As noted in my June 10, 2021 post, tipping points arise from sudden fluctuations of climate but which can lead to permanent conditions determining a new, more hostile equilibrium. From Atmospheric physicist Gunther Weller's models we expect a series of tipping points for which the control parameters (e.g. CO2 concentration) alter radically at every point. Two key points are noteworthy in this discussion:
1) Tipping point transitions are governed by a potential V(x,c) with c the control parameter and described by a point x Î R n that minimizes the potential. Changing external conditions - say pumping out more CO2 into the atmosphere- changes the control parameter c and that changes the shape of the potential V(x,c).
As the shape of the potential V(x,c) changes the original global minimum becomes metastable or even disappears. I believe we are at such a metastable point now with the concentration having jumped by > 5.1 ppm in just 2 years.
The danger then is the global climate system being knocked into instability (at a tipping point) and in its wake a new permanent equilibrium state (at some new potential V(x’, c’) for which humans face an existential crisis (heat waves lasting months, instead of weeks). How soon might this occur given a current value for CO2 concentration of 420 ppm? Professor Weller proposed 600 ppm as the threshold value for the runaway greenhouse effect, which would basically initiate a planetary state leading to Earth being uninhabitable after 100-200 yrs. No amount of “adaptation” would be feasible, especially if power grids collapsed from overuse in the frenzy to stay cool.
2) The pre-existing CO2 burden only adds to (1). While about half of that carbon dioxide is currently absorbed by the world’s forests and oceans, the other half stays in the atmosphere, where it lingers for thousands of years, steadily warming the planet. Even if all CO2 emissions halted it would not make a dent in the long term accumulations already in the atmosphere.
The process may be described like a series with terms being added, viz: to describe the CO2 content now in the atmosphere, we must initiate the series with n= 1 (for 1924), viz. CO2( 2024) = x 1 + x 2 + x 3 + x 4 +.............+ x 1 00
Terminating at the last term 100 years later. Here each ‘x’ denotes the CO2
burden added for each year in succession.
Thus, the CO2 effect for a given year is not just for that year, but rather
inclusive of the cumulative additions for all the years - starting up to 100
years before.
Adding it up along with a recent report in The Washington Post (April 19). According to that report, "the historic heat wave that besieged Mali and other parts of West Africa earlier this month — which scientists said would have been “virtually impossible” in a world without human-caused climate change- is just the latest manifestation of a sudden and worrying surge in global temperatures. "
More worrisome: "The scale and intensity of this hot streak is extraordinary even considering the unprecedented amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, researchers say. Scientists are still struggling to explain how the planet could have exceeded previous temperature records by as much as half a degree Celsius (0.9 degrees Fahrenheit) last fall."
We must also factor in earlier reported work showing humanity is in the process of changing the planet in ways that any future climatologist (or geologist) would find obvious and undeniable. Also that we are headed for a hellish future defined by a number of major climate tipping points, defined by "the great Burning".
So, it’s probably best to think of the approaching geological and climatological moment epoch like a global conflagration—rather than a durable new regime (geological epochs tend to be several million years in duration). So assuming there are humans around 10,000 or even a million years from now (dubious at best), they will be able to discern the GHG residue from the 20th and 21st centuries .
The generations to come will inhabit a different world indeed. Earth’s new regime, once it has stabilized, will surely be classifiable as a new geological epoch. But why “The Great Burning” in particular? The most plausible hypothesis is that of atmospheric scientist Gunther Weller: the onset of a catastrophic climate tipping point. Prof. Weller had forecast such a tipping point as early as the mid -1980s while at the Geophysical Institute in Fairbanks, AK. That was based on his then studies of the significant increase in Arctic temperatures (from ice core analysis)and the accompanying melting. We also saw this first hand while visiting Alaska in March of 2005, in particular the difficulty taking a dog sled over melting snow just outside Fairbanks, e.g.
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