Is Global Warming becoming unstoppable?

[Smurf1976]

The U.K looks like it is about to build a second mega nuclear power station, to compliment Hinkley Point which is due to be completed 2025

In general I'm not at all keen on nuclear for the simple reason that it has a lot in common with the current pandemic.

Extremely unlikely to be a problem but humans can't cope if it does go wrong. Hence the failure to properly clean up past nuclear incidents and the reality of governments, businesses and even ordinary citizens baulking at the cost of a shutdown long enough to actually eradicate COVID-19. Nuclear is unlikely to go wrong but potentially catastrophic if it does.

That said, well we both know that energy was a problem and understood to be so even before anyone suggested we can't use all the available fossil fuels due to CO2, a reality that makes it an even bigger problem. That being so, the nuclear industry won't be dead in a hurry.

Pragmatically, the solution is going to be "all of the above".

Renewables of all kinds yes. Wind and solar but also there's some role for others.

Batteries yes. Hydro too.

Nuclear will play a role.

Carbon capture and storage will play a role in some specific circumstances.

CO2 emissions will still take quite some time to come down even with an "all of the above" approach. Start ruling out specific parts because someone doesn't like this or that and it'll end up being an even slower process.

 

[explod]

Climate researchers racing to calculate how fast and how high the sea level will rise found new clues on the seafloor around Antarctica. A study released today suggests that some of the continent's floating ice shelves can, during eras of rapid warming, melt back by six miles per year, far faster than any ice retreat observed by satellites.

As global warming speeds up the Antarctic meltdown, the findings "set a new upper limit for what the worst-case might be," said lead author Julian Dowdeswell, director of the Scott Polar Research Institute at the University of Cambridge.

The estimate of ice shelf retreat is based on a pattern of ridges discovered on the seafloor near the Larsen Ice Shelf. The spacing and size of the ridges suggest they were created as the floating ice shelves rose and fell with the tides while rapidly shrinking back from the ocean. In findings published today in Science, the researchers estimate that to corrugate the seafloor in this way, the ice would have retreated by more than 150 feet per day for at least 90 days."

https://insideclimatenews.org/news/...il&utm_term=0_29c928ffb5-1e3f0ba0f0-327892201

 

[basilio]

Climate researchers racing to calculate how fast and how high the sea level will rise found new clues on the seafloor around Antarctica. A study released today suggests that some of the continent's floating ice shelves can, during eras of rapid warming, melt back by six miles per year, far faster than any ice retreat observed by satellites.

As global warming speeds up the Antarctic meltdown, the findings "set a new upper limit for what the worst-case might be," said lead author Julian Dowdeswell, director of the Scott Polar Research Institute at the University of Cambridge.

The estimate of ice shelf retreat is based on a pattern of ridges discovered on the seafloor near the Larsen Ice Shelf. The spacing and size of the ridges suggest they were created as the floating ice shelves rose and fell with the tides while rapidly shrinking back from the ocean. In findings published today in Science, the researchers estimate that to corrugate the seafloor in this way, the ice would have retreated by more than 150 feet per day for at least 90 days."

https://insideclimatenews.org/news/...il&utm_term=0_29c928ffb5-1e3f0ba0f0-327892201

The rest of the paper makes for cheery reading as well. Long story short; the current projections of sea level rise caused by melting Antarctic ice are far too conservative.

 

[sptrawler]

Climate researchers racing to calculate how fast and how high the sea level will rise found new clues on the seafloor around Antarctica. A study released today suggests that some of the continent's floating ice shelves can, during eras of rapid warming, melt back by six miles per year, far faster than any ice retreat observed by satellites.

As global warming speeds up the Antarctic meltdown, the findings "set a new upper limit for what the worst-case might be," said lead author Julian Dowdeswell, director of the Scott Polar Research Institute at the University of Cambridge.

