Civil G8 2006

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earth

Climate as a global problem

Our future climate – report survey


Survey of the World Meteorology Organization report.
A.Kokorin, Wild World Fund – Russia (WWF –Russia),
supported by I. Gritskevich, Effective Energy Usage.


Earth Climate System

Climate system operation factors.

Earth climate system embraces atmosphere, ocean, land, cryosphere (ice and snow) and biosphere. This complex system is described with the help of a number of operational factors, some of them are evident: temperature, atmospheric precipitation, air and soil humidity, the state of the snow and ice covering, The climate system is described with more complex characteristics: by the dynamics of the large-scale atmosphere and ocean circulation, by the frequency and intensity of the extreme meteorological phenomena, by the boarders of the animal and plant natural habitat. Often a little change in the simple operational factors leads to a big change in the in the complex operational factors.

Connections between the climate system components.

The global climate, biological, geological and chemical processes and natural eco-systems are tightly connected. A change in one can lead to changes in the other, and the secondary changes can be even worse. Changes in one sphere, even positive for human lives, can lead to change in another sphere and those changes may be disastrous for human, animal and plant life. Gases and aerosol particles that have been thrown into atmosphere since the beginning of the industrial revolution change both atmosphere and energy balance. This influences the cooperation of the atmosphere and the ocean, which the key factor of the extreme weather conditions. The ocean occupies the largest part of the earth and these are its tides and water circulations that predetermine the climate of the most of the densely inhabited areas. Potentially, the change in the oceanic waters circulation, for instance Gulf Stream, caused by the global warming, is very dangerous.

The mechanisms of the retroactive connection.

The components of an ecosystem are usually connected through the retroactive connection – the effort of the secondary effect intensifies the primal one, etc. In this case, the changes appear at a faster speed. For instance, the decrease in the snow covering due to the temperature raise decreases albedo – sun radiation reflection back to the atmosphere – and increases the volume of the energy absorbed by the earth which, in its turn, leads to the temperature raise and to major ice and snow melting. This is the example of the positive retroactive connection. For example, the intensity of the clouds caused by the more intense evaporating due to higher temperatures, decreases the sun radiation intensity, which in the end, decreases the temperature at the earth surface.

Greenhouse Effect.

Greenhouse effect is not a new question. Back in 1827 a French scientist Furie gave us theoretical description: atmosphere admits the short-wave sun radiation but restrains reflected by the earth long-wave heat radiation. At the end of the XIX century Sweden scientist Arrenius drew a conclusion that burning of CO2 leads to atmospheric changes and will end in the climate warming. In 1957 – International Geophysical Year – the surveys showed that the CO2 concentration in the atmosphere constantly grows. Russian scientist Michail Budenko carried out first mathematical calculations and foretold crucial climate changes.

The Greenhouse effect is caused by water vapor, carbonic acid gas, methane, azoth acid and other gases, concentration of which is not that substantial in the atmosphere. Definitely, the greenhouse effect has been in existence since the first days of the atmosphere itself. But the problem is in its growing intensity since the time the human kind started to burn the hydrocarbon fossil fuel, releasing CO2, which was taken from the atmosphere by plants and kept in the earth in the form of coil, oil and gas for millions of years. The problem is not that much in the warming but in the climate system misbalance. CO2 surge is a kind of a chemical trigger for the climate system. The average system of the planet do not change that much because of that, but its fluctuations become gross. That’s what we see in reality, sharp increase in the number and intensity of the extreme weather phenomena: floods, droughts, strong heat, sharp fluctuations in weather, typhoons, etc.

Global Climate Evolution.

Earth climate has never been stable. It tends to change in all of the time patterns – from decades to millions of years. The most noticeable changes happen within the time period of hundred thousand years – ice ages, when earth climate was much colder compared to the present day, and inter-ice ages, when the earth climate was warmer. These cycles were caused by the natural conditions. According to some scientists, now we are in a “shift” as well – from one ice age towards another one – about 0,020 C within 100 years. Though since the beginning of the industrial revolution the climate changes at a faster speed (100 times faster compared to the speed it was moving to the ice age), mostly due to the activities of the human kind, as they lead to the fossil fuel burning and as a result, release of the greenhouse gases in to the atmosphere and also due to the mass extermination of the forests.

