Global warming: Regional climate change impacts

[BRUTE]

brute isn't sure this is the right topic, but it's related to global warming.

given that there exists a sizable group of humans who are opposed to the idea of global warming, and that those people are intrinsically opposed to science and logical arguments, and assuming that scientists aren't going to put a gun to these humans' heads - what are strategies that can be utilized by humans that want to stop/hinder said global warming?

personally, brute doesn't care much about the climate. it's one of those "know what thy can control" type things. brute is already pretty much at the very bottom of what any western person causes in CO2 emission and gas usage. so if GW is real, brute isn't the one causing most of it. if not, brute didn't miss out on anything either.

[tonyedgecombe]

I recently read "Don't even think about it, why our brains are wired to ignore climate change" by George Marshall. It's a fascinating book but a rather depressing read. It seems peoples belief of the science is strongly influenced by their political ideology, ie people on the left are more inclined to believe the science and people on the right less so. Good luck with changing peoples political beliefs!

[jacob]

@brute - Politics, global treaties, socially responsible investing, ... and ultimately [renegade] geo-engineering (it would surprise me if some country didn't go rogue at some point. Short of bombing that given country into submission it would be impossible to stop them)

@tonyedgecombe - I agree that changing minds is nigh impossible (see the other thread about GW) This thread is therefore about what the practical impacts are so those who want can take the predictions into account and not invest/risk everything (health, wealth, life, heritage) on e.g. specific coastal areas, farmlands, etc. So basically I'm tracking (1) changes to the global model (such as which emission scenario are we heading into, and changes to the models) ... and local impacts e.g. Miami, FL flooding and CA drought impacts.

[BRUTE]

it would surprise me if some country didn't go rogue at some point. Short of bombing that given country into submission it would be impossible to stop them)

what would such a country do? switch to renewables without asking for other countries' permission?

brute thinks that the climate is probably the biggest tragedy of the commons there is for humans. the problem with those is that it rewards rogues who create negative externalities, while putting costs on those who create positive externalities.

[black_son_of_gray]

@Brute: for example, a country might dive into agressive cloud seeding, whether effective or not, as an attempt to manipulate rainfall or to try to influence the Earth's albedo.

[jacob]

@brute - This https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stratosph ... neering%29 ... using thousands of balloons launched out of the back of a van from where ever. The effect would be global and it would pretty much be impossible to stop the launches directly. However, this is an effort that needs to be maintained as the sulfate only lasts for a few years in the stratosphere, so I'd imagine that international sanctions or even direct invasion would be used to stop a country attempting this. However, one could also imagine a renegade global organization attempting the same thing. That would be even harder to stop.

It would be a pretty cheap operation, the materials are commonly available, and pretty much anyone could do it, even a child. You can buy weather balloons at amazon for $20. You can make H2S in a high school lab using 19th century technology so every single country in the world has the means. Our science teacher showed us how to do this in the 9th grade. Don't do it at home. It stinks to high heaven!

[7Wannabe5]

Well, as one permaculturist I admire said, "We do not have to survive."

[BRUTE]

Well, as one permaculturist I admire said, "We do not have to survive."

brute agrees 100%. most humans that ever lived are dead. and they're fine.

@jacob:

what's currently stopping governments or other humans from releasing these balloons? the term "rogue actor" implied to brute that whatever needs to be done to stop GW is currently illegal for governments to do, and it would take one rogue government to break that rule. this doesn't really seem to describe the current situation. to brute, it seems more like it's a huge tragedy of the commons and no humans are releasing balloons because the cost is all theirs and the benefit mostly goes to other humans.

[jacob]

@brute - Nobody knows exactly what will happen physically to the climate system if this is done. It is a grand experiment that could go wrong. Worse, it might provide an incentive not to stop emitting CO2 and since sulfate have to be conveyed to the stratosphere on a regular basis to maintain the required concentration, we could end up in a situation where the sulfate is required to avoid a complete runaway.

Note that a civilization sufficiently advanced and stable to carry out such a program has never existed for more than a hundred years ... but it takes tens of thousands of years for the CO2 to wash out naturally. Not even religious institutions have lasted that long---we have to design a culture in which emitting sulfate for the next 30,000 years would be more important than anything---even war---because it would be.

Then there are more immediate and undesired side effects. Such a program would create a permanent haze turning the sky white as long as it's running. You would no longer be able to see the stars. You'd get more acid rain. There's a risk of depleting the ozone layer. It's not all good. The cost of the program is low. About $25-50 billion per year on a global basis. It would be just about within the budget of AAPL---roughly a third of what the world's consumers spend on iThings. Even a small country could afford it should they decide that they have nothing to lose since they're about to be submerged anyway.

[BRUTE]

now brute understands the use of the term "rogue actor" in this context.

[Solvent]

I recall a blog post by an Australian academic written a few years ago on the topic: http://clubtroppo.com.au/2014/11/27/whe ... g-in-2014/.

Frijters seems to be extremely pessimistic on global action to reduce carbon emissions, and sees the probability of some state attempting geoengineering in the future as high and rising. Currently the unknown risks probably outweigh the benefits but that might not always be true, and as we all know, not everyone's good at evaluating risk and probability.*

Field experiments are largely stalled as scientists are awaiting regulatory frameworks that will protect them from criticisms of other scientists and environmental groups. Proposed regulatory frameworks designed to deliver this, such as by Nordhaus and colleagues, find it hard to get much political traction because politicians seen to support regulatory frameworks themselves become targets for criticism, both by those who pretend there is no climate change and by those who insist there is climate change but who also insist on emission reductions as the only way to return to our current climate some 300 years from now.

*Just possibly, no-one's good at evaluating risk and probability.

