Climate Change: The Move to Action (AOSS 480 // NRE 480)

1. Climate Change: The Move to Action(AOSS 480 // NRE 480) Richard B. Rood Cell: 301-526-8572 2525 Space Research Building (North Campus) rbrood@umich.edu http://aoss.engin.umich.edu/people/rbrood Winter 2012 February 16, 2012

2. Class News • Ctools site: AOSS_SNRE_480_001_W12 • 2008 and 2010 Class On Line: • http://climateknowledge.org/classes/index.php/Climate_Change:_The_Move_to_Action

3. Some Uncertainty References • Climate Change Science Program, Synthesis Assessment Report, Uncertainty Best Practices Communicating, 2009 • Climate Change Science Program, Synthesis Assessment Report, Transportation Gulf Coast, 2008 • Moss and Schneider, Uncertainty Reporting, 2000 • Pidgeon and Fischhoff, Communicating Uncertainty, 2011 • Lemos and Rood, Uncertainty Fallacy, 2010

4. Some Attribution References • Rosenzweig et al., Nature, 2008 • Barriopedro et al., Russian Heat Wave, Science, 2011 • Dole et al., Russian Heat Wave, GRL, 2011 • Rahmstorf, Increase of Extreme Events, PNAS, 2011 • Shearer and Rood, Earthzine, 2011

5. The Current Climate (Released Monthly) • Climate Monitoring at National Climatic Data Center. • http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/ncdc.html • State of the Climate: Global

6. Readings on Local Servers • Assigned • Jasanoff: The Fifth Branch (Chapter 1) • Osborn: Spatial Extent of Current Warming • Foundational References • UNFCCC: Text of Convention • Kyoto Protocol: Text • Kyoto Protocol: Introduction and Summary • Millennium Ecosystem Assessment Web Portal

7. Today: Practices of Climate Community • Peer Review • Assessment • IPCC • Response

8. Briefly revisit scientific method

9. OBSERVATIONS THEORY EXPERIMENT Scientific Investigation Problem Solving Unification Integration Knowledge Generation Reduction Disciplinary

10. OBSERVATIONS THEORY EXPERIMENT Scientific Investigation Problem Solving Unification Integration Knowledge Generation Reduction Disciplinary Assessments Refereed Journals

11. Reviewers: • Anonymous • Recuses himself / herself if prejudiced • Authors Often: • Chooses amongst Editors • Recommends Reviewers • Provides names of Collaborators • Provides names of Competitors • Editors: • Often volunteer from community • Approved by publisher • Professional society • Commercial publisher • Recuses himself / herself if prejudiced Peer Review: Understanding Science Berkeley

12. Peer Review • Standard in Science, Social Science, and Academics • Part of the checking – or validation process • Designed to provide checks and balances to human behavior – supports objectivity • Slow from submission to publication  many months  years • Attacked as closed and prejudiced (East Anglia email hack ) • Current efforts to shake it up, open it up, speed it up

13. Peer Review • New efforts at “Open Review” • American Geophysical Union Experiment • Open Review Chronicle for Higher Ed • Some links to peer review • Cracking Open Scientific Processes, 2011 • European Peer Review, 2011 • Future of Peer Review, 1997 • Peerless Science: Peer Review and the U.S. Science Policy, 1990

14. Peer Review • The world, as a whole, does not follow a peer review process • Reports • Analysis • News • Self Interests • New models of publication • Mediacommons

15. OBSERVATIONS THEORY EXPERIMENT Scientific Investigation Problem Solving Unification Integration Knowledge Generation Reduction Disciplinary Assessments Refereed Journals

16. Assessment • Bringing together knowledge to evaluate that knowledge as a body of work relevant to some specific subject or application. • What can we say about climate change? • What are the gaps in knowledge? • How certain are we? • Reconcile conflicting information? • How the scientific community communicates with policy makers

17. Some Assessments • USGCRP (US Global Change Research Program) Scientific Assessments • National Climate Assessment (current) • First National Climate Assessment (2000) • Synthesis and Assessment Reports • Climate Change Science Program • National Academy of Sciences • Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change

18. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) (The assessment process) How is this information evaluated, integrated and transmitted to policymakers? Scientist-authors are nominated by governments to assess the state of the science Published in refereed literature IPCC CLIMATE REPORTS 2001 2007 What we know + uncertainty Draft documents are reviewed by experts who did NOT write the draft. // Open review as well • U.S. Climate Change Science Program • U.S. Global Change Research Program • Assessments • U.S. National Assessment Review by government officials // Final language // All agree National Academy of Sciences Study Process Draft revised

19. Note IPCC Report Process

20. A paper of interest • Daniel Farber: • Review of Climate Modeling Activities and why they should have legal standing.

