James Hansen, Makiko Sato and Reto Ruedy recently wrote a paper entitled, “Uh-Oh. Now What? Are We Acquiring the Data to Understand the Situation?”, which identifies three additional climate mechanisms that will super-charge the current El Nino. These are:
· The reduction in human-made atmospheric aerosols (for example through the reduction in the percentage of sulfur allowed in ship fuels, and sulfur scrubbers on coal-fired electricity plants) that act to cool the climate by increasing the reflection of the Sun’s energy back to space, mainly though brightening and elongating the life of, clouds.
· The solar cycle is approaching a maximum, which is slightly higher than the previous maximum, adding a small 0.1W/m2 (the overall Earth Energy Imbalance [EEI] is about 1.2W/m2) to the energy received by the Earth from the Sun.
· Reductions in Arctic and Antarctic sea ice have reduced the reflectivity of the oceans, replacing white sea ice with dark ocean waters that take in significantly more of the Sun’s energy.
They also note a huge unknown that may be the biggest climate feedback, and that is the response of clouds to increased temperatures. Recent paleo-climatological research points to a significantly higher climate sensitivity than has currently been experienced, pointing to cloud cover changes as a strong climate positive feedback. Current scientific research cannot identify exactly when this feedback will kick in, but it can identify that it exists. The same goes for increases in the natural production of methane (CH4) from such places as permafrost, as temperature increases both enable CH4 producing bacteria to function and melt the ice in the permafrost to create water-logged areas (which tend to produce CH4 rather than CO2).
The three additional climate mechanisms identified will lead to this El Nino cycle peaking at a higher global surface temperature than it otherwise would have, pushing the Earth’s climate further and further into unknown territory that may trigger irreversible feedbacks. For example, once the microbes that feast on the biological matter previously frozen in the permafrost get to work, they will produce their own excess heat. Protected from the winter cold by a blanket of snow, they can continue their work in a warm-enough environment created by themselves. Significantly more cooling would be required to put them back to sleep than the warming that awakened them. In addition, the released CH4 (produced in water-logged conditions) and CO2 (produced in dry conditions) will help drive climate change and offset anthropogenic attempts at climate cooling. The same may be the case for changes to cloud cover. Once the climate Rubicon has been crossed, it will be much harder to uncross it.
So far this year the Earth is already averaging a global surface temperature of 1.29oC above the UN IPCC baseline (which is itself 0.2oC above true pre-industrial times of 1750 and before); and that is with an El Nino in its early stages. The probability is that this year or next, 1.5oC above the UN IPCC baseline will be met for a full year, with individual months reaching as high as 1.8oC or even higher. With each El Nino that passes without significant climate action being taken, humanity spins the barrel of the revolver and pulls the trigger. Sooner or later, the climate feedback bullet will sit in the chamber next to the hammer and there will be no going back. We may dodge the feedback bullet this time, but perhaps not next time (as assumed in my novel), or the next time…
With the extra warmth in the Southern Pacific, there will be greater levels of stored CO2 transferred from the oceans to the atmosphere. For a couple of years, the rate of increase in atmospheric CO2 will speed up, probably exceeding the peak 2.96ppm reached in the last El Nino of 2015/2016. The level of atmospheric CH4 has been increasing at double the rate of a decade ago in the past few years (and even more than in the first decade of this century when the level hardly changed), accelerating the increase in the EEI. With the jump in temperatures this year and next, that rate may be increased further. With a climate impact 100 times greater than that of CO2 over a fourteen-year period, atmospheric CH4 is the little-discussed dark horse of abrupt climate change within the near future.
It is now 43 years since climate scientists reached a consensus that greenhouse gases were dangerously warming the planet at the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) conference. Since then no meaningful attempt to reduce anthropogenic greenhouse gases has been made; quite the opposite as atmospheric levels are very substantially higher and the rate of change exceeds that of 1979. Humanity is accelerating, not decelerating toward the point of no return. And with every El Nino humanity plays Russian roulette, to see if it can trigger the jump to a new climate equilibrium. Paleo-climatology has shown that the normally slow-moving processes of the Earth’s climate can suddenly leap up and sprint for a while, as it moves from one stable equilibrium to another, such a sprint would end modern human civilization.
The presentation below by Kevin Anderson shows the scale of reductions in anthropogenic emissions required to have a chance of staying away from that human-civilization toxic jump to a new climate equilibrium. He has been complaining for a decade about the utterly delusional UN IPCC forecasts that just assumed that massive amounts of atmospheric carbon would be taken out of the atmosphere by human technology; complaints that have been proven true as every year passes. I consider Mr. Anderson to be somewhat conservative in his presentations, the reality is significantly darker.
