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Post by swamprat on Jun 16, 2021 20:36:48 GMT -6
Earth is now trapping an ‘unprecedented’ amount of heat, NASA saysNew research shows that the amount of heat the planet traps has roughly doubled since 2005, contributing to more rapidly warming oceans, air and land
By Tik RootJune 16, 2021
The amount of heat Earth traps has roughly doubled since 2005, contributing to more rapidly warming oceans, air and land, according to new research from NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
“The magnitude of the increase is unprecedented,” said Norman Loeb, a NASA scientist and lead author of the study, which was published this week in the journal Geophysical Research Letters. “The Earth is warming faster than expected.”
Using satellite data, researchers measured what is known as Earth’s energy imbalance — the difference between how much energy the planet absorbs from the sun, and how much it’s able to shed, or radiate back out into space.
When there is a positive imbalance — Earth absorbing more heat than it is losing — it is a first step toward global warming, said Stuart Evans, a climate scientist at the University at Buffalo. “It’s a sign the Earth is gaining energy.”
That imbalance roughly doubled between 2005 and 2019, the study found. “It is a massive amount of energy,” said Gregory Johnson, an oceanographer for NOAA’s Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory and co-author of the study. Johnson said the energy increase is equivalent to four detonations per second of the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima, or every person on Earth using 20 electric tea kettles at once. “It’s such a hard number to get your mind around.”
The Earth takes in about 240 watts per square meter of energy from the sun. At the beginning of the study period, in 2005, it was radiating back out about 239.5 of those watts — creating a positive imbalance of about half a watt. By the end, in 2019, that gap had nearly doubled to about 1 full watt per square meter.
Oceans absorb most of that heat, about 90 percent. When researchers compared satellite data to temperature readings from a system of ocean sensors, they found a similar pattern. The agreement between the data sets surpassed expectations, Loeb said, calling it the “nail in the coffin” for the imbalance results.
“The fact that they used two different observational approaches and came up with the same trends is pretty remarkable,” said Elizabeth Maroon, a climatologist at the University of Wisconsin at Madison unaffiliated with the study. “It lends a lot of confidence to the findings.”
The biggest outstanding question is what is driving the acceleration.
The study points to decreases in cloud cover and sea ice, which reflect solar energy back into space, and an increase in greenhouse gases emitted by humans, such as methane and carbon dioxide, as well as water vapor, which trap more heat in the Earth, as factors in the imbalance. But it is difficult to discern human-induced changes from cyclical variations in the climate, the researchers said.
“They are all kind of blended together,” said Loeb, who added that further research is needed to determine the factors.
The period studied overlapped with fluctuations in the climate that may have played a significant role in the acceleration, including a strong El Niño event from 2014 to 2016, which led to unusually warm waters. The Pacific Decadal Oscillation is a longer-term, El Niño-like fluctuation, and around 2014 that also switched from a “cool” phase to a “warm” phase.
But, Johnson says, that doesn’t let humans off the hook. “We’re responsible for some of it,” he said. It’s just unclear how much.
Kevin Trenberth, a distinguished scholar at the National Center of Atmospheric Research, said the results of the study aren’t particularly surprising given these climatic variations. But 15 years is not enough time to establish a trend, he said.
“Certainly you’d like to see another 10 years or something like that to see how this behaves,” he said. “The question is: Will this continue?”
That too is unclear, Johnson said. The imbalance could shrink in some years compared to others, he said, but the general trajectory appears to be upward, especially if the Pacific Decadal Oscillation stays in a warm phase.
“The longer we observe it,” he said, “the more certain we become of the trend.”
Tracking Earth’s energy imbalance will also help scientists better understand climate change, Johnson said. Other common metrics, such as air temperature, only catch a fraction of the effect of the sun’s heat. The imbalance, he said, measures “the full amount of heat that goes into the climate system.”
Regardless of the magnitude or reasons for the accelerated imbalance, the fact that it is positive is crucial, said Trenberth. “It’s the sign that matters here,” he said. “The fact that it’s positive means that global heating is happening.”
That extra heat, especially in the oceans, will mean more intense hurricanes and marine heat waves.
“I hope the heating doesn’t keep going at this clip,” Loeb said. “It’s not good news.”
www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2021/06/16/earth-heat-imbalance-warming/
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Post by swamprat on Jun 23, 2021 16:15:55 GMT -6
'Existential risk': Leaked IPCC climate report draft 'reads like a 4,000-page indictment' of humanity's failure Andrea Germanos, June 23, 2021 Agence France-Presse reported Monday on the contents of a leaked draft of a United Nations intergovernmental climate panel report which warned that devastating effects of a warming world are set to hit far sooner than previously thought, with impacts including an additional tens of millions of people facing hunger by 2050.
"This is a warning of existential risk. Of survival. Of collapse," said climate movement Extinction Rebellion in response to AFP's reporting on what the draft contained.
The draft Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) document warns of sweeping impacts on weather events, food, ecosystems, and disease—changes expected even if global temperature rise is kept under the Paris climate agreement's second threshold of 2°Celsius. It also calls for systems-wide changes to avert a worst-case climate scenario.
"By far the most comprehensive catalogue ever assembled of how climate change is upending our world, the report reads like a 4,000-page indictment of humanity's stewardship of the planet," reported AFP.
The final document is set to be released in February at the end of the formal review process.
IPCC responded to the media reporting with a statement indicating the draft document is likely based on the Second-Order Draft of the Working Group II report, which was circulated for review by governments and experts in December and January.
Because it is a confidential working document, the IPCC said it would not comment on the draft.
In a lengthy Twitter thread responding to the reporting, climate scientist Katharine Hayhoe called the draft's assessment rightly "blunt" though unsurprising given that it's a synthesis report.
Referring to scientists, she added: "We've realized that if we don't spell out the fact that it's our civilization we've put on the chopping block ourselves, in words that everyone can understand, emphasizing risks that matter to everyone on this planet, who will?"
"Climate change isn't just one more priority on our already over-crowded list," Hayhoe wrote. "It is a threat multiplier that affects every single other priority already on it, from the air we breathe to the food we eat."
Despite the draft's grim assessment, Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg found reason for hope.
Speaking to AFP, she said the document "confirms what we already knew"—that "the situation is very dire and that we need to act right now."
"At least I find that it's very hopeful," she said, "that many people are becoming more and more ready to tell it like it is," because "we can of course not face this crisis unless we tell it like it is, unless we are adult enough to tell the truth and to face the reality."
