WGIII is out - Mitigation options and societal impacts

The IPCC AR5 WGIII Summary for Policy Makers is now available for download. Without making a recommendation for any particular option, it assesses "the scientific, technological, environmental, economic and social aspects of mitigation of climate change".  It also assesses societal implications of different mitigation policies.

For this assessment, about 900 mitigation scenarios have been collected in a database based on published integrated models.

That's a lot of mitigation scenarios to work through! I'm still reading the report as I write this. It looks as if the main report will be chock full of facts and figures as well as emphasising what will probably seem obvious to most readers.

One item that fits in the "facts and figures" category is this one, about how if we don't do something, we're stuffed:

Without additional efforts to reduce GHG emissions beyond those in place today, emissions growth is expected to persist driven by growth in global population and economic activities. Baseline scenarios, those without additional mitigation, result in global mean surface temperature increases in 2100 from 3.7 to 4.8°C compared to pre‐industrial levels 10 (median values; the range is 2.5°C to 7.8°C when including climate uncertainty, see Table SPM.1)

Yep, the report comes right out and says we could be heading for a temperature rise of 7.8°C.

We've not done enough to stay safe.  We've not promised to do enough to stay below 2°C of warming. But we can get there if we put our collective mind to it.

Estimated global GHG emissions levels in 2020 based on the Cancún Pledges are not consistent with cost‐effective long‐term mitigation trajectories that are at least as likely as not to limit temperature change to 2°C relative to pre‐industrial levels (2100 concentrations of about 450 and about 500 ppm CO2eq), but they do not preclude the option to meet that goal (high confidence). Meeting this goal would require further substantial reductions beyond 2020. The Cancún Pledges are broadly consistent with cost‐effective scenarios that are likely to keep temperature change below 3°C relative to preindustrial levels. [6.4, 13.13, Figures TS.11, TS.13]

The more we delay the more dangerous and costly it becomes and the fewer choices we'll have.

Delaying mitigation efforts beyond those in place today through 2030 is estimated to substantially increase the difficulty of the transition to low longer‐term emissions levels and narrow the range of options consistent with maintaining temperature change below 2°C relative to pre‐industrial levels

The report includes some pie-in-the-sky scenarios for comparison, such as everywhere on earth starting to mitigate immediately and there is a global price on carbon. It's not all bad news. If we act properly, there will be lots of associated benefits such as clean air (which some parts of the world haven't seen in a while).

The SPM touches on different sectors: transport, buildings, and industry as well as agriculture, forestry and other land use (which has its own acronym AFOLU). It also discusses what actions have been taken around the world to mitigate, in a broader policy context. The final (short) section covers international cooperation.

The main report should also be out shortly.  Meanwhile, you can read the Summary for Policy Makers.


By the way, the only mention of this at WUWT so far is a dig at ClimateProgress (archived here), although for some reason Anthony Watts neglected to mention that the ClimateProgress article was about WGIII.

Anthony probably didn't realise what Joe Romm's article was about, even though it's mentioned in the snapshot he took.  He was too busy trying to make a "funny" out of Joe Romm writing:

You read that right, the annual growth loss to preserve a livable climate is 0.06% — and that’s “relative to annualized consumption growth in the baseline that is between 1.6% and 3% per year.” So we’re talking annual growth of, say 2.24% rather than 2.30% to save billions and billions of people from needless suffering for decades if not centuries. As always, every word of the report was signed off on by every major government in the world.

Where is the cooling, Ira Glickstein? It's a travesty...

Today I came across a comment on WUWT by the Village Idiot.  Village Idiot was responding to an article by Ira Glickstein looking at the differences in projections in the various IPCC reports (archived here, update here).

