How do you think humanity will be affected by climate in the future?

[skierinvermont]

Inspired by Rusty's recent post regarding his grandchildren.

I'm asking what do you think is actually going to happen in reality. Not what could happen if we do or don't do XYZ.

I think it's sad to reduce the fate of the earth and humanity to an internet poll so I invite everybody to at least elaborate on their thoughts more fully.

Your answer will probably depend partially on just how much CO2 you think we will emit and in turn how much warming you think is going to occur, partially on what you think the effects of that warming will be, and partially on what the cost of that will be to humanity.

Note I didn't create this poll because I think everybody has a valid opinion on what 'you believe' is going to happen. Opinions are worthless without evidence. I don't think any of us are qualified to form our own opinions on the science beyond what reliable sources tell us about science and to the extent that we can truly understand the science ourselves (in my opinion most people are ill-equipped for this task). However, I recognize that unfortunately some people disagree as to what constitutes a reliable scientific source or do not believe reliable scientific sources are necessary. As for predicting future political, economic and social outcomes I recognize there is a little more leeway there.

My opinion:

I essentially believe the scientific consensus as to the warming effects of CO2, although I lean towards the lower sensitivity side. I think we are already committed to significant warming, and I think high CO2 emissions will continue for the foreseeable future, although I am a bit more optimistic than the A1B scenario because I think that early emissions growth will be slower than A1B and because later in the century I think we may make a concerted effort to reduce CO2 emissions. Thus I would guess 1.5-2.5C of warming by 2100. Depending on how concerted an effort we make later in the century the warming may stop then or continue upwards towards 3C. I'm not very optimistic about new technology to lower CO2 and bring temperature back down so we may be stuck with that much warming for a while.

I think the effect of this will be:

-widespread extinctions

-drastically altered ecology.. species ranges shift north, disruption of natural ecology leading to certain species becoming dominant others suffering or going extinct

-rising sea level of .5-1.5m by 2100, 2-5m by 2200 and 4-10m by 2300.

-disruption to agriculture

-radically altered weather.. more droughts more floods more heatwaves

-disruption to any industry reliant upon the environment

To be brief I expect a severe cost to standard of living both through the direct effects, the costs of mitigation, and the costs of reducing CO2 emissions. I expect widespread displacement and death directly and indirectly related to AGW especially in less developed nations. But I don't expect the collapse of world governments. Severe alteration of the environment and extinctions are inevitable.

In summary, I'm very pessimistic for the fate of the environment and moderately pessimistic for the fate of humanity.

[The_Global_Warmer]

I think emissions are no longer the biggest concern because it is to late already. We need a miracle now. And unless the Sun takes a vacation, Aerosols punch a giant hole hole in the Ozone, large enough to help cool the arctic long enough to enhance ice growth enough to prevent the ice volume allowing a near total or total melt out. Or a Volcano happens to go somewhere in the Northern Hemisphere that helps block the sun long enough for a massive recovery of ice.

Even with all that it will only delay the inevitable by a few years or maybe a decade or two at the most. AT THE MOST.

The reality is much darker for the Apes and Hominids. Much darker for many sub species who depend on Hominids like Elephants, Cats, Dogs, Rats/Mice, any species that needs the current stable environment, any species who needs ice or the cryosphere.

Time line:

2012-2020- The Ice continues it's free fall. Global Temps start to rise faster again. Likely between .15 to .3C between 2012 and 2020. This will accelerate a whole lot towards the time the ice starts to go under 2,000,000km2 on the Area. Also Co2 will be increasing a the decade goes on. Current projects have Global increases around 3 PPM a year by 2020. If the Oceans stop absorbing so much, then that will be higher. By 2016-2020. 30-60 day chunks of the summer will see near ice free conditions. With much warmer outer core waters(70-80N) There will be far less clouds than before because the ice that is left if any actually can withstand this kind of Solar Insolation will be to weak and cracked to help generate clouds because the cold pool of air that the ice helps generate will be gone. Or very small. Some places of the arctic that have never been ice free ever...will have days on end of sun, more sun and more sun.

