Ice covers 10 percent of Earth's surface and helps moderate the planet's temperature. Glaciers, sea ice and ice sheets around the world are melting at an alarming rate. Much faster than climate models had predicted, like what Peter Wadhams, expert on ocean and ice physics, discusses in the video clip above. Climate models fail to interpret the real climate system because they ignore nonlinear dynamics, like key carbon cycle feedbacks and tipping points, crucial to the real system.

The Arctic (North of 60° N) is a key strategic region of global importance. Changes in the Arctic impact Earths energy balance, cloud formations, global wind patterns and ocean currents, release of methane, sea level rise, phytoplankton blooms and much more. As seen in the image below.

A recent study published by NASA shows how, since 1958, Arctic sea ice cover has lost about 66% of its thickness, averaged across the region at the end of summer. Old ice has shrunk more than 2 million square kilometres and today 70% of the ice cover consist of ice that forms and melts within a single year. Thinner, weaker seasonal ice is much more vulnerable to weather than thick ice and can easily be broken apart by storms. 

That's very bad news for our planet as darker ocean waters absorb more sunlight and triggers further warming. Melting sea ice has already contributed to about 25% of current warming but could add double that amount when the Arctic ocean starts becomes ice free in summer. That's a very strong reinforcing feedback process that accelerates warming which in turn accelerates further ice loss and so on. While in theory, with some sort of risky geoengineering, it would be possible to reverse this trend I really doubt we can do much to stop it. We can't even stop our greenhouse gas emissions from growing every year. No, its too late for Arctic sea ice, what we see now is a death spiral. 

Wishful thinking is today so prevalent that it even has infected the brain of people who are trained not to be biased, scientists. I mean sure, economists have always been blissfully ignorant and wrong in their predictions but what I’m talking about is more widespread. It's a deep denial among the people researching our most critical issues: climate change and energy limitations. 

You see it in the media when scientists discuss oxymorons like “green growth”, or proclaim that we can “decarbonize our entire economy within 20 years”, or that “agriculture will save biodiversity”, or that “lab grown meat will solve our food problems” and so on. It's nothings but grasping at straws in a world that is on fire. Such delusional statements are more about belief systems and identities reflecting values than science. It's also because climate scientists have been told by behavioural psychologists not to scare people as it may hamper action. But isn't it odd that the profession that claims to be devoted to curiosity and truth seeking wants to restrict exploration of future possibilities and censor people due to how it might come across to others?

Our climate reality is harsh. Most scientists tend to underestimate our predicament because they are too conservative, not the other way around. But now it's becoming clear, predictions made by oversimplified climate models have underestimated the changes we're already witnessing due to climate change. Earth, the biosphere, ecosystems and human systems such as the economy are dynamic complex systems and their behaviour is nonlinear. A model that does not include critical feedbacks in the system will not be able to accurately predict results in the real world. This has now become obvious as real world observations about the sad state of our climate is pouring in. Climate change is accelerating.

Sea ice in the Arctic is melting at an alarming rate and looks to be completely gone summertime some time in the coming years (2022?), accelerating global warming further. Ice and snow reflect about 80 percent of the Sun’s energy back into space while the darker ocean and land will absorb 90 percent of that heat. The albedo effect due to vanishing sea ice is already responsible for about 25 percent of global warming (Pistone et al. 2014). Greenland shed about 280 gigatons of ice per year between 2002-2016 and the island’s lower-elevation and coastal areas experienced up to 4 meters of ice mass loss (expressed in equivalent-water-height) over a 14-year period (NASA, 2018). Accelerating rates of ice loss also implies accelerated rates of sea level rise. Certain cities will have to be abandoned. In ten years prior to 2016 the Atlantic Ocean soaked up 50 percent more carbon dioxide than it did the previous decade, speeding up the acidification of the ocean (Woosley et al. 2016). And the list goes on and on with increasingly worrisome observations.

With an increase of carbon emissions of 2% in 2017 (Carbon Brief, 2017), the so called “decoupling” of economic activity from emissions is not yet making a net dent in global emissions. Even if we start reducing emissions now it's not going to be enough to prevent dangerous climate change since there is about a decade lag between emissions and resulting warming (Ricke & Caldeira, 2014). We have already (95% probability) gone past the 2°C warming point/UN target (Raftery et al. 2017), and are  likely headed towards 4-5°C (Steffen et al. 2018). That's because the Earth system is dynamic and is more likely to continue warming until it stabilises at another point, which in the Earth's past occurred at about 4-5°C warmer than pre-industrial levels. By the way, it is generally accepted that a 5 degree rise in temperature is not compatible with human civilisation as we know it. At the same time, perhaps a complete collapse of civilisation could prevent the worst climate change outcomes (Garrett, 2012). But no one is going to promote or talk about that in public. Even if diminishing returns on resources, especially oil, likely will shrink our civilisation in the near future, whether we like it or not (Turner, 2014). 

