From topmost image panel: Climate protesters last month during global strike; most recent reading of CO2 concentration at Mauna Loa observatory; Middle: Climate -spawned wildfire in California. Bottom: Brain afflicted with parasitic (bladder) worms and another person suffering from a filiarisis worm infection. Both of these will become more frequent as global warming ramps up in temperate countries.
Even as I write this two things diametrically opposite are happening: 165 million Americans are set to shop until they drop for bargains on Black Friday - and millions are set to demonstrate in a global climate strike around the world. The strikes in dozens of cities are part of a global movement started last year by Swedish school girl, Greta Thunberg. She has taken heat, no pun intended, from the knuckle dragger low IQ segment of the populace (mainly Trump worshipping, white conservative males) but has continued her mission undaunted by the disparaging apes.
Meanwhile, 5 million citizens of Sydney, Australia are choking from toxic plumes spawned by 150 wildfires related to global warming induced drought. This is not new. In January, 2013 wild fires spawned in the midst of the hottest summer on record engulfed Tasmania with searing images including that below:
See e.g.
A Vision of Humanity's Near Future?
With world leaders gathering in Madrid next week for their annual meet and greet over how to avert a climate catastrophe, the latest assessment issued by the United Nations said Tuesday that greenhouse gas emissions are still rising dangerously and failure to control emissions will lead to "climate chaos". But that's more or less a bland euphemism. In fact, we are more likely facing a climate catastrophe given how long the rising CO2 and ocean effects have been lowballed. Last month, by way of example ocean temperatures broke a record. Further, over the last half century 90 percent of warming has been in the oceans, leading to higher acidification, with loss of corals and mnow threatening the survival of plankton as well - the primary oxygen generators for the planet.
According to the latest UN report, known as "Emissions Gap Report":
“The summary findings are bleak."
This given that countries have failed to halt the rise of greenhouse gas emissions despite repeated warnings from scientists, with China and the United States, the two biggest polluters, further increasing their emissions last year. The result, the authors added, is that “deeper and faster cuts are now required.”
This given that countries have failed to halt the rise of greenhouse gas emissions despite repeated warnings from scientists, with China and the United States, the two biggest polluters, further increasing their emissions last year. The result, the authors added, is that “deeper and faster cuts are now required.”
Pathetically, the international climate negotiations, scheduled to begin next week, are not even designed to ramp up pledges by world leaders to cut their own countries’ emissions. That deadline is still a year away - allowing another major spike in CO2 concentration. . This year’s meetings are instead intended to hammer out the last remaining rules on how to implement the 2015 Paris climate accord, in which every country pledged to rein in greenhouse gases, with each setting its own targets and timetables.
Newsflash, that 'ship' has sailed into the sunset and no longer viable! We already know the limits and targets set in the Paris Accord are too weak by a factor of at least two. Meaning that even if they were universally adopted and enacted (and enforced ) immediately it would not be sufficient to stave off a climatic catastrophe (stage 1 of such) in 11 years. See e.g.
:
Climate report understates threat
Excerpt:
So far, average temperatures have risen by one degree Celsius. Adding 50 percent more warming to reach 1.5 degrees won’t simply increase impacts by the same percentage—bad as that would be. Instead, it risks setting up feedbacks that could fall like dangerous dominos, fundamentally destabilizing the planet. This is analyzed in a recent study showing that the window to prevent runaway climate change and a “hot house” super-heated planet is closing much faster than previously understood.
Global greenhouse gas emissions have grown by 1.5 percent every year over the last decade, according to the latest annual assessment. The opposite must happen if the world is to avoid the worst effects of climate change, including more intense droughts, stronger storms and widespread hunger by mid-century. To stay within relatively safe limits, emissions must decline sharply, by 7.6 percent every year, between 2020 and 2030, the UN report warned. (The media claim that 2015 "emissions adjustments" have avoided the 4C increase is belied by the feedback potential cited in the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists' link above.)
:
Climate report understates threat
Excerpt:
So far, average temperatures have risen by one degree Celsius. Adding 50 percent more warming to reach 1.5 degrees won’t simply increase impacts by the same percentage—bad as that would be. Instead, it risks setting up feedbacks that could fall like dangerous dominos, fundamentally destabilizing the planet. This is analyzed in a recent study showing that the window to prevent runaway climate change and a “hot house” super-heated planet is closing much faster than previously understood.
