Climate Change: An Inter-disciplinary
Approach to Problem Solving
(AOSS 480 // NRE 480)
Richard B. Rood
Cell: 301-526-8572
2525 Space Research Building (North Campus)
rbrood@umich.edu
http://aoss.engin.umich.edu/people/rbrood
Winter 2015
April 14, 2015
Class Information and News
• Ctools site: AOSS_SNRE_480_001_W15
– Record of course
• Rood’s Class MediaWiki Site
–
http://climateknowledge.org/classes/index.php/Climate_Change:_The_Move_to_Action
• Rood’s Openclimate Tumblr Site
Schedule
• Presentations
– Monday, April 20, 2015
• Auditorium, Room 2048, Space Research Building,
North Campus (You need to find it, your self!)
• 6:30 – 9:30 PM
• Dinner provided
– Tuesday, April 21, 2015
• Classroom, 1024 Dana
• 10:00 – 11:30 AM
• Final documents due (electronic, narrative
and presentation)
– Tuesday, April 28, 2015 @ 3:30 P.M.
Resources and Recommended Reading
• Socolow and Pacala, “Stabilization
Wedges,” Scientific American, 2006 (link)
• Other versions, additional reading
– Pacala and Socolow, “Stabilization Wedges,”
Science, 2004 (link)
– Socolow, “Wedges Reaffirmed,” Climate
Central, 2011 (link)
– Blog at climateprogress (link)
Wedges on the Web
• Carbon Mitigation Initiative @ Princeton
University
Summary Points: Science
Correlated Observations
CO2 and Temperature Observed to be
strongly related on long time scales (>
100 years)
CO2 and Temperature not Observed to be
strongly related on short time scales (<
10 years)
Land Use / Land Change
Other Greenhouse Gases
Aerosols
Internal Variability
Theory / Empirical Evidence
CO2 and Water Vapor Hold Heat Near
Surface
Theory / Conservation Principle
Mass and Energy Budgets
 Concept of “Forcing”
Validation
Prediction
Earth Will
Warm
Attribution
Consequences
Observations
CO2 is Increasing due to Burning Fossil
Fuels
Feedbacks
Air Quality
“Abrupt” Climate Change
Outline: Class 25, Winter 2015
• Remembering structured problem solving
– Mitigation and Adaptation
– Anticipatory and Reactive
– Individual and Everyone
• Mitigation Wedges
• What Can I Do?
Responses to the Climate Change Problem
Autonomous/
Individual
Policy/
Societal
Reactive
Anticipatory
Adaptation
Mitigation
What is short-term and long-term?
Pose that time scales for addressing climate
change as a society are best defined by human
dimensions. Length of infrastructure investment,
accumulation of wealth over a lifetime, ...
LONG
SHORT
Election
time scales
ENERGY SECURITY
CLIMATE CHANGE
ECONOMY
0 years
25 years
There are short-term issues
important to climate change.
50 years
75 years
100 years
Managing Climate Complexity
WEALTH
LOCAL
TEMPORAL
NEAR-TERM
GLOBAL
SPATIAL
LONG-TERM
Managing Climate Complexity
WEALTH
LOCAL
TEMPORAL
NEAR-TERM
LONG-TERM
GLOBAL
SPATIAL
Being Global, Long Term, Wealth connected, degree of difficulty is high
Structure of Problem Solving
(http://glisaclimate.org/home )
Knowledge System / Problem Solving
• Recorded lectures and slides (link)
Mitigation
• Mitigation Wedges
• “Practical” Response Space
From Lecture on International Policy
• Committed to avoiding “dangerous”
climate change.
– What is dangerous?
• Definitions such as
– Avoid 2°C global average warming
– Keep carbon dioxide ( + other greenhouse
gases) to less than 450 ppm equivalent
Reality check?
• Will we be able to keep the atmosphere to
less than 450 ppm CO2 equivalent?
• Will we able to keep to less than 2°C
global average increase?
• Will we avoid dangerous climate change?
• What is dangerous climate change?
• Have we underestimated of overestimated
warming so far?
Consider Economics: Stern Report:
Influential: Useful for thinking about problem
• Draws on recent science which points to
‘significant risks of temperature increases above
5°C under business-as-usual by the early part
of the next century’ — other studies typically
have focused on increases of 2–3°C.
• Treats aversion to risk explicitly.
• Adopts low pure time discount rates to give
future generations equal weight.
• Takes account of the disproportionate impacts
on poor regions.
Resources and Recommended Reading
• Stern Report: Primary Web Page
• Stern Report: Executive Summary
• Nordhaus: Criticism of Stern Report
• Tol and Yohe: Deconstruction of Stern
Report
Some carry away messages
• Determine what is a tolerable ceiling for carbon
dioxide.
- Gives cap for a cap and trade system.
- Tolerable ceilings have been posed as between 450
and 550 ppm.
- Ice sheet melting and sea level?
- Oceanic circulation / The Gulf Stream?
- Ocean acidification?
- Determine a tolerable measure of increased
temperature
- Copenhagen Accord (2009)  2o C
Dangerous climate change?
Stern, 2006
World 4 Degrees Warmer
Stern, 2006
World at 450 ppm CO2 ?
