Vision Prize: scientists are worried the IPCC is underestimating sea level rise

The survey results also show the change in the IPCC estimated climate sensitivity range is not at all reassuring

Graph by Stefan Rahmstorf comparing measured sea level rise (red and blue) to previous IPCC estimates (grey and dashed lines), showing sea level rise is happening faster than expected.

The Vision Prize is an online survey of scientists about climate risk. It's an impartial and independent research platform for incentivized polling of experts on important scientific issues that are relevant to policymakers. Some of their previous survey results have found that about 90 percent of participating scientists believe that humans are the primary cause of global warming over the past 250 years.

In its latest survey, the Vision Prize asked participants questions about technologies to limit climate change, and about the latest IPCC report. Two of these questions asked about the likelihood that global average sea level will rise less than the IPCC lowest estimate (0.25 meters, or 10 inches), or more than the IPCC highest estimate (0.91 meters, or 3 feet) by 2100. These estimates are about 60 percent higher than in the 2007 IPCC report, which intentionally left out dynamic processes that cause effects like the calving of ice shelves into the ocean, because at the time they were not well understood. As expected, research has shown that the previous IPCC report underestimated the rate of sea level rise.

The Vision Prize results revealed that despite the much higher sea level rise estimates this time around, the survey participants are worried that the IPCC is still underestimating future sea level rise. 41 percent responded that it's likely or very likely that sea level rise will exceed the IPCC highest estimate, and 71 percent answering that it's at least as likely as not. Conversely, only 5 percent responded that it's likely sea level rise will be less than the IPCC lowest estimate, and 83 percent called this scenario unlikely.

These results broadly agree with a recent survey carried out by scientists in Germany and the US. In this survey, 90 researchers who'd published sea level research in the last 5 years concluded that sea level rise by 2100 is likely to be between 0.7 and 1.2 meters if we continue on a business-as-usual greenhouse gas emissions path. Two-thirds of the experts responded that sea level could rise more than the upper end of the IPCC's projected range by 2100, consistent with the Vision Prize survey results.

On the other hand, if greenhouse gas emissions are reduced strongly, the experts expected sea level rise to be between 0.4 and 0.6 meters by 2100. These results suggest that the Vision Prize participants may be pessimistic that we'll transition away from a business-as-usual emissions path.

Another Vision Prize question asked about the IPCC estimate of the planet's sensitivity to the increased greenhouse effect. The latest IPCC report estimated that the planet will eventually warm between 1.5 and 4.5°C in response to the increased greenhouse effect if the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere doubles. The 2007 IPCC report put the estimate at 2 to 4.5°C, but the three IPCC reports before that and the 1979 Charney Report had all estimated a 1.5 to 4.5°C climate sensitivity.

In the Wall Street Journal, climate contrarian Matt Ridley claimed that the change from the 2007 report to the latest version,

"...points to the very real possibility that, over the next several generations, the overall effect of climate change will be positive for humankind and the planet."

Vision Prize participants were asked whether they agreed with this interpretation of the revised IPCC estimate. 72 percent strongly disagreed, 87 percent disagreed, and only 9 percent agreed with Ridley's interpretation. Although the lower end of the estimated climate sensitivity range decreased back to a value consistent with expert estimates made between 1979 and 2007, this in no way suggests that climate change might be beneficial.

In terms of climate solutions, the latest Vision Prize poll reveals that carbon capture and storage is not thought likely to have a short-term impact. Just 16 percent of those surveyed believe the technology will measurably affect the global climate by 2050, and only 4 percent would choose this approach as a top priority for large private investment attempting to avoid dangerous levels of global warming. When it came to this type of spending, distributed renewables were the most popular choice, closely followed by energy efficiency. In third place was next-generation nuclear power.

The majority of Vision Prize participants are academics with expertise relevant to climate science.

For more from the poll, including views on the chances of atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations reaching double pre-industrial levels by 2100, see the Vision Prize website.

Overall these results indicate that scientists are pessimistic that we'll take sufficient steps to avoid dangerous levels of global warming and sea level rise. They don't agree with the unjustifiably optimistic view of Matt Ridley and his fellow climate contrarians. They also appear to believe that deploying existing low-emissions technologies should be a top priority in mitigating the threats posed by human-caused climate change.

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Sea Sickness

We are advocating for the ocean with best intentions and hope. We want to get beyond seasickness to that sustainable place, purged, free, and secure. We know what must be done, but we are not yet aware enough, mad enough, or desperate enough to do enough about it.

Doing what I do with the World Ocean Observatory, people often ask me if I am a sailor. I demur, admitting only to owning a boat. I have too much awareness of and respect for real sailors to compare my level of skill. Like many mariners, I get seasick, unless the seas are calm or I am sufficiently infused with mint and ginger. But the susceptibility is always there, the memory of past unpleasant incidents, the anticipation, both physical and psychological, of what is to come, and the thing itself -- nauseating, exhausting, humiliating, just plain awful -- until it's over and you've found your sea legs again.

Sickness at sea is as old as seafaring itself, sailors subject to wind, sun, heat, cold, dehydration, poor food, and all the rest. We know the tales of scurvy and such, sometimes when we look more closely we can sense another disease -- that of loneliness, melancholy, depression, the mental illness that can result from extreme physical and psychological circumstance -- until it too is over, in the best case with a successful homecoming and revival.

