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Planet At Risk of Heading Towards Irreversible 'Hothouse Earth' State (vice.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Motherboard: What we do in the next 10-20 years will determine whether our planet remains hospitable to human life or slides down an irreversible path to what scientists in a major new study call "Hothouse Earth" conditions. Hothouse Earth is an apocalyptic nightmare where the global average temperatures is 4 to 5 degrees Celsius higher (with regions like the Arctic averaging 10 degrees C higher) than today, according to the study, "Trajectories of the Earth System in the Anthropocene," published Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Sea levels would eventually be 10-60 meters higher as much of the world's ice melts. In these conditions, large parts of the Earth would be uninhabitable. Cutting carbon emissions to limit climate change to 2 degrees C, as proposed in the Paris climate agreement, won't be enough to avoid a "Hothouse Earth," said co-author Johan Rockstrom, executive director of Stockholm Resilience Centre. The reality is that global temperatures aren't driven by human emissions of carbon alone, says Rockstrom -- natural systems such as forests and oceans also play a major role. If global warming reaches 2 degrees C it could trigger a feedback, or "tipping element," in one or more of our natural systems and drive further warming, Rockstrom told Motherboard. To put that into perspective, the recent heat waves and wildfires are being linked to climate change that has raised the global average temperature 1 degree C. The researchers conclude the study on a more uplifting note, saying: "We have the knowledge and ability to act. This is within our control." There are three main areas of action that need to be taken within the next two decades. "The top priority in the coming decade is to aggressively cut carbon emissions and decarbonize our energy systems as quickly as possible," reports Motherboard. "The second priority is to halt deforestation and conversion of nature areas into agricultural production. Forests and other natural areas currently absorb 25 percent of our carbon emissions and this needs to grow." The third action is "to continue to develop technologies to pull carbon from the atmosphere and safely store it for thousands of years." While this last action can be costly, we're starting to see some companies give it a try. A startup called Climeworks recently inaugurated the first system that captures CO2 from the air and converts the emissions into stone, thus ensuring they don't escape back into the atmosphere for the next millions of years.
US emissions are down whilst EU - and China, and India - emissions are up. I'm sure this will get down-modded since it doesn't pay homage to the proper models, but facts are facts: and when facts and beliefs/models collide - facts win.
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
And the evidence that they were right keeps piling up. Climate science has gotten a lot better and we're seeing massive chunks of ice already falling into the seas at a rate we've never witnessed.
There is no crying wolf here, there's just a massive amount of misinformation that's being spread by industry shills. Had we actually taken steps decades ago, we likely wouldn't be seeing the effects anywhere near as strongly. It would also likely have been a lot less expensive and a lot less of an impact on our lives.
Instead, we allowed the fossil fuel industry to bribe politicians and spread lies about the impact of carbon emissions on the atmosphere and now we're all starting to pay the price.
We're already seeing an uptick in civil unrest and weather related catastrophes, at some point shouldn't you shills admit that maybe this is a massive problem that needs to be solved rather than saying fuck it, it's too late may as well just keep on doing what we were doing.
Considering that the original hockey stick model only came out about 20 years ago in 1998 it sounds like your complaint is just hyperbolic bullshit.
The hockey stick of temperature rise is happening all around us currently. The steepness of the current rise looks dramatic on the graph compared to the relatively mild temperature changes that came before it but it's still only around 0.2 degrees per decade which doesn't seem that dramatic on human time scales. But it is a pretty dramatic change on geological time scales and far beyond the pace of change that the natural world can keep up with without substantial disruption.
What we should not worry about is runaway heating, because history has shown some built-in feedback mechanism that eventually reverses the trend. The next ice age is probably inevitable; we might as well enjoy the temperate climate while we can.
It's not some built in feedback mechanism that has been driving the cycle of glaciations/interglacials lately. Milankovitch cycles are the apparent triggering mechanism for the changes. After that then feedbacks do have an effect on the magnitude of the changes but it's not a feedback that initiates the changes. As far as the end of our interglacial and the start of the next glacial period climate scientists have calculated that CO2 levels would have to drop down to around 240 ppm for that to happen. So as long as CO2 levels are above 300 ppm we don't have to worry about the next ice age.
Too many nations refuse to cut their coal. Infact, we 100s more coal plants coming over the next couple of years.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
EU has gone down over the last 20 years. They have plateaued recently, but they are not growing.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.