She added that "this could be something that could... wake people up, which is very hopeful."
www.alternet.org/2021/06/ipcc-report/
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Post by swamprat on Jul 1, 2021 8:12:03 GMT -6
Scientists warn of climate change intensifying heat wavesBY RACHEL FRAZIN AND ZACK BUDRYK
Scientists are warning that climate change is already compounding the extreme heat battering the Pacific Northwest and will do so even more as the planet continues to warm.
Oregon and Washington saw record-setting triple-digit temperatures this week, bringing many aspects of daily life to a grinding halt.
In Portland, a mass transit company canceled service because of melting cables, while highway pavement in the Seattle area buckled in the extreme heat.
Weather experts said that while there are many factors at play in this most recent heat wave, climate change is adding a few extra degrees to an already bad situation.
“This is a highly unusual weather event that we're dealing with ... that's what we're having in this case, in which all the factors that tend to make it hot in the Pacific Northwest are all working together,” said Nick Bond, an atmospheric science professor at the University of Washington.
But he added that climate change, which he said had raised temperatures by 2 to 3 degrees Fahrenheit in the region, “certainly has a role here in that our summer temperatures have risen, and they're going to continue to rise.”
“It's that much more severe of an event because of that baseline warming,” he told The Hill.
National Weather Service meteorologist Robin Fox told The Hill she’d refrain from attributing any singular weather event to climate change and instead described the Pacific Northwest heat wave as being caused by a “large area of high pressure” that’s bringing “historic heat” to the region.
Some experts said that as the Earth heats up, climate change could have a more dramatic impact on summer heat, posing risks to humans in different ways.
“All the indicators are very clear that we are entering continually hotter, dryer, riskier summers,” Sarah Myhre, a climate scientist and executive director of the Rowan Institute, told The Hill.
“From a climate change context, the idea that heat extremes are going to become more extreme and more intense” has been known to scientists for decades, she added.
Jane Baldwin, a postdoctoral research scientist at Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, added that climate change will affect not only temperatures across the board but also the nature of atypically hot periods.
“We have very clear evidence that as greenhouse gases in the atmosphere increase, the overall temperature warms, but also because of that, heat waves increase in intensity and duration,” Baldwin said.
“Until the event has passed, it’s hard to do the attribution of the event in terms of how much of this event can be attributed to climate change, but I do think it is a harbinger of what is projected to come with global warming,” she added.
The Biden administration has highlighted climate change as among the major crises the U.S. is facing and has said it wants to cut emissions at least in half by 2030 compared to 2005 levels.
Congress will soon determine which of President Biden’s climate measures to include in their infrastructure packages, and federal agencies are expected to take regulatory actions to cut emissions.
Kristie Ebi, a professor of environmental and occupational health sciences at the University of Washington, said the heat wave in the Northwest was unusual but also in line with the trajectory of climate change.
"What we're seeing today is more extreme, but it certainly is part of what's expected with the changing climate,” she said.
Seattle has seen record-shattering triple-digit temperatures in recent days, and inland areas such as Spokane, Wash., could see several more days of extreme heat, according to the National Weather Service.
The heat wave comes less than a year after September 2020 registered as the hottest September on record globally. Six of the warmest years on record occurred in the 2010s.
Experts also raised concerns about the human impacts, particularly to those in disadvantaged communities or who are otherwise vulnerable.
“Think about all the vulnerable people: pregnant women, babies, the elderly ... anyone who is at risk in society is also going to have compounding impacts from a heat event like this,” Myhre said. “Just like COVID, this is an example of how inequity is exacerbated when disaster happens.”
“This is just the beginning of the heat waves we will see,” Myhre added, warning of “really catastrophic heat-induced events in places that have no infrastructure to protect people.”
“One of the reasons why we are able to navigate the heat waves this year is we currently don’t have any smoke and we’re able to ventilate our houses,” she noted. However, she said, “if we get to a point where we have smoke,” the effects of the heat will be even more acutely felt.
These extreme temperatures are also likely to lead to a wave of health problems for which local health infrastructure may be unprepared, Ebi said.
“Our core body temperature actually only operates within a ... narrow range,” she said. “When [the body’s] mechanisms are insufficient, because of chronic disease, for example, and our core body temperature starts to rise, it starts to affect our organ systems.”
As a result, she said, when experts speak of the health risks of temperature spikes, “it’s not just the heat stress, the heat stroke we’re worried about, it’s people who have underlying chronic medical conditions, children and babies, those over the age of 65, people who take drugs that limit the ability of the body to sweat.”
thehill.com/policy/equilibrium-sustainability/560836-scientists-warn-of-climate-change-intensifying-heat-waves?userid=365212&utm_source=EarthSky+News&utm_campaign=78ea937993-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2018_02_02_COPY_01&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_c643945d79-78ea937993-394368745
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Post by jcurio on Jul 10, 2021 12:18:25 GMT -6
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Post by paulette on Jul 11, 2021 1:34:29 GMT -6
A significant percent of crops here are withered or sunburned (strawberries, blueberries). Scary
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Post by jcurio on Jul 12, 2021 8:19:52 GMT -6
We are getting rain every day.. last 2 days the temperature has been in the 70’s.
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Post by lois on Jul 12, 2021 17:28:45 GMT -6
We are getting rain every day.. last 2 days the temperature has been in the 70’s. Jc we been having rain for six days. Been 70 degrees. I'm sick of it. Would love to see the sun and so would my tomatoes and flowers. Hope this finds you well. God bless.
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Post by jcurio on Jul 13, 2021 22:05:05 GMT -6
God bless you too, Lois ☺️
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Post by swamprat on Jul 28, 2021 11:03:17 GMT -6
Ignoring climate change will yield 'untold suffering,' panel of 14,000 scientists warns By Brandon Specktor - Senior Writer about 7 hours ago
A few big climate policies could change everything — but we have to act fast. The International Space Station flies over a city at night. Human activity may be pushing the climate beyond a 'tipping point,' a new report suggests.
Nearly 14,000 scientists have signed a new climate emergency paper, warning that "untold suffering" awaits the human race if we don't start tackling global warming head-on, effective immediately.
The new paper, published July 28 in the journal BioScience and led by researchers from Oregon State University, is an update of a 2019 paper that declared a global "climate emergency" and evaluated Earth's vital signs based on 31 variables — including greenhouse gas emissions, surface temperature changes, glacial ice mass loss, Amazon rainforest loss, plus various social factors like global gross domestic product (GDP) and fossil fuel subsidies.
Unsurprisingly, the authors of the new paper find that Earth's vitals have only deteriorated over the last two years, with 18 of the report's 31 categories showing new all-time record highs or lows, the authors wrote. Greenhouse gas emissions are at an all-time high, while glacial ice thickness is at its lowest point in 71 years of record keeping, the report found. The world is richer than it's ever been (measured by global GDP), while the sky is more polluted than ever (measured by carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide concentrations in the atmosphere).