Mr. Anderson’s presentation includes the point that the lifestyles of the top 1% of the global population lead to twice the emissions of the bottom 50%. This is the reality that the 1% do not want discussed in public, as the linkage between emissions and wealth and income becomes very apparent. If we were to more equitably share the required reductions in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions the 1% would have to take a very large reduction in their wealth and income; greatly reducing their position relative to the other 99%. Of course, they do not want to do this so they delay substantive action until an emergency is triggered.
Such an emergency will lead to desperate, highly dysfunctional, attempts at emergency measures such as solar radiation management (SRM) technologies, and massive subsidies for unproven at scale GHG capture technologies and possibly colossal mining activities to increase the pace of rock-weathering. This is exactly the response that the bourgeois ruling class want, as it will involve a COVID-style emergency during which massive change can be rammed through a society shocked and scared into political passivity; opening up huge opportunities for new profits, corporate power and corruption. Protecting their wealth and income at the cost of the Rest. With the result of perhaps a lesser version of Soylent Green, rather than any equitable response to climate change; where the rich live well and the rest don’t.
A ten minute summary, it does give away the ending:
The full movie:
"significant climate action" = ???
So called "renewable" solar energy flow harvesting machines (wind mills, solar PV & concentrated) ALL rely entirely on fossil fuel inputs to mine, refine, distribute materials and components, manufacture, build out, connect to grids, store and distribute energy, and all the end use machines also built, and the whole lot recycled.
https://surplusenergyeconomics.files.wordpress.com/2023/08/surplus-energy-economics-prospects-predicaments.pdf
NONE of this be done with electricity, beyond a few demonstration efforts that CAN NOT scale up much beyond a few % of global energy supply: Solar ~2%; Wind ~ 3%; other renewables ~ 2%; traditional biomass ~ 6%; Oil ~30%; Coal ~ 25%; Gas ~22%; Nuclear ~4%; Hydro ~6%.
https://ourworldindata.org/energy-production-consumption#how-much-energy-does-the-world-consume
Also, building sand and helium are already running out and you can't build much without those inputs, amongst many other mineral in sort and diminishing supply.
https://resourceinsights.blogspot.com/2009/05/lets-party-til-heliums-gone.html
https://www.dw.com/en/not-enough-sand-for-construction-industry-despite-abundance/a-49342942
https://energyskeptic.com/2021/renewables-not-enough-minerals-energy-time-or-clean-and-green/
This series of research articles in Energies journal 2021 gives an excellent insight into how access to energy dictates practically everything else humans do, and spells out why fossil fuels can’t be replaced with solar energy flow harvesting machines i.e. as oil and coal and natural get scarcer and harder to get out the ground humans will return to pre fossil age numbers i.e. by end of this century there will be fewer than 1 billion humans left alive, same as in ~1750s before we started burning coal. This is just a biophysical fact.
The ONLY remaining question is how are 'we' going to manage this biophysically inevitable devastating de-growth over the next couple of generations of humans on our lonely 'pale blue dot'?
1) Through the Eye of a Needle: An Eco-Heterodox Perspective on the Renewable Energy Transition.
by Megan K. Seibert and William E. Rees
ABSTRACT: We add to the emerging body of literature highlighting cracks in the foundation of the mainstream energy transition narrative. We offer a tripartite analysis that re-characterizes the climate crisis within its broader context of ecological overshoot, highlights numerous collectively fatal problems with so-called renewable energy technologies, and suggests alternative solutions that entail a contraction of the human enterprise. This analysis makes clear that the pat notion of “affordable clean energy” views the world through a narrow keyhole that is blind to innumerable economic, ecological, and social costs.
These undesirable “externalities” can no longer be ignored. To achieve sustainability and salvage civilization, society must embark on a planned, cooperative descent from an extreme state of overshoot in just a decade or two. While it might be easier for the proverbial camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for global society to succeed in this endeavor, history is replete with stellar achievements that have arisen only from a dogged pursuit of the seemingly impossible.
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/14/15/4508
2) Comment on Seibert, M.K.; Rees, W.E. Through the Eye of a Needle: An Eco-Heterodox Perspective on the Renewable Energy Transition by Mark Diesendorf
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/15/3/964
3) Reply to Diesendorf, M. Comment on “Seibert, M.K.; Rees, W.E. Through the Eye of a Needle: An Eco-Heterodox Perspective on the Renewable Energy Transition by Megan K. Seibert and William E. Rees
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/15/3/970/htm
4) Comment on Seibert, M.K.; Rees, W.E. Through the Eye of a Needle: An Eco-Heterodox Perspective on the Renewable Energy Transition by Vasilis Fthenakis et al
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/15/3/971
5) Reply to Fthenakis et al. Comment on “Seibert, M.K.; Rees, W.E. Through the Eye of a Needle: An Eco-Heterodox Perspective on the Renewable Energy Transition by Megan K. Seibert and William E. Rees
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/15/3/974/htm