Village Idiot says "it's a travesty":

October 10, 2013 at 11:58 pm
As you so rightly say, Ira, all the signs and portents are there in the sun, heavens and sea. They have been for years. Now, I’m a non-expert on matters of climate, but I find it’s a travesty that we can’t account for the lack of cooling at the moment, which was prophesied by High Priest Don, and posted on the Village notice board back in 2008:

http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2008/12/agu2.png

Where is all Easterbrook’s cold hiding? I think some of its going into the extra ice in the Antarctic. Any other suggestions?

What about the cooling?

Some time ago I put together a collection of various alarmist predictions from WUWT including Denier Don's 2008 prediction. Or to go directly, you can  click here for an archived copy of the Denier Don's 2008 prediction at WUWT itself.  At the time Don wrote:

The sun’s recent behavior suggests we are likely heading for a deeper global cooling than the 1945-1977 cool period and ought to be looking ahead to cope with it.

Below is the image of Denier Don's predicted cooling.  I've highlighted his "deeper global cooling than the 1945-1977 cool period" and shown Don's prediction compared to 2012 global surface temperature.  Yes, it's messy because Don's charts are kinky and have all sorts of odd stuff (like his "warm" and "cold" and "cool" categories).  Click to enlarge:

Source: Adapted from Easterbrook (2008) at WUWT

What is causing the warming?

I looked back to see what Ira Glickstein has done in the past at WUWT.  Two and a half years ago he took a poll of WUWT readers (archived here) to see how much they thought global warming of 0.8 degrees Celsius should be apportioned to three things.  The results in degree Celsisus were as follows - all to 3 decimal places!

• human (AGW) 0.179 (0 to +0.7) - Ira = 0.100
• natural cycles 0.331 (0 to 0.55) - Ira = 0.400
• data bias 0.275 (0 to 0.65) - Ira = 0.300

It's a fairly good example of wishful thinking, particularly the emphasis many people put on data bias.

A quick search didn't lead me to any quantitative prediction Ira has made in the past in relation to global surface temperature.  However, for the record, he has today made a prediction for the temperature in 2035.  He predicts no change from the current surface temperature between now and 2035.

Comparing IPCC projections

Ira did an interesting comparison of projections from previous IPCC reports with those of the current report.  I don't think he was correct in highlighting the mean of the projections, but that's a relatively minor quibble.

Rather than show his chart, I made up one of my own into an animation, flipping through the previous and current projections and showing Ira's projection compared to the current AR5 range. As always, click the image to see the larger version.

Adapted from TFE.3, Figure 1: IPCC WG1 Technical Summary (page TS-96)

Illogical conspiracy ideation

Ira does make the common misplaced complaint:

I’m optimistic about the future! Unlike some of the Alarmists and Warmists who actually hope for a climate catastrophe to justify their decades of shrill Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming (CAGW) warnings, I’d prefer a future without such problems. Indeed, I hope that the cooling trends listed above do not result in excessive cooling which would be far more dangerous than the moderate warming we have experienced over the past century.

Attributing nefarious intent, as Ira does, is a feature of conspiracy ideation.  I'm not saying that Ira is a conspiracy theorist, but he's clearly inclined towards it by saying that "Alarmists and Warmists" actually hope for a climate catastrophe.  Why are science deniers so silly about this.  Why on earth would people who understand science be wanting to reduce carbon emissions if we were "hoping for a climate catastrophe"?  We'd be working against achieving our goal!  Logic is not a strong suit of science deniers.

---o--- Update: Ira Glickstein has taken the trouble to write a comment below, explaining that he is indeed more than merely 'inclined' towards conspiracy ideation. ---o---

And it's odd how deniers are unable to face facts.  Cooling trends? What cooling trends, Ira?

Data source: NASA

How hot do we want to get?

Before moving on to the comments, it's worth looking at the carbon budget to figure out how hot we want to get, from the IPCC AR5 Summary for Policy Makers (page SPM-35):

Source: Adapted from IPCC AR5 SPM

From the WUWT comments

So far there haven't been very many comments at WUWT (archived here, update here).  I guess most readers are still asleep.  There was a bit of to-ing and fro-ing on the matter of "projections" versus "predictions".  Then the Village Idiot chimed in with his "where is the cooling hiding" question.  

