Storms of My Grandchildren by Dr. James Hansen
"Storms of My Grandchildren: The Truth About the Coming Climate Catastrophe and Our Last Chance to Save Humanity" is NASA climate change scientist Dr. James Hansen's first book. Dr. Hansen is arguably the most visible and well-respected climate change scientist in the world, and has headed the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York City since 1981. He is also an adjunct professor in the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences at Columbia University. Dr. Hansen greatly raised awareness of the threat of global warming during his Congressional testimony during the record hot summer of 1988, and issued one of the first-ever climate model predictions of global warming (see an analysis here to see how his 1988 prediction did.) In 2009, Dr. Hansen was awarded the Carl-Gustaf Rossby Research Medal, the highest honor bestowed by the American Meteorological Society, for his "outstanding contributions to climate modeling, understanding climate change forcings and sensitivity, and for clear communication of climate science in the public arena."
Storms of My Grandchildren focuses on the key concepts of the science of climate change, told through Hansen's personal experiences as a key player in field's scientific advancements and political dramas over the past 40 years. Dr. Hansen's writing style is very straight-forward and understandable, and he clearly explains the scientific concepts involved in a friendly way that anyone with a high school level science education can understand. I did not find any scientific errors in his book. However, some of his explanations are too long-winded, and the book is probably too long, at 274 pages. Nevertheless, Storms of My Grandchildren is a must-read, due to the importance of the subject matter and who is writing it. Hansen is not a fancy writer. He comes across as a plain Iowan who happened to stumble into the field of climate change and discovered things he had to speak out about. And he does plenty of speaking out in his book.
James Hansen vs. Richard Lindzen
Dr. Hansen's book opens with an interesting chapter on his participation in four meetings of Vice President Dick Cheney's cabinet-level Climate Task Force in 2001. It seems that the Bush Administration was prepared to let Dr. Hansen's views on climate change influence policy. However, Dr. Richard Lindzen, whom Hansen describes as "the dean of of global warming contrarians", was also present at the meetings. Dr.Lindzen was able to confuse the task force members enough so that they never took Dr. Hansen's views seriously. Hansen observes that "U.S. policies regarding carbon dioxide during the Bush-Cheney administration seem to have been based on, or at a minimum, congruent with, Lindzen's perspective." Hansen asserts that Lindzen was able to do this by acting more like a lawyer than a scientist: "He and other contrarians tend to act like lawyers defending a client, presenting only arguments that favor their client. This is in direct contradiction to...the scientific method." Hansen also comments that he asked Lindzen what he thought of the link between smoking and cancer, since Lindzen had been a witness for the tobacco industry decades earlier. Lindzen "began rattling off all the problems with the data relating smoking to health problems, which was closely analogous to his views of climate data."
Alarmism
Global warming contrarians often dismiss scientists such a Dr. Hansen as "alarmists" who concoct fearsome stories about climate change in order to get research funding. Dr. Lindzen made this accusation at Cheney's Climate Task Force in 2001. However, Dr. Hansen notes that "in 1981 I lost funding for research on the climate effects of carbon dioxide because the Energy Department was displeased with a paper, 'Climate Impact of Increasing Carbon Dioxide,' I had published in Science magazine. The paper made a number of predictions for the 21st century, including 'opening of the fabled Northwest Passage', which the Energy Department considered to be alarmist but which have since proven to be accurate." If you read Dr. Hansen's book and listen to his lectures, it is clear that he is not an alarmist out to get more research funding by hyping the dangers of global warming. Hansen says in his book that "my basic nature nature is very placid, even comfortably stolid", and that nature comes through very clearly in Storms of My Grandchildren. Hansen's writings express a quiet determination to plainly set forth the scientific truth on climate change. He has surprisingly few angry words towards the politicians, lobbyists, and scientists intent on distorting the scientific truth.
The science of climate change
The bulk of Storms of My Grandchildren is devoted to explanations of the science of climate change. Hansen's greatest concern is disintegration of the gerat ice sheets in Greenland and West Antarctica causing sea level rise: "Once the ice sheets begin to rapidly disintegrate, sea level would be continuously changing for centuries. Coastal cities would become impractical to maintain." Hansen is concerned that evidence from past climate periods show that the massive ice sheets that cover Greenland and Antarctica can melt quickly, with large changes within a century. For example, sea level at the end of the most recent Ice Age, 13,000 - 14,000 years ago, rose at a rate of 3 - 5 meters (10 - 17 feet) per century for several centuries. Hansen is convinced that just a 1.7 -2°C warming, which would likely result if we stabilize CO2 at 450 ppm, would be a "disaster scenario" that would trigger rapid disintegration of the ice sheets and disastrous rises in sea level. Hansen advocates stabilizing CO2 at 350 ppm (we are currently at 390 ppm, with a rate of increase of 2 ppm per year.)
