Father of climate change: 2C limit is not enough

San Francisco, December 8 2011 - (The Independent) - Talks to limit global temperature rises to 2C will not prevent the possibility of dangerous climate change, warns the scientist who first raised the alarm over global warming.
James Hansen, director of Nasa's Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York, said there was a widespread misconception among international climate negotiators meeting in Durban, South Africa, that the 2C "safe" target would stop extreme changes.
He believes carbon dioxide concentrations – now at nearly 389 parts per million (ppm) – should be no higher than 350ppm to stop catastrophic events such as the melting of ice sheets, dramatic sea level rises and methane being released from beneath the permafrost.
> www.independent.co.uk: Father of climate change: 2C limit is not enough (Dec 08 2010)
> www.terradaily.com: Paleoclimate Record Points Toward Potential Rapid Climate Changes (Dec 08 2010)

Amid Cheers, NASA Chief Is Arrested at Oil Sands Pipeline Protests

Washington, August 30 2011 - James Hansen, the 70-year-old renowned climate scientist, was the 112th of 140 arrested on day 10 of the Keystone XL pipeline sit-ins.
> solveclimatenews.com: Amid Cheers, NASA Chief Is Arrested at Oil Sands Pipeline Protests

Paleoclimate Implications for Human-Made Climate Change

New York, July 8 2011 - (by James E. Hansen and Makiko Sato) - Paleoclimate data help us assess climate sensitivity and potential human-made climate effects. We conclude that Earth in the warmest interglacial periods of the past million years was less than 1°C warmer than in the Holocene.
Polar warmth in these interglacials and in the Pliocene does not imply that a substantial cushion remains between today's climate and dangerous warming, but rather that Earth is poised to experience strong amplifying polar feedbacks in response to moderate global warming.
Thus goals to limit human-made warming to 2°C are not sufficient – they are prescriptions for disaster.
Ice sheet disintegration is nonlinear, spurred by amplifying feedbacks. We suggest that ice sheet mass loss, if warming continues unabated, will be characterized better by a doubling time for mass loss rate than by a linear trend. Satellite gravity data, though too brief to be conclusive, are consistent with a doubling time of 10 years or less, implying the possibility of multi-meter sea level rise this century.
Observed accelerating ice sheet mass loss supports our conclusion that Earth's temperature now exceeds the mean Holocene value. Rapid reduction of fossil fuel emissions is required for humanity to succeed in preserving a planet resembling the one on which civilization developed.
> www.skepticalscience.com: Earth's Climate History: Implications for Tomorrow (Summary)
> www.giss.nasa.gov: Earth's Climate History: Implications for Tomorrow (Summary)
> arxiv.org: Paleoclimate Implications for Human-Made Climate Change
> Paleoclimate Implications for Human-Made Climate Change (Concept)
> Sea Level Rise: Is Sea-Level Rise Accelerating? (Jul 25)

Copenhagen climate change talks must fail, says top scientist

New York, December 3 2009 - The scientist who convinced the world to take notice of the looming danger of global warming says it would be better for the planet and for future generations if next week's Copenhagen climate change summit ended in collapse.
In an interview with the Guardian, James Hansen, the world's pre-eminent climate scientist, said any agreement likely to emerge from the negotiations would be so deeply flawed that it would be better to start again from scratch.
"I would rather it not happen if people accept that as being the right track because it's a disaster track," said Hansen, who heads the Nasa Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York.
> www.guardian.co.uk: Copenhagen climate change talks must fail, says top scientist

Never-Give-Up Fighting Spirit: Lessons From a Grandchild

Washington, November 30 2009 - (by dr. James Hansen) - Is there any real hope of cutting global carbon emissions? Such negative questions and attitudes are increasing. How refreshing, on cold, windy Thanksgiving Plus One Day, which we spend with our children and grandchildren, when I went outside to shoot baskets with 5-year-old Connor. Connor is very bright, but needs work on his hand-to-eye coordination. I set the basket at a convenient height for him, but his first several shots banged off the backboard off-target. Then he said, very brightly and bravely, “I don’t quit, because I have never-give-up fighting spirit.” It seems his karate lessons are paying off.
> climate.the-environmentalist.org: EU hails US, Chinese climate pledges, calls for more
> www.columbia.edu / Global Warming Time Bomb: Actions Needed to Avert Disaster (presentation Club of Rome in Amsterdam Nov 2009)

