Daily Sea Surface Temperature (notice the new paradigm started in 2023 and extending into 2024):
https://climatereanalyzer.org/clim/sst_daily/
Daily Surface Air Temperature:
https://climatereanalyzer.org/clim/t2_daily/?dm_id=world
Daily Sea Ice Extent (click on "Show Southern Hemisphere", also showing concerns of being low in 2023):
https://climatereanalyzer.org/clim/seaice/
The most shocking is the sea surface temperature, but we see rising temperature in all layers of the troposphere. A factor that has dampened global warming for very long, since the last ice age, is the ocean's capacity for absorbing heat. If this gets saturated, and since surface waters don't mix much with deep waters.. If the same surplus heat equivalent to 15 hiroshima bombs per second today hits the surface, and rising. All that goes into heating air and surface, it's going to accellerate warming going forward. Early projections are in fact showing accelleration already.
That most people are incapable of emotionally processing this, is part of the problem.
Think of it like this, death is unpreventable and we still live our lives. So even if the world collapse was totally unpreventable (I think we can still turn it around), it's still better to go down fighting and living life.
But that said, religious apocalypse scenarios usually aren't quite as specific as "methane hydrate runaway feedbacks".
Just on this example, you can physically pick soil up and move it. Enough for 9bn people? No. Enough for 100k? Yes.
(Random thought: what's the sulphur content of automotive diesel? I know it's cleaner, but there are so many more cars than boats. Could we see another sea surface temperature bump as we phase out diesel cars?)
Simplified example: pay 6% of the population to plant trees.
> and the 1% simply never will because they don’t give a shit about anyone but themselves.
That's a lot closer to why we won't do it. Because as a species we can't act for the long term.
In fact religious belief in apocalypse might contribute to the apathy about climate policy from the voters, people can either conflate the two or think the religious apocalypse is nearer so no need to address the climate catastrophe: https://www.newsweek.com/shocking-number-americans-believe-l...
If the sea is fertile the soil can be hacked to be fertile. Any seabird could tell us how
But this is not the problem. The sea level will raise
Looking at it now, I think doomerism, preppers, apocalyptic religions and the guy that stands on the street shouting "it's the end of the world" are all a basic part of the human experience. It's not a coincidence every cult eventually reaches the narrative of the impending end of the world.
Death is suppressed and finds other avenues to pop out in
Edit: good point in the next comment, expect sea levels rising for at least 10m.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/jan/01/shipping...
It could be the underwater Tonga volcano erruption, which put alot of water into the atmosphere. Water is also a GHG.
https://www.nasa.gov/centers-and-facilities/goddard/tonga-er...
It could be El Nino part of the ENSO-cycle in addition.
https://www.npr.org/2023/06/08/1181086972/el-nino-has-offici...
All these are temporary masking conditions. They also add to feedback effects, for increased warming. So could be partly accellerating heating as well.
I think some researchers are seeing accelleration in the overall trend. You can eyeball this with a ruler as well. Even though it might be too early to tell, it's hard to find any negative feedback loops to counter all these positive ones.
For cars, I think we'd probably see increase in surface temperature on land. People might care a bit more then. It could be removed from both gas and diesel. That would bring pollution down, but also remove aerosols currently masking effects from GHG.
https://www.futurity.org/potassium-fuel-sulfur-1369772-2/
UPDATE: As noted in another comment here. Car fuel is quite a bit different category than bunker fuel (heavy fuel oil). We might still observe "unmasking"-impacts if implemented generally though. We'd notice it more too, as the impact would be right where we use our cars.
Climate change people seem like a doomsday cult anyways, but if what if they're right?
For example - it's possible that tundra methane emissions in many areas could be mitigated relatively quickly by the regrowth of birch and pine scrubland whose increased evapotranspiration will reduce water tables and eliminate methane emissions. And aboveground carbon sequestration in woody tree mass could outweigh losses from belowground oxidation. This already occurs in fenlands in Southern Finland (paper I read)
We don't know enough about methane hydrates to assess their stability.
