“‘Unprecedented,’ ‘Gobsmacked’, ‘Unbelievable’: Changes in Antarctica’s sea ice could have dramatic impacts, says climate scientist Edward Doddridge…
“This is why I think that the RV Belgica’s voyage is such an interesting one to look at now. The region of the Antarctic coastline they sailed to has been ice-free for the first time since satellite records began — it now doesn’t have any ice for months and months of the year. That’s pretty surprising in a 45-year record, but when you look back 125 years ago, and you see that they were trapped in ice that was 2 meters [6.6 feet] thick, that’s a huge change.”
“Feedback loop that is melting ice shelves in West Antarctica revealed…
“Professor Alberto Naveira Garabato, from the University of Southampton, a co-author of the paper, said, “Our findings suggest a positive feedback loop: as the ice shelf melts more rapidly, more freshwater is produced, leading to a stronger undercurrent and more heat being transported toward the ice shelves.””
https://phys.org/news/2024-04-feedback-loop-ice-shelves-west.html
“Geoengineering could save the ice sheets – but only if we start soon…
““There’s a time window that we can do this, and if we dither, there’s just no point in doing it,” says John Moore at the University of Lapland in Finland, who led… “The study we did says 2030 at the latest,” says Johannes Sutter at the Alfred Wegener Institute in Bremerhaven, Germany.”
“Code Yikes! [global sea surface temps]
“April 20, 2024: 21.16°C
March 1, 2024: 21.17°C”
https://twitter.com/EliotJacobson/status/1782069999064187165
“Climate in uncharted waters as hundreds of millions of anchovies and sardines arrive off Irish coast…
“As global sea-surface temperatures continue to creep up to unprecedented levels, an acoustic survey has recorded three-quarters of a billion anchovies — traditionally found in the Mediterranean — shoaling off Ireland’s southern coast.”
“Scotland faces water shortages unless immediate action is taken to make the country more resilient to drought, experts have warned…
“A recent study by the University of Dundee found that longer dry spells resulting from a changing climate, coupled with a rising demand for water, have left the country vulnerable to water shortages.”
“Wettest winter in decades causes construction chaos [Belgium]… work has been severely disrupted…
“Whilst Belgium is also renowned for its damp conditions, this period has been truly exceptional. The Royal Meteorological Institute has confirmed that the period from October to March has been the wettest since 1970. This was only beaten in 1902.”
https://www.brusselstimes.com/1009845/wettest-winter-in-decades-causes-construction-chaos
“In the French Alps, ‘last chance tourists’ visit the disappearing glacier.
“Every year, like Sisyphus pushing his boulder, [the grotto keeper] digs a new cave using a small tunnel-boring machine – a four-month job. In 2023, the structure melted too quickly and didn’t even last the entire season. A new one had to be built faster than planned.”
“Late frost in Switzerland poses increased risk to crops.
“The risk of late frost damage to fruit crops and vineyards is increasing. As a result of climate change, winters are becoming milder and the growing season is being lengthened, says weather service Meteonews.”
“Europe baked in ‘extreme heat stress’ pushing temperatures to record highs.
“Heat-trapping pollutants that clog the atmosphere helped push temperatures in Europe last year to the highest or second-highest levels ever recorded, according to the EU’s Earth-watching service Copernicus and the World Meteorological Organization (WMO).”
“Spain and Greece face dire drought conditions…
“The drought affecting Europe is the worst in five centuries. Does this concern the European Parliament elections in June at all? Is it rated as an important issue or not? In the end, which of our identities is stronger: that of a citizen, voter or tourist, in general?”
https://knews.kathimerini.com.cy/en/comment/opinion/spain-and-greece-face-dire-drought-conditions
“Spanish cava producer Freixenet has presented a plan to lay off temporarily 615 workers, nearly 80% of its workforce, due to a drought in the Penedes area of Catalonia, it said in a statement on Monday.
“The measure is expected to become effective in May, and the company did not specify how long the layoffs would last.”
“Granada province mops up after weekend rain and hail storm that flooded homes and roads and left one boy dead…
“Residents in the towns of Cijuela, Trasmulas, Valderrubio and Láchar are still assessing the damage caused by just one hour of heavy rain… “…there is no infrastructure capable of sustaining nature when it manifests itself in full force…””
“HISTORIC HEAT IN AFRICA – MIN temperature 29.7C [85.5F] Abidjan is the HOTTEST NIGHT EVER RECORDED IN IVORY COAST.
“Also 28.9 Sassandra 28.7 San Pedro. BENIN: Tmin 30.3 Cotonou hottest night in history; GHANA:Tmin 29.7 Axim hottest night in history; NIGER: Tmin 32.3 Guya hottest April night.”
https://twitter.com/extremetemps/status/1782039332955521041
“Unprecedented autumn heat in SOUTH AFRICA and NAMIBIA – monthly records were locally broken by 6C! and in the second half of this autumn month. This is insane.