21. Today: Practices of Climate Community • Peer Review • Assessment • IPCC • Response

22. Land Use / Land Change Other Greenhouse Gases Aerosols Internal Variability Validation Evaluation Consequences Feedbacks Air Quality “Abrupt” Climate Change Summary Points: Science Correlated Observations CO2 and Temperature Observed to be strongly related on long time scales (> 100 years) CO2 and Temperature not Observed to be strongly related on short time scales (< 10 years) Theory / Empirical Evidence CO2 and Water Vapor Hold Heat Near Surface Prediction Earth Will Warm Theory / Conservation Principle Mass and Energy Budgets  Concept of “Forcing” Observations CO2 is Increasing due to Burning Fossil Fuels

23. We conclude Earth will warm • Does it matter? Is it dangerous? • Do we respond to this knowledge? • How do we respond?

24. One Response: Policy to Solve it KNOWLEDGE CLIMATE SCIENCE POLICY UNCERTAINTY PROMOTES / CONVERGENCE OPPOSES / DIVERGENCE

25. Framework for Response • Our framework for responding to climate change is summarized at the highest level by mitigation and adaptation.

26. Science, Mitigation, Adaptation Framework Adaptation is responding to changes that might occur from added CO2 It’s not an either / or argument. Mitigation is controlling the amount of CO2 we put in the atmosphere.

27. Some definitions: (IPCC Glossary) • Mitigation: The notion of limiting or controlling emissions of greenhouse gases so that the total accumulation is limited. • Adaptation: The notion of changes in the way we do things to adapt to changes in climate. • Resilience: Amount of change that can be accommodated without severe damage. • Adaptive Capacity: Ability to adjust to moderate potential damages. • Geo-engineering: The notion that we can manage the balance of total energy of the atmosphere, ocean, ice, and land to yield a stable climate in the presence of changing greenhouse gases.

28. Thinking about ADAPTATION • Adaptation: What people might do to reduce harm of climate change, or make themselves best able to take advantage of climate change. • Autonomous that people do by themselves • Can be encouraged by public policy • Command and control tell you to do it • Incentives • Subsidies • Can be anticipatory or reactive • Adaptation is local; it is self help. • Adaptation has short time constants - at least compared to mitigation  Hence people see the need to pay for it. • Some amount of autonomous-reactive adaptation will take place. • Moving villages in Alaska

29. Thinking about MITIGATION • Mitigation: Things we do to reduce greenhouse gases • Reduce emissions • Increase sinks • Mitigation is for the global good • Mitigation has slow time constants • Mitigation is anticipatory policy • This is the “second” environmental problem we have faced with a global flavor. • Ozone is the first one. Is this a good model?

30. Some Mitigation-Adaptation considerations • Those who are rich and technologically advanced generally favor adaptation; they feel they can handle it • Plus, technology will continue to make fossil fuel cheap, but with great(er) release of CO2 • Those who are poor and less technologically advanced generally advocate mitigation and sharing of adaptation technology • Emission scenarios don’t matter for the next 30-50 years. • There are a lot of arguments, based on economics, that lead towards adaptation • Mitigation always looks expensive, perhaps economically risky, on the time scale of 50 years. • Adaptation looks easier because we will know more • This will remain true as long as the consequences seem incremental and modest • The Innovators Dilemma, evolution vs revolution?

31. Responses to the Climate Change Problem Policy/ Societal Autonomous/ Individual Anticipatory Reactive Mitigation Adaptation

32. A Management Idea The first and largest improvements come from a plan, an approach to the problem, and identifying mistakes early This axis is ability to target cost, quality, time

33. Policy: Global and Local GLOBAL CONSEQUENCES LOCAL POLICY (ADAPTATION) SURFACE WARMING GLOBAL POLICY (MITIGATION) GREEN HOUSE GAS INCREASE

34. IPCC projections: Where is the challenge of mitigation? Takes a long time to separate

35. Framework for response • What is dangerous climate change?

36. Stern Report: Influential: Useful for thinking about problem • Draws on recent science which points to ‘significant risks of temperature increases above 5°C under business-as-usual by the early part of the next century’ — other studies typically have focused on increases of 2–3°C. • Treats aversion to risk explicitly. • Adopts low pure time discount rates to give future generations equal weight. • Takes account of the disproportionate impacts on poor regions.

37. Dangerous climate change? Stern, 2006

38. Some carry away messages • Determine what is a tolerable ceiling for carbon dioxide. • Gives cap for a cap and trade system. • Tolerable ceilings have been posed as between 450 and 550 ppm. • Ice sheet melting and sea level? • Oceanic circulation / The Gulf Stream? • Ocean acidification? • Determine a tolerable measure of increased temperature • Copenhagen Accord (2009)  2o C

39. Dangerous climate change? Stern, 2006

40. Framework for Response • Stabilization: That we can manage our emissions so that the amount of carbon dioxide, more generally, greenhouse gases, so that we control the amount in that atmosphere at a stable level  one small enough to avoid dangerous climate change.