Reversing the Irrevsible

January 26th, 2009

Posted by: Roger Pielke, Jr.

Susan Solomon and colleagues have a new paper out in PNAS that says that some climate change effects irreversible, and the higher that carbon dioxide levels get the greater the change. You can read the press release from NOAA here.

Now if climate change is indeed irreversible, and its effects are to be avoided, then one would think that an appropriate response would be, in addition to advocating for stabilizing emissions and enhancing adaptation, to emphasize how important it is to develop low-cost technology to directly remove carbon dioxide from the air — to make the irreversible reversible so to speak.

Here is what the NOAA press release says on that subject:

Geoengineering to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere was not considered in the study. “Ideas about taking the carbon dioxide away after the world puts it in have been proposed, but right now those are very speculative,” said Solomon.

If Solomon et al. are correct about the irreversibility of climate change, and I have no reason to doubt them, then the technology of air capture becomes even more compelling and necessary. Yet, remarkably, the politics of climate make the subject still taboo for most people, save a few brave souls like Jim Hansen and Wally Broecker. As emissions continue to climb we will no doubt be hearing more about air capture, and people will wonder why it took so long.

17 Responses to “Reversing the Irrevsible”

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  1. Raven Says:

    It took so long because many of the advocates for action only see it as tool that can be used to remake society into something that better suits their ideological preferences. People who really believe that the problem is as serious as claimed do not oppose any measure that can address it such nuclear, carbon sequestration or geo-engineering. On that front, Jim Hansen deserves some kudos for consistency.

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  3. Mark Bahner Says:

    “Now if climate change is indeed irreversible, and its effects are to be avoided, then one would think that an appropriate response would be, in addition to advocating for stabilizing emissions and enhancing adaptation, to emphasize how important it is to develop low-cost technology to directly remove carbon dioxide from the air — to make the irreversible reversible so to speak.”

    That’s why any claim that “climate change is indeed irreversible,” is dependent on (at least) two (and probably three) completely indefensible assumptions:

    1) that the cost of CO2 scrubbing using towers will never come down significantly in price, and

    2) that world per-capita GDP will reach a plateau or a peak within the next several decades.

    Presently, as you’ve estimated, the cost of scrubbing using towers can be estimated at $200 per ton of CO2. This works out to approximately $400 billion per ppm of CO2 in the atmosphere. So 100 ppm would cost $40 trillion, and 300 ppm would be $120 trillion. That’s approximately 2.5 times the world GDP at market exhange rates. So if we spent 2.5 percent of GDP, it would take us 100 years to remove 300 ppm.

    But let’s look at the year 2100. According to the midpoint of the IPCC projections, the world per-capita GDP (year 2000 dollars) will be approximately 7 times what it currently is. And if there are 50 percent more people than at present (i.e., about 10 billion people), the total world GDP will be 7 x 1.5 = approximately 10 times greater than at present.

    So in 2100, we could spend only 0.25 percent of GDP for 100 years to remove 300 ppm. Or in 2100, we could remove 300 ppm in only ***10 YEARS*** by spending 2.5 percent of GDP.(!) And THAT assumes that the cost of scrubbing does not decline at all.

    In summary, anyone who says that climate change presents “irreversible” problems is like someone who, in 1900, assumed that almost everyone in 2000 would still be riding horses.

    P.S. And this whole analysis ignores the distinct possibility that the IPCC will be at least a factor of 10 too low in their projections of world per-capita GDP in 2100. (So in 2100, it’s distinctly possible that the world could spend 2.5 percent of GDP, and reduce CO2 levels by 300 ppm in ONE year.)

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  5. Mark Bahner Says:

    P.S. The third assumption that is also probably completely invalid is that enhancing CO2 capture and sequestration by the oceans will never work. (Techniques like ocean iron fertilization are likely to be much less expensive than CO2 capture by scrubber towers.)