The playground monitor, richardscourtney tried to get people to behave in the manner in which richardscourtney thinks they should behave and say things that only richardscourtney approves of, writing (this time without shouting a single word):

October 11, 2013 at 1:24 am

Ira Glickstein:

Thankyou for this contribution.

It is to be hoped your presentation will evoke the serious discussion it deserves concerning the failure of past IPCC predictions and the adherence of IPCC AR5 to ECS estimates which are obviously too high.

I am sorry such discussion has been inhibited by the start of the thread being trolled by the ‘red herrings’ of Terry Oldberg and Village Idiot. Take pleasure from the knowledge that they would not have bothered to try side-tracking the thread if your point were not made well.
Oldberg knows he is spouting nonsense because it has been explained to him several times on many WUWT threads. The Idiot only ever spouts nonsense with intention of disrupting threads.

Terry Oldberg was explaining to people the difference between a projection and a prediction.  It looks as if richardscourtney has decided that when the IPCC says "projection" it really means "prediction". (The man would be impossible to communicate with if he were to substitute his own meaning to everything one were to say.)

Deniers are a very patient lot.  J.Seifert is still expecting Denier Don's cooling to come out of hiding sooner or later and says "it's just a matter of some more time" for "detailed celestial mechanics" to unveil the hidden cooling (is that a reference to God in the ++:

October 11, 2013 at 2:17 am
Point 3 is the major climate driver:

It says: “” 3) We seem to be entering a downturn in the multi-decadal cycle of warming and cooling. ……. An approximately 60-year cycle of warming and cooling seems to be superimposed on that general warming trend ……..”"

This 60 year cycle is explained by Nic. Scafetta in his recent papers. In coming years,
science will take a closer look into this cycle nd will determine its detailed celestial mechanics….

its just a matter of some more time.

As PDO and AMO enter cold phases, there is no somewhere hiding missing heat, rather
less incoming heat, due to astronomical changes in the Earth´s orbit.

Izen notes that Ira Glickstein's prediction is in conflict with paleo evidence and points to other problems with Ira's prediction, which is the bit in italics (extract, you can read the rest here):

October 11, 2013 at 2:48 am

1) IPCC ECS estimates are two or three times too high. I believe the true ECS is closer to 1°C than the 2°C to 3°C claimed by the official climate Team.

That belief is on direct contradiction with evidence from the paleoclimate. It is very difficult to make such low ECS values compatible with the glacial cycles.

2) Daytime clouds, thunderstorms and related natural phenomena have net cooling effects. The way these phenomena are modeled by the IPCC models is basically wrong. I subscribe to the Thermostat Hypothesis put forth in 2009 by Willis Eschenbach that these phenomena counteract some of the warming effects of greenhouse gasses.

As Dr Spencer has pointed out the thermostat hypothesis was proposed by many other before willis Eschenbach co opted it. Empirical observation has failed to find any supporting evidence for such negative feedbacks ever since Lindzen and the failure of the iris hypothesis.

PS I'd take my hat off to Village Idiot if I wore a hat.  She or he provides a source of well-targeted humour to alleviate the boredom of wading through mindless comments from the scientific illiterati at WUWT.

The latest climate science from the IPCC and some early reactions

The summary report for policy makers from the latest IPCC Working Group 1 report was released a few hours ago, at 10:00 am this morning Stockholm time.  For the last five days the IPCC has been meeting to consider and finalise the draft report.  By all accounts it was a mammoth session, with participants working around the clock.  If nothing else, it shows that all the participants took the summary report very seriously.

I watched the live telecast and have skimmed the Summary for Policy Makers.  It's only 36 pages from beginning to the figures and tables at the end.

David Rose asks an "ill-posed question", from a scientific point of view

During the telecast, tabloid writer David Rose asked a question and was told by Michel Jarraud of the WMO that from a scientific point of view it was "an ill-posed question" based on a misunderstanding of how models work.  Good for Michel Jarraud!

