Environment & Energy

GliderGuider

(21,088 posts) Mon Dec 14, 2015, 02:14 PM Dec 2015

Paris: World Agrees to Increase Emissions

A bit of hard truth for a Monday.

Paris: World Agrees to Increase Emissions

The circus is over. The suits are leaving Paris. There have been millions of words written about the text. But one fact stands out. All the governments of the world have agreed to increase global greenhouse gas emissions every year between now and 2030.

Why? Because all the countries have agreed to accept the promises of all the other countries. Among the top 20 countries for emissions, here are the countries that have promised to increase their emissions a lot by 2030: China, India, Russia, Korea, Mexico, Indonesia, South Africa, Turkey, Thailand, Kazakhstan, United Arab Emirates, Vietnam.

And here are the countries in the top 20 that have promised to cut their emissions by about 1% a year between now and 2030: USA, European Union, Japan, Canada, Brazil, Australia, and Argentina.

The countries that won’t cut will increase a lot will increase a lot. The countries that will cut will not cut by much. You would never know this from the way the agreement has been reported by the UN or the media.

The regions of the world that will increase emissions already make two thirds of global emissions. The regions that will cut emissions a little make one third of global emissions.

You do the math. They are lying. Emissions will rise every year. The leaders of the world have betrayed humanity.

5 replies

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Paris: World Agrees to Increase Emissions (Original Post) GliderGuider Dec 2015 OP

Yep - even Paris is agreed to in another three years and comes into force two years after that . . hatrack Dec 2015 #1

We can only hope that the West Antarctic Ice Sheet does collapse. happyslug Dec 2015 #2

Source? LouisvilleDem Dec 2015 #3

No one knows, but such a collaspe would explain what happened 120,000 years ago. happyslug Dec 2015 #4

Here are some papers on the subject. happyslug Dec 2015 #5

hatrack

(59,593 posts)

1. Yep - even Paris is agreed to in another three years and comes into force two years after that . .

Reply to GliderGuider (Original post)

Mon Dec 14, 2015, 05:41 PM

Dec 2015

We'll collectively get to keep on increasing emissions until 2030, at which point we'll, uh, start cutting them.

At (roughly) 7 billion tons atmospheric carbon per ppm, that's a conservative 210 billion more tons of CO2 before we even begin to throttle back a little, at 2 ppm/year, which is slightly below where we've been for the past decade.

Oh, and that assumes that no natural feedback loops (Amazon forest collapse, clathrate release, fires, forest death by drought) are set in motion between 2015 and 2030.

But other than that, waiter! More Champagne!!

happyslug

(14,779 posts)

2. We can only hope that the West Antarctic Ice Sheet does collapse.

Reply to GliderGuider (Original post)

Mon Dec 14, 2015, 08:00 PM

Dec 2015

Something like 90% of US refining capability are on the New Jersey, Louisiana and Texas coasts. If the West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS) would collapse, world wide sea levels can go up 20 feet within a month (Some say a week, but I want to play it conservatively). Given the US refines Mexican and Venezuelan oil and re export it back to those two nations, the US will retain a good bit of its capacity to refine oil, but no were near what the US uses. Thus massive reduction in oil consumption, do to an inability to refine the oil to gasoline or diesel.

Coal exports will drop, again do to such export terminals being flooded. Liquefied Natural Gas may only be partially affected, most such tankers are filled by hoses can be moved inland quickly. The same with oil exports, but oil restriction is NOT production or movement of oil, but refining oil and it will take YEARS to build up the refining capacity needed.

Yes, I support the concept of Peak oil, and I think it is occurring as I write this, but for this discussion I am assuming Peak Oil is NOT occurring. The reason for that is Peak Oil is a long term problem that will take several years to kick in, the collapse of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS) would force a cut back in oil usage overnight.

The West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS) has been called the "Godzilla" of Global Warming. Unlike the other two ice sheets, which are stable and only subject to melting over the next 50-200 years, the West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS) can collapse in any northern spring (March to mid April, the Southern Fall, when the Antarctic Ice Shelves are at their smallest and when the Ice Sheets are at their weakest).

Side Note: Ice Shelves FLOAT atop of the water and thus displace the water they will be when melted. For that reason if all of the Ice Shelves in the world would melt, it will barely raise the water level a few millimeters. The real concern when it comes to Ice Shelves is that once they are gone, it opens up the Ice Sheets to warm ocean waters.

