climate

Climate change and debate

January 15, 2015 by Brian Magi
Categories: Earth System ObserverResearch News

An interesting article about the amazing climate change humans are causing was published by the UNC Charlotte campus newspaper back in Spring 2014, but it’s worth re-visiting as our atmosphere once again reached 400 ppm CO2 concentration. The piece was published as a point-counterpoint discussion, but as many scientists (include myself) point out, science is not about considering all sides – it’s about considering what the evidence suggests. I wrote a letter in response to the viewpoint that climate change is no big deal. If the evidence from multiple experiments/studies suggests a single point is true, then that’s where the scientific community will tend towards when explaining that science. As the evidence builds and builds with no one finding counter-evidence, the conclusions become more and more robust*. If the evidence suggests mixed or nuanced results, then scientists will talk about that science as inconclusive and continue to try to design better experiments or get more data or both. Most importantly, perhaps, if counter-evidence arises repeatedly, scientific conclusions will change in response. Science is a beautiful, self-correcting process.

In Spring 2014, I sat down with a Niner Times reporter and Twitter friend Ed Averette and talked with him about how I see climate science, and how I talk about the science of climate change in my classroom (most prominently in ESCI 3101, Global Environmental Change). I had a lot to say, mostly because I had just returned from a wonderful conference called the Carolinas Climate Resilience Conference in April 2014, where I talked about Climate Change in the University Classroom (presentation here!), and I met some amazing outreach-oriented people (Kirstin Dow, Greg Carbone, Jim Gandy), and learned a climate change song that could be played on a dulcimer sung by this NPS Ranger. The article Averette wrote is available online and includes a figure I made for my class lectures.

The amazing correlation between Earth's temperature and CO2 concentration in the atmosphere, as derived from multiple ice core datasets shown in the graph itself.

The amazing correlation between Earth’s temperature and CO2 concentration in the atmosphere, as derived from multiple ice core datasets shown in the graph itself.

Another Niner Times reporter, Louis Aiello, provided the (journalistic) opposing viewpoint that there is no need to panic when it comes to the present-day climate change and his article is available online as well. Both articles are worth reading since they echo the innate concern we have for our planet, but that at the same time, the problem can feel overwhelmingly large**. Aiello never spoke with me, or as far as I could tell, any expert in the field of climate science, so of course I agree more with the approach Averette used, and found myself strongly disagreeing with Aiello’s article. I wrote a letter to the Niner Times in response to Aiello’s article, and I wrote a shorter version of that letter as well for the print newspaper. I did this because I often think about this artificial public debate that exists in the face of a broad scientific consensus about many points regarding the present-day climate change, and I also think that scientists need to speak up when they know about a topic.
Screenshot of the print version of my letter that had a limited number of words I could include. Hence the online letter is longer.

Screenshot of the print version of my letter that had a limited number of words I could include. Hence the online letter is longer.


*Gravity is a good example. Go measure the acceleration if you want, but you’re likely to find the same thing any scientist will find. Acceleration due to gravity is 9.8 meters per second every second that an object falls. Thus, this is essentially a fact in our world, but it arose from evidence, not our gut feeling.

**This philosophy of how a single person drawing from a common resource scales up to major problems is known as the Tragedy of the Commons, which has been spoken about eloquently by many many people, including wikipedia.

Tags: climateglobal environmental changeglobal warmingteaching

Climate change and 400 ppm carbon dioxide

January 14, 2015 by Brian Magi
Categories: Earth System Observer

In the great carbon cycle that is at work on our planet, carbon dioxide (CO2) gas concentration in our atmosphere, as measured in the most famous observation site in the world (Mauna Loa, Hawaii, home of the Keeling Curve), has risen again above 400 parts per million, or 400 ppm for short. mlo_two_years-2015-01-12This happened in 2014 before CO2 dipped back below 400 ppm, and while 400 ppm is an arbitrary choice to focus on, round numbers typically get more attention than, say, 397 ppm. Think about a baseball player’s batting average, which is hits divided by at bats. Somehow a 0.299 (or “299”) batting average is perceived as worse than a 0.300 (300) batting average, but really, it’s the difference of a few hits (or at bats) in the course of a season. Ted Williams hit 406 in 1941. 185 hits in 456 at bats. 3 fewer hits, and he would have hit 399, and the world would’ve sighed. 3 hits! Back to CO2. I’ll suggest, like many others, that 400 ppm is a good place to step back and think.

What is the carbon cycle?