Climate of the past.

Multiple researches showed that most of the dry areas, for example, the Sahara, had a humid and rich in flora climate. Paleo-environmental records based on the ice cores, tree circles, lake bottom measures, coral riffs, let reconstruct the climate of the past. Many millions of years ago, at the time of Dinosaurs, the climate was much warmer, on the average, 70 C warmer throughout the whole planet. With time the climate was becoming colder, there were several sharp changes, mostly cold snaps, accompanied by mass extinction of living organisms. There is another important conclusion, the change of 20C is a lot and leads to extinction of species. According to paleo-environmental scale, “sharp” means decades and hundreds of thousands of years. When “sharp” means hundreds of year, the consequences can be disastrous.

Past millennia climate changes.

Since the Central Europe Ice disappeared, there have been two stages of natural and very fast warming. The first one took place about 15 thousand years ago at the end of the last ice age, the second – about 3000 years ago. On the whole within the last 10 thousand years the global temperature lowered a little due to the active volcanic processes and some other natural reasons, after that it increased sharply in XX century.

There were no warming or cold snaps up to 20 C within the last thousands of years. Natural changes did not exceed 1,50 C. In the warm period of the Middle Ages (around 1000 years ago, we can remember that Greenland was opened by the Vikings and called accordingly) it was much warmer and there were no preconditions for the further climate warming. For the several thousand years, up to 1850s the volume of the greenhouse gases in the atmosphere was more or less stable, the sharp growth of CO2 concentration. If this tendency will be steady, then the further climate change is expected and unequal throughout the earth globe.

Especially strong changes are taking place in the continental areas of the high and moderate latitudes, at the same time there are areas where the temperature has fallen. On the whole the warming has reached the point of 0,60 C, which is a lot, as it constitutes 1/3 of the way to the serious ecological losses.

Climate Change Reasons

Natural reasons

The natural climate change factors include the shift of the Earth orbit and angle of inclination (according to its axis situation, change in the sum activity, volcanic eruptions and change in the volume of the atmospheric aerosols (solid suspended particles) of natural origin. The estimation of the different factors’ contribution to the radiation influence (atmosphere heating) shows that, compared to 1750, 2000 witnessed the radiation change which heated the atmosphere by 0,1-0,5 W/m2 and the volume of the troposphere ozone change – by 0,2-0,5 W/m2. On the other hand, the change in the concentration of the sulfate compounds decreased the heat by 0,2-0,5 W/m2, and that of stratosphere ozone – by 0,05-0,2W\m2. So there is a combination of multi-oriented factors, each of them are much weaker than the growth of green house gas concentration in the atmosphere, which heats the atmosphere by 2,2-2,7 W/m2.

Volcanic Eruptions

Eruptions release a great amount of suspended particles into atmosphere – aerosols, they are spread by the troposphere and stratosphere winds and do let part of the incoming sun radiation. But the change are not long-term, the particles settle very fast. The Santorini eruption, the volcano in the Mediterranean Sea, which took place 15000 years ago and, probably, caused the fall of the Minoan Civilization, cooled the atmosphere a lot. It is seen from the annual growth tree circles.

The Tambora eruption, the volcano in Indonesia, happened in 1815. It decreased the global annual temperature by 30 C. The very next year Europe and North America did not have any summer. But the situation improved within several years. As a result of the Penaubo eruption in the Philippines in 1991, there was such an amount of ashes thown up to the height of 35m, that the level of the sun radiation decreased by 2,5 W/m2, which corresponds to the global cooling at least by 0,5-0,7C. Nonetheless, the last decade of the XX century was the warmest in the whole period of observation. It should be pointed out, that it is not the intensity of the eruption and the ash volume that matters, but how much of this ash was thrown up to the high layers, 10 and more km. This is the factor that determines the radiation effect of the eruption.

