An Arctic Methane Emergency Group (AMEG) summary of 2014 and what we must do in 2015 (from John Nissen): We have been party to three revolutions quietly taking hold in 2014: • a new view of the Earth System: returning to instability after an 8000-year stability anomaly; • a new view of the Arctic Ocean for controlling temperature, climate and sea level rise; • a new view of how to tackle environment problems which have potentially catastrophic impacts. 1. Extraordinary stability over 8000 years The old view of our Earth System is of an inherently stable system, reacting slowly to perturbations and with a natural rebound. It is essentially protective of life, even possibly through natural feedbacks (the Gaia theory). This view says that the Earth System will naturally rebound if perturbations from CO2 emissions are removed. This view is extremely dangerous. There is a close analogy with the economic model which obtained prior to the financial crash of 2008 – where the received orthodoxy was that markets tended to self-correct, so you could leave the “system” to market forces and all would be well. Contrary opinions were suppressed – so that it was not possible to publish them in the accepted in peer-reviewed journals. Now it is recognised that having the wrong economic model was instrumental in allowing the crash. Thus we see the same thing could happen, as the Earth System progresses moves out of stability and ever more rapidly towards a “crash”, largely driven by changes in the Arctic. This view explains the irrational behaviour of the climate community, in proposing CO2 emissions reductions as the solutions for everything, including saving the sea ice. Having become fixated on the model, they then have to fight or even suppress contrary opinions. The model is accepted by the fossil fuel industry, which behaves as if the sea ice retreat is nothing to worry about – indeed the disappearance of the sea ice would be a great advantage for them. However, there has been a revolution in thinking about our civilisation and our planet within the universe. We have always thought of our natural environment as ordinary because we are used to it; but we have observer bias: it is actually quite extraordinary for us to be here, as intelligent beings capable of observing the universe around us. We now realise that our planet is almost certainly unique within the visible universe because so many unlikely events and conditions we necessary for the evolution of life, multi-cellular life, intelligent life and finally civilised life. This revolution has been marked in 2014 by the book “Our lucky planet” and the television programme starring Professor Brian Cox on BBC Two. The Earth System has finely-tuned mechanisms (involving the moon) to cause wild fluctuations in temperature, climate and sea level over the past 2.8 million years. But recently it has provided an 8000-year window of relative stability, necessary for the development of civilisation. This stability has been enhanced by chance forces, including CO2 greenhouse effect from human activity, over this period. Thus it is highly anomalous within the history of planet over millions of years. We have had amazing good luck that our civilisation has lasted so long. This anomalous stability came to an end with the industrial revolution and huge emissions of CO2 and methane. Even with action to reduce emissions, there is no reason for our good luck to continue. We must expect rapid change as conditions that may have held for thousands of years now no longer hold. Examples of rapid change include climate, sea level rise and methane emissions. The old view suggests that interventions can be safely postponed; the new view suggests that there are growing dangers requiring rapid or even immediate intervention. 2. Arctic Ocean as key component of the Earth System The old view is of the Arctic warming gradually – at about twice the rate of global warming. This poses no serious threat to the sea ice, which will gradually retreat over the next century. This view holds that the Arctic has only a gradual influence on the rest of the Earth System. The idea that Arctic warming could already be having a non-linear effect on climate, sea level and methane emissions is dismissed, e.g. as scaremongering. This view is extremely dangerous, because it relies on models and ignores the reality obtained through careful measurements. Observations show that there is an exponential trend of sea ice volume decline towards zero at the minimum. The new view is that the Arctic Ocean effectively has two states, and is in the process of rapid and accelerated transition into the low-ice state. As this state is entered we can expect abrupt change to atmospheric circulation leading to step changes: in climate (at least for the Northern Hemisphere), in the rate of sea level rise and in the rate of methane emissions (with feedback to global warming). These changes pose an existential threat to civilisation – effectively a crash of the environment under which civilisation has prospered for the past 8000 years, which we have come to accept as normal. Perhaps the nearest equivalent in scale of catastrophe would be an all-out nuclear war. The point of no return into the low-ice state is likely to be the blue ocean event, which could occur as early as next September. 3. The engineering requirements and our capability to fulfil them The old view of climate change is that it can be modelled to show what has to be done to avoid dangerous climate change, and then there is a political solution to produce the necessary cuts in greenhouse gases. If the CO2 trajectory is too high, it is the fault of the politicians – the scientists have given the necessary warning. The old view is extremely dangerous. A simple look at the engineering requirements shows that geoengineering for CO2 removal (CDR) is necessary on a massive scale, in combination with drastically reduced emissions, to have the possibility to avoid dangerous ocean acidification as well as dangerous climate change. Furthermore, what is happening in the Arctic is simply ignored. There is no proper risk assessment. The new view is that the engineering requirements can be easily established for cooling the Arctic and for reducing the CO2 to a safe level in the atmosphere. We also have the capability to meet these requirements with existing technology, if scaled up sufficiently. But it will require focussed effort, determination and political will to achieve the goals, especially to prevent the passing of the point of no return on the sea ice.
Posted on: Tue, 13 Jan 2015 01:06:23 +0000
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