More confirmation of climate disruption and the urgency that's called for

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) issued its latest report this week on the state of climate change and it's not pretty.

Here are but a few tidbits of the bad news in the report (with my editorial comments):

• Human influence on the climate is clear and recent emissions are the highest in history. (Not surprising, but still news to some people, apparently.)
• The warming of the climate system is clear and, since the 1950’s, many of the observed changes are unprecedented.
• Each of the last three decades have been successively warmer than any decade before them going back to 1850.
• In the Northern Hemisphere, the last 30 years is likely the warmest 30-year period of the past 1,400 years.
• From 1880 to 2012, the earth has warmed .85 degrees C.
• More than 90 percent of the energy stored in the climate system from 1971 to 2010 is in the form of ocean warming; only one percent is stored in the atmosphere. (Uh-oh.)
• The upper ocean -- the top 75 meters -- has warmed by .11 degrees C per decade since 1971, offering an explanation for the so-called slowdown in atmospheric warming.  (Are you listening, climate deniers?)

Note: The report issued this week is the third part -- the "synthesis" report -- of the fifth IPCC  report issued over the years. Confused? This might help. Want to read the report for yourself? Here's the 100+ page version  and here's the 40-page summary for policy makers.

All this new bad news just reinforces what readers of PennFuture's blogs likely already know: The climate is in crisis so we must act now at all levels of government to limit carbon emissions.

Joy Bergey is PennFuture's federal policy director. She's based in Philadelphia and tweets @JoyBergey.

Time to move way beyond "business as usual"

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released another important set of policy recommendations in Berlin this week. In light of the fact that heat-trapping emissions grew more quickly in the first decade of this century than in any of the three previous decades, we are reminded again that "business as usual" in the energy world isn't leading to a more stable climate.

Scientists have been telling us for years that to avoid dramatic disruptions in climate, the world needs to limit global warming to no more than two degrees Celsius (about 3.5 degrees Fahrenheit).

But we have collectively waited so long to start making serious cuts to emissions that the pressure is very much on: To stay within the "safe" levels of warming, we must lower greenhouse gas emissions by 40 to 70 percent by mid-century (with 2010 levels as the base point), and to near zero by the end of the century. Whoa!

The IPCC remains confident we can achieve these cuts, although the longer we wait, the more expensive it will be for all of us.

The report calls for policies that we at PennFuture have been recommending for years, recognizing that using less energy is as important as using clean energy. PennFuture played a keep role in enacting Pennsylvania's energy efficiency standard (Act 129) in 2008, and has been recommending to Harrisburg policymakers since then that we increase efficiency standards.

Although Pennsylvania's population isn't expected to change significantly in the decades ahead, global population seems likely to increase greatly, with billions of people simultaneously wanting to increase their standard of living -- both factors leading to potentially huge increases in energy demand. So, energy efficiency at the global level becomes ever more important.

As Youba Sokona (co-chair of the IPCC Working Group that released the report this week) points out, "The core task of climate change mitigation is decoupling greenhouse gas emissions from the growth of economies and population."

Take a look at PennFuture's new Clean Energy Wins report that offers a roadmap for how state government can grow Pennsylvania's economy while shrinking its carbon footprint.

Joy Bergey is federal policy director for PennFuture and is based in Philadelphia.

Climate science facts: Global warming is no fiction

Climate Change: Evidence and Causes has just been published jointly by the U.S. National Academy of Sciences and the U.K.'s Royal Society. These two organizations are esteemed for their scientific and technical excellence, having similar missions to "promote the use of science to benefit society and inform critical debates" in their respective countries.

This report, written in accessible language and not scientific jargon, presents an excellent synthesis of current science, laying out clearly what is settled science at this point about climate, and what areas can't yet be fully predicted in detail. The authors avoid politics and any discussions of what should or shouldn't be done. "Just the facts,  ma'am." The scientific facts, fortunately.

Some settled facts: Climate is warming globally, on average 1.4 degrees (F) since 1900, with much of the warming since 1970. Sea ice is decreasing. Ocean temps and sea level are rising. This is all beyond argument.

More facts: Sun spots are not responsible for overall warming. Human activity is responsible for overall warming. However, natural phenomena like El Niño can show some slight, short-term warming. But these phenomena don't influence the decades-long warming trends we're now seeing.

The report is written in Q&A format and is easily browsable, with helpful graphics. Question 5, for example, discusses the fact that temperature change patterns are different in the upper and lower atmosphere. If human activity were not influencing global climate, science tells us that the sun would warm upper and lower atmospheres equally. But we're overwhelmingly seeing warming only in the lower atmosphere -- a human fingerprint predicted by climate models. The report mentions a couple of regional anomalies in the data, but not nearly enough to topple the models.

Some other sections I found interesting:

Q9 discusses why the rates of warming vary from decade to decade and place to place, but that this finding  doesn't contrast fundamentally with the fact that the overall climate is rising.

Q12 discusses why we're observing different patterns of sea ice changes in the Arctic versus the Antarctic. Briefly, the Arctic sea ice is steadily shrinking, while Antarctic sea ice is increasing slightly, with some localized shrinking. The authors ascribe these patterns to differences in nearby land masses and how sea winds affect the two poles, among other factors -- not as a refutation of the reality of global warming.

One of the reviewers of the report is Penn State's own Prof. Richard Alley. We at PennFuture give a big shout-out to Richard for his ongoing excellent science and leadership on the issue of climate change.

I suggest you take a look at this new report. Lots of good stuff here, and well worth your time.

Joy Bergey is federal policy director for PennFuture and is based in Philadelphia.

Welcome back, Climate Digest fans.

We're back talking climate news that's good, bad -- and even entertaining. Like our other e-publications, A Climate for Change has joined the blogosphere - and we want to know what you think. You've sent us emails and questions which we always appreciate -- now you can talk back in the climate conversation.

Have you used the latest NWF report on warming and wildlife for reference for a class or community group? Or maybe you're an angler/hunter who notices the changes in our wild natives of the Pennsylvania woods. Tell us about it -- and we'll share your Pa. stories of the climate crisis when we advocate at the State Capitol and on Capitol Hill like we did this past month.

Are you powering your home with sun, wind or the geothermal power beneath our feet? Share your inspirational photos from all corners of Penns' Woods and tell your stories: in your comments here or on our Facebook page.

You can still find all the past issues you need right on our Climate for Change email archive. We love to find the unusual from around the web, because we all need inspiration. The slide show on sustainable Hobbit houses in this 2012 issue got a lot of clicks. Since most Hobbits don't use the internet, we'll leave it to you, our human readers to tell us what you think -- and what we can all do together to confront the crisis of our age.

Happy May to readers new and old -- and welcome to the climate conversation here at PennFuture.