Deliberate Omission in COP: Advice to WMO on COP29 Planetary Albedo Discussion (10 emails 2/9/2024 to 9/4/2024)
HPAC
Deliberate Omission in COP: Advice to WMO on COP29 Planetary Albedo DiscussionFeb 9 2024 8:20PM - robert@rtulip.net
Herb
You ask “Is net zero heating compatible with any level of average global temperature increase, as the definition indicates that it is compatible with any level of GHG’s?”
Net zero heating is achieved when average world temperature returns to Holocene level. So it is not compatible with temperature increase. Net means warming forcings balance cooling forcings to restore the historic temperature.
Thanks, Robert
Mar 9 2024 3:15AM - robert@rtulip.net
Robert C
My understanding of Net Zero Heating is shown in my extrapolation from the article An Imperative to Model Earth’s Energy Imbalance, whence I have taken the left half of this diagram. I made the right half to model a simple projection of the future.
You are saying the yellow Iine marked Net Zero Heating that I have projected for future Net Anthropogenic Forcing would have to dip below the zero line in order to be enough to remove historical residual heat. That sounds plausible but I would like confirmation from scientists. My assumption was that a return of radiative forcing to zero with respect to the Holocene pre-industrial conditions shown at 1750 would be sufficient to restore Holocene temperature. This means an increase of albedo by 2 w/m2, absent GHG removal. You seem to suggest that without a fall in GHG stock, neutralising the heat from the committed warming from past emissions would need albedo to lift by more than that, say 4 wm/2.
MacMartin et al in Scenarios for modeling solar radiation modification argue that temperature rise from the Holocene baseline could be cut close to zero in fifty years by adding 20 million tonnes of SO2 every year. Smith et al at Cost of Stratospheric Aerosol Injection price this at about $18 billion yr-1 per degree Celsius of warming avoided.
The implication of your argument seems to be that Net Zero Heating would only stop temperature rise and would not remove residual heat, shaving the napkin diagram heat bump rather than removing it altogether. This creates the question
if cooling forcing equalled warming forcing, would temperature fall?
I am not saying albedo is a panacea. Rather, it is that the carbon strategies now in place are deeply confused, even delusional, and that rebrightening can buy the time needed to assess and deploy feasible carbon strategies. Albedo enhancement is a first step to change thinking.
You also said in a follow up email “Again, in line with my comments in the last few minutes, the loss of albedo has just made the warming worse. If albedo hadn't reduced we wouldn't be cooling, we'd just be warming slower. Reducing surface temperature back to closer to Holocene levels still requires significant reductions in atmospheric GHGs. It can't be achieved by albedo enhancement alone unless it is enhanced way beyond its prior Holocene level. Unless we reduce the GHGs back to where they were in 1750, we have to increase the albedo to much higher than it was in 1750. That's quite a lot of albedo enhancement! The problem here is that these interventions are getting more draconian by the minute, and with this increased scale comes disproportionate risk.”
This rightly points out that achieving net zero heating in the presence of excess GHGs creates a different atmosphere from the Holocene, one with significantly higher albedo to mask and balance the ongoing GHG warming. This points to a possible confusion in the meaning of Net. Net Zero heating means the cooling from albedo and other methods fully counterbalances the heating from GHGs. Similar to Net Zero Emissions, where the Net only means ongoing emissions must be balanced by equal GHG removals. NZE leaves the tipping point triggers on a hair, whereas NZH would start to defuse the risk. NZE is claimed to stabilise temperature, whereas NZH would cut it.
I don’t agree with your use of ‘draconian’. Draco’s view was that minor crime deserved death, within a framework of punitive punishment. Climate interventions are not punishments, and have benefits that far exceed their risks.
Regards
Robert Tulip
Sep 2 2024 5:51AM - Garrity, Dennis (ICRAF)
Dear Robert,
This is a brilliant exposition of our integrated agenda, and it is expressed especially well for scientists to grasp.
Well done.
I am particularly impressed by these pithy statements:
Radiative forcing is the key metric.
A new goal of net zero heating, where cooling forcings equal warming forcings.
Proposing an international albedo governance agenda.
It all adds up to an elegant and fresh way of expressing the imperative of a new, integrated climate plan based on the triad. You bring it all together into a single, fundamental action: Balancing earth’s radiative forcings. This is powerful.
