[Mb-civic] Debate on Climate Shifts to Issue of Irreparable Change - Washington Post

[William Swiggard]

Debate on Climate Shifts to Issue of Irreparable Change
Some Experts on Global Warming Foresee 'Tipping Point' When It Is Too 
Late to Act

By Juliet Eilperin
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, January 29, 2006; A01

Now that most scientists agree human activity is causing Earth to warm, 
the central debate has shifted to whether climate change is progressing 
so rapidly that, within decades, humans may be helpless to slow or 
reverse the trend.

This "tipping point" scenario has begun to consume many prominent 
researchers in the United States and abroad, because the answer could 
determine how drastically countries need to reduce their greenhouse gas 
emissions in the coming years. While scientists remain uncertain when 
such a point might occur, many say it is urgent that policymakers cut 
global carbon dioxide emissions in half over the next 50 years or risk 
the triggering of changes that would be irreversible.

There are three specific events that these scientists describe as 
especially worrisome and potentially imminent, although the time frames 
are a matter of dispute: widespread coral bleaching that could damage 
the world's fisheries within three decades; dramatic sea level rise by 
the end of the century that would take tens of thousands of years to 
reverse; and, within 200 years, a shutdown of the ocean current that 
moderates temperatures in northern Europe.

The debate has been intensifying because Earth is warming much faster 
than some researchers had predicted. James E. Hansen, who directs NASA's 
Goddard Institute of Space Studies, last week confirmed that 2005 was 
the warmest year on record, surpassing 1998. Earth's average temperature 
has risen nearly 1 degree Fahrenheit over the past 30 years, he noted, 
and another increase of about 4 degrees over the next century would 
"imply changes that constitute practically a different planet."

"It's not something you can adapt to," Hansen said in an interview. "We 
can't let it go on another 10 years like this. We've got to do something."

Princeton University geosciences and international affairs professor 
Michael Oppenheimer, who also advises the advocacy group Environmental 
Defense, said one of the greatest dangers lies in the disintegration of 
the Greenland or West Antarctic ice sheets, which together hold about 20 
percent of the fresh water on the planet. If either of the two sheets 
disintegrates, sea level could rise nearly 20 feet in the course of a 
couple of centuries, swamping the southern third of Florida and 
Manhattan up to the middle of Greenwich Village.

While both the Greenland and the Antarctic ice sheets as a whole are 
gaining some mass in their cold interiors because of increasing 
snowfall, they are losing ice along their peripheries. That indicates 
that scientists may have underestimated the rate of disintegration they 
face in the future, Oppenheimer said. Greenland's current net ice loss 
is equivalent to an annual 0.008 inch sea level rise.

The effects of the collapse of either ice sheet would be "huge," 
Oppenheimer said. "Once you lost one of these ice sheets, there's really 
no putting it back for thousands of years, if ever."

Last year, the British government sponsored a scientific symposium on 
"Avoiding Dangerous Climate Change," which examined a number of possible 
tipping points. A book based on that conference, due to be published 
Tuesday, suggests that disintegration of the two ice sheets becomes more 
likely if average temperatures rise by more than 5 degrees Fahrenheit, a 
prospect "well within the range of climate change projections for this 
century."

The report concludes that a temperature rise of just 1.8 degrees 
Fahrenheit "is likely to lead to extensive coral bleaching," destroying 
critical fish nurseries in the Caribbean and Southeast Asia. Too-warm 
sea temperatures stress corals, causing them to expel symbiotic 
micro-algae that live in their tissues and provide them with food, and 
thus making the reefs appear bleached. Bleaching that lasts longer than 
a week can kill corals. This fall there was widespread bleaching from 
Texas to Trinidad that killed broad swaths of corals, in part because 
ocean temperatures were 2 degrees Fahrenheit above average monthly maximums.

Many scientists are also worried about a possible collapse of the 
Atlantic thermohaline circulation, a current that brings warm surface 
water to northern Europe and returns cold, deep-ocean water south. Hans 
Joachim Schellnhuber, who directs Germany's Potsdam Institute for 
Climate Impact Research, has run multiple computer models to determine 
when climate change could disrupt this "conveyor belt," which, according 
to one study, is already slower than it was 30 years ago. According to 
these simulations, there is a 50 percent chance the current will 
collapse within 200 years.

