What I’m Going to Say

1. What I’m Going to Say Everyone in this room understands how climate works well enough -- arguing about the details is not worth your time Climate will change a lot in the next generation, and policy will be enacted in response to perceived needs The political right has been AWOL in proposing policy solutions to a global problem The world needs you to be engaged!

2. Ever Wonder Why? Day is warmer than night? Summer is warmer than winter? Miami is warmer than Minneapolis?

3. Five Simple Facts Nobody here disputes any of these statements Today is Friday (on this side of dateline!) Billions of people will need more energy to lift themselves out of abject poverty Burning coal, oil, and gas produces CO2 CO2 emits heat Heat warms things up

4. Forcing & Feedbacks Doubled CO2 would add 4 Watts/m2, day and night, winter and summer, pole to pole Producing a decent standard of living to 3 billion extra people won’t double CO2 this century: it will quadruple it (400% vs 30%) You should be extremely skeptical of claims of 8 Watts/m2 of negative feedback If the climate system really had such powerful negative feedback, climate could never have changed!

5. 4 Fossil Fuel Burning billion tons go out 8 ATMOSPHERE billion tons go in 4 billion tons added every year 800 billion tons carbon Ocean Land Plants and soils (net) 2 2 + = CO2 “Budget” of the World Extra heat comes from the water, not the faucet!

6. Atmosphere Ocean 800 + 4/yr 38,000 The Global Carbon Cycle About half the CO2 released by humans is absorbed by oceans and land ~120 ~90 ~120 ~90 8 GtC/yr Land Fossil 2000

7. Where Has All the CO2 Gone? • Into the oceans • Solubility pump (CO2 very soluble in cold water, but rates are limited by slow physical mixing) • Biological pump (slow “rain” of organic debris) • Into the land • CO2 Fertilization(plants eat CO2 … is more better?) • Nutrient fertilization(N-deposition and fertilizers) • Land-use change(forest regrowth, fire suppression, woody encroachment … but what about Wal-Marts?) • Response to changing climate(e.g., Boreal warming)

8. Vertical Structure of the Oceans • Warm buoyant “raft” floats at surface • Deep water is icy cold, inky black, most of the ocean doesn’t know we’re here yet! • Very stable, hard to mix, takes ~ 1000 years! sfc 4 km

9. Observing the Deep Ocean

10. Observing the Deep Ocean WOCE/JGOFS/OACES Global Survey Data

11. Measured Fossil CO2 Dissolved in the Oceans • Nearly all the fossil CO2 is confined to the upper “mixed layer” of the ocean • Deeper water can hold way more CO2, but is cold and dense • Takes about 1000 years to mix the oceans in the vertical Atlantic Indian Pacific

12. The Long Tail “When we reduce or stop the burning of fossil fuel, the CO2 will go away and things will go back to normal” CO2 from fossil fuel will react with oceans, but only as fast as they “mix” Eventually, fossil CO2 will react with rocks Much of the CO2 emitted in China & India will stay in the air for many thousands of years! CO2 (ppm) you arehere industrial revolution

13. Simple Facts Revisited Physics doesn’t care People will have to adapt CO2emits heat CO2 stays around for thousands of years Extra heat warms things up Earth’s climate has always changed because of differences in heat

14. Bad & Ineffective Policy Lightbulbs State or national-level “penalties” Government choosing winners & losers Fiddling with the details Making people poorer

15. Effective Solutions When will you stand up and offer solutions? • Decent quality of life for billions of people • Energy to provide for wealth and well-being • Only a free market can bring this about • Who will advocate for effective solutions? • If free-market advocates shirk their responsibility, others will dictate policy

16. What I Said Everyone in this room understands how climate works well enough -- arguing about the details is not worth your time Climate will change a lot in the next generation, and policy will be enacted in response to perceived needs The political right has been AWOL in proposing policy solutions to a global problem The world needs you to be engaged!