“35.5 [95.9F] Ventersdorp; Tmins 21.4 Coffee Bay,19.8 Addo,19.2 Gariep Dam, 21.0 lady Grey (previous 15.0!).”
https://twitter.com/extremetemps/status/1782359374750495077
“Donkeys starving as African drought wreaks havoc.
“Zimbabwe has declared a state of disaster as a devastating drought brings the country to its knees. As always, in times of crisis, the animals are in serious trouble, and the rescued donkeys at our partner sanctuary are badly affected.”
https://networkforanimals.org/how-you-can-help/zimbabwe-mares-moringa-tree-emergency/
“Deforestation pushes animals in Uganda forest to eat virus-laden bat poo.
“Animals in a Ugandan forest have been eating bat poo laden with viruses after tobacco farming wiped out their usual food source, a study has found. A virus linked to Covid-19 was among the 27 identified in the poo eaten by chimpanzees, antelopes and monkeys.”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-68875094
“Ongoing heavy rains and flooding have caused havoc across Kenya, Tanzania and Somalia, claiming lives and displacing thousands of people…
“On Sunday, the IGAD Climate Prediction and Application Centre warned that extremely heavy rainfall, reaching top 1 percent on record is expected over isolated areas in central parts of Ethiopia and central to northern Kenya.”
https://global.chinadaily.com.cn/a/202404/22/WS66262586a31082fc043c34cf.html
“Mauritius shut its stock exchange, banks and many offices on Monday after torrential rains on Sunday caused flooding in the island nation.
“There would be no trading and settlement for the day, according to the Stock Exchange of Mauritius.”
“Before and after: See Dubai flooding from space.
“The flooding that resulted from the UAE’s largest deluge on record was so intense that satellites were still able to see it from space days after the clouds cleared and the last drops of rain fell.”
https://edition.cnn.com/2024/04/22/weather/dubai-flooding-before-after-satellite-climate/index.html
“Flash Floods In Iran’s Sistan-Baluchestan Leave Region In Despair…
“According to Moeineddin Saeedi, the lawmaker representing Chabahar in the Iranian parliament, the floods have “broken the back of the people,” with the death toll rising and critical damage to the region’s infrastructure, including roads, electricity, and water systems.”
https://www.iranintl.com/en/202404219813
“Heavy flooding from seasonal rains in Afghanistan has killed at least 33 people and injured 27 others in three days, a Taliban spokesman said Sunday.
“Abdullah Janan Saiq, the Taliban’s spokesman for the State Ministry for Natural Disaster Management, said Sunday that flash floods hit the capital, Kabul, and several provinces.”
https://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/heavy-rains-set-off-flash-floods-killing-33-109217319
“Russia’s Record Floods Submerge Uranium Mines in Urals…
“The hundreds or even thousands of mine wells drilled into the deposit have compromised the natural protective barrier surrounding the uranium ore, Alexei Shvarts, the former head of Alexei Navalny’s Kurgan regional office who previously worked with uranium mining issues, told Agentsvo.”
“Hundreds of glacial lakes expanding in Himalayan region, flags ISRO.
“Long term satellite imagery covering the Himalayas has revealed that of the 2,431 glacial lakes larger than 10 hectares in area identified in 2016-17, 676 glacial lakes have expanded notably since 1984.”
“Toxic smoke from burning garbage mountain blankets India’s capital.
“One of India’s largest rubbish mounds is on fire, continuing to burn after almost 24 hours and spewing toxic fumes into the air of a densely populated area on the outskirts of the capital Delhi.”
“Heatwave in India: TV host faints during live broadcast as swaths of country reel from sweltering temperatures.
“Lopamudra Sinha, the anchor of state-run DD News in West Bengal, was reading a bulletin from a studio when she began feeling unwell and fell unconscious as cameras kept rolling.”
“HISTORIC HEAT WAVE in Asia: Records are falling all over – 45C [113F] in India and Myanmar, 43C in Bangladesh.
“NEPAL HOTTEST APRIL DAY IN HISTORY – 43.6C Bhairawa; SRI LANKA APRIL HIGHEST TMIN – Tmin 29.3C Galle.”
https://twitter.com/extremetemps/status/1781666623931211793
“China floods: Four dead as cities submerged after days of record breaking rainfall…
“Many parts of the region have seen precipitation records broken in April, with the amount of rainfall being two to three times higher than is typical for the month. Chinese meteorologists also noted that thunderstorms are set to continue…”
“Thailand’s sugar cane output falls sharply due to drought.