"The updated planetary vital signs we present reflect the consequences of unrelenting business as usual," the authors wrote in the study. "A major lesson from COVID-19 is that even colossally decreased transportation and consumption are not nearly enough and that, instead, transformational system changes are required, and they must rise above politics."
While the report includes some positive trends — like record increases in the use of solar and wind energy, and institutions divesting money from the fossil fuel industry — it paints a generally bleak picture of the future, accentuated by ongoing surges in climate-related disasters like floods, hurricanes, wildfires and heat waves, the authors wrote. The planet may also be about to pass (or has already passed) critical natural tipping points — such as the Amazon rainforest becoming a carbon source rather than a carbon sink — from which it will be hard to recover, the team added.
This all boils down to one conclusion: The future habitability of our planet depends on immediate, large-scale action, the authors wrote.
To accomplish this task, the team suggests a three-pronged near-term policy approach: 1) Implement a "significant" global carbon price to reduce emissions; 2) phase out and eventually ban fossil fuels; and 3) restore and protect key carbon-rich ecosystems, like forests and wetlands, to preserve the planet's largest carbon sinks and protect biodiversity.
"Implementing these three policies soon will help ensure the long-term sustainability of human civilization and give future generations the opportunity to thrive," the authors wrote. "The speed of change is essential, and new climate policies should be part of COVID-19 recovery plans."
The researchers plan to release another planetary "check-in" in the coming years. Hopefully, that future report will show more signs of positive change as more nations take the severity of climate change seriously. Or, perhaps it will reflect the collapse of society. Time — and political action — will tell. www.livescience.com/earth-vital-signs-climate-change-suffering.html?utm_source=SmartBrief&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=368B3745-DDE0-4A69-A2E8-62503D85375D&utm_content=B114CDEB-D837-4B56-9907-E9A1439CC147&utm_term=bfd0bb3f-e841-4adf-b05a-907662e2aab0
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Post by swamprat on Aug 11, 2021 13:28:32 GMT -6
The 2021 IPCC Report: What You Need To KnowPosted by
EarthSky Voices August 10, 2021
Pep Canadell, CSIRO; Joelle Gergis, Australian National University; Malte Meinshausen, The University of Melbourne; Mark Hemer, CSIRO, Michael Grose, CSIRO
Earth has warmed 1.09 C (1.96 F) since pre-industrial times and many changes such as sea-level rise and glacier melt are now virtually irreversible, according to the most sobering report yet by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
The report also found escape from human-caused climate change is no longer possible. Climate change is now affecting every continent, region and ocean on Earth, and every facet of the weather.
The long-awaited report is the sixth assessment of its kind since the panel was formed in 1988. It will give world leaders the most timely, accurate information about climate change ahead of a crucial international summit in Glasgow, Scotland, in November.
The IPCC is the peak climate science body of the United Nations and the World Meteorological Organization. It is the global authority on the state of Earth’s climate and how human activities affect it. We are authors of the latest IPCC report and have drawn from the work of thousands of scientists from around the world to produce this new assessment.
Sadly, there is hardly any good news in the 3,900 pages of text released on August 9, 2021. But there is still time to avert the worst damage, if humanity chooses to.
It’s unequivocal: humans are warming the planet
For the first time, the IPCC states unequivocally – leaving absolutely no room for doubt – that humans are responsible for the observed warming of the atmosphere, lands and oceans.
The IPCC finds Earth’s global surface temperature warmed 1.09 C (1.96 F) between 1850-1900 and the last decade. This is 0.29 C (0.52 F) warmer than in the previous IPCC report in 2013. (It should be noted that 0.1 C of the increase is due to data improvements.)
The IPCC recognizes the role of natural changes to the Earth’s climate. However, it finds 1.07 C of the 1.09 C (0.93 F of the 0.96 F) warming is due to greenhouse gases associated with human activities. In other words, pretty much all global warming is due to humans.
Global surface temperature has warmed faster since 1970 than in any other 50-year period over at least the last 2,000 years, with the warming also reaching ocean depths below 2,000 meters.
The IPCC says human activities have also affected global precipitation (rain and snow). Since 1950, total global precipitation has increased, but while some regions have become wetter, others have become drier.
The frequency and intensity of heavy precipitation events have increased over most land areas. This is because the warmer atmosphere is able to hold more moisture – about 7% more for each additional degree of temperature – which makes wet seasons and rainfall events wetter.
Higher concentrations of carbon dioxide, growing faster
Present-day global concentrations of atmospheric carbon dioxide are higher and rising faster than at any time in at least the past two million years.
The speed at which atmospheric carbon dioxide has increased since the industrial revolution (1750) is at least ten times faster than at any other time during the last 800,000 years, and between four and five times faster than during the last 56 million years.
About 85% of carbon-dioxide emissions are from burning fossil fuels. The remaining 15% are generated from land use change, such as deforestation and degradation.
Concentrations of other greenhouse gases are not doing any better. Both methane and nitrous oxide, the second and third biggest contributors to global warming after carbon dioxide, have also increased more quickly.
Methane emissions from human activities largely come from livestock and the fossil fuel industry. Nitrous oxide emissions largely come from the use of nitrogen fertilizer on crops.
Extreme weather on the rise
Hot extremes, heatwaves and heavy rain have also become more frequent and intense across most land regions since 1950, the IPCC confirms.
The report highlights that some recently observed hot extremes, such as the Australian summer of 2012–2013, would have been extremely unlikely without human influence on the climate.
Human influence has also been detected for the first time in compounded extreme events. For example, incidences of heatwaves, droughts and fire weather happening at the same time are now more frequent. These compound events have been seen in Australia, Southern Europe, Northern Eurasia, parts of the Americas and African tropical forests.
Oceans: hotter, higher and more acidic
Oceans absorb 91% of the energy from the increased atmospheric greenhouse gases. This has led to ocean warming and more marine heatwaves, particularly over the past 15 years.
Marine heat waves cause the mass death of marine life, such as from coral bleaching events. They also cause algal blooms and shifts in the composition of species. Even if the world restricts warming to 1.5-2 C (2.7-3.6 F), as is consistent with the Paris Agreement, marine heatwaves will become four times more frequent by the end of the century.
Melting ice sheets and glaciers, along with the expansion of the ocean as it warms, have led to a global mean sea level increase of 6 inches (0.2 meters) between 1901 and 2018. But, importantly, the speed sea level is rising is accelerating: 0.05 inches (1.3 mm) per year during 1901-1971, 0.07 inches (1.9 mm) per year during 1971-2006, and 0.14 inches (3.7 mm) per year during 2006-2018.
