Major Climate Report Describes a Strong Risk of Crisis as Early as 2040

INCHEON, South Korea — A landmark report from the United Nations’ scientific panel on climate change paints a far more dire picture of the immediate consequences of climate change than previously thought and says that avoiding the damage requires transforming the world economy at a speed and scale that has “no documented historic precedent.”

The report, issued on Monday by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a group of scientists convened by the United Nations to guide world leaders, describes a world of worsening food shortages and wildfires, and a mass die-off of coral reefs as soon as 2040 — a period well within the lifetime of much of the global population.

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Bergslagstroll said:

Major climate report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change describes the urging need for action on climate change. That the atmosphere will warm up by as much as 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit, 1.5 degrees Celsius, above preindustrial levels by 2040 with current rate of greenhouse gas emissions. Leading to inundating coastlines and intensifying droughts and poverty.



https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/07/climate/ipcc-climate-report-2040.html

Thankfully there is still hope, that renewables and taking action against climate change are starting to become a bipartisan issue. For example Sweden passed bipartisan legislation that the country should be carbon neutral by 2045.

https://unfccc.int/news/sweden-plans-to-be-carbon-neutral-by-2045

While Denmark with a right wing government got 43 percent of their power from wind power in 2017 and plan to get half of all their energy needs met with renewables by 2030.

https://www.rte.ie/news/newslens/2018/0111/932573-denmark-wind-farm/

Renewables are also starting to become a bipartisan issue on a local level in the US. For, example that wind or solar are already the cheapest option in most Republican congressional districts.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/joshua...n-leaders-love-renewable-energy/#631e530f3da7

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Bergslagstroll said:

Major climate report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change describes the urging need for action on climate change. That the atmosphere will warm up by as much as 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit, 1.5 degrees Celsius, above preindustrial levels by 2040 with current rate of greenhouse gas emissions. Leading to inundating coastlines and intensifying droughts and poverty.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/07/climate/ipcc-climate-report-2040.html

Thankfully there is still hope, that renewables and taking action against climate change are starting to become a bipartisan issue. For example Sweden passed bipartisan legislation that the country should be carbon neutral by 2045.

https://unfccc.int/news/sweden-plans-to-be-carbon-neutral-by-2045

While Denmark with a right wing government got 43 percent of their power from wind power in 2017 and plan to get half of all their energy needs met with renewables by 2030.

https://www.rte.ie/news/newslens/2018/0111/932573-denmark-wind-farm/

Renewables are also starting to become a bipartisan issue on a local level in the US. For, example that wind or solar are already the cheapest option in most Republican congressional districts.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/joshua...n-leaders-love-renewable-energy/#631e530f3da7

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1. Warming rate predictions

1990 IPCC FAR: “Under the IPCC ‘Business as Usual’ emissions of greenhouse gases the average rate of increase of global mean temperature during the next century is estimated to be 0.3°C per decade (with an uncertainty range of 0.2°C – 0.5°C).”

Reality check: Since 1990 the warming rate has been from 0.12 to 0.19°C per decade depending on the database used, outside the uncertainty range of 1990. CO2 emissions have tracked the “Business as Usual” scenario....

2. Temperature predictions

1990 IPCC FAR: “Under the IPCC ‘Business as Usual’ emissions of greenhouse gases … this will result in a likely increase in global mean temperature of about 1°C above the present value by 2025.” See here, page xi.

Reality check: From 1990 to 2017 (first 8 months) the increase in temperatures has been 0.31 to 0.49°C depending on the database used. CO2 emissions have tracked the Business as Usual scenario.

3. Winter predictions

2001 IPCC TAR (AR3) predicts that milder winter temperatures will decrease heavy snowstorms, see here.

2014 Dr. John Holdren, director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy for the Obama administration said: “a growing body of evidence suggests that the kind of extreme cold being experienced by much of the United States as we speak is a pattern we can expect to see with increasing frequency, as global warming continues.”

Reality check: By predicting both milder winters and colder winters the probability of getting it right increases. Now, to cover all possibilities they simply need to predict no change in winters.

