Climate Change and Global Warming

Biography

Biography: Hans J Mueller

Abstract

Among many other information in my understandig the most important result of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, 21st Conference of the Parties - short form COP 21 (2015) - is that limiting further greenhouse gas emissions is simply insufficient to make the survival of mankind possible. In near future, i.e. starting at about 2050, we need negative emissions and the time frame for developing the corresponding technologies is closing rapidly. Unfortunately since fall 2016 the melting process of both polar ice caps accelerated dramatically – see several break out sessions at EGU, 2017, Vienna. If this continues the nightmare of an ice-free arctic ocean – anticipated for about 2050 – could become real already during the next 3 years,i.e. 30 years earlier. The reason for this acceleration is not clear yet, because in 2016 the worldwide green house gas emissions grew, but not extraordinarily. That means, it could be the beginning of a dominating positive feedback process. If we continue in a way we do right now following published models it looks like the global mean surface temperature of planet Earth will reach something between +5 and +7 degrees above the global mean temperature of the preindustrial era, i.e. about 1750, latest 1815 at the next turn of the century. Similar conditions already existed in geological history. There were 5 mass extinction events. Last time it happened at the Permian-Triassic-extinction event, 252 Mio years ago. Recent data indicate the trap basalt volcanism released carbon dioxide resulting in an increase of the mean global surface temperature of 5 degrees followed by an increase of further 5 degrees because of the secondary (temperature triggered) release of methane and halons (halogenated hydrocarbons). As the result of this 98.5 % of all species became extinct. Most of them were much more robust than we are today. Consequently the agreement to limit the temperature increase in a minimum to about +2 degrees, and if procurable even to +1.5 degrees is crucial. What that means in terms of land use and technology is widely not understood and accepted in politics and administration. Unfortunately all our recent technological tools, as e.g. replacing elder combustion techniques by higher developed new ones, extended use of renewable energies, i.e. windturbines, photovoltaic panels and the use of sustainable raw materials etc. are completely insufficient to reach that goal. In the maximum all of them are only able to reduce future emissions to some degree. Complete ecobalances show that the results are often very small and sometimes even negative. Unfortunately even a small positive effect is practically overcompensated by the global industrial growth and the standard of living improvement of a growing world population. It is widely repressed that mankind had exclusively renewable energies during its development energies up to the industrial revolution. Only the transition to fossil fuels beginning in the 18th century allowed further dvelopment and restoration of the natural invironment e.g. by reforestration. But unfortunately this was the reversal of the carbon dioxide removal from the atmosphere by photosynthesis, i.e. it artificially restores climate conditions which we have no chance to survive. The unpleasant truth is business as usual combined with a little more reasonable, i.e. more ecological behavior, is good, but completely insufficient to interrupt the global change process unfortunately. The 6th mass extinction event is nothing which we can prevent to start. It is already running. Following recent studies (see panel discussion at EGU annual meeting 2017, Vienna) the loss of species per time is already about factor 2 or more higher than at the Permian-Triassic-extinction-event. During the last 200 years we have simply used our atmosphere as a waste disposal site, as we also did at countryside, oceans, lakes and rivers. Meantime many countries of the world have sanified the dump sites at the continentss. Now it’s time to do the same with the atmosphere too. Therefor I think it is time to switch the anti global warming strategy from technologies for limiting further continued positive emissions to techniques for real negative emissions. We have to realize man made global warming is so fast that it is much outside any equilibrium, i.e. removing and save underground storage of green hous gasses. That means we have only a chance for a further sustainable development if we restore our atmosphere as fast as possible back to its stage of 1815 – at least before the next turn of the century, best much earlier than 2050 if possible. It is time to concentrate our resources to this challenge. The paper uses published data from geo- and planetary science as well as from different engineering disciplines. Based on many consultations and interdisciplinary work it attempts to discus and evaluate already existing and conceivable future scientifical and techological options to make negative emissions real, i.e. disruption of man-made global warming by reduction of the atmospheric green house gas load from land use and burning fossil fuels to the preindustrial era in time. The fastest and cheapest way for reaching negative emissions is massive reforestration. Unfortunately this is not enough because only about the half of the amount of atmosperic green house gases are the result of deforestration and human land use. Today we use this area for agricultural food production, sttlement and infrastructure. Technological sequestration means washing out green house gases, chemical reduction to long-term stable compounds and elements and its reliable storage. But there is a powerful opponent – the entropy. Any concentration process is accompanied by reducing the entropy, i.e. it is energy consuming. That means first of all that requires a lot of energy in addition to that part which our society is consuming right now and in future. It is necissarily more we have “earned” when we discharged energy from combustion of fuels in the past and recently. Let us have a look to the technologies able to do this in principle.