Storms of My Grandchildren

Storms of My Grandchildren

by James Hansen, Nasa Goddard physicist 

     Most famous for his 1988 Congressional testimony on climate change.

History of James Hansen:

• Grew up as a tenant farmer and attended University of Iowa under the supervision of Professor Van Allen who built instruments for the first US satellites. There was intense microwave radiation on Venus : did this mean that Venus had an ionosphere or was Venus very hot? The Soviet Venera spacecraft was that Venus was 900 degrees Fahrenheit that was kept hot by a thick CO2 atmosphere. 
• Hansen became the PI of a mission to Venus that took a picture of Venus' sulfuric smog.
• Shortly thereafter, Hansen resigned on the Venus experiment and focused on Earth's climate change. In 1981, he published an article in Science magazine that 0.4 degree Celsius warming was consistent with the increase in CO2. And that the increase would continue and be greater than the noise of changing weather. ("Climate Impact of Increasing Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide" by J. Hansen, D. Johnson, A. Lacis, S. Lebedeff, P. Lee, D. Rind, G. Russell on August 28, 1981, Volume 213, Number 4511). This article was reported on the front page of the New York Times and forced him to testify.
• In 1988-1989, James Hansen famously testified before Congress saying that global warming increases both extremes of the Earth's water cycles- heat waves/droughts and stronger storms/flooding/rainfall (because the atmosphere holds more water vapor with its latent energy). His testimony was modified by the Office of Management and Budget. 
• James Hansen had the ability to talk to the President twice as part of the Climate Task Force.
• He gave two talks (one at University of Iowa in 2004 and at the 2005 Meeting of the American Geophysical Union) and resulted in calls from the White House to NASA headquarters. They said that there would be censorship - he could not give any talks or speak to the media without prior explicit approval from NASA headquarters. He told the New York Times about this.
• James had been using the first line of the NASA Mission Statement "to understand and protect the home planet" to justify his talks, but this was soon deleted. 
• 3,000 Argo Floats around the world shows that the Upper Ocean is increasing in heat. There is about 0.5 Watts/square meter going to the upper ocean. 

Main Points:

• The two moral issues are (1) people who are causing climate change are a fraction of the people on the planet- many people will feel the effects that they have done nothing to bring about and (2) the intergenerational injustice involved with climate change is that the current generation is enjoying the benefits of energy, but the largest effects will be felt by young people and future generations. 
• Pushing the system beyond tipping points- ice sheets can melt and sea levels may change. As we drive certain species to extinction and their interdependencies, there are much larger effects waiting to be seen. These are irreversible effects on large timescales
• Melting of the arctic sea ice, the melting on the ice sheets, surface melt in Greenland, increase in discharge of large ice sheets into the ocean. At a rate of a couple cubic kilometers per year, these Greenland Ice sheets are receding and this rate is increasing. These measurements by GRASE (the Gravity Satellite Ice Sheet Mass Measurements (2002-2009)). 
• The last time the planet was 2 degrees warmer sea level was 25 meters higher, and the last time it was 4 degrees warmer there was no ice and sea level was 75 meters higher. Even sea level of several meters would put a couple of hundred million people in China below sea level. 
• Effects on the coral reefs- between a quarter and third of the species in the ocean reside in conjunction with the coral reefs, "rainforests of the ocean." Climate zones are shifting- Australia, mediterranean, etc- thereby increasing the frequency of fires. 
• Who has caused climate change? China has recently passed the US in emissions, but the climate change is not caused by the current emissions. It is proportional to the integrated emissions over time. Even though the carbon released 100 years ago has been taken up by the biosphere/ocean. The US is responsible for 27% of those integrated emissions, which is three times more than China. The US is about ten times more responsible for climate change on a per capita basis than China, or about 25 times more responsible than India. 
• After James Hansen testified to Congress in the 1980's, he decided that he didn't want to spend his time in the public arena, and stick to doing science. For 15 years after his testimony in the late 1980's he would refer them to scientists - Steve Schneider and Michael Oppenheimer- who enjoyed the process. He had his first grandchild around 1998-2000, and he realized that there was a gap in knowledge between scientists and the public. He decided to spend one public talk which he spent 6 months preparing in 2004 at University of Iowa.
• The Science: by adding greenhouse gases to the atmosphere we reduce the thermal radiation to space, and we are causing the planet out of energy balance. We aren't too sure exactly how far it is out of balance because in addition to greenhouse gases there are also particles we add to the atmosphere and these particles reflect sunlight (that has a cooling effect). Although greenhouse gases have a forcing of 3 Watts/ square meter, but then there is a reduction by the cooling effect of the aerosols. So the net forcing is about 1-2 Watts/ square meter. The atmosphere has a very small heat capacity and the conductivity of the ground is low, so only the upper few tens of meter changes temperature as the planet gets warmer. But most of the energy is going into the ocean- the ocean is gaining energy at the rate we expect. The climate has already increased 0.8 degree Celsius, close to the maximum level of the Holocene. If we want to stabilize this at that level we would have to decrease the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere to less than 350 ppm and that means we cannot burn all of the fossil fuels- need to phase out coal and leave the unconventional (tar sands) in the ground. 
• Recent developments - the US government signed an agreement with Canada for a pipeline to carry tar sands oil from Alberta to Texas refineries. So there is a gap between rhetoric and reality, something called "greenwashing."
• James' 3-Part Solution: As long as fossil fuels are the cheapest energy, we will keep burning them- so we must put a gradually increasing price on carbon emissions. Our governments are forcing the public to subsidize the fossil fuel industry by $400-500 billion/yr (thus encouraging mountaintop removal, long wall mining, arctic ocean, deep water drilling). Fossil fuels don't pay the damage to human health, environment, or future that coming generations will inherit. His 3 part solution: (1) Escalating fee on CO2 collected from fossil fuel companies (2) 100% of money distributed equally to every American  (government gets nothing) (3) Most people receive more than they pay in higher fuel costs. 
• The Future: China is making initial steps to encourage development of clean energies- number one in the production of solar power, wind power equipment and building 24 nuclear power plants. These carbon free energies are essential if they are complemented by a rising price on carbon emissions. On the flip side, Norway is very sensitive, but they are developing the tar sands in Canada via companies like StatOil. Take advantage of the legal approach and equal protection of the laws. In a similar way to the civil rights of minorities, should also consider the equal protection of the law for young people? 

Visit Professor Hansen's Columbia University website on Storms of My Grandchildren, for graphs, data, and statistics related to climate change!

Listen to James's Ted Talk about the science and debate of climate change in 2012!

Listen to Dr. Hansen give the keynote address (Part 1/ Part 2) at the 2010 Climate Dialogue!