[jennypenny]

I've gone through the thread, but I still have a question. I've found rainfall and temperature change predictions for the area I'm researching. What I'm trying to figure out is weather instability. Did I miss that or doesn't it exist? (other than just saying that weather patterns will be more unstable) Is there a metric of combination of metrics that would be a good substitute for that?

[jacob]

@jp - Weather will generally be more unstable. This is because a hotter atmosphere can hold more water as well as more energy. The energy and the water is released in the form of wind and rain. This is much like how a stock market that holds more hot money is more volatile.

I am actually not aware of any research in which weather forecasters have used climate input (instead of current meteorological data) to run a representative weather forecast for a given area in 2050. It's funny because it shouldn't even be that hard to do. Some of the climate models use the exact same atmospheric modules as the ones used for weather forecasting. (It's the same physics but in this case, the software is the same too. Obviously they run on different time and space scales).

The easy/ghetto solution is just to look at predicted water and precipitation and then compare to a current area that's similar to that and see what weather this has. Another would be to expand/contract the seasons appropriately, e.g. what used to be June weather is now April weather and so on.

This is only accurate to the first order. For example, the polar vortex instability is a nonlinear change. In IL we're not seeing the climate of KY. We're seeing something more unstable when the temps run between really hot and quite cold. This makes gardening super annoying. E.g. currently the temps are 50F but a couple of weeks ago we have some very brief snow shower storms (visibility 1/4 mile, snow and hail blowing horizontally) that each lasted about 10 minutes with the snow melting away before the next one came in. I've never seen anything like it before.

[bryan]

I am actually not aware of any research in which weather forecasters have used climate input (instead of current meteorological data) to run a representative weather forecast for a given area in 2050.

In that case, any decent guesses on areas which will have a boom thanks to global warming? Alaska, Oregon, outside of the US?

[jacob]

@bryan - If you're talking about a boom in migrants, areas above 50N or below 50S. Alaska, Canada, Scandinavia, Greenland, Russia. At these latitudes, there's little but water down south until Antarctica clears from ice, something that won't happen in our lifetime.

[jacob]

In recent news, 175 nations (including the heavy hitters) signed the Paris agreement. It's a voluntary commitment to aim to try to stay somewhere between RCP4.5 and RCP6.0 (see above) and is thus accordance with previous promises/predictions made above. IOW, more or less business as usual even as good intentions are now official.

On top, a friendly reminder that it's not the averages that count but the extremes
https://theconversation.com/has-climate ... ther-58269

[7Wannabe5]

jacob said: This is only accurate to the first order. For example, the polar vortex instability is a nonlinear change. In IL we're not seeing the climate of KY. We're seeing something more unstable when the temps run between really hot and quite cold. This makes gardening super annoying. E.g. currently the temps are 50F but a couple of weeks ago we have some very brief snow shower storms (visibility 1/4 mile, snow and hail blowing horizontally) that each lasted about 10 minutes with the snow melting away before the next one came in. I've never seen anything like it before.

Tell me about it. Makes me wonder if climate-change-doubt is linked to people never spending time outside.

[jacob]

@Augustus - This is a thread for regional impacts (e.g. what's Boston going to look like in 2075 or when is Egypt going to experience a food crisis) and not really the right place for basic science stuff, so I'll make it brief.

The problem with higher concentrations is the neither human civilization nor its foundation (how we grow our food, etc.) has been evolved/designed for an environment of radically different concentrations. In fact, the climate during human history (last 5000 years) has been remarkable stable. This is not the case any more.

Plants respond to an initial boost in CO2 but the effect levels off with a permanent boost. The increase in temperature soon becomes detrimental---plants only thrive in a narrow temperature range---note that we only grow wheat and corn in a relatively narrow belt around the globe rather than at every latitude. Worse, precipitation patterns change. All that CO2 is no good if it stops raining/rains too much or plants die. (A lot of the early hope about CO2 being plant food was bases on studies in temperature-controlled grow houses, not under open sky.) The next problem is the lack of top soil in the new "good areas" that were previously "bad areas". It's not like the topsoil migrate along with the changed weather patterns.

So yes ... there are potentially huge changes under way and lots of things will get broken, e.g. coastal cities, our ability to keep growing food to sustain 7 billion people, the increased transmission of diseases (Zika anyone?)... climate change is really only bad insofar we care about civilization as we know it or current species (e.g. frogs, elephants, or whatever). Climate change will be pretty bad for the human species too (most large mammals will suffer), but it will likely be good for other species that thrive under warmer and more chaotic weather and who can move fast enough e.g. many insects, weeds, ... in general species that thrive under a wider range of conditions (think invasive species). It won't be good for species that move slowly, e.g. trees or species that don't have room to move into other areas (e.g. humans). Note that there's practically no landmass on the southern hemisphere to move into when the areas between 40N and 40S turn into deserts over the next couple of hundred years.

[blackbird]

*puts on geographer hat*

Strictly speaking, what you describe is correct as far as I understand in regards to PLANTS.

The issues that cause heartburn in this case are related to impacts on human populations, with specific emphasis on the RATE of change (RoC).

The RoC is problematic because, if very high, it induces changes more quickly than humans are politically capable of reacting to them. So, at the current RoC concerns about Greenland / Antarctic shelving, ocean warming, and terrifyingly, permafrost thaw are not a problem for plants. Plants would be stoked, if they could be.

But more moisture / marshland / heat are bad for us. Good for mosquitos. Good for storms. Bad for healthcare and insurance companies.

Huge chunks of the world food supply are created in discreet spatial areas. If those areas experience a net negative effect at a rate greater than it can be addressed or other net positive areas can be developed, the result will be global drops in food production. Which, it turns out, ain't great for humans either.

[blackbird]

Whoops, I was answering Augustus and jacob beat me to it.