From: Nathan Myhrvold Bloomberg Column < To: Subject: Myhrvold and Caldeira: Study shows "no quick fix" for global warming Date: Fri, 17 Feb 2012 20:41:27 +0000 Environmental Research Letters published a new study yesterday by Nathan and Carnegie Institution's Ken Caldeira. The study examines the transition from the current coal-based energy system to low-carbon technologies, and how that transition will affect global warming. In short, the study finds that there's no quick fix to global warming. Carbon already emitted into the atmosphere will continue to increase global temperatures through the first half of this century, and emissions created during the ramp-up to a low-carbon energy system will only exacerbate matters. To minimize the damage, the authors argue for a faster, larger-scale transition to extremely low-carbon energy sources like solar, wind and nuclear. The full paper is available at http://iopscience.iop.org/1748-9326/7/1/014019 but a more detailed overview from Nathan is included below. Nathan Myhrvold on his paper with Ken Caldeira Greenhouse gases, climate change and the transition from coal to low-carbon electricity. Environ. Res. Lett. 7 014019 (doi:10.1088/1748-9326/7/1/014019) "A few years ago I decided that to understand global warming better, I shouldn't just read about the science, I should do it. So I contacted Ken Caldeira with an idea about how to model the transition from our current high-carbon emitting energy system to low-carbon or "green" technologies. This is harder than you might think. One reason is that the large computer simulations — known as coupled ocean- atmosphere circulation models — are difficult to use for studying small effects. So we had to develop some mathematical techniques which would be sensitive enough to measure the impact of moving say 1 TWe (terra-watt of electricity generation) from coal to say, solar. Another reason this problem is tricky is that it takes energy emission to make a powe