CO2 Levels Likely To Stay Above 400PPM For The Rest of Our Lives, Study Shows (inhabitat.com)

An anonymous reader writes: A new study from the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) shows that carbon dioxide (CO2) concentrations in the atmosphere are likely to remain above 400 parts per million (ppm) for many years. Specifically, scientists forecasted that levels would not dip below 400pm in "our lifetimes." The CO2 concentrations of "about 450ppm or lower are likely to maintain warming below 2 degrees Celsius over the 21st century relative to pre-industrial levels." However, lead author on the paper Richard Betts said we could pass that number in 20 years or less. In an article on The Guardian, he said even if we reduce emissions immediately, we might be able to delay reaching 450ppm but "it is still looking like a challenge to stay below 450ppm." El Nino has played a significant role in climbing carbon dioxide levels, but it's likely we'll see higher CO2 levels than the last large El Nino storm during 1997 and 1998 because "manmade emissions" have risen by 25 percent since that storm, according to The Guardian. Met Office experts predicted in November 2015 that in May 2016 "mean concentrations of atmospheric CO2" would hit 407.57ppm -- the actual figure was 407.7ppm. The NOAA reported during 2015 that the "annual growth rate" of CO2 in the atmosphere rose by 3.05ppm. NOAA lead scientist Pieter Tans said, "Carbon dioxide levels are increasing faster than they have in hundreds of thousands of years. It's explosive compared to the natural processes."

Comments

The denialists need to be dealt with somehow.

[Anonymous Coward]

The science is in, the numbers are not fake, this is not a hoax. This is going to have serious global repercussions and it will never go away. We can't even yet stop contributing to the acceleration of emissions, they CONTINUE to grow year by year despite much-touted international accords. The science community agrees this will not be enough, and we are failing at this course correction necessity.

At some point, the people being paid and those paying millions to put out the unreasonable position that this all is "no big deal" or "not certain to be a problem" or "not caused by human industry" etc, those people have to be dealt with. I make no suggestions beyond that general observation, that this is untenable.

Re:The denialists need to be dealt with somehow.

[mark-t]

It really doesn't matter, quite honestly. There is absolutely squat that people who give a damn about this can actually do that will make a difference, because there's far too many people who don't care what the world might be like in a hundred years, as long as they get to live the way they want to right now.

Re: The denialists need to be dealt with somehow.

[MightyMartian]

The problem is that the people haven't been listening to the scientists. They've been listening to hyperbolic supporters and equally dishonest detractors. The scientists have always insisted that there are error bars built into their projections, but that all the projections agree that serious problems are coming. And serious problems are already here. The insurance industry knows AGW's effects are already happening. Scientists in various other fields like marine biology and oceanography know its happening. Even the Kochs know it's happening. For chrissakes, the Saudis have created the largest sovereign wealth fund in history precisely because they know they'll be lucky to have another half century to pull profits out of the ground.

The only reason this game is being played out is so that the fossil fuel profiteers can milk a few more years out of that resource before solutions like carbon pricing are implemented on a large scale. But make no mistake, even the major oil companies have known for decades that the product they're pulling out of the ground is leading to major climatological changes.

At this point, what we're seeing is merely a pack of paid professional oil company shills who don't even have any credibility with their paymasters. Oh, and a bizarre gang of Liberarians who seem to believe that the Invisible Hand is capable of suppressing CO2's energy absorption and emission properties, because, you know, Communism!!!!!

Re:The denialists need to be dealt with somehow.

[khallow]

I'm not convinced you care about the future either. There are much more important problems than global warming such as overpopulation, poverty, destruction of arable land, habitat destruction, corruption of human society, nuclear proliferation, and environmental pollution. A key problem with climate change mitigation is that these greater problems are routinely compromised for token efforts in climate change mitigation.

If we deal with these other problems, then untrammeled climate change is not a big deal. Human societies, particularly modern ones readily adapt to conditions that changed on the centuries long time scales we speak of. If we don't deal with these problems because we're putting our resources in preventing climate change instead, we would still face disaster.

