Stopping CO2 Rise Is Not Enough
It is hard to remember, but even holding CO2 output at the current level insures continued climate change. A paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, by Dr. John Sterman, reminds us that even advanced college students and educated adults hold the wrong mental model of greenhouse gas process. In a piece at NYT he argues we tend to think that CO2=temperature, but a better model is a clogged bathtub drain.
If the faucet is solar energy, and the drain is infrared re-radiation, CO2 and other greenhouse gases are the clogged drain. So even adding zero new CO2, which no one considers possible in the short term, we would continue to see the drain be slow, and average temperatures would continue to rise.
We need to do more than decrease new CO2, more than even stopping CO2 additions. We need to actively draw down atmospheric CO2, or be prepared to weather (sorry) some changes that will be effectively permanent. With a total cessation of human CO2 inputs, it will take decades or a century for existing sinks to act. And the natural ones are showing signs of slowing, with warmer oceans taking up less CO2.
The good news is that the fastest route to stopping new CO2 is also the best route to sustainable economic activity, which is building and installing local power generation and storage. Increasing CO2 sink action could include floating solar farms or offshore Stirling engine systems, which would shadow ocean waters somewhat and reduce water temperatures. Unfortunately, increasing CO2 uptake will increase acidity, so that may need mitigation.
But mainly we have to start by stopping CO2 production from fossil sources. We will also have to worry about drawing down, but right now we can't even agree on slowing the increase in CO2 production. If survival of technological civilization ain't a stimulus to action what would be? Alien invasion? Get ready for that, in the form of new bacteria, weeds, and pests.
Perhaps a convenient plague would be faster. Or the Rapture could carry away lots of climate-change deniers, letting us get to work preserving the climate we know and love. Or love to hate if it's Chicago winter.
If the faucet is solar energy, and the drain is infrared re-radiation, CO2 and other greenhouse gases are the clogged drain. So even adding zero new CO2, which no one considers possible in the short term, we would continue to see the drain be slow, and average temperatures would continue to rise.
We need to do more than decrease new CO2, more than even stopping CO2 additions. We need to actively draw down atmospheric CO2, or be prepared to weather (sorry) some changes that will be effectively permanent. With a total cessation of human CO2 inputs, it will take decades or a century for existing sinks to act. And the natural ones are showing signs of slowing, with warmer oceans taking up less CO2.
The good news is that the fastest route to stopping new CO2 is also the best route to sustainable economic activity, which is building and installing local power generation and storage. Increasing CO2 sink action could include floating solar farms or offshore Stirling engine systems, which would shadow ocean waters somewhat and reduce water temperatures. Unfortunately, increasing CO2 uptake will increase acidity, so that may need mitigation.
But mainly we have to start by stopping CO2 production from fossil sources. We will also have to worry about drawing down, but right now we can't even agree on slowing the increase in CO2 production. If survival of technological civilization ain't a stimulus to action what would be? Alien invasion? Get ready for that, in the form of new bacteria, weeds, and pests.
Perhaps a convenient plague would be faster. Or the Rapture could carry away lots of climate-change deniers, letting us get to work preserving the climate we know and love. Or love to hate if it's Chicago winter.
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Well. That was utterly non-cheery info, Tom! And I work in this shit (fortunately, on the "how to reduce" side, not so much the "impacts.") I'd known there was debate, but was just happily thinking that the CO2 would only hang around for a century or two. But millennia? Impacts longer than radioactive waste?
How many of these bloody "debts" have we managed to pile up - financial, cultural, environmental, biological, etc. - that the world could end up cursing us for, decades and generations from now?
Argh.
January 29, 2009 2:02 AM | Reply | Permalink
A timely post Tom. As some of us still deny the effects of excess carbon in the atmosphere on global climate, the effects continue unabated, regardless of our policy or lack thereof, as we ponder our options. I suppose those denying the relationship of the two may be those awaiting said rapture.
January 29, 2009 2:05 AM | Reply | Permalink
With enough power input it's possible to capture atmospheric CO2 as methane, I think it's the Sabatier reaction. Hydrogen split from seawater as feedstock. The hard sell would be sequestering useful fuel, even if we have plenty of solar-derived power around.
Kin Stanley Robinson has been fictionalizing climate change, with "Forty Signs of Rain" and a couple of sequels. His characters salt the oceans to restart the Gulf Stream, pump seawater inland from the ocean level rise following the breakup of West Antarctic Ice Shelf, and so on. Not mentioned in the books is new info that fertilizing algae, (or is it plankton) with iron looks like it won't do much.
January 29, 2009 5:21 AM | Reply | Permalink