iPrefaceThis book was written during the summer of 2003 as the text to accompany aseries of three 70-minute lectures I was to give in the new Frontiers of Science course, tobe required for all Columbia freshmen. It starts with discussion of the fate and climaticconsequences of the CO2 produced by burning fossil fuels and goes on to make the casethat we are likely on a path toward tripled atmospheric CO2 content. Opponents to actiondesigned to stem this buildup refuse to accept predictions of impacts based on computersimulations and choose to attribute the current warming to natural causes. I put aside thisissue and focus on the lessons offered to us by past climate changes.In the middle sections of the book, I make a case that variations in solarirradiance, seasonality changes related to orbital cycles and reorganizations in oceancirculation have driven large changes in climate. Yet, when these forcings are introducedinto climate models used to predict the impacts of extra CO2, none produce impactsanywhere near as large as those observed in the climate record. The failure to reproducethese changes tells us that important amplifiers and teleconnections must be missing inthese simulations. The bottom line is that, as our climate has proven itself to be an angrybeast, it would be highly imprudent to poke it with tripled CO2.The last section of the book presents a plea that we pull out all the stops andcreate a means by which the flow of CO2 into the atmosphere might be brought to a halt.In my estimation, only one sure route currently exists by which this might beaccomplished. It involves the capture, liquefaction and storage of CO2. As only about onethird of the CO2 is currently generated in large power plants, as part of this backstop,direct extraction from the atmosphere would have to be implemented. I say 'pull out allthe stops' because stemming the buildup of CO2 in the atmosphere will require at least 60years, 20 or more to develop the required technologies, payment schemes andinternational agreements, and 40 or more to implement them worldwide.My hope is that this book will find use in educating politicians and policy makers.I am grateful to Patty Catanzaro who created the figures for the book (and for thepower point presentation to the class) and to Joan Totton who shepherded the manuscriptthrough its many iterations. Without the encouragement of Jeff Sachs who headsColumbia's Earth Institute, I doubt whether this project would have gotten off the ground.iiTable of ContentsPageProduction of fossil fuel CO2........................................................................................ 3Fate of fossil fuel CO2................................................................................................... 6Climatic impacts of fossil fuel CO2..............................................................................13Is the planet getting warmer? .......................................................................................21Natural recorders of temperature ..................................................................................23The Medieval Warm Period .........................................................................................28Extending the record back in time ................................................................................ 32Are the 1500-year cycles driven by the Sun?................................................................35The angry beast............................................................................................................40Abrupt changes: the evidence.......................................................................................53The Dansgaard-Oeschger events ..................................................................................60The trigger for abrupt climate change: shutdowns of the ocean's conveyor circulation..62The great Agassiz Flood triggers conveyor shutdown...................................................69Heinrich's ice armadas as triggers for conveyor shutdown............................................72Geographic distribution of climate impacts .................................................................. 76Implications to CO2 warming.......................................................................................80What should we do?.....................................................................................................83The hydrogen economy................................................................................................89CO2 sequestration ........................................................................................................93CO2 storage.................................................................................................................. 93CO2 capture from power plants ....................................................................................98Extraction of CO2 from the atmosphere........................................................................ 98Time constraints......................................................................................................... 105Summary ................................................................................................................... 1081FOSSIL FUEL CO2 AND THE ANGRY CLIMATE BEASTWallace S. BroeckerEighty-five percent of the world’s energy is produced by burning coal, petroleumand natural gas. The carbon in this “fossil” fuel combines with oxygen from theatmosphere to form carbon dioxide gas (i.e., CO2). As the result, since the onset of theIndustrial Revolution, the CO2 content of the atmosphere has risen from 280 to 370 partsper million. If the world continues along its business-as-usual pathway, a century fromnow CO2 could reach triple its pre-industrial content (i.e., 840 parts per million).Environmentalists consider the climate change which would likely accompany such a riseto be totally unacceptable. While the obvious solution is to turn to other sources of energy(i.e, solar, wind, nuclear, hydro, vegetation…), currently these alternatives cannotcompete with regard to price and/or capacity. Further, even though global petroleumreserves will run short during the next 50 years, tar sands, oil shales, and coal could be‘refined’ to take its place as sources