Ice sheets are grounded on land, thus any water that melts flows into the water as new water in the ocean, increasing world wide sea levels. The West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS) is GROUNDED below sea level, so some of its ice displaces some sea water, but most of the Ice Sheet represent water NOT in the ocean. Being grounded below sea level it is possible for the West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS) to break up and start to float, change from an ice sheet to an Ice Shelf (or more likely Icebergs). This change would increase world wide sea levels anywhere from ten feet to twenty feet and almost overnight.

I am sorry, I just do not see our corporate overlords wanting to cut their profits to save the planet. They will try to impose such costs on the rest of the people, but right now if they did so, you would be seeing a world wide series of revolts.

Thus the best hope for Mankind and this planet is on the short term the Collapse of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS), in the long term peak oil, coal and Natural Gas.

LouisvilleDem

(303 posts)

3. Source?

Reply to happyslug (Reply #2)

Mon Dec 14, 2015, 11:00 PM

Dec 2015

What is the source of the quote below? Is it peer reviewed?

Ice sheets are grounded on land, thus any water that melts flows into the water as new water in the ocean, increasing world wide sea levels. The West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS) is GROUNDED below sea level, so some of its ice displaces some sea water, but most of the Ice Sheet represent water NOT in the ocean. Being grounded below sea level it is possible for the West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS) to break up and start to float, change from an ice sheet to an Ice Shelf (or more likely Icebergs). This change would increase world wide sea levels anywhere from ten feet to twenty feet and almost overnight.

I ask because all the peer reviewed literature I've seen on WAIS collapse says it will taken centuries.

happyslug

(14,779 posts)

4. No one knows, but such a collaspe would explain what happened 120,000 years ago.

Reply to LouisvilleDem (Reply #3)

Mon Dec 14, 2015, 11:56 PM

Dec 2015

First that is not a quote, thus why it starts with the words "Side note"' I wanted it seperated from the rest of my comments but it is based on my readings on the subject, including peer review articles. I am using me smart phone right now and it is not easy as easy to give a cite as on a real computer. Thus I will wait till tomorrow to give you some cites.

One set of facts stand out. 120,000 years ago world wide sea level increased 20 feet, then fell 80 and the ice age started. The only known source for that much water at that time period would have been the West Antarctic Ice Sheet. It is possible the change could have been cause by something else but none comes close.

The Greenland Ice sheet has been named a potential source but it is grounded above sea level, but it has the water volume to increase sea level 20 feet. The East Antarctic Ice Sheet is even larger, it can raise sea levels 60 feet, but like the Greenland Ice Sheet is grounded above sea level and thus to affect sea level the Ice has to melt and that may take centuries. The computer models I have read about actually increased ice in the East Antarctic Ice Sheet for the next 50 or so years, as warmer air takes more mosture to that ice sheet and it drops as snow. The East Antarctic Ice Sheet actually expands do to global warming given it is completely within the Antarctic Circle and grounded above sea level.

There are a couple of sites that mention the possibility of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet collapsing, some are peer reviewed. No one knows if it can happen but present theory does NOT rule out such a possibility, unlike similar stories about a rapid collapse of the Greenland or East Antarctic Ice Sheets (those two Ice Sheets will takes decades to melt maybe centuries).

I am away from my computer right now and am using my smart phone this makes it hard to find the articles you want and cite them for you. I try to find them tomorrow and give you the citations, but such a collapse has been talked about in the literture since the 1960s, it is an old threat not only possible but probable and why it has been a concern since the 1960s.

Please note some experts believe the West Antarctic Ice Sheet has been unstable since the collaspe of the North American Ice Sheet thousands of years ago. That collapse lead to the rocks that are now the Great Banks off of Newfoundland from being islands and into the submerged banks there are today. That lead to a huge increase in sea levels almost over night. My point is such a rapid increase is not unheard of in the geological record.

happyslug

(14,779 posts)

5. Here are some papers on the subject.

Reply to LouisvilleDem (Reply #3)

Wed Dec 16, 2015, 02:00 AM

Dec 2015

http://search.proquest.com/openview/9945c835403ec93dcba83d9f7e644b2b/1?pq-origsite=gscholar

Here is a Report from 1978, where a "Rapid" Collapse of the WAIS was noted:

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/0033589478900984

http://news.sciencemag.org/climate/2015/11/just-nudge-could-collapse-west-antarctic-ice-sheet-raise-sea-levels-3-meters

Here is a REPORT on a study on how the WAIS is being destroyed:

http://news.sciencemag.org/climate/2014/12/antarctic-ice-shelf-being-eaten-away-sea

My reading on the subject is that not to many people want to make a peer review study on a rapid collapse of the WAIS, for no one has sufficient data to support such a collapse OR to say the WAIS will just melt away like Greenland and The East Antarctic Ice Sheet. The studies all say such a Collapse is POSSIBLE, but no one will say when it will occur (to many variables).