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  7. Paul Biggs Says:

    Plenty of scientific reasons to doubt what Solomon et al say about ‘irreversible’ climate change.

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  9. Bernie Says:

    I picked up on the same Solomon quote. It seems to be silly to talk about this kind of time horizon and say that things are irreversible. A simple example would be the impact of highly efficient desalination processes and the recharging of ac

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  11. Bernie Says:

    Oops something happened:
    A simple example would be the impact of highly efficient desalination processes, the recharging of acquifers in current or emerging arid regions and a dramatic change in land use in arid regions. Given a 1000 years a lot of things become technically feasible that would mitigate any predicted rise in sea levels.

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  13. stan Says:

    “If Solomon et al. are correct about the irreversibility of climate change, and I have no reason to doubt them”

    No reason to doubt them??!!

    How ’bout the fact that scientists have enormous areas in climate science that they don’t understand. You might want to check out some of the statements by some guy named Pielke, Sr.

    Solomon’s hubris is breathtaking.

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  15. When the Irreversible Effects Meets the Immovable Policy | OpenMarket.org Says:

    [...] don’t consider any of the policy options that might, you know, reverse it. As Roger Pielke Jr points out, the study didn’t examine the potential for geoengineering: Geoengineering to remove carbon [...]

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  17. Celebrity Paycut - Encouraging celebrities all over the world to save us from global warming by taking a paycut. Says:

    [...] don’t consider any of the policy options that might, you know, reverse it. As Roger Pielke Jr points out, the study didn’t examine the potential for [...]

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  19. docpine Says:

    . “Ideas about taking the carbon dioxide away after the world puts it in have been proposed, but right now those are very speculative,” said Solomon.”

    I am thinking many things about this debate are, in fact, speculative including estimates of how bad things will get and how long it will last. Perhaps we need to weigh various knowledge claims in the climate change world based on a defined “index of speculativity” composed of the kinds and forms of speculation, assumption, and projections involved in the claim.

    Or we could have a panel of experts who would hold up (virtual) cards after a knowledge claim with a subjective speculativity rating. :)

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  21. Bernie Says:

    docpine:
    I assume youe would throw out the highest and lowest scores to avoid bias?

    stan:
    Hubris is exactly the right word.

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  23. Mark Bahner Says:

    “A simple example would be the impact of highly efficient desalination processes, the recharging of acquifers in current or emerging arid regions and a dramatic change in land use in arid regions.”

    Yes, here are some recent trends in the cost of desalination:

    http://www.desalination.ucla.edu/background_files/image004.jpg

    More recently than these trends, scientists have discovered that carbon nanotubes can separate salt from water with much more energy efficiency than current reverse osmosis membranes:

    https://publicaffairs.llnl.gov/news/news_releases/2006/NR-06-05-06.html

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  25. PaddikJ Says:

    What study? NOAA’s breathless press release (“pioneering study”, “powerful conclusion”, “. . . carbon dioxide emissions will have legacies that will irreversibly change the planet.” Good grief, is this science or street corner apocalypse mongering?) doesn’t even give a name, although it does claim the study would be published this week. I searched all over PNAS and couldn’t find a thing.

    I’ll mostly withhold comment until I can get my hands on the mythical study & see what the means and methods were, but a few things in the press release did stand out:

    “ ‘It has long been known that some of the carbon dioxide emitted by human activities stays in the atmosphere for thousands of years,’ Solomon said.” Really. Wasn’t it only 3-5 years ago that C02 stayed aloft for mere hundreds of years? And before the 1980s, wasn’t it scores of years? Solomon does include the sneaky qualifier, “some”, which renders the statement effectively meaningless (yeah, and with every breath I take, I inhale some DaVinci molecules); still, readers new to the Climate Debate may be interested in a Geologist’s take.

