One Degree of Desperation (Or, What if NASA's James Hansen is Right Again?)

NASA scientist James Hansen's 1988 warnings about climate change have proved to be largely correct (realclimate.org). The IPCC has recently estimated relatively slow sea level rise this century (18–59 cm, with a midrange of 20–43 cm). But Hansen suggests in a scientific paper that 5 meters per century would be a more realistic estimate. He add in the same paper that

"The threat of a large sea level change is a principal element in our argument (Hansen et al 2006a, 2006b, 2007) that the global community must aim to keep additional global warming less than 1 °C above the 2000 temperature, and even 1 °C may be too great. In turn, this implies a CO₂ limit of about 450 ppm, or less" [emphasis added]. [1]

Or else, it's "Goodbye Miami", as New Scientist says on a recent cover. Their map of Florida in 2007 and 2107 would come as a shock to the many Canadians who are familiar with South Florida's sunny shores. It gets worse: as Michael Le Page points out,

"Without mega-engineering projects to protect them, a 5-metre rise would inundate large parts of many cities - including New York, London, Sydney, Vancouver, Mumbai and Tokyo - and leave surrounding areas vulnerable to storm surges. In Florida, Louisiana, the Netherlands, Bangladesh and elsewhere, whole regions and cities may vanish. China's economic powerhouse, Shanghai, has an average elevation of just 4 metres" (New Scientist, "If sea level rises by 5 metres..." [near bottom of page; emphasis added]).

For the devastating effects on Canada's Maritime Provinces, see my previous blog post.

Hansen and his co-authors write in another recent scientific paper [2]:

"With GHGs continuing to increase, the planetary energy imbalance provides ample energy to melt ice corresponding to several metres of sea level per century

[...]

"The gravest threat we foresee starts with surface melt on West Antarctica and interaction among positive feedbacks leading to catastrophic ice loss.

[...]

Our concern that BAU [Business As Usual] GHG scenarios would cause large sea-level rise this century (Hansen 2005) differs from estimates of IPCC (2001, 2007), which foresees little or no contribution to twenty-first century sea-level rise from Greenland and Antarctica. However, the IPCC analyses and projections do not well account for the nonlinear physics of wet ice sheet disintegration, ice streams and eroding ice shelves, nor are they consistent with the palaeoclimate evidence we have presented for the absence of discernable lag between ice sheet forcing and sea-level rise.

"The best chance for averting ice sheet disintegration seems to be intense simultaneous efforts to reduce both CO2 emissions and non-CO2 climate forcings. As mentioned above, there are multiple benefits from such actions. However, even with such actions, it is probable that the dangerous level of atmospheric GHGs will be passed, at least temporarily. We have presented evidence (Hansen
et al. 2006b) that the dangerous level of CO2 can be no more than approximately 450 ppm. Our present discussion, including the conclusion that slow feedbacks (ice, vegetation and GHG) can come into play on century time-scales or sooner, makes it probable that the dangerous level is even lower.

"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" [bolding added; italics in original].

Among other things, Hansen and his co-authors have a plan to save the Earth:

"...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 fibres... grown without excessive fertilization that produces N2O or other offsetting GHG emissions, it will provide continuing drawdown of atmospheric CO2" [2] [bolding added].

In other words:

• Take more CO2 out of the air than we are putting in.
• Use biomass fuels to remove CO2 from the air.
  
• Don't let the CO2 from the biomass go back into the air, for a new crop of plants to absorb (the conventional biofuels cycle). We don't want the CO2 to be released at all, as that would provide no net reduction.
• Instead, sequester the CO2 at source, right from the power plant.
• Put it below the ocean floor, where it would be safe forever.

Sadly, world leaders had been giving up even on the IPCC's milder recommended target of holding the warming at 2 degrees C. How would they react to Hansen's target of 1 degree C or less? George Monbiot thinks that if people understood the implications, there would be a massive movement to demand immediate action, but he notes that most people go about their business as if there is no prominent scientist predicting a major planetary disaster.

On the other hand, some environmentalists are sceptical about CO2 sequestration and storage, and an international convention may regulate any materials stored in or under the ocean.

But what if there's even a 10% chance that Hansen is right about the potential damage if we do not follow his proposals? Multiply that 10% chance by the forecast amount of damage, and you still get an awesome risk!

Is it time for both politicians and environmentalists to start taking his latest research very seriously?


