Field Notes From a Catastrophe: Man, Nature, and Climate Change (21 page)

Americans are more aware of global warming than they were when this book was first published, and clearly more eager for solutions. Yet still they do not seem to appreciate the scale of the effort that is needed. It’s hard to look at the evidence objectively and not conclude that the situation is desperate. The pace at which change is occurring, combined with increasingly sophisticated analyses of the paleoclimatic record, have prompted many experts to argue not just that we are racing toward the threshold of “dangerous anthropogenic interference,” but that we have already passed it. In a paper published in the fall of 2008, GISS’s James Hansen warned that current CO
₂
levels—roughly 385 parts per million—are too high “if humanity wishes to preserve a planet similar to that on which civilization developed.” These levels, he writes, “will need to be reduced … to at most 350 ppm, but likely less than that.” President Obama’s top science adviser, John Holdren, a Harvard physicist, has observed that an “up-to-date look at the evidence makes clear that civilization has already generated dangerous anthropogenic interference in the climate system.”

As many very well-meaning people have pointed out to me, both while I was working on this book and since then, despair is rarely helpful. I understand and to a certain extent agree with the position of those who, for practical purposes, urge hopefulness. In the end, however, how we feel about climate change is irrelevant. Global warming will have a profound effect on us, on our children, and on life on this planet for generations to come. We may be capable of dealing with this problem, or we may not. In either case, we are still responsible.

Williamstown, Massachusetts

January 2009

Acknowledgments

Many very busy people gave generously of their time and their expertise to make this book possible. A number of them have been named in the preceding pages, but a number have not.

I’d like to thank Tony Weyiouanna, Vladimir Romanovsky, Glenn Juday, Larry Hinzman, Terry Chapin, Donald Perovich, Jacqueline Richter-Menge, John Weatherly, Gunter Weller, Deborah Williams, Konrad Steffen, Russell Huff, Nicolas Cullen, Jay Zwally, Oddur Sigurdsson, and Robert Correll for the help they provided on the chapters concerning the Arctic.

Similarly, I am indebted to Chris Thomas, Jane Hill, William Bradshaw, and Christina Holzapfel for their explication of evolutionary biology; to James Hansen, David Rind, Gavin Schmidt, and Drew Shindell for their lessons in climate modeling; and to Harvey Weiss and Peter deMenocal for sharing their work on ancient civilizations. Pieter van Geel, Pier Vellinga, Wim van der Weegen, Chris Zevenbergen, Dick van Gooswilligen, Jos Hermsen, Hendrik Dek, and Eelke Turkstra were extremely gracious to me when I visited the Netherlands. Robert Socolow, Stephen Pacala, Marty Hoffert, David Hawkins, Barbara Finamore, and Jingjing Qian spent many hours with me discussing mitigation strategies, while Senator John McCain, former vice president Al Gore, Annie Petsonk, James Mahoney, and Under Secretary of State Paula Dobriansky helped me to understand the politics of global warming. Mayor Pete Clavelle kindly showed me around Burlington. Michael Oppenheimer, Richard Alley, Daniel Schrag, and Andrew Weaver were always willing—and able—to answer one last question.

This book began as a series of pieces that appeared in the
New Yorker
magazine. I am deeply grateful to David Remnick for urging—indeed compelling—me to write those pieces. I also want to thank Dorothy Wickenden and John Bennet, who offered much valuable advice; Michael Specter, who provided ideas and encouragement along the way; Louisa Thomas, who generously and ably helped with research; Elizabeth Pearson-Griffiths and Maureen Klier, who copyedited the chapters; and Marisa Pagano, who kindly assisted with the illustrations. I am indebted, too, to Greg Villepique and Yelena Gitlin, who worked so hard to make this book happen.

Gillian Blake and Kathy Robbins guided this project to completion. I am grateful to both of them for their insight and support.

Finally, I want to thank my husband, John Kleiner, who helped in more ways than he should have. Without his peculiar optimism, not a word here would have been written.