Many ecosystems will be reasonably resilient to climate change - maybe up to 2/3 of them, although some specific species groups like tropical amphibians are going to have a really bad time.
I'm not saying it's a good idea, I'm saying it's a theoretically possible idea in the face of an extinction-level event.
I wonder if it would be possible to rip soil off places that are no longer habitable and transport it to Antarctica.
But we can dig it up fast enough ro build all those batteries we need.
The increasing sea surface temperature is concerning because it directly is starting to harm millions of sea creatures that cannot adapt fast enough. There are multiple die-offs happening already that might be due to this.
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/article/ocean...
What's concerning is that all the arrows are pointing just one way. The discussion is now wether it's accellerating or not..
https://amp.theguardian.com/world/2019/may/23/china-factorie...
The ONLY question to most people is: what will happen to me from it, if it will, why me changing anything will help?
Your pessimism may be trendy but it isn't supported by the bear available evidence.
“After the ban came into force, global concentrations of CFC-11 declined steadily until about 2012. However, last year scientists discovered the pace of that slowdown slowed by half between 2013 and 2017. Because the chemical is not naturally occurring, the change could only have been produced by new emissions.”
“If emissions do not decline, it will delay the recovery of the Antarctic ozone hole, possibly for decades”
Imagine fighting a war. If you and your fellow troops believe you will definitely lose, what happens to morale and the outcome? Morale collapses and you create a self-fulfilling prophecy.
The situation is serious but extreme doom predictions are the outlier in all credible models.
(I'm trying to find a sea rise map that looks right by eye and not having much luck. Here's the North Atlantic at 10m[1]. Surely that's not enough flooding?)
[1] https://coastal.climatecentral.org/map/4/-10.3532/51.4503/?t...
I see no predictions by him.
What I do see are examples of him selectively quoting other people and that he was in turn selectively quoted himself.
This is also why you shouldn't rely on politicians for anything.
- banning plastic bags and straws - buying expensive electrical vehicles - ignoring other risks in our circle of influence - listening to public figures and scientists who gave us “point of no return” dates several times in the last 30 years
> There won't be an extinction event.
This also ignores the fact that we are currently in the 6th largest extinction event in the history of life on this planet [1]. Elizabeth Kolbert's The Sixth Extinction is a great book on this (and the history of our understanding of species extinction as well).
So aside for being naive about the science, your comment reads a bit like claiming you don't think it will rain today while in the midst of being soaked in a massive rain storm.
You don’t worry because it’s inevitable. You perceive them not worrying, but they aren’t scared enough?
What if they also have the (intuitive, but not necessarily correct) sense that it’s inevitable?
Which was extra ironic, given Kissinger reportedly said to Soviet ambassador Anatoly Dobrynin "I figure it like Groucho Marx said 'any club that took him in he would not want to join'. I would say that anything Lê Đức Thọ is eligible for, there must be something wrong with it." while Lê Đức Thọ declined the prize, on grounds that such "bourgeois sentimentalities" were not for him and that the Paris Peace Accords (for which he and Kissinger had been awarded the prize) were not being adhered to in full.
I think that being responsibles for it is even more of a tragedy.
1. How does this perspective affect you today? Is it debilitating? Depressing? Affect your wellbeing and productivity?
2. What do you believe is the probability of what you say here? Estimate with a percentage.
Does the unknown associated to the percentage in #2 make the perspective rational and helpful?
Countries such as Pakistan and Pacific island countries that have contributed the least to climate change are among the most impacted, which is why two questions (among many others) have loomed climate politics over the past 30 years: "Where does the liability fall?" (Ex: loss and damage fund) and "How can I, as a country, be in a better position within a global crisis?" (Ex: disagreement over the global warming potential of non-CO2 emissions due to different chosen time horizons between countries; GWP100 vs. GWP*; this greatly affects carbon accounting in agricultural countries that rely on cattle for instance)
1. significantly increased amount of 'life' on earth (as in: total kg of biomass, number of living specimens, total area with some amount of green stuff on it) due to warmer climate.