Sun cycle and the earth axis

The intensity of the sun radiation changes though within small limits. Direct changes in the sun radiation are seen only during the last 25 years, but there are indirect operational factors, for instance, the activity of the sun-spots. This factor has been used for the estimation of the sun radiation for a long time. Beside the sun radiation, the Earth gets amount of energy, depending on the situation of its elliptical axis, which undergoes fluctuations. During the past million years ice and inter-ice ages ere changing according to the situation of our planet axis. Fluctuations within the past 10 thousand years were smaller and the climate became more or less stable. But, in any case, the axis fluctuations – is a very inertial phenomenon, it is very important in regard to thousands of years time scope, while the anthropogenic influence on the climate has much shorter time term scope.

Anthropogenic factors

Anthropogenic factors include increase in the green house gas concentration in the atmosphere, mostly CO2. Other factors are – aerosol particles release into atmosphere, forest extermination, urbanization.

The sun and long-wave radiation balance

On the whole the incoming sun radiation (342 W/m2) equals the reflected radiation (107 W/m2) plus the outgoing from Earth long-wave radiation (235 W/m2).The amount of changes caused by the anthropogenic activity constitute less than 3 W/v2, or less than 1% of the whole balance. Radiation flows can be influenced by the anthropogenic change in the underlying surface, albedo change, caused by the forest extermination and melting of the snow, etc.

The growth of the green house gas concentration in the atmosphere

Green house gas concentration (carbon acid, methane, ozone protoxide) increased within the XX century and now this growth continues at an even higher speed.CO2 concentration increased from 280ppm in 1750 to 370 ppm in 2000. It considered that in 2100 the CO2 concentration will be within limits from 540 to 970 ppm, it will mainly depend on the development of the world energy. Greenhouse gases can stay in atmosphere for long time periods. Half of the CO2 air venting stays in the atmosphere for 50-200 years, while the other half is absorbed by the ocean, land and plants. The ocean plays the main role in that, according to some estimation, about 80% of CO2 absorption and oxygen “production” is carried out by the phytoplankton.

Green house effect caused by different gases can reduce it to the “common denominator”, showing by how much more effect is caused by one ton of this or that gas, than by a ton of CO2. The transition index of methane is 21, for the ozone protoxide

The water vapor – the main greenhouse gas of the planet- contribute to the Greenhouse effect even more than CO2. There are no changes of it concentration in the atmosphere (neither anthropogenic, nor natural) registered.

Greenhouse gases are well mingle in the atmosphere. As a result, greenhouse effect does not depend on the concrete place of the CO2 or other gas air venting. In fact, practically every local air venting causes only a global effect and global effect causes secondary effects which influence the climate of this or that place.

Aerosols.

Aerosols are small particles, whose size equals several tenths of micron. They are situated in the atmosphere in the suspended state. They result from chemical reactions between pulling gaseous substances, caused by forest fires, agricultural activity, industry and transport pollution. Aerosols make the lower atmospheric layers (up to 10 km) foggy and disperse light. Besides, aerosols strengthen cloudy covering which leads to further cooling. Usually, aerosols do not stay in the atmosphere for a long time, less then week in case of precipitations. So, the effect of the aerosols are very local.

Changes in the land formation and urbanization

Within the last 150-120 years the volume of the biomass and soil carbon has substantially reduced, that means that the overall storage of the carbon in the land ecosystems has also reduced due to the changes in the land tenure. As a result, large amount of CO2 has been released to the atmosphere. The forests are fewer in number, especially in the tropics. Cattle pasture in the developing countries, especially in Africa, led to the degradation of pastures. All that not only influenced the local climate but also badly effected the global processes. Many territories are under the danger of deserting. It is connected to the local activities (felling of the forests, exhaustion of the underground waters storage, excessive cattle pasture). The danger is becoming worse due to the consequences of the global climate change (for example, lots of droughts, shower rains).