IPCC AR5 Figure 6.1 is a nearly perfect capture (as it should be given the expertise that developed the figure!), but I boiled away the beauty to a more practical figure for my classes. carbon-cycle-boiled The reason that CO2 goes up and down in any given year is mainly because the Earth breathes in and out. When the Earth breathes in, plants draw CO2 from the air and convert it to plant carbon via photosynthesis. As a result CO2 concentration in the atmosphere goes down. When the Earth breathes out, plants release CO2 into the air via that respiration, the process of decomposition that acts in the opposite direction of photosynthesis. CO2 concentration in the atmosphere then goes up. The breath results in a steady rise in CO2 concentration from October to May, and a steady decrease from June to September. As you would expect, the rise and fall are essentially reversed in when they occur in the Southern Hemisphere, and this is evident in the data as well. As you might also surmise, in the Northern Hemisphere, the enormous number of seasonal plant growth/decay results in a bigger “breath” than in the Southern Hemisphere. Check the graph here to see that hemisphere difference.

The Keeling Curve, and CO2 concentration in general, is a way to “see” a part of the Earth’s carbon cycle, which are all the physical/chemical/biological/geological (biogeochemical, for short) processes that exchange carbon. The exchanges between carbon “reservoirs” (for example, the atmosphere and the land in the figure above) happen at different rates and magnitudes. Oceans store enormous amounts of carbon from CO2, and rocks store even more. The atmosphere is relatively carbon-free, but we are burning carbon from rock reservoirs (fossil fuels), and burning is a combustion chemical reaction that produces many carbon-containing gases and particles, but most fundamentally water vapor and CO2. This CO2 goes into the atmosphere and stays there for a long time. Water vapor goes into the atmosphere too, but leaves the atmosphere within a couple of weeks via precipitation. As a result, the year to year variability shows the Earth’s breath (land-atmosphere exchange), but the long-term trend shows that CO2 concentration itself is increasing when you compare the average from one year to one from a previous year. That long-term trend is showing how more and more carbon from CO2 is being stored in the atmosphere reservoir of the carbon cycle.

We are FORCING the carbon cycle to change by changing the amount of carbon in the atmosphere. That 400 ppm concentration value is a measure of how much carbon from CO2 (in units of mass, like kilograms or pounds) is in the atmosphere. The change in concentration is a measure of how much carbon from CO2 has been put into the atmosphere (again, in units of mass). The pre-industrial concentration of CO2 was about 280 ppm, so 120 ppm has been added to the atmosphere reservoir in the carbon cycle. It’s relatively easy to show that +120 ppm is equal to 284 billion tons of carbon added to our atmosphere.

Most of that 120 ppm is from human activities of fossil fuel burning (moving carbon from rock reservoir) and from deforestation (moving carbon from land reservoir), and 400 ppm is, as far as humans are concerned, completely unprecedented. ipcc-ar5-wg1-Fig6-08 At no time in the past 800,000 years, through several ice ages and enormous climate changes (figure at bottom), has the planet had concentrations of anything close to 400 ppm. Furthermore, it is quite clear from scientific and anthropologic evidence (at least!) that human civilization has evolved in a period of relative stability in Earth’s climate history. CO2 concentration has largely remained around 280 ppm until the last 100 years or so. Evidence that scientists have collected suggest that CO2 and temperature track each other. This is fundamentally why most climate scientists, and most scientists in general, are concerned about short and long term futures.

Humans can adapt and we will have to adapt to some degree, but the changes we are imposing on the planet through the carbon cycle are much faster than anything that we have an analog for in the past through naturally-driven climate changes. This is where carbon mitigation strategies are so critical, and why everyone is talking about the EPA Clean Power Plan, COP20 Lima, China-USA negotiations, and the upcoming COP21 Paris negotiations. These negotiations are about whether humans can live on the world without altering it in ways that more than likely is detrimental before being beneficial. Right now, the science says we are not very good tenants. With 400 ppm CO2, we are breathing air with more CO2 in it than any other human or proto-human has ever breathed. It’s not poisoning us directly, but the increased CO2 is changing how the Sun and Earth-Atmosphere system are interacting with each other. We are forcing the planet to warm as more electromagnetic radiation is absorbed by the unusual excess of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. The warmth is changing everything, and it will continue.
co2-800k-present

Tags: adaptationcarbonclimateCO2data analysisdata visualizationglobal warmingmitigation

Robust features in the 2014 USA forecast

February 22, 2014 by Brian Magi
Categories: Earth System Observer

Building on a previous discussion about a seasonal forecast product from NOAA Climate Prediction Center (CPC), I am still really curious about how robust the features in the seasonal weather patterns in the USA are. “Weather” in this case is referring to temperature and precipitation (T and PCP), and features refer to 3-month boxcar averages of T and PCP anomalies compared to the corresponding 3-month climatologies. So this is not the normal day-to-day weather or even the recent weather. Here are some new figures, which I explore below in terms of features that seem to be “robust” and features that seems to be “ephemeral”.

