A Farewell to Ice: A Report from the Arctic
by Peter Wadhams
by Peter Wadhams
Please use this thread to discuss Ch. 5: The greenhouse effect.
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The greenhouse concept has been a successful way of communicating science to the public. I have to think that to the extent that we understand what is causing warming, calling our home a greenhouse is mostly responsible. Not so with radiative forcing, unfortunately. I think a more vivid term could have been popularized to drive home why the greenhouse is retaining more heat.Robert Tulip wrote: The key concept for climate physics is radiative forcing, the difference between incoming and outgoing radiation at the top of the atmosphere. RF doubled between 1980 and 2011, showing the rampant uncontrolled indifference of humans toward our planetary home. GHG levels define what is known as climate sensitivity, seen by the extraordinarily fine relationship over geological time between CO2 and temperature. Some calculations say the current climate sensitivity means we have stored up enough forcing to heat the planet by nearly 8°C, but Wadhams muses that those numbers are just too politically explosive to get a hearing in the UN.
Daniel Kahneman has an acronym that captures our habit of thinking that the rest of the world corresponds to the conditions we can see right in front of us--WYSIATI, what you see is all there is. As far as the Arctic is concerned, it's out of our ken and concern. If we experience a severe heat wave or more severe weather, we might then think something needs to be done, but when conditions return to more like normal, we settle back into comfortable complacency.His section on The Recent Temperature History of the Earth shows the predicted rapid increase caused mainly by CO2 release, with a dip in the rate of increase caused by coal burning in the mid twentieth century, when so much polluting soot was released that it dimmed the tide of warming. The chapter concludes with an introduction to Arctic Amplification, which is the key terrifying problem of the world, considered objectively over decadal timeframe. Since 1850, the North Pole has warmed up at triple the rate of the rest of the planet, providing a bellwether for our global future. The main cause seems to be albedo, the farewell to ice, the fact that we are turning the pole from white to black with all our heating, from radiating reflector to heat absorber. All that heat that goes into the ocean warms the currents which flow through the Arctic, generating enormous warming forcing and a range of dangerous accelerating feedback systems.
It isn't easy to get people to see the effects of global warming. Intensification of the cycles of floods and fires is hardly an obvious call. I do remember, though, when a postcard went to everyone in North America (and probably Europe, too) showing the shrinking Arctic ice in a simple alternating picture. Tilt the card a little less and the ice was there (that's the "before" picture) and a little more and the ice was gone (that's "after"). I think a lot of people realized it was no fake, or alarmist exaggeration, at that point. It's still a little abstract for the average person, but it dramatized the matter enough so that opinion has gradually responded to evidence.DWill wrote:Daniel Kahneman has an acronym that captures our habit of thinking that the rest of the world corresponds to the conditions we can see right in front of us--WYSIATI, what you see is all there is. As far as the Arctic is concerned, it's out of our ken and concern. If we experience a severe heat wave or more severe weather, we might then think something needs to be done, but when conditions return to more like normal, we settle back into comfortable complacency.
We have no single silver bullet, but we have an array of options that will matter, and could shut down net emissions in a decade. A realistic increase in nuclear power is one piece. A dramatic expansion in renewables is another. I saw another optimistic headline about fusion power this week. Increased investment in insulation can still make an enormous difference. Dramatic advancements in battery technology, driven by Elon Musk and the Japanese, mostly, will bring us electric trucks. The list goes on and on. My complaint is that market incentives have been stunted by the merchants of doubt and their enablers among the political opportunists (aka sellouts). I think they should be shamed like war profiteers, or even collaborationists with an enemy, since it could very well be civilization that is at stake.Wadhams mentions the ozone hole caused by CFC releases, recognized by 1985 and quickly addressed by international treaty in 1987. Replacing CFCs with other refrigerants and propellants was a notable achievement. But we don't have anything in the offing that can replace hydrocarbons at the level needed to sustain our economy, much less grow it.