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Data & events tell the story. See what specific readings and recent phenomena tell us about Climate Change.
Things are getting worse, but we have seen nothing yet if we don’t stop and reverse the inexorable increase in global warming. “NB4” is an acronym for ‘never before’.
As the world warms, oceans store an ever more solar energy to increase global ocean heating and polar ice melting.
As the following article explains, thanks to the continuing rise in the greenhouse effect caused by the continuing rise in concentrations of CO₂ and methane, our planet continues to capture more solar heat that it can radiate away to space. Some of this excess increases air temperatures. However, most of the excess solar energy goes into ocean heating. Hot oceans heat Earth. The warmer water can melt polar ice covers and heat can be stored for slow release into the terrestrial environment and atmosphere over many years.
by Lijing, et al., 11/01/2022 in
Advances in Atmospheric Sciences
Abstract: The increased concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere from human activities traps heat within the climate system and increases ocean heat content (OHC). Here, we provide the first analysis of recent OHC changes through 2021 from two international groups. The world ocean, in 2021, was the hottest ever recorded by humans, and the 2021 annual OHC value is even higher than last year’s record value…. The long-term ocean warming is larger in the Atlantic and Southern Oceans than in other regions and is mainly attributed, via climate model simulations, to an increase in anthropogenic greenhouse gas concentrations. The year-to-year variation of OHC is primarily tied to the El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO). In the seven maritime domains of the Indian, Tropical Atlantic, North Atlantic, Northwest Pacific, North Pacific, Southern oceans, and the Mediterranean Sea, robust warming is observed but with distinct inter-annual to decadal variability. Four out of seven domains showed record-high heat content in 2021. The anomalous global and regional ocean warming established in this study should be incorporated into climate risk assessments, adaptation, and mitigation.
Read the complete article….
The accumulating heat in the ocean serves as a source of positive feedback to drive global temperatures even higher.
In other words, even without an annual record high air temperature, the process of global warming is accelerating and becoming progressively more difficult to stop and reverse. Unless we mobilize and act soon and vigorously to resolve the climate crisis, enough solar energy will be captured to ensure that the warming process continues. Even if we stop all human carbon emissions the warming will be driven by positive feedbacks from the warm oceans. Beyond stopping human emissions we need to deploy global geoengineering projects. First to capture and sequester greenhouse gases (e.g., by fertilizing the ocean deserts and farming phytoplankton together with ecosystems of plankton eaters able to send much of the carbon fixed by the algae to the bottom sediments of the oceans in the form of feces and dead bodies). And, secondly, to help the Earth reflect more solar heat back to space (e.g., by making the atmosphere more reflective with aerosols such as calcium carbonate).
Australia’s current COALition Government in Canberra is controlled by Captain Humbug (i.e., Scotty from Marketing) and his fellow puppets and clowns of the fossil fuel special interests. They have been working for years to subsidize and protect their puppet masters’ industry from being shut down or even being inconvenienced by actions against global warming. If we are to act effectively and swiftly enough to have any hope of stopping and reversing global warming we need to replace all of the special interests’ clowns and puppets by voting for people in their electorates who understand the currently escalating climate emergency and will put action to resolve the crisis as their highest priority in Parliament. Otherwise, we will have little chance to avoid the global mass extinction that will ensue if we don’t act.
Vote Climate One’s Traffic Light Voting Guide won’t tell you who to vote for, but it will help you avoid voting for anyone whose preferences are likely to flow to the COALition and their allies. Also, if you think our approach here is a useful one, please consider joining with us to become a Climate Hero.
Press Release 10/01/2022, Copernicus Reading (UK)
Monthly global CH4 concentrations from satellites (top panel) and derived annual mean growth rates (bottom panel) for 2003–2021. Top: The listed numerical values in red indicate annual XCH4 averages in the latitude range 60oS – 60oN. Bottom: Annual mean XCH4 growth rates derived from data shown in the top panel. The listed numerical values correspond to the growth rate in ppb/year including an uncertainty estimate in brackets. Data source: C3S/Obs4MIPs (v4.3) consolidated (2003– mid 2020) and CAMS preliminary near real-time data (mid 2020-2021) records. Credit: University of Bremen for Copernicus Climate Change Service and SRON Netherlands Institute for Space Research in Leiden for the Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service/ECMWF.
ACCESS TO DATASET 1, ACCESS TO DATASET 2 | DOWNLOAD ORIGINAL IMAGE
Read the complete release….
The process of global warming that underlies the present climate emergency is continuing to make the crisis worse. There is no evidence yet that humans (or Australians) are doing anything to even slow the process that is leading us ever closer to a point of no return, where nothing humans can do will suffice to stop Earth’s Climate System from flipping to the Hothouse Earth state that will result in a global mass extinction event. (My graphical essay explains the science underlying this claim.)
Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions are contributing significantly to this problem. Not only are Captain Humbug and his troop of willing puppets forming our COALition government doing little to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, but they continue to subsidize, promote, and protect their patrons in the fossil fuel industry over working to assure the futures of the citizens who elected them. If we value our own futures and the futures of our children and grandchildren, it is time to replace these coal-handed clowns with people who will give first priority to action on climate change. This year’s Federal Election gives us the chance to do exactly this.
The reality is that if fail to stop and reverse global warming, our families will have no future — meaning that no other issues matter because there will be no one left to be concerned by them.
The Vote Climate One team has assembled a downloadable Traffic Light Voting Guide to help you use your vote to ensure that your preferences will not flow to any of the COALition puppets. We don’t tell you how to vote, but give you a tool to help you decide who you can safely vote for, whose preferences won’t flow to the COAL puppets and clowns should they fail to be elected.
This Denver Post article summarizes the longer term impacts and costs of wildfires to society. This applies to Australia as well as the USA and elsewhere. Despite all the political humbug to the contrary, global warming continues to accelerate.
The picture above shows the smoke plume on 30 December, 2022, when hurricane-force winds in Boulder County whipped fires across drought-parched grasslands and suburban neighborhoods, incinerating 991 structures, including part of a shopping center, a hotel, and a town hall. Two people are still missing, presumed dead. (Aqua-MODIS Satellite view. NASA).
Costs and damages due to wildfires will increasingly overlap and concatenate as fire conditions become hotter, drier, and windier. If global warming cannot be reversed, we will sooner or later have no more forests to catch water, and society will eventually be overwhelmed by fire damage and costs.
The only long term solution will be to attack the cause of the accelerating climate emergency by stopping and reversing the warming. Besides stopping all anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions, this will almost certainly require global geoengineering. I think this is still possible, but it will take global mobilization of the scale of a war effort to save our biosphere from the heat death in the Hothouse Earth.
Transformation of our capitalist society is needed. We also have to start soon. To achieve these things we must elect an Australian government that puts fixing the climate as the first order of business. No matter what your politics, if we can’t fix this problem, nothing else matters because the wildfires will continue to spread until there is nothing left to burn and there will be no long term survival for the human species.