We will reach a point where the changes start to accelerate rapidly.

2020-2030- The arctic is ice free during the summer. And never closes up until later winter because the water is so warm by late September 7-20C over most of the arctic basin. It takes all of the fall to cool the water enough for rapid Ice Expansion. This also allows a lot of heat to go into the atmosphere. Methane will be pouring out of the Arctic Floor while Co2 increases slow because humanity is pissing on themselves over this.

that is all I can say....when this happens the amount of trapped energy in the arctic will be amazing. It will change everything. Energy In at an exponential rate from Solar Insolation while CO2 is already 425-500 PPM and Methane and other GHGs are now pouring out of the permafrost.

This is really hard to type, it sounds so absurd. Yet we are only a couple years maybe a decade a way at most from it happening in real time. God help us all.

This is a disaster of epic proportions.

[Quixotic1]

The world is a short view place. Other more immediate problems distract us from long term issues. AGW being one of the latter. There seems to be an almost willful ignorance when it comes to items like this. Not necessarily because of genuine disbelief in the science, but rather certain items have been entwined with the core of people due to politicizing of the issue. I'm not a met. This is more like a hobby and while some of the academic jargon is beyond me at the moment, I do believe I have a good grasp at the overall picture. While I am not totally convinced that AGW threat is as bad as it is portrayed sometimes, I lean more that way for a few reasons. Mostly because the rise doesn't seem to correlate magnitude wise with any other natural process.

The other human portion of it is simple: Who has the most to lose on the issue? A few academics making paltry sums for espousing AGW does not hold a candle to the astronomical amounts of money industry would lose from regulations designed to curb emissions.

The globe will always snap back. Whether we survive it is another story.

[SoCoWx]

I'll be the oddball and say I'm very optimistic about the future of Earth and the future of humans as a species. I do think the Earth will continue to have wild swings with an overall warming trend. But I don't think it will have disastrous consequences.

In terms of humans, I think we (speaking globally, not just for America who is both backwards and severely behind in the green movement) will see a more sustainable path come about in society and in the very near future.

[ORH_wxman]

I think there will certainly be consequences between now and 2100 if we warm 1-2C...more if we warm 3-4C which I think is unlikely. But I do think the consequences will be relatively minor compared to if we cool 1-2C between now and then. Humanity and life in general has always thrived on warmer temps...colder conditions like the LIA and the more extreme Younger Dryas has been bad for humanity. Land that becomes ill-fit for farming will be replaced by northern boreal areas and eventually tundra that will be prime zones for agriculture. The consequences are much more political than they are on the absolute survival of humanity.

I think it won't be much of a huge effect though in the next 100 years. There will be extinctions for sure as many of the species still remnant from the last cold period finally fizzle out and as we naturally destroy their habitat.

But I'm in the boat that warming is far less destructive than cooling. There's going to be consequences either way. And they will keep coming in the century long after we are dead. The consequences though will pale in comparison when we finally start going into the next ice age. Decent cooling would cause a catastrophic food shortage for the current world population.

I think over population is a much much larger problem than the world climate.

[skierinvermont]

I think there will certainly be consequences between now and 2100 if we warm 1-2C...more if we warm 3-4C which I think is unlikely. But I do think the consequences will be relatively minor compared to if we cool 1-2C between now and then. Humanity and life in general has always thrived on warmer temps...colder conditions like the LIA and the more extreme Younger Dryas has been bad for humanity. Land that becomes ill-fit for farming will be replaced by northern boreal areas and eventually tundra that will be prime zones for agriculture. The consequences are much more political than they are on the absolute survival of humanity.

I think it won't be much of a huge effect though in the next 100 years. There will be extinctions for sure as many of the species still remnant from the last cold period finally fizzle out and as we naturally destroy their habitat.