Urbanization forced the climate change as well. Now almost half the population lives in cities. A city inhabited by 1 million people “produces” 25 thousand tons of CO2 and 300 thousand tons of sewage per day. Besides the temperature in big cities is higher by several degrees because of the large number of “hot” objects: buildings, machines etc. In the developed countries situated in warm climate air conditioning takes more energy than central heating. It means that trying to cool down the temperature, in reality air conditioning raises it.


Main changes observed.

Temperature.

Large number of independent researches prove that within the XX century the land layer temperature raised by 0,60C. From everyday life perspective, it seems very small. But it is statistically important, compared and related to all of the data taken for the past 150 years.

The CO2 concentration in the atmosphere is constantly growing as well. For the past decades its growth has exceeded seasonal and annual fluctuations.

According to WMO: “there are more and more paleo-environmental data that prove that the pace and durability of the XX century warming is higher than at any other time period within the past thousand years. The 90s are the hottest decade in the North hemisphere for the last thousand years. 1998 was the hottest year of all and 2001 is on the second place”.

Both maximum and minimal average daily temperatures grow, but the minimal ones rise, become warmer faster. As for the vertical atmospheric profile, the warming is unequal. Radiozonde and satellite measurements show that troposphere and Earth surface became warmer and stratosphere colder.

Precipitations, snow and ice covering, sea level

The precipitation increases in the middle and high latitudes of the North hemisphere (except for Eastern part of Asia). Freshets occur even in the places where precipitation is a rare event. The ice volume (square and thickness) in the Arctic, but the ice change in Antarctic is not substantial yet. Within the past 45-50 years the Arctic sea ice has become thinner by 40% (end of summer, beginning of autumn).

There is an evident increase in the number of heavy and extremely heavy weather conditions connected with precipitations. Late ice and its early melting is typical for the rivers and lakes, as well as the decrease in the number of icecaps and perm frost melting.

Floods and droughts, often accompanied by the harvest loss an forest fires, became more frequent, and it cannot be explained by the population growth or new land reclamation.

The increase of the global sea level fluctuates within 1-2 mm per year in the XX-th century, which can seem negligible at first site. But it exceeds the data of the XIX century and, probably, exceeds the average amount of the sea level increase within the past 3000 years. Though, there are no proves of the storm characteristics change.

The El Ninjo development (two year circulation of the atmosphere and of the ocean in the southern part of the Pacific) was quite noticeable, compare to the preceding 100 years, back in 1970s.

Some estimations show that more than 1/4th of the coral riffs world wide are destroyed due to the water warming. If the tendency will be steady, most of the coral riffs will die within 20 years. Within past 10 years, in the most damaged areas such as the Maldives and Seashells, 90% of the coral riffs have lost their bright colors, which is an evidently negative sign.

Future climate

Predictability and modeling

Earth climate system contains elements depending on a lot of accidental magnitudes, so a detailed weather forecast is possible only for the coming two weeks. But the circulation processes in the atmosphere and ocean can be described in detail with the help of mathematical models. They are based on the physical laws and phenomena and all of them, including the green house effect, have a definite description from the atmosphere and ocean physics’ point of view. The equations describing these laws, are solved mutually on the land atmosphere and ocean surface net. Within the past 25 years, lots of efforts were applied to succeed in these models and evident progress was made, computer engineering changed a lot. AS a result he models can reproduce the atmosphere and ocean dynamics, clouds and precipitation, snow covering and sea ice formation and melting. So it is possible to model “average” climate or the number of its most probable states for this or that period of time with the given initial parameters. The initial parameters include the greenhouse gas concentration in the atmosphere and a number of natural factors, in particular, volcanic activity.