You’ve also emphasized a new language for the triad: Albido plus stocks and flows
Increasing albido to explain scientifically what direct climate cooling intervention does.
GHG flow restriction is what reduced emissions does. And,
Decreasing atmospheric GHG stocks is what GHG removals accomplishes.
I’m thinking that this articulation just might be the basis to achieve a breakthrough for scientists to better understand that there is no either/or among the legs of the triad, but rather the utter necessity of an and/and/and approach.
I look forward to seeing whether this way of presenting the problem can help our more reluctant scientific colleagues to come around to grasping the triad in a language that they might better relate to, and support.
There’s a lot of mileage to be gained by further developing these concepts, especially the science underpinning the imperative of rapidly increasing earth’s albido. We need to assemble that body of science as soon as practicable.
Onwards, Dennis
Sep 2 2024 1:07PM - Ron Baiman
Dear Robert,
Thank you for your thoughts. As you know, I generally agree with most of them but have two quibbles:
a) I believe that a focus on "albedo" instead of Direct Climate Cooling (DCC) is unnecessarily and unhelpfully restrictive. For example, though albedo, or reflectivity, fully or partially describes 10 of the 14 DCC approaches in the HPAC DCC paper it does not for example accurately describe two of the most palatable ("motherhood and apple pie") afforestation and soil, and urban tree planting, DCC approaches, or one of the major DCC approaches, Cirrus Cloud Thinning (CCT) (or it's close cousin Mixed-phase Cloud Thinning (MCT))"SRM" , a Thermal Radiation Modification (TRM) approach that is mistakenly referred to as a Solar Radiation Modification (SRM) approach in the literature (see National Academy of Science 2021 for example). And this is important as the conflation of what are commonly thought of in the literature as a comprehensive suite of the most important "SRM" approaches is then often further conflated to implicitly or explicitly refer primarily to SAI, that is then targeted as highly risky and hubristic Frankensteinian "geoengineering". So in order to expand thinking on Direct Climate Cooling (that does, and we agree on this, critically include SAI) I think it is important to focus on what we want - that is direct climate cooling - rather than one of the (major but not exclusive) ways to do it.
b) Also, as you also know as we've discussed this many times, "albedo" (unlike GHG reduction and drawdown) is not a universal "public good"in the sense that it doesn't significantly matter where, how, or when, you do it. To the contrary "albedo" can be beneficial or harmful and by different magnitudes depending on where, when, and how it is increased or decreased. This is the reason why for example (as I recall) Mike MacCracken has emphasized that it might take covering about a fifth of planetary land mass with surface mirrors to reduce Earth Energy Imbalance by 1% (roughly what is needed to get to balance) - the problem being that increasing "albedo" or IR reflectivity, on the surface has minimal impact relative to doing this in the Stratosphere, and why Arctic sea ice "albedo" increases in the winter may serve to insulate ocean heat from being released, thus reducing rather than increasing heat loss, etc. So while "albedo" is important, and can be a useful local and time of day and season specific indicator of cooling, I don't think it can be a useful global and universal indicator of cooling.
Best,
Ron
Sep 3 2024 4:13AM - healthy-planet-action-coalition@googlegroups.com
Robert,
Thanks for your helpful recapitulation and synthesis of many of the ideas that you have articulated so well the past couple of years.
I agree with Ron that an emphasis on albedo alone rather than the whole suite of direct climate cooling techniques is too narrow an approach.
Ecosystem restoration for example has the potential to make a significant contribution to carbon removal and DCC through mechanisms that are largely unrelated to albedo.
The word albedo itself is also understood by only the tiniest fraction of people.
I created DCC - Direct Climate Cooling - to have a broad highly accessible term that focuses on the desired outcome - cooling - rather than a narrower feature of the earth system - solar radiation, sunshine reflection, albedo or process - geoengineering.
While it would be real progress if an entity like the WMO could advocate in Baku for an approach that broadens the focus on emission reductions and CDR to include DCC I can’t imagine that it is a realistic goal, given that COP 29 starts in a little over two months.
Perhaps by COP 30.
That’s not of course a reason to not make the case to the WMO and other world entities.
I also remain to be convinced that the creation of an international organization devoted strictly to albedo is the best way forward. I would rather see an entity - whether newly created or an existing organization with a new goal - focused on the HP goal of restoring a safe and healthy climate by bringing temperature increases back down to well below 1° C in the coming decades.