The eye of the storm
New York, November 26 2009 - James Hansen, arguably the world's most famous climate scientist, is prone to shouting from the rooftops. The director of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York, Hansen has, in recent years, become better known for his climate activism than his scientific research. Last July, he said on his website that "the global climate is near tipping points" and that the consequences would "be irreversible — if we do not promptly slow fossil fuel emissions during the next few decades".
> www.nature.com: The eye of the storm / Outspoken climate scientist James Hansen has just completed his first book
> www.stormsofmygrandchildren.com/

The Economic Case for Slashing Carbon Emissions
Yale University / New Hacen, October 21, 2009 - The climate change news from Washington is cautiously encouraging. No one in power is listening to the climate skeptics any more; the economic stimulus package included real money for clean energy; a bill capping U.S. carbon emissions emerged, battered but still standing, from the House of Representatives, and might even survive the Senate. This, along with stricter emission standards in Europe and a big push for clean energy and efficiency standards in China, provides grounds for hope for genuine progress on emissions reduction. But while climate policy is finally moving forward, climate science is moving faster.
> www.reuters.com: The Economic Case for Slashing Carbon Emissions

Is 350 the New 450 When It Comes to Capping Carbon Emissions?

New York, September 28, 2009 - Nearly 200 countries have signed a U.N. treaty pledging to avoid "dangerous" climate change. But lately, it seems, "dangerous" is lost in translation. Fifteen years since that agreement took effect, scientists and governments are still grappling with what carrying out its promise means.
For the European Union, it means limiting Earth's warming to just 2 degrees Celsius hotter by the end of this century than it was before the Industrial Revolution. That's a goal many experts believe is roughly equivalent to capping atmospheric carbon dioxide at 450 parts per million. But a growing number of countries -- mostly vulnerable ones and small island nations like the Maldives -- say that won't prevent rising sea levels from swamping their coasts.
They're calling for an even stricter standard: 350 parts per million, a number endorsed by NASA climatologist James Hansen.
> www.nytimes.com: Is 350 the New 450 When It Comes to Capping Carbon Emissions?

Top U.N. climate scientist backs big CO2 cuts, 350-ppm goal

Paris, August 25 / 26 2009 - Barely 100 days before the world hopes to seal a global climate treaty, the U.N.‘s top climate scientist has given his personal endorsement to hugely ambitious goals for slashing emissions.
“As chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change [IPCC], I cannot take a position because we do not make recommendations,” said Rajendra Pachauri when asked if he supported calls to keep atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations below 350 parts per million (ppm).
“But as a human being I am fully supportive of that goal. What is happening, and what is likely to happen, convinces me that the world must be really ambitious and very determined at moving toward a 350 target,” he told AFP in an interview.
www.guardian.co.uk: Pachauri's call for 350ppm is breakthrough moment for climate movement (26-08)
> www.terradaily.com: Top UN climate scientist backs ambitious CO2 cuts
> www.grist.org / AFP: Top U.N. climate scientist backs big CO2 cuts, 350-ppm goal
> www.grist.org: Pachauri’s call for 350 ppm is breakthrough moment for climate movement
> climateprogress.org / Bill McKibben 350.org: Today may have been the biggest breakthrough of all: Rajendra Pachauri, head of the IPCC, said clearly and unequivocally that 350 is the number