First, temperature in two plots:

comparisons-2014-3-start

Then, precipitation in two plots:

comparisons-precipitation-2014-3-startWatch the figures carefully. All the animations start with a forecast for 3-month averaged T and PCP for March-April-May (MAM). Then, they step forward to April-May-June (AMJ)The CPC data product seems intended to provide an idea of whether T and PCP will be above or below average for the USA (including Alaska). In a previous discussion, I looked at CPC outlooks for 2014 and early 2015, and their figures and analysis were produced using actual mid-January 2014 conditions.

New data

Now another month of data is in and CPC has updated their seasonal forecast to begin with mid-February 2014 conditions. A natural expectation is that the seasonal forecast would be better earlier in the overall forecast period. In other words, as the animation above progresses, the confidence in the forecast should decrease with time. Sometimes, however, larger patterns of atmospheric variability that emerge somewhere else in the world can exert some level of control on weather patterns (T and PCP) in the USA. El Nino-Southern Oscillation (ENSO, or sometimes just “El Nino”) is the best known example.

There could be all sorts of speculative lines of thinking in terms of causes, so for now, I’ll focus on the features that seem to hold up after another month of data. I’ll call these robust, and point out one overall theme that is worth watching as winter releases its grip on much of the USA.

Robust Features

The Southwestern USA and often the Western USA in general is facing what will likely be a warmer than average year until about October. I think this is a pretty safe prediction. There is almost no evolution after more data was considered, except perhaps that the Pacific Coast tends towards higher probability of above average warmth. Upper Alaska is also holding up to the earlier forecast of warmth, especially in the northernmnost reaches. Both these regions are well known as fire prone under unusual warmth. Uh-oh. By November-December, the above average warmth shifts to the mid-Atlantic and the Southeast USA. The Northeast USA drifts towards unusual warmth starting in the summertime, maybe July, and ending about, oh, early next calendar year. For precipitation, much of the USA seems to be a normal water year. The problem is that in the near term, California remains dryer than average. Other features in a featureless prediction are that the deep South is dry in the spring, while the Ohio River Valley is wetter than average. Northern Florida and the coastal SE USA tend towards dry late in the calendar year.*

Summary and What the AVERAGE Year Looks Like

Overall, the story remains clear: The USA should experience another warmer than average year. Warmer than average is a relative term. Remember that NOAA (and CPC) define the normal temperature and precipitation amounts by the 1981-2010 30 year average. This is a particularly irritating 30 year timeframe mainly because climate is clearly warming most rapidly during the 1970 to present day period. It is what it is, but sometimes the simpler message is lost. The CPC forecast is for a year that is warmer than the 1981-2010 average. So what is the 1981-2010 average?? This is what the 1895-2013 temperature and precipitation trends for the contiguous USA (no Alaska) from NOAA NCDC with the baseline average 1981-2010 average temperature overlaid.contiguousUSA-1895-2013-annual-TcontiguousUSA-1895-2013-annual-PThe precipitation is not the story, in my mind. The story is that we should expect a warmer than 1981-2010 year. The average of 1981-2010, without doing any math, is clearly warmer than most of the years this past century. Quickly eyeballing this number says that 82 of the 100 years in the last century are colder than the 1981-2010 average. This is really important in terms of perception of the significance of a warmer than “average” year. 1981-2010 is not a very good choice for the “average”. Gonna be a warm year according to CPC. Nowhere is there a robust and spatially significant feature suggesting below average temperatures, by the way.

*There are a few features that are not that robust, by my admittedly weak definition. For example, it’s not that clear whether the NE USA or the NW USA will tend warmer than average in the early summer. And precipitation has about the same number of features that are robust as not robust.

Tags: climatedata analysisdata visualizationNOAAspatiotemporal analysisUSA

Forecasting the USA temperature and precipitation tendency for 2014

February 13, 2014 by Brian Magi
Categories: Earth System Observer

Where we are this calendar year

Currently, the USA as a whole and the Southeastern USA are both cooler than normal this year 2014-02-12-YearTDeptUS and precipitation is slightly below average for the Eastern USA, above average for Colorado-Wyoming-Idaho, and well below average for the Southwestern USA. 2014-02-12-YearPNormUS

Where we are right now

Thinking about the upcoming year in weather while in the midst of a crippling snow/ice storm in the Carolinas (discussion via #NWSGSP, over 2,000 outages by end of 12 Feb 2014 mostly in Lancaster, Greenville, and Pickens Counties in SC, and Macon and Caswell Counties in NC*, flights cancelled, Rayleigh-Durham turning into a parking lot like Atlanta only two weeks ago, etc.) is the perfect time to test whether you can separate a trend from variability (teach me, dog walker).

*updated on 13 Feb 2014 midday is 36,400 outages; more than 14,000 in Mecklenburg, 4000 in Cabarrus, 2700 in Gaston, 1600 in Rowan, 1300 in Lincoln, and 1100 in Durham County, NC. About 5000 in Lancaster and 2900 in Chester County, SC. Wow. Second band of snow falling in North Mecklenburg dropped maybe another 6″ on the 5-6″ we had yesterday. Double wow. Snow and ice totals should be impressive after the analysis is complete.

