Dealing with Climate Risks: Adaptation

The Earth system is currently under going changes associated with climate change. Changes are of rates and magnitudes not previously experienced by today’s globalised industrial society and so present a new and unique challenge to industry, settlement and society.

On a timescale important to today’s globalised industrial society the Earth system has experienced a significant forcing resulting from the very activities of this society. These forces arise from agriculture, industry, energy, transport and settlement based activities and apply pressures with resulting changes to the Earth system. As nothing can exist in total isolation from the Earth system industrial society must then cope with these changes.

This post considers adaptation with a comparison of a recent publication from the UK’s Institute of Mechanical Engineers and Rob Hopkin's Transition Handbook.

The impacts on all aspects of society are not equal but depend on vulnerability and resilience. Adger (2006) describes vulnerability as the state of susceptibility to harm from exposure to stresses associated with environmental and social change and from the absence of capacity to adapt. Resilience refers to the amount of change a system can absorb before its state becomes changed. In this paper the adaptation of industrial settlement and society to climate risks is discussed.

Smit and Wandel (2006) describe adaptation in this context as a process, action or outcome in a system in order for the system to better cope with, manage or adjust to some changing condition, stress, hazard, risk or opportunity. Smit and Wandel (2006) go on to describe adaptations as manifestations of adaptive capacity which reduce vulnerability. The adaptive capacity is the ability of a system to adjust to the changing external condition.

The definitions from Adger (2006) and Smit and Wandel (2006) are not wholly consistent. Adger’s understanding of vulnerability is a function of inability to adapt whereas Smit and Wandel (2006) suggest vulnerability can be reduced through adaption. This inconsistency could be explained by differing points of view of the authors, perhaps Adger’s adaptation is considered to be a rapid and automatic response whereas Smit and Wandel’s adaption is a slower proactive response arrived at through a community’s recognition of impact and governance.

In the following section two recent publications on adaptation are reviewed. A 2009 report from the UK’s Institute of Mechanical Engineers “Climate Change: Adapting to the Inevitable” (available here) and a 2008 book “The Transition Handbook” written by Rob Hopkins, originator of the Transition Culture initiative. Both consider the adaptation of industry, settlement and society to forecast global change; however their approaches could hardly be more different.

Institute of Mechanical Engineers

The Institute of Mechanical Engineers state that greenhouse gas emissions are not reducing and the climate is changing which lead them to suggest that secure long term human survival depends on adaptation. The report takes a pessimistic view on mitigation suggesting CO2 concentrations could rise to 1700ppmv within a business as usual scenario and forecasts the effects over the next 1000 years on London, Shanghai and Botswana. Energy, water, the built environment and transport are individually assessed with the focus being engineering design changes required to increase resilience. GENIE-1 (Grid-ENabled Integrated Earth system) and HadCM3L (a coupled atmosphere-ocean general circulation model) models were used to evaluate the climatic response to an extreme CO2 emission scenario. This scenario results in 8°C global average temperature increase and over 7m sea level rise. It is conceded that the climatic impact en route to 8°C warming may disrupt the business as usual scenario.

Energy infrastructure is often built in coastal locations or on floodplains due to cooling requirements. Existing facilities can be raised in the same location, protected with substantial sea walls or abandoned/relocated. This is particularly relevant to nuclear power stations being built in China and likely the UK in the coming decade. More significant adaptation is a move to smaller, more distributed power generation which does not require such cooling and can therefore be more closely integrated into the built environment, increasing its resilience and removing the need for the specific adaptation required for a nuclear power station at present day sea level.

The report suggests changes to precipitation resulting in spatially distributed wetting and drying can be adapted to through increased trading of food as food represents a large amount of embodied water. Desalination can be used where energy is available. Common to the three locations considered is a need for increased water distribution, a North-South pipeline in Botswana, a major network of canals and pipelines in China and in the UK increased interconnectedness is suggested as a way of linking areas of abundant groundwater to more arid areas. The energy intensiveness is noted.

The built environment consists of legacy infrastructure and new buildings. Legacy infrastructure is anticipated to pose more of a problem. Master plans are seen as instrumental. These cover building regulations, planning regulations and ultimately the decision between protection and abandonment as sea levels rise. Such planning is complex with many stakeholders to consider. Two thirds of UK homes in 2050 have already been built highlighting the importance of adaptation. Increased resilience to extreme weather events including flooding will be required. The most effective way to increase the resilience of the transport system is suggested to be through increased capacity. Vulnerabilities are considered to be flooding and extreme temperatures, especially for urban underground systems.