“The drop in production may affect sugar supply in the global market as Thailand is the world’s second-largest sugar exporter after Brazil… Verasak said that drought caused a water shortage, which dealt a blow to sugar cane plantation in Thailand.”
https://en.vietnamplus.vn/thailands-sugar-cane-output-falls-sharply-due-to-drought/284892.vnp
“EXCEPTIONAL HEAT IN SOUTHEAST ASIA – Hundreds of records pulverized.
“Dozens of stations in THAILAND with nights MINS >30C in all regions of the country. For Thailand nearly 14 months of no-stop record heat every single day of the year.”
https://twitter.com/extremetemps/status/1782582348686492068
“Hottest April Temperatures on Record Scorch Southern Taiwan… Mercury hits 36.8C (98F) in Kaohsiung, Chiayi County on Sunday…
“Temperatures soared to record highs in parts of southern Taiwan over the weekend, with authorities warning the heat is likely to continue on Monday and urged people to avoid unnecessary outdoor activity.”
“HISTORIC! MINIMUM temperature of 27.1C [80.8F] at Ishigashi JAPAN. It’s the HOTTEST NIGHT EVER RECORDED IN JAPAN IN APRIL.
“The minimum temperature should easily hold until next midnight. Thousands of records are falling all over Asia.”
https://twitter.com/extremetemps/status/1781823307173552207
“HISTORIC HEAT WAVE in South America. A long and intense heat wave will sweep Paraguay, Bolivia and parts of Brazil and Argentina for the next 10+ days.
“Expect 35C/38C with nights of 25/28C,unprecedented for late autumn. Cobija BOLIVIA already broke its April record with 36.5C.”
https://twitter.com/extremetemps/status/1782504071951188309
“RECORD HEAT IN COSTA RICA again – 40.5C [104.9F] Palo Verde National Park broke the [national] April record of highest temperature again, after breaking that of the highest minimum 4 times.
“6 national records in 21 days in Costa Rica, plus all other broken almost every month of the past 10 months.”
https://twitter.com/extremetemps/status/1782172567949689286
“‘All hail broke loose’: Softball-size hail destroys property in Carolinas during weekend hailstorm…
“Severe thunderstorms brought a massive hailstorm to the Carolinas on Saturday, blasting out windows, tearing down fences and leaving yards covered in enough ice to create the appearance of a fresh blanket of snow.”
https://www.foxweather.com/extreme-weather/softball-size-hail-south-carolina-hailstorm
“Blazes break out in western Canada as wildfire season begins…
“Many of the blazes broke out just in recent days, though dozens are still burning from 2023, amid government fears of another “catastrophic” summer ahead. In British Columbia, firefighters are focusing on the central Cariboo region, where a human-caused burn quickly spread over the weekend and is now considered out of control.”
https://www.jamaicaobserver.com/2024/04/22/blazes-break-western-canada-wildfire-season-begins/
“Evacuation Warning Issued as Wildfire Nears Oil Sands Hub in Canada…
“…according to Bloomberg, the fire was raging near a town 25 miles from Fort McMurray. The report recalled that eight years ago another wildfire forced the evacuation of tens of thousands of locals and the suspension of some 1 million barrels of oil in daily production.”
“The world dumps 2,000 truckloads of plastic into the ocean each day. Here’s where a lot of it ends up…
“Despite global efforts to give plastic products longer lives, only 9% of them are actually recycled. Most plastic waste goes into landfills or is shipped to places like Indonesia and other Southeast Asian nations, many of which are already drowning in their own plastic pollution.”
https://edition.cnn.com/interactive/2024/04/climate/plastic-pollution-ocean-cnnphotos/
“Could soil microplastic pollution exacerbate climate change?
“Recent studies have demonstrated a causal relationship between MPs pollution and climate change… Our meta-analysis demonstrated that GHGs emissions and resulting GWP are highly sensitive to MPs type, shape, size and content.”
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0013935124008491
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We’re done.
Yep
BEIJING, April 23 (Reuters) – China’s coal consumption will fall by just one-third by 2040, according to a report by a European consultancy published on Tuesday, threatening climate targets that call for phasing out much of global coal use by 2040.
The International Energy Agency has said that global coal power capacity has to be eliminated by 2040 to keep average global temperature rises within the key threshold of 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit).
Funny 😂 how these folks keep pretending we have a chance… threatening climate targets… too funny….like they took thVPKese seriously ever
The global economy just isn’t capable of the sort of fundamental, structural re-organisation that an actual energy transition would require, so instead we’ll make ourselves feel better with a make-believe one that can still hit make-believe climate targets. 🌈
This will probably disappear into the moderation black hole, but I simply must share.
I tried to convince chatGPT that we are totally doomed and we missed 50 years of opportunities to do something about it.
https://chat.openai.com/share/a1b5066b-fcd0-4f85-bf70-6a64ce430ed2
Keep in mind that this is basically auto-complete software that is only mimicking what it scraped off from the internet. That said, you can clearly see the optimism bias that must infect the internet at a really fundamental level. It insisted over and over again that there is still time.
