big clouds of ash and huge rocks, some the size of cars.

“It was this ash that made Eyjafjallajokull the most disruptive eruption in years. The ash billowed up nearly 33,000 feet and drifted a thousand miles over Europe. One hundred thousand flights were cancelled. Ten million people were stranded for a week,” CBS reported. Still, volcanologist Haraldur Sigurdsson told us that kind of trouble is nothing compared to eruptions, elsewhere, in the recent past.”

Sigurdsson said: “And the best example of that occurred in 1815, when there was an eruption in Tambora volcano, in Indonesia. And a big, explosive eruption sent out an ash cloud up to about 30 miles. And it dispersed very widely. And also, a lot of sulfur came out of this volcano. And that led to global cooling. And produced what is known as the year without a summer in New England, in North America.”

The year without a summer was in 1816, caused by a volcano eruption halfway around the world.

The eruption in Iceland was a four on the scale of eight. Yellowstone is one of the places an eight could happen, according to Sigurdsson.

“The floor of the volcano is breathing like an animal. It’s rising, and moving up and down. Because of magma inside the volcano,” he said.

Yellowstone erupted about 640,00 years ago, as well as 1.3 million and 2.1 million years ago. These are the large eruptions.

“The Yellowstone-size eruption will occur. Of course, we have no idea when. It’s being monitored very, very closely. So there is no chance of it occurring without any warning. But it’s a devastating event,” said Sigurdsson.

“Devastating to aviation, communications and agriculture, volcanoes can change the course of history. Never before have so many people lived within striking distance–200 million worldwide. Science is good at warning of eruptions that are weeks away but, beyond that, it’s impossible to predict which one is next or how big it will be.”