The common theme throughout the Institute of Mechanical Engineers’ report is the application of hard engineering, hard systems. Behavioural change isn’t covered, the proposed solutions call on increased infrastructure and increased energy use. This seems like a brute force approach which is likely to suffer diminishing returns on investment.

Transition Culture

The Transition Handbook brings together the thinking behind the Transition initiative. This is a recent, grass roots initiative which has gained impressive support through its simple response to a commonly perceived problem. The Transition initiative recognises the impact that climate change and fossil fuel depletion can have on a community and works to increase resilience. Hopkins defines resilience as “…the ability of a system, from individual people to whole economies, to hold together and maintain their ability to function in the face of change and shocks from outside”.

Specific changes and shocks are not evaluated in detail but the fact that impact will be felt and that today’s communities are not as resilient as they can be is argued as reason to adapt. Critically it is argued that resilience can be increased without defining the precise nature of the impact. Strong communities are proposed as key to resilience and Hopkins outlines what can be changed within communities in adaptation to climate change and fossil fuel depletion and more importantly in my opinion how, socially, this adaptation can be realised.

The adaptations a community should work toward to increase resilience are focused on becoming more local and small scale, this includes adaptations such as local composting, local procurement of local produce, local currencies, local building materials, playing football etc. This is in contrast to other adaptations such as centralised recycling, internationally imported organic food, imported ‘green building’ materials and Sky Sports, none of which make a community more resilient to external shocks. David Fleming, quoted by Hopkins, wrote “Localisation, at best, stands at the limits of practical possibility but has the decisive argument in its favour that there will be no alternative”

The contrast to the Institute of Mechanical Engineers’ report is striking. The proposed increase in transport capacity to increase resilience is countered by reducing the amount of transportation. The increased imports of food as areas become less suitable for agriculture is counted by adapting local agricultural methods, improving soil and adapting diets. The most significant difference between the two approaches is that the engineers’ proposals are limited to hard systems, never suggesting in the report any adaptation of soft systems. Hopkins’ approach involves soft systems at every stage, it is inspirational and hopeful and to date has been remarkably successful at bringing communities together in a common cause.

References

Adger, W. N., 2006, Vulnerability, Global Environmental Change 16, 268-281

Smit, B., Wandel, J., 2006, Adaptation, adaptive capacity and vulnerability, Global Environmental Change 16, 282-292

Institute of Mechanical Engineers “Climate Change: Adapting to the Inevitable” http://www.imeche.org/about/keythemes/environment/Climate+Change/Adaptation/Adaptation+Report

Hopkins, R., 2008, The Transition Handbook, Green Books, ISBN-10: 1900322188

The post is more of a book report than a clear list of priorities, so it is hard to know how to respond. It strikes me that the primary ingredient that is needed for any kind of strategy to work is a deep sense of urgency among decision makers as well as among the general populous. Lacking that, only incremental change is possible, and that is not going to be appropriate to the task at hand.

With sufficient understanding of the magnitude of the problem, a wide variety of adaptive solutions are at hand, but adaptation must not take the place of reducing our contribution to the problem. In my experience, adaptation is generally brought up after the writer has dismissed the idea of actually doing anything serious to reduce our impact.

The advantage of Hopkins' approach, as I understand it, is that it does both. Understanding that global distribution systems will not be as reliable in an energy constrained world where current major and minor ports are under water should lead to moving rapidly toward localization, which is also an important step in reducing our impacts.

On the other hand, if we frantically go about trying to rebuild all of those ports every couple of decades as ocean levels rise, we will use up resources faster and cause more industrial pollution in the form of CO2 in other forms.

This to me is the main point at hand--what kinds of adaptation are least likely to exacerbate the problem? Which are inevitable? Which should be avoided at all costs?

Again, though, the main problem for everyone, even most of us quite aware of the gravity of the problem, is that we are all sleep walking through our lives, as if under a spell, seemingly unable to wake up to the reality of the crisis that is upon us.

For one of many cites that spells out nicely the depth of the problem, see www.carbonequity.info.

(By the way, the line: "It is conceded that the climatic impact en route to 8°C warming may disrupt the business as usual scenario" must be chalked up as the understatement of the century.)