Nasa climate scientist: 'Democratic process isn't working' to curb emissions
London, March 18, 2009 - Protest and direct action could be the only way to tackle soaring carbon emissions, a leading climate scientist has said.
James Hansen, a climate modeller with Nasa, told the Guardian today that corporate lobbying has undermined democratic attempts to curb carbon pollution. "The democratic process doesn't quite seem to be working," he said.
Speaking on the eve of joining a protest against the headquarters of power firm E.ON in Coventry, Hansen said: "The first action that people should take is to use the democratic process. What is frustrating people, me included, is that democratic action affects elections but what we get then from political leaders is greenwash.
www.guardian.co.uk: Nasa climate scientist: 'democratic process isn't working' to curb emissions

President 'has four years to save Earth'
London, January 18, 2009 - Barack Obama has only four years to save the world. That is the stark assessment of Nasa scientist and leading climate expert Jim Hansen who last week warned only urgent action by the new president could halt the devastating climate change that now threatens Earth. Crucially, that action will have to be taken within Obama's first administration, he added.
www.guardian.co.uk: President 'has four years to save Earth'

Hansen: 'We have only four years left to act on climate change - America has to lead'
Washington, January 18 2009 - Jim Hansen is the 'grandfather of climate change' and one of the world's leading climatologists. In this rare interview in New York, he explains why President Obama's administration is the last chance to avoid flooded cities, species extinction and climate catastrophe.
www.guardian.co.uk: 'We have only four years left to act on climate change - America has to lead'

Dear Barack and Michelle...
Washington, January 3 2009 - An open letter to the president-elect and first lady, the nation's top climate scientist Jim Hansen and his wife express their concern "as fellow parents ( - ) about the Earth that will be inherited by our children, grandchildren, and those yet to be born."
gristmill.grist.org: Dear Barack and Michelle...
NASA-klimaatman James Hansen: moratorium voor steenkool, nú (Page in Dutch)

Hansen et allies: Carbon dioxide levels already a danger
London, England November 27 2008 - A team of international scientists led by Dr James Hansen, director of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies, say that carbon dioxide (CO2) levels are already in the danger zone.
Concentrations of CO2 in the atmosphere currently stand at 385 parts per million (ppm) and are rising at a rate of two ppm per year. This is enough, say the scientists, to encourage dangerous changes to the Earth's climate.
edition.cnn.com: Hansen: Carbon dioxide levels already a danger
www.sciam.com / Hansen: Global Warming Beyond the Tipping Point (October 2008)
Scientific Background: Revised Theory Suggests Carbon Dioxide Levels Already in danger zone (Nov 7)
Hansen: Earth climate near tipping point (June 25)
Greenhouse Gas Increase Highest Since 1998 / Hansen: Climate target not radical enough (April 7 2008)
James Hansen: Earth's Temperature Tracker (Nov 5 2007)
The 1981 predictions of the impact of carbon dioxide emissions (May 15 2007)
The 1981 predictions of the impact of carbon dioxide emissions (1981)

Revised Theory Suggests Carbon Dioxide Levels Already in danger zone

Atmospheric CO2 if coal emissions are phased out linearly between 2010 and 2030, calculated using a version of the Bern carbon cycle model.

London, November 7, 2008 - If climate disasters are to be averted, atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) must be reduced below the levels that already exist today, according to a study published in Open Atmospheric Science Journal by a group of 10 scientists from the United States, the United Kingdom and France.
The authors, who include two Yale scientists, assert that to maintain a planet similar to that on which civilization developed, an optimum CO2 level would be less than 350 ppm — a dramatic change from most previous studies, which suggested a danger level for CO2 is likely to be 450 ppm or higher. Atmospheric CO2 is currently 385 parts per million (ppm) and is increasing by about 2 ppm each year from the burning of fossil fuels (coal, oil, and gas) and from the burning of forests.
www.physorg.com: Revised Theory Suggests Carbon Dioxide Levels Already in Danger Zone
www.eurekalert.org: World needs climate emergency backup plan, says expert
www.planetark.com: EU Global Warming Limit May Not Be Possible
www.newscientist.com: Energy Agency warns of 6 °C rise in temperatures
Hansen: Earth climate near tipping point (June 25)
Greenhouse Gas Increase Highest Since 1998 / Hansen: Climate target not radical enough (April 7)