The estimate of ice shelf retreat is based on a pattern of ridges discovered on the seafloor near the Larsen Ice Shelf. The spacing and size of the ridges suggest they were created as the floating ice shelves rose and fell with the tides while rapidly shrinking back from the ocean. In findings published today in Science, the researchers estimate that to corrugate the seafloor in this way, the ice would have retreated by more than 150 feet per day for at least 90 days."

https://insideclimatenews.org/news/...il&utm_term=0_29c928ffb5-1e3f0ba0f0-327892201

Yes it's all very interesting, I was reading they have found at one stage there was a rain forest on Antartica, before the ice.

 

[basilio]

CO2 levels at record highs.

Heat-trapping carbon dioxide in air hits new record high

FILE - This Jan. 16, 2020 file photo shows a Uniper energy company coal-fired power plant and a BP refinery beside a wind generator in Gelsenkirchen, Germany. The world hit another new record high for heat-trapping carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, despite reduced emissions because of the coronavirus pandemic, scientists announced Thursday, June 4, 2020. (AP Photo/Martin Meissner)

KENSINGTON, Maryland (AP) — The world hit another new record high for heat-trapping carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, despite reduced emissions because of the coronavirus pandemic, scientists announced Thursday.

Measurements of carbon dioxide, the chief human-caused greenhouse gas, averaged 417.1 parts per million at Mauna Loa, Hawaii, for the month of May, when carbon levels in the air peak, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said. That’s 2.4 parts per million higher than a year ago.

Even though emissions of carbon dioxide from the burning of fossil fuels dropped by as much 17% in April, it was a brief decline. Carbon dioxide can stay in the air for centuries, so the short-term reductions of new carbon pollution for a few months didn’t have much of a big picture effect, said NOAA senior scientist Pieter Tans.

“It illustrates how difficult it is — what a huge job it is — to bring emissions down,” Tans said. “We are really committing the Earth to an enormous amount of warming for a very large time.”

Records with direct measurements go back to 1958. And carbon dioxide levels are now nearly 100 parts per million higher than then. That’s a 31% increase in 62 years.
https://apnews.com/7e3fc630ca671584097bc0cfd0d82c30

https://research.noaa.gov/article/ArtMID/587/ArticleID/2636/Rise-of-carbon-dioxide-unabated

 

[basilio]

Excellent explanation of measurement of CO2 level rises by NOAAA. Worth a refresher if one isn't quite sure of what is happening with rising CO2 levels and the contributions of different factors.

https://research.noaa.gov/article/ArtMID/587/ArticleID/2636/Rise-of-carbon-dioxide-unabated

 

[explod]

30 celcious in the Arctic yesterday.

May just gone the hottest up there in history.

Find that it's too sad to party when thinking of the future for my children and grandchildren.

The media has blocked demonstrations, and there are many, relating to climate change.

 

[basilio]

Perhaps we shouldn't feel too overwhelmed by the threat of COVID 19 becoming COVID 20, 21 , 22 and the Chinese dominating the world economies. The way things are going on the global heating front the oven could become considerably hotter much more quickly.

There is serious concern that current assumptions about cloud sensitivity to global heating has been severely underestimated.

Why Clouds Are the Key to New Troubling Projections on Warming
Recent climate models project that a doubling of atmospheric CO2 above pre-industrial levels could cause temperatures to soar far above previous estimates. A warming earth, researchers now say, will lead to a loss of clouds, allowing more solar energy to strike the planet.

It is the most worrying development in the science of climate change for a long time. An apparently settled conclusion about how sensitive the climate is to adding more greenhouse gases has been thrown into doubt by a series of new studies from the world’s top climate modeling groups.

https://e360.yale.edu/features/why-clouds-are-the-key-to-new-troubling-projections-on-warming

 

[basilio]

The Royal Commission into last years unprecedented bushfires is hearing about the effects of global warming on the intensity of fires. There is also expert evidence on the challenges of undertaking effective hazard reduction burns in a climate that has become far warmer and on present seetings will continue to heat.

