Canyon Country Zephyr page 13

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Once started, will the releases happen over centuries or millennia? And global temperature will be even more sensitive to carbon dioxide increases on a hot planet, but by how much?

The answers to those questions will determine the fate of the Earth. Could our blue planet suffer the misfortune of her twin sister? Science tells us that a runaway greenhouse effect can happen when hot humid air traps even more heat, allowing the atmosphere to carry more moisture, which causes further heating in a powerful feedback loop. With no ice on the planet, this could continue until the oceans were completely boiled away. Venus once had oceans of liquid water.

http://www.americanprogress.org/events/2010/02/av/maccracken_pre-
sentation.pdf slide 22

has even more ice...SOMG p. 83

So, at what point would the "softening up" of ice sheets reach a point of no return, where the "dynamical process of collapse takes over"?...SOMG p. 73

Hansen acknowledges that science today can't answer that question.

SOMGp.236

"Although ice sheet inertia may prevent a large sea level rise before the second half of the century, continued growth of greenhouse gases in the near term will make that result practically inevitable, out of our children's and grandchildren's control."....SOMGp. 275

within the timeframe of the effects of ocean thermal inertia, meaning that much of Earth's average surface air temperature rise in that time is already committed to occur.

Wigley, T.M.L., 2005: The climate change commitment. Science, 307, 1766-1769.

Wetherald, R.T., R.J. Stouffer, and KW. Dixon, 2001: Committed warming and its implications for climate change. Geophys. Res. Lett., 28,1535-1538.

a global 50% cut in CO2 emissions would still result in increasing CO2 in the atmosphere.

IPCC AR4 (2007), Working Group I, The Physical Science Basis, Chapter 10, Global Climate Projections, p. 824

"It is not necessary to put the entire island of Manhattan under water to make the city dysfunctional and, given prospects for continuing sea level rise, unsuitable for redevelopment."

SOMGp.257

A collapse of global governance looms....SOMG p. 259

If humanity burns the remaining fossil fuels this century as expected, all of the Earth's ice would be committed to eventually slide into the ocean,...SOMG p. 160

perhaps requiring a couple more centuries after this one to reach the ice-free state, with sea levels 75 meters above today. At this point, an eventual methane-hydrate warming "could be added on top of the fossil fuel warming".

SOMG p. 236 (I gave extra time to collapse East Antarctica)

About 55 million years ago, the Earth was a much warmer planet with no ice. Orbital changes caused a several million year warming of about 2 to 3 degrees Celsius. Probably under stress by the warming, ocean currents re-oriented in a way that fed a lot of energy up onto shallow continental shelves in the Pacific. In the sediments there lay some 3,000 gigatons of frozen methane hydrates, roughly the same amount of carbon as in all the fossil fuels. Over the course of two separate thousand-year periods, all of that methane was released into the atmosphere. The earth warmed somewhere between 5 and 9 degrees Celsius, with temperatures perhaps 13 degrees warmer than today.

SOMG, graph p. 153, p. 161-164

Keep in mind that the human carbon punch has happened 10,000 times faster than natural climate forcings.....SOMG p. 161

The carbon cycle's major diminishing feedback (weathering of rocks) requires thousand-year time frames at a minimum to be effective.....SOMG p. 234

It isn't clear how warm the oceans need to be before triggering an even bigger methane hydrate release than the one 55 million years ago. Once started, will the releases happen over centuries or millennia? And global temperature will be even more sensitive to carbon dioxide increases on a hot planet, but by how much?

SOMG Chapter 10, The Venus Syndrome

"After the ice is gone, would Earth proceed to the Venus syndrome, a runaway greenhouse effect that would destroy all life on the planet, perhaps permanently? While that is difficult to say based on present information, I've come to conclude that if we burn all reserves of oil, gas, and coal, there is a substantial chance we will initiate the runaway greenhouse. If we also burn the tar sands

and the tar shale, I believe the Venus syndrome is a dead certainty.".......SOMG

p. 236

the hopeless idea of terra-forming the planet Mars

National Geographic, February 2010, "Making Mars the New Earth", p. 30

Doug Meyer is the Zephyr's Colorado Plateau Bureau chief, he lives in Flagstaff.

Science tells us that a runaway greenhouse effect can happen

when hot humid air traps even more heat, allowing

the atmosphere to carry more moisture,

which causes further heating in a powerful feedback loop.

With no ice on the planet, this could continue until the oceans

were completely boiled away.

Venus once had oceans of liquid water.

Here is our top climate scientist on the possibility:

Perhaps the American Indian of the Great Plains felt the same on first witnessing that evil carbon-black exhaust contaminating the sky from a coal-fired locomotive. Understanding our energy-consuming civilization as a disease on planet Earth is not new. But now we know that this disease could actually be fatal to the host as well as itself.