How much more can we burn?

One figure that stood out was a plot of temperature against cumulative CO2 and cumulative carbon.  I was going to include the full caption but it's long.  Scientists don't make things simple to follow, do they.  You can read the caption at the top of page SPM-20 here. Click image for larger version.

Figure SPM.10: Global mean surface temperature increase as a function of cumulative total global CO2 emissions from various lines of evidence. 

The thing I like is that it shows our choices in terms of a carbon budget.  If we are happy to send humanity to a dreadful future we can decide to keep burning carbon.  If we want to opt to give future generations a reasonable hope of continuing civilisation, then we will set a budget limit.  From what I can work out that limit will need to be at around 800 Gt of carbon (GtC is shown on the bottom horizontal scale).  I've overlaid lines showing the 2 degree mark and the 800 Gt mark.  The report states:

Limiting the warming caused by anthropogenic CO2 emissions alone with a probability of >33%, >50%, and >66% to less than 2°C since the period 1861–188022, will require cumulative CO2 emissions from all anthropogenic sources to stay between 0 and about 1560 GtC, 0 and about 1210 GtC, and 0 and about 1000 GtC since that period respectively23. These upper amounts are reduced to about 880 GtC, 840 GtC, and 800 GtC respectively, when accounting for non-CO2 forcings as in RCP2.6. An amount of 531 [446 to 616] GtC, was already emitted by 2011. {12.5}

I think that translates to - don't burn any more than 800 Gt of carbon if you want to leave any sort of future for humankind.

IPCC Headline Statements

There are the nineteen headline statements from the approved Summary for Policy Makers (my bold italics).  It seems to me that they are more forceful than were previous reports.  I won't list the lot - you can read them all here in a separate document or as part of the SPM itself.  I'll just list a few of them:

• Warming of the climate system is unequivocal, and since the 1950s, many of the observed changes are unprecedented over decades to millennia. The atmosphere and ocean have warmed, the amounts of snow and ice have diminished, sea level has risen, and the concentrations of greenhouse gases have increased. 
• Ocean warming dominates the increase in energy stored in the climate system, accounting for more than 90% of the energy accumulated between 1971 and 2010 (high confidence). It is virtually certain that the upper ocean (0−700 m) warmed from 1971 to 2010, and it likely warmed between the 1870s and 1971. 
• Over the last two decades, the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets have been losing mass, glaciers have continued to shrink almost worldwide, and Arctic sea ice and Northern Hemisphere spring snow cover have continued to decrease in extent (high confidence). 
• The atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide (CO2), methane, and nitrous oxide have increased to levels unprecedented in at least the last 800,000 years. CO2 concentrations have increased by 40% since pre-industrial times, primarily from fossil fuel emissions and secondarily from net land use change emissions. The ocean has absorbed about 30% of the emitted anthropogenic carbon dioxide, causing ocean acidification. 
• Human influence on the climate system is clear. This is evident from the increasing greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere, positive radiative forcing, observed warming, and understanding of the climate system. 
• Climate models have improved since the AR4. Models reproduce observed continental-scale surface temperature patterns and trends over many decades, including the more rapid warming since the mid-20th century and the cooling immediately following large volcanic eruptions (very high confidence). 
• Human influence has been detected in warming of the atmosphere and the ocean, in changes in the global water cycle, in reductions in snow and ice, in global mean sea level rise, and in changes in some climate extremes. This evidence for human influence has grown since AR4. It is extremely likely that human influence has been the dominant cause of the observed warming since the mid-20th century. 
• Continued emissions of greenhouse gases will cause further warming and changes in all components of the climate system. Limiting climate change will require substantial and sustained reductions of greenhouse gas emissions. 
• Changes in the global water cycle in response to the warming over the 21st century will not be uniform. The contrast in precipitation between wet and dry regions and between wet and dry seasons will increase, although there may be regional exceptions. 
• The global ocean will continue to warm during the 21st century. Heat will penetrate from the surface to the deep ocean and affect ocean circulation. 
• Cumulative emissions of CO2 largely determine global mean surface warming by the late 21st century and beyond. Most aspects of climate change will persist for many centuries even if emissions of CO2 are stopped. This represents a substantial multi-century climate change commitment created by past, present and future emissions of CO2.

