Observations Archives - Page 16 of 16

European summary of the current climate

William P. Hall on January 12, 2022

The EU’s Copernicus satellite-based environmental monitoring program gives their summary of the current climate state and change.

Copernicus: Globally, the seven hottest years on record were the last seven; carbon dioxide and methane concentrations continue to rise

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.

This image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is C3S_PR_Jan2022_ts4_XCH4_C3SCCI_CAMSNRT_20220103_v1.png

ACCESS TO DATASET 1, ACCESS TO DATASET 2 | DOWNLOAD ORIGINAL IMAGE
Read the complete release….

What does this mean and what can we do about it.

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.

Views expressed in this post are those of its author(s), not necessarily all Vote Climate One members.

Wildfires and special interest politics in Colorado paint a similar picture to what we see in Australia

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.

**Stability landscape showing the pathway of the Earth System out of the Holocene and thus, out of the glacial–interglacial limit cycle to its present position in the hotter Anthropocene** (**Will Steffen et al. PNAS 2018;115:33:8252-8259**

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.