Special Report: Endless Summer—Living With the Greenhouse Effect

October 2008 - Exactly 20 years ago, on June 23, 1988, James Hansen of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies testified before a Senate committee that he could state with "99 percent confidence" that a recent, persistent rise in global temperature was occurring, and had long been expected. That landmark statement, and the dawn of the global warming discussion, was covered by Andy Revkin, then a DISCOVER senior editor and now an environmental reporter for The New York Times.
Here we republish Revkin's groundbreaking 1988 article that helped begin to raise awareness of the issue. DISCOVER's science and politics blog, Reality Base, also has an interview with Revkin about what's happened with regard to global warming over the past 20 years.
> discovermagazine.com: Endless Summer—Living With the Greenhouse Effect (October 1988)
> blogs.discovermagazine.com: 20 Years Later, Andy Revkin Responds to Groundbreaking Global Warming Story (October 2008)
> Hansen et al.: "Greater than average warming in the southeastern United States and much of Europe"

NASA's latest analysis shouldn't cheer anyone
Seatle, September 11, 2008 - NASA's latest analysis of the intersection of peak oil and climate change argues that oil and natural gas alone probably won't get us to 450ppm. If we can constrain our use of coal fairly quickly, we probably can avoid the worst outcomes -- unless of course, the impact of reduced global dimming or methane from melting permafrost gets us. Still, it all sounds rather hopeful.
gristmill.grist.org: NASA's latest analysis shouldn't cheer anyone
www.eurekalert.org: NASA Study Illustrates How Global Peak Oil Could Impact Climate
www.nasa.gov: NASA Study Illustrates How Global Peak Oil Could Impact Climate

Climate change targets: 350 ppm and the EU two-degree target
Copenhagen, 23 June 2008 - The 350 ppm CO2 target is the focus of an international campaign announced today in several media by the Tällberg Forum. This is the follow-up to the objective proposed by the NASA Chief Scientist James Hansen and his colleagues to limit the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere to 350 ppm (parts per million). The goal is to avoid global climate change with potentially very large and irreversible effects on human society and the natural environment.
http://www.eea.europa.eu: Climate change targets: 350 ppm and the EU two-degree target

Earth Near Tipping Point, Climatologist Warns

James Hansen: We have the earth in our hands

Washington, June 23 2008 - James Hansen returned to Capitol Hill a hero yesterday, but certainly not a conquering hero.
The soft-spoken scientist, hailed as the "whistle-blower for the planet," tried to quiet a standing ovation from environmentalists here with a typically blunt admonition.
"It is not a time to celebrate," said Hansen, 20 years to the day since he became the first leading scientist to warn of the dangers of global warming before a congressional committee.
www.enn.com: Earth Near Tipping Point, Climatologist Warns
www.planetark.com: US Scientist Urges Carbon Tax to Help Climate

Years Later, Climatologist Renews His Call for Action
New York, June 23, 2008 - Twenty years ago Monday, James E. Hansen, a climate scientist at NASA, shook Washington and the world by telling a sweating crowd at a Senate hearing during a stifling heat wave that he was “99 percent” certain that humans were already warming the climate.
www.nytimes.com: Years Later, Climatologist Renews His Call for Action

NASA’s Hansen: Humans Still Loading Climate Dice

James HansenJames Hansen used cardboard dice in 1988 to explain how humans were tipping the odds toward climate troubles. He still has the props. (Credit: Oscar Hidalgo for The New York Times)

June 23, 2008 - Twenty years ago today, James E. Hansen testified before the Senate Energy Committee — in a room kept intentionally warm by committee staff — that the atmospheric buildup of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases from burning fossil fuels and forests was already perceptibly influencing Earth’s climate.
www.nytimes.com: NASA’s Hansen: Humans Still Loading Climate Dice

