Dear Vicky, Thanks for the clarification. So this leads to four questions:
I. How close to 450 ppm CO2e are we now? 2. Is there now any alternative to active CO2 removal from the atmosphere by geoengineering (carbon stock management) to prevent the CO2e level going dangerously high and risking 2 degrees of global warming? 3. Is there any alternative to geoengineering (SRM) to save the Arctic sea ice? 4. Will you be advising the government in the light of your answers above? As you must know, we are not proposing geoengineering as an alternative to emissions reduction (and CCS), but as a "necessary evil" to be done in parallel [1]. Action to save the Arctic sea ice is particularly urgent, as positive feedback is building up all the time - so the hurdle for geoengineering to leap is getting higher all the time. Isn't there even a possibility that, without SRM ramped up quickly, the sea ice will disappear at end summer 2012 and we will be past a point of no return, with catastrophic consequences for everyone? Kind regards, John Chiswick, London W4 [1] Open letter to Dr Pachauri, on occasion of the Climate Congress in Copenhagen, March 2009 http://geo-engineering.blogspot.com/2009/03/open-letter-to-dr-pachauri.html ----- Original Message ----- From: Pope, Vicky To: John Nissen ; geoengineering Cc: [email protected] ; Stephen Hugh Salter ; Peter Read Sent: Wednesday, April 29, 2009 12:52 PM Subject: RE: Implication of Arctic CO2 levels - a race against time for geoengineering? I certainly never said that the increase in CO2 doesn't matter. Quite the opposite. John's phone call to me was a little confused and he ended up misquoting me slightly. What I said was that the more rapid increases in CO2 cencentrations meaured in the lsat 10 years compared with the previous 10 were consistent with the more rapid growth in emissions recently. Certainly something to worry about. Vicky Dr Vicky Pope Head of Climate Change Advice Met Office Hadley Centre, FitzRoy Road, Exeter, EX1 3PB Tel: +44 (0)1392 884655 mobile + 44 (0)7753 880669 Fax: +44 (0)1392 885681 (mark FAO Vicky Pope) E-mail: [email protected] http://www.metoffice.gov.uk ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ From: John Nissen [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: 28 April 2009 17:51 To: Pope, Vicky; geoengineering Cc: [email protected]; Stephen Hugh Salter; Peter Read Subject: Implication of Arctic CO2 levels - a race against time for geoengineering? Hi all, News from the Arctic. CO2 levels are rising sharply: http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/apr/27/arctic-carbon-dioxide-levels Here are some extracts. [quote] CO2 levels recorded in Svalbard tend to be higher than the global average, but scientists said the CO2 level they had measured was unprecedented even for that location. "These are the highest figures collected in 50m years," said Johan Strom, professor of atmospheric physics at the government-funded Norwegian Polar Institute, which collected the data. "It is not the level of CO2 that is the problem, because the earth will adapt. What is very worrying is the speed of change. Levels [here] are now increasing 2-3ppm a year. Dr Vicky Pope seems to suggest this doesn't matter because the growth in emissions is somehow confined to the Arctic: [quote] "These are quite large numbers. It sounds like this is an Arctic phenomenon," said Dr Vicky Pope, head of climate change advice at the Met Office Hadley Centre in Exeter. "It fits with the general increase in emissions. You would expect the concentrations of CO2 to grow." And she confuses growth in emissions with growth in concentrations. And she is adviser to the Government!! Then the article adds to confusion by suddenly bringing in CO2 equivalent: [quote] The figures will concern policy-makers ahead of global talks on a successor to the Kyoto Protocol in December. Climate scientists advise that the world must prevent CO2 levels from rising higher than around 450ppm CO2 equivalent (a measure of global warming potential that incorporates other gasses such as methane and is higher than the measured CO2 levels) to avoid a 2C increase on preindustrial global average temperature. The 450ppm is a revised figure. So that begs the question, what is the CO2 equivalent level today. They don't tell you. Here's a figure from the Stern Review summary [2006]: [quote] "The risks of the worst impacts of climate change can be substantially reduced if greenhouse gas levels in the atmosphere can be stabilised between 450 and 550ppm CO2 equivalent (CO2e). The current level is 430ppm CO2e today, and it is rising at more than 2ppm each year." So if the level is now rising as much as 3ppm per year, we could reach the revised 450 ppm limit within 7 years - or perhaps even within 5 years (since Stern published in 2006). Jeezzz. No wonder that scientists play down the seriousness of the situation. It's just too frightening. But then, why do they also play down geoengineering - when it must now be the only conceivable way out of our mess. Isn't there now be a race against time to get the geoengineering into deployment on sufficient scale, not only to keep greenhouse gases below 450 ppm CO2e (using carbon stock management), but also to save the Arctic sea ice (using solar radiation management)? What kind of advice is the government getting? Perhaps, Vicky Pope, you can answer for yourself. John --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "geoengineering" group. 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