Global Monsoon Dynamics And Climate Change: A Scientific Perspective

The Scientific Consensus on Anthropogenic Climate Change

Discuss About The Global Monsoon Dynamics Climate Change.

The refusal of many of the libertarians and conservatives for confronting the reality of the subject of climate change has been one of the most repeated subjects of many of the researches since many years. There are many studies that are published in the peer reviewed scientific journal that have shown that about 97% of all the actively publishing climate scientists are agreeing to the point that the climate-warming trends in the last one century are likely to be the results of human activities. In addition to this, most of the major scientific organisations all around the world have issued various public statement supporting this positions. However, in this paper I am going to elaborate on my view by reflecting on some of the general questions relating them with relevant evidences. I shall be discussing on the view point of the scientific community about the anthropogenic climate change in the world. I shall also be shedding light on the current projections made by climate models as well as the science of climate system. This paper is also going to present a brief description about the planet’s climatic sensitivity as well as the global mean temperatures and their variations with the increase in atmospheric greenhouse gas concentration. Furthermore, this paper is also going to provide several evidences for the impacts of the physical and ecological changes on the biosphere in recent days.

Do you feel there is a general consensus in the scientific community about anthropogenic climate change? – To start with the view point of the scientist’s community on the human made climate change; yes I feel that there is a general consensus in the scientific community about the anthropogenic climate change. The scientists all over the world agrees with this fact that the global warming is really happening and that the human activities are causing it. Recently, I have gone through the very recent article by Dunlap and other authors and have come to the conclusion that based on exactly how one measure the expert scientific consensus, it is somewhere in between 90 to 100 percent of the scientists of climatic change that agrees to the point that human being are solely responsible for the change in climate, with most of the studies have found out that about 97% of consensus among the publishing climate scientists (Dunlap, McCright & Yarosh, 2016). But the thing is what about the remaining 3% of the consensus? What if they are right? I found out the answer to my question when I reviewed the paper published in the year 2015, The Theoretical and Applied Climatology (Benestad et al., 2016). In this paper, Rasmus Benestad and his colleagues have examined the remaining three percent and found out that there were a number of methodological flaws as well as many patterns of common mistakes. They found out that instead of the 3% of the papers converging to a better explanation to their thoughts than the ones that were supplied by the other 97%, they had not succeeded to converge to anything. Furthermore, as according to the research done by the American Chemical Society, the climate of our earth is changing as because of the increasing concentrations or amount of the greenhouse gases as well as the particulate matters in the earth’s atmosphere, which are largely the results of the human activities. The unmitigated change in climate would lead further lead to the increase in the much extreme weather conditions and events and would also result in the rise of sea level, causing damage in property as well as population displacements. I think this would also continue to degrade the ecosystems and the natural resources present in our earth, by affecting the availability of water and food and our health. Chakraborty (2017) in this context has also stated that the unmitigated climatic change is indeed the result of human activities and would burden the societies and economies of the upcoming world. Furthermore, it is a known fact that it is the human beings who are solely responsible for the emission of more number of greenhouse gases in the earth’s atmosphere and they are indirectly accelerating and compounding the risks and impacts of the change in earth’s climate well into the future.

Current Projections by Climate Models

Do you think the current projections made by climate models (eg IPCC, CMIP5) contribute to a consilience? – Yes, I think that the current projections made by the climate models are contributing to a consilience. I believe this fact  as because, according to the IPCC 5^th Assessment Report (AR5), which is written by a group of hundreds of scientists as well as scientific experts belonging from the member countries of the United Nations Environmental Programme, the World Meteorological Organisations along with the team of external reviewers, – The influence of human beings on the climatic system is clear and the very recent human caused emissions of the green-house gases are the highest in the human history. The report also states unambiguously that the warming up of the climate system in recent era is unequivocal and ever since the 1950sm there are many changes that have been observed to be unprecedented over the decades to the millennia (Pachauri et al., 2014).

Can the science of the climate system ever be settled? – I think, yes. I know that from a philosophical perspective, science never does prove anything like the ways the formal logical systems or the mathematics prove things. This is because of the fact that science is basically based on several different observations and more or less every scientific theory is subjected to overturned or refined by the new observations done my the other scientists. However, I think it must also be noted that scientific uncertainties are not always the same. There are some scientific theories and conclusions that have been so minutely and rigorously tested and examined and are supported by many independent observations that the possibility of theirs of beings found to be incorrect is invisibly very small. Those theories and conclusions are then considered to be settled facts and such is the case of conclusions drawn about the Earth’s climate system. It is indeed warming and much of its warming is because of our activities. Our activities are influencing our climate and I can find multiple evidences for this fact. The burning of the fossil fuels, deforestations, production of the lime for making cements etc. are some of the human activities that are greatly influencing our mother nature (Lane, 2016).