2. significantly reduced number of extant species on earth due to (geologically) fast changes in climate.
Edit: formating.
Reducing biodiversity doesn't equate to an extension-level event though. It also doesn't mean all species who didn't thrive would be lost - many would be affected but not existentially so.
I'm reminded of George Carlin's joke about the planet being fine long-term, we're the ones who will be screwed.
These are all reasonable observations, but they don't remotely substantiate "The chances of humanity surviving are incredibly slim, IMO."
Just tone down the hyperbole. No serious informed science exists to predict human extinction, though lots of ecosystems and most large wild animals are at high risk.
I’ll stick with the economic system that has reduced global poverty by 80% in the last century, and brought us everything from clean water to smartphones. Not the economic system that resulted in the genocide of millions, the systematic theft from the working class and which continues to oppress people under crushing dictatorships in places like Cuba and Venezuela.
From the Encyclopaedia Britannica [0]: __These conspicuous declines in diversity are referred to as mass extinctions__
> It also doesn't mean all species who didn't thrive would be lost - many would be affected but not existentially so.
But this is not a fact, it is a conjecture. On the other hand, we do have declining numbers of a big number of species. Unless the tendency reverts, constant long-term declining numbers will be an existential threat.
> I'm reminded of George Carlin's joke about the planet being fine long-term, we're the ones who will be screwed.
That's true, for sure. But asides from "the planet" and "we", there are also all the others.
What you're describing is people experiencing grief. I'm what you would call an "extreme doomer", and did feel this way about a decade ago when I first realized the dire situation we are in.
But your first reaction is not the end. Waking up and accepting our state, and the despair that came with it, was the first stage in a long process of learning to live, and be comfortable in the world the way it is.
What you are suggesting is that we just ignore grief and pretend nothing is happening. I suppose this is just the denial stage of grieving, but it's worth recognizing that the people you know feeling this way are working through a process.
Pretending that someone isn't dead isn't a long term solution to accepting loss, even if it means in the short term you are in a dark place emotionally. It's unfortunately it upsets you to see people experiencing this, but those people, given enough time, might be in a better place to help you when you finally have to let go of denial.
Eocenic period had high CO2 levels, but it didn't lead to ocean anoxidation. In fact, at the end of the period, the eocene-oligocene exctinction event happened in connection with reduced CO2 and global cooling of the climate. [0]
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eocene–Oligocene_extinction_ev...
There are many natural ecosystems which could and would be severely disrupted as the food chains there break up.
However, the food chain for homo sapiens largely relies on artificial monocultures that can be moved around and replaced on a large scale if the local conditions change. Natural environment can't switch to a "warmer climate biome" overnight, but a farmer can and will plant an entirely different crop in the next season if that suits the place better now, with only some expenses in retooling tractor attachments. And while there are many food industries which are relatively brittle, these are relatively niche 'luxury' foods which often are economically very valuable, but not the staple foods which actually feed the population. Like, if California had to abandon growing almonds due to water issues and instead grow something less demanding (and less profitable), that would destroy a huge industry but wouldn't cause food insecurity.
Paper reference:
I don't think it's "funny" that they waste time, energy, and resources on building bigger machines to make them more money and shit out hopium when it won't mean anything on a planet unfit for human habitation come century's end. I think it's a crime against humanity that deserves to be treated as such.
As just one example, ocean acidification could kill a lot of the algae. Pretty much everything is upstream of algae. It would be catastrophic, even for us.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clathrate_gun_hypothesis
Citation: The associated period of massive carbon release into the atmosphere has been estimated to have lasted from 20,000 to 50,000 years. The entire warm period lasted for about 200,000 years. Global temperatures increased by 5–8 °C.[21]
The hot-models Sabine referred to are in range of 4.8 - 5.6 if I'm not mistaken...
It is reasonable to be concerned. But deploying easily-refuted hyperbole makes your (our!) cause MORE likely to be ignored as crackpot nonsense, not less.