Trend, variability, and perception

The temptation is that your opinion is tempered by what you are currently experiencing. The old and boring argument that “Hey, it’s cold. What’s up with global warming?” The short-story (pun intended) is that weather is always variable, and the #SEStorm snow and ice storm is no exception.

What is the trend? Globally, it’s simple. Temperature is increasing (NASA GISS, UK Met Office CRU, NOAA NCDC). For the USA, and states within the USA, it’s less simple. Variability in the weather tends to average out less and less over smaller and smaller spatial scales. What does this mean? The ups and downs we expect from weather like our February snow/ice storm and the preceding week with beautiful warm temperatures become less and less noticeable at larger spatial scales because while North Carolina might be down in temperature, somewhere else on Earth is certainly up on temperature. They average out unless there is an overriding trend, like the trend imposed by increases in greenhouse gases. That’s why the global temperature trend is so important. If something is making the entire Earth warm above what is considered a range of natural variability, then some very powerful mechanism is at work.

Where we might be this calendar year

Back to the question at hand though. Can science address near-term (say, over the next 3-12 months) temperature and precipitation? The answer is yes, and this prediction is studies using an analysis called seasonal forecasts. I was shocked by what is suggested for temperature for the rest of 2014 and slightly into the beginning of 2015. NOAA Climate Prediction Center (CPC) updates their seasonal forecasts about the middle of every month, and I put this animated version of their graphics together below. temperature-2014-01-16where, once you wrap your head around what I call the “geography” of the figure, you see that NOAA CPC is predicting whether the temperature over successively farther 3-month periods (Feb-Mar-Apr, Mar-Apr-May, etc.) will be above, at, or below the average temperature for 1981-2010 (the climate normal). Clearly, NOAA CPC analysis is suggesting that the USA is due to experience an above-average year for temperature. In particular, the Southwest and Alaska are pummeled by warmer-than-average temperatures until October (a hot summer in the Southwest is not pleasant, and hot summers in Alaska may be suggestive of a bad fire year). Furthermore, by about October-November, the forecast for the Southeastern USA is to be above average temperature even after the rest of the country goes to even chances for above or below-average temperature. That translates to a nice Halloween and Thanksgiving in the short-view, and yet another warm blip on the global warming trend in the long-view.*

Precipitation seems to be less interesting in terms of climatological deviations, but the Southwest does seem to at least move away from below-normal, dry conditions that are plagueing California right now. precipitation-2014-01-16

*I’ll revisit the seasonal forecasts again in a couple of weeks after NOAA CPC updates their analysis, and then also look at how well the forecasts capture reality at the end of the year using NOAA NCDC archived temperatures. This verification is mainly because I haven’t spent much time with these seasonal forecasts, but I am always seeking out new media for the classroom. A natural question about the NOAA CPC products is: Are they any good? We’ll see.

Summary

A lot to digest, and time will tell, but don’t let this cold early part of 2014 deceive you. Global warming is a major trend that is imposed on every weather system in the world. No single weather events is very likely attributable to global warming because of the complexity in parsing out all the causes and effects that modulate a weather system as it tracks through the USA (think of how tricky the forecast of ice vs snow was for this Feb 11-13 storm, and then try to say what it was that caused that specific location of the border between the two – hard!). But the average weather is slowly changing, and the average weather is climate. In the meantime, back to staring at the sleet that is falling and wondering when UNC Charlotte will open again for classes!

Tags: climateCPCdata visualizationNOAANorthnorth carolinaUSA

Climate in the Southeast in January 2014

February 01, 2014 by Brian Magi
Categories: Earth System Observer

Scientists studying the Earth’s climate system are supported by an immense and rich array of data. Sometimes it seems like you only have to be comfortable working with all this information. Programming languages help (matlab, R, python, NCL, for example). But even more accessible are incredible web resources. The USA High Plains Regional Climate Center updates their climate and weather relevant maps on a daily basis. Here are some figures showing where the country and the southeast USA stands. From NCDC time series plotter, the contiguous USA (no Alaska and Hawaii) was the 37th warmest year in the last 119 years, as shown in the graph below.
contiguous-USA-2013-T
In itself, 2013 wasn’t unusual. In recent memory, 2008 and 2009 were really similar to 2013. However, compared to the fanfare around the hottest year on record for the USA in 2012, it does seem different. Who can remember ought-8 and ought-9, right?

