Climate Change: The Move to Action (AOSS 480 // NRE 480) Richard B. Rood Cell: Space Research Building (North Campus) Winter 2014 February 27, 2014

Class News Ctools site: AOSS_SNRE_480_001_W14AOSS_SNRE_480_001_W14 Something I am playing with – Assignment – ed –Posted Politics of Dismissal Entry Model Uncertainty Description

Projects Fracking (Omar, Jeffrey, Austin, Megan, Ranya) –With the recent technological advances in hydraulic fracturing, the U.S. has become the world’s largest producer of oil and is projected to become an exporter of natural gas. Natural gas has been posed as a “bridge fuel” to displace coal in the production of electricity, and to reduce the emissions of carbon dioxide. As a policy advisor on climate change, I need to know whether or not a transition to natural gas serves to reduce the emissions of greenhouse gases and the impact on water resources. I am especially concerned about the leakage of methane and huge amount of water that is required. I have another team working on public health effects air quality and water quality are out of your domain.

Projects Agricultural (Edwin, Rachel, Kathleen, Chris) –The accounting of greenhouse gas emissions from agriculture is difficult. I have read that something like 30% of the total emissions are agriculturally related. This requires that those emissions used in, say, fertilizer manufacturing are accounted in agriculture rather than industry. Recently, I read a blog emissions-of-agriculture that said there was one group who claimed all by itself, livestock was responsible for more than 52% of the emissions. This seems enormous and challenges many conventional strategies for greenhouse gas management. The CEO of my company has announced a sustainability effort, and I want to know what decisions my food manager can make the matter to climate change, including water resources. Should I emphasize vegetarian meals, or is it better to buy local, “sustainable,” or organic? emissions-of-agriculture

Projects Air Travel (Meng, Arnav, Mason, John, Justin) –There is no doubt that airplanes emit carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases. Air travel is an important part of the economy. When I read about air travel and climate impacts, the information is complicated. Often the discussion ends with the admission that there are not obvious options to make air travel and transport “sustainable” in the sense of climate change. The European Union has been considering a way to reduce emissions from air travel. Their efforts have only revealed even more complexity in reducing the environmental impact of aircraft. In order to know how much priority to give to sustainable air travel in my research and development portfolio, I need a knowledge-based assessment of the impact of air travel on climate, risks associated with “doing nothing” and the viable strategies for making air travel “sustainable.”

Projects

Project Details You want to make a knowledge-based evaluation of the problem and present an approach or a set of possible approaches to address the problem. (Want you to be very aware of “advocacy” in your thinking.) Project Description

Projects: Goals and Context In school students often learn to work independently, in their field, but in jobs people are often thrown into teams –You are suddenly the “expert.” Goals –How to define a tractable problem // reduce it to something you can do Drawing a picture –How to separate the essence of a problem from the details –What do we know, what do we believe, what are we attached to? –What do the other participants really need – not what you think they need. –Check, How to Check –Communication Complexity, sophistication, audience, context, naivety, dumbing down How to explain what you are doing. –Balance, optimization

Projects Bigger goals... –How do we move this problem beyond polarized positions on details. Move it from climate-policy, climate-business, climate-public health, climate-agriculture, climate-ecosystems, climate-...(interest advocacy groups) to climate-business-policy-public health - ecosystems –How do we bring several communities together for the development of foundational solution paths or, at least, strategies that make sense. –Systems, systems, systems

Skill Set Analysis –Distinguish between facts and inferences Judgment –What is the quality of the knowledge? Synthesis –How do pieces fit together?

Deconstructing how to think about projects. 1) Describe what is in the picture. What are the facts? Make an inventory of what is known. Make an inventory of what is not known. 2) Analysis: How credible is the information? What is the integrity of the reporting? How complete is the picture? Is there derived knowledge? … 3) Does it matter? Impact. Consequences. Relations Why? 4) What to do? Consequences? Options?

An interesting book for thinking about projects: (Example of process, deconstruction, …) Climate Change: Debating America’s Policy Options David Victor (2004) Council on Foreign Relations, New York, NY 166 pages.

Project Details I will become your customer / audience –I will reframe your vision into a question, perhaps a naïve question. –Teams and I will “meet” at least twice before the presentation at the end of the semester. Questions likely focused and made less naïve. –Final presentation / power point / and narrative.

Communication

Currently a topic of great interest to the climate community. –Motivations Respond to the denial in political argument Educate the public Convince the electorate Responsibility of tax-supported research Make science relevant to society

Communication of Science-based knowledge “ … in the case of some people, not even if we had the most accurate scientific knowledge, would it be easy to persuade them …” Aristotle, A Treatise on Rhetoric

Temperature and CO 2 : The last 1000 years Surface temperature and CO 2 data from the past 1000 years. Temperature is a northern hemisphere average. Temperature from several types of measurements are consistent in temporal behavior.

IPCC projections for the next 100 years. Note: From one IPCC assessment to the next, there is no fundamental change in sign and range.

In Class Exercise Economist: –Temperature not going up, but carbon dioxide is.Temperature not going up, but carbon dioxide is

Observed Temperature Anomaly in See Also: Osborn et al., The Spatial Extent of 20th-Century Warmth in the Context of the Past 1200 Years, Science, 311, , base period

IPCC 2013: Observed Temperature

Follow up: Extremes and Communication Some words I wrote down from lectures and discussions –Dumbing down –Explain to your mother –Granularity of the audience –Broadcast communication –Smoking gun of climate change –Role of fear –Effectiveness of lectures

Extreme Weather and Climate Change These case studies demonstrate that there is an attempt to ‘simplify’, or communicate the science to the public, in the reports that we have read in class. NCAR – AtmosNews – n/steroids-baseball-climate-changehttp://www2.ucar.edu/atmosnews/attributio n/steroids-baseball-climate-change –Deliberate attempt to increase communication with public.

“It’s not the right question to ask if this storm or that storm is due to global warming, or is it natural variability. Nowadays, there’s always an element of both.” Kevin Trenberth – NCAR

Shearer and Rood (2011) Scientist are part of the conversation… should help frame better questions. Two different realities, natural and the anthropogenically changed… this does not exist. “The result is that scientific debates that were historically carried out in the slow deliberations of peer-reviewed journals are now on public display and can be misrepresented.”

Iconic and Fundamental Figures

Scientific investigation of Earth’s climate SUN: ENERGY, HEATEARTH: ABSORBS ENERGY EARTH: EMITS ENERGY TO SPACE  BALANCE

Sun-Earth System in Balance The addition to the blanket is CO 2 SUNEARTH EARTH: EMITS ENERGY TO SPACE  BALANCE PLACE AN INSULATING BLANKET AROUND EARTH FOCUS ON WHAT IS HAPPENING AT THE SURFACE

Increase of Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide (CO 2 ) Data and more information Primary increase comes from burning fossil fuels – coal, oil, natural gas

Temperature and CO 2 : The last 1000 years Surface temperature and CO 2 data from the past 1000 years. Temperature is a northern hemisphere average. Temperature from several types of measurements are consistent in temporal behavior.  Medieval warm period  “Little ice age”  Temperature starts to follow CO 2 as CO 2 increases beyond approximately 300 ppm, the value seen in the previous graph as the upper range of variability in the past 350,000 years.

CLOUD-WORLD The Earth System ATMOSPHERE LAND OCEAN ICE (cryosphere) SUN

Radiation Balance Figure

Radiative Balance (Trenberth et al. 2009)Trenberth et al. 2009

Hansen et al: (1998) & (2001) (-2.7, -0.6) (-3.7, 0.0) Climate Forcing