James Hanson, NASA, Inner and Outer Space

I found out about James Hansen tonight in the literature. He sounds interesting. So this a truncated overview from Wikipedia. Just a thought, climate change is here to teach us of our connection to natural systems. It is only in our greatest trial that we find our greatest triumph. We are moving to the highest version of the greatest vision of who we really are. What I love is the diverse views, bouncing off each other and learning the courage to be seen and speak up honestly. The challenge is can we drop judgement about others who we agree or disagree with and see the dance of creation that is fostering more creativity. You see people more clearly when you simply observe without an opinion. Life is inner and outer space, our beliefs about the world creates the experience of the outer reality. It is interesting to observe the thoughts, to observe fears and to see what creativity emerges. For example sustainability is making us think of living differently, to become self sufficient, this is empowerment and self responsibility and living closer to nature. This is our true nature. We are coming home, back to ourselves. So through all the debates we will see ourselves more clearly eventually and arrive at a truth that serves the planet. In the meantime we are still learning about ourselves. Crisis creates a space for self and global understanding.

Let’s step into a scientific paradigm and observe the thoughts. Here is a outline of Hansen formerly of NASA.

James E. Hansen (born March 29, 1941) heads the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York City, a part of the Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, Earth Sciences Division. He has held this position since 1981. He is also an adjunct professor in the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences at Columbia University.

Hansen was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 1996 for his “development of pioneering radiative transfer models and studies of planetary atmospheres; development of simplified and three-dimensional global climate models; explication of climate forcing mechanisms; analysis of current climate trends from observational data; and projections of anthropogenic impacts on the global climate system.”[70] In 2001, he received the 7th Annual Heinz Award in the Environment (endowed with US$250,000) for his research on global warming,[71] and was listed as one of Time Magazine’s 100 Most Influential People in 2006. Also in 2006, the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) selected James Hansen to receive their Award for Scientific Freedom and Responsibility “for his courageous and steadfast advocacy in support of scientists’ responsibilities to communicate their scientific opinions and findings openly and honestly on matters of public importance.”

After graduate school, Hansen continued his work with radiative transfer models and attempting to understand the Venusian atmosphere. This naturally led to the same computer codes being used to understand the Earth’s atmosphere. He used these codes to study the effects that aerosols and trace gases have on the climate. Hansen has also contributed to the further understanding of the Earth’s climate through the development and use of global climate models.

Hansen is best known for his research in the field of climatology, his testimony on climate change to congressional committees in 1988 that helped raise broad awareness of global warming, and his advocacy of action to limit the impacts of climate change. In recent years, Hansen has become an activist for action to mitigate the effects of climate change, which on several occasions has led to his arrest.

In 2009 his first book, Storms of My Grandchildren, was published.

Hansen was born in Denison, Iowa. He was trained in physics and astronomy in the space science program of James Van Allen at the University of Iowa. He obtained a B.A. in Physics and Mathematics with highest distinction in 1963, an M.S. in Astronomy in 1965 and a Ph.D. in Physics, in 1967, all three degrees from the University of Iowa. He participated in the NASA graduate traineeship from 1962 to 1966 and, at the same time, between 1965 and 1966, he was a visiting student at the Institute of Astrophysics at the University of Kyoto and in the Department of Astronomy at the University of Tokyo. Hansen then began work at the Goddard Institute for Space Studies in 1967.

In the late 1960s and early 1970s, Hansen published several papers on the planet Venus following his Ph.D. dissertation. Venus has a high brightness temperature in the radio frequencies compared to the infrared. Hansen proposed that the hot surface was the result of aerosols trapping the internal energy of the planet.[4] More recent studies have suggested that several billion years ago Venus’s atmosphere was much more like Earth’s than it is now, and that there were probably substantial quantities of liquid water on the surface, but a runaway greenhouse effect was caused by the evaporation of that original water, which generated a critical level of greenhouse gases in its atmosphere.[5]

Hansen continued his study of Venus by looking at the composition of its clouds. He looked at the near-infrared reflectivity of ice clouds, compared them to observations of Venus, and found that they qualitatively agreed.[6] He also was able to use a radiative transfer model to establish an upper limit to the size of the ice particles if the clouds were actually made of ice.[7] Evidence published in the early 1980s showed that the clouds consist mainly of sulfur dioxide and sulfuric acid droplets.[8]

The first GISS global temperature data was published in 1987. Hansen and his co-author analyzed the surface air temperature at meteorological stations focusing on the years from 1880 to 1985. Temperatures for stations closer together than 1000 kilometers were shown to be highly correlated, especially in the mid-latitudes, which provided a way to combine the station data to provided accurate long-term variations. They conclude that global mean temperatures can be determined even though meteorological stations are typically in the Northern hemisphere and confined to continental regions. Warming in the past century was found to be 0.5-0.7 °C, with warming similar in both hemispheres.[13] When the analysis was updated in 1988, the four warmest years on record were all in the 1980s. The two warmest years were 1981 and 1987.[14]

With the 1991 eruption of Mount Pinatubo, 1992 saw a cooling in the global temperatures. There was speculation that this would cause the next couple years to be cooler because of the large serial correlation in the global temperatures. Bassett and Lin found the statistical odds of a new temperature record to be small.[15] Hansen countered by saying that having insider information shifts the odds to those that know the physics of the climate system, and that whether there is a new temperature record depends upon the particular data set used.[16]

The temperature data was updated in 1999 to report that 1998 was the warmest year since the instrumental data began in 1880. They also found that the rate of temperature change was larger than any time in instrument history, and conclude that the recent El Nino was not totally responsible for the large temperature anomaly in 1998. In spite of this, the United States had seen a smaller degree of warming, and a region in the eastern U.S. and the western Atlantic Ocean had actually cooled slightly.[17] ….