Ocean acidification, caused by the uptake of carbon dioxide, has occurred over all oceans and is reaching depths beyond 6,500 feet (2,000 m) in the Southern Ocean and North Atlantic.
Many changes are already irreversible
The IPCC says if Earth’s climate was stabilized soon, some climate change-induced damage could not be reversed within centuries, or even millennia. For example, global warming of 2 C (3.6 F) this century will lead to average global sea level rise of between 6.5 and 19.5 feet (2 and 6 m) over 2,000 years, and much more for higher emission scenarios.
Globally, glaciers have been synchronously retreating since 1950 and are projected to continue to melt for decades after the global temperature is stabilized. Meanwhile the acidification of the deep ocean will remain for thousands of years after carbon-dioxide emissions cease.
The report does not identify any possible abrupt changes that would lead to an acceleration of global warming during this century – but does not rule out such possibilities.
The prospect of permafrost (frozen soils) in Alaska, Canada and Russia crossing a tipping point has been widely discussed. The concern is that as frozen ground thaws, large amounts of carbon accumulated over thousands of years from dead plants and animals could be released as they decompose.
The report does not identify any globally significant abrupt change in these regions over this century, based on currently available evidence. However, it projects permafrost areas will release about 66 billion tons of carbon dioxide for each additional degree of warming. These emissions are irreversible during this century under all warming scenarios.
How we can stabilize the climate
Earth’s surface temperature will continue to increase until at least 2050 under all emissions scenarios considered in the report. The assessment shows Earth could well exceed the 1.5 C (2.7 F) warming limit by early 2030s.
If we reduce emissions sufficiently, there is only a 50% chance global temperature rise will stay around 1.5 C (including a temporary overshoot of up to 0.1 C). To get Earth back to below 1.5 C warming, carbon dioxide would need to be removed from the atmosphere using negative emissions technologies or nature-based solutions.
Global warming stays below 2 C (3.6 F) during this century only under scenarios where carbon-dioxide emissions reach net-zero around or after 2050.
The IPCC analyzed future climate projections from dozens of climate models, produced by more than 50 modeling centers around the world. It showed global average surface temperature rises between 1-1.8 C and 3.3-5.7 C this century above pre-industrial levels for the lowest and highest emission scenarios, respectively. The exact increase the world experiences will depend on how much more greenhouse gases are emitted.
The 2021 IPCC report recommendations
The report states, with high certainty, that to stabilize the climate, carbon-dioxide emissions must reach net zero, and other greenhouse gas emissions must decline significantly.
We also know, for a given temperature target, there’s a finite amount of carbon we can emit before reaching net zero emissions. To have a 50:50 chance of halting warming at around 1.5 C, this quantity is about 500 billion tons of carbon dioxide.
At current levels of carbon-dioxide emissions this “carbon budget” would be used up within 12 years. Exhausting the budget will take longer if emissions begin to decline.
The IPCC’s latest findings are alarming. But no physical or environmental impediments exist to hold warming to well below 2 C (3.6 F) and limit it to around 1.5 C (2.7 F), the globally agreed goals of the Paris Agreement. Humanity, however, must choose to act.
Pep Canadell, Chief research scientist, Climate Science Centre, CSIRO Oceans and Atmosphere; and Executive Director, Global Carbon Project, CSIRO; Joelle Gergis, Senior Lecturer in Climate Science, Australian National University; Malte Meinshausen, A/Prof., School of Earth Sciences, The University of Melbourne; Mark Hemer, Principal Research Scientist, Oceans and Atmosphere, CSIRO, and Michael Grose, Climate projections scientist, CSIRO
Bottom line: The 2021 IPCC report released August 9, 2021, lays out the stark reality of climate change. Learn where we are headed and what we can do to prepare.
Source: IPCC Sixth Assessment Report
earthsky.org/earth/the-2021-ipcc-report-what-you-need-to-know/?utm_source=EarthSky+News&utm_campaign=7394b76198-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2018_02_02_COPY_01&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_c643945d79-7394b76198-394368745
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Post by swamprat on Aug 12, 2021 9:14:58 GMT -6
The other side of the argument.....
Scientists challenge 'alarm bells' in IPCC climate change report: 'Not the end of the world'
The United Nations called the report a 'code red' for humanity
By Fox News Staff | Fox News
In the first release of a three-part report, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) warned this week of the consequences of a rapidly warming world spurred largely by human-influenced climate change.
"The alarm bells are deafening, and the evidence is irrefutable: greenhouse‑gas emissions from fossil-fuel burning and deforestation are choking our planet and putting billions of people at immediate risk," United Nations General Secretary Antonio Guterres said. "Global heating is affecting every region on Earth, with many of the changes becoming irreversible."
But, not everyone agrees with Guterres and the panel’s nearly 4,000-page Sixth Assessment Report.
"The IPCC is an excellent source for climate science, but we tend to focus very selectively on the worst news, often overstating the effects of climate change on extreme weather events. Often adaptation is ignored, although it can alleviate much or sometimes almost all of climate damages," Bjorn Lomborg, president of the Copenhagen Consensus and visiting fellow at Stanford University's Hoover institution, said in an emailed statement to Fox News on Wednesday.
"Although climate change in total has negative impacts, we rarely hear about the positive impacts, such as a profound global greening of the planet, equivalent to two more continents of green, each the size of Australia."
Lomborg wrote in a New York Post article on Monday urging readings not to buy alarmism and "scare stories on climate impacts," and that the U.N. has "a long history of claiming catastrophe is right around the corner," writing about problems related to "one-sided" and negative thinking on climate change. Lomborg said that while climate change is a "real problem that we should fix smartly," it won’t be as catastrophic as some present it to be and that humans’ adaptive capacities are not properly being taken into account.
The IPCC report is compiled by more than 200 of the world’s leading climate scientists from 66 countries, including research from thousands of papers. The last one was released in 2013.
It says global temperatures have reached their highest level in more than 100,000 years, rising by 1.1 degrees Celsius since the 19th century, with almost all warming since pre-industrial times caused by the release of heat-trapping gases like carbon dioxide and methane.
As temperatures rise, the scientists note that ice melt and sea level rise have been accelerating, with extreme weather events like rainfall and drought also expected to worsen and become more frequent as further warming is "locked in."
The 2015 Paris climate accord target of limiting global warming to an increase of 2 degrees Celsius by the year 2100 – ideally, an increase of no more than 1.5 degrees Celsius – is practically unattainable according to five scenarios in which scientists all concluded that the world would see an increase of 1.5 degrees Celsius in the 2030s. Three of the scenarios saw temperatures rise by 2 degrees Celsius.