But even more to the point is what we feel where we live. Science and statistics are fine, but just like no one on Earth experiences the average global temperature, no one in the USA experiences the average USA temperature either! Let’s look at the Southeast. In 2013, drawing from the HPRCC link above for the figures below, the temperatures were cooler than average.
AnnDec13TDeptSERCC-2013-12-31
In the last 120 years, 2013 in the Southeast was about the 67th warmest. Most of the years in the past 120 years have been warmer! But this is really not that ususual. 4 of the last 10 years in the Southeast have been cooler than more than half the past 120 years. 10 years is a limited view, but I chose it because it’s a round number and because we remember the last 10 years. Going back to the USA, *none* of the last 10 years have been cooler than more than half of the past 120 years. Not really even close. You can verify this with NCDC data tools. What global warming? Well, that’s where perception matters. The Earth is warming, even if the Southeast seems to be avoiding the problem we’ve created with CO2 emissions.

Looking to the more recent period, we can also glean a little bit about our winter months with a 3 month average (Nov-Dec-Jan) using HPRCC again
Last3mTDeptSERCC-2014-01-31
We see that except for Florida, the Southeast is largely cooler than average. Here HPRCC is comparing against the 1981-2010 average temperature (temperature anomaly). Appalachia and further to the west are in a deep recession of the warmth we expect when we think of global warming.

Finally, we can look at January 2014 using HPRCC tools.
Last1mTDeptSERCC-2014-01-31
The Southeast is cold! Even poor Florida, which over the last 3 months is anomalously warm compared to the rest of the Southeast, is in a deep cold this past January. If we eyeball-average the data on the figure, we get a number of about 6-7 degrees F below the 1981-2010 average. Jeez. Where can we go for unseasonable warmth (retrospectively)? The West is certainly above average, and more importantly below average on precipitation, as the figures show below.
Last3mTDeptUS-2014-01-31
Last3mPNormUS-2014-01-31
Be thankful the Southeast is so stubbornly refusing to budge on global warming… but I worry that as a result of this stubborness, our legislators will forget this is a problem. North Carolina will be affected even if we are a hold out for now. Think global whenever you think of climate. Or, if you want, think of Bob Marley (one love, one heart). This figure from the recent IPCC report (WGIAR5-SPM_Approved27Sep2013) shows that there are only a couple of non-red areas on Earth (ie. they are not following the warming trend). The Southeast is one of them! But that is one scorched Earth otherwise.
ipcc-ar5-wg1-spm-fig1

Tags: climatedata visualizationNCDCNOAAnorth carolinaUSA

Voting for action on global environmental change

December 10, 2013 by Brian Magi
Categories: Earth System Observer

global-201101-201112As real as global warming (figure above from NOAA NCDC) is, and as much as we expect that the science has done enough, one US lawmaker recently said

I am for global action on climate change. I am a proud supporter and very anxious for the U.S. to participate globally. But I think if you look at the current makeup of the U.S. Senate, it’s very difficult.

This is a quote from Senator Ben Cardin (D-Md.) that I drew from a recent article that I’ll get to below. As I close off discussions with 28 undergraduate students of Earth Sciences, Geology, Meteorology, and Economics this semester in my Global Environmental Change course, the questions that permeate their responses to readings* we went over in class are

1. WHAT CAN WE DO?
2. WHY AREN’T WE DOING ANYTHING?

I bring a lot of current discussion into the classroom – more than the previous iteration of my course and I await my course reviews and student comments to better understand which materials resonated and which did not. In the meantime, my answer to the driving questions for the future of our state and country is simple: VOTE. Vote for the legislators that work on issues that you think benefit the global community.

The simplicity in my answer is partly because I don’t have a better answer, but partly because this is where the science stands. Namely, science has arrived at robust conclusions based on decades of intense research by communities of experts, most recently evidenced by the full report of the IPCC. Earth scientists keep working on issues because we are interested in what makes the physical world tick, and just like any community of professionals, the majority of us work on science that is relevant. The most relevant Earth science is climate science. I think it is safe to say that most Earth scientists want to see some actual climate action rather than the empty words that most that most of the action statements by politicians have amounted to so far. A widely-cited scientific paper about a way to visualize and break down carbon mitigation strategies into manageable parts said that the choice is simple: Act or delay.

If we want action, we cannot rely solely on science and engineering – we need policy makers. Policy makers are elected by people. So if my students want to help, vote. If citizens in general want to help, then vote. An interesting report by Lisa Friedman at Energy and Environment News included quotes from US lawmakers about the upcoming 2015 Paris climate meeting that many were hoping would be much farther along after this year’s Poland climate meeting. I’ll include several below:

It will be difficult to get a treaty passed in 2015 in the U.S. Senate as it is presently constituted

———————————–> Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.)

Keep our eyes on the prize of creating an ambitious, effective and durable agreement. Insisting that only one way can work, such as an agreement that is internationally binding in all respects, could put that prize out of reach.

———————————–> U.S. Special Envoy for Climate Change Todd Stern

[A binding agreement is] not going to go anywhere. It’s dead on arrival… [EPA limits on CO2 emissions from future power plants are] hurting our economy on a daily basis.

———————————–> Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.)

