“The Southern Hemisphere just reached an average temperature of 17°C for the first time in observational history!”
https://twitter.com/LeonSimons8/status/1755567555777892469
“By request, some annual global mean temperatures:
“Pre-industrial baseline: 13.50°C (56.30°F)
1991-2020 baseline: 14.38°C (57.88°F)
2023: 14.98°C (58.97°F)”
https://twitter.com/EliotJacobson/status/1756011972561457350
“Why does every climate change story need to end with the same false f*cking hope?
“Look, we’ve just passed 1.5°C” …But the good news is, that an instant human extinction scenario (also known as net-zero) wouldn’t lead to much more warming!” [Leon Simons commenting on this BBC piece:]
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-68110310
“NOAA’s Coral Reef Watch Adds New Alerts Due to Record-Breaking Heat…
“The Bleaching Alert Area global map for January 31, 2024 has already shown parts of the world’s oceans under heat stress, including some parts listed under the newly added Bleaching Alert Levels 4 and 5.”
https://www.ecowatch.com/noaa-coral-reef-watch-new-alerts-climate-change.html
“Severe flooding has left cars submerged in Essex [UK], with torrential rain causing landslides and several lane closures.
“More than 400 flood alerts or warnings were in place across the UK on Friday morning, with dozens still in place as of Friday evening, mostly in the South and Midlands.”
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/02/09/uk-weather-flooding-britain-weather-warnings/
“Italy’s Farmers Brace for Unprecedented Challenges Amid Mild Winter and Drought.
“The dry spell not only destroys crops and livelihoods but also threatens sowing and animal feed, with potential economic damage in the hundreds of millions of euros.”
“Drought nightmare in Sardinia, the water resources of the reservoirs are restricted.
“There is the nightmare of drought scaring northern Sardinia and Sulcis , where the lack of rain and empty reservoirs have plunged the territories into a water emergency.”
“‘Desert’ Malta on course to see its driest year ever…
““One of the definitions of a desert is an area which receives less than 250 mm of rain a year, and Malta has received much less so far,” the University of Malta professor said.”
https://timesofmalta.com/articles/view/desert-malta-course-see-driest-year-ever.1083015
“Malaga plans to reopen old wells as emergency measure to combat drought crisis.
“In the 1990s, the Guadalhorce Valley wells were used to supply more than four cubic hectometres per year, but stopped being used due to poor water quality.”
“Drought: Tangier [Morocco] Enacts New Measures to Curb Water Use.
“Fez – Tangier, the City of the Strait, has enforced measures decreed by a local council for the rationalization of water use. The launched project aims to curb the water stress, caused in part by climate change and exacerbated by delayed rainfall.”
“Cocoa prices have surged to all-time highs this week as bad weather conditions hammer crop yields in West Africa, home to three quarters of the world’s production [might be a good time to stockpile before these costs filter through to consumers].
“Cocoa futures prices have surged more than $1,000 or nearly 40% since the start of the year to hit an intraday all-time high of $5,874 per metric ton Thursday.”
“Record after record in Africa.
“TANZANIA metropolis of Dar Es Salaam had a record hot night with a min. temperature of 27.8C [82F], which tied the highest minimum ever recorded in February in Tanzania.”
https://twitter.com/extremetemps/status/1755903676689052018
“Record heat again in KENYA.
“Yesterday the city of Mombasa rose to 36.5C [97.7F] which ties its highest temperature on record which was also set on 22 February 2000. Records are falling all over Africa, every single day. Next days Kenya might record the hottest night in its climatic history.”
https://twitter.com/extremetemps/status/1755879221887725856
“‘At the door of death’: desperation in Ethiopia as hunger crisis deepens…
“The drought has turned the area into a dust bowl. Its gravelly fields are full of the stunted remains of dead crops. “Every day we think about where to get food,” says Tsilaley Abraley, a single mother of six, who lives next door to Abadi. “We are always hungry.””
“Season receives record-low rainfall [Nepal].
“Experts say shifting rainfall patterns have led to increased pollution, forest fire incidents, reduced agricultural yields, and fueled internal and external migration. Nepal has witnessed just 11 millimeters of rainfall since December…”
https://kathmandupost.com/national/2024/02/10/season-receives-record-low-rainfall
“Mongolian dzud: Extreme weather puts 90% of country at ‘high risk’…
“About 190,000 herder households are struggling with inadequate feed, skyrocketing prices and heightened vulnerabilities, according to the Office of the UN Resident Coordinator in Mongolia.”
https://news.un.org/en/story/2024/02/1146422
“Brutal heat in THAILAND. it’s the “cold season” yet temperatures are reaching 39C with minimums up to 28C.