"The whole notion is just built on this assumption that warming is bad to start with," former Trump/Pence EPA Transition Team member and JunkScience.com founder Steve Milloy told Fox News on Wednesday, calling the report’s extreme weather claims "very unlikely."
"This new report, number one, there’s nothing new in it. There’s no new science, the alarm is just, you know, it’s more ‘code red’ than it was five, six years ago – the last time they came out with one of these things," the IPCC was "backing off their most extreme projections because none of that – obviously – is going to happen."
Speaking with Fox News the same day, Competitive Enterprise Institute Center for Energy and Environment senior fellow and ICPP reviewer Patrick J. Michaels said he believes the report and its conclusions were "mired in the atmosphere of unreality."
"The U.N. has been pushing the climate story since 1988 – that’s a long time ago – when it established the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. And, that panel was established specifically to provide what they call the basis for a possible treaty on climate. Any committee that is assigned such a specific assignment will do exactly as it was told. And, therefore, the composition of the [IPCC] – the authors – are selectively chosen because they know the results they are going to get," he said.
"The real reason this report is so extreme is that the previous reports have not elicited the actions that its proponents wanted," Michaels noted. "And, in fact, people are becoming increasingly tired of stories about the end of the world." Michaels, a past president of the American Association of State Climatologists and program chair for the Committee on Applied Climatology of the American Meteorological Society, took issue with the report’s Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP6) modeling.
Michaels, who says he is not a climate change skeptic, said if the report had used best practice models instead the issue would have "fallen apart."
That said, the report states that CMIP6 modeling includes "new and better representation of physical, chemical and biological processes, as well as higher resolution, compared to climate models considered in previous IPCC assessment reports."
David Legates, a professor of climatology at the University of Delaware and a policy expert at the Heartland Institute, took issue with what he says is the political nature of the report.
"So, it’s a panel of government officials who have been selected by the various governments. And, of course, they all have axes to grind," the former Trump-era National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) senior official said.
"So, [there are] certain things they want to say. [There are] certain things they want to guarantee. Many of these nations want to make sure that carbon dioxide is an evil gas because ‘if we can tax it we can make sure that we can get our cut of the money that they’re taking away from other people.' And so, they have a vested interest in not the science – whatever that may be – but in stating that carbon dioxide is sort of an evil gas and therefore has to be regulated and has to be controlled."
For those looking to find a glimmer of hope in the new IPCC report, researchers found that majorly catastrophic disasters or "tipping points" were of "low likelihood," including ice sheet collapses and the abrupt slowdown of ocean currents.
The report suggested that warming could be reversed through "negative emissions" – extracting more carbon dioxide from the atmosphere than is added – though the term "fossil fuels" is not included in the summary or a Monday press release.
Man-made CO2 removal "leading to net negative emissions" would lower CO2 in the atmosphere, a 42-page summary of the report for policymakers said. And even if this were achieved and sustained, increases in temperature would be reversed but other climate changes would continue in the "current direction for decades to millennia."
However, the panel doesn’t explain how this could be achieved and many scientists remain skeptical of its plausibility.
Michael Shellenberger, the author of "Apocalypse Never" and founder and president of Environmental Progress, told Fox News that most of the important trends regarding climate change are currently headed in the right direction."
"Climate change is real. It’s caused by human emissions – at least a significant amount of it is. And, we should try to do something about it because – all else being equal – it’s better for temperatures to not change. But, of course, not all else is equal," he said.
"Climate change is being caused by human emissions, which are caused by humans trying to improve lives for themselves and their children. Not just through fossil fuel use but also through land-use change," he continued. "And so, you’re always looking to balance the benefits of energy consumption with the downsides. But, the trends are mostly going in the right direction."
Shellenberger said the IPCC report’s "scary" scenarios were inaccurate because there is "no possibility" that they could occur due to the usage of natural gas over coal across the world.
The environmental journalist said that while the IPCC science is "mostly fine," he highlighted that there are "some games that get played" in the panel’s reports, including "a bunch of scenarios that basically everybody acknowledges [are] not going to happen because we’re not going to increase coal use sixfold."
The report’s claim that the world is seeing more extreme weather is misleading, Shellenberger says, because it leads people to think that disasters are getting worse.
Droughts can be worsened by warmer temperatures but are explained by natural variability and high-intensity fires can be avoided by better forest management, he argued – though allowing that climate scientists can point to longer fire seasons over larger geographic areas.
Nevertheless, he said human beings are more resilient to extreme weather events and carbon emissions would go down globally over the coming decade.
"The takeaway is that climate change is not what people think it is. It is significantly outweighed by things like droughts, which are still determined by natural variables and by economic development and preparedness, and we’re just so much better prepared," he told Fox News.
"We’re more resilient to changing temperatures than we’ve ever been and it’s just not the end of the world."
www.foxnews.com/us/ipcc-climate-change-reports-claims-challenged-by-skeptics
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Post by MCDemuth on Aug 21, 2021 15:15:51 GMT -6
I'm just going to say this...
I regularly see different weekly forecasts that are unreliable, and daily forecasts rarely hit their mark...
One day it was supposed to rain, and it didn't... another one, it wasn't supposed to rain and it did... Cloudy? No clouds. Sunny? Total overcast... A cold front came through, over three hours after, when they had predicted that it was supposed to, the night before ... And so on...
And, I am supposed to believe these same people when say, the world is going to be hot as hell, TEN YEARS from now?
I'm not saying it won't happen, but... Why should I believe them, when they can't even accurately predict what the weather is going to be like, SIX HOURS from now?
This is 2021, if such a long term forecast is such a certainty...
Then they should be able to tell us, exactly, how many raindrops are going to fall in the storm coming through this afternoon.
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Post by jcurio on Aug 22, 2021 7:24:11 GMT -6
The forecasting in my area was up to date, and near to the minute in 2019.