But I'm in the boat that warming is far less destructive than cooling. There's going to be consequences either way. And they will keep coming in the century long after we are dead. The consequences though will pale in comparison when we finally start going into the next ice age. Decent cooling would cause a catastrophic food shortage for the current world population.

I think over population is a much much larger problem than the world climate.

Cooling is definitely a bigger issue because it shrinks the total farmable land. Even the IPCC says modest warming would increase the amount of farmable land, but of course the transition of farmland away from tropical and semi-arid areas and towards Canada and Siberia would be rough on a lot of countries and people.

[ORH_wxman]

Cooling is definitely a bigger issue because it shrinks the total farmable land. Even the IPCC says modest warming would increase the amount of farmable land, but of course the transition of farmland away from tropical and semi-arid areas and towards Canada and Siberia would be rough on a lot of countries and people.

Right that is the political problem I alluded to. That is a political problem, not a humanity problem.

[skierinvermont]

Right that is the political problem I alluded to. That is a political problem, not a humanity problem.

Economic transition, even in a perfect political system, is never easy, and we don't live in a perfect political system and never will. A lot of the countries that will lose farmland are countries where much or even most of the economy is based on agriculture. Places that are already having a hard enough time feeding themselves. It also takes time and money to build up the infrastructure in areas of new farmland. Capital and goods can be allocated according to economic efficiency, people cannot.

[ORH_wxman]

Economic transition, even in a perfect political system, is never easy, and we don't live in a perfect political system and never will. A lot of the countries that will lose farmland are countries where much or even most of the economy is based on agriculture. Places that are already having a hard enough time feeding themselves. It also takes time and money to build up the infrastructure in areas of new farmland. Capital and goods can be allocated according to economic efficiency, people cannot.

I agree. But this is unavoidable in the modern world. The climate would have been changing one way or the other. If we weren't warming by a few tenths, we'd probably be a lot cooler now than we were in the 1970s. There is no avoiding this problem because climate is not static. A lot of the outrage over climate change is based on the fallacy that the climate would be static without us. Can you imagine this world with a climate 1C lower right now? It would be terrible...and that is exactly what we would have if CO2 was out of the equation since the late 1800s. The runup in temps has helped the population growth along with technology.

[skierinvermont]

I agree. But this is unavoidable in the modern world. The climate would have been changing one way or the other. If we weren't warming by a few tenths, we'd probably be a lot cooler now than we were in the 1970s. There is no avoiding this problem because climate is not static. A lot of the outrage over climate change is based on the fallacy that the climate would be static without us. Can you imagine this world with a climate 1C lower right now? It would be terrible...and that is exactly what we would have if CO2 was out of the equation since the late 1800s. The runup in temps has helped the population growth along with technology.

Well if you solely took CO2 and left in all the aerosols we have spewed it would probably be close to 2C cooler. If you take out both maybe .5-.75C.

If CO2 concentrations stayed at present levels climate would change a lot less and a lot slower than it will if we continue emitting CO2. It is a difference of degree, and a rather large one at that.

[ORH_wxman]

Well if you solely took CO2 and left in all the aerosols we have spewed it would probably be close to 2C cooler. If you take out both maybe .5-.75C.

If CO2 concentrations stayed at present levels climate would change a lot less and a lot slower than it will if we continue emitting CO2. It is a difference of degree, and a rather large one at that.

Its still all a short term forecast for success whether we take aerosols out or not or whether CO2 is gone or not. The idea that the climate stays static is laughable. We know from past reconstructions that we've been fortunate that we haven't seen extreme changes in a short duration in the past 10,000 years like the Younger Dryas.

Even a small oscillation to give us another LIA would be an unmitigated disaster for the current world population. So IMHO its pretty pointless to argue that in the long term that we are going to kill everyone via AGW. If you want to talk about habitation and environment, that is a whole different ball of wax. I agree that is a big concern. I belong to audubon society. I know all about habitat destruction.

As I said before, I think over population is a FAR bigger concern than AGW. I think AGW would actually help in the next 100 years with the growing population. But at some point when it cools again, it would be an epic disaster.