NASA internal investigation finds press-office climate distortion
Washington DC (US) June 3 2008 - (by Grist) - An investigation by NASA's inspector general has found that the agency's press office repeatedly distorted climate-change research findings and limited its scientists' access to the media between 2004 and 2006.
NASA scientist James Hansen first spoke out about the press-office distortion to major news outlets two years ago, leading the agency to eventually alter its press policy.
Before the change, however, NASA's press office "managed the topic of climate change in a manner that reduced, marginalized, or mischaracterized climate change science made available to the general public," the IG's report said.
The report also found that "news releases in the areas of climate change suffered from inaccuracy, factual insufficiency, and scientific dilution." In one instance, press office folks canceled a press conference on a mission monitoring ozone pollution and climate change because it was too close to the 2004 presidential election. The report also said that the climate-info tinkering appeared to be limited to the agency's press office and likely wasn't linked to the agency's top officials or the White House.
www.grist.org: An interview with renowned climate scientist James Hansen
www.grist.org: Top NASA climate scientist says he's being censored by Bush admin
www.washingtonpost.com: Climate Findings Were Distorted, Probe Finds
www.nytimes.com: NASA Office Is Criticized on Climate Reports
ap.google.com: NASA's own watchdog: Agency misled on global warming

Climate target is not radical enough
London, April 7, 2008 - One of the world's leading climate scientists warns today that the EU and its international partners must urgently rethink targets for cutting carbon dioxide in the atmosphere because of fears they have grossly underestimated the scale of the problem.
In a startling reappraisal of the threat, James Hansen, head of the Nasa Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York, calls for a sharp reduction in C02 limits.
Hansen says the EU target of 550 parts per million of C02 - the most stringent in the world - should be slashed to 350ppm. He argues the cut is needed if "humanity wishes to preserve a planet similar to that on which civilisation developed". A final version of the paper Hansen co-authored with eight other climate scientists, is posted today on the Archive website.
Instead of using theoretical models to estimate the sensitivity of the climate, his team turned to evidence from the Earth's history, which they say gives a much more accurate picture.
www.guardian.co.uk: Climate target is not radical enough
www.realclimate.org: Target CO2

Greenhouse Gas Increase from U.S. Power Plants Highest Since 1998

Washington, March 18 2008 - Carbon dioxide emissions from U.S. power plants rose 2.9 percent from 2006 to 2007, according to data analysis by the Environmental Integrity Project. That's the largest annual increase in nine years, and it outpaced demand for electricity, according to the report.
The impact will last well beyond a year, warns EIP Director Eric Schaeffer: "Because CO2 has an atmospheric lifetime of between 50 and 200 years, today's emissions could cause global warming for up to two centuries to come."
If that's not depressing enough, try this on for size: Nine scientists, including ubiquitous NASA climate guru James Hansen, have written a draft paper saying that the globe has already passed the safe point for atmospheric CO2 concentration, and we should rapidly reduce emissions to approximately 1988 levels. Which is easier said than done.
www.environmentalintegrity.org: Greenhouse Gas Increase from U.S. Power Plants Highest Since 1998
www.grist.org: An interview with renowned climate scientist James Hansen
www.iop.org / Jim Hansen: Scientific reticence and sea level rise
dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com / Jim Hansen: Back to 1988 on CO2
www.washingtonpost.com / Jim Hansen: Remember This: 350 Parts Per Million
www.giss.nasa.gov: Research Finds That Earth's Climate is Approaching 'Dangerous' Point (May 30 2007)

James Hansen: Earth's Temperature Tracker
Washington, November 5 2007 - NASA scientist James Hansen has tracked Earth's temperature for decades, and he is confident the global warming trend of 0.9 degrees Celsius observed since 1880 is mainly the result of human-produced greenhouse gases.
earthobservatory.nasa.gov: Earth's Temperature Tracker
Hansen’s 1988 projections

Hansen’s 1988 projections
Washington / London, May 15 2007 - At Jim Hansen's now famous congressional testimony given in the hot summer of 1988, he showed GISS model projections of continued global warming assuming further increases in human produced greenhouse gases. This was one of the earliest transient climate model experiments and so rightly gets a fair bit of attention when the reliability of model projections are discussed. There have however been an awful lot of mis-statements over the years - some based on pure dishonesty, some based on simple confusion. Hansen himself (and, for full disclosure, my boss), revisited those simulations in a paper last year, where he showed a rather impressive match between the recently observed data and the model projections. But how impressive is this really? and what can be concluded from the subsequent years of observations?
www.realclimate.org: Hansen’s 1988 projections
The 1988 predictions of the impact of carbon dioxide emissions