No one likes either outcomes of this predicament and that's why most experts are basically just arguing over different options of removing carbon from the atmosphere through geoengineering. Using machines to suck out carbon, however, is not feasible both in terms of cost and scale and could cause more harm than good. Current technology would have to be scaled by a factor of 2 million times within 2 years. That's just not going to happen. Biological approaches to carbon capture such as planting trees, restoring soils, holistic grazing, and growing seagrass and kelp appear far more promising. 

Anyway, the real issue for ordinary people is how to adapt to a world that is increasingly hostile while using less energy? Not wasting time listening to myths about "green tech" or believing in fantasies like "colonising Mars" or "geoengineering the entire planet"

Researchers part of the international Past Global Changes project, have analysed sea levels during several warm periods in Earth's geological past when global average temperatures were similar to or slightly warmer than today (~1C above pre-industrial levels) (Dutton et al. 2015). The team concluded that during the last interglacial, a warm period between ice ages 125, 000 years ago, the global average temperature was similar to the present and this was linked to a sea-level rise of 6-9 meters, caused by melting ice in Greenland and Antarctica. And 400,000 years ago sea-levels rose 6-13 meters. 

What is scary about these two periods is that carbon dioxide in the atmosphere remained around 280 parts per million (ppm). The research group also looked at sea levels during the Pliocene, 3 million years ago, when carbon dioxide levels reached around 400 ppm, similar to today's levels. According to the scientists, sea levels were at least 6 meters higher than today. This could happen to us, but surely it would take a long time, right?

Risk of rapid sea-level rise

Well, in another recent study a group of 17 scientists describes a scenario where the world oceans rise much faster than models have predicted (Hansen et al. 2015). The study basically points out that a 2C global average rise in temperature, a political limit to induced warming, would result in a rise of the world's oceans to dangerous levels. The team looked at what happened during the Eemian period when atmospheric temperatures were approximately 1C warmer than they are now and found that ocean levels were much higher than they should have been based on modern climate models. The explanation for this could be that even a small climate forcing could set in motion reinforcing feedback loops in the climate system. In this case, warming led to a small amount of ice sheet melt, which changed ocean currents, which melted more ice. Such complex dynamics are not well incorporated into modern climate models.

Sea-level rise is speeding up. Source: Hansen et al. 2015

One year ago, supertyphoon Haiyan unleashed havoc in the Philippines while world governments were discussing a global climate agreement at the United Nations Climate Talks. Now, one year later, another destructive typhoon Hagupit hit the country while the same climate negotiations were taking place in Lima, Peru. While no single storm can be directly linked to a changing climate, the increased frequency and intensity of severe storms, has been observed and reported on by scientists linking it to global warming. Some politicians and businesses herald the Lima talks as progress while many climate experts say it’s not enough. Let’s look at some of the issues with the draft agreement coming out of Lima. 

First, the new agreement does not reflect the urgency of the climate crisis. One of the fundamental flaws of the negotiations is the lack of a clear global goal for limiting global warming based on science. The IPCC latest report made it clear that we have to get off fossil fuels and take urgent measures if we want to keep warming below 2 degrees Celsius and avert global disaster (its even debatable if 2C degrees can be considered a "safe" limit). With the current agreement we are on a path to 3-4 degrees warming. Island nations face imminent danger from rising sea-levels but the agreement does not reflect this urgency. 

Second, while there are some good ideas in the agreement there are no measures to ensure implementation. One scenario included in the text coming out of Lima is a goal of phasing out carbon emissions by 2050, which was supported by over 100 countries. This is a big deal. However, the only way to achieve it is by moving away from fossil fuels but there is still no plan for how countries will achieve this or how to monitor their progress. Each country are expected to report in the coming months how they will make this happen. But nations won’t be held accountable for reporting their plans. This increases the seriousness of putting pressure on governments to ensure responsibility. 

Third, many least developed and vulnerable countries feel they have been left out in the cold. The agreement does not force rich nations to support countries that are being most impacted by climate change. Countries that have had little impact on global emissions will likely be the ones making the most efforts to create change but they will not be getting enough financial support. It’s a serious issue of climate injustice. Many rich countries are still treating the climate talks as business as usual and are not going out of their way to provide leadership. 

Fourth, the world’s nations are for the first time in agreement over that poorer nations should also lower their emissions. How much rich nations and poorer nations should lower their emissions, respectively, has not been agreed upon. This will be a difficult issue to solve during the 2015 Paris meeting. 