Some scientists, including President Bush's chief science adviser, John 
H. Marburger III, emphasize there is still much uncertainty about when 
abrupt global warming might occur.

"There's no agreement on what it is that constitutes a dangerous climate 
change," said Marburger, adding that the U.S. government spends $2 
billion a year on researching this and other climate change questions. 
"We know things like this are possible, but we don't have enough 
information to quantify the level of risk."

This tipping point debate has stirred controversy within the 
administration; Hansen said senior political appointees are trying to 
block him from sharing his views publicly.

When Hansen posted data on the Internet in the fall suggesting that 2005 
could be the warmest year on record, NASA officials ordered Hansen to 
withdraw the information because he had not had it screened by the 
administration in advance, according to a Goddard scientist who spoke on 
the condition of anonymity. More recently, NASA officials tried to 
discourage a reporter from interviewing Hansen for this article and 
later insisted he could speak on the record only if an agency 
spokeswoman listened in on the conversation.

"They're trying to control what's getting out to the public," Hansen 
said, adding that many of his colleagues are afraid to talk about the 
issue. "They're not willing to say much, because they've been pressured 
and they're afraid they'll get into trouble."

But Mary L. Cleave, deputy associate administrator for NASA's Office of 
Earth Science, said the agency insists on monitoring interviews with 
scientists to ensure they are not misquoted.

"People could see it as a constraint," Cleave said. "As a manager, I 
might see it as protection."

John R. Christy, director of the Earth Science System Center at the 
University of Alabama in Huntsville, said it is possible increased 
warming will be offset by other factors, such as increased cloudiness 
that would reflect more sunlight. "Whatever happens, we will adapt to 
it," Christy said.

Scientists who read the history of Earth's climate in ancient sediments, 
ice cores and fossils find clear signs that it has shifted abruptly in 
the past on a scale that could prove disastrous for modern society. 
Peter B. deMenocal, an associate professor at the Lamont-Doherty Earth 
Observatory of Columbia University, said that about 8,200 years ago, a 
very sudden cooling shut down the Atlantic conveyor belt. As a result, 
the land temperature in Greenland dropped more than 9 degrees Fahrenheit 
within a decade or two.

"It's not this abstract notion that happens over millions of years," 
deMenocal said. "The magnitude of what we're talking about greatly, 
greatly exceeds anything we've withstood in human history."

These kinds of concerns have spurred some governments to make major cuts 
in the carbon dioxide emissions linked to global warming. Britain has 
slashed its emissions by 14 percent, compared with 1990 levels, and aims 
to reduce them by 60 percent by 2050. Some European countries, however, 
are lagging well behind their targets under the international Kyoto 
climate treaty.

David Warrilow, who heads science policy on climate change for Britain's 
Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, said that while the 
science remains unsettled, his government has decided to take a 
precautionary approach. He compared consuming massive amounts of fossil 
fuels to the strategy of the Titanic's crew, who were unable to avoid an 
iceberg because they were speeding across the Atlantic in hopes of 
breaking a record.

"We know there are icebergs out there, but at the moment we're 
accelerating toward the tipping point," Warrilow said in an interview. 
"This is silly. We should be doing the opposite, slowing down whilst we 
build up our knowledge base."

The Bush administration espouses a different approach. Marburger said 
that though everyone agrees carbon dioxide emissions should decline, the 
United States prefers to promote cleaner technology rather than impose 
mandatory greenhouse gas limits. "The U.S. is the world leader in doing 
something on climate change because of its actions on changing 
technology," he said.

Stanford University climatologist Stephen H. Schneider, who is helping 
oversee a major international assessment of how climate change could 
expose humans and the environment to new vulnerabilities, said countries 
respond differently to the global warming issue in part because they are 
affected differently by it. The small island nation of Kiribati is made 
up of 33 small atolls, none of which is more than 6.5 feet above the 
South Pacific, and it is only a matter of time before the entire country 
is submerged by the rising sea.

"For Kiribati, the tipping point has already occurred," Schneider said. 
"As far as they're concerned, it's tipped, but they have no economic 
clout in the world."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/01/28/AR2006012801021.html?referrer=email
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