4. Snow predictions

2000 Dr. David Viner, a senior research scientist at the climatic research unit (CRU) of the University of East Anglia, predicts that within a few years winter snowfall will become “a very rare and exciting event”. “Children just aren’t going to know what snow is.”

2001 IPCC TAR (AR3) predicts that milder winter temperatures will decrease heavy snowstorms.

2004 Adam Watson, from the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology in Banchory, Aberdeenshire, said the Scottish skiing industry had no more than 20 years left.

Reality check: 2014 had the snowiest Scottish mountains in 69 years. One ski resort’s problem was having some of the lifts buried in snow.

Reality check: Northern Hemisphere snow area shows remarkable little change since 1967. The 2012-2013 winter was the fourth largest winter snow cover extent on record for the Northern Hemisphere.

5. Precipitation predictions ... [and so on.]

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LincolnRossiter said:

Climate change has become a salient issue. And reasonable people in industry and government are joining the scientific community in sounding the alarm. Increasingly violent and frequent storm systems and weather anomalies have been documented over the past decade+, and temperatures are now setting records in key locations almost every summer.

I'm not so ignorant as to point to anecdotal weather occurrences as supporting or refuting historic anthropomorphic climate change, but it's the first week in October in the mid-Atlantic, and the temps were in the high 80s yesterday.

That sucks.

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Bergslagstroll said:

Major climate report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change describes the urging need for action on climate change. That the atmosphere will warm up by as much as 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit, 1.5 degrees Celsius, above preindustrial levels by 2040 with current rate of greenhouse gas emissions. Leading to inundating coastlines and intensifying droughts and poverty.



https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/07/climate/ipcc-climate-report-2040.html

Thankfully there is still hope, that renewables and taking action against climate change are starting to become a bipartisan issue. For example Sweden passed bipartisan legislation that the country should be carbon neutral by 2045.

https://unfccc.int/news/sweden-plans-to-be-carbon-neutral-by-2045

While Denmark with a right wing government got 43 percent of their power from wind power in 2017 and plan to get half of all their energy needs met with renewables by 2030.

https://www.rte.ie/news/newslens/2018/0111/932573-denmark-wind-farm/

Renewables are also starting to become a bipartisan issue on a local level in the US. For, example that wind or solar are already the cheapest option in most Republican congressional districts.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/joshua...n-leaders-love-renewable-energy/#631e530f3da7

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Moderate Right said:

I don't have a problem with the government doing whatever it needs to do to take the country further into the green, except purposely trying to destroy jobs at ungreen businesses. Encourage green and let the market phase out carbon jobs, not the government.

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ataraxia said:

Yeah sure. That approach sure beats just calling global warming a Chinese hoax.

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Moderate Right said:

With anything Trump says, you have to sift it first to see what is correct and what is not (notice I didn't use the word "lie"). However, having to do that doesn't mean he isn't good for the country overall, unless of course you are a liberal, in which case most Republican policies aren't your cup of tea and never will be.

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ataraxia said:

Republican policies are conservative policies. These are policies of people who are afraid of change. I guess you can’t push too much change too fast on a society and culture. What sociologists call “cultural lag” is a powerful force. But yet, as technology and scientific understanding continue to grow , so does the world. If we try to cling too much to the past, the rest of the world is going to leave us behind. They don’t seem to have as many hangups about change as we do. There has to be a careful balance between changing and growing, and not growing so fast that we lose all sense of cultural identity. It’s a careful balancing act.

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LincolnRossiter said:

Climate change has become a salient issue. And reasonable people in industry and government are joining the scientific community in sounding the alarm. Increasingly violent and frequent storm systems and weather anomalies have been documented over the past decade+, and temperatures are now setting records in key locations almost every summer.

I'm not so ignorant as to point to anecdotal weather occurrences as supporting or refuting historic anthropomorphic climate change, but it's the first week in October in the mid-Atlantic, and the temps were in the high 80s yesterday.

That sucks.

Click to expand...