Global greenhouse gas emissions have grown by 1.5 percent every year over the last decade, according to the latest annual assessment. The opposite must happen if the world is to avoid the worst effects of climate change, including more intense droughts, stronger storms and widespread hunger by mid-century. To stay within relatively safe limits, emissions must decline sharply, by 7.6 percent every year, between 2020 and 2030, the UN report warned. (The media claim that 2015 "emissions adjustments" have avoided the 4C increase is belied by the feedback potential cited in the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists' link above.)
The World Meteorological Organization reported on Monday that emissions of three major greenhouse gases — carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide — have all swelled in the atmosphere since the mid-18th century. According to Alden Meyer, director of policy and strategy at the Union of Concerned Scientists:
“We are sleepwalking toward a climate catastrophe and need to wake up and take urgent action,”
The world’s 20 richest countries, responsible for more than three-fourths of worldwide emissions, must take the biggest, swiftest steps to move away from fossil fuels, the report emphasized. The richest country of all, the United States, however, has formally begun to pull out of the Paris accord.
Meanwhile, a vast swath of American consumers are oblivious to all this, more focused on getting their new HDTV on 'Black Friday'. One might say, fiddling while the (new) Rome burns - or is about to.Were the ice sheets of Greenland and Antarctica to melt, sea levels would rise by an estimated 225 feet worldwide. Few orthodox pundits expect that to happen anytime soon, but many of us believe at the current rate of CO2 increase it may well be by 2100. . In any case, those ice sheets now look a lot more fragile than they did to the climate change panel in 1995, when it said that little change was expected over the next hundred years.
In the years since, data has shown that both Greenland and Antarctica have been shedding ice far more rapidly than anticipated. Ice shelves, which are floating extensions of land ice, hold back glaciers from sliding into the sea and eventually melting. In the early 2000s, ice shelves began disintegrating in several parts of Antarctica, and scientists realized that process could greatly accelerate the demise of the vastly larger ice sheets themselves. And some major glaciers are dumping ice directly into the ocean.
By 2014, a number of scientists had concluded that an irreversible collapse of the West Antarctic ice sheet had already begun, and computer modeling in 2016 indicated that its disintegration in concert with other melting could raise sea levels up to six feet by 2100, about twice the increase described as a possible worst-case scenario just three years earlier. At that pace, some of the world’s great coastal cities, including New York, London and Hong Kong, would become inundated.
This year, a review of 40 years of satellite images indicate that the East Antarctic ice sheet, which was thought to be relatively stable, may also be shedding vast amounts of ice. As the seas rise, they are also warming at a pace unanticipated as recently as five years ago. A warmer ocean means more powerful storms, and die-offs of marine life, but it also suggests that the planet is more sensitive to increased carbon dioxide emissions than previously thought.
By the early 1990s, climate scientists completed more precise studies of ice cores extracted from the Greenland ice sheet. Dust and oxygen isotopes encased in the cores provided a detailed climate record going back eons. It revealed that there had been 25 rapid climate change events like the Younger Dryas in the last glacial period. The evidence in those ice cores - many of them originally studied by Univ. of Alaska climate researcher Prof. Gunther Weller (at the Geophysical Institute) -
Prof. Gunther Weller (1987) at Geophysical Institute
was articulated in several papers in the 1980s, showing the most rapid warming in the Arctic. His work and that of colleagues has disclosed that over the past 800,000 years the CO2 concentration of 300 ppm was never crossed until after the advent of the Industrial Revolution and the burning of fossil fuels. Prof. Weller's work was also critical in highlighting the phenomenon of "Arctic amplification". In papers and seminars delivered at the GI over 1985-1990 he pointed out that a much warmer Arctic translated to a much more unstable polar region with more frequent intrusions ("waves") of polar air. This would lead to frigid temperatures in parts of the U.S. such as we've seen the past few years. In one seminar he described it "almost like moving the Arctic to the continental U.S."
Such ice core measurements have since proven pivotal in overturning the conventional wisdom. As the science historian Spencer Weart put it:
“How abrupt was the discovery of abrupt climate change? Many climate experts would put their finger on one moment: the day they read the 1993 report of the analysis of Greenland ice cores. Before that, almost nobody confidently believed that the climate could change massively within a decade or two; after the report, almost nobody felt sure that it could not.”