[The_Global_Warmer]

To help Further my point:

Click the link to full article

Compared to their measurements from the year 2007, when the sea ice extent had fallen to a record minimum of 4.3 million square kilometers, but the researchers found no differences. "The ice has not recovered. It seems to have melted as much as in 2007, also this summer. Yes, it is as thin as the record year, "says Hendricks. Significant differences were detected by the scientists there, where the ice was missing this summer - for example in the Laptev Sea. "On our expedition in 2007, we met in September in the Laptev Sea, already on thin, newly formed ice. This time, however, was felt far and wide by icing it. The water temperature in ten meters depth was three degrees Celsius - so much the sun had warmed the ice-free water surfaces, "says Prof. Dr. Ursula Schauer, scientific director of the leg of the voyage through the central Arctic. This heating is confined to the uppermost layers. In the depths of the Arctic Ocean colder water from the Atlantic currently provides for decreasing water temperatures.

1. The Sun is a beast. the ice has been keeping the climate in check for a long time...and now it's fading fast.

2. How could the arctic be getting colder water from the North Atlantic when the AMO is the cause of the major ice loss? Yeah.

[ORH_wxman]

To help Further my point:

Click the link to full article

1. The Sun is a beast. the ice has been keeping the climate in check for a long time...and now it's fading fast.

2. How could the arctic be getting colder water from the North Atlantic when the AMO is the cause of the major ice loss? Yeah.

The AMO is a surface oscillation. Not a deep water oscillation.

[The_Global_Warmer]

http://sharaku.eorc.jaxa.jp/cgi-bin/amsr/polar_sst/polar_sst.cgi

That is true. And the North Atlantic was pretty cool this year at the surface. And that side of the arctic "was very warm". At or above record levels from July on in most places. While surface water below the normal .45C range of the AMO was in the North Atlantic. I would have to conclude at this point solar insolation is more of a factor because the arctic is so shallow over such a large area that goes ice free. Each year these places will get ice free sooner an the water will warm more and more and more and the cycle feedback's.

Maybe in the passe the AMO had a correlation but that was also in a time when only a small part of the arctic ever went ice free.

[The_Global_Warmer]

http://sharaku.eorc.jaxa.jp/cgi-bin/amsr/polar_sst/polar_sst.cgi

That is true. And the North Atlantic was pretty cool this year at the surface. And that side of the arctic "was very warm". At or above record levels from July on in most places. While surface water below the normal .45C range of the AMO was in the North Atlantic. I would have to conclude at this point solar insolation is more of a factor because the arctic is so shallow over such a large area that goes ice free. Each year these places will get ice free sooner an the water will warm more and more and more and the cycle feedback's.

Maybe in the passe the AMO had a correlation but that was also in a time when only a small part of the arctic ever went ice free.

[A-L-E-K]

Most changes will be felt by people no one cares about anyways.

[WeatherRusty]

I agree. But this is unavoidable in the modern world. The climate would have been changing one way or the other. If we weren't warming by a few tenths, we'd probably be a lot cooler now than we were in the 1970s. There is no avoiding this problem because climate is not static. A lot of the outrage over climate change is based on the fallacy that the climate would be static without us. Can you imagine this world with a climate 1C lower right now? It would be terrible...and that is exactly what we would have if CO2 was out of the equation since the late 1800s. The runup in temps has helped the population growth along with technology.

No it wouldn't . The Climate would have warmed out of the Little Ice Age due to the return to average to above average solar output. It wouldn't be as warm as it is now, but it wouldn't be 1C lower either.

[LakeEffectKing]

No it wouldn't . The Climate would have warmed out of the Little Ice Age due to the return to average to above average solar output. It wouldn't be as warm as it is now, but it wouldn't be 1C lower either.

So our CO2 output (and it's feedbacks) since the mid 1800's hasn't provided us with a +1C difference over 150 years???? How are we going to manage 2-3C over 79 years with addition (forecasted linear) CO2 increase (and presumed positive feedbacks)??