I also think that an organization with this broader mission would be much more likely to be accepted and endorsed by the world community than one that focuses only on albedo/cooling.
Could you also explain a bit more about your term ‘net zero heating’ - NZH.
This is the definition I received from you and included in my book:
Is net zero heating compatible with any level of average global temperature increase, as the definition indicates that it is compatible with any level of GHG’s?
If that is the case it may not necessarily be compatible with the HP goal of bringing temperature increases back down to below 1° C in the coming decades.
It appears to be a necessary intermediate goal but not the ultimate goal?
My broader question is whether it is absolutely necessary to convince the Climate commissariat to embrace concepts like net zero heating, radiative forcing and albedo management to achieve progress on a climate restoration goal.
Though scientifically accurate and appropriate, re-educating the tens of thousands of people with some degree of influence over climate policy may prove to be an unnecessarily huge hurdle.
If you have not done so I think it would be really helpful to prepare a short explanatory paper that explores your concepts in more detail including NZH and an albedo union amongst others.
Herb
Herb Simmens
Author of A Climate Vocabulary of the Future
“A SciencePoem and an Inspiration.” Kim Stanley Robinson
@herbsimmens
HerbSimmens.com
Sep 3 2024 5:30AM - healthy-planet-action-coalition@googlegroups.com
Robert
Warming and cooling forcings coming back into balance does not restore temperature to Holocene levels. It stabilises temperature at a new equilibrium that will be higher than the previous one. If you want to get back to a lower temperature you have to have a period when cooling forcing exceeds warming forcing. One way or another, the excess energy accumulated in the climate system has to be dissipated back to space.
Regards
Robert
Sep 3 2024 8:39AM - Tom Goreau
To sustain a credible case for albedo enhancement, we must first show that we don't have sufficient time to leave it emissions reduction and GGR.
This is the point I made on Sunday, that they could not be done fast enough to save coral reefs, Atolls, the Amazon rainforest, and the Arctic Ice Cap from overshoot, but they are still absolutely essential in the long run for fast-acting changes in earth reflectivity to reach safe climate levels.
Sep 4 2024 4:51AM - Tom Goreau
All of this (tipping points, aerosol masking, black carbon, etc.) was understood when UNFCC was signed in 1992, not to mention the potential of a methane bomb from melting Arctic peat!
But all was ignored by governments who refused to require GHG gas source and sink monitoring essential for sound climate management.
Those were in the draft treaty the UN presented to governments, but were removed.
The final treaty was designed by deliberate omission to be unable to meet its own goals, and to foist the problem off on future generations.
Thomas J. F. Goreau, PhD
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Sep 4 2024 9:21AM - robert@rtulip.net
Hi Tom
Your involvement with the history of the COP is invaluable. This problem you mention of deliberate omission of key climate data reflects the underlying politics of a focus on emission reduction alone.
Industry and governments remain desperate to continue business as usual, avoiding economically damaging pressure to cut emissions by spinning a pack of greenwash.
My sense is that a shift of policy focus to albedo would accord with their interests in economic stability, and could enable a fresh look at data.
Monitoring GHG sources and sinks is only part of what you call “sound climate management”. Albedo ‘sources and sinks’ are just as important but are not well measured. Scientists don’t even know the relative albedo contribution of clouds, aerosols, snow and ice, as I understand it, due to lack of data. James Hansen has complained about this.
Regards
Robert Tulip
Sep 4 2024 10:58AM - Tom Goreau
The key strategy of all governments is to ignore all they possibly can in order to avoid political blame and financial liability.
Mike is certainly right that Governments mandated IPCCC to focus on GHGs because albedo is regarded as a secondary feedback, like water vapour.
Albedo and water vapour both would have much faster climate impacts if they were directly stimulated rather than waiting for indirect feedbacks to kick in, which might be in the wrong direction.
Doing so would indeed be to the long term economic benefit, if governments understood it, but they would have to mandate IPCC to look into exhaustively reviewing the literature (mostly based on dubious model assumptions rather than field measurements).
Because they are neither precautionary nor proactive they would waste years of more talk before they would fund the careful field experimentation that all these methods need to prove their viability and be improved, but which are currently starved of funding because they are viewed “speculative”.
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