What the papers are saying

I went to see what the papers were saying.  The Telegraph, where denier blogger James Delingpole has a large if mainly illiterate following, wrote a fairly straight report with a couple of interesting quotes:

One delegate told the Telegraph on Thursday night: "The good news is that the Saudis are not objecting to every word like used to happen [at previous meetings].

"It is pretty tame compared to the early years of the IPCC when you used to have a real scrum between people like the Chinese, who could be quite difficult. There is no-one in there saying climate change isn't real."...

...Ed Davey, the Energy and Climate Change Secretary, said solutions to the problem of man-made greenhouse gases accumulating in the atmosphere “must be set in motion today.”
He said: “The risks and costs of doing nothing today are so great, only a deeply irresponsible government would be so negligent.

“Without urgent action to cut greenhouse gas emissions this warming will continue, with potentially dangerous impacts upon our societies and economy.”

Sky News Australia wrote a straight report with the headline: Man-made warming 'extremely likely'

Australia's Sydney Morning Herald featured a strong editorial:

The new Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report should be a game-changer in how Australia tackles global warming. But it won't be - not without strong leadership from Prime Minister Tony Abbott.

Future generations will look back, see the clear evidence of human-induced climate change in this and previous IPCC reports and wonder why more wasn't done sooner to tackle the problem? They will look at the safety-first approach of the Howard Coalition government on, say, terrorism, where substantial policy, investment and cultural change was implemented to minimise that risk.

Why, they will ask, does this Abbott Coalition government at best play down the risk of global warming and at worst deny it to protect vested interests and reinforce the ideological groupthink among its cheer squad?

Read the full SMH editorial here.


The Washington Post wrote a fairly straight article, with some quotes from leaders in the USA inexplicably next to a couple from anti-science blogger, Anthony Watts, presumably to show up just what clowns the fake sceptics are.  A short excerpt (my bold italics):

In the United States, officials reacted favorably to the report. Secretary of State John Kerry said “climate change is real,” happening now, and that the United States is determined to be a leader in curbing emissions.

Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), chair of the Committee on Environment and Public Works, called the report a landmark and said it underscores the administration’s recent efforts. “I will do everything in my power to support the administration in their efforts to address the dangerous impacts of climate disruption,” Boxer said.

Frances Beinecke, president of the Natural Resources Defense Council, an environmental advocacy group, called the report “a warning bell to the world.” She said the impact are fierce wildfires, drought, floods and storms that will only get worse with delay. “The science is clear: We are altering the climate,” Beinecke said.

But deniers of climate change dismissed the report. Anthony Watts, a former television meteorologist who writes the blog WattsUpWithThat, called it “comical at best.”

Read the full Washington Post article here.

There's a miscellaneous collection of news items, newspaper blogs and editorials here on Google news.  Mainstream media is doing straight reporting.  I'd say if you want to read what science deniers are saying you'll have to go to their blogs, because they don't seem to be getting much airplay in the news.

What the science deniers are saying

Anthony Watts on his blog WUWT (archived here) says his first reaction was:

That IPCC had a golden opportunity, and blew it due to being unable to adapt to reality.

He didn't say what he thought the "golden opportunity" was or how the IPCC "blew it", only why.

Anthony promised a "bullet point collection" of reactions as they come in, but he left out the bullet points.  There is not a dot to be seen at WUWT.