[Mallow]

"We won't cut emissions in time to prevent severe consequences."

Here in the US, we probably won't see much of a direct impact (some warming won't do much, except perhaps if the southwest were to get drier, but we could even handle that). The issues are going to be where relatively small changes make huge differences, and where those changes coincide with nations that simply can't cope with the changes. The possible "unrest" and suffering would certainly have implications for global stability and international relationships, so even we could see reasonably significant indirect impacts by 2100 (increased immigration? humanitarian aid? involvement in wars?)

[WeatherRusty]

Its still all a short term forecast for success whether we take aerosols out or not or whether CO2 is gone or not. The idea that the climate stays static is laughable. We know from past reconstructions that we've been fortunate that we haven't seen extreme changes in a short duration in the past 10,000 years like the Younger Dryas.

Even a small oscillation to give us another LIA would be an unmitigated disaster for the current world population. So IMHO its pretty pointless to argue that in the long term that we are going to kill everyone via AGW. If you want to talk about habitation and environment, that is a whole different ball of wax. I agree that is a big concern. I belong to audubon society. I know all about habitat destruction.

As I said before, I think over population is a FAR bigger concern than AGW. I think AGW would actually help in the next 100 years with the growing population. But at some point when it cools again, it would be an epic disaster.

Correct, but no one who has a clue tied to reality thinks climate stays static.

Also with regard to whether warming or cooling is preferable, a bit of warming or cooling is tolerable but when we exceed the normal range experienced over the past 10,000 years there are going to be problems which humanity has not encountered on a global scale. The global scale is what matters today more than ever before because humans exist just about everywhere the current global climate allows us to. Change that climate significantly and the places we find tolerable and capable of sustaining modern populations will move, expand and shrink forcing costly adaptation and rearrangement of population densities. This will be the case regardless of whether it warms or cools.

Humans will do what is required in order to sustain viability even if that means war over resources and geographical location, but much of the natural biosphere does not have that luxury. Rapid climate change requires species to move to their preferred range faster than many are capable of doing, they can't keep up. In many cases migratory routes are cut off and segmented by human habitation. Ocean acidification has on several occasions in the past caused mass extinction events made worse by warm oxygen depleted waters and expansive dead zones. These warm, toxic ocean dead zones are a feature unique to warm CO2 driven hot climates.

[Sunny and Warm]

Correct, but no one who has a clue tied to reality thinks climate stays static.

I asked yesterday and got no response, so I'll ask again today. What is our climate (temps) goal and who set(s) it?

[WeatherRusty]

So our CO2 output (and it's feedbacks) since the mid 1800's hasn't provided us with a +1C difference over 150 years???? How are we going to manage 2-3C over 79 years with addition (forecasted linear) CO2 increase (and presumed positive feedbacks)??

The difference between the MWP and LIA was only 0.3C - 0.4C as can be seen in the chart below. That is an indication of what solar alone or coupled with some volcanic forcing can do to move global average temp. We now sit about 0.9C above the likely temp during the LIA. From this we can estimate that greenhouse warming has elevated temp a solid 0.5C and because of the continued TOA energy imbalance we expect that much again at equilibrium even if we ceased all emission today.

To correct your misconception, the 2-3C we might expect is the total warming we could experience since CO2 concentration was last at it's stable 280ppm value during pre-industrial times. We have increased CO2 about 40% toward a doubling at 560ppm which provides a forcing of 1.6W/m^2 and about 0.5C black body warming influence.

[LithiaWx]

You need an option for "I think Natural cycles are the main driver of climate change and human related CO2 emissions will only have slight warming added to the natural cycles, having a minimal impact on humanity over the next 100 years"

None of your options above I can vote for.

[WeatherRusty]

I asked yesterday and got no response, so I'll ask again today. What is our climate (temps) goal and who set(s) it?