(By the way, the line: "It is conceded that the climatic impact en route to 8°C warming may disrupt the business as usual scenario" must be chalked up as the understatement of the century.)

More like millenium :-)

Indeed! This is the relevant paragraph from the report:

Although we have constructed and analysed a long-term ‘business as usual’ climate change scenario, it is questionable whether business-as-usual could continue under the climate changes projected. Thus, it is unclear whether a globally 8°C warmer world could ever be reached. The disruption to societies on the way there would clearly be substantial and the habitability to humans of at least one of the regions we focus on (Botswana) is seriously compromised.

I didn't mention above as I was focusing on the adaptation approaches but they use some fairly ridiculous fossil fuel reserves assumptions. Emissions peak at 28.9GtC in 2100, up from 7GtC in 2000. By 2300 human activities are assumed to have added 4364GtC to the atmosphere. For reference, total emissions to date have been 282GtC from fossil fuels and 147GtC from land use change. They are suggesting 10 times than amount is available to emit!

The response of government around here (California, U.S.A.) is just as ridiculous.

What is the public health adaptation to climate change? Increase installation of air conditioners. By how much? So much so that by 2100 the electricity needed for air conditioning is as much as ALL electricity used today.

How can that be so? Because the population doubles or triples and they mostly live in the flat, hot valleys where food is currently grown.

What about food? Where does that comes from? Oh...we just import it. You see, our econometric models show that urban consumers will always have more money than farmers and so the farmland will disappear and the higher value use will prevail.

I am not making this stuff up. It comes straight from University of California professors.

You see, our econometric models show that urban consumers will always have more money than farmers and so the farmland will disappear and the higher value use will prevail.

Er, ehem, uh, excuse me, Mr. Professor, sir, I realize that there is not a single Black Swan's chance in Hades, that such a thing as your model being, er, how shall I put this? Uh, perhaps, shall we say, Um, somewhat incomplete? .

Now,if you would sir, only as a hypothetical thought experiment, momentarily consider the possibility, however remote, that the urban consumer society's continued existence, upon which your premise is built, shall we say, runs into some unforeseen circumstances and runs out of access to legal currency.

I know, I know, Just to be clear, this is only a thought experiment, could never ever really happen, but what if it did? What do you suppose might happen in such a situation?"

The professor glares at the unimaginably dense individual standing before him and mustering every last bit of patience, slowly and with the clearest enunciation says, " You must not have completely grasped what I just said, You see, our econometric models show that urban consumers will always have more money than farmers and so the farmland will disappear and the higher value use will prevail. Now is that clearer?

Ah, yes, professor it couldn't be any clearer!

Chris -
the focus on Adaption (to Climate Destabilization) appears to have been growing, both as a vested interests' propaganda tool (to distract effort from and diminish commitments to Mitigation), and also as the result of an honest lack of appreciation of the iterative threat we face.
The latter point seems worth addressing - since there are evident lacunae in the discussion.

First, there is the issue that we can only adapt to peripheral changes - e.g. just a couple of metres of sea level rise will swamp the farmland of much of Bangladesh, leading to mega-famine &/or migration, but little if any Adaption.

Second, we can only adapt to changes that we know are coming - e.g. how many more years of intense prolongued summer rains must Britain face before we adapt by giving up growing crops that need the summer sun to ripen ? (Such as Spuds, Oats, Hay, Apples). Again, the outcome of the learning period would likely be mega-famine &/or migration.

Third, given our skill-poverty, food-reserve scarcity and bodily frailty, we can only adapt to changes at an endurable rate that then stop changing at some endurable level - e.g. the increasingly unstable climate we are now seeing reflects recorded GW 30 to 40 years ago; without rapid stringent constraint of further GHG emissions (i.e. massive global Mitigation) there would be little prospect of climate destabilization ceasing to intensify, let alone stabilize at an endurable level, so there would be no credible prospect of humanity successfully adapting to its impacts.

In view of the above, I hope we may agree that for policies of Adaption to be more of a help than an illusory distraction, they must be founded on the absolute priority of achieving rapid stringent global Mitigation ?

A further point that seems zombie-like in its undead status (despite repeated decapitations), is your focus on the excessive fossil reserve figures you remark above generating unreliable projections of pollution output and thus of consequent degrees of warming.

Perhaps it needs saying bluntly - we have pushed airborne GHG levels not only to the point of evident impact on planetary temperature and climate destabilization, but also well past the point of awakening potentially vast postive feedback loops, as well as of starting the accelerating decay of the natural marine carbon sinks.