______________

[1] James Hansen, 2007. Scientific reticence and sea level rise, Environ. Res. Lett. 2 (April-June 2007) 024002, doi:10.1088/1748-9326/2/2/024002 (via newscientist.com)

[2] James Hansen et al, 2007. Climate Change and Trace Gases. Philiosophical Transactions of the Royal Society - A. Vol 365, pp 1925-1954. doi: 10.1098/rsta.2007.2052. [PDF] screen pages 25-26 of 30 (via monbiot.com)

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"Climate change puts nuclear energy into hot water"

Those who promote nuclear energy as the answer to climate change may be ignoring

"...a less well-known side of nuclear power: It requires great amounts of cool water to keep reactors operating at safe temperatures. That is worrying if the rivers and reservoirs which many power plants rely on for water are hot or depleted because of steadily rising air temperatures.

"If temperatures soar above average this summer - let alone steadily increase in years to come, as many scientists predict - many nuclear plants could face a dilemma: Either cut output or break environmental rules, in either case hurting their reputation with customers and the public.

"Governments and the energy industry are just starting to grasp the vulnerabilities of water-hungry power plants. If the complications prove serious in countries where inland sources of water are growing scarce, where seafront nuclear stations are unwelcome or impractical and where alternative cooling technologies are too expensive, it could take the bloom off of nuclear as a source of clean energy and leave it more unclear than ever where sizable new power supplies might come from.

"'We're going to have to solve the climate-change problem if we're going to have nuclear power, not the other way around,' said David Lochbaum, a nuclear engineer who is with the Union of Concerned Scientists.

"'As the climate warms up, nuclear power plants are less able to deliver,'" he said.

[...]

"The French company operates 58 reactors - the majority on ecologically sensitive rivers like the Loire.

"During the extreme heat of 2003 in France, 17 nuclear reactors operated at reduced capacity or were turned off. Électricité de France was forced to buy power from neighboring countries on the open market, where demand drove the price of a megawatt hour as high as €1,000, or $1,350. Average prices in France during summer months ordinarily are about €95 per megawatt hour.

"The heat wave cost Électricité de France an extra €300 million. The state-owned company 'swallowed it as a one-off cost of doing business in extreme circumstances,' Philippe Huet, an executive vice president at Électricité de France, said.

"The company was not allowed to pass along price surges to customers.

"Huet said the company was preparing for this summer on several fronts. The company is stocking more water in reservoirs, offering lower priced contracts to large users in exchange for the right to cut supplies and using more sophisticated forecasting tools for weather and river temperatures, he said.

"'If this year is the same as in 2003 we will handle it better,' Huet said. 'But we cannot exclude difficulties if the summer is even warmer and drier than 2003.'"

Source and more details: Climate change puts nuclear energy into hot water - International Herald Tribune

(via Green Car Congress and Treehugger ).

Even this story might be over-optimistic. It claims that if you put nuclear power stations by the sea, then you have no problem. Yet ocean temperatures are rising due to climate change, too. Granted, oceans heat up much more slowly than smaller bodies of water, so ocean temperatures may be unlikely to affect nuclear power operations in the short term. But the increase in sea levels due to melting ice, plus more frequent severe storms, could endanger any shoreline installation. What would happen if a Katrina-sized hurricane hit a nuclear power station?

Finally, we have already learned in many painful ways that the oceans, too, are finite. Increasing ocean temperatures to cool nuclear power stations might not be as benign as it may seem.

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Farewell to Nova Scotia -- and PEI -- and NYC -- and Tokyo -- and... and...? Rising Sea Levels, Megafloods, and the Deniers

In coming decades, rising sea levels and frequent mega-storms will endanger Canada's Maritime Provinces. Some of the largest world cities, like Tokyo, New York, Los Angeles, Mumbai, Shanghai, Jakarta, and Dhaka are also at risk. The culprit, according to researchers: you guessed it, global warming. Yet some people continue to deny the scientific evidence -- either cynically or due to breathtaking ignorance, even about very recent history.

Back in more innocent times, political bickering about power-sharing and transfer payments were Canada's main concerns (I know, they still are, if you judge by the latest Federal Budget). I heard a parody version of "Farewell to Nova Scotia" on the C.B.C. in the late 1990s that began with "Farewell to Nova Scotia and P.E.I. / And New Brunswickers will understand...."The rest of the song mocked the notion of a "Maritime Union", with the punch-line, "And the name of our new land will be NewScotIsland!" (If you can find the rest of the lyrics, please leave a clue or link in the Comments.)

