Emissions match Hansen Scenario B; Keystone delay is a victory; EDF Insider podcast; and Machete Order Star Wars

Three climate shorts here.

First, maybe others have already known this for years, but I'd been bothered by claims that Hansen's 1988 worst case emission scenario matched actual emissions while temps were far cooler.  Of course that's not true.  Actual emissions were slightly under Hansen's middle road scenario.  Temps were also under the middle scenario, partly because of emissions.  His model may have been slightly oversensitive for temperature reaction to GHGs but overall looks good. David Evans sadly has it wrong, is strongly criticized by William.


Second, in my comments elsewhere:

In my career, I've won much more often than I've lost when I'm on defense, trying to stop something I oppose, rather than trying to achieve something I support.

We're on offense on many aspects of climate, but on Keystone we're on defense.  I've also found in my career that delay is good when you're on defense.  Keystone now has to spend money while waiting longer to make a profit, making it somewhat more likely that they'll throw in the towel.  And even if they do build their monstrosity, doing it later makes it more likely to happen when the evil Harper/Santorum government of Canada is replaced by something reasonable that would put some restraints or mitigation on the project.


Third, Environmental Defense Fund did another of their irregular podcasts.  Highlights include a non-rejection of a carbon tax approach to climate mitigation.  OTOH, they say that in the end, groups should coalesce around a single approach at the national level, and we can predict what has the best chance of being that approach.  They also say that things  may get so bad that we might need to consider geoengineering and should be trying to figure out how we can research that approach carefully.  Sounds reasonable enough, sadly.


Finally and unrelated:  watching Star Wars movies in Machete Order.  Good way to introduce them to newbies.

Open-air carbon capture economically unfeasible for decades

See the report from the American Physical Society. They spotted the not-hard-to-spot issue that it's a lot easier to capture CO2 at concentrated power sources than in dilute amounts in the atmosphere, and that transport doesn't overcome that issue (UPDATE: on second look, doesn't seem to deal with transport - the one advantage of open air capture is that you can position it where your sequestration sites are instead of where your power plants are. Good luck with having that overcome sequestration as a cost savings, though).

Hansen's idea of carbon sequestration from biomass power isn't affected by this, since he still relied on point source capture and can still achieve carbon negative results. Roger Pielke Jr. doesn't do so well however in his dream of an unnamed technological solution that will make all the problems go away for a low low cost. The report's dated April 28th, and we'll see when he gets around to discussing it.

I wonder if I could work out a bet with James Hansen over cap and trade

In the very small category of people who have done a lot to help on climate change but have also damaged the cause, number one on the list has to go to James Hansen.  The help far outweighs the harm in his case (in contrast to the number two person, James Lovelock), but he's really being problematic with his opposition to even the squeaky-clean, cap-and-dividend bill in Congress, the one that I think has little chance of passing.  Check the link for Joe Romm's critique, which I think is accurate.  Hansen supports alternative legislation, a revenue-neutral carbon tax where the money is redistributed back on a per-capita basis except with limits to families with too many children, which I think is just great and that maybe 5 percent of the country at most would also agree that it's great.  Thanks for that practical suggestion.

So I don't have a specific bet in mind, I'm just thinking that if Hansen believes Cantwell-Collins will have "only a small impact on emissions" then the European Union's cap-and-trade must have a near-zero effect.  I think the EU scheme should do most of what it intended.  Maybe that's sufficient daylight between positions to set up a bet.

There's the issue of offsets that would complicate the bet.  If I buy solar panels on my roof to reduce emissions, that's great.  If my roof doesn't work and instead I buy solar panels for your roof, that's an evil evil offset (yes, I'm exaggerating, but I'm not sure it's by much).  I think though that even if we disallow offsets for wrong reasons, there's still a net reduction in cap-and-trade, so maybe some more research could give room for a bet.

Much better news about Hansen is this piece of info I didn't know - that he called present-day warming as happening as early as 1981 (not just a prediction of future warming).  Impressive.

