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Bob Bingham Blog page.

A series of opinion pieces on, mostly climate change and related subjects to do with New Zealand.

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The planets budget.

18/1/2015

3 Comments

 
Just how bad is it?
There has recently been some news regarding a report by 18 scientists from the Stockholm Resilience Centre who show that the resources we take from the environment and the changes we are making to our atmosphere, forests and the oceans are putting the planet under extreme distress.
Our plundering of the planet’s natural resources is so extreme that four boundaries have already been crossed.

 Sarah Cornell one of the Authors said "Four boundaries are assessed to have been crossed, placing humanity in a danger zone," a statement said of the study in the journal Science, pointing to climate change, species loss, land-use change and fertilizer pollution. Of a total of nine boundaries assessed, freshwater use, ocean acidification and ozone depletion were judged to be within safe limits. Others, including levels of airborne pollution, were yet to be properly assessed.
To get an idea of the overall picture it is useful to look at the big numbers. 
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This graph clearly illustrates how much CO2 we have put into the atmosphere and gives a clue to how far the temperature will rise before it reaches equilibrium.

The climate scientists working in this field believe we are already committed to a 2C temperature increase and at least a 12 metre sea level rise.  To put this into perspective, we have already raised the temperature 0.8C, we are trying to limit the increase to 2 C and at 3 C it will be a major disaster for humanity. 
 With the resistance to change exhibited by the American business world, the media and the politicians it will be a long time before we can stop the output of CO2 and slow down the worst of the greenhouse gas emissions.
 I noticed in the reports in American newspapers that they had a quote from a scientist who said that the world had suffered similar disasters in the past and had recovered, failing to mention that there were no people on the planet at the time. If you had just lost your children in a war over resources, could not afford the food you need and had to share your house with five other families, they would not be so complacent. 
The planet will go on spinning whether we are on it or not but we want to preserve our standard of living and lifestyle

This is the chart of the vital signs of the planet.

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Here is a similar set of graphs from another source

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We now have 7 billion on the planet and as the temperature rises our output of food production will fall, sea levels will flood infrastructure and displace millions of people who will then be looking for food and safety, the natural environment on which we rely for so much will be failing, including our oceans which provide fish and the weather will be unpredictable and probably violent.
The rich countries currently believe that these disasters will only happen to poor, far away countries but this is a whole of planet event and there will be civil strife and mass movement of people that will disrupt every economy on the planet. 


3 Comments

What happens after the climate ‘pause’?

6/1/2015

1 Comment

 
With 2014 being the hottest year on record and yet we are still in a ‘pause’ I thought that it would be a good idea to see if we are on track to match the IPCC predictions.
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The two graphs above (Top NASA, Bottom Japan Meteorological Agency.) show the Worlds temperature since the Industrial revolution started and thermometers came into use. Both show that the Worlds atmospheric temperature has not been an even line and we are currently in the third recorded pause. The first pause was 1900 to 1925 and the second from 1942 to 1978. Approximately 25 years for the first one and 35 years for the second one. The pause we are in now is supposed to be from 1998, which was a very hot year, but a look at the graph would put it at about 2003. If the World’s climate follows a previous pattern and holds steady for say, 27 years we will not see another surge upwards for around fifteen years or until 2030.

Each time we get a surge the temperature goes up about half a degree over a period of 25 to thirty years. If the temperature has risen about .85C so far since 1890 and holds steady for 27 years  until 2030 and we then get a .5C surge during the next  25 years the temperature will have risen  1.3C by 2055 or so.

This is well on track for the IPCC prediction. As we are in uncharted territory for World global warming of this sort it is not likely to be as predictable as that and I fear that the outcome will be a lot worse and a lot quicker than we think but it is anyone’s guess.



1 Comment

    Bob Bingham 

    Occasional blog posts on topical news items concerning the climate.  Please click the RSS feed to receive updates.

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