The anomalously high global temperature in 1998 due to El Niño resulted in a brief drop in subsequent years. However, a 2001 Hansen report in the journal Science states that global warming continues, and that the increasing temperatures should stimulate discussions on how to slow global warming.[19] The temperature data was updated in 2006 to report that temperatures are now 0.8 °C warmer than a century ago, and conclude that the recent global warming is a real climate change and not an artifact from the urban heat island effect. The regional variation of warming, with more warming in the higher latitudes, is further evidence of warming that is anthropogenic in origin.[20]

Hansen has also contributed toward the understanding of black carbon on regional climate. In recent decades, northern China has experienced increased drought, and southern China has received increased summer rain resulting in a larger number of floods. Southern China has had a decrease in temperatures while most of the world has warmed. In a paper with Menon and colleagues, through the use of observations and climate models results, they conclude that the black carbon heats the air, increases convection and precipitation, and leads to larger surface cooling than if the aerosols were sulfates.

Estimations of trends in black carbon emissions show that there was a rapid increase in the 1880s after the start of the Industrial Revolution, and a leveling off from 1900-1950 as environmental laws were enacted. China and India have recently increased their emissions of black carbon corresponding to their rapid development.[27] The emissions from the United Kingdom were estimated using a network of stations that measured black smoke and sulfur dioxide. They report that atmospheric black carbon concentrations have been decreasing since the beginning of the record in the 1960s, and that the decline was faster than the decline in black carbon producing fuel use. The current estimations of black carbon emissions are likely a factor of 2 lower than actual values.[28]

A 2007 paper used the GISS climate model in an attempt to determine the origin of black carbon in the arctic. Much of the arctic aerosol comes from south Asia. Countries such as the United States and Russia have a lower contribution than previously assumed.

Dangerous anthropogenic interference (human induced)

The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change is an international environmental treaty that was aimed at stabilizing greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere at a level that would prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system.

In 2003 Hansen wrote a paper called Can We Defuse the Global Warming Time Bomb? where he argues that human-caused forces on the climate are now greater than natural ones, and that this, over a long time period, can cause large climate changes.[31] He further states that a lower limit on “dangerous anthropogenic interference” is set by the stability of the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets. His view on actions to mitigate climate change is that “halting global warming requires urgent, unprecedented international cooperation, but the needed actions are feasible and have additional benefits for human health, agriculture and the environment.”

In a 2004 presentation at the University of Iowa, Hansen announced that he was told by high-ranking government officials not to talk about how anthropogenic influence could have a dangerous effect on climate because it’s not understood what dangerous means, or how human are actually affecting climate. The human-made influences of global warming are smaller than natural regional climate fluctuations. This is partially because the effects of aerosol, which act to cool the surface, and mask the warming effects of greenhouse gases. He describes this as a Faustian bargain because atmospheric aerosols have health risks, and should be reduced, but doing so will effectively increase the warming effects from CO2.

Hansen and coauthors propose that the global mean temperature is a good tool to diagnose dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system. Two elements are particularly important when discussing dangerous anthropogenic interference: sea level rise and the extinction of species. They describe a business as usual scenario, which has greenhouse gases growing at approximately 2% per year, and an alternate scenario, in which greenhouse gases concentrations decline. Under the alternate scenario, sea levels could rise by 1 meter per century, causing problems due to the dense population in coastal areas. But this would be minor compared to the 10 meter increase in sea level under the business as usual scenario. Hansen describes the situation with species extinction similarly to sea level rise. Assuming the alternate scenario, the situation is not good, but it is much worse for business as usual.[20]

The concept of dangerous anthropogenic interference was clarified in a 2007 paper. They find that further warming of 1 °C would be highly disruptive to humans. An alternative scenario would keep the warming to below this if climate sensitivity were below 3 °C for doubled CO2. The conclusion is that CO2 levels above 450 ppm are considered dangerous, but that reduction in non-CO2 greenhouse gases can provide temporary relief from drastic CO2 cuts. Further, they find that arctic climate change has been forced by non-CO2 constituents as much as CO2. They caution that prompt action is needed to slow CO2 growth and prevent a dangerous anthropogenic interference….

Hansen in his 2009 open letter to President Obama advocates a “Moratorium and phase-out of coal plants that do not capture and store CO2”.[64] In his first book Storms of My Grandchildren, similarly, Hansen discusses his Declaration of Stewardship the first principle of which requires “a moratorium on coal-fired power plants that do not capture and sequester carbon dioxide”.[65] Hansen also has spoken against cap and trade, instead advocating what he believes would be a progressive carbon tax at source carbon as oil, gas or coal, with a 100% dividend returned to citizens in equal shares.