James Hansen and the albedo flip

Via a tip from TokyoTom, here's a James Hansen analysis continuing his previous statements that climate change could be even worse than generally predicted. Given Hansen's history of being right dating back to 1988, I think it's worth attention. He primarily focuses on the possibility of rapid change due to an "albedo flip" from reflective snow and ice sheets to heat-absorbing water and dark ground.

A few quotes:

(d ) Planet Earth today: imminent peril

The imminent peril is initiation of dynamical and thermodynamical processes
on the West Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets that produce a situation out of
humanity’s control, such that devastating sea-level rise will inevitably occur.
Climate forcing of this century under BAU would dwarf natural forcings of the
past million years, indeed it would probably exceed climate forcing of the middle
Pliocene, when the planet was not more than 2–38C warmer and sea level 25G
10 m higher (Dowsett et al. 1994). The climate sensitivities we have inferred from
palaeoclimate data ensure that a BAU GHG emission scenario would produce
global warming of several degrees Celsius this century, with amplification at
high latitudes.

---
It is difficult to predict time of collapse in such a
nonlinear problem, but we find no evidence of millennial lags between forcing and
ice sheet response in palaeoclimate data. An ice sheet response time of centuries
seems probable, and we cannot rule out large changes on decadal time-scales
once wide-scale surface melt is underway. With GHGs continuing to increase, the
planetary energy imbalance provides ample energy to melt ice corresponding to
several metres of sea level per century
---
Present knowledge does not permit accurate specification of the dangerous
level of human-made GHGs. However, it is much lower than has commonly
been assumed. If we have not already passed the dangerous level, the energy
infrastructure in place ensures that we will pass it within several decades.

We conclude that a feasible strategy for planetary rescue almost surely requires a
means of extracting GHGs from the air. Development of CO2 capture at power
plants, with below-ground CO2 sequestration,may be a critical element. Injection of
the CO2 well beneath the ocean floor assures its stability (House et al. 2006). If the
power plant fuel is derived from biomass, such as cellulosic fibres5 grown without
excessive fertilization that produces N2O or other offsetting GHG emissions, it will
provide continuing drawdown of atmospheric CO2.

TokyoTom and I disagree somewhat about the last paragraph. He thinks it lends support for open-air carbon capture, the approach favored by Roger Pielke Jr. and the only semi-mainstream idea more speculative than geoengineering. I think Hansen's referring to carbon sequestration from biomass power generation, which is a means of extracting GHGs from the air.

I don't know what this "Injection of the CO2 well beneath the ocean floor assures its stability" is about though. I know of below-ground carbon sequestration, and deep-ocean sequestration, but not of an approach that combines the two. I guess I should read the reference.

Scientists overselling or underselling climate change risks?

Kevin Vranes wrote a while back that he felt that scientists may feel like they've almost accidentally oversold their certainty about climate change and associated risks, particularly their confidence in climate model results.

On the other side, James Hansen says this about the risk of a 5 meter sea level rise in a century:

a 'scientific reticence' is inhibiting the communication of a threat of a
potentially large sea level rise. Delay is dangerous because of system inertias
that could create a situation with future sea level changes out of our control.
I argue for calling together a panel of scientific leaders to hear evidence and
issue a prompt plain-written report on current understanding of the sea level
change issue.

So who's right? Wish I knew. But, both of them could be right - scientists could be overselling 85% certainty as 95% certainty, while refusing to discuss a 10% risk of catastrophe. Or maybe just one is, or neither.

Hansen does add, "scientists preaching caution and downplaying the dangers of climate change fared better in receipt of research funding." Pointing out that something could be considered a risk at the current state of science, when it is likely (but far from certain) that the improved science will eliminate the risk, isn't going to make the scientist look all that prescient. Hansen's argument makes some intuitive sense to me, and we'll just have to see if Kevin Vranes is right or not.