Another of Hansen's main concerns is the extinction of species. He notes that studies of more than 1,000 species of plants, animals, and insects have found an average migration rate towards the poles due to climate warming in the last half of the 20th century to be four miles per decade. "That is not fast enough. During the past thirty years the lines marking the regions in which a given average temperature prevails (isotherms) have been moving poleward at a rate of about thirty-five miles per decade. If greenhouse gases continue to increase at business-as-usual rates, then the rate of isotherm movement will double in this century to at least seventy miles per decade."
Hansen's other main concern is the release of large amounts of methane gas stored in sea-floor sediments in the form of methane hydrates. If ocean temperatures warm according to predictions, the higher temperatures at the sea floor may be enough to destabilize the methane hydrate sediments and release huge quantities of methane into the atmosphere. Methane is a greenhouse gas 20 - 25 times more potent than carbon dioxide.
Solutions to the climate change problem
Dr. Hansen is a controversial figure, since he has stepped outside his field of expertise and become an activist in promoting solutions to the climate change problem. He devotes a chapter called "An Honest, Effective Path" in the book to this. His main theme is that we need to tax fossil fuels using a "fee-and-dividend" approach. All of the tax money collected would be distributed uniformly to the public. This carbon tax would gradually rise, giving people time to adjust their lifestyle, choice of vehicle, home insulation, etc. Those who do better at reducing their fossil fuel use will receive more in the dividend than they will pay in the added costs of the products they buy. The approach is straightforward and does not require a large bureaucracy, but currently has little political support. Hansen is vehemently opposed to the approach that has the most political support, "Cap-and-trade": "Cap-and-trade is what governments and the people in alligator shoes (the lobbyists for special interests) are trying to foist on you. Whoops. As an objective scientist I should delete such personal opinions, to at least flag them. But I am sixty-eight years old, and I am fed up with the way things work in Washington." Hansen also promotes an overlooked type of nuclear power, "fast" reactors with liquid metal coolant that produce far less nuclear waste and are much more efficient than conventional nuclear reactors.
Quotes from the book
"Humanity treads today on a slippery slope. As we continue to pump greenhouse gases into the air, we move onto a steeper, even more slippery incline. We seem oblivious to the danger--unaware how close we may be to a situation in which a catastrophic slip becomes practically unavoidable, a slip where we suddenly lose all control and are pulled into a torrential stream that hurls us over a precipice to our demise."
"In order for a democracy to function well, the public needs to be honestly informed. But the undue influence of special interests and government greenwash pose formidable barriers to a well-informed public. Without a well-informed public, humanity itself and all species on the planet are threatened."
"Of course by 2005 I was well aware that the NASA Office of Public Affairs had become an office of propaganda. In 2004, I learned that NASA press releases related to global warming were sent to the White House, where they were edited to appear less serious or discarded entirely."
"If we let special interests rule, my grandchildren and yours will pay the price."
"The role of money in our capitals is the biggest problem for democracy and for the planet."
"The problem with asking people to pledge to reduce their fossil fuel use is that even if lots of people do, one effect is reduced demand for fossil fuel and thus a lower price--making it easier for someone else to burn...it is necessary for people to reduce their emissions, but it is not sufficient if the government does not adopt policies that cause much of the fossil fuels to be left in the ground permanently."
"I have argued that it is time to 'draw a line in the sand' and demand no new coal plants."
"The present situation is analogous to that faced by Lincoln with slavery and Churchill with Nazism--the time for compromises and appeasement is over."
"Humans are beginning to hammer the climate system with a forcing more than an order of magnitude more powerful than the forcings that nature employed."
"Once ice sheet disintegration begins in earnest, our grandchildren will live the rest of their lives in a chaotic transition period."
"After the ice is gone, would Earth proceed to the Venus syndrome, a runaway greenhouse effect that would destroy all life on the planet, perhaps permanently? While that is difficult to say based on present information, I've come to conclude that if we burn all reserves of oil, gas, and coal, there is a substantial chance we will initiate the runaway greenhouse. If we also burn the tar sands and tar shale, I believe the Venus syndrome is a dead certainty."
"One suggestion I have for now: Support Bill McKibben and his organization 350.org. It is the most effective and responsible leadership in the public struggle for climate justice."