The human animal, under the spell of consumerism, responds to the threat of its demise with various forms of desperation: denial, greenwashing, geo-en-gineering, and now, since we're so good at global warming, the hopeless idea of terra-forming the planet Mars. Let's instead keep our fingers crossed that Mother Earth has a few infection control techniques left up her sleeve. Otherwise, the universe is in real trouble.

"After the ice is gone, would Earth proceed to the Venus syndrome, a runaway greenhouse effect that would destroy all life on the planet, perhaps permanently?"

James Hansen

NOTES:

In the event of "continued growth of atmospheric carbon dioxide" then "within several decades", the Arctic's floating sea ice will be gone by the end of each summer. This would make it "difficult to imagine how the Greenland ice sheet could survive", according to Hansen....SOMG p. 164

the 2007 IPCC estimate of about half a meter of sea level rise this century IPCC AR4 (2007), Working Group I, The Physical Science Basis, Chapter 10, Global Climate Projections, p. 820

"giant rigid ice cubes that melt only slowly"...SOMG p. 81

"there was no discernable lag between the time of maximum solar forcing of the ice sheet and the maximum rate of melt"...SOMG p. 143

"increased 4 to 5 meters per century for several consecutive centuries—an average rate of 1 meter every 20 or 25 years"...SOMG p. 38

"presented evidence that a 2- to 3-meter sea level rise probably occurred in a period of 50 years or less"...SOMG p. 85

Temperatures during the Last Interglacial averaged only 1 degree Celsius above today's levels....SOMG p. 39,51

a level that every single IPCC scenario shows we'll exceed in the next few decades.

IPCC AR4 (2007), Working Group I, The Physical Science Basis, Chapter 10, Global Climate Projections, p. 803

Collapse of the West Antarctic ice sheet would raise sea level a few meters, enough to eventually displace hundreds of millions of people world wide.... SOMG p. 83