    ” ‘ . . . carbon dioxide [is] unique among the major climate gases,’ said Solomon.” Again, we’ll see, when the study actually appears; in the meantime, looks like standard AGW fixation on a trace, beneficial gas. Regarding the alleged correlation between tropospheric CO2 levels and heat content, another Geologist has other thoughts (the link is to part 1 of 5; you’ll need to watch at least parts 1 & 2).

    Roger is no doubt aware of the above references, so on the face of it, his statement “If Solomon et al. are correct about the irreversibility of climate change, and I have no reason to doubt them . . .” is astonishing; however, since the study has yet to appear he would indeed have no cause for doubt. But maybe he’s simply performing the now-standard ritual obeisance to AGW dogma in the hopes that some of its less rigid devotees are amenable to reason – “Yes, it’s real and a real problem, but it’s not the end of the world as we know it; we need to prioritize, and to consider mitigation and other strategies.”

    Futile, I think. Near the end of his life, the arch socialist & atheist Steven J. Gould finally capitulated to the bible-thumpers with his NOMA olive branch, probably figuring that that old time religion wasn’t going anywhere, and he and his fellow evolutionists had better try for detente’ instead. But the W.J. Bryan crowd wasn’t having any. Not for them some impersonal Prime Mover; they want an interested, caring God. And the AGW Greens don’t want high-tech, big engineering mitigation & adaptation solutions; they want humanity trodding soft energy paths to some imagined Ecotopian future.

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  27. PaddikJ Says:

    Drat; the second link didn’t take. Here it is spelled out:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FOLkze-9GcI&feature=channel

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  29. Hans Erren Says:

    Peter Dietze concluded that the bulk “half life” of Co2 is 38 years, this means any pulse of co2 in excess of 290 ppm is halved in 38 years (no matter the amplitude). In the pessimistic ISAM and Bern CO2 cycle models there is speculation about a future CO2 uptake saturation. Dietze argues that there is sufficient fresh upwelling water.

    http://www.john-daly.com/dietze/cmodcalc.htm
    Compare effect on the a1b emission scenario
    http://home.casema.nl/errenwijlens/co2/co2a1bfick.gif

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  31. Mark Bahner Says:

    “Given a 1000 years a lot of things become technically feasible that would mitigate any predicted rise in sea levels.”

    I can think of several measures to mitigate sea level rise that could be done in this century. They would of course cost many billions of dollars, but so would significant sea level rise:

    1) Inject air, or put in essentially tens of thousands of square miles of air mattresses, under the ice sheets that extend out from the land in Antarctica and Greenland. This would significantly reduce the melting rate, because air is an excellent heat insulator, whereas water is an excellent heat conductor.

    2) Essentially stuff airbags into the moulins in Greenland and Antarctica. (Moulins are holes in the ice that carry meltwater from the surface of a glacier down to the base of the glacier, thus lubricating the base of the glacier, and speeding its travel.) Instead divert the meltwater in channels across the surface of the glaciers.

    3) Trap meltwater running over the surface of glaciers in reservoirs, so that the water will not go into the sea. Then pump the water up upwards in the winter, making snow/ice.

    4) Cover large portions of glaciers with tarps in the summer, which can be removed during the winter.

    Again, all these ideas would be multi-billion-dollar efforts. But there is no extraordinary new technology or technical advance required to employ them.

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  33. Mark Bahner Says:

    Hi,

    Another possibility for reducing melting of marine ice shelves (e.g. the West Antarctic Ice Sheet) would be to move sediment/rocks so that they are in a pile at the edge of the ice shelf that is out at sea.

    This pile or wall would reduce the amount of water that can flow beneath the ice shelf (see the orange and blue arrows):

    http://www.nsf.gov/pubs/1996/nstc96rp/images/waisbimg.jpg

    Again, it would probably be another multi-billion-dollar proposition, but it involves no extraordinary new technology. If the world was seriously worried about disintegration of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet, and associated sea level rise, it would be worth conducting a detailed engineering/scientific analysis of the possibility of slowing ice melting by reducing the flow of water underneath the ice sheet.