Long story short. Last years catastrophic fires are not an aberration.The next question is
" How do we address the situation ?"

Australia had more supersized bushfires creating their own storms last summer than in previous 30 years
There was a near doubling of the record of pyrocumulonimbus (pyroCB) storms, royal commission hears

Australia experienced more supersized weather-generating fires in the 2019-20 bushfire season than in the previous 30 years, the royal commission into national natural disaster arrangements has heard.

Huge thunderstorm-type clouds called pyrocumulonimbus form over fires in particularly hot, dry and dangerous conditions and are capable of generating their own winds and lightning.

They were once considered “bushfire oddities” but last summer there was a “near doubling of the record of these events, in one event,” Prof David Bowman told the royal commission on Tuesday.

Bowman, a professor of environmental change biology at the University of Tasmania, said the prevalence of pyrocumulonimbus in the most recent bushfire season was “truly extraordinary”.

Hazard reduction burning had little to no effect in slowing extreme bushfires
Read more
“So something happened this last summer which is truly extraordinary, because what we would call statistically a black swan event, we saw a flock of black swans,” he said. “That just shouldn’t have happened.”
https://www.theguardian.com/austral...cumulonimbus-pyrocb-than-in-previous-30-years

 

[basilio]

Which way do we go ?
And Fatih Birol isn't a greenie.

World has six months to avert climate crisis, says energy expert
International Energy Agency chief warns of need to prevent post-lockdown surge in emissions

The world has only six months in which to change the course of the climate crisis and prevent a post-lockdown rebound in greenhouse gas emissions that would overwhelm efforts to stave off climate catastrophe, one of the world’s foremost energy experts has warned.

“This year is the last time we have, if we are not to see a carbon rebound,” said Fatih Birol, executive director of the International Energy Agency.

Governments are planning to spend $9tn (£7.2tn) globally in the next few months on rescuing their economies from the coronavirus crisis, the IEA has calculated. The stimulus packages created this year will determine the shape of the global economy for the next three years, according to Birol, and within that time emissions must start to fall sharply and permanently, or climate targets will be out of reach.

“The next three years will determine the course of the next 30 years and beyond,” Birol told the Guardian. “If we do not [take action] we will surely see a rebound in emissions. If emissions rebound, it is very difficult to see how they will be brought down in future. This is why we are urging governments to have sustainable recovery packages.”
https://www.theguardian.com/environ...hs-to-avert-climate-crisis-says-energy-expert
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fatih_Birol

 

[sptrawler]

Which way do we go ?
And Fatih Birol isn't a greenie.

World has six months to avert climate crisis, says energy expert
l

Good to see you have de stressed about covid 19, and are back on the climate change wagon, as long as you have something to worry about all is good.

 

[basilio]

Good to see you have de stressed about covid 19, and are back on the climate change wagon, as long as you have something to worry about all is good.

I don't "worry" any more. Explods simple view puts it best.
If I did think too much about the consequences of events like the last half a dozen postings I have made life would become much darker.

 

[macca]

The Royal Commission into last years unprecedented bushfires is hearing about the effects of global warming on the intensity of fires. There is also expert evidence on the challenges of undertaking effective hazard reduction burns in a climate that has become far warmer and on present seetings will continue to heat.

Long story short. Last years catastrophic fires are not an aberration.The next question is
" How do we address the situation ?"

Australia had more supersized bushfires creating their own storms last summer than in previous 30 years
There was a near doubling of the record of pyrocumulonimbus (pyroCB) storms, royal commission hears

Australia experienced more supersized weather-generating fires in the 2019-20 bushfire season than in the previous 30 years, the royal commission into national natural disaster arrangements has heard.

Huge thunderstorm-type clouds called pyrocumulonimbus form over fires in particularly hot, dry and dangerous conditions and are capable of generating their own winds and lightning.