The Tipping Point?
December 6, 2005 - (by Jim Hansen) - The Earth's climate is nearing, but has not passed, a tipping point beyond which it will be impossible to avoid climate change with far-ranging undesirable consequences. These include not only the loss of the Arctic as we know it, with all that implies for wildlife and indigenous peoples, but losses on a much vaster scale due to rising seas.
Ocean levels will increase slowly at first, as losses at the fringes of Greenland and Antarctica due to accelerating ice streams are nearly balanced by increased snowfall and ice sheet thickening in the ice sheet interiors.
But as Greenland and West Antarctic ice is softened and lubricated by meltwater, and as buttressing ice shelves disappear because of a warming ocean, the balance will tip toward the rapid disintegration of ice sheets.
The Earth's history suggests that with warming of two to three degrees, the new sea level will include not only most of the ice from Greenland and West Antarctica, but a portion of East Antarctica, raising the sea level by twenty-five meters, or eighty feet. Within a century, coastal dwellers will be faced with irregular flooding associated with storms. They will have to continually rebuild above a transient water level.
This grim scenario can be halted if the growth of greenhouse gas emissions is slowed in the first quarter of this century.
(From a presentation to the American Geophysical Union, December 6, 2005)

Hansen et al.: "Greater than average warming in the southeastern United States and much of Europe"

Washington, 1988 - (....) Pricipal results from the experiments are as follows:
(1) Global warming to the level attained at the peak of the current interglacial and the previous interglacial occurs in all three scenarios (see full abstract); however, there are dramatic differences in the levels of future warming, depending on trace gas growth.
(2) The greenhouse warming should be clearly identifiable in the 1990s; the global warming within the next several years is predicted to reach and maintain a level at least three standard deviations above the climatology of the 1950s.
(3) Regions where an unambiguous warming appears earliest are low-latitude oceans, China and interior areas in Asia, and ocean areas near Antarctica and the north pole; aspects of the spatial and temporal distribution of predicted warming are clearly model-dependent, implying the possibility of model discrimination by the 1990s and thus improved predictions, if appropriate observations are acquired.
(4) The temperature changes are sufficiently large to have major impacts on people and other parts of the biosphere, as shown by computed changes in the frequency of extreme events and comparison with previous climate trends.
(5) The model results suggest that some near-term regional climate variations, despite the fixed ocean heat transport which suppresses many possible regional climate fluctuation; for example, during the late 1980s and the 1990s there is a tendency for greater than average warming in the southeastern United States and much of Europe.
(.....)
pubs.giss.nasa.gov / Hansen et al. 1988: Global climate changes as forecast by Goddard Institute for Space Studies three-dimensional mode
nytimes.com: Global Warming Has Begun, Expert Tells Senate (June 24 1988)
Jim Hansen's 1988 testimony before the US Congress
The 1981 predictions of the impact of carbon dioxide emissions

The 1981 predictions of the impact of carbon dioxide emissions

In 1981, NASA scientists predicted the impact of carbon dioxide emissions on global temperatures between 1950 and 2100 based on different scenarios for energy growth rates and energy source.
If energy use stayed constant at 1980 levels (scenario 3, bottom lines), temperatures were predicted to rise just over 1°C.
If energy use grew moderately (scenario 2, middle lines), warming would be 1–2.5 °C.
Fast growth (scenario 1, top lines) would cause 3–4°C of warming.
In each scenario, the warming was predicted to be less if some of the energy was supplied by non-fossil (renewable) fuels instead of coal-based, synthetic fuels (synfuels).
earthobservatory.nasa.gov: Graph from Hansen et al., 1981, page 9

See also: History of the Greenhouseeffect