Planetary Boundaries: Introduction

1. Planetary Boundaries:Introduction Kevin Noone Swedish Secretariat for Environmental Earth System Sciences Department of Applied Environmental Sciences & Stockholm Resilience Centre, Stockholm University Eighth International Seminar on Climate System and Climate Change 18-29 July 2011, Beijing, China

2. Where will we go in this lecture? • Background: limits to growth, tipping points • Our new epoch – the Anthropocene • Planetary Boundaries • It’s all connected

3. Main points • We humans can cause the global environment to move into a state with which we have no historical experience • We have identified a number of non-negotiable natural boundaries that we should not exceed • Development and wellbeing can be created if these boundaries are respected

4. A little background…

5. The Limits to Growth – D. Meadows et al. (1972) • Looked at five variables: population, per capita industrial output, food per capita, pollution, non-renewable resources • Used very primitive computing resources • Exponential reserve index:

6. World3 D. H. Meadows, et al. “Limits to Growth”, 1972

7. World3 D. H. Meadows, et al. “Limits to Growth”, 1972

8. Limits to Growth – revisited in 2008 Turner, G. M. (2008), Global Environmental Change, 18(3), 397-411.

9. Tipping points J. Schellnhuber, in Steffen, et al., Challenges of a Changing Earth, 2002

10. Lenton, et al., (2008), PNAS, 105(6), 1786-1793.

11. Tipping elements Ramanathan & Feng, 2008: PNAS, 105 (38), 14,245-14,250.

12. Our new epoch: The Anthropocene

13. Our species’ history First migration of fully modern humans out of Africa Beginning of agriculture Aborigines arrive in Australia Migrations of fully modern humans from South Asia to Europe Great European civilisations: Greek, Roman Source: GRIP ice core data (Greenland) and S. Oppenheimer, ”Out of Eden”, 2004

14. 390 A look farther back in time CO2 (ppmv) Years before present Lüthi, D., et al.. 2008. EPICA Dome C Ice Core 800KYr Carbon Dioxide Data. IGBP PAGES/World Data Center for Paleoclimatology Data Contribution Series # 2008-055

15. Some perspective Source: CEOS Handbook

16. Changes in the nitrogen cycle 1890 1990 Galloway & Cowling, Ambio 31 (2), 2002

17. Global agricultural land use Source: Foley et al., Science, 2005, Ramankutty & Foley, 1999

18. Global agricultural land use Source: Foley et al., Science, 2005, Ramankutty & Foley, 1999

19. We can be seen from space http://visibleearth.nasa.gov

20. Living in the Anthropocene

21. Temperature projections IPCC AR4 WG I, 2007

22. The steamy summer of 2003 Casualties Economic effects www.grid.unep.ch/product/publication/download/ew_heat_wave.en.pdf

23. Unusual or normal? Temperature Anomaly (°C) Source: Stott et al. Nature 432, 610-614, 2004

24. “Extreme” weather UK Wroclaw, Poland, 1997 http://noahsark.isac.cnr.it/

25. Flooding in the UK 4-year event 12-year event 30-year event Source: Allen & Kabat, EuroScience Open Forum, 2004

26. Surprise: arctic sea ice Updated from Stroeve, et al., 2007. Geophys. Res. Lett., 34: L09501.

27. Where are we headed? Fossil Fuel CO2 Emissions (Pg C yr-1) Raupach et al. 2007, PNAS, updated; Le Quéré et al. 2009, Nature Geoscience

29. The resilience of the planet

30. Where are we heading?

31. Planetary Boundaries

32. Planetary Boundaries New Scientist 27 Feb 2010 Scientific American April 2010 Rockström, et al., Nature, 2009

33. Planetary Boundaries: Authors Johan Rockström, Will Steffen, Kevin Noone, Åsa Persson, F. Stuart Chapin, III, Eric F. Lambin, Timothy M. Lenton, Marten Scheffer, Carl Folke, John Schellnhuber, Björn Nykvist, Cynthia A. de Wit, Terry Hughes, Sander van der Leeuw, Henning Rodhe, Sverker Sörlin, Peter K. Snyder, Robert Costanza, Uno Svedin, Malin Falkenmark, Louise Karlberg, Robert W. Corell, Victoria J. Fabry, James Hansen, Diana Liverman, Katherine Richardson, Paul Crutzen, Jonathan A. Foley

34. Some properties of PBs • Associated with a large-scale change in how planetary systems function (often a threshold or “tipping point”); these are non-negotiable • Have some “control” variable • Include normative aspects of defining preferred states - holocene stability

35. Some properties of PBs • Operate on time scales over which ethics and political action are relevant • A “safe operating space” can be created within the boundaries

36. Boundary Safe operating space Zone of uncertainty Planetary Boundaries

37. Climate 350 ppm CO2 +1 W/m2 Ocean acidification Aragonite saturation ratio > 2.75 Chemical pollution Not yet quantified Aerosol loading Not yet quantified Ozone depletion 276 DU Nitrogen & Phosphorus loading 35 MT N/yr 11 MT P/yr Biodiversity loss 10 E/MSY Freshwater use 4000 km3/yr Land use 15% Rockström, et al., Nature, 2009

38. Boundary choice: Major ice sheets – or not? Source: Zachos, J., et al. (2001), Science, 292, 686.

39. Climate Change Ozone depletion ? Phosphorus flow Latest data Atmospheric aerosol load ? ? 90-00 ? Nitrogen flow Ocean acidity 70-80 ? 50-60 Biodiversity loss Freshwater consumption ? Pre- Ind. Chemical pollution Agricultural land use

40. Consequences and solutions J. Foley, Scientific American, April 2010

41. It’s all connected

42. Amazonian land use change 1975 http://visibleearth.nasa.gov/ Rondonia (central Amazon basin)

43. Amazonian land use change 1986 http://visibleearth.nasa.gov/ Rondonia (central Amazon basin)

44. Amazonian land use change 1992 http://visibleearth.nasa.gov/ Rondonia (central Amazon basin)

45. Amazonian land use change 2001 http://visibleearth.nasa.gov/ Rondonia (central Amazon basin)

46. It’s all connected Rockström, et al., Nature, 2009

47. ... and how they work after Snyder, et al., Climate Dynamics 23, 279-302, 2004;

48. Anthropogenic CO2 in the oceans Source: Sabine, et al., Science 305, 367-371, 2004

49. Changing ocean pH pCO2 = 280 ppmv 1870 2000- 2009 pCO2 = 375 ppmv Source: Guinotte, et al., Coral Reefs 22, 551-558, 2003

50. Changing ocean pH pCO2 = 415 ppmv 2020- 2029 2040- 2049 pCO2 = 465 ppmv Source: Guinotte, et al., Coral Reefs 22, 551-558, 2003