What has happened since then ? 🤷🏼♀️
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Post by MCDemuth on Aug 25, 2021 11:53:44 GMT -6
I'm just going to say this... I regularly see different weekly forecasts that are unreliable, and daily forecasts rarely hit their mark... One day it was supposed to rain, and it didn't... another one, it wasn't supposed to rain and it did... Cloudy? No clouds. Sunny? Total overcast... A cold front came through, over three hours after, when they had predicted that it was supposed to, the night before ... And so on... And, I am supposed to believe these same people when say, the world is going to be hot as hell, TEN YEARS from now? I'm not saying it won't happen, but... Why should I believe them, when they can't even accurately predict what the weather is going to be like, SIX HOURS from now? This is 2021, if such a long term forecast is such a certainty... Then they should be able to tell us, exactly, how many raindrops are going to fall in the storm coming through this afternoon. Just after sunrise this morning, the forecast was for a high of 93, "hot & humid", with a slight chance of storms... Late this morning, major storms came and it lasted for a good hour, and temperatures dropped to about 71... Now, it's about 1:30... and the forecast for this afternoon is calling for a high of 84-87... With the humidity, the thermometer said 75, and it's completely cloudy... Sunsets in just over 6 hours... If it gets to 84, I'll be surprised... Again, all local forecasters couldn't predict a fairly accurate weather day, six hours ahead... Don't miss understand me, with several recent days in the lower 90s... I am more than happy that they were completely mistaken! This cooler day, is a very welcome change... But, it just, again, supports my earlier point... Again, I'm not saying it won't happen... But, why should I believe them when they say, that years from now, global temperatures will be warmer than they are now? Obviously, weather predicting has become like "Wheel Of Fortune", a random spin of a wheel with several different possibilities, and they hope, it will be close, to what it lands on... 75 degrees VS 93 degrees... That's one hell of a missed spin.
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Post by jcurio on Aug 26, 2021 14:39:55 GMT -6
And don’t you want to know WHY?
I’ve noticed the same thing, ….. for all I know, I could start singing “rain, rain, go away” in the middle of a decent downpour, and it has stopped. 😁
We can’t be the only people on the planet noticing this, and also noticing that no “weather reporters” are outright losing their jobs….
What gives?!
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Post by MCDemuth on Aug 27, 2021 15:55:50 GMT -6
And don’t you want to know WHY? I’ve noticed the same thing, ….. for all I know, I could start singing “rain, rain, go away” in the middle of a decent downpour, and it has stopped. 😁 We can’t be the only people on the planet noticing this, and also noticing that no “weather reporters” are outright losing their jobs…. What gives?! Makes me think of the movie "Back To The Future" Part II "Right Now? But it's pouring rain!" "Wait Five More Seconds" Five seconds later, the rain ends... "Too bad the post office isn't as efficient as the weather service..." OK, that was predicted in 1989 to take place in 2015... It's now 2021... Where are those accurate weather forecasts they promised us? LOL!
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Post by jcurio on Sept 1, 2021 8:48:42 GMT -6
Predicting the weather
For the U.S. military, the idea of using computers to better model the climate is older than computers themselves. Just after World War II, the U.S. military briefly entertained the idea that it might be possible to precisely predict the weather, and thus control it, through the use of vast electric calculators. As bizarre as the notion sounds, two of the best minds in the country firmly believed it and managed to convince the U.S. Navy to fund their research. In October 1945, mathematician John Von Neumann—credited with some of the most important computational discoveries in history—and Vladimir Zworykin—the father of the television—marched into the office of Adm. Lewis Strauss and pitched their idea: a machine that could perform calculations quickly enough to account for all the variables in weather and climate, and eventually predict rain or snow as plainly as time. Strauss provided them with $200,000 to construct their machine, which helped pave the way for random access memory, or RAM, and the future of modern computation as we know it. What it did not do is accurately predict the weather.
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Post by jcurio on Sept 4, 2021 7:30:42 GMT -6
And: ________________________
How did you know this eddy was going to be a problem?
We monitor ocean heat content from space each day and keep an eye on the ocean dynamics, especially during the summer months. Keep in mind that warm eddies in the wintertime can also energize atmospheric frontal systems, such as the “storm of the century” that caused snowstorms across the Deep South in 1993.
To gauge the risk this heat pool posed for Hurricane Ida, we flew aircraft over the eddy and dropped measuring devices, including what are known as expendables. An expendable parachutes down to the surface and releases a probe that descends about 1,300 to 5,000 feet (400 to 1,500 meters) below the surface. It then sends back data about the temperature and salinity.
This eddy had heat down to about 480 feet (around 150 meters) below the surface. Even if the storm’s wind caused some mixing with cooler water at the surface, that deeper water wasn’t going to mix all the way down. The eddy was going to stay warm and continue to provide heat and moisture.
That meant Ida was about to get an enormous supply of fuel.
(Hurricane Ida)
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Post by jcurio on Sept 4, 2021 7:32:37 GMT -6
“We monitor …….. from Space each day”
_________________________
😉. Slightly comforting…
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Post by swamprat on Dec 14, 2021 9:47:58 GMT -6
"Alarm bells" due to Arctic record 100 degree heat in Siberia: U.N.CBSNews, Dec. 14, 2021
The United Nations on Tuesday officially recognized the 38 degrees Celsius measured in Siberia last year as a record high for the Arctic, sounding "alarm bells" about climate change.
The sweltering heat — equivalent to 100.4 degrees Fahrenheit — was seen on June 20, 2020 in the Russian town of Verkhoyansk, marking the highest temperature ever recorded above the Arctic Circle, the World Meteorological Organization said.
This is the first time the WMO has added record heat in the Arctic to its archive of extreme weather reports, and it comes amid an unprecedented wave of record temperature spikes globally, the U.N. agency said.
"This new Arctic record is one of a series of observations reported to the WMO Archive of Weather and Climate Extremes that sound the alarm bells about our changing climate," its chief, Petteri Taalas, said in a statement.
Verkhoyansk is about 70 miles north of the Arctic Circle and temperatures have been measured there since 1885.
The temperature, which the agency pointed out was "more befitting the Mediterranean than the Arctic", was measured at a meteorological station during an exceptionally prolonged Siberian heatwave.
The average temperatures across Arctic Siberia reached up to 10 degrees Celsius above normal for much of the summer last year, the WMO said, adding that this had fueled fires and massive sea-ice loss.
The heatwave also played a significant role in 2020 being designated one of the three warmest years on record globally.
Last year also saw a record high of 18.3 degrees C (64.9 Fahrenheit) for the Antarctic continent, Taalas said.
The WMO is still seeking to verify the 54.4 C (129.92 F) recorded in both 2020 and 2021 in the world's hottest place, Death Valley in California.
And its experts are working on validating a new European temperature record of 48.8 C (119.8 F) reported on the Italian island of Sicily this past summer.
The WMO's archive "has never had so many ongoing simultaneous investigations", Taalas said.
www.msn.com/en-us/weather/topstories/alarm-bells-due-to-arctic-record-100-degree-heat-in-siberia-u-n/ar-AARNtfJ?ocid=msedgdhp&pc=U531
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Post by paulette on Dec 16, 2021 12:45:14 GMT -6
About climate change, right here, in the small region of earth that I live and am familiar with:
A couple of years ago, it was so hot and dry that it crisped the underbrush in the fir forests. The humus dried. No one remembered this happening before.