“Thousands records have fallen nearly every day since March 2023. Today both Phuket and Huai Phong had their hottest February night on record with Tmin 27.5C [81.5F].”
https://twitter.com/extremetemps/status/1755803710926565585
“New Zealand faces ‘long shadow’ of Cyclone Gabrielle one year on from disaster…
“About 1,600 homes across New Zealand remain uninhabitable while authorities determine what should be repaired, and what should be abandoned. There is a backlog of roads and bridges awaiting repairs. Questions linger over the country’s infrastructure resilience and its emergency response to future weather events.”
“Record heat is sweeping every single tropical country:
“MICRONESIA and MARSHALL ISLANDS tied their February highest minimum temperatures on record with tmins of 82F/27.8C at Chuuk and Majuro.”
https://twitter.com/extremetemps/status/1756146536265011645
“Six months after Maui wildfire, 5,000 survivors still stranded: ‘We’re tired of broken promises’…
“Six months after the deadliest American fire in more than a century, almost 5,000 people are still in emergency hotel accommodation in West Maui, struggling to grieve and navigate the labyrinth of post-disaster bureaucracy amid throngs of tourists.”
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/feb/08/maui-wildfire-six-months-later-housing
“How climate change contributes to wildfires like Chile’s…
“The increased number of droughts as global rain cycles are interrupted means whole regions can be left unusually parched and more vulnerable to ignition. “Climate change has made droughts more common,” said Mitchard. “And that’s especially happened in South America this year…”
https://abcnews.go.com/Technology/wireStory/climate-change-contributes-wildfires-chiles-106967768
“More records from SOUTH AMERICA.
“BOLIVIA: 36.5 [97.7F] Cobija new February record after beating all records of the past 7 months… ARGENTINA: Record hot night at Cordoba but the Tmin can drop below 28C with incoming afternoon storms… ECUADOR highest temperatures since 1983 in the GALAPAGOS.”
https://twitter.com/extremetemps/status/1755659760723169353
“Fire Breaks Out Next to Uruguay’s Main Airport.
“A wildfire next to Carrasco International Airport in Uruguay’s capital, Montevideo, was contained before it reached any airport runways, firefighters said. The blaze scorched 67 hectares (166 acres) of vegetation, local media reported.”
https://uk.news.yahoo.com/fire-breaks-next-uruguays-main-152655272.html
“Carnival party-goers told to cover up as mosquito-borne virus surges in Rio de Janeiro…
“The city declared a public health emergency earlier this week after 364,855 infections of the mosquito-borne virus were reported nationwide last month – more than four times the average rate for January.”
“What’s causing the Amazon’s ongoing record drought?
“The devastating drought in the Amazon River Basin that reported in October has continued into Northern Hemisphere winter, which is the heart of the wet season in the southern part of the basin. The drought is cutting off rural and riverside communities from food supplies, markets for their crops, and health services…”
https://phys.org/news/2024-02-amazon-ongoing-drought.html
“January 2024 in the Dominican Republic had an average temperature of 25.9C [78.6F] and was by far the hottest January on record.
“7 of the past 8 months in Dominican Republic were the hottest on record: brutal.”
https://twitter.com/extremetemps/status/1755984914909188337
“HISTORIC IN MEXICO.
The capital Mexico City rose to 30.8C [87.4F], which broke the February record of highest temperature (data since 1877).”
https://twitter.com/extremetemps/status/1756038567137022415
“Two tornadoes, the strongest in more than 74 years, hit San Luis Obispo [California] during last storm.
“Two tornadoes touched down Wednesday along San Luis Obispo County’s coast, hitting Grover Beach and the Los Osos area with 95-mph winds that uprooted trees, snapped power lines and took part of a roof off at least one building, according to the National Weather Service.”
“Summer-like conditions with record temperatures lead to first Wisconsin tornado in February.
“The first tornado ever recorded in Wisconsin in the usually frigid month of February came on a day that broke records for warmth, setting up the perfect scenario for the type of severe weather normally seen in the late spring and summer.”