The issue facing the Maritimes this century is not union but physical isolation -- and worse -- due to rising seal levels and increasingly frequent super-storms. Consider this:

• "The major railway line that connects Halifax with the rest of Canada runs along about a foot above sea level along the Bay of Fundy," according to Gordon McBean, president of the Canadian Foundation for Climate and Atmospheric Sciences. It is at risk of being flooded out in the upcoming decades unless we do some serious engineering. (Source: Globe & Mail)
  

• A soon-to-be-released "...UN study will identify coastal areas sensitive to sea-level rise and cite Charlottetown [the Capital of Prince Edward Island, and the birthplace of Canadian Confederation] as an example of a city vulnerable to increased flooding and storm surges, Mr. McBean said." (Source: Globe & Mail; emphasis added)
  

• The Canso Causeway is what links Cape Breton Island with the rest of Nova Scotia. Nobody seems to have mentioned it recently, but during the November 2004 winter storm,

  "The Canso Causeway to Cape Breton... suffered structural damage and was closed."
  

If rising sea levels and frequent storms close the Causeway permanently, then the Cape Breton separatists might just get their wish -- though not in the way they had expected.

The Great Maritime Blizzard or "White Juan" (February 18, 2004)
Environment Canada, GOES satellite
imagery showing the evolution of the storm
Source: Regional Municipality of Halifax,
"Climate SMART: Be cool - reduce global warming & climate risks"
http://www.halifax.ca/Climate/change3.html

The Maritimes might need Elizabeth May and the Green Party even more than some people realize. Their "Green Plan 2" (GP2) [PDF, see p. 3] includes support for

"Adaptation to Climate Change: Develop pro-active adaptation strategies for vulnerable residential areas, and for economic sectors particularly dependent on stable climatic conditions...."

Unfortunately, the problems foreseen for the Canadian Maritime Provinces are far from unique:

"More than two-thirds of the world's large cities are in areas vulnerable to global warming and rising sea levels, and millions of people are at risk of being swamped by flooding and intense storms, according to a study released Wednesday.

"In all, 634 million people live in the threatened coastal areas worldwide — defined as those lying at less than 10.05 metres above sea level — and the number is growing, said the study, which was published in the journal Environment and Urbanization.

"More than 180 countries have populations in low-elevation coastal zones, and about 70 per cent of those have urban areas of more than five million people that are under threat.

"Among them: Tokyo, New York, Mumbai, India; Shanghai, China; Jakarta, Indonesia; and Dhaka, Bangladesh." (Source: CBC.)

Hey, these just happen to be some of the largest cities in the world!

"Separately, the authoritative Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change said in a draft copy of a report expected to be released next week that coastlines are already showing the impact of sea-level rise. The draft copy, which was obtained by the Associated Press, said about 100 million people each year could be flooded by rising seas by 2080.

"The draft copy warned that two of the biggest cities in North America — Los Angeles and New York — are at risk of a combination of sea-level rise and violent storms. By 2090, under a worst-case scenario, megafloods that normally would hit North America once every 100 years 'could occur as frequently as every three to four years,' the draft said." (Source: CBC.)

Alas, some of the the reader comments to the above Globe & Mail story show an incredible level of cynicism, ignorance and denial. For example, "Dutchie . from Toronto, Canada" writes:

"I think the sense of panic portrayed in the comment about the rail link to Halifax being under threat is tragically hilarious. It's a foot above sea level? Fine, build a two foot berm next to it, maybe accented with some nice bushes. Sea levels are not going to come crashing in with a giant tidal wave to flood us all; even as they rise it will be a slow, gradual increase that will lead to a little bit higher high-tide. The overall issue of climate change is serious, but it isn't helped by non-serious comments by scientists/politicians clamouring 'Catastrophe! Disaster!'" [emphasis added].

Wow! It's so good to learn that Hurricane Katrina was not a "Catastrophe! Disaster!" where a mega-storm overwhelmed flood control structures that had been adequate against then-average sea levels. Hey, maybe it never really happened -- was it all just a made-for-TV movie?!

Flooded I-10/I-610/West End Blvd. interchange and
surrounding area of northwest New Orleans and Metairie, Louisiana
Source: Wikipedia

How soon some people forget!

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