Before we begin, we’d like to announce that this is the introduction of our new series UNFOLDED where we explain recent climate change developments in a way you can understand to keep you updated and informed.
If you haven’t already heard, the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change), a body of the UN dedicated to finding information and statistics on how climate change is/will affect us, released their sixth assessment report. The previous report, which was released in 2013, warned the public on how climate change could affect us in the future; the report that was released this week this didn’t just warn us, but reminded us that we are experiencing the effects of climate change now, the same ones that we were warned about 8 years ago.
Obviously we aren’t expecting you to read the full 1300 page report, so we took the liberty to break down the assessment into its key points so you can be informed without spending entire days reading. we gotchu 😉
The IPCC broke their Summary for Policymakers down into 4 parts:
- The Current State of the Climate
- Possible Climate Futures
- Climate Information for Risk Assessment and Regional Adaptation
- Limiting Future Climate Change
On top of giving you a brief description of each section and we’ll add a bit of analysis at the end as well. Hope you enjoy it!
The Current State of the Climate
To start off this segment of the report, the IPCC found it necessary to use a few pages to explain to people why climate change is real and why it isn’t going away. Now we won’t bore you with that because you already believe in climate change, or else you wouldn’t be here…
Nevertheless, it is important to mention that though the IPCC does state climate change is “unequivocally” caused by humans, in all their information/statistics they state that it is likely or very likely that humans are the cause.
The report goes on to explain a few key facts about climate change right now. Some of the ones that stuck out to us were:
- The Global Surface Temperature has risen by 1.09℃ (2℉) since 1900
- The Global Mean Sea level has risen by 0.20m (8in.) since 1900
- Annual average Arctic sea ice area reached its lowest level since at least 1850
The next section of the report then goes into the weather and climate extremes caused by the changes mentioned in the first part. Some of the most notable are the increase in heatwaves and in heavy precipitation (blizzards/thunderstorms). The report also attributes the increase in wildfires to human intervention and climate change.
Possible Climate Futures
This section starts by talking about the road that lies ahead for global warming. Five different potential scenarios were established and analyzed, each representing the state of climate change through varying levels of greenhouse gas emissions. To give you a sense of the range of these scenarios, the most aggressive emissions reduction scenario which involves annual CO2 emissions not exceeding 40 GtCO2/yr (a relatively small number) results in a projection of around 1.5 Co in global temperature by 2081-2100. On the other hand, the scenario in which efforts to combat climate change are least existent has annual CO2 emissions reaching a peak around 130 GtCO2/yr and a 4.5 Co increase in global temperature by 2081-2100. That’s a pretty wide range and the fact that there’s three other scenarios in between means that at least one of these will likely be close to how things will actually turn out.
The report goes into a little more specific detail by outlining projections for global temperatures in three separate time periods (2021-2040, 2041-2060, 2081-2100). This gives us a better idea of what the future would look like, depending on which path we end up taking. Below is a chart taken directly from the IPCC report:
There is very little on this chart that is reassuring to those afraid of climate change, but we should have expected that by now, right? Something that did immediately pop out was the variability in the progression of each of these scenarios. For example, in the most conservative scenario (SSP1-1.9), the temperature in each time period stays pretty much the same. As you go down the rows, however, the gap in temperature between each time period grows bigger. What this shows is the compounding nature of the greenhouse effect, meaning that the more greenhouse gases are emitted, the more temperatures will increase and potentially get out of control.
After exhausting the possible extent of global warming, the report changes focus to the numerous effects of this warming. Since there’s so many, we’re just going to directly list out all of the effects (a general rule of thumb to keep in mind is that the more warming there is, the more intense/frequent these events become):
- Hot extremes
- Marine heatwaves
- Heavy precipitation
- Agricultural and ecological droughts
- Intense tropical cyclones
- Decreased Arctic sea ice, snow cover and permafrost
- Regional mean temperature changes
- Changes in precipitation
- Changes in soil moisture
- Water cycle variability
- Monsoons
- Wet and dry events
Whew! If that doesn’t alarm you enough, this is when the scientists really make the issue apparent. They say that as a result of the amount of greenhouse gases that have been (and will be) emitted, there are changes in the planet (ocean, ice sheets, sea level, etc.) that are “irreversible for centuries to millennia.” 😳 Plus, the more CO2 is emitted, the less CO2 will be taken in by natural carbon sinks.
This all sounds really scary, and for good reason, too. But there is reason to be hopeful. The following sections outline ways to make society capable of adapting to and fighting against climate change so that these issues don’t play such a prevalent role in our lives.
Climate Information for Risk Assessment and Regional Adaptation
The third section of the report focuses on the different outcomes/effects we can see in the future due to global warming and climate change. The report goes over these climate related risks as well as how climate services can adapt if these risks are to happen.