“Central, eastern U.S. bask in record winter warmth…
“Already, at least 350 warm-weather records have fallen, and two more days of springlike warmth are on the way from the Great Lakes to the Mid-Atlantic… Minneapolis, where there is no snow, has spent much of this week with highs in the 50s…”
“‘Scary situation’: Unprecedented snowpack lows raising B.C. drought concerns…
“Last summer, British Columbia experienced one of the most severe droughts in its history, with 27 of 34 water basins classified in the two highest categories of drought in August. It took place as the province grappled with hundreds of out-of-control wildfires, in what has since been determined to be the worst wildfire season on record.”
https://globalnews.ca/news/10285720/unprecedented-snowpack-lows-bc-drought-concerns/
“Alberta has dozens of wildfires still burning this winter. Here’s why.
“Alberta Wildfire has been responding to an increased number of winter wildfires in the area due to drought-like weather conditions this season. About 16 fires have carried over from the 2023 season in the High Level area alone.”
“Atlantic Ocean circulation nearing ‘devastating’ tipping point, study finds…
“Amoc has declined 15% since 1950 and is in its weakest state in more than a millennium, according to previous research that prompted speculation about an approaching collapse. Until now there has been no consensus about how severe this will be…”
“Antarctic Tipping Point That Occurred 8,000 Years Ago ‘Could Happen Again’…
“”The very same processes we are seeing just beginning now, in areas like Thwaites Glacier, have played out before in similar areas of Antarctica and indeed, the pace of ice loss was equal to our worst fears about a runaway ice loss” [Cambridge Earth sciences professor Eric Wolff].”
https://www.commondreams.org/news/antarctic-tipping-point
“Submersible Mysteriously Disappears Under Doomsday Glacier In Antarctica…
““It’s a bit like looking for a needle in a haystack, but without even knowing where the haystack is,” Wåhlin said. “At this point, Ran’s batteries are dead. All we know is that something unexpected happened under the ice. We suspect it ran into trouble, and then something prevented it from getting out.””
“Climate Change Is No Laughing Matter. Or Is It?
“…From Hollywood movies like Adam McKay’s “Don’t Look Up” to independent sketches on YouTube and TikTok, comedians — no strangers to tackling difficult subjects — are increasingly looking for punchlines in one of the greatest existential threats ever to the planet.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/09/nyregion/climate-change-comedy.html
You can read the previous “Climate” thread here. I’ll be back on Monday with an “Economic” thread.
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OK, ya got me, Pan -O, I fell for your trick.
We made it! We finally fucking made it, I thought, after reading your headline with Leon Simons’ remark. Finally, mainstream overviews about climate change are including a cautionary critical perspective about the hopium windup fallacy in their texts. Leon’s obviously been reading our commentary here at C&E, and he’s going to tell a version of this truth to the masses.
Nope. How naive of me! Instead, the BBC was a gish gallop of hopium, featuring none other than the Zekester.
I do love Leon’s remark, though. Maybe it is a kind of breakthrough.
I’d love to fly those NY Times-cited “comedians” to Ethiopia to try to get a laugh from Tsialaly Abraley. “We are always hungry.” Come on, gang, surely there’s some side-splitting humor there. Some kind of improv gold, amirite?
Disclosure Time – I’m barely reading the expertly selected news items anymore, just sticking with the banners from Pan-O and monitoring the comments section for its welcome and necessary signs of humane reaction. How much inside detail& information can my dyspepsia really handle?
Sorry to wind you up, Martin. 😂
My guess is that the worse the situation gets, the deeper the denial will run. Of course, there will be dissenting voices like Leon’s but the current shifting of goalposts and language around the 1.5C guardrail is instructive. We may be getting more of this sort of Polyannish absurdity:
“Not the End of the World by Hannah Ritchie review — ignore the eco-doomsters… Good news: a young data scientist shows we have probably already averted the worst of the climate crisis….
““I don’t think we’re going to be the last generation,” she writes. “I think we could be the first generation. We have the opportunity to be the first generation that leaves the environment in a better state than we found it.”…
“Before the 2015 Paris climate accords, the world seemed set for four or five degrees of warming, which would have been an apocalyptic outcome. Now, thanks to international co-operation, chunky green legislation and the plummeting cost of renewables, we have a good chance of limiting it to two degrees, perhaps less.”