They were once considered “bushfire oddities” but last summer there was a “near doubling of the record of these events, in one event,” Prof David Bowman told the royal commission on Tuesday.

Bowman, a professor of environmental change biology at the University of Tasmania, said the prevalence of pyrocumulonimbus in the most recent bushfire season was “truly extraordinary”.

Hazard reduction burning had little to no effect in slowing extreme bushfires
Read more
“So something happened this last summer which is truly extraordinary, because what we would call statistically a black swan event, we saw a flock of black swans,” he said. “That just shouldn’t have happened.”
https://www.theguardian.com/austral...cumulonimbus-pyrocb-than-in-previous-30-years

When history is ignored we will always suffer, 50,000 years of history ignored usually means lots of problems.

As ye sow so shall ye reap,

We deliberately created a massive fuel load over many years then when it burnt, as it was Always going to, we now complain about it

The arrogance of the white fella on show once again

 

[explod]

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Arctic records its hottest temperature ever
By Jeff Berardelli

June 20, 2020 / 7:21 PM / CBS News

Alarming heat scorched Siberia on Saturday as the small town of Verkhoyansk (67.5°N latitude) reached 100.4 degrees Fahrenheit, 32 degrees above the normal high temperature. If verified, this is likely the hottest temperature ever recorded in Siberia and also the hottest temperature ever recorded north of the Arctic Circle, which begins at 66.5°N.

The town is 3,000 miles east of Moscow and further north than even Fairbanks, Alaska. On Friday, the city of Caribou, Maine, tied an all-time record at 96 degrees Fahrenheit and was once again well into the 90s on Saturday. To put this into perspective, the city of Miami, Florida, has only reached 100 degrees one time since the city began keeping temperature records in 1896.

Verkhoyansk is typically one of the coldest spots on Earth. This past November, the area reached nearly 60 degrees Fahrenheit below zero, one of the first spots to drop that low in the winter of 2019-2020. The scene below is certainly more characteristic of eastern Siberia.

Reaching 100 degrees in or near the Arctic is almost unheard of. Although the reading is questionable, back in 1915 the town of Prospect Creek, Alaska, not quite as far north as Verkhoyansk, is reported to have reached near 100 degrees. And in 2010 a town a few miles south of the Arctic circle in Russia reached 100.

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As a result of the hot-dry conditions right now, numerous fires rage nearby, and smoke is visible for thousands of miles on Satellite images.

This heat is not an isolated occurrence. Parts of Siberia have been sizzling for weeks and running remarkably above normal since January. May featured astonishing warmth in western Siberia, where some locales were 18 degrees Fahrenheit above normal, not just for a day, but for the month. As a whole, western Siberia averaged 10 degrees above normal for May, obliterating anything previously experienced.

On May 23, the Siberian town of Khatanga, far north of the Arctic Circle, hit 78 degrees Fahrenheit. This was 46 degrees above normal and shattered the previous record by a virtually unheard-of 22 degrees. On June 9, Nizhnyaya Pesha, an area 900 miles northeast of Moscow, near the Arctic Ocean's Barents Sea, hit a sweltering 86 degrees Fahrenheit, a staggering 30 degrees above normal.

Climate Change [/paste:font]

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More in Climate Change
What's perhaps even more impressive is that this relative warmth has persisted since December, with average temperatures in western Siberia 10 degrees Fahrenheit abov

​

ECMWF
The average heat across Russia from January to May is so remarkable that it matches what's projected to be normal by the year 2100 if current trends in heat-trapping carbon emissions continue. In the image below, the data point for 2020 is almost off the charts, and matches what climate models expect to be typical many decades from now.

The extreme events of recent years are due to a combination of natural weather patterns and human-caused climate change. The weather pattern giving rise to this heat wave is an incredibly stubborn ridge of high pressure; a dome of heat which extends vertically upward through the atmosphere. The sweltering heat is forecast to remain in place for at least the next week, catapulting temperatures easily into the 90s in eastern Siberia.

