A Bottom Up, Resource- Based Perspective To Deal With Climate Variability and Change

Transcription

1 A Bottom Up, Resource- Based Perspective To Deal With Climate Variability and Change Roger A. Pielke Sr. University of Colorado, CIRES, Boulder, CO CUAHSI Hydrologic Synthesis Summer Institute City College of New York, New York, NY July 14, 2009

2 There Needs To Be A New Approach To Dealing With Climate Variability and Change

3 The Reasons Include the Following: 1. The Observed Climate Data Is Conflicting Significantly With The IPCC Model Predictions Even On The Global Scale 2. Even If One Concludes That The Deviation From The Models Is Short Term, The IPCC Models Have Never Demonstrated Regional Prediction Skill 3. "Global Warming" Is Just A Subset Of Climate Variability and Change 4. The Policy Approach Of Top Down Driven Regulations Is Not Working

4 Lets Look At Some Data

5 From:

6 TLT TMT TTS Figure 7. Global, monthly time series of brightness temperature anomaly for channels TLT, TMT, TTS, and TLS. For Channel TLT (Lower Troposphere) and Channel TMT (Middle Troposphere), the anomaly time series is dominated by ENSO events and slow tropospheric warming. The three primary El Niños during the past 20 years are clearly evident as peaks in the time series occurring during , , and , with the most recent one being the largest. Channel TLS (Lower Stratosphere) is dominated by stratospheric cooling, punctuated by dramatic warming events caused by the eruptions of El Chichon (1982) and Mt Pinatubo (1991). Channel TTS (Troposphere / Stratosphere) appears to be a mixture of both effects. From: data_description.html TLS

7 Courtesy of: Dr. John Christy, UAH, (256) and Dr. Roy Spencer, UAH, (256)

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10 El Nino bumps up SST temperatures. From:

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12 Figure 1: Four-year rate of the global upper 700 m of ocean heat changes in Joules at monthly time intervals. One standard error value is also shown. (Figure courtesy of Josh Willis of NASA s Jet Propulsion Laboratory).

13 What Does the Science Tell Us?

14 National Research Council, 2005: Radiative Forcing of Climate Change: Expanding the Concept and Addressing Uncertainties, Committee on Radiative Forcing Effects on Climate, Climate Research Committee, 224 pp. ml

15 From: National Research Council, 2005: Radiative Forcing of Climate Change: Expanding the Concept and Addressing Uncertainties, Committee on Radiative Forcing Effects on Climate, Climate Research Committee, 224 pp.

16 Despite all... [its]... advantages, the traditional global mean TOA radiative forcing concept has some important limitations, which have come increasingly to light over the past decade. The concept is inadequate for some forcing agents, such as absorbing aerosols and land-use changes, that may have regional climate impacts much greater than would be predicted from TOA radiative forcing. Also, it diagnoses only one measure of climate change - global mean surface temperature response - while offering little information on regional climate change or precipitation. from

17 The 2005 National Research Council report concluded that: "regional variations in radiative forcing may have important regional and global climate implications that are not resolved by the concept of global mean radiative forcing. And furthermore: "Regional diabatic heating can cause atmospheric teleconnections that influence regional climate thousands of kilometers away from the point of forcing." This regional diabatic heating produces temperature increases or decreases in the layer-averaged regional troposphere. This necessarily alters the regional pressure fields and thus the wind pattern. This pressure and wind pattern then affects the pressure and wind patterns at large distances from the region of the forcing which we refer to as teleconnections.

18 Some Examples

19 REGIONAL LAND-USE CHANGE EFFECTS ON CLIMATE IN FLORIDA IN THE SUMMER

20 U.S. Geological Survey land-cover classes for pre-1900 s natural conditions (left) and 1993 land-use patterns (right). From Marshall, C.H. Jr., R.A. Pielke Sr., L.T. Steyaert, and D.A. Willard, 2004: The impact of anthropogenic land-cover change on the Florida peninsula sea breezes and warm season sensible weather. Mon. Wea. Rev., 132, pdf

21 From Marshall, C.H. Jr., R.A. Pielke Sr., L.T. Steyaert, and D.A. Willard, 2004: The impact of anthropogenic land-cover change on the Florida peninsula sea breezes and warm season sensible weather. Mon. Wea. Rev., 132,

22 Associated convective rainfall (mm) from the model simulations of July-August 1973 with pre-1900s land cover (top), 1993 land use (middle), and the difference field for the two (bottom; 1993 minus pre-1900s case). From Marshall, C.H. Jr., R.A. Pielke Sr., L.T. Steyaert, and D.A. Willard, 2004: The impact of anthropogenic land-cover change on the Florida peninsula sea breezes and warm season sensible weather. Mon. Wea. Rev., 132,