What do scientists know about the planet’s climate sensitivity? The scientists have presented a narrower estimation of the climate sensitivity, which is regarded as the measure of how much amount of the climate potentially warm up in response to the emission or the release of the greenhouse gases in the earth’s atmosphere. The IPCC report has estimated that the climate sensitivity has a range of about 1.5 to 4.5 C. It is to mention that the change in surface temperature is directly proportional to the radioactive forcing and the sensitivity, notwithstanding of the source of energy imbalance. Lewis & Curry (2015) in this context have stated that the climate sensitivity to several different radioactive forcing changes based on the effectiveness of the forcing. However, as according to Visser et al. (2018), the instrumental or the empirical approach studies has assumed that the global mean temperature response to all the forcing are equal. Also according to Zhisheng et al. (2015), forcing in the NHextratropics [above 30° latitude] results in greater global mean temperature response than the forcing in the tropics.

The Planet’s Climatic Sensitivity: Understanding its Impact

How does uncertainty in the CC model projections influence your view about consilience? – I found that the Carbon cycle uncertainties that are linked with the Intergovernmental Panel on the subject of Climate Change (CC) temperature-change projections were treated differently in between the 4^th and 5^th Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Assessment Reports as because the latter is focused on the concentration, instead of the emission-driven experiments (Wieder et al., 2015). Most of the AR5 projections were based on concentration rather than on emission results and this is making it difficult to identify how large the spread in uncertainties would have been if emission-driven scenarios were used as well as the CC uncertainties also accounted for (Bhattarai, 2017). Depending on earlier studies, I would expect the CC feedbacks to lead to much wider range of future feedbacks, and hence, uncertainties in the CC model projections than the ones due to the climate sensitivity alone. It is partly as the majority of complex climate models are atmosphere–ocean general circulation models (AOGCMs) and not Earth system models (ESMs), hence do not comprise the carbon cycle (Friedlingstein et al., 2014). They therefore need to be supplied with carbon dioxide concentrations. After assessing the difference in between the two IPCC reports, I cannot now strongly argue over this point as because human has this nature of getting confused when he finds some uncertainties.

What does the science say about impacts the biosphere is currently experiencing – from physical to ecological? – In this context, science says that the effects of the human-caused change in climate are already been notable and significant from the polar regions to our backyards to the communities all around the globe. The result of the climate change would influence our biosphere on many of the levels right from the coral bleaching, to the extinction of the species. According to Bhattarai (2017), I found that he describes on the fact that how is human infrastructure threatened by this changed and changing climate of the earth like for example, the encroachment of the coastlines, the shifting structures because of the melting permafrost and the stress to energy grid. It is also an evident on most of the journals and books that states that the warming climate is threatening the fresh water suppliers in the earth, the mountain snowpack and the hydropower, which prove to serve millions and millions of people all around the world. The change in the precipitation and climate patterns are influencing the food security and the agriculture worldwide. With the same, I also want you to note that the human populations and the species, which are already endangered in terms of the rise of sea level as well as food security are self-possessed for the greatest hardships. The migration of the refugees, the political unrest along with the global economic effects are all notable and significant outcomes.

The Impact on the Biosphere: From Physical to Ecological Changes

Are changes in the biosphere evidence of anthropogenic CC or just CC? – The changes in the biosphere evidence of human-cause climate change. I state this as because of the fact that in most of the studies, I found that the researchers are blaming the human activities to a great extent for the change in climate of the earth in recent era. They state that the activities like burning out of the fossil fuels, deforestations, production of the lime for making cements etc. are some of the human activities that are greatly influencing our mother nature. Gattuso and his colleagues in their book “Contrasting futures for ocean and society from different anthropogenic CO2 emissions scenarios” too have describes that over the last 20th century, the atmospheric concentrations of the key greenhouse gases have been increased because of the human activities (Gattuso et al., 2015). I feel that the warming up of the earth is related to the changes in the rainfall that has the potential to adversely influence the supply of the agriculture, water for the human beings. I think the Human beings, unlike any other species present in the earth have emerged as the global force that is potentially transforming the earth’s ecology.

