Tim Lenton is silly

timlenton However, I'm inclined to think that he isn't a tosser, just naive (as someone said, I don't think Tim understands the policy world very well). He looks a bit naive in his picture, doesn't he? And that is a sure-fire way to tell. But maybe that is me being naive. Well, let me tell you and you can make up your own mind.

Assuming you can be bothered, go off and read his piece in Nature: 2 Â°C or not 2 Â°C? That is the climate question (you ought to; please don't rely on my biased reporting of him :-). Tim has a laudable aim: he wants to ensure that global efforts to tackle the climate problem are consistent with the latest science. But alas he immeadiately goes off the rails, by talking about the

target to limit the global temperature rise to 2 Â°C above the average temperature before the industrial revolution...The target is linked to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), which aims to "prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system"

But note the rather weaselly words "linked to". Where exactly is the scientific basis for 2 oC? Tim is very interested in making our politics consistent with the science, so why isn't he mentioning it? Is he, perhaps, continuing the rather dishonourable tradition of pretending that because lots of people have taken 2 oC for granted, then it must have a solid basis? I don't think it has such as basis, and have said so before.

Continuing, Target setters need to take into account all the factors that threaten to tip elements of Earth's climate system into a different state... Well, Tim is a Tipping Points man, so it is no surprise to see him pushing his stuff. I still don't believe it though.

But anyway, onto the pointless naive policy suggestions: I suggest that the UNFCCC be extended. The climate problem, and the political targets presented as a solution, should be aimed at restricting anthropogenic radiative forcing to limit the rate and gradients of climate change, before limiting its eventual magnitude... The 2 Â°C target would translate into a radiative forcing of about 2.5 Watts per square metre (W mâ2), but to protect major ice sheets, we might need a tougher global target of 1.5 W mâ2". Wonderful: we can't meet the existing targets, because we lack political will. So rather than actually address that problem, let us fiddle the targets around and make them harder to meet. That will certainly be useful. Somehow or another this is supposed to connect to regional initiatives, in a way that didn't appear to make any sense but I didn't bother thinking about much as it was too obviously doomed to be very interesting.

Update: on reflection, I'm being too kind to Tim Lenton. This kind of get-yer-face-in-Nature stuff is malign.


* It's not telly if you watch it on a computer, say middle class people.


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The specific phraseology and figures may be sub-optimal, and certainly the suggestion of shrinking a target that already isn't being taken seriously. But I thought society needed to act in the face of uncertainty. Therefore the POTENTIAL for substantially accelerated climate change should be considered by policymakers. Isn't that the bottom line? And people wonder why there's confusion over whether we need to act more quickly - there's still much quibbling (sans any acknowledgment of reasonable intent). Most people, especially policymakers, need something a bit less equivocal.


Your [redacted], you haven't read his article properly at all. He acknowledges that 2C is utterly arbitrary and actually if you must know the 2C target came from early cost benefit economic impact studies done in the 1980's by Nordhouse where the choice was utterly arbitrary but ended up being coopted into the literature as some kind of consensus.


A 2 K increase is way, way too much.

By David B. Benson (not verified) on 06 May 2011 #permalink

"Ongoing negotiations for a new climate treaty aim to establish a target to limit the global temperature rise to 2 Â°C above the average temperature before the industrial revolution."





By Alexander Harvey (not verified) on 07 May 2011 #permalink

The 1.5C is based on the behavior of the ice sheets during the interglacials, and so does seem to have a firm footing. Irritatingly, it seems clear that we're already committed to exceeding it.

But is interesting to see one of that crowd giving a nod toward Hansen; it wasn't that long ago that Myles Allen publicly attacked him (in Nature again, IIRC).

By Steve Bloom (not verified) on 08 May 2011 #permalink

"[No single number will ever make sense, given the uncertainties -W]"


Perhaps someone knows by how much the HADcrut3 1961-1990 climatology baseline is currently considered to be above "the average temperature before the industrial revolution"?


So the proposition becomes one of restricting the rise in modelled temperatures to 2ÂºC above what they would have averaged if they had motored on from 1750 (or from whichever date the forcings start to vary) to 2050 without modification.









Here I expect I part company.




By Alexander Harvey (not verified) on 08 May 2011 #permalink


By Paul Kelly (not verified) on 09 May 2011 #permalink

Yss, Eli, and the simulators are getting pretty good.


Can we fly the planet.









By Alexander Harvey (not verified) on 10 May 2011 #permalink



By Paul Kelly (not verified) on 10 May 2011 #permalink