23 Same as previous figure except for July and August, From Marshall, C.H. Jr., R.A. Pielke Sr., L.T. Steyaert, and D.A. Willard, 2004: The impact of anthropogenic land-cover change on the Florida peninsula sea breezes and warm season sensible weather. Mon. Wea. Rev., 132,

24 Max and Min Temp Trends

25 Two-month average of the daily maximum shelter-level temperature ( C) from the model simulations of Jul-Aug 1989 with (top) natural land cover, (middle) current land cover. From Marshall et al. 2004: The impact of anthropogenic land-cover change on the Florida peninsula sea breezes and warm season sensible weather. Mon. Wea. Rev., 132,

26 Regional Land-Use Change Effects On Climate In The Eastern United States in June

27 Albedo: 1650, 1850, 1920, 1992 Historical Patterns of Broadband Solar Albedo: (a) 1650 (b) 1850 (c) 1920 (d) 1992 Source: Steyaert, L. T., and R. G. Knox, 2008: Reconstructed historical land cover and biophysical parameters for studies of land- atmosphere interactions within the eastern United States, J. Geophys. Res., J. Geophys. Res., 113, D02101, doi: /2006jd

28 Surface Roughness Length: 1650, 1850, 1920, 1992 Historical Patterns of Surface Roughness Length (cm): (a) 1650 (b) 1850 (c) 1920 (d) 1992 Source: Steyaert, L. T., and R. G. Knox, 2008: Reconstructed historical land cover and biophysical parameters for studies of land-atmosphere interactions within the eastern United States, J. Geophys. Res., J. Geophys. Res., 113, D02101, doi: /2006jd

29 a.) Maximum temperature (ºC) with 1992 land cover. Dashed box shows area of region 1 and solid box shows area of region 2. Difference in maximum temperature between 1992 and b.) 1650, c.) 1850, d.) From Strack, J.E., R.A. Pielke Sr, L.T. Steyaert, and R.G. Knox, 2008: Sensitivity of June near- surface temperatures and precipitation in the eastern United States to historical land cover changes since European settlement. Water Resources Research, 44, W11401, doi: /2007wr

30 From: Adegoke, J.O., R.A. Pielke Sr., and A.M. Carleton, 2007: Observational and modeling studies of the impacts of agriculture-related land use change on climate in the central U.S. Agric. Forest Meteor., Special Issue, 132, blications/pdf/r-295.pdf

31 The Spatial Pattern of Radiative Heating From the Human Input Of Aerosols into the Atmosphere

32 Figure 1. Shortwave aerosol direct radiative forcing (ADRF) for top-of atmosphere (TOA), surface, and atmosphere. From: Matsui, T., and R.A. Pielke Sr., 2006: Measurement-based estimation of the spatial gradient of aerosol radiative forcing. Geophys. Res. Letts., 33, L11813, doi: /2006gl orado.edu/publicati ons/pdf/r-312.pdf

33 raditive forcing (W/m2) mean TOA radiative forcing GRF ADRF AIRF Figure 4. Comparison of Mean TOA radiative forcing between infrared GRF, shortwave ADRF, and shortwave AIRF. From: Matsui, T., and R.A. Pielke Sr., 2006: Measurement- based estimation of the spatial gradient of aerosol radiative forcing. Geophys. Res. Letts., 33, L11813, doi: /2006gl

34 NGoRF NGoRF 0.2 surface distance (degree) ADRF(zone) AIRF(zone) GRF(zone) ADRF(meri) AIRF(meri) GRF(meri) atmosphere Figure 5. Comparison of the meridional and the zonal component of NGoRF between infrared GRF, shortwave ADRF, and shortwave AIRF for atmosphere and surface. From: Matsui, T., and R.A. Pielke Sr., 2006: Measurement-based estimation of the spatial gradient of aerosol radiative forcing. Geophys. Res. Letts., 33, L11813, doi: /2006gl do.edu/publications/pdf /R-312.pdf

35 These other forcings, such as land-use change and from atmospheric pollution aerosols, may have a greater effect on our climate than the effects that have been claimed for CO 2

36 In Matsui and Pielke Sr. (2006), it was found from observations of the spatial distribution of aerosols in the atmosphere in the lower latitudes, that the aerosol effect on atmospheric circulations, as a result of their alteration in the heating of regions of the atmosphere, is 60 times greater than due to the heating effect of the human addition of well-mixed greenhouse gases. Matsui, T., and R.A. Pielke Sr., 2006: Measurement-based estimation of the spatial gradient of aerosol radiative forcing. Geophys. Res. Letts., 33, L11813, doi: /2006gl