As for reactions, Anthony did report that Judith Curry went looking through the summary report for her favourite "uncertainty".  Going by what I've read she will be certain to have found less uncertainty than was in previous IPCC reports.  Therefore it is extremely likely that Judith Curry won't be happy (high confidence).

The reaction from the rest of what Anthony has collated is predictable and boring.  The usual "I don't believe it" and "all the world's experts are wrong" mixed in with mostly non-specific grumbles and moans.

From the WUWT comments

The comments are archived here with Anthony Watts bullet-less bullet points.

Mike Bromley the Kurd says:

September 27, 2013 at 7:17 am
They just keep running for the shelter of their old pal CO2. It’s tiresome.

What is BBC Radio 4 doing talking to Bob Carter? son of mulder says:

September 27, 2013 at 5:25 am
Just heard Prof Bob Carter on BBC Radio4 World at One. Brilliant interview putting a sound sceptical perspective on the IPCC report. Well worth a listen again when it is available.

Professional science disinformer, Ross McKitrick,  is running out of gigs and is commenting on WUWT.  He also hasn't read much climate science but thinks he's being "clever" instead of wrong as usual - he says:

September 27, 2013 at 5:32 am
SPM in a nutshell: Since we started in 1990 we were right about the Arctic, wrong about the Antarctic, wrong about the tropical troposphere, wrong about the surface, wrong about hurricanes, wrong about the Himalayas, wrong about sensitivity, clueless on clouds and useless on regional trends. And on that basis we’re 95% confident we’re right.

Bill Illis resides on different planet, or so he says:

September 27, 2013 at 5:35 am
We should just be pointing out the errors now. There is no point discussing the virtual world the IPCC is talking about – they are not talking about the real planet Earth, but some virtual world, planet Nibiru in a climate model.
———-
One major graphic is clearly wrong. The observed change in temperature from 1901 to 2012 – figure SPM.1 (b), particularly the Oceans part. There has been no warming in the central Pacific but it is shown as +0.4C or so in the graphic (large parts of it not shown despite there being a large number of measurements in this region covering the whole period). There has been no warming in the far southern ocean (again it is missing despite a large number of ships being there over the whole period – including whaling ships in the early part of the 20th century). Other areas have no warming over this period yet the entire Ocean area is shown as having warmed. Clearly the Figure is meant to show warming everywhere yet that is not correct.
———–
The graphic showing observed change in temperature relative to the climate models shown in earlier drafts is not included in the report anymore.

Here is the chart to which Bill refers:

Bill provides no evidence of why he thinks the chart is wrong.  I'm going to go with the science rather than a WUWT regular.

Peter Ward is complaining that people are listening to scientific experts instead of anti-science bloggers:

September 27, 2013 at 5:35 am
In the MSM (BBC, CNN, etc) the IPCC report is being portrayed as the gospel truth on climate change. For example the CNN summary is “The world’s getting hotter, the sea’s rising and there’s increasing evidence neither are naturally occurring phenomena”. I think it’s fair to say that the MSM are onside with the warmists. The online debate is not reaching the consciousness of the general public.

Steve C says he refuses to look at the evidence, fearing being shaken and stirred:

September 27, 2013 at 5:39 am
The BBC are all over it today, of course. Fawning interviews with the IPCC crowd to spread their political message and – a new development! – the occasional few words from the likes of Bob Carter, now being allowed as the “minority view” to give the impression of balance. Overall, exactly as you’d expect from “The World’s Most Respected Broadcaster” (© BBC): junk reporting of junk politics.

I, meanwhile, remain unshaken and unstirred. Nobody has yet produced any evidence (that I’ve been able to find) to suggest that humanity has had any effect, still less a “catastrophic” one, on the world’s weather systems, therefore the null hypothesis holds. Still waiting, guys. Show me how evil we are, rather than how evil you are.

Robert W Turner is in a world of his own and says:

September 27, 2013 at 8:06 am
The sad part is most of the policy makers that will read this are going to fall for it. How long can this lie last and will anyone be held accountable when the jig is up?