Thanks for your comment. Sure, after browsing the post that you referenced, I have a response to it that I can share with you.
As I wrote already, tipping point mechanisms are not incorporated into IPCC carbon budgets. I don’t believe that their potential forcings are integrated into policy models of temperature change due to anthropogenic emissions in general.
As information about actual changes to tipping points increases, estimates of risk of those tipping points forcing temperature upward increases, but there is still a delay between research findings and their integration into consensus belief in the climate science community. There might be different reasons in different cases.
Actual data shows some tipping points (arctic ice melt, permafrost melt, rainforest losses, Greenland ice melt, global wind patterns, West Antarctic ice melt) beginning their forcings now and at an accelerating rate.
Older models of changes in large natural systems like plankton populations or Greenland ic sheets (and available data about them) let steady state approximations of those systems seem reasonable over this century. However, because climate scientists see more changes than they expect at lower amounts of temperature change, those approximations are no longer reasonable.
I believe that the equilibrium climate sensitivity metric that the authors quote does not account for tipping point processes forcing temperature increases to any great extent. I also doubt its reliability even if steady state approximations for tipping points were reasonable, but I don’t have answers for those doubts now.
The value of the ocean as a carbon sink has declined since the start of the industrial revolution. It will continue to decline, but at rates that are not well-studied yet. The authors of the “Good news” article expect atmospheric CO2 to decline as land and ocean sinks absorb it. However, anthropogenic global warming, other anthropogenic forcing of natural systems (for example, poisoning plankton with micro-plastic or burning down rainforest), and indirect climate interactions reduce the capacity of those sinks. How much and with what consequences will be observable over this century.
Global warming is well-studied in the sense that climate scientists can make broad statements about eventual impacts and suggest policies that will avoid the continuation of global warming mechanisms. Or rather, that is how it used to be. Now that tipping points are an immediate concern, climate scientists have to play catch up with actual global warming events and revise their estimates of eventual impacts as new amplifying mechanisms are measured in action and models are revised to include more features or greater detail. There is not enough consensus on tipping point mechanisms or their consequences between scientists working within governments and those with more freedom to speak. From what I can tell, there are, and might continue to be, peer-reviewed studies of alarming evidence for future climate change impacts that the IPCC will not mention in its policy guidance because of filtering by government editors.
The authors of the ‘Good news on climate change’ post say:
″...in order for us to follow SSP5-RCP8.5, there would have to be very fast economic growth and technological progress, but meagre progress on low carbon technologies. This does not seem very plausible. ”
I disagree. To follow RCP8.5, there would need to be continuing economic and population growth but not technological progress sufficient to displace dirty technologies.
Nanotechnological architecture, product manufacture, and pollution clean-up (as originally envisioned by Eric Drexler in “Engines of Creation”) has value because that hypothetical technology will allow mega-engineering projects over time frames of a few days or weeks. With large-scale nanotechnology applications, humanity can develop and deploy global geoengineering tools, test them, and remove them if they create more problems than they solve. Meanwhile, our civilization can use nanotechnology to achieve energy efficiencies and clean technologies that replace dirty technologies and clean up their pollution quickly, within useful time frames of just a few months. Fantastic!
With nanotechnology in use, humanity doesn’t have the problems of: * poverty preventing change-over to low-GHG technologies at scale. * using high-GHG technologies to manufacture low-GHG technologies at scale. * acquiring the source materials for the enormous manufacturing output required * taking longer than the time available to produce and integrate low-GHG technologies into our economies. * industrial and construction waste damaging the biosphere or increasing global warming.
Nanotechnology helps humanity avoid the scrooge path of increasing its population while resource limits, biosphere losses, and climate change reduce quality of life. I would not propose nanotechnology as a solution, but humanity needs working methods of cooling the planet and thriving in the meantime. Nanotechnology would work.
If nanotechnology of the sort I’m describing becomes a reality, then that will be the news that the post authors want.
Do you have responses to articles on the forum like: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/ckPSrWeghc4gNsShK/good-news-on-climate-change ?