Wrong.
Leaving one to wonder, how many days before the realization that mankind faces its real sunset dawn on us?
In my more pessimistic moments I start moping that we will never realize it. People have an extraordinary ability to blame everything except themselves for their grievances.
The shock and horror of watching our whole world fall apart will inevitably lead to fear and anger. The pain of that will inevitably lead to hatred of those deemed responsible.
Then things really start getting ugly.
“…it is still possible to build a more sustainable and just future.”
Jerry, I tried a similar experiment a while back. AI would acknowledge my points as valid individually but then always circle back to the sort of unwarranted optimism quoted above, as it has with you. I was surprised by how poor its deductive reasoning was but perhaps I was expecting too much.
AI- Denial in denial out.
“perhaps I was expecting too much”
Exactly, there is no reasoning there, deductive or otherwise.
– Think of it like a giant telephone switchboard, the old-school style with the rows and rows of jacks that you could plug cables into.
– All the language model has done is memorize which jacks are most closely associated with which other jacks. This is called “training”.
– The reason it so closely resembles natural language is because the software has been trained on billions, and billions, and billions, and billions of jacks, also called “tokens”.
– It has no idea what it is talking about, there is no “it” there.
– It is simply an incredibly complex switchboard that has been very, VERY carefully weighted so that the AI can take any prompt and then swiftly run cables out to any of the most closely associated words that best fit the prompt.
– That’s why it’s so easy to get totally false responses, the words just happened to fit together well enough to get put into a sentence. Not because the AI has any idea what the sentence is actually saying.
– To turn something that crude into some sort of “mind” that can “reason” is a huge leap of faith and not something that is likely to happen soon IMHO. Especially not with the exponential growth in electricity consumption by these tools.
Thanks Jerry, my own experiments have led to similar conclusions.
You might like to ask the program to “show all working” or “do the math” 🙂
I asked for a timeline of key events in the leadup to the Russia-Ukraine war from 2008-2022.
Simple high-school style history essay research.
Not just climate optimism, but history or geopolitics are all over the place. Direct quotes from Western MSM propaganda, verbatim headlines etc scraped info from dubious sources. Wikipedia was better LOL
Thing about AI, is it cant reason from the info it does scrape, or make judgements or decisions, only repeat what it does find in database searching.
A fancy calculator and database search engine, probably fine for engineering applications etc,.
Thanks, Jerry. That is very interesting indeed. I guess I was fooled by the term “artificial intelligence”, which suggests something a bit deeper than this incredibly complex parlour trick.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jQWFTsI7Iwc
To paraphrase an old saying: If you aren’t made as hell, you must be stupid. 😉
There is no point in complaining about missed opportunities because the problems of unsustainable human life styles needed to be solved before WW2 at the latest, probally even before WW1. After that they became to complex to solve. And back in the late 19th century or early 20th century, very few people were aware of where mankind was headed.
Wait, even that assessment is to opptomistic. I forgot a recently learned previous lesson.
Humanity had to turn to coal because wood was becoming scarce in some areas and wood (ha ha)ve become scarce every where eventually, given a continuous slow rise in human populations.
The only chance to save humanity was at the dawn of humanity and then we were clearly not capable of doing it.
An implication of this understanding is that there is no point in complaining about someone flying from Norway to Java for a vacation because restraint is not going to save humanity. Savings in one area of human conduct will just end up being turned in to an expenditure of human conduct some other way anyways.
My understanding of why humans were placed in to this simulation was to create a great society. The defeatinition of the Great Society was made by Thomas Paine. He said that the great society was one in which the prisons were empty, the schools were full, the hospitals were filled with laughter, the theaters will filled with tears, the roads and streets and other public places were clean, and the houses were filled with works of art, and all the people were well feed.
We were given a mission impossible. But at least after around 40,000 years someone finally property definded the mission for us. That was quite an accomplishment. I wish that I could have been their to have been a part of it. I only wish a very tiny little bit though. Laughing gas had not been invented yet.
I agree, Curt, we were never going to solve this. I remember Thoreau complaining about the incessant noise of the tree cutters. Coal must have seemed liked a gift from heaven.
Cassandra,
Not only that. But if humans could have been shown 10,000 years ago where the path that they had just embarked on would lead, and what they would have to be done to avoid that fate in 10,000 years I bet that they would have said. Well we think we will take the path that leads towards extinction because surely by the 20th century someone will come up with a brilliant plan to avoid it that everyone will agree to follow. After all the alternative of sticking around for millions of years riding a raft of bamboö and jute or hemp does not look very rosy or cozy.
But the questions of the, all bamboo bicylce, and an all bamboo deck of 52 playing cards remain. That answers to those questions might have changed things.