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/not-the-end-of-the-world-hannah-ritchie-review-c5hxdptd5
Hannah Ritchie review not behind paywall:
https://archive.is/2rEbF
Hello Pan, Thanks for your stark overview… “Yet we are not doomed to perish”…. that’s just the way it is. What does it matter 1.5 or 3 degrees 🙂
It remains a phenomenal and genius magic trick to simply reduce the problem of ‘humanity’ to the number of CO2 molecules in the atmosphere….oh yes floods, droughts etc etc…. yes yes yes there is always something 🙂
It’s a super devious paradigm coupled with the ‘renewable madness’ and everyone is leering along from scientists to consumers. Scientists entangle themselves in their self-created models and ‘citizens’ cling to their credit card economy and their deep wish ‘that everything will always get better’ BAU
This week there was a lot of discussion among my readers about the intention of a number of French cities including Paris to impose additional parking charges on SUV’ and electric cars weighing over 2000 kilos. And that’s going to be expensive. Gonna cost you 18 euros an hour in Paris!!! Well of course ‘we’ don’t want to know about that…. The general tenor was …. for once we do something good and ‘sustainable’ for the environment in our electric monster cars we are taxed too…. shame!
That whole CO2 sustainability paradigm really is a genius cover to even put the conversation about ‘overconsumption and degrowth’ on the agenda….everything under CO2 control and the rest is immediately quashed. Leaving aside the question of what ‘degrowth’ should actually look like, that path is immediately blocked by the tightly timed paradigms of the ‘sustainability’ two-tier society.
The same goes for the dying skiconomy in France….. and that by raging farmers on their tractors…. the adage is to carry on and deny that there is anything at all ‘wrong’ until the last snow cannon gives way and the agricultural poisons can be spread uninhibited again…. Down with the rules!!! go with that banana, drill baby drill !!! We all understand the farmers and their dfags struggle to feed us !!!
Love that madness
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/feb/04/parisians-vote-in-favour-of-tripling-parking-costs-for-suvs
“Hidalgo had previously described the move to curb the presence of SUVs through raising parking prices as “a form of social justice”. She said the aim was to deliberately target the richest drivers of expensive, heavy and polluting cars who had not yet made changes to their behaviour to address the climate crisis.”
I can see how, amidst a cost of living crisis and incipient climate catastrophe, these ostentatious symbols of wealth and consumption are intolerably obnoxious to some, and perhaps especially to young people. Here in the UK the fashion is for letting the tyres down, so, for example:
“A group of young people calling themselves ‘Reclaim Our Communities’ have claimed responsibility for letting down the tyres on more than 100 SUV vehicles parked in the Clifton area of Bristol last night.
“It’s the latest attack on large 4x4s and Sports Utility Vehicles in the area, but the first to be claimed by the new group – previous incidents have been claimed by an international group called Tyre Extinguishers.”
https://www.bristolpost.co.uk/news/bristol-news/tyres-deflated-more-100-suvs-8845965
“Mr. Williams hopes that his comedy can do more than persuade people to sign petitions or forward links, he said. “My ultimate goal is to inspire people to make systemic changes, rather than to try to recycle extra hard.””
So ends the NYT article. Genius that I am, I note that it doesn’t elaborate on what those systemic changes are. That would shine light on an inconvenient truth. 🤣
Below is a link that would more appropriately belong on the geo political summary of CandE (Candy?). But it is appropriate for today too, though a bit less so.
The link is about game theory. Though I think that what is getting called game theory should really be called strategy theory. Or maybe even perhaps ethics theory.
Iny any case my key take away of the of the video is how when the participants of a game know how long a game lasts their strategies shift near the end because they know that there is less time for the other players to retaliate if you do not cooperate with them. Later versions of this Prisoner’s Dilema game added some randomness to when the game would end so that the players could not try to gain a final end of game advantage.
I do not know if this random end of the game feature is something that I never knew about or if it is something that I had to relearn because I forgot about it. But if fits with what it happening now. All over the world politics is becoming even crueler and nastier than it has been since the middle ages.
It makes sense if the world’s leaders are operting under the assumption that the world is comming to an end ine not to distant future. In the best of times it is hard to hold the rich and powerful accountable for thier anti social behavior. There is little accountability in the best of times. But now if the world is commng to an end pretty soon. JThere is no accountability because it takes time to biuld up the forces that can retaliate against the rich and powerful. It appears that the amount of time needed no longer exists.