The Lima Accord resulted in that every nation has to present their emission plans during March 2015. The final text also opened up for the future agreement to be non-binding and voluntary, which most experts agree on is a bad idea. The major questions around how poorer nations will receive financing and technology as well as payments for losses and harms from a changing climate has not been resolved. Richer nations seem to once again have gotten their will while the poorer nations are the loosers. The issue of climate justice has thus not been adressed which was the major problem during the Climate talks in Copenhagen. It looks like most problems are pushed further down the road, to the climate meeting in Paris, November 2015. I have no major expectations since politicans has proved over and over again that they are incapable of coming to an agreement with teeth. We will have to look for other solutions that incurage low-carbon solutions and forces emitters to pay, for example, through dividends and fees on carbon from all trade and production.

Economic progress and wealth of society strongly depends on the best choice of energy supply techniques. Like with any living organism, societies needs energy to perform work. Before the industrial revolution we relied on horsepower, wood, wind and human labor. These forms of energy were, however, very inefficient because of their low energy density. It was not until we discovered coal and invented the stream engine that the revolution started and societal metabolism went up. Since then, humanity has been addicted to fossil fuels to propel our societies forward. Now, however, its becoming a real problem because the Earth is not as big as we thought. Fossil fuel extraction and pollution on a massive scale have caused our climate to change and we are running into limits of what the Earth can provide in terms of cheap and abundant natural resources. So we look to alternative technologies for solutions to this predicament. But as we know from the German case this issue is not without its challenges. We need a measurment that that can establish what alternative are most effective in terms of providing a net surplus of energy to society while reducing greenhouse gas emissions. 

Energy return on energy invested

The energy return on (energy) investment (EROI) is an important measure that describes the overall life-cycle efficiency of energy supply techniques, independent of economical and political considerations. The EROI answers the simple question “how much useful (net) energy do we obtain for certain effort to make this energy available” (Weißbach et al. 2013). As we know, energy and matter are never consumed or generated but always just converted. There is always a flow of materials (fuel, materials for construction, maintenance) driven by the “invested” energy with the result of making the “returned” energy available. This means that to calculate net energy of a particular supply technique, also known as carrier, one has to include all the energy it takes to produce electricity - from the extraction of resources to the construction and maintenance of the plant, as well as expected lifetime. Furthermore, because many so called renewable carriers are intermittent they usually require back-up plants or storage that can buffer for when they aren't generating enough electricity at times when people need it. Weißbach et al. 2013 have chosen to include this in their EROI analysis, few others do. Break-even has an EROI of 1. But that would be pointless as you would have a plant but couldn’t run it. The higher the EROI the higher the return on investment.

Energy Money Return on Investment

Because all these carriers produce electricity as output, but not all inputs are electric, the EMROI of all sources is higher than their EROI. This is one step further towards monetizing the EROI by allowing for the greater monetary value of electricity compared to other energy types. We can see that hydro, nuclear, natural gas and solar in the desert have high EMROI. However, EMROI is just a “best case” scenario for monetary return on investment. Note that the economic threshold has gone up to. The idea is that in e.g. the US, a kWh of energy cost about 10 cents but it produces about 70 cents worth of GDP, a ratio of 7 to 1. If we do the same computation in exergy terms, the ratio is 16 to 1. That means the fully monetary return on investment of exergy, for the economy as a whole, is 16. A similar ratio can be seen for other countries which leads to the conclusion that the thresholds are 7 for EROI and 16 for EMROI, assuming OECD-like energy consuming technology. For lower developed countries thresholds might be smaller, thus making also less efficient energies like biomass economic.

By looking at historical development rates of low-CO2 electricity production among different high-income countries we can try to figure out what techniques have worked well previously. Below is a chart showing OECD countries population size and generation of kWh per capita per year.

Overall we can see that only a few countries have succeeded to build low-CO2 electricity production with a rate of 300kWh/cap/year, which is the needed improvement speed to stay below the Kyoto Protocol 2 C degrees limit. One should note that no country have made it above the 300kWh/cap/year without the help of nuclear. We can see that Swedish nuclear development reached the highest level of 700 kWh/cap/year. Mean development rate only reached 120 kWh/cap/year between 1982 and 1992. When it comes to renewable electricity production, Denmark has the highest with about 160 kWh/cap/year. Closely followed by Sweden. Spain and Germany reached levels of 120 kWh/cap/year. We can see that Sweden has a top position in development rate of low-CO2 electricity production, both with nuclear and renewable energy. If the rest of the world would implement nuclear at the same rate as Sweden did, it would take 25 years to replace all existing fossil fuels (Davour et al. 2014). It is very improbable that this will happen, and perhaps isn't recommendable, but the example show how important the inclusion of nuclear into the energy mix is for future low-CO2 electricity production.

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