• We get to emit a trillion tons of carbon to
stay below 450 ppm CO2
Trillion Tons: Carbon Visuals
Increase of Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide (CO2)
“This generation
has altered the
composition of the
atmosphere on a
global scale
through…a steady
increase in carbon
dioxide from the
burning of fossil
fuels.”
--Lyndon Johnson
Special Message
to Congress,
1965
Data and more information
Past Emissions
Princeton Carbon Mitigation Initiative
The Stabilization Triangle
Princeton Carbon Mitigation Initiative
The Wedge Concept
Princeton Carbon Mitigation Initiative
Stabilization (2006)
Princeton Carbon Mitigation Initiative
CO2 stabilization trajectory (2006)
• Stabilize at < 550 ppm.
Pre-industrial: 275 ppm,
current: ~400 ppm.
• Need 7 ‘wedges’ of
prevented CO2 emissions.
(2011)
Princeton Carbon Mitigation Initiative
Where Do We Sit?
• Concept that we can take these actions to
limit emissions.
• Growing population.
• Economic and development imperatives.
• Need for more energy.
• Technological development.
• Societal inertia.
My Analysis
• Difficult to avoid a world four degrees
warmer.
• We have, in fact, underestimated the
impact of warming.
• We have some control over how fast and
how far the warming will go.
• We are committed to irreversible changes,
for example, sea-level rise.
• We can “cope” with this. We must.
What Can I Do?
• Need to be thinking about how to adapt.
– How to make our home as robust as possible.
– Need to plan
– Need to design
• Also need to be taking steps to mitigate our
emissions
– Further we stray from our past climate, the more
difficult it is to predict
– Possibility of abrupt changes becomes more
likely
Some Sites With Information
• EPA: What You Can Do
• Union of Concerned Scientists: What You
Can Do About Climate Change
• United Nations: Kicking the Habit
• U.N. Foundation: Realizing Energy
Efficiency
• Energy Star: About Energy Star
• Energy Star: Standby Energy
McKinsey 2007: Large
McKinsey 2007
Rood Blogs
• Barriers
– Identifying Barriers
– Personal and Public Barriers (Includes
references to environmental behavior paper:
Hines et al., 1987)
• What Can I Do?
–
–
–
–
–
Setting Up the Discussion
Organizing and Growing Individual Efforts
Complete List
We Are What We Eat
How Much Does It Cost? (More on diet.)
Rood’s List for Influence
– Buying to support sustainability
• Support companies
• Buy to values and standards
– Support policies that promote energy
conservation and efficiency
– Invest in companies in renewable energy
• Social responsibility
• CERES
Rood’s List for Influence
– Emergence of societal groups
• Community associations
• Civic organizations
• Interest groups
– Local government and school boards
•
•
•
•
Committees
Volunteering
Appointments
Elected
– Education
– Advocacy
– Resources controlled and influences
• Your business
• Your farm
Schedule
• Presentations
– Monday, April 20, 2015
• Auditorium, Room 2048, Space Research Building,
North Campus (You need to find it, your self!)
• 6:30 – 9:30 PM
• Dinner provided
– Tuesday, April 21, 2015
• Classroom, 1024 Dana
• 10:00 – 11:30 AM
• Final documents due (electronic, narrative
and presentation)
– Tuesday, April 28, 2015 @ 3:30 P.M.
Summary: Class 25, Winter 2015
• Mitigation: Limiting the warming is possible.
– Behavior and practice
– Technology and economics
– Personal-scale action matter
• Adaptation is required
– Design:  Importance of sustainable engineering
– Planning
– Management
Outline: Class 25, Winter 2015
• Remembering structured problem solving
– Mitigation and Adaptation
– Anticipatory and Reactive
– Individual and Everyone
• Mitigation Wedges
• What Can I Do?
Scientific investigation of Earth’s climate
SUN: ENERGY, HEAT
EARTH: ABSORBS ENERGY
EARTH: EMITS ENERGY TO SPACE  BALANCE
Sun-Earth System in Balance
SUN
EARTH
PLACE AN
INSULATING
BLANKET
AROUND
EARTH
The addition to the
blanket is CO2
FOCUS ON
WHAT IS
HAPPENING
AT THE
SURFACE
EARTH: EMITS ENERGY TO SPACE  BALANCE
Increase of Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide (CO2)
Primary
increase comes
from burning
fossil fuels –
coal, oil,
natural gas
Data and more information
Temperature and CO2: The last 1000 years
Surface temperature and CO2 data from the
past 1000 years. Temperature is a northern
hemisphere average. Temperature from
several types of measurements are consistent
in temporal behavior.
 Medieval warm period
 “Little ice age”
 Temperature starts to follow CO2 as CO2
increases beyond approximately 300 ppm,
the value seen in the previous graph as the
upper range of variability in the past
350,000 years.
The Earth System
SUN
CLOUD-WORLD
ATMOSPHERE
ICE
(cryosphere)
OCEAN
LAND
Radiation Balance Figure
Radiative Balance (Trenberth et al. 2009)
1998
Climate Forcing
(-2.7, -0.6)
2001
Hansen et al: (1998) & (2001)
(-3.7, 0.0)