But one difference between the real world and the prisoner’s delima game is the number of players involved. I wonder that could make a difference. Another thing is what happens if some of the players ar no longer primarily interested in improving their own well being but become primarily interested in retaliation. Normally retaliation is a means to an end. But what happens if retaliation becomes an end in itself? Is such a thing even possible?
I think that it might be possible because that is what has happened to me. But not only am I microscopic in the grand scheme of things, I am not even a completely independent player. All of the important things that I do I need to get permission to do from someone that is important to me. But I have on several occasions which I considered extremely important not followed that rule. But when these times came to light I had hell to pay. Becuase the risks that I took put other people in danger that have no interest in Quixotic Quest to retailiate against those whose heads are surronded by 3 meters of reinforced concrete.
I am not optomistic that retaliation can be achieved. But one ray of hope reflects off the point of a pin in my direction.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mScpHTIi-kM
“All over the world politics is becoming even crueler and nastier than it has been since the middle ages. It makes sense if the world’s leaders are operating under the assumption that the world is coming to an end in not to distant future.”
Macron declaring “the end of the age of abundance” was certainly eye-opening and clearly there is a growing awareness amongst governments that we are moving into an era of heightened danger and instability… but I doubt many individuals within governments, let alone governments as collective entities, have formed the firm view that we are screwed and decided to adapt policy accordingly.
I think they are just reactively problem-solving as best they can.
That was an interesting moment from Macron
He made that statement in August 2022 when energy prices were skyrocketing , French nuclear power plants were facing huge problems and inflation was rising fast due to those energy prices, He stated at the council of ministers that France (the world) was going through a major upheaval marked by “the end of plenty”. He called for “austerity” especially at the energy level. Actually quite a chance for a somewhat broader discussion….
But, of course, that’s not how it works. He was immediately slammed by the opposition Jean-Luc Mélenchon (LFI) responded on Twitter: “No, Mr Macron, there has never been abundance, but irresponsibility, looting, waste, the commodification of everything and living things”. For his part, Éric Ciotti (LR) denounced political inertia: “There is only one carefree attitude in France, and that is that of a president who drives our country into the wall by refusing the courage of reforms and being in favour of unlimited spending.
Little heard of it after that including Macron 🙂
Thank you for that context, Zip.
I was interested to see an article in The Times, no less, suggesting that energy considerations and resource depletion were central to Putin’s decision to invade Ukraine.
Obviously, the journalist is not a fan of Putin and he is writing from the standard, anti-Russian perspective common to most Western MSM, so please let’s not get bogged down in that. It is not what is interesting about the article:
“It perhaps goes without saying that today we live in a fossil fuel civilisation. After 12,000 years of using wood and plants for fuel, effectively relying on the flow of solar energy captured by photosynthesis, we suddenly realised we had a treasure trove of billions of tons of stored energy in the form of geologically compressed phytoplankton and plants under our feet…
“For the past 200 years we have basked in this bonanza as we enjoyed exponential growth, together with a global population boom and the creation of a technological civilisation utterly different from any that went before. But here’s the hard truth: we are living in the twilight of this age…
“And here we glimpse the geopolitical significance of Ukraine… Did you know it has the second-largest gas reserves in Europe after Norway? Or that the Donbas boasts one of the largest coal deposits in the world? And that Ukraine has stocks of 117 of the 120 most widely used metals and minerals, including manganese, sulphur, graphite, titanium and nickel? Did you know that one think tank has estimated the mineral wealth now under Russian control in Ukraine at $12.4 trillion, which is nearly four times the UK’s GDP (albeit the former is a stock, the latter a flow).
“Now do you see the geopolitical importance of Ukraine? …The frantic geopolitical motion of today is calibrated to the demands of an overpopulated world of eight billion people seeking to reinvent its energy system.”
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/tucker-carlson-seemed-clueless-about-our-energy-crisis-putin-certainly-isnt-v7wrwwgkj
It is vanishingly rare, IME, to hear these matters being discussed so openly in the MSM.