Most scientists agree that holding temperature increase no more than 2C above the industrial revolution is the realistic goal in order to avoid the worst effects. Most scientists don't think we will achieve that goal.

SEE

[skierinvermont]

You need an option for "I think Natural cycles are the main driver of climate change and human related CO2 emissions will only have slight warming added to the natural cycles, having a minimal impact on humanity over the next 100 years"

None of your options above I can vote for.

That's why I said vote for the option that is closest to your view and then elaborate. Of course nobody's view can be reduced down entirely to one of the 4 options. My personally, I think we will have some success in lowering emissions, that climate sensitivity is not on the high end of the IPCC range, and that some of the worst case scenarios won't come to fruition. None of that is in option 4, but option 4 still is the closest to my view.

What you are describing sounds most like option #1 since you are denying the basic physics of a 3.7W/m2 CO2 forcing and the blackbody response it would produce.

[Sunny and Warm]

The difference between the MWP and LIA was only 0.3C - 0.4C as can be seen in the chart below. That is an indication of what solar alone or coupled with some volcanic forcing can do to move global average temp. We now sit about 0.9C above the likely temp during the LIA. From this we can estimate that greenhouse warming has elevated temp a solid 0.5C and because of the continued TOA energy imbalance we expect that much again at equilibrium even if we ceased all emission today.

To correct your misconception, the 2-3C we might expect is the total warming we could experience since CO2 concentration was last at it's stable 280ppm value during pre-industrial times. We have increased CO2 about 40% toward a doubling at 560ppm which provides a forcing of 1.6W/m^2 and about 0.5C black body warming influence.

One cannot gauge the true peaks and valleys from spliced together proxy data that uses considerable smoothing, especially since many climate scientists tried to remove the MWP from the dataset via smoothing. It is likely that the diiference between the MWP and the LIA was much greater than 0.3-0.4C.

[skierinvermont]

One cannot gauge the true peaks and valleys from spliced together proxy data that uses considerable smoothing, especially since many climate scientists tried to remove the MWP from the dataset via smoothing. It is likely that the diiference between the MWP and the LIA was much greater than 0.3-0.4C.

The data only has a 30 year smoother. Other reconstructions like Moberg et al. have little or no smoothing and show only around .6C from MWP to LIA, a lot of which is due to volcanoes.

[WeatherRusty]

One cannot gauge the true peaks and valleys from spliced together proxy data that uses considerable smoothing, especially since many climate scientists tried to remove the MWP from the dataset via smoothing. It is likely that the diiference between the MWP and the LIA was much greater than 0.3-0.4C.

What I did to arrive at a 0 .3C - 0.4C variability was a simple eyeball averaging of the various proxies. Obviously individual proxy reveal a wider range of difference, but those individual studies are not geographically all encompassing. Taken together as a group probably gives a better idea as to the overall difference on a global scale.

I must ask however, if you don't trust the value of the proxies, how is it you arrive at the idea that the difference between the MWP and LIA was "much greater" than 03-0.4C?

[Sunny and Warm]

Most scientists agree that holding temperature increase no more than 2C above the industrial revolution is the realistic goal in order to avoid the worst effects. Most scientists don't think we will achieve that goal.

SEE

An unachievable goal is akin to not having a goal. Politically and economically, it is not attainable, therefore it is not on the radar screen, thus the low poll ratings. What is attainable, if anything?

I also don't believe that we will be 4-5C higher in temp increases this century. It's looking more and more than it may max out at 1C at the most. By mid-century, we'll be heavily into green fuels anyway as fossil fuels run out and/or become a lesser percent of the energy consumption. To me, natural tendencies in the marketplace will do its work, albeit more slowly than the AGW proponents would like to see.

[Sunny and Warm]

I must ask however, if you don't trust the value of the proxies, how is it you arrive at the idea that the difference between the MWP and LIA was "much greater" than 03-0.4C?

I guess I say that more on an European level than a global one. Globally, it may certainly be 0.3-0.4C. I haven't read on that one, only regionally.