37 The Regional Alteration in Tropospheric Diabatic Heating has a Greater Influence on the Climate System than a Change in the Globally-Averaged Surface and Tropospheric Temperatures

38 Comments By Others

39 From From Foley, Foley, J., J., 2007: 2007: Planet Planet against against the the grain. grain. Presented Presented at at the the NASA NASA Land-Cover Land-Cover and and Land-Use Land-Use Change Change Science Science Team Team Meeting, Meeting, UMUC UMUC Inn Inn and and Conference Conference Center, Center, Adelphi, Adelphi, MD, MD, April April , 6,

40 From Foley, J., 2007: Planet against the grain. Presented at the NASA Land-Cover and Land-Use Change Science Team Meeting, UMUC Inn and Conference Center, Adelphi, MD, April 4-6, 2007.

41 From Foley, J., 2007: Planet against the grain. Presented at the NASA Land-Cover and Land-Use Change Science Team Meeting, UMUC Inn and Conference Center, Adelphi, MD, April 4-6, 2007.

42 From Foley, J., 2007: Planet against the grain. Presented at the NASA Land-Cover and Land-Use Change Science Team Meeting, UMUC Inn and Conference Center, Adelphi, MD, April 4-6, 2007.

43 From Foley, J., 2007: Planet against the grain. Presented at the NASA Land-Cover and Land-Use Change Science Team Meeting, UMUC Inn and Conference Center, Adelphi, MD, April 4-6, 2007.

44 Koutsoyiannis, D., A. Efstratiadis, N. Mamassis, and A. Christofides, On the credibility of climate predictions, Hydrological Sciences Journal, 53 (4), , "Geographically distributed predictions of future climate, obtained through climate models, are widely used in hydrology and many other disciplines, typically without assessing their reliability. Here we compare the output of various models to temperature and precipitation observations from eight stations with long (over 100 years) records from around the globe. The results show that models perform poorly, even at a climatic (30-year) scale. Thus local model projections cannot be credible, whereas a common argument that models can perform better at larger spatial scales is unsupported."

45 We Need A New Approach

46 The Vulnerability Perspective

47 To Move Forward We Need A Bottom-Up Resource Based Focus, Rather Than Relying On Downscaling From Global Climate Models

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49 From: Pielke Sr., R.A., 2008: Global climate models - Many contributing influences. Citizen's Guide to Colorado Climate Change, Colorado Climate Foundation for Water Education, pp

50 From: Bravo de Guenni, L., R.E. Schulze, R.A. Pielke Sr., and M.F. Hutchinson, 2004: The vulnerability approach. Chapter E.5 In: Vegetation, Water, Humans and the Climate: A New Perspective on an Interactive System. Global Change - The IGBP Series, P. Kabat et al., Eds., Springer,

51 From: Pielke, R.A. Sr., and L. Bravo de Guenni, 2004: Conclusions. Chapter E.7 In: Vegetation, Water, Humans and the Climate: A New Perspective on an Interactive System. Global Change - The IGBP Series, P. Kabat et al., Eds., Springer,

52 Recommendations 1. The climate science community should be polled with respect to which of the following three hypotheses have been rejected: i. The human influence is minimal and natural variations dominate climate variations on all time scales; ii. iii. While natural variations are important, the human influence is significant and involves a diverse range of first-order climate forcings, including, but not limited to the human input of CO2; The human influence is dominated by the emissions into the atmosphere of greenhouse gases, particularly carbon dioxide. 2. National and International climate assessments should be written by climate scientists without significant conflicts of interest. 3. The focus on reducing threats from climate, and other environmental, variability and change should be resource-based, and with a local and regional vulnerability perspective to start with (i.e. a "bottom-up assessment). Policy actions which optimize the entire spectrum of benefits for society and the environment should be the goal.

53 So what is my suggestion? There is no doubt in my mind that there are multiple types of human climate forcings. CO 2 is important and we need to look at it, but there is a range of other forcings. Policymakers should look for win-win policies in order to improve the environment that we live in. The costs and benefits of the regulation of the emissions of CO 2 into the atmosphere need to be evaluated together with all other possible environmental regulations. The goal should be to seek politically and technologically practical ways to reduce the vulnerability of the environment and society to the entire spectrum of human-caused and natural risks.

54 Background Photograph Courtesy of Mike Hollingshead

55 Roger Pielke Sr. Research Websites

56 PowerPoint Presentation Prepared by Dallas Jean Staley Research Assistant and Webmaster University of Colorado Boulder, Colorado