That is indeed an underexposed element in this war…
The EU ‘energy transition’ and the role of Ukraine is also underexposed…. this is how ‘we’ do it now… it all seems to be about freedom and ideology and history but there are always other motives, raw materials, food and energy playing a role….
https://tamarindo.global/articles/ukrainian-conflict-the-first-lithium-war/
Bugs! I have not seen very many in months. I have not seen mosquitoes in years. I saw maybe one or 2 butterflies. A couple years ago we had a very bad wasp problem but even that seems to have deteriorated to. Very few worms too.
Insect numbers are plunging in many places, for sure, Heather. I recall this study from Germany in 2017:
“The abundance of flying insects has plunged by three-quarters over the past 25 years, according to a new study that has shocked scientists.”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/oct/18/warning-of-ecological-armageddon-after-dramatic-plunge-in-insect-numbers
I was listening to the radio and the Beeb interviewed a carnival-goer. Over the din of the street party in the background she glibly shrugged it off. “It’s carnival!” she gushed in a suitably latino drawl. “Mosquitos?!? Eh! What are you going to do about that?!?”
I thought that was appropriate. Nothing anyone can do about it, so why not party like there’s no tomorrow?
Speaking of no tomorrow, I keep coming back to an early video game I once played many, MANY years ago. It was a science exhibit designed to teach inertia and momentum in a fun and engaging way.
A small lunar lander needs to be launched from the craggy surface of the moon and then landed on a distant moon base using only thrusters.
One small catch: You have limited fuel.
One gigantic, existential catch: The thrusters have a delayed effect.
Those two catches made the game almost impossible to win.
For example:
1 . Pressing the “up” thruster to launch the lunar lander has no effect. The lander does not move.
2. Pressing and holding the “up” thruster only starts to have an effect after a delay of a second or two.
3. Releasing the “up” thruster has no effect. The lander continues to accelerate because it is still responding to all of the “up” thrust from a second or two ago.
4. Pressing and holding the “down” thruster only starts to have an effect after a delay of a second or two.
5. Releasing the “down” thruster has no effect. The lander continues to decelerate because it is still responding to all of the “down” thrust from a second or two ago.
The result was always the same:
1. Hammer on the “up” thruster until the damn thing finally starts to move
2. Oops! Going too fast now!
3. Hammer on the “down” thruster until the damn thing finally starts to slow down
4. Oops! Going too slow now!
5. Repeat from step 1 until either:
A) You run out of fuel, you were going WAY to fast, and the lander flies off the screen at top speed, only to eventually crash and burn.
– OR –
B) You run out of fuel, you were going WAY to slow, and the lander plummets to the ground crashing and burning on the sharp crags below.
Strange game! The only way to win is not to play.
Anyway, we, as in industrial civilization, have been hammering the “up” thruster for several decades now. We are only just starting to feel the effects of that acceleration.
Now, we are entering the “Oops! Too fast!” phase.
Sadly, it would take a similar number of decades of hammering on the “down” thruster before we would begin to feel the effects of that.
Next, we get to enjoy the “flies off the screen at top speed” part. Should be quite comical watching folks desperately stomping on the “down” button even as they watch in horror as their big, shiny civilization crashes and burns.
That’s how the video game always turned out. Always.
Jerry, your frustratingly pointless video-game analogy is an apt one! Sinking a load of cachaça and samba’ing the night away sounds as good a coping mechanism as any.
Thanks Pan! I just blew a couple of pointless hours playing an old text based version of “Lunar Lander”, but I like your idea better!
This year marks the 20’th anniversary of the publication of Matt Savinar’s, “The Oil Age is Over”. (What to expect as the world runs out of cheap oil, 2005-2050):
‘The problems associated with climate change will compound those associated with peak oil, creating a self-reinforcing loop of crop failures, energy shortages, and economic meltdown. Our ability to sustain the food supply will be greatly diminished as pesticides, fertilizers, and fuel become prohibitively expensive, while our ability to produce food without these petrochemical inputs will be severely reduced by increasingly unpredictable weather patterns’.
‘Even if we do wake up from our collective fossil fuel fantasy, there’s no way we are going to get out of bed.”
‘Most of us would rather die in our sleep.”
Pleasant dreams.
Rob, that is a prescient quote and I’m sure we will see increasing interplay between our converging crises. Under that duress, I’d add into the mix the possibility of the financial system suffering sudden paralysis, as it almost did in 2008.
https://www.king5.com/article/weather/weather-blog/la-nina-watch-issued-noaa/281-35b8787c-eef5-4193-aa20-23281295f510
Has anyone been following whats the deal? Is anyone saying anything?