Author’s Note

The language of science is metric; however, most British and American readers speak—and think—in units like feet, miles, and degrees Fahrenheit. I have used English units where practical and metric units where it seemed clearly more appropriate. For instance, the standard measure of carbon emissions is metric tons. A metric ton weighs 2,205 pounds.

Chronology

1769: James Watt patents his steam engine.

Atmospheric CO
₂
levels are ~ 280 parts per million.

1859: John Tyndall builds the world’s first ratio spectrophotometer and tests the absorptive properties of atmospheric gases.

1895: Svante Arrhenius completes his calculations on varying CO
₂
levels.

Atmospheric CO
₂
levels are ~ 290 parts per million.

1928: CFCs are invented.

1958: CO
₂
measuring equipment is installed at the Mauna Loa Observatory.

1959: CO
₂
levels stand at 315 parts per million.

1970: Paul Crutzen warns that human actions may damage ozone layer.

1979: The National Academy of Sciences issues its first major report on global warming: “We may not be given a warning until the CO
₂
loading is such than an appreciable climate change is inevitable.”

CO
₂
levels reach 337 parts per million.

1987: The Montreal Protocol is adopted; phaseout of CFCs begins.

1988: The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is established by the World Meteorological Organization and the United Nations Environment Programme.

1992: President George H.W. Bush signs the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change in Rio de Janeiro.

The U.S. Senate approves the Framework Convention by unanimous consent.

CO
₂
levels reach 356 parts per million.

1995: The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change issues its Second Assessment Report: “The balance of evidence suggests a discernible human influence on global climate.”

1997: The Kyoto Protocol is drafted.

1998: Average global temperatures for the year are the warmest on record.

2000: Presidential candidate George W. Bush calls global warming an “issue that we need to take very seriously.”

CO
₂
levels are measured at 369 parts per million.

2001: The IPCC issues its Third Assessment Report: “Most of the warming observed over the last fifty years is attributable to human activities.”

A report by the National Research Council requested by President Bush states, “Greenhouse gases are accumulating in Earth’s atmosphere as a result of human activities, causing surface air temperatures and subsurface ocean temperatures to rise. Temperatures are, in fact, rising.”

President Bush announces that the United States is withdrawing from the Kyoto Protocol.

Third warmest year on record.

2002: Larsen B ice shelf collapses.

Third warmest year on record.

2003: Senator James Inhofe, chairman of the Committee on Environment and Public Works, says he has “compelling evidence that catastrophic global warming is a hoax.”

The American Geophysical Union issues a consensus statement asserting: “Natural influences cannot explain the rapid increase in global near-surface temperatures.”

CO
₂
levels reach 375 parts per million.

Fourth warmest year on record.

2004: Kyoto Protocol is ratified by Russia.

2005: Extent of melt on the Greenland ice sheet reaches a record maximum.

Arctic sea ice reaches a record minimum; researchers warn sea could be ice-free in summer “well before the end of this century.”

Kyoto Protocol goes into effect.

The National Academies of Sciences of the eight major industrialized nations issue a joint statement: “The scientific understanding of climate change is now sufficiently clear to justify nations taking prompt action.”

The Atlantic hurricane season sets a record for the number of Category 5 Storms

Average global temperatures are statistically tied with 1998.

2006: CO
₂
levels reach 381 parts per million. Annual rise is a near-record 2.53 parts per million.

Researchers report that since 1996, the loss of ice from Greenland has doubled.

2007: The IPCC issues its Fourth Assessment Report. It states that “warming of the climate system is unequivocal” and that “most of the observed increase in global average temperatures since the mid-20th century is very likely due to the observed increase in anthropogenic greenhouse gas concentrations.”

Arctic sea ice reaches anew record minimum, nearly 25 percent lower than 2005.

The U.S. Supreme Court decides that the Environmental Protection Agency has the power to regulate CO
₂
under the Clean Air Act.