You know the list of the major loops - albido, permafrost, wildfire, clathates, etc, but it may be worth metioning (again) the earliest such active loop, that was first observed in the early '60s (with CO2 at around 320ppmv) when elevated airborne CO2 caused particular microbes to boom in peat bogs causing the latter to decay on a 6% p.a. rising trend ever since. If this continues, then just this single, minor, loop will emit CO2 equal to our entire 2004 global output by about 2060.

So, to put an elm stake firmly through the heart of this "deficient reserves" fallacy, the actual fossil fuel reserves are now a far greater threat to climate via their impact on accelerating the feedback loops, than were the exaggerated old reserve numbers in their direct emissions potential.

Maybe it is time we of TOD start working on the necessary integrated diplomatic response to PO & CD, rather than leading with one or other ?

Regards,

Backstop

A most excellent post.

Cheers

(I may post it to my blog. Let me know if that's a problem.)

Thanks for your reply, I do agree with every point you make. Regarding the undead meme, I think you misread me though. I don't say fossil fuel reserves are insufficient to cause bad climate change, I say they are insufficient to drive the particular anthropogenic emission scenario used by the Mechanical Engineers.

To iterate briefly; my qualitative opinion of SRES and AR4's use of them is that supply-side limits will prevent the higher emission scenarios occurring (IPCC overestimate emissions) but the climate system is more sensitive meaning it won't take 1000ppm (three quarters directly anthropogenic) to push the climate well over +4 degrees.

"deficient reserves" is not a fallacy when presented with an emission scenario like this.

The post is more of a book report than a clear list of priorities

This post compares two different mitigation strategies, highlighting the differences. I've been absorbed by The Transition Handbook, and clearly there is no one set of specific adaptations that are appropriate to all places. However, there are planning processes and general guidelines that each locale can use to determine adaptation specifics, along with examples of what some municipalities are doing.

At least as summarized, it sounds like the MEs are doing on thing that the transition people miss, which is to localize their suggested solutions. Everything I read about the TT movement seems to be about doing the same list of stuff, which I agree are all good ideas. However a bit of localization might be in order. Is _my_ town going to get wetter or dryer? Does _my_ town need to worry about rising sea levels?

This is a misconception on your part, and, as far as I can tell, somewhat among those actually trying to start transition groups in their own communities. In fact, solutions are expected to be local. Even the 12 steps outlined are considered quite flexible.

Cheers

No deniers weighing in yet? Amazing.

This isn't really a climate change post, more about adaptation. The same comparison between hard systems and soft systems approaches could be made regarding "energy change" but I just didn't have a report like the Mechanical Engineers' one to hand. However I guess the Hirsch Report is similar to the Engineers report discussed here.

I have lived at sea level for 40 years. How soon should I move?

At the very least, move very quickly when a Cat 5 or a Tsunami is bearing down upon your locale. Old Bill Crosby skit: God to Noah--"How long can you tread water, Noah?"

How does business or people adapt to runaway global warming? If the methane in the permafrost of Siberia and the Arctic ocean begins to release en masse, it will be a tipping point that will make human life one of extreme adaptation just to stay alive. Any business done will be on a 'make it up as you go along' barter system for basic survival needs, entered into by the people that have so far survived, as they shuffle between impromtu shelters erected to shield themselves from extreme climate change. Unlike Mad Max, they won't be fighting for petrol, but instead they will fight an informal UFC style match for a can of tuna or a small bottle of water. That's how business will be conducted.

Mitigation is a misleading concept; it suggests lessening the impact of some event or situation, but that is hardly what proponents have in mind, which is really reversion, devolution, trying to make a complex system go back in time and structure to some imaginary "ideal" time in the past.

Mitigation as reversion clearly has no chance of working, though politicians will probably make a few bundles with projects related to it. On the other hand, adaptation is likely to work, and is the only type of response that can have both immediate and long-term effects. It is thus good to see adaptation being spoken about.

Adaptation is clearly an engineering and problem-solving activity, so engineers need to get involved, but it appears that the engineers considered in this article are more concerned about adapting within the confines of existing social networks, particularly cities, ports, and so on. However, if climate change turns out to be as bad as some people predict, then the very foundations of our social systems will probably have to change, possibly and probably in the direction of localization, so it's adaptation with a local face that is likely to prove itself in the long run.