To begin with, this section of the report discusses different natural variables that can affect climate change. It’s important to understand these variables because they can amplify or attenuate climate change and global warming.
An example of these variables could be the sun or volcanoes. Between 1998 and 2012, high volcanic activity along with increased rays from the sun caused the Earth’s surface temperature to increase naturally. This natural increase masked the effects of global warming, but when this cycle ended in 2013, the effects of global warming became abundant.
As you can see, these variables are nothing new to Earth. Small heat and cold cycles(such as El Nino) are always present, but because of climate change, the effects of these cycles are more extreme.
The section then goes on to explain how normal cold weather patterns such as snow are most likely going to decrease with rising temperatures while more extreme hot weather patterns such as droughts are going to increase. Along with extreme heat, there will also be more extreme rain which can cause flooding. Rain will also not be as common. Every region will have its own set of problems regarding extreme weather such as tropical cyclones in tropical regions and fire weather in drier regions.
Along with extreme weather, it is almost certain that sea levels will rise and in areas with high populations it will be harder to sustain life due to heatwaves and heavy precipitation.
Finally, this section of the report ends off with some low-likelihood outcomes that are worst case scenarios. Some of these outcomes include ice sheet collapse and abrupt ocean circulation changes. The report mentions that depending on the natural variables discussed earlier and the rate of increase in global warming, these outcomes can go from low likelihood to likely, or, in the best case, not likely at all.
Limiting Climate Futures
The fourth and final section of this paper focuses on decreasing the role that climate change plays in the coming decades. At first, you may jump to thinking about ending the burning of fossil fuels to using carbon capture technology to even implementing a cap-and-trade emissions system. However, whether you agree with this approach or not, the committee that wrote this paper left the specifics to the decision-makers and instead took a much broader perspective.
This section first establishes that CO2 emissions are directly correlated with global warming. An interesting finding mentioned is that every 1000 GtCO2 that is released likely results in an increase of 0.27o-0.63oC (best estimate of 0.45oC) in global temperatures. While the exact number cannot be predicted, understandably so, the fact that this correlation can be calculated so well should be enough validation toward the existence of climate change. In fact, a graph was even included that shows how temperatures will increase under each of the five emissions scenarios:
Then, the authors introduce the relatively unfamiliar concept of a carbon budget, which they define as “the maximum amount of cumulative net global anthropogenic CO2 emissions that would result in limiting global warming to a given level with a given probability, taking into account the effect of other anthropogenic climate forcers.” What this means is that a carbon budget is the amount of CO2 able to be emitted before the planet reaches a certain temperature. This can be seen in detail through this fascinating chart from the paper (if you haven’t noticed by now, we’re totally geeking out 😁):
There’s a lot to take in from this chart but here’s a breakdown. At the top right, you can see that from the years 1850-2019, there has likely been around 2390 GtCO2 emitted, give or take 240 GtCO2. Then, once you look at the bottom portion, you see that the chart is split into three different rows, each representing limits in increased temperature, and 5 different columns representing the likelihood of staying under these limits. Let’s go through a couple examples. The first row (1.5oC) and third column (50%) meet at the number 500, which is essentially the carbon budget. The relationship between these three numbers is that if 500 GtCO2 are emitted, there is a 50% chance that the temperature increase will be limited to 1.5oC. Using the same strategy, you can also see that if 900 GtCO2 are emitted, there is an 83% chance that the temperature increase will be limited to 2.0oC.
We think that it’s pretty cool how they quantified all the moving parts of climate change and presented it in such a digestible manner, and hopefully you feel the same. But, hey, if you don’t, you do you.
The report ends by making a few statements about the path moving forward by stating the importance of removing CO2 from the atmosphere and also mentioning that parts of climate change will persist for decades to millennia, emphasizing the need for immediate action.
Analysis
Overall, I think I can safely say that a lot of people were glad that this panel published such a strong report because, frankly, there were some people in this world who just weren’t taking climate change seriously enough. It’s important to remember that this report has thousands of contributors from all around the world with different sets of expertise and experiences, and for all of them to come together and send such a forceful message should really be a loud wake up call, especially because of the relative lack of interest that climate change has received in the recent past.
Look, after reading this report, no major organization or country is simply just going to think, “Oh my gosh, we need to end climate change!” and immediately make massive changes in their operations. For better or for worse, that’s just not how things work. What will happen, however, is that the report will surely be brought up in November in the 2021 United Nations Climate Change Conference in Glasgow where delegates from all over the world will discuss plans to tackle climate change. This report will serve as a reminder that things can go really bad really fast if things don’t fall in place ASAP.
Conclusion
Hopefully we were able to condense the report enough for you to get a good understanding of what climate futures are looking like. The main message to be taken away from all of this: things are not looking good. But, more importantly, it’s not over yet. The fight against climate change has just begun, and as more people (like yourself) educate themselves and make change in your communities, we may set ourselves on the right path.