Al Gore and the members of the IPCC are awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

2008: CO2 levels reach 385 parts per million.

The Bush administration declines to issue regulations governing carbon dioxide.

Barack Obama is elected president; he states that climate change, “if left unchecked,” could result in “irreversible catastrophe.”

Selected Bibliography and Notes

Most of the information contained in this book either comes from interviews or is part of the general—and vast—climate science literature. I have also cited or relied on a number of individual reports, articles, and earlier books, some of which are listed below.

Chapter 1: Shishmaref, Alaska

A study commissioned by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, “Shishmaref Relocation and Collocation Study: Preliminary Costs of Alternatives,” December 2004, provides detailed information on the village’s proposed move.

The official title of the Charney Report is “Report of an Ad Hoc Study Group on Carbon Dioxide and Climate: A Scientific Assessment to the National Academy of Sciences” (Washington, D.C.: National Academy of Sciences, 1979).

Global temperature data for the last two thousand years are drawn from Michael E. Mann and Philip D. Jones, “Global Surface Temperatures over the Past Two Millennia,”
Geophysical Research Letters
, vol. 30, no. 15 (2003).

Figures on methane releases from the Stordalen mire are taken from Torben R. Christensen et al., “Thawing Sub-Arctic Permafrost: Effects on Vegetation and Methane Emissions,”
Geophysical Research Letters
, vol. 31, no. 4 (2004).

An account of the mission of the
Des Groseilliers
can be found in D. K. Perovich et al., “Year on Ice Gives Climate Insights,”
Eos
(Transactions, American Geophysical Union), vol. 80, no. 481 (1999).

Figures on the thinning of the Arctic sea ice come from D. A. Rothrock et al., “Thinning of the Arctic Sea-Ice Cover,”
Geophysical Research Letters
, vol. 26, no. 23 (1999).

A fuller discussion of the orbital changes and timing of ice ages can be read in John Imbrie and Katherine Palmer Imbrie,
Ice Ages: Solving the Mystery
, revised edition (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1986).

Chapter 2: A Warmer Sky

A useful primer on the science of global warming is John Houghton,
Global Warming: The Complete Briefing
, third edition (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004).

The history of the science of global warming is related in Spencer R. Weart,
The Discovery of Global Warming
(Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2003); and Gale E. Christianson,
Greenhouse: The 200-Year Story of Global Warming
(New York: Walker and Company, 1999). Also the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research offers a detailed biography of its namesake on its Web site,
http://www.tyndall.ac.uk
.

John Tyndall’s dying words, as recalled by his wife, are recounted in Mark Bowen,
Thin Ice
(New York: Henry Holt, 2005).

Svante Arrhenius’s predictions for better living through CO
₂
are from
Worlds in the Making: The Evolution of the Universe
(New York: Harper, 1908).

Charles David Keeling wrote about “having fun” trying to measure CO
₂
in his essay “Rewards and Penalties of Monitoring the Earth,”
Annual Review of Energy and the Environment
, vol. 23 (1998).

Chapter 3: Under the Glacier

An excellent account of what’s been learned from the Greenland ice is Richard B. Alley,
The Two-Mile Time Machine: Ice Cores, Abrupt Climate Change, and Our Future
(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2000).

Figures on the acceleration of the Greenland ice sheet are from H. Jay Zwally et al., “Surface Melt–Induced Acceleration of Greenland Ice-Sheet Flow,”
Science
, vol. 297 (2002).

Figures on the acceleration of the Jakobshavn Isbrae can be found in W. Abdalati et al., “Large Fluctuations in Speed on Greenland’s Jakobshavn Isbrae Glacier,”
Nature
, vol. 432 (2004).

James E. Hansen wrote about the future of the Greenland ice sheet in his essay “A Slippery Slope: How Much Global Warming Constitutes ‘Dangerous Anthropogenic Interference’?”
Climatic Change
, vol. 68 (2005).