Climate Disasters a "Significant Possibility," Says Nobel Laureate Steve Chu
By The Climate Community | December 16, 2008 | In: Business, Science, Policy, Media, Social & NGOs
Yesterday, President-elect Barack Obama introduced CCC Councillor Steve Chu as his choice to be the next U.S. Energy Secretary. Last month, we published an interview with Chu, linked to below, where he warns that the planet is threatened with "sudden, unpredictable, and irreversible disaster."
Catastrophic damage to ecosystems because of global warming is "a significant possibility." We can expect "disasters in orders of magnitude different from anything we've experienced thus far," like abrupt, large-scale shifts in the climate system, collapse of ocean circulation and the West Antarctic Ice Sheet, and heat waves killing thousands of people. It is most likely that cities such as Tokyo, Mumbai, Buenos Aires, New York, and London must be protected behind sea walls because of rising sea levels and extreme weather.
These are some of the conclusions in an interview published last month with Nobel Laureate Dr. Steve Chu, Director of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, California. In the interview, the physicist and Copenhagen Climate Councillor evaluates the current scientific knowledge on climate change and the developments since the IPCC's Fourth Assessment Report was published in 2007.
His conclusion is that the IPCC report understates the problem, and the rise in global average temperature is very unlikely to be less than 1.5°C and will most likely fall in the range of 2-4.5°C. He adds that due to lack of preventive measures so far, current levels of greenhouse gas in the atmosphere "puts us on track for temperature increases of more than 6.1°C by the end of the century," an increase of catastrophic proportions.
Chu strongly urges governments to take action, and points out that technologies to curb emissions exist or are emerging.
Chu compares the situation to a homeowner who discovers that his house has faulty wiring that may cause electrical fires and needs and expensive repair. "What we are doing is the equivalent of dealing with the problem by [..] investing in a set of fire extinguishers that can help us fight the fire – but won't prevent it from happing in the first place. We face the same choice now: to go on living as we are [...] or to address the risks in the house we live in, and make the repairs we can, to make the house safe for ourselves and our descendents," says Chu.
The full interview is published by Copenhagen Climate Council and CITRIS-BRIE of UC Berkeley on this platform.
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Comments feedThis is such a large topic of discussion. First, weather is chaotic. This means one can expect wild swings; wild swings are normal. Why is there no mention of the 1999 under water volcano eruption in the Arctic Ocean? Could this melt ice? As of Jan09, the sea ice has returned to 1979 levels. Isn't most of the ice berg under water? As the ice sheets break off in the South Pole the sheets on land are also getting thicker. How do they get thicker if there is warming? Some climate models have positive feedback. What in nature is described with positive feedback? A black hole, the type that eats stars, is the only thing I can think of. Everything else in nature generally follows a mean reverting model. What goes up must come down. Some climate models do not include cloud cover. Everyone knows clouds affect the surface temp. How is not including cloud cover not a huge hole of knowledge in the model's description. Models can be tested using small variations in the inputs and then running time forward to see the results. This is generally referred to as Monte Carlo simulations. If one runs a million simulations, a model will produce an average and a standard deviation. What are the standard deviations of the models that get quoted all the time? "Scientists" who say the debate is over cannot answer some of the questions posted above. How is the debate over?
The world needs to reckon the urgent need for changes in our reckless energy use. Already we were acting insufficienty and the rest of the steam has been taken away from the impending financial crisis. We as human beings are able to foresee a catastrophic future but fail to act on it . I hope this doesn't turn to be failure.
Wow! I knew it was getting hard to avoid irreversible damagage. But that hard? We need to act now. Hope to see a new Chu report soon.