The world ocean is a sick sea. I have never been so definitive before, always the optimist thinking we are not yet there. But the symptoms are no longer deniable. The evidence mounts daily in nauseating waves of reported spills and leaks, dying reefs, depleted fisheries, vast areas so oxygen-deprived that nothing lives. Like mint and ginger, I keep looking for the good news, the growing number of marine protected areas, small victories over the extraction interests, some policy or regulation that draws a line, some triumph by a local coastal community or small island state standing up to protect itself.

The thinking once was that the ocean, by its vastness, would dilute these things, would heal itself. But we are beyond that now, holding on to that homily only as a desperate belief or a cynical justification for permitting the practices that have created the disease itself. What will it take for us to realize that we are the attacking, consuming microbes and that to counter seasickness we must first heal ourselves?

I read recently the phrase "sea blindness," referring at some historical moment to public unawareness of the ocean's relevance and relationship to what takes place on land. Yes, there is shipping and trade and warfare, and yes, there is fishing and food production, but true insight and awareness remains dim, clouded by fog on the horizon, or distance from where one lives, or immediacy of these ocean manifestations directly on our daily lives. If we can't see it, or feel it, then we can't really do anything about it.

We should be frustrated and furious. We should feel the nauseating, exhausting, humiliating reality of what is happening to our ocean. We should be outraged by governance that delays and prolongs any policy, regulation, or action directed toward sustaining this essential natural environment. We should be aware that today in the United States, Europe, the Pacific, the Arctic, indeed everywhere in this ocean world, even the progress we have made is under attack by forces of greed, dilution, revision, and retraction of anything that interferes with the exploitation or corruption of the ocean until we are left with only a toxic sea. What will it take?

There are thousands of ocean advocates, policy-makers, scientists, communicators, organizers, and individuals out there, all over the world, fighting to keep our ocean safe. Hats off! We should honor, respect, support, and engage with them wherever we may be. We can all do that. Join them and build their numbers exponentially.

But my sense is that this medicine is not working, is not yet big enough, strong enough, even smart enough to do what must be done. We are advocating for the ocean with best intentions and hope. We want to get beyond seasickness to that sustainable place, purged, free, secure. We know what must be done; at every level, locally, regionally, nationally, internationally, we have plans and policies and agreements in place to free us of this disease. We know what must be done, but we are not yet aware enough, mad enough, or desperate enough to do enough about it.

We are talking about survival here. Every human need for the future -- fresh water, food, energy, medicine, security, and psychological renewal -- is dependent on a healthy, sustainable world ocean. The ocean is our cure. Why would we destroy it?

Follow Peter Neill on Twitter: www.twitter.com/the_w2o, World Ocean Observatory

Predicting storm surges: applying state of the art technology

Recent severe flooding around the UK coast is a stark reminder of the risks presented by storm surges – caused by a combination of high tides, winds and low pressure. The impacts on people, property and infrastructure, as recent events in Dawlish illustrate, can be significant. Storm surges, and their potential impacts, need to be understood by coastal managers, affected communities and all those with assets on the coastline. International flood and coastal engineering specialist HR Wallingford has developed SMARTtide, a state of the art tool that can now be used to predict storm surges in UK waters. 

“Parts of the UK have recently experienced some of the highest storm surges since 1953,” says Graham Siggers, hydrodynamics and metocean group manager at HR Wallingford. “The challenge is to be able to provide accurate simulations of such events, either for forecasting, development planning, or to inform risk assessments. When it comes to simulating the local effects of storm surges, we have now further developed SMARTtide, a state of the art predictive tool originally set up for tidal resource assessment, to model storm surges in UK waters.” 

Graham adds: “This new development of  SMARTtide allows us to take  meteorological predictions and look at the effects of storm surges in very fine detail (200m resolution) along the coastline or into estuaries. This means the model can simulate storm surges at a very localised level informing risk assessments for coastal planning or insurance.”

Developed by HR Wallingford, SMARTtide was originally commissioned and funded by the Energy Technologies Institute (ETI) to identify the most efficient sites for tidal energy converters, tidal arrays or tidal barrage schemes around the UK and French coastlines. The model continues to be used for this purpose and can now also be used for storm surge simulation.

More information on SMARTtide is available at http://www.hrwallingford.com/ projects/smarttide.

- See more at: http://www.gisuser.com/content/view/32117/2/#sthash.BvVeJL38.dpuf

About HR Wallingford

HR Wallingford is an independent engineering and environmental hydraulics organisation. We deliver practical solutions to complex water-related challenges faced by our international clients. A dynamic research programme underpins all that we do and keeps us at the leading edge. Our unique mix of know-how, assets and facilities includes state of the art physical modelling laboratories, a full range of numerical modelling tools and, above all, enthusiastic people with world-renowned skills and expertise.

About SMARTtide

The data that supports SMARTtide is the result of an earlier £450,000 ETI project, which was led by Black & Veatch, in collaboration with HR Wallingford and the University of Edinburgh. That project improved the understanding of the possible interactions between tidal energy extraction systems as they are deployed between now and 2050.

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