Currently a 55% chance of a La Niña developing over the summer, apparently… About half of El Nino’s result in a transition to La Niña but we did have a rare triple-dip La Niña in the run up, so overdosing on the La Niña’s a bit of late…
Also, this El Nino has been “competing with” unprecedented sea surface temps in many locations around the globe. It’ll be very interesting to see how much cooling a La Niña actually generates at this point.
Yes for sure on that one. Considering how fast the two poles are melting and other things in the mix like amoc this seems minor but we still have record sea temperatures too. I am seeing mix stuff in the media now a mild el nino yeah sounds like they do not know yet what’s going on. But things are getting much worse for sure
I would go with what Hansen, et. al. are saying, that even with La Niña later this year we probably won’t see average temps below 1.5degC above baseline again. Either way, historic temps are baked-in for the next couple months, at least.
Big picture? Our old planet is gone. No one quite knows what the new planet will look like, but it’s already not very hospitable and looks set to get much worse.
OMG that Hannah Ritchie is fucking hilarious. That’s world class climate hopium – does she have any left for the other Overshoot predicaments that are just as threatening to human existence? What a bubble head.
Experts Say Humanity Faces a Grim and “Ghastly Future” – State of Planet Is Much Worse Than Most People Understand
“The state of the planet is much worse than most people understand and that humans face a grim and “ghastly future” unless extraordinary action is taken soon.
A loss of biodiversity and accelerating climate change in the coming decades coupled with ignorance and inaction is threatening the survival of all species, including our very own, according to the experts from institutions including Stanford University, UCLA, and Flinders University.
The researchers state that world leaders need a ‘cold shower’ regarding the state of our environment, both to plan and act to avoid a ghastly future.
Lead author Professor Corey Bradshaw of Flinders University in Australia says he and his colleagues have summarized the state of the natural world in stark form to help clarify the gravity of the human predicament.
“Humanity is causing a rapid loss of biodiversity and, with it, Earth’s ability to support complex life. But the mainstream is having difficulty grasping the magnitude of this loss, despite the steady erosion of the fabric of human civilization” Professor Bradshaw says.
“In fact, the scale of the threats to the biosphere and all its lifeforms is so great that it is difficult to grasp for even well-informed experts.
“The problem is compounded by ignorance and short-term self-interest, with the pursuit of wealth and political interests stymying the action that is crucial for survival,” he says.”
https://scitechdaily.com/experts-say-humanity-faces-a-grim-and-ghastly-future-state-of-planet-is-much-worse-than-most-people-understand/
Only this phony society could produce people who will shamelessly Brightside climate Doom. In this instance she is gaslighting via brightsiding. She would have to be 100% ignorant of the data to make those claims. Since the Paris non binding agreement, each successive year has set a new all time record for CO2 emissions except for a minor, 1 year, Covid dip. She has zero stats to back her claims. She is just as much a liar as right-wing deniers.
“She is just as much a liar as right-wing deniers.”
I think some level of dishonesty or at least denial operates in pretty much all humans. Even as my intellect sporadically acknowledges how badly this all ends, I still compartmentalise or “brush off” that reality to make it through the day. It would crush me otherwise.
So, from that perspective, I understand it when people cling to ill-founded beliefs that are reassuring or unwarrantedly optimistic. What I’m less crazy about is when academics intentionally skew the narrative because they are arrogant enough to think they know what the public needs to hear.
A random thought: How many that will be watching the Super Bowl have any idea what is happening to their environment?
THIS STORY ORIGINALLY appeared on Grist and is part of the Climate Desk collaboration.
WHEN GOVERNMENTS FIND themselves fighting the threat of coastal erosion, their default response tends to be pretty simple: If sand is disappearing from a beach, they pump in more sand to replace it. This strategy, known as “beach nourishment,” has become a cornerstone of coastal defenses around the world, complementing hard structures like sea walls. North Carolina, for instance, has dumped more than 100 million tons of sand onto its beaches over the past 30 years, at a cost of more than $1 billion.
The problem with beach nourishment is obvious. If you dump sand on an eroding beach, it’s only a matter of time before that new sand erodes. Then you have to do it all over again.