This year (2021) we found ourselves under the heat dome (new term here in Canada). Our house has fans in many rooms (bedrooms,living room, dining area, entryway.) That always had provided a flow of cool air, and was more than adequate. Under the heat dome (it sounds sci-fi), the air outside was hot and the air in our house was hot. My husband sat in the living room all day, and most of the time I sat with him. We dozed in a heat-induced inertia. I gave him water that he didn't want to drink enough of. He began dying under the heat dome. His kids came and bought fans. We put one on him. The air it pushed out was hot. It reminded me of crossing the Soanna desert in Mexico, in an overheating car. We rolled the windows up, because the air coming in was scorching. I had never been so hot. Until this June/July. Terry was going to die but this situation hastened his demise.
Then, this fall the rains (finally) came. And they came on, a "River of rain." Another new term. By the time it stopped raining, a tributary of the Fraser River (the Somass) had filled a huge plan, flooding agricultural land and chicken and beef producers. There was a lake, with floating dead cows and chickens drowned in their dismal conditions in the buildings where they lived briefly and died slowly.
The Fraser River uncut and removed major sections of two highways alongside it. On other stretches, landslides due to destablilization of rocks above, cut off motorists who were stranded (hoping/praying that more didn't come down). People were swept away into the river in their cars and crushed under tons of rocks. The city of Vancouver was cut off by road. Some deal was done with the US to simplify entry to and from Canada to allow trucks of goods (food!) to get in.
First Nations in isolated settlements were cut off from supplies or getting out.
Helicopters flew to rescue various people and bring clean water and food.
Right now, it is sunny and blue, which is welcome. But it is late December. We had an inch or so of snow that promptly melted. There is more in the mountains - to the delight of the high-rolling skiiers and also me, thinking that that snow and ice supplies Comox Lake, which is our water supply. But when my kids were little (now in their 40's) there was snow to slide in, icycles, frozen ponds. Now...only snows in the higher peaks.
I am a believer in climate change, worsening storms (a tornado in December here (small and quickly dissipated.) Not so lucky the people in Kentucky who died or lost everything they owned in an unprecedented December tornado.
I've seen movies like this. The "right people" (read white and well off) survive. I'm not assuming that will be me or the people in Kentucky and Kenya and Australia. Yeah...I forgot to mention forest fires. Those hot summers - Merrit burned to the ground in July in a fire that seemed small and under observation. Just rose up and consumed every building. Same area flooded this fall. The populace are not rebuilding...
But what if there is nowhere to go? Nowhere to buy or squat. Nomadic civilians of places that are now inhospitable to humans.
I didn't think I'd live long enough to see the Horsemen ride in my home area of earth.
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Post by swamprat on Jan 13, 2022 19:48:25 GMT -6
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Post by swamprat on Apr 5, 2022 12:36:34 GMT -6
IPCC’s starkest message yet: extreme steps needed to avert climate disasterJeff Tollefson, 05 April 2022
Radical emissions cuts combined with some atmospheric carbon removal are the only hope to limit global warming to 1.5 °C, scientists warn.
One success story in the battle against climate change is that renewable energy sources such as wind turbines have dropped significantly in cost over the past decade.
Humanity probably isn’t going to prevent Earth from at least temporarily warming 1.5 °C above pre-industrial levels — but aggressive action to curb greenhouse-gas emissions and extract carbon from the atmosphere could limit the increase and bring temperatures back down, according to the latest report from the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The report makes it clear, however, that the window is rapidly closing, and with it the opportunity to prevent the worst impacts of global warming. Above the 1.5 °C limit — set by the Paris climate agreement in 2015 — the chances of extreme weather and collapsing ecosystems grow.
“The IPCC tells us that we have the knowledge and technology to get this done,” Inger Andersen, executive director for the UN Environment Programme, said at a press conference to release the report. “But increased action must begin this year not next year, this month not next month, and indeed today, not tomorrow.”
Approved by 195 governments after a marathon negotiating session that ran over schedule by two days, the roughly 2900-page report focuses on options for curbing emissions and mitigating the impacts of global warming. The document, compiled by hundreds of scientists across 65 countries, is the last of a trilogy comprising the IPCC’s sixth climate assessment, with the first two reports covering the underlying science and impacts of climate on humans and ecosystems.
Multiple sources involved in the virtual session told Nature that the negotiations to finalize the report bogged down as government delegates hashed out perennial arguments over climate mitigation. In particular, negotiators for India raised questions about emissions scenarios in the report, arguing that they assume too much action on the part of developing countries and do not adequately reflect questions of equity and responsibility. Negotiators for Saudi Arabia scrutinized language related to carbon-capture technologies and the future of fossil fuels. Although these debates pushed the negotiations into overtime, sources say they did not impact the findings or distort the underlying science in the report.
Coming more than three decades after the panel’s first climate assessment, the sixth instalment delivers the most forceful warning yet about the consequences of inaction. The question now, scientists say, is whether governments will at last step up to the challenge with actions rather than unfulfilled pledges.
“Despite more mitigation efforts by more governments at all scales, emissions continue to increase,” says Karen Seto, a geographer at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut, and a coordinating lead author on the report. “We need to do a lot more, and we need to do it quickly.”
Key points from the report: • This is one of the most stringent warnings yet from the IPCC. The message? Time has almost run out. Models suggest that global emissions need to peak, at the latest, by 2025 and then decline rapidly for the world to have a 50% chance of limiting warming to 1.5 °C. Carbon emissions would also need to nearly halve by 2030 and hit ‘net zero’ in the early 2050s to meet the goal. Given current policies, some scientists estimate that the world is on track for a nearly 3 °C rise above pre-industrial levels.
• But the report is not entirely doom and gloom. While emissions continue to rise, there are also signs that some mitigation efforts have had impact. The price of renewable-energy technologies such as wind turbines, solar panels and batteries is plummeting, and the global economy is getting cleaner. Global energy intensity — a measure of the amount of energy required to drive the economy — decreased by 2% annually between 2010 and 2019, reversing the trend from the prior decade.
• To prevent temperatures from significantly overshooting the 1.5 °C threshold, some fossil fuels will need to remain in the ground. According to models that hold global warming to only slightly above this limit, emissions from existing and planned fossil-fuel projects already exceed the allowable carbon budget.
• For countries to achieve the net-zero emissions goals that they have set, dialing back emissions won’t be enough — they will also need to extract carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. This will offset residual greenhouse-gas emissions from sectors that are harder to clean up, such as industry or aviation. Nations could achieve carbon uptake by expanding forests and improving agricultural practices, or through a variety of nascent technologies that can capture carbon emissions either from industrial sources or directly from the atmosphere.