As a result, the models allow the scientists describe the climate from the pre-industrial times up to nowadays, moreover, models allow to “split” the natural and anthropogenic factors. The experiments showed that it is necessary to take both factors into consideration and that anthropogenic factor has been playing the main role in the climate change since 1960s. If only natural factors are considered, then since 1970s model curves are cardinally different from the observational data. If we take only anthropogenic reasons, then the model curves rise almost the same as the observational data.

Climate Change Expert Intergovernmental Group

In 1988 the world community of scientists unified their efforts in climate change investigation. They formed the Climate Change Expert International Intergovernmental Group (IPCC), - a structure that works under two organizations: UN, UNEP and World Meteorological Organization (WMO). It is a constantly functioning forum of several thousands of scientists, including dozens of Russian scientists (O. Anisimov, I. Bashmakov, G. Golitsin, G. Gruza and others), almost everyone who is an expert in corresponding field: climate, ecology, economy and energy. This forum is official, representatives of the UN countries’ governments approve of the IPCC reports before they are published. So it is of double importance that in its first report published in 1990, the scientists agreed that there is a constant growth of CO2 in the atmosphere, it is caused by the anthropogenic factor and can lead to the substantial climate change.

In their “Second Estimation Report” released in 1995, the scientists proved this conclusion and in more affirmative statements, and the “Third Estimation Report” (IPCC 2001) contains mono-semantic conclusion that the present climate changes are caused by the human factor. IPCC continues its work aimed to report the latest scientific data and to warn World Community about climate change effects, their influence on the ecosystems and man, the ways to decrease the influence of the human factor on the climate system. Now the “Forth Estimation Report” is being prepared by IPCC, it is planned to be finished in 2007.

Scenarios.

IPCC developed a pack of scenarios of the possible outcomes depending on the greenhouse gas discharge, population growth, more effective technology application and economic growth. Based on these scenarios, the model calculations of the average temperature growth scenarios at the time period up to 2100.

First of all the temperature growth will be at least as fast as it was in the last decades of the XX century. The fluctuation of the growth forecast is from 1,4 to 5,8C by the end of the present century. And 2-30C looks most probable (the humanity is expected to take lots of measures to prevent the climate change). Such warming is considerable, these are only average numbers. It can be the most unexampled change within the last 10000 years.

Practically all the land areas will be exposed to larger number of hot days and strong heat periods. They expect the growth in the number and intensity of the precipitation. In different areas of the world, on the local level, considerable change in the precipitation increase ot decrease is very probable. There is a possibility of the increase of the water vapor, evaporation and precipitation on the global level. The sea level is expected to rise but the forecast is not definite yet – from 10 to 90 cm. But the sea level rise by 50-90 cm is a lot, it will cause the destruction of many coastal constructions and shore land erosion, salting of the drinking water, etc.
Risk evaluation

IPCC evaluated possible risks and consequences of different scenarios. Speaking of the risks, they regarded the lowest and highest change diapason in the temperature change by the end of the XXI century, that is to say for the overall warming by 1,5-20C and 4-50C. At best, only some unique and now endangered eco systems will extinct. There is a risk in the increase of the number of extreme phenomena anyway, but in case of global warming it will considerably increase. In case of the least global warming the problems will influence only some areas of the planet, in case of the largest – most of the areas. In case of the best outcome, economic results will be both positive and negative (at least for some regions), in case of the worst outcome – they will be strictly negative for all the areas.

Provisions and people’s health

Speaking of the concrete negative consequences, first of all, IPCC point out the provision security. The climate change will lead to the crop capacity decrease in the many tropical and subtropical areas. In case of the temperature growth more than by several degrees, there will be a crop capacity decrease in the middle latitudes as well (unfortunately, this will not be compensated by higher latitudes). Dry lands will suffer first. The increase of the CO2 concentration potentially may be a positive factor, but most probably, will be exceeded by the negative effects, especially in the areas where agriculture is extensive.

Another negative effect is the lack of water resources. The climate change lead to the unfavorable precipitation redistribution. In the areas where it is sufficient, for instance, in the Northern and middle latitudes, the precipitation will increase. And in precipitation will become even more rare in the areas where it insufficient. Central continental areas will become even drier. The inter-annual precipitation fluctuation will sharply increase.

Man’s health. The heat stress will be worst in the cities. The situation will be hard fro most vulnerable groups (old people, children, people suffering from cardio-vascular diseases. But there maybe indirect consequences as well – spread of the disease transmitters, bad water quality, worsening of the provision quality in the developing countries. There maybe climate refugees and considerable overpopulation. The latter is tightly connected to the risk of catastrophic floods and rise of the sea level. The millions of people living in the river deltas and coastal areas will be in great danger. The population of small coral islands will be the group of high risk. The migration of the population of some of the Pacific islands is already under consideration, the Seychelles, Mauritius, and Maldives Islands have already started the construction of the coastal defense.
Ecosystems

Some natural systems (icecaps, coral riffs and mangrove bushes, tropic forests, Polar and Alps areas), are likely to undergo changes, which may lead to inevitable losses in there ecosystems. Considerable number of ecosystems are expected to be polluted due to fires, droughts, floods, parasites contamination, appearance of the new kinds of parasites. The increased precipitation will lead to frequent landslides, mudflows, avalanches, which will worsen the living conditions of the mountain ecosystems.

The mutual influence on the wild life is dubious: a number of the most numerous species will be actively developing, and more rare and vulnerable species will be on the edge of extinction (other species influence is one of the factors). On the whole the climate change inevitably leads to the loss of the bio-variety. Consideration of the real possibilities of the animal and plant migration shows that “the necessary speed of migration” is higher than the capacity of those species, besides, they may encounter natural and anthropogenic barriers on the way. As a result, the average global warming by 30C will lead to a large loss of bio-variety, among mammals of the taiga and mountain ecosystems, 10-60% of species can be lost.

World Meteorological Organization Conclusions

In its report “Our Future Climate” the WMO admits as a proved fact, the phenomenon of the climate change and its main reasons being anthropogenic. The coming changes are claimed to be dangerous for the human kind. Though they short-termed in the geological time scope, (less than several hundreds of years if the world energy is based on the fossil fuel), but during the time of this effect in action, many ecosystems can suffer inevitable damages, while humanity will face devastating economical and social expenses.

That’s why the report appeals to work for the climate recreation and do it from different perspectives, so that we will provide stability for the whole climate system. Industry should be more effective and cars should use another types of fuel, best if the land tenure is organized, we need to recreate forests, apply more of the renewable sources of energy. “And the most important is that we have to be ready to live in the way that will provide for the well-being of every country and keep the climate safe, for the future’s good”.

The full text of the WMO report is available at www.wmo.ch
Estimation of the Arctic climate change

250 scientists from different countries, headed by the Arctic Counsel, have been studying climate changes and their consequences in the Arctic for the last 4 years. The results of these researches are presented in the “Estimation of the climate change in the Arctic”. The report points out that, the climate is changing intensely in the Arctic. Compared to the rest of the world, in this part, the pace of the climate change is twice higher. Ice covering is melting at an incredible speed, now it is twice half thinner than 30 years ago. If the melting pace will be steady, then “the Arctic can loose all of its ice by the 2070!” Unexampled speed of he Arctic ice melting can lead to the flooding of vast territories, extinction of the certain species, city infrastructure destruction, and will open a new way between Asia and Europe, and make the access to the fuel resources easier. These are the conclusions made by Arctic Counsel.

Expert opinion

Halter Marek

02.12.06

Halter Marek
Le College de France
Olivier Giscard d’Estaing

02.12.06

Olivier Giscard d’Estaing
COPAM, France
Mika Ohbayashi

02.12.06

Mika Ohbayashi
Institute for Sustainable Energy Poliñy
Bill Pace

02.12.06

Bill Pace
World Federalist Movement - Institute for Global Policy
Peter I. Hajnal

01.12.06

Peter I. Hajnal
Toronto University, G8 Research Group


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