Moderate Right said:

I don't have a problem with the government doing whatever it needs to do to take the country further into the green, except purposely trying to destroy jobs at ungreen businesses. Encourage green and let the market phase out carbon jobs, not the government.

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Moderate Right said:

Not all change is good. In fact, some change is worse.

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Kal'Stang said:

I remember Rajendra Pachauri, then head of the United Nations climate panel, once saying that without action by 2012 it would be too late to save the planet. Guess that prediction has been pushed back......

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ataraxia said:

Yes, you are right. But my concern is that one of the things that conservatism today is trying to preserve is the cultural hegemony of a particular demographic in an ever increasingly diverse nation and planet. Done too stubbornly, and it may prove to be very dysfunctional in the long run.

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Renae said:

Truth is there haven't been more frequent or anomalous storms, maybe you should not comment on things you show extreme ignorance on?

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Frequency and intensity vary from basin to basin. In the North Atlantic Basin, the long-term (1966-2009) average number of tropical storms is about 11 annually, with about six becoming hurricanes. More recently (2000-2013), the average is about 16 tropical storms per year, including about eight hurricanes. This increase in frequency is correlated with the rise in North Atlantic sea surface temperatures, which could be partially related to global warming.

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Recent analyses conclude that the strongest hurricanes occurring in some regions including the North Atlantic have increased in intensity over the past two to three decades. For the continental United States in the Atlantic Basin, models project a 45-87 percent increase in the frequency of Category 4 and 5 hurricanes despite a possible decrease in the frequency of storms.

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While hurricanes are a natural part of our climate system, recent research suggests that there has been an increase in intense hurricane activity in the North Atlantic since the 1970s. In the future, there may not necessarily be more hurricanes, but there will likely be more intense hurricanes that carry higher wind speeds and more precipitation as a result of global warming. The impacts of this trend are likely to be exacerbated by sea level rise and a growing population along coastlines.

Scientists are continuing to refine our understanding of how global warming affects hurricane activity. Cutting edge research is beginning to be able to attribute individual hurricanes to global warming. For example, new research estimates that as the Earth has warmed, the probability of a storm with precipitation levels like Hurricane Harvey was higher in Texas in 2017 than it was at the end of the twentieth century. Because of climate change, such a storm evolved from a once in every 100 years event to a once in every 16 years event over this time period.

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longview said:

Considering that the long term rate of warming is about .13 C per decade....

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and the 2018 level is likely going to be .83 C

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the likelihood of increasing that .67 C in 22 years is unlikely.
The likelihood of increasing 0.5C in 22 years is, unfortunately, quite good.

I say unlikely because out of the last 138 years only about 10 have a decade rate of change of over .2 C per decade...

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The IPCC says likely, because the rate at which temperatures increase is accelerating.

That's why they wrote the report, to give policy makers and the public a clear idea of their best guess of what we will see around 2040.

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LincolnRossiter said:

Oh look. A Trumpy who’s also a science denier. That’s practically like stumbling upon a unicorn. [sarc/]








https://www.c2es.org/content/hurricanes-and-climate-change/

https://www.ucsusa.org/global-warming/science-and-impacts/impacts/hurricanes-and-climate-change.html#.W7uEmhYpDDs

https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.cnn.com/cnn/2018/09/19/us/climate-change-hurricane-florence-wxc/index.html

https://www.wsj.com/graphics/climate-change-forcing-insurance-industry-recalculate/

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Cyclone and Hurricane Trends

Contrary to the Post and other media outlets, cyclones and hurricanes have not become more common or intense. As the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reported in 2012: “There is low confidence in any observed long-term (i.e., 40 years or more) increases in tropical cyclone activity (i.e., intensity, frequency, duration), after accounting for past changes in observing capabilities.” This also applies to hurricanes, which are tropical cyclones with winds exceeding 73 miles per hour.

Likewise, the datasets graphed below show that the global number and intensity of cyclones, hurricanes, and major hurricanes have been roughly level for the past four-to-five decades. These data were originally published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters in 2011 and updated this year:

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