Having lived in the tropics and lived through several major hurricanes, the power of water under power is tremendous--and it's best to forget about adapting and simply getting as far away as possible, so I'd think that sea-level life in those areas that turn out to be subject to hurricanes (cyclones) might not be possible or desirable. Building dikes for low-lying areas may also not be a good way to adapt--maybe low-lying areas will need to be avoided; so, there goes Bangladesh and Holland, among others, along with numerous islands.

"what proponents have in mind, which is really reversion, devolution, trying to make a complex system go back in time and structure to some imaginary "ideal" time in the past."

And how do you know "what they have in mind"? Are you a mind reader?

This sounds very much like a straw man or at least a very stereotyped misconception, though a widespread one.

Take farming. Modern organic farming practices are not just about "going back to doing things the way we did before pesticides and herbicides." It draw on a wide range of careful scientific studies aiming to discover the best (poison free) ways of maximizing soil health.

Of course, those in the business of selling the poisons are going to obviously be in a hurry to equate it with living in caves. (I always wondered what these folks had against caves, anyway.)

"However, if climate change turns out to be as bad as some people predict, then the very foundations of our social systems will probably have to change, possibly and probably in the direction of localization, so it's adaptation with a local face that is likely to prove itself in the long run."

Well put, but localization, that to you seems to be a completely practical response to a grave threat, will doubtless be characterized by someone as "reversion and devolution."

Welcome to the monkey house.

Mitigation is a misleading concept; it suggests lessening the impact of some event or situation, but that is hardly what proponents have in mind, which is really reversion, devolution, trying to make a complex system go back in time and structure to some imaginary "ideal" time in the past.

Mitigation doesn't have to be about reversal. The ozone depletion from CFCs was mitigated but there is dramatically more refrigeration and propelled aerosols in use today than 20 years ago. The ideal solution is to mitigate whilst maintaining similar levels of energy service etc, no government is suggesting reduced service along with mitigation. Ideals are rarely met though which leads us to adaptation.

if climate change turns out to be as bad as some people predict, then the very foundations of our social systems will probably have to change, possibly and probably in the direction of localization,

I'm not quite clear what you mean here.

Adaptation is too commonly discussed in terms of regressing back to our past lifestyles, usually a small scale agrarian or hunter-gatherer scenario which unfortunately cannot now support our current population. What if instead we seek to adapt by making a leap forward to a new sustainable lifestyle?

What if in the near future almost everyone is connected to a virtual reality computer system such that a lavish, or otherwise desirable, lifestyle could be experienced without real resources (apart from minimum amounts of simple foods) needing to be consumed?

Current virtual reality systems are quite basic, but at an exponential (Moore's law) rate of technological development it is not out of the question for large scale and believable simulated reality systems to be in place within 25 years. This would be an achievable and sustainable solution to our resource constraints. It would also be a lifestlye improvement for the vast majority of people.

This should not be viewed negatively as the manner in which simulated reality was shown in the movie 'The Matrix'. Instead everyone would be aware that they are living in a simulated environment and would be free to live outside it if they wished.

The internet is great, but apart from the limitations of virtual reality technology (I saw my first 3D movie last week - I have forgotten it already) - Moore's Law still suffers from Jevron's paradox. We are burning more and more power to flood the internet with ever more trivial content.

Virtual reality uses massive amounts of energy.

Right. And more to the point, why in the name of [insert concept here] would we pay to keep people alive while attached to VR?

Cheers

I wonder what the balance is between energy and resource use for "leisure activities" and use for the rest of the economy? It might be feasible for a low resource intensity virtual reality to replace most of what we do for fun whilst the "essential" (wherever you want to draw the line between the two) part of the economy continues.

Low resource leisure activities -

singing, dancing, music making, running, team sports, story telling.

I have played cricket at 6000 feet altitude in the himalayas. If you hit a four on the wrong side, the ball went 2000 feet (down).

Modern leisure activities are simply a way to entertain people without the need to be sociable.

We could use simulated reality to replace almost all resource consuming activities and not just leisure activities: commuting to and from the office/school, attending work/classes, shopping for the latest disposable fashions and gadgets. We could log out of the simulation for some "real time", but that would soon become as arcane as buying a physical one-time use newspaper.

You clearly do not five year old kids. You do not learn anything at that age except by direct physical interaction. Put a healthy five year old in a VR machine, and five minutes later you have a five year old playing with the terminally broken parts of a VR machine.