Hi, just chiming in…humans are real smart
Physics-based early warning signal shows that AMOC is on tipping course
Abstract
“One of the most prominent climate tipping elements is the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation (AMOC), which can potentially collapse because of the input of fresh water in the North Atlantic. Although AMOC collapses have been induced in complex global climate models by strong freshwater forcing, the processes of an AMOC tipping event have so far not been investigated. Here, we show results of the first tipping event in the Community Earth System Model, including the large climate impacts of the collapse. Using these results, we develop a physics-based and observable early warning signal of AMOC tipping: the minimum of the AMOC-induced freshwater transport at the southern boundary of the Atlantic. Reanalysis products indicate that the present-day AMOC is on route to tipping. The early warning signal is a useful alternative to classical statistical ones, which, when applied to our simulated tipping event, turn out to be sensitive to the analyzed time interval before tipping.
INTRODUCTION
The Atlantic meridional overturning circulation (AMOC) effectively transports heat and salt through the global ocean (1) and strongly modulates regional and global climate. Continuous section measurements of the AMOC, available since 2004 at 26°N from the RAPID-MOCHA array (2), have shown that the AMOC strength has decreased by a few Sverdrups (1 Sv = 106 m3 s−1) from 2004 to 2012, and thereafter, it has strengthened (3) again. Longer timescale variability of the AMOC strength, estimated by using sea surface temperature (SST) time series based on “fingerprint” patterns (4), indicates that the AMOC weakened by 3 ± 1 Sv since about 1950. From proxy records, it has been suggested that the AMOC is currently in its weakest state in over a millennium (5).
The AMOC has been labeled as one of the tipping elements in the climate system (6, 7), indicating that it may undergo a relatively rapid change under a slowly developing forcing. The AMOC is particularly sensitive to the ocean’s freshwater forcing, either through the surface freshwater flux (e.g., precipitation) or by input of fresh water due to river runoff or ice melt (e.g., from the Greenland Ice Sheet). Although no AMOC tipping has been found in historical observations, there is much evidence from proxy records that abrupt AMOC changes have occurred in the geological past during the so-called Dansgaard-Oeschger events (8–10).
Classical early warning indicators, such as the increase in the variance and/or the (lag-1) autocorrelation, when applied to SST-based time series, suggest that the present-day AMOC approaches a tipping point before the end of this century (11, 12). Apart from the fact that the SST-based AMOC fingerprints may not represent the AMOC behavior adequately, many (statistical) assumptions are required to estimate the approaching AMOC tipping point (12–15). Hence, there is strong need for a more physics-based, observable, and reliable early warning indicator that characterizes the AMOC tipping point.
https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.adk1189
That paper above I just shared is paywalled. For anyone who wishes to slog through all of it, I drop a link to a free and safe extension that will get you past many science journal paywalls. Not everything, but still a very impressive amount.
I’ve used it for many years with zero problems.
UNPAYWALL
An open database of 49,387,240 free scholarly articles.
We harvest Open Access content from over 50,000 publishers and repositories, and make it easy to find, track, and use.
https://unpaywall.org/
Good explainer article
Atlantic Ocean is headed for a tipping point − once melting glaciers shut down the Gulf Stream, we would see extreme climate change within decades, study shows
Published: February 9, 2024
“So, when will we see this tipping point?
The big question – when will the Atlantic circulation reach a tipping point – remains unanswered. Observations don’t go back far enough to provide a clear result. While a recent study suggested that the conveyor belt is rapidly approaching its tipping point, possibly within a few years, these statistical analyses made several assumptions that give rise to uncertainty.
Instead, we were able to develop a physics-based and observable early warning signal involving the salinity transport at the southern boundary of the Atlantic Ocean. Once a threshold is reached, the tipping point is likely to follow in one to four decades.”
https://theconversation.com/atlantic-ocean-is-headed-for-a-tipping-point-once-melting-glaciers-shut-down-the-gulf-stream-we-would-see-extreme-climate-change-within-decades-study-shows-222834
‘Don’t give a man a fish, just teach him how to fish.’ and it will drag
& destroy the bottom of oceans to get every morsel of sea life.
“Don’t look up! Don’t look up! Don’t look up!” One thing the movie absolutely nailed IMO is this: Once that side actually looks up and sees it, the red hats alongside the “liberal” media hopium dealers, it will very much be too late….you have days left.