Prof. Gunther Weller (1987) at Geophysical Institute
was articulated in several papers in the 1980s, showing the most rapid warming in the Arctic. His work and that of colleagues has disclosed that over the past 800,000 years the CO2 concentration of 300 ppm was never crossed until after the advent of the Industrial Revolution and the burning of fossil fuels. Prof. Weller's work was also critical in highlighting the phenomenon of "Arctic amplification". In papers and seminars delivered at the GI over 1985-1990 he pointed out that a much warmer Arctic translated to a much more unstable polar region with more frequent intrusions ("waves") of polar air. This would lead to frigid temperatures in parts of the U.S. such as we've seen the past few years. In one seminar he described it "almost like moving the Arctic to the continental U.S."
Such ice core measurements have since proven pivotal in overturning the conventional wisdom. As the science historian Spencer Weart put it:
“How abrupt was the discovery of abrupt climate change? Many climate experts would put their finger on one moment: the day they read the 1993 report of the analysis of Greenland ice cores. Before that, almost nobody confidently believed that the climate could change massively within a decade or two; after the report, almost nobody felt sure that it could not.”
In 2002, the National Academies acknowledged the reality of rapid climate change in a report, “Abrupt Climate Change: Inevitable Surprises,” which described the new consensus as a “paradigm shift.” This marked a reversal of its 1975 report.
The melting of permafrost has also defied expectations. See e.g.
More Rapid Permafrost Melting Triggers Emergency C...
This is ground that has remained frozen for at least two consecutive years and covers around a quarter of the exposed land mass of the Northern Hemisphere. As recently as 1995, it was thought to be stable. But by 2005, the National Center for Atmospheric Research estimated that up to 90 percent of the Northern Hemisphere’s topmost layer of permafrost could thaw by 2100, releasing vast amounts of carbon dioxide and methane into the atmosphere. Janice and I experienced melting permafrost's effect first hand while visiting Fairbanks, Alaska in March, 2005. There, we witnessed the collapse of a 150' high ice tower (part of an ice design exhibition) which was traced to melting permafrost below. We also noted the displacement of the Trans-Alaska oil pipeline - again from melting permafrost- while on a snowmobile expedition, e.g.
More Rapid Permafrost Melting Triggers Emergency C...
This is ground that has remained frozen for at least two consecutive years and covers around a quarter of the exposed land mass of the Northern Hemisphere. As recently as 1995, it was thought to be stable. But by 2005, the National Center for Atmospheric Research estimated that up to 90 percent of the Northern Hemisphere’s topmost layer of permafrost could thaw by 2100, releasing vast amounts of carbon dioxide and methane into the atmosphere. Janice and I experienced melting permafrost's effect first hand while visiting Fairbanks, Alaska in March, 2005. There, we witnessed the collapse of a 150' high ice tower (part of an ice design exhibition) which was traced to melting permafrost below. We also noted the displacement of the Trans-Alaska oil pipeline - again from melting permafrost- while on a snowmobile expedition, e.g.
Most appalling, if the Trump administration has its way, even the revised worst-case scenarios may turn out to be too rosy. In late August, the administration announced a plan to roll back regulations intended to limit methane emissions resulting from oil and gas exploration, despite opposition from some of the largest companies subject to those regulations. More recently, its actions approached the surreal as the Justice Department opened an antitrust investigation into those auto companies that have agreed in principle to abide by higher gas mileage standards required by California. The administration also formally revoked a waiver allowing California to set stricter limits on tailpipe emissions than the federal government.
One wonders how many Americans will pause to think of all this as they go on their merry buying sprees today. Also, how many will be mindful that the products they purchase will have direct further impacts on the rapidly destabilzing climate. I mean, who gives a damn about parasitic worms invading one's brain when there are deals at Best Buy to be had?
See also:
The California Wildfires - A Preview Of The Runaw...
And:
And:
One wonders how many Americans will pause to think of all this as they go on their merry buying sprees today. Also, how many will be mindful that the products they purchase will have direct further impacts on the rapidly destabilzing climate. I mean, who gives a damn about parasitic worms invading one's brain when there are deals at Best Buy to be had?
See also:
The California Wildfires - A Preview Of The Runaw...
And:
And:
