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Defending Planet Earth: Near-Earth-Object Surveys and Hazard Mitigation Strategies (2010)

Chapter: Appendix D: Minority Opinion - Mark Boslough, Mitigation Panel Member

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Suggested Citation:"Appendix D: Minority Opinion - Mark Boslough, Mitigation Panel Member." National Research Council. 2010. Defending Planet Earth: Near-Earth-Object Surveys and Hazard Mitigation Strategies. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/12842.
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D
Minority Opinion—Mark Boslough, Mitigation Panel Member

The original draft of the table entitled “Expected Fatalities per Year, Worldwide, from a Variety of Causes” (Table 2.2 in Chapter 2 of this final report) included the World Health Organization (WHO)1 estimate of 150,000 deaths per year from climate change. The steering committee made a decision to remove the climate data, giving as reasons (1) caution about having any debate on climate change distract from the issue at hand and (2) irrelevance of climate change numbers to the near-Earth object (NEO) threat.

The first reason is inappropriate. Data should not be removed from a report to avoid the potential for political controversy.

The second reason is incorrect. Climate change is more relevant than the other causes in the table, for several reasons:

  • The portion of the threat above the global catastrophe threshold—which in the model we quote2 constitutes about one half of the expected annual death rate—is primarily a climate change threat. Estimates of deaths from a large impact are largely based on our model-derived scientific understanding of climate change. The 91 deaths per year assumes a catastrophe threshold significantly lower than the current best estimate (3 kilometer-diameter asteroid). It implicitly assumes a high-sensitivity climate and/or strong dependence of death rate on climate change.

  • Asteroids and climate change are the only two threats in the original table that can have abrupt and global consequences, and to which everyone on the planet is exposed, regardless of their lifestyle or personal behavior. They are also both to some extent preventable, and in both cases mitigation requires international agreements and cooperation. The climate change death rate is therefore more appropriate to compare to the asteroid death rate than the other threats are. Climate can and has changed abruptly. Evidence from Greenland ice cores and other

1

A. McMichael, D. Campbell-Lendrum, S. Kovats, S. Edwards, P. Wilkinson, T. Wilson, R. Nicholls, S. Hales, F. Tanser, D. Le Sueur, M. Schlesinger, and N. Andronova, Climate change, pp. 1543-1649 in Comparative Quantification of Health Risks: Global and Regional Burden of Disease Due to Selected Major Risk Factors (M. Ezzati, A. Lopez, A. Rodgers, and C. Murray, eds.), World Health Organization, Geneva, 2004.

2

A.W. Harris, Space Science Institute, The NEO population, impact risk, progress of current surveys, and prospects for future surveys. Presentation to the Survey/Detection Panel of the NRC Committee to Review Near-Earth Object Surveys and Hazard Mitigation Strategies, January 28-30, 2009. Note: Some of these data will also be published in the upcoming European Space Agency conference proceedings of the April 27-30, 2009, 1st International Academy of Astronautics Planetary Defense Conference: Protecting Earth from Asteroids.

Suggested Citation:"Appendix D: Minority Opinion - Mark Boslough, Mitigation Panel Member." National Research Council. 2010. Defending Planet Earth: Near-Earth-Object Surveys and Hazard Mitigation Strategies. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/12842.
×

paleoclimate data show that these spontaneous changes take place much more frequently than do large impacts and on time scales that can exceed human adaptive capacities.3

  • Asteroids and climate change are the only two threats in the original table that include global catastrophe as a possibility. The best estimate of the global catastrophe threshold diameter for an asteroid is 3 km, but according to Alan Harris,4 all NEOs above this threshold, except for long-period comets, have been discovered. The best estimate of the probability of a global catastrophe this century from an asteroid impact is therefore zero. If Earth and its inhabitants are assumed to be much more sensitive to global change, then a low threshold of 1.5 km (a factor of 8 lower in kinetic yield) can be assumed. Harris estimates around 30 undiscovered asteroids larger than 1.5 km. The probability of impact by one of these before the end of the century is 0.0005 percent. However, recent models5,6 suggest a 2 percent probability of global catastrophe from anthropogenic climate change this century, assuming realistic greenhouse gas emissions scenarios and a threshold temperature change or sensitivity of 8°C. If the threshold sensitivity is 4°C, the probability of global catastrophe exceeds 20 percent. With sensitive assumptions, it is therefore 40,000 times more probable that Earth will be faced with an anthropogenic climate change catastrophe than with an asteroid catastrophe. With best assumptions it is infinitely more probable.

The WHO climate change estimate of 150,000 deaths per year is a lower bound, because of its conservative assumptions that do not include increasing temperatures since 2000. It also does not consider the probability of global catastrophe from human-triggered abrupt climate change comparable to the speed or magnitude of the Bölling/Allerød or Younger Dryas boundaries, which are not impact related.7 The Harris (2009) asteroid estimate of 91 deaths per year is an upper bound, because it assumes a low catastrophe threshold. The inclusion of these figures for intercomparison is the only way to provide policy makers with an objective basis for the prioritization and allocation of resources that is commensurate with the relative threat from various causes.

3

National Research Council, Abrupt Climate Change: Inevitable Surprises, National Academy Press, Washington D.C., 2002, p. 230.

4

A. Harris, Space Science Institute, personal communication, 2009.

5

P. Huybers, Compensation between model feedbacks and curtailment of climate sensitivity, American Geophysical Union 2009 Fall Meeting.

6

A. Sokolov, Relative contributions of uncertainty in anthropogenic emissions and climate system response to the uncertainty of projected 21st century climate, American Geophysical Union 2009 Fall Meeting.

7

M. Boslough and A. Harris, Global catastrophes in perspective: Asteroid impacts vs. climate change, American Geophysical Union 2008 Fall Meeting.

Suggested Citation:"Appendix D: Minority Opinion - Mark Boslough, Mitigation Panel Member." National Research Council. 2010. Defending Planet Earth: Near-Earth-Object Surveys and Hazard Mitigation Strategies. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/12842.
×
Page 126
Suggested Citation:"Appendix D: Minority Opinion - Mark Boslough, Mitigation Panel Member." National Research Council. 2010. Defending Planet Earth: Near-Earth-Object Surveys and Hazard Mitigation Strategies. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/12842.
×
Page 127
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The United States spends approximately $4 million each year searching for near-Earth objects (NEOs). The objective is to detect those that may collide with Earth. The majority of this funding supports the operation of several observatories that scan the sky searching for NEOs. This, however, is insufficient in detecting the majority of NEOs that may present a tangible threat to humanity. A significantly smaller amount of funding supports ways to protect the Earth from such a potential collision or "mitigation."

In 2005, a Congressional mandate called for NASA to detect 90 percent of NEOs with diameters of 140 meters of greater by 2020. Defending Planet Earth: Near-Earth Object Surveys and Hazard Mitigation Strategies identifies the need for detection of objects as small as 30 to 50 meters as these can be highly destructive. The book explores four main types of mitigation including civil defense, "slow push" or "pull" methods, kinetic impactors and nuclear explosions. It also asserts that responding effectively to hazards posed by NEOs requires national and international cooperation. Defending Planet Earth: Near-Earth Object Surveys and Hazard Mitigation Strategies is a useful guide for scientists, astronomers, policy makers and engineers.

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