Commentary
James Hansen understands the Earth's climate as well as any person alive, and his concern about where our climate is headed makes Storms of My Grandchildren a must-read for everyone who cares about the world their grandchildren will inherit. Storms of My Grandchildren retails for $16.50 at Amazon.com. Dr. Hansen's web site is http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/.
Jeff Masters
Reader Comments
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NEXT 48 HOURS.''
Lol, well looks to me like that around 30West in the Eastern Atlantic is plling together nicely, surprise!
Low down just around the ITCZ, but the waters there are HOT.
Hello COLIN!
If this is not going to be a doozie, then my name is Womble.
What will be interesting is the track, generated from a beginning low latitude.
Just so you know, that is a new product and I have noticed some differences between it and the standard 3 hour product that I could not explain as due to the time difference.
Even if that wave looks good, it probably would take more than 48 hours to develop; which in that case then no reason to put it on the TWO
doesn't mean they aren't watching it and it doesn't mean there isn't potential there for development
But I dont think so........
yea once lol
Lower Resolution
I'm tellin y'all right now, I work with a bunch of good old boys from the South. They keep tellin me that this is just the quiet before the storm. These guys were dead on the last 3 years(when I moved here). They told me for the last 3 seasons that we would probably be alright. This year, they are telling me that it's going to be a bad year. I put quite a bit of faith in the people who have lived here for 30 - 40 years. The ability to recognize natural signs with life long history has to be recognized.
I knew I could count on Jeff... LOL
Wow does NOGAPS still have the 1900 redux storm?
Lol. I am not an expert, more along the lines of the guys that 'panhandlechuck' refers to.
I am not wishcasting, merely saying what I see.
But, as said, look at the sea surface temps in that area.
This will be a good 'un. If it was going to fizzle, it would have started shearing already, its actually pulling together.
A heapload a trouble for some of us.
As I said, I am a streetman, not a meteorologist.
Uhh I just realized something... If you look at my avatar, I have no neck LOL
It has become a badge of honor down here. ;)
This is no more than a flareup in the ITCZ. Watch the wave behind this, however. And watch the Gulf too.. there could be some mischief there.
I fit right in, they realized that I wasn't a Damn Yankee.
I was born in the North, I was called a yankee.
I live in the South, I am called a yankee.
You would have to average 1 storm per week just to get it to 14 from this point forward and that will pretty much take you to the end of October. Even 14 right now may be a stretch.
They gave me my Badge of Honor, after the first time that Boiled (Baallled) some peanuts and brought them to work.
...
Repost
I notice a correlation in Sea Ice daily, when I look at the University of Illinois' Cyrosphere today. When the Arctic sea ice goes down, the Antarctic goes up. It's really funny, and can be seen in these two images:
Notice how the Arctic is coming up from a ow point, but the overall trend is down
Yet the Antarctic is coming out of a highpoint, but the overall trend is up.
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/
Also the melting of ice starts becoming more rapid in 2000. Funny you say that, as that is when the AMO turned positive.
The PDO and AMO both warm, combined, distort the Global Heat Budget to favor warm, and for it to be further north, explaining why the Arctic is losing ice, and the Antarctic is gaining ice.
http://www.accuweather.com/video/111162007001/one-more-look-at-the-coming-cooling.asp?channel=vbbas taj
The Arctic was feeling an impact from the warm PDO, and even a bigger impacted from the warm AMO, so what do you think will happen when the PDO turns cold, and the AMO turns cold...
The PDO is starting to turn cold... c'mon folks, let's hear your opinions...
I am getting sick of hearing Global Warming, so I just want 2 end this debate now! >:(
Looks like it's still holding on to Noel and still expecting regeneration of Hurricane Karen?
LOL... I have heard that one before and I told my parents that they were not allowed to move down here
Completely possible. You forget several storms can form at almost the same time. With the wave train setting up.. this is likely. If StormW was here.. he'd post his blog for the outlook of the remaining season.
Just trying to have a healthy discussion to keep the blog going :-)
Can they tell me what the winning lottery numbers will be on August 24, 2010?
The track still resembles 1900 more to me. Right through the Greater Antilles including the path across Cuba.
Oh I know its possible, but is it this year. With the "perfect" conditions out there, you would think we would be at the E storm by now. It just seems like there has always been something to impede development (SAL, ULL, too close to land, etc.) Gray and Klotzbach come out with their mid-season update next Thursday - it will be interesting to see not only the decrease in total named storms, but exactly why.
J** was already unleashed on all of us.
Fair enough, but...I have a feeling its gonna pull out of the ITCZ and the high SST's will assist.
Know by tomorrow evening.
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