Sceptics suggest that the climate effects we are experiencing are simply natural variability – is this a reasonable hypothesis? – After analysing the above discussion, I think the answer to this question is completely no. It is no longer a reasonable hypothesis as because of the fact that there is a common consensus in the scientific communities about the human cause climate change. The climate effects that we, the human are experiencing is mostly the result of our own negative activities that is impacting the climate of the earth and is ultimately influencing our own style of living. However, I found it also to be an evident that there is a correlation in between the rise in carbon-dioxide levels and the global surface temperatures and that suggestions that our earth is on one-way warming trend that is triggered by the human activities (Steffen, Crutzen & McNEill, 2016). The scientific studies by the pale-climatologists indeed have revealed the fact that the natural variability are caused by the changes in the volcanic eruptions and the sun which could greatly explain the deviations in the global temperature from the 1000 AD until the 1850 AD. After that, the best models need a human caused greenhouse impact. However, In spite of what might seem persuasive evidence, many of the scientists are nonetheless sceptical.

Hence, to conclude I can now state that climate change is indeed taking place and according to the rigorous scientific researches the greenhouse gases that are been emitted by the human activities worldwide are the key driver. I conclude this statement based on the multiple lines of evidence and the large body of peer reviewed science. The humans, unlike any other multicellular species in the history of the earth have been emerged as a global force which is changing or say, transforming the entire ecology of the entire planet earth.

References:

Benestad, R. E., Nuccitelli, D., Lewandowsky, S., Hayhoe, K., Hygen, H. O., van Dorland, R., & Cook, J. (2016). Learning from mistakes in climate research. Theoretical and Applied Climatology, 126(3-4), 699-703.

Bhattarai, U. (2017). Impacts of climate change on biodiversity and ecosystem services: direction for future research. Hydro Nepal: Journal of Water, Energy and Environment, 20, 41-48.

Chakrabarty, D. (2017). The politics of climate change is more than the politics of capitalism. Theory, Culture & Society, 34(2-3), 25-37.

Dunlap, R. E., McCright, A. M., & Yarosh, J. H. (2016). The political divide on climate change: Partisan polarization widens in the US. Environment: Science and Policy for Sustainable Development, 58(5), 4-23.

Friedlingstein, P., Meinshausen, M., Arora, V. K., Jones, C. D., Anav, A., Liddicoat, S. K., & Knutti, R. (2014). Uncertainties in CMIP5 climate projections due to carbon cycle feedbacks. Journal of Climate, 27(2), 511-526.

Gattuso, J. P., Magnan, A., Billé, R., Cheung, W. W., Howes, E. L., Joos, F., … & Hoegh-Guldberg, O. (2015). Contrasting futures for ocean and society from different anthropogenic CO2 emissions scenarios. Science, 349(6243), aac4722.

Lane, J. E. (2016). After the COP21 Agreement: Small Steps Towards a Global Catastrophe. Advances in Management and Applied Economics, 6(3), 119.

Lewis, N., & Curry, J. A. (2015). The implications for climate sensitivity of AR5 forcing and heat uptake estimates. Climate dynamics, 45(3-4), 1009.

Pachauri, R. K., Allen, M. R., Barros, V. R., Broome, J., Cramer, W., Christ, R., … & Dubash, N. K. (2014). Climate change 2014: synthesis report. Contribution of Working Groups I, II and III to the fifth assessment report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (p. 151). IPCC.

Steffen, W., Crutzen, P. J., & McNeill, J. R. (2016). The Anthropocene: Are Humans Now Overwhelming the Great Forces of Nature?(2007). The Globalization and Environment Reader, 27.

Visser, H., Dangendorf, S., Van Vuuren, D. P., Bregman, B., & Petersen, A. C. (2018). Signal detection in global mean temperatures after “Paris”: an uncertainty and sensitivity analysis. Climate of the Past, 14(2), 139.

Wieder, W. R., Cleveland, C. C., Lawrence, D. M., & Bonan, G. B. (2015). Effects of model structural uncertainty on carbon cycle projections: biological nitrogen fixation as a case study. Environmental Research Letters, 10(4), 044016.

Zhisheng, A., Guoxiong, W., Jianping, L., Youbin, S., Yimin, L., Weijian, Z., … & Hai, C. (2015). Global monsoon dynamics and climate change. Annual Review of Earth and Planetary Sciences, 43, 29-77.