There is a lot of difference of opinion among very educated people on the science [of global warming]. [On whether a binding agreement would pass the Senate: ] I kind of doubt it. There is still a legitimate question of science, and you can’t brush that away.

———————————–> Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah)

I think this [a global climate treaty] is an issue that can flip very quickly. [An EPA regulation, for example, would] put a lot of costs on polluters and cause them to rethink the wisdom of an economywide carbon fee. If we can organize the armies on our side, it’s a rout. We just haven’t bothered to organize them. [The fact that climate is back in the political discussion and may be in 2014 means] that adds up to 2015 being a pretty good year.

———————————–> Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.)

This problem is global, not just related to any one country or only one region. We need an international effort, and I think there’s growing support for that in the United States.

———————————–> Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.)

We need to set a good example to the rest of the world. That way, when we call on China and India and other big emitters, we can say not only ‘Do as I say,’ but ‘Do as I do.’

———————————–> Sen. Tom Carper (D-Del.)

Increasingly, the U.S. is being viewed as a leader. Especially if the administration takes action on coal-fired power plants, I think it will be very hard, then, for China and India to say the U.S. is not acting.

———————————–> Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.)

[Action might require] some kind of catastrophe… I think [global warming and subsequent impacts are] real, and I think that we should continue to explore our options to reduce the effects of it. [He has not liked] anything I’ve seen lately [about how the UN climate process has influenced US lawmakers.] [Still, he conceded,] I don’t think talking hurts. It probably helps.

———————————–> Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.)

Are pathways opening up? Has Obama been able to set up his position strongly enough to promote policies that are in line with the science? Well, it comes back to the simple solution: Vote for what you believe. I would argue that your political party – socially or economically – is not the relevant part of a vote that supports climate change policy.

As Professor Andrew Dessler argues in his book, and as many other climate and climate policy scientists argue, the decision to move away from energy sources with high carbon emissions is completely reversible – if the climate science summarized in the IPCC reports is entirely wrong or even partly wrong about carbon cycle science,

Figure 2 from Chapter 6 (Carbon and Other Biogeochemical Cycles) FAQ 6.1 of IPCC AR5 Working Group 1. Shows that some fraction of a 5000 GtC pulse of carbon emissions - on scale with a pulse from burning all fossil fuel reserves - would affect the atmosphere for 1,000s to 100,000s of years. Roughly 40% of the pulse would remain in the atmosphere even after 2000 years.

Figure 2 from Chapter 6 (Carbon and Other Biogeochemical Cycles) FAQ 6.1 of IPCC AR5 Working Group 1. Shows that some fraction of a 5000 GtC pulse of carbon emissions – on scale with a pulse from burning all fossil fuel reserves – would affect the atmosphere for 1,000s to 100,000s of years. Roughly 40% of the pulse would remain in the atmosphere even after 2000 years.

we can always go back to burning the least expensive energy sources without regard to the environment. But if climate science is even close to right, then we are facing irreversible changes (see the figure above) to the carbon cycle that will affect the Earth for centuries, millenia, and even further.

As I told my students, the questions that we face are civilization scale (echoing Rep. Waxman’s quote above). Human civilization emerged as a presence on Earth somewhere between 20,000 and 200,000 years ago. I’m no archaeologist, so that number isn’t particularly important. The point is that dinosaurs managed to survive for 165 million years on Earth and evolve into the Cretaceous Period species that we know and love (tyrannosaurus rex, triceratops, etc.). It sure would be nice to think that our advanced technology means we can learn to live in harmony with the planet longer than the dinosaurs! Considering that the dinosaurs were finally offed by a meteorite, I’d say we have a lot to prove still.

*readings from Elizabeth Kolbert, Andrew Dessler, IPCC AR4 and AR5, news posts from New York Times and Washington Post, and multimedia presentations such as Thin Ice, Earth The Operators Manual, and data visualizations and tools focusing on climate-relevant data like carbon emissions, temperature records, and climate model projections

Tags: carbonclimatecoalglobal environmental changeglobal warmingteaching

Tracking and targetting emissions from power plants

September 26, 2013 by Brian Magi
Categories: Earth System Observer

Speaking as a part of a press release about power plant carbon emissions in NC.

Speaking as a part of a press release about power plant carbon emissions in NC.

As my students probably know by now, I think an important point when discussing or even thinking about how to deal with the combination of our hunger for energy and global warming is to remember the scales of the problem. There are two important scales to consider in every discussion of global warming: time and space. The adjectival forms would be “temporal” and “spatial”. The super-cool adjective, which I probably overuse, is “spatiotemporal”. Spatiotemporal analysis is critical to understanding global warming and what it means in any single location on Earth. The temporal scale is highlighted over and over again right now because of the global warming “pause”, which as any analysis or background research should reveal, is nothing more than a pause and that plenty of research is underway and done that helps to understand yet another small surprise in the complex Earth system. One part of the problem of climate change that is not surprising is what is the cause. Carbon emissions from fossil fuel burning are the main culprit, so the prescription is simple: Stop burning fossil fuels. Hah! This comes back to our hunger for the energy stored deep in the Earth, so the answer is definitely not as simple as the prescription.