The status quo does a good job of fixing these other problems while climate change mitigation efforts have been notorious for being harmful and counterproductive, prioritizing extremely weak climate change mitigation over the bigger problems.

I think the fundamental bankruptcy of your beliefs is that you can't show that your so-called "give a damn" is better than doing absolutely nothing. It's not fair to the people who don't think so much about the future, when you do and come up with ideas worse than doing nothing.

Re: The denialists need to be dealt with somehow.

[Bartles]

Only 150 years of direct measurement, and only about 35 of that being fairly comprehensive.

Re: The denialists need to be dealt with somehow.

[Geoffrey.landis]

The "scientists" are looking at ~120 years of data and make predictions reaching thousands of years into the future.

Nope. The scientists are applying the physics of infrared heat transfer to the atmosphere of the Earth.

This is a pretty well known subject-- in fact, you have to have the greenhouse effect, or else the Earth would have an average temperature below freezing. We know the greenhouse effect of trace gasses in the atmosphere is real.

The denialists are basically saying "well, the physics of heat transfer may be well known, but when you apply it to the carbon dioxide we put in the atmosphere, somehow it's now different."

No, actually, it's not.

Re: The denialists need to be dealt with somehow.

[khallow]

The field of risk management is all about making decisions about what to do when the possible outcomes are not clear. One of the tenets is the more uncertainty about a potentially bad outcome the more value there is in trying to avoid it.

No, it's not. That's the precautionary principle which is a self-contradictory idea. Risk management is merely what it says, the management of risks known and unknown. An obvious response to uncertainty is to try it out and find out what the risks are.

Regarding climate change we can wait a few decades to better understand how bad it's going to be but if we do that there's no possibility of reversing course on a short enough time scale to make much difference. We will be committed at that point.

Why would we want to reverse course? That's more harmful climate change. And we are already committed to something by the presence of well over seven billion people, many who are still reproducing at well above break even.

The restructuring is happening as we speak. The cost of renewable energy is on a course to be cheaper than fossil fuel energy in a decade or so. But we could be doing it faster to hopefully avoid some very negative outcomes.

Unless, of course, that happens to not be true. There's way too much confounding factors here such as huge government subsidies which may be hiding the real costs of renewable energy.

You're staking your future on the scientists being wrong (or at least overpredicting the possible negative consequences). I don't think that's a very wise bet to be making.

I have no problem with that. There are several things to remember here. First, conflict of interest is dirtying the pool. All those climate scientists who make the scary statements have a financial and social interest in getting people scared. They're also cheap to buy. The climate scientists (and people in nearby subjects who don't have a stake in catastrophic climate change being true) who aren't making the scary statements don't show up on your radar.


I think staking our future by collecting more information before we act is the better route. You haven't shown there is going to be a problem within the next few centuries. We do have other, more important things we need to do than just keep climate at 1850 levels.

Re:Good news for a change

[riverat1]

Actually the holy book would be the IPCC reports. The nice thing about anthropogenic global warming as a religion is that it has actual scientific evidence to back it up. If you want to suggest that the primary cause is something other than human activity you need to come up with some actual scientific evidence of your own that holds up under scrutiny.

Re:Trump presidency's effect on the climate?

[riverat1]

I think Mussolini is a more apt comparison.

Re:insightful and considered opinions expected

[The Real Dr John]

The first post nailed it. Just take a look through the comments to see how incapable the /. crowd is at having a reasonable, intelligent discussion anymore. Off topic instantly, into political chest pounding immediately. Nothing about how burning fossil fuels is responsible for the constant rise in CO2 and the subsequent impacts on the biosphere and polar ice. Coral bleaching is reaching levels never seen before due to ocean acidification, which will get much worse as the CO2 level continues to rise. I understand it is the job of the corporate shills here to "muddy the waters" and manufacture doubt and insult everyone, but I just wish everyone else would stop taking the bait, and don't even respond to them anymore, no matter how obnoxious they are.

Re: Trump presidency's effect on the climate?

[BradMajors]

Nope. The Democrat nominee will be selected by the superdelegates and the superdelegates don't want any change.