The most spectacular retreat is a 34–37 km migration at the center of Smith/Kohler glaciers (B in Figure?2d). Between A and B, ice was only a few 10 m above hydrostatic equilibrium in 2002 [Thomas et al., 2004b]. A 500 km2 region ungrounded from the bed in 1992–2011. On the sides of the ice stream, the retreat is 4 to 7 km. At C, in a region of low motion in the wake of Kohler Range, an 8 km retreat ungrounded an area of 100 km2, with two new ice rises left. On the west branch of Kohler, the retreat is 8 km at D and 4 km at tributary E. The ice rumples between Crosson and Dotson ice shelves (area F) were 73 km2 in area in 1992 and 15 km2 in 2011, and one ice rumple disappeared at G. These observations imply that the ice shelf is thinning and unpinning from its anchoring points. ERS-2 did not image Pope Glacier in 2011, so its retreat is unquantified.

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/2014GL060140/full

Here is a NON peer review article on the subject from 1998, but cites a report from Scientific America:

No one knows how the bulk of West Antarctica's ice sheet is anchored. Is it anchored by the archipelago it overruns, or is it anchored laterally to the Transantarctic Mountains? If the latter, a sea level increase from global warming factors could lift the West Antarctica ice sheet enough to snap the "moorings" to the Transantarctic Mountains.

The August 1995 Scientific American reported that scientists in the Bahamas had discovered that the last ice age began 120,000 years ago with something they called the "Madhouse Century." At that time, sea level was the same as it is now, CO2 levels were similar and global climate was just a little colder. Something happened to trigger a catastrophic 20-foot sea-level increase- immediately followed by a 50 foot decrease!-all in just 100 years!!! Then the Ice Age was off and running for 100,000 years.

http://www.imaja.com/as/environment/can/journal/madhousecentury.html

It is now almost 30 years since John Mercer (1978) first presented the idea that climate change could eventually cause a rapid deglaciation, or “collapse”, of a large part of the West Antarctic ice sheet (WAIS), raising world sea levels by 5 metres and causing untold economic and social impacts. This idea, apparently simple and scientifically plausible, created a vision of the future, sufficiently alarming that it became a paradigm for a generation of researchers and provided an icon for the green movement. Through the 1990s, however, a lack of observational evidence for ongoing retreat in WAIS and improved understanding of the complex dynamics of ice streams meant that estimates of likelihood of collapse seemed to be diminishing. In the last few years, however, satellite studies over the apparently inaccessible Amundsen Sea sector of West Antarctica have shown clear evidence of ice sheet retreat showing all the features that might have been predicted for emergent collapse. These studies are re-invigorating the paradigm, albeit in a modified form, and debate about the future stability of WAIS. Since much of WAIS appears to be stable, it may, no longer be reasonable to suggest there is an imminent threat of a 5-m rise in sea level resulting from complete collapse of the West Antarctic ice sheet, but there is strong evidence that the Amundsen Sea embayment is changing rapidly. This area alone, contains the potential to raise sea level by around ~1.5 m, but more importantly it seems likely that it could, alter rapidly enough, to make a significant addition to the rate of sea-level rise over coming two centuries. Furthermore, a plausible connection between contemporary climate change and the fate of the ice sheet appears to be developing. The return of the paradigm presents a dilemma for policy-makers, and establishes a renewed set of priorities for the glaciological community. In particular, we must establish whether the hypothesized instability in WAIS is real, or simply an oversimplification resulting from inadequate understanding of the feedbacks that allow ice sheets to achieve equilibrium: and whether there is any likelihood that contemporary climate change could initiate collapse.

http://nora.nerc.ac.uk/769/

Please note, Weather can vary, here is a paper that points out a that the worse series of winters in Europe was between 1942 and 1946 and that corresponds with the U-Boat war in the Atlantic from 1941 to 1945. Causation or just coincidence? No one knows, but it is something to think about.

http://www.what-is-climate.com/Archiv/juli_10.html

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