• Despite concerns about the costs of mitigation, meeting climate goals won’t break the global bank: models suggest that global economic growth will continue over the coming decades, even with aggressive action to curb emissions. Although the global gross domestic product at mid-century is projected to dip slightly in scenarios where climate policies have been enacted compared with scenarios where they haven't been, most research suggests that the economic benefits of limiting warming — including improved health and reduced climate damages — exceed the cost of mitigation.
• Still, wealthy nations will need to contribute financial aid to low-income countries, to address inequities in climate vulnerability and accelerate the clean-energy transition in a way that benefits all. Those nations that have emitted the lowest amounts of greenhouse-gas emissions are often the ones most affected by climate change: the 88 countries that comprise the Least Developed Countries and Small Island Developing States groups within the UN climate framework are collectively responsible for less than 1% of historical carbon emissions.
The good news and the bad news The report makes clear that current energy, economic and political trends put the world on course to shoot well past 1.5 °C of warming. Scientists have long been warning of this, but some say it’s time to start thinking about what that means in terms of climate strategy.
“I think we are getting closer politically to a situation where we seriously have to ask how we are going to deal with that overshoot,” says Oliver Geden, a social scientist with the German Institute for International and Security Affairs in Berlin and a coordinating lead author on the report. While it still might be technically possible to limit warming to 1.5 °C, he says, the actions required would be unprecedented.
But the report also provides reason for optimism by highlighting climate technologies and policies that are already driving emissions down in many countries. The immediate goal is to accelerate those efforts and ramp up climate finance to ensure that it’s a truly global effort, says Nathaniel Keohane, president of the Center For Climate and Energy Solutions, an environmental think tank in Arlington, Virginia, and a White House adviser under former US president Barack Obama. Longer term, governments need to invest in research and development activities to explore the feasibility of carbon-removal technologies that could help bend the curve in decades to come.
“It’s a Herculean effort, and so we better get started,” Keohane says.
www.nature.com/articles/d41586-022-00951-5?utm_source=Nature+Briefing&utm_campaign=94700c0bdc-briefing-dy-20220405&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_c9dfd39373-94700c0bdc-43274133
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Post by swamprat on Sept 28, 2022 8:14:18 GMT -6
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Post by swamprat on Sept 28, 2022 13:38:01 GMT -6
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Post by swamprat on Mar 3, 2023 19:55:05 GMT -6
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Post by swamprat on Jul 4, 2023 11:06:47 GMT -6
Catastrophic climate 'doom loops' could start in just 15 years, new study warns
By Ben Turner published about 24 hours ago Climate "tipping points," such as the loss of the Amazon rainforest or the collapse of the Greenland ice sheet, could come within a human lifetime, scientists have said.
Earth's ecosystems may be careering toward collapse much sooner than scientists thought, a new study of our planet's warming climate has warned.
According to the research, more than a fifth of the world's potentially catastrophic tipping points — such as the melting of the Arctic permafrost, the collapse of the Greenland ice sheet and the sudden transformation of the Amazon rainforest into savanna — could occur as soon as 2038.
In climatology, a "tipping point" is the threshold beyond which a localized climate system, or "tipping element," irreversibly changes. For instance, if the Greenland ice sheet were to collapse, it would also reduce snowfall in the northern part of the island, making large parts of the sheet irretrievable. Yet the science behind these dramatic transformations is poorly understood and often based on oversimplified models. Now, a new attempt to understand their inner workings, published June 22 in the journal Nature, has revealed that they may happen much sooner than we thought.
"Over a fifth of ecosystems worldwide are in danger of collapsing," co-author Simon Willcock, a professor of sustainability at Bangor University in the U.K., said in a statement. "However, ongoing stresses and extreme events interact to accelerate rapid changes that may well be out of our control. Once these reach a tipping point, it's too late."
Unlike the well-established link between the burning of fossil fuels and climate change, the study of tipping points is a young and contentious science. To understand how rising temperatures and other environmental stressors could cause complex ecosystems to break down, scientists use computer models to simplify ecosystems' dynamics, enabling them to predict the fate of those ecosystems — and when their tipping points could be reached.
But if these simulations miss an important element or interaction, their forecasts can land decades off the mark. For example, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (the United Nations' most important body for evaluating climate science) said in its most recent report that the Amazon rainforest could reach a tipping point that will transform it into a savannah by 2100.
The researchers behind the new study say this prediction is too optimistic.
According to the researchers, most tipping-point studies build the math in their models to focus on one predominant driver of collapse, for example deforestation in the Amazon rainforest. However, ecosystems aren't contending with just one problem but rather a swarm of destabilizing factors that compound one another. For example, the Amazon also faces rising temperatures, soil degradation, water pollution and water stress.
To investigate how these elements interact and whether these interactions can, in fact, hasten a system's demise, the scientists behind the new study built computer models of two lake and two forest ecosystems (including one which modeled the collapse of civilization on Easter Island) and ran them more than 70,000 times while adjusting the variables throughout.
After testing their systems across multiple modes — with just one cause of collapse acting, with multiple causes acting and with all of the causes plus the introduction of random noise to mimic fluctuations in climate variables — the scientists made some troubling findings: multiple causes of collapse acting together brought the abrupt transformation of some systems up to 80% closer to the present day. And even when the main cause of collapse was not allowed to increase with time, 15% of the collapses occurred purely because of the new elements.
"Our main finding from four ecological models was that ecosystems could collapse 30-80% earlier depending on the nature of additional stress," co-author John Dearing, a professor of physical geography at Southampton University in the U.K. told Live Science in an email. "So if previous tipping points were forecast for 2100 (i.e. 77 years from now) we are suggesting these could happen 23 to 62 years earlier depending on the nature of the stresses." This means that significant social and economic costs from climate change might come much sooner than expected, leaving governments with even less time to react than first thought.
"This has potentially profound implications for our perception of future ecological risks," co-author Gregory Cooper, a climate systems researcher at the University of Sheffield in the U.K., said in the statement. "While it is not currently possible to predict how climate-induced tipping points and the effects of local human actions on ecosystems will connect, our findings show the potential for each to reinforce the other. Any increasing pressure on ecosystems will be exceedingly detrimental and could have dangerous consequences."
Catastrophic climate 'doom loops' could start in just 15 years, new study warns | Live Science
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Post by swamprat on Jul 11, 2023 8:07:02 GMT -6
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Post by swamprat on Dec 8, 2023 9:12:07 GMT -6
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Post by swamprat on Feb 14, 2024 9:21:58 GMT -6
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