We are animals.

We are intelligent animals with tools such as transistors. We are already living a large portion of our life interacting with a low form of simulated reality: the internet. We just need to bring it to the next level wherby we can live larger portions of our lives in a more complete simulated reality offering higher quality of life experiences and lower resource consumption than our "real world".

Kids would live mostly in the "real world" when they are very young, just as a five year old doesn't surf the web much these days. Then, as they grow up, they could participate in simulated reality more.

It was pointed out on Slashdot recently that Moore's law has about 72 months to run before running up against physical limits - the minimum size of reliable conduction paths on silicon (4nm) vs. the speed of light, which limits practical path lengths to about 2 - 6 cm. Even if we could have conduction paths one atom wide, that would only add 36 months. So we don't have your 25 years.

But then, that comment was probably PhotoShopped in. ;-)

Six to nine years to get quantum computing sorted then :)

We will have have high quality simulated reality. It is almost a certainty. Why do you doubt this?

"It could just turn the whole Navajo Nation into a dust bowl"

Link

I live at about sea level near the Lincolnshire, UK, coast. Some of the most productive agricultural land and some small towns, villages and isolated settlements are in what the Government's Environment Agency classifies as 'At Flood Risk' areas. Adaptation is already alive and well in local government. Planning is taking into account the IPCC projected sea level rise of half a metre or so this century with an eye on the more recent and perhaps more realistic projections of a metre and more.

Shoreline defenses have been a way of life for a long time and there is still scope for coping with considerable sea level rise with engineering solutions long in place across the North Sea in the Netherlands. Coastal realignment to maintain biodiversity and habitat is underway. Plans to realign sections of hard to defend coastline are at an advanced stage. Large scale housing development has been stopped in the lower lying areas and single storey houses prohibited.

The local Transition Town initiative is working closely with local government and community organizations to build in resilience through localization of food and energy production and distribution and enhanced community coherence.

There will come a time when the cost of extra sea defences is not matched by the benefits and we then head for the hills, but in a region not known for Cat 5s and tsunamis, I think we may see the century out.

Shoreline defenses have been a way of life for a long time and there is still scope for coping with considerable sea level rise with engineering solutions long in place across the North Sea in the Netherlands. ...
The local Transition Town initiative is working closely with local government and community organizations to build in resilience through localization of food and energy production and distribution and enhanced community coherence.

Good thinking.
The dear old engineers can be quite good at some of that stuff. They are less likely to 'get' Peak Oil though - apparently the people behind the report have not got a clue. The Transition crowd have the virtue of being much more realistic, despite some of the 'hopes' I have come across, which are about as realistic as UK's 'Dad's Army' in WWII; ( as in, volunteers hoping to stop the Wehrmacht with 'home-made' sticky bombs to lob at tanks). But 'Dig for Victory' lifts the community spirits.

I want, however, to see the 'community' results of the first serious test unfolding just now in the UK with the return of mass unemployment and serious housing problems, with probable increase in 'fuel poverty' and with increasing difficulties in affording the transport necessary for health, work, school, let alone 'shopping'. And a probable 'political' crisis unable to deal with our dependence on the financial 'industry'.

I am currently filling in a response to a questionnaire: "Local Actions on Global Issues Project Evaluation" promoted through a local Community Trust, with some support from local government. They are just raising their heads a bit higher up than the (worthy) 'get rid of plastic bags' campaign and promotion of a Green Festival. An extension of the area of 'Town Allotments' (inheritors of old-time grow-your-own community schemes) is encouraging, but our local political planning is still at the stage of denying permission for local on-shore wind farms, and is still going for 'tourism' and lobbying for upgrade (dual-road) of the main north/south road.

I am looking for priorities to suggest.

If in fact climate is occurring, then the available energy that can be transformed into work is shrinking.

Available Energy = Heat Transferred – Tsubo times delta S

Tsubo = Atmospheric sink temperature,

Delta S = change in entropy.

So as the sink temperature increases the unavailable part of energy is increasing at the detriment of available energy. Apparently more heat Q will need to transferred in the future in order to keep the available energy at its present value.

Whilst thermodynamically true, this effect will be quite small, as most energy transformations use quite a large delta - hundreds of Kelvins.

If the world warmed by 5 or 10 Kelvins, a few percent of net energy loss would be the least of our problems.

Here's a solution to that problem:

Atmospheric Vortex Engine