But this heat wave can not be viewed as an isolated weather pattern. Last summer, the town of Markusvinsa, a village in northern Sweden on the southern edge of the Arctic Circle, hit 94.6°F. Warming and drying of the landscape is leading to unprecedented Arctic fires, with the summer of 2019 being the worst fire season on record.


Due to heat trapping greenhouse gases that result from the burning of fossil fuels and feedback loops, the Arctic is warming at more than two times the average rate of the globe. This phenomenon is known as Arctic Amplification, which is leading to the decline of sea ice, and in some cases snow cover, due to rapidly warming temperatures.

Over the past four decades, sea ice volume has decreased by 50%. The lack of white ice, and corresponding increase in dark ocean and land areas, means less light is reflected and more is absorbed, creating a feedback loop and heating the area disproportionately.

As the average climate continues to heat up, extremes like the current heat wave will become more frequent and intensify. Scientists say there is only one way to dampen the impact of climate change and that is to stop burning fossil fuels.

First published on June 20, 2020 / 7:21 PM

© 2020 CBS Interactive Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Jeff Berardelli
Jeff Berardelli is CBS News Meteorologist and Climate Specialist. Follow him on Twitter @WeatherProf.

 

[basilio]

The perma frost in Siberia must be looking pretty sick with these temperatures.
And that opens up another can of worms.

 

[explod]

38 Celsius in the arctic overnight and wild bushfires in Siberia,

If the govnuts had pulled heads in this was not supposed to occur till 2100.

Pass me another scotch.

 

[Chronos-Plutus]

38 Celsius in the arctic overnight and wild bushfires in Siberia,

If the govnuts had pulled heads in this was not supposed to occur till 2100.

Pass me another scotch.

I don't think planet Earth will turn into Venus for another few billion years.

There are aspects of climate change that will require a response, within say the next few hundred years, like rising sea levels.

I am an environmentalist on the grounds of food security and freshwater security.

 

[basilio]

I don't think planet Earth will turn into Venus for another few billion years.

There are aspects of climate change that will require a response, within say the next few hundred years, like rising sea levels.

I am an environmentalist on the grounds of food security and freshwater security.

Absolutely correct Chronos. Earth will not turn into Venus for ages and ages and ages. Thank heavens for that.

On the other hand every single bit of research and physical evidence tells us that on the current trajectory we face a 3-5C increase in temperature within the next 70 years. And the effects of that will basically make large areas of the Earth uninhabitable by people and most current eco systems.

Rising sea levels ?
How about checking out what scientists are saying about the accelerating melting around Antarctica? And the ask yourself what effect a couple of metres increase in sea level might have around the world in the next 30-50 years ?
https://www.livescience.com/why-giant-antarctic-glacier-melting-so-fast.html

 

[Chronos-Plutus]

Absolutely correct Chronos. Earth will not turn into Venus for ages and ages and ages. Thank heavens for that.

On the other hand every single bit of research and physical evidence tells us that on the current trajectory we face a 3-5C increase in temperature within the next 70 years. And the effects of that will basically make large areas of the Earth uninhabitable by people and most current eco systems.

Rising sea levels ?
How about checking out what scientists are saying about the accelerating melting around Antarctica? And the ask yourself what effect a couple of metres increase in sea level might have around the world in the next 30-50 years ?
https://www.livescience.com/why-giant-antarctic-glacier-melting-so-fast.html

We can address the sea level rise with tidal barrages that produce electricity. Just a few hundred years beyond your imagination .

 

[basilio]

We can address the sea level rise with tidal barrages that produce electricity. Just a few hundred years beyond your imagination .

You and reality have a very tenuous relationship don't you Chronos ?
Sea levels rising across the world by a couple of metres and you want to build tidal barges to "address the issue" .
The dumbest kids I taught wouldn't have seriously proposed such a solution. Perhaps going back in time to change the world, building under/over water cities, moving to higher ground.