Me talking about the state of climate science with Graham Givens of Environment NC, Ronald Ross, local resident and Vice President of Stewart Creek Environmental Association, and reporters!

Me talking about the state of climate science with Graham Givens of Environment NC, Ronald Ross, local resident and Vice President of Stewart Creek Environmental Association, and reporters!

I provided some scientific feedback to an effort by Environment North Carolina a few weeks ago that I neglected to highlight on my research webpage (but I did on twitter), and I will expand on this a little now. Environment NC released a report of carbon emissions from power plants across the USA. Power plants (coal, natural gas) are required to track and report these emissions, so sometimes groups just need to put forth the effort in assembling these numbers into a coherent piece of writing, which is what Environment NC did. They found that 3 of the top 50 most serious carbon emitters were in the state of NC – they are all coal plants of course. Coal is still being burned even though Natural Gas is used more and more. The key findings, as Environment NC stated on their written press release, are:

  • The Marshall plant, near Lake Norman, emitted 10.1 million metric tons of pollution in 2011, the equivalent of 2.09 million cars.
  • Three of the most polluting power plants in the country are in North Carolina: Belews, Roxboro, and Marshall.
  • Belews Creek Power plant near Winston-Salem was the state’s biggest global warming polluter and 16th overall, emitting 13.8 million metric tons of carbon pollution, the equivalent of 2.9 million cars.
  • North Carolina’s power plants are the 12th most polluting in the country, producing as much carbon each year as 15 million cars.
  • North Carolina’s power plants are its single largest source of carbon pollution – responsible for 51% of the carbon pollution in the state.

    • The press release was at their news site, and they arranged a live release for media. I went to Frazier Park near the heart of the Queen City early in Septemeber to speak about the science, essentially relying on the discussion in IPCC AR4, which is what I discuss in my classes too. I spoke from the position of scientific evidence. The press release at Frazier Park made its way through state and city news outlets, and I thought the reporters did a great job with the write-ups. Here are some links:

    Charlotte Business Journal

    WSOC-TV in Charlotte

    NC Public News Service

    Charlotte Observer

    I think on the eve of the release of the first part of the IPCC Fifth Assessment Report, it’s important to remember that the solution to the problem of global warming, or at least the best way to mitigate the problems, begins at a local level. We have to remember that the carbon emissions in our backyard – which Environment NC highlighted – affect the entire world. CO2 lasts 100-1000 years in the atmosphere so CO2 from North Carolina will be absorbing infrared radiation for a long, long time. Maybe I’ll write an op-ed for the Observer.

    Tags: carbonclimateglobal warmingnorth carolina

    Ramping up for teaching with NOAA NCDC

    August 07, 2013 by Brian Magi
    Categories: Earth System Observer

    Summer is a time of dedicated research for me. Finished one project, waiting for peer reviews on that manuscript, tinkering with twitter, planning out research conference travel in the next school year, and working on a grant proposal to NSF. The season of the classroom is nearly here though, so I’m slowly re-allocating my hours to teaching. A great early-career workshop for university and college faculty that I attended the last week of July helped me get into gear with teaching again. I need a workshop like that every summer!

    Another way I start to think about teaching is to begin to browse through the data that I want to bring into the classroom. One site I haven’t visited in months, but that I prolifically visit throughout past school years, is the NOAA NCDC time series plotter. I had the pleasure of visiting the numbers again tonight and remain very impressed by NCDC outreach and transparency efforts. The new addition to the time-series plotter (which you can use to produce climate-relevant analysis at different spatial and temporal scales) is a slightly more friendly user-interface, and a few features that I think most stats people will really appreciate. Yes, it’s not a super fancy analysis package, but the statistical analysis you can do just via the webpage now includes two new options. One is the option to display the anomaly against a different base period rather than always using the 20th Century average. In other words, you can choose a base period of 1951-1980 like NASA GISS tends to use or you can play around and see what the effect of a different base period is. The other new option is a display of a trend line for any period. The first thing you can do with this is see how temperature (for example) trends in the early part of the century compare to the trends in the latter part of the century. Or you can mimic the cherry picking that climate data is sometimes a victim to and choose very specific start and end points to produce a trend that amplifies an argument you are making (“look, it’s getting colder!” or “look, it heating up super fast”). one exception to all this great online analysis is that it only applies at the “super” level for data in the contiguous USA. someday, i’ll ask NCDC scientists why this can’t be done for Alaska and Hawaii, and why the global analysis tools are more limited. either way, an exciting development in my virtual friendship with NOAA NCDC.