Hello Linch.
Thanks for your comment. Sure, after browsing the post that you referenced, I have a response to it that I can share with you.
As I wrote already, tipping point mechanisms are not incorporated into IPCC carbon budgets. I don’t believe that their potential forcings are integrated into policy models of temperature change due to anthropogenic emissions in general.
As information about actual changes to tipping points increases, estimates of risk of those tipping points forcing temperature upward increases, but there is still a delay between research findings and their integration into consensus belief in the climate science community. There might be different reasons in different cases.
Actual data shows some tipping points (arctic ice melt, permafrost melt, rainforest losses, Greenland ice melt, global wind patterns, West Antarctic ice melt) beginning their forcings now and at an accelerating rate.
Older models of changes in large natural systems like plankton populations or Greenland ic sheets (and available data about them) let steady state approximations of those systems seem reasonable over this century. However, because climate scientists see more changes than they expect at lower amounts of temperature change, those approximations are no longer reasonable.
I believe that the equilibrium climate sensitivity metric that the authors quote does not account for tipping point processes forcing temperature increases to any great extent. I also doubt its reliability even if steady state approximations for tipping points were reasonable, but I don’t have answers for those doubts now.
The value of the ocean as a carbon sink has declined since the start of the industrial revolution. It will continue to decline, but at rates that are not well-studied yet. The authors of the “Good news” article expect atmospheric CO2 to decline as land and ocean sinks absorb it. However, anthropogenic global warming, other anthropogenic forcing of natural systems (for example, poisoning plankton with micro-plastic or burning down rainforest), and indirect climate interactions reduce the capacity of those sinks. How much and with what consequences will be observable over this century.
Global warming is well-studied in the sense that climate scientists can make broad statements about eventual impacts and suggest policies that will avoid the continuation of global warming mechanisms. Or rather, that is how it used to be. Now that tipping points are an immediate concern, climate scientists have to play catch up with actual global warming events and revise their estimates of eventual impacts as new amplifying mechanisms are measured in action and models are revised to include more features or greater detail. There is not enough consensus on tipping point mechanisms or their consequences between scientists working within governments and those with more freedom to speak. From what I can tell, there are, and might continue to be, peer-reviewed studies of alarming evidence for future climate change impacts that the IPCC will not mention in its policy guidance because of filtering by government editors.
The authors of the ‘Good news on climate change’ post say:
″...in order for us to follow SSP5-RCP8.5, there would have to be very fast economic growth and technological progress, but meagre progress on low carbon technologies. This does not seem very plausible. ”
I disagree. To follow RCP8.5, there would need to be continuing economic and population growth but not technological progress sufficient to displace dirty technologies.
Nanotechnological architecture, product manufacture, and pollution clean-up (as originally envisioned by Eric Drexler in “Engines of Creation”) has value because that hypothetical technology will allow mega-engineering projects over time frames of a few days or weeks. With large-scale nanotechnology applications, humanity can develop and deploy global geoengineering tools, test them, and remove them if they create more problems than they solve. Meanwhile, our civilization can use nanotechnology to achieve energy efficiencies and clean technologies that replace dirty technologies and clean up their pollution quickly, within useful time frames of just a few months. Fantastic!
With nanotechnology in use, humanity doesn’t have the problems of:
* poverty preventing change-over to low-GHG technologies at scale.
* using high-GHG technologies to manufacture low-GHG technologies at scale.
* acquiring the source materials for the enormous manufacturing output required
* taking longer than the time available to produce and integrate low-GHG technologies into our economies.
* industrial and construction waste damaging the biosphere or increasing global warming.
Nanotechnology helps humanity avoid the scrooge path of increasing its population while resource limits, biosphere losses, and climate change reduce quality of life. I would not propose nanotechnology as a solution, but humanity needs working methods of cooling the planet and thriving in the meantime. Nanotechnology would work.
If nanotechnology of the sort I’m describing becomes a reality, then that will be the news that the post authors want.