Greenland, perhaps equally vulnerable,

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	Once started, will the releases happen over centuries or millennia? And global temperature will be even more sensitive to carbon dioxide increases on a hot planet, but by how much? The answers to those questions will determine the fate of the Earth. Could our blue planet suffer the misfortune of her twin sister? Science tells us that a runaway greenhouse effect can happen when hot humid air traps even more heat, allowing the atmosphere to carry more moisture, which causes further heating in a powerful feedback loop. With no ice on the planet, this could continue until the oceans were completely boiled away. Venus once had oceans of liquid water. http://www.americanprogress.org/events/2010/02/av/maccracken_pre- sentation.pdf slide 22 has even more ice...SOMG p. 83 So, at what point would the "softening up" of ice sheets reach a point of no return, where the "dynamical process of collapse takes over"?...SOMG p. 73 Hansen acknowledges that science today can't answer that question. SOMGp.236 "Although ice sheet inertia may prevent a large sea level rise before the second half of the century, continued growth of greenhouse gases in the near term will make that result practically inevitable, out of our children's and grandchildren's control."....SOMGp. 275 within the timeframe of the effects of ocean thermal inertia, meaning that much of Earth's average surface air temperature rise in that time is already committed to occur. Wigley, T.M.L., 2005: The climate change commitment. Science, 307, 1766-1769. Wetherald, R.T., R.J. Stouffer, and KW. Dixon, 2001: Committed warming and its implications for climate change. Geophys. Res. Lett., 28,1535-1538. a global 50% cut in CO2 emissions would still result in increasing CO2 in the atmosphere. IPCC AR4 (2007), Working Group I, The Physical Science Basis, Chapter 10, Global Climate Projections, p. 824 "It is not necessary to put the entire island of Manhattan under water to make the city dysfunctional and, given prospects for continuing sea level rise, unsuitable for redevelopment." SOMGp.257 A collapse of global governance looms....SOMG p. 259 If humanity burns the remaining fossil fuels this century as expected, all of the Earth's ice would be committed to eventually slide into the ocean,...SOMG p. 160 perhaps requiring a couple more centuries after this one to reach the ice-free state, with sea levels 75 meters above today. At this point, an eventual methane-hydrate warming "could be added on top of the fossil fuel warming". SOMG p. 236 (I gave extra time to collapse East Antarctica) About 55 million years ago, the Earth was a much warmer planet with no ice. Orbital changes caused a several million year warming of about 2 to 3 degrees Celsius. Probably under stress by the warming, ocean currents re-oriented in a way that fed a lot of energy up onto shallow continental shelves in the Pacific. In the sediments there lay some 3,000 gigatons of frozen methane hydrates, roughly the same amount of carbon as in all the fossil fuels. Over the course of two separate thousand-year periods, all of that methane was released into the atmosphere. The earth warmed somewhere between 5 and 9 degrees Celsius, with temperatures perhaps 13 degrees warmer than today. SOMG, graph p. 153, p. 161-164 Keep in mind that the human carbon punch has happened 10,000 times faster than natural climate forcings.....SOMG p. 161 The carbon cycle's major diminishing feedback (weathering of rocks) requires thousand-year time frames at a minimum to be effective.....SOMG p. 234 It isn't clear how warm the oceans need to be before triggering an even bigger methane hydrate release than the one 55 million years ago. Once started, will the releases happen over centuries or millennia? And global temperature will be even more sensitive to carbon dioxide increases on a hot planet, but by how much? The answers to those questions will determine the fate of the Earth. Could our blue planet suffer the misfortune of her twin sister? Science tells us that a runaway greenhouse effect can happen when hot humid air traps even more heat, allowing the atmosphere to carry more moisture, which causes further heating in a powerful feedback loop. With no ice on the planet, this could continue until the oceans were completely boiled away. Venus once had oceans of liquid water. SOMG Chapter 10, The Venus Syndrome "After the ice is gone, would Earth proceed to the Venus syndrome, a runaway greenhouse effect that would destroy all life on the planet, perhaps permanently? While that is difficult to say based on present information, I've come to conclude that if we burn all reserves of oil, gas, and coal, there is a substantial chance we will initiate the runaway greenhouse. If we also burn the tar sands and the tar shale, I believe the Venus syndrome is a dead certainty.".......SOMG p. 236 the hopeless idea of terra-forming the planet Mars National Geographic, February 2010, "Making Mars the New Earth", p. 30 Doug Meyer is the Zephyr's Colorado Plateau Bureau chief, he lives in Flagstaff. Science tells us that a runaway greenhouse effect can happen when hot humid air traps even more heat, allowing the atmosphere to carry more moisture, which causes further heating in a powerful feedback loop. With no ice on the planet, this could continue until the oceans were completely boiled away. Venus once had oceans of liquid water. Here is our top climate scientist on the possibility: "After the ice is gone, would Earth proceed to the Venus syndrome, a runaway greenhouse effect that would destroy all life on the planet, perhaps permanently? While that is difficult to say based on present information, I've come to conclude that if we burn all reserves of oil, gas, and coal, there is a substantial chance we will initiate the runaway greenhouse. If we also burn the tar sands and the tar shale, I believe the Venus syndrome is a dead certainty." Perhaps the American Indian of the Great Plains felt the same on first witnessing that evil carbon-black exhaust contaminating the sky from a coal-fired locomotive. Understanding our energy-consuming civilization as a disease on planet Earth is not new. But now we know that this disease could actually be fatal to the host as well as itself. The human animal, under the spell of consumerism, responds to the threat of its demise with various forms of desperation: denial, greenwashing, geo-en-gineering, and now, since we're so good at global warming, the hopeless idea of terra-forming the planet Mars. Let's instead keep our fingers crossed that Mother Earth has a few infection control techniques left up her sleeve. Otherwise, the universe is in real trouble. "After the ice is gone, would Earth proceed to the Venus syndrome, a runaway greenhouse effect that would destroy all life on the planet, perhaps permanently?" James Hansen NOTES: In the event of "continued growth of atmospheric carbon dioxide" then "within several decades", the Arctic's floating sea ice will be gone by the end of each summer. This would make it "difficult to imagine how the Greenland ice sheet could survive", according to Hansen....SOMG p. 164 the 2007 IPCC estimate of about half a meter of sea level rise this century IPCC AR4 (2007), Working Group I, The Physical Science Basis, Chapter 10, Global Climate Projections, p. 820 "giant rigid ice cubes that melt only slowly"...SOMG p. 81 "there was no discernable lag between the time of maximum solar forcing of the ice sheet and the maximum rate of melt"...SOMG p. 143 "increased 4 to 5 meters per century for several consecutive centuries—an average rate of 1 meter every 20 or 25 years"...SOMG p. 38 "presented evidence that a 2- to 3-meter sea level rise probably occurred in a period of 50 years or less"...SOMG p. 85 Temperatures during the Last Interglacial averaged only 1 degree Celsius above today's levels....SOMG p. 39,51 a level that every single IPCC scenario shows we'll exceed in the next few decades. IPCC AR4 (2007), Working Group I, The Physical Science Basis, Chapter 10, Global Climate Projections, p. 803 Collapse of the West Antarctic ice sheet would raise sea level a few meters, enough to eventually displace hundreds of millions of people world wide.... SOMG p. 83 Greenland, perhaps equally vulnerable,

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