    Tags: climatedata analysisdata visualizationNCDCNOAAnorth carolinateaching

    Activity on twitter

    July 05, 2013 by Brian Magi
    Categories: Earth System Observer

    I haven’t posted anything here for about a week – an eternity in the land of constant chatter (the internet). I’m working on a couple of publications, which take a lot of concentration, so that’s my main excuse. My secondary excuse is that I’ve been prowling around the twitter-verse. Science talk on twitter has been active! Hard to quantify, but just seeing how much many prominent climate scientists (defined by publications, say), advocates, and climate-related groups are posting makes me think that some of discussion that twitter is a good venue for quickly disseminating science are on the right track. Facebook always felt stilted to me and seemed more like something you do with friends and family then the general world. Twitter feels different, but like I said, it’s hard to quantify. The best hashtag I’ve been witness to has been #ActOnClimate in response to President Obama’s speech announcing his administration’s Climate Action Plan (PDF with more details) and also since then. #ActOnClimate was trending high all afternoon on the day of his speech, for example. So my recent posts have been at the level of tweets and that’s about it. Here is a snippet of my activity.

    Science, global warming, and education news:

    Dynamics of a still mysterious part of the Earth that is above sea level (of course the oceans have many more mysteries!):

    Back to my roots with aerosol research and the myriad of dampening effects these little particles have on phenomena:

    Are eating habits going to be forced to change? I’m not 100% convinced of this, but I am 100% worried if climate science suggests that hamburgers have to go!

    go to @brianmagi for more. If you have your own climate action plan going in the Charlotte area, I’d love to hear from you on twitter or email.

    Tags: climateglobal warming

    The Climate Change Speech transcript and video

    June 26, 2013 by Brian Magi
    Categories: Earth System Observer

    Here’s an update from my post yesterday about the Climate Change Speech. Link to the video on Youtube via whitehouse.gov. The video is downloadable (mp4) so you can show students how a speech embodies leadership on an issue that will, in my opinion, define this and the next generation. Link to the transcript of the speech at Georgetown University.

    When I review the transcript, I think about the speech Margaret Thatcher gave to the UN in 1989. Thatcher opened her speech about global warming with the voyages of Charles Darwin. Obama opened his speech with the voyages to space by US astronauts.

    President Obama said on a hot summer day (92 F air, 67 F dewpoint means about 96 F heat index) in Washington DC in June 2013

    On Christmas Eve, 1968, the astronauts of Apollo 8 did a live broadcast from lunar orbit. So Frank Borman, Jim Lovell, William Anders — the first humans to orbit the moon -– described what they saw, and they read Scripture from the Book of Genesis to the rest of us back here. And later that night, they took a photo that would change the way we see and think about our world. It was an image of Earth -– beautiful; breathtaking; a glowing marble of blue oceans, and green forests, and brown mountains brushed with white clouds, rising over the surface of the moon. And while the sight of our planet from space might seem routine today, imagine what it looked like to those of us seeing our home, our planet, for the first time. Imagine what it looked like to children like me. Even the astronauts were amazed. “It makes you realize,” Lovell would say, “just what you have back there on Earth.”

    Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher said in November 1989

    During his historic voyage through the south seas on the Beagle, Charles Darwin landed one November morning in 1835 on the shore of Western Tahiti. After breakfast he climbed a nearby hill to find advantage point to survey the surrounding Pacific. The sight seemed to him like “a framed engraving”, with blue sky, blue lagoon, and white breakers crashing against the encircling Coral Reef. As he looked out from that hillside, he began to form his theory of the evolution of coral; 154 years after Darwin’s visit to Tahiti we have added little to what he discovered then.

    What if Charles Darwin had been able, not just to climb a foothill, but to soar through the heavens in one of the orbiting space shuttles? What would he have learned as he surveyed our planet from that altitude? From a moon’s eye view of that strange and beautiful anomaly in our solar system that is the earth? Of course, we have learned much detail about our environment as we have looked back at it from space, but nothing has made a more profound impact on us than these two facts.

    First, as the British scientist Fred Hoyle wrote long before space travel was a reality, he said “once a photograph of the earth, taken from the outside is available … a new idea as powerful as any other in history will be let loose”. That powerful idea is the recognition of our shared inheritance on this planet. We know more clearly than ever before that we carry common burdens, face common problems, and must respond with common action.

    And second, as we travel through space, as we pass one dead planet after another, we look back on our earth, a speck of life in an infinite void. It is life itself, incomparably precious, that distinguishes us from the other planets. It is life itself—human life, the innumerable species of our planet—that we wantonly destroy. It is life itself that we must battle to preserve.

    I could read those words over and over again and never feel any less attached to the idea of a global community and the potential role that science can play in achieving this goal. After yesterday, the goal seems attainable.

    Tags: climateglobal environmental changeglobal warmingquotesUSA