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3-5 Degree Rise in Arctic Temperatures Called 'Inevitable' (theguardian.com)
An anonymous reader quotes the Guardian:
Sharp and potentially devastating temperature rises of 3C to 5C in the Arctic are now inevitable even if the world succeeds in cutting greenhouse gas emissions in line with the Paris agreement, research has found.
Winter temperatures at the north pole are likely to rise by at least 3C above pre-industrial levels by mid-century, and there could be further rises to between 5C and 9C above the recent average for the region, according to the UN. Such changes would result in rapidly melting ice and permafrost, leading to sea level rises and potentially to even more destructive levels of warming. Scientists fear Arctic heating could trigger a climate "tipping point" as melting permafrost releases the powerful greenhouse gas methane into the atmosphere, which in turn could create a runaway warming effect. "What happens in the Arctic does not stay in the Arctic," said Joyce Msuya, the acting executive director of UN Environment...
Even if all carbon emissions were to be halted immediately, the Arctic region would still warm by more than 5C by the century's end, compared with the baseline average from 1986 to 2005, according to the study from UN Environment. That is because so much carbon has already been poured into the atmosphere. The oceans also have become vast stores of heat, the effect of which is being gradually revealed by changes at the poles and on global weather systems, and will continue to be felt for decades to come.
The findings were presented at the UN Environment assembly Wednesday, where a report written by 250 scientists and experts from over 70 countries also warned that "damage to the planet is so dire that people's health will be increasingly threatened unless urgent action is taken."
Winter temperatures at the north pole are likely to rise by at least 3C above pre-industrial levels by mid-century, and there could be further rises to between 5C and 9C above the recent average for the region, according to the UN. Such changes would result in rapidly melting ice and permafrost, leading to sea level rises and potentially to even more destructive levels of warming. Scientists fear Arctic heating could trigger a climate "tipping point" as melting permafrost releases the powerful greenhouse gas methane into the atmosphere, which in turn could create a runaway warming effect. "What happens in the Arctic does not stay in the Arctic," said Joyce Msuya, the acting executive director of UN Environment...
Even if all carbon emissions were to be halted immediately, the Arctic region would still warm by more than 5C by the century's end, compared with the baseline average from 1986 to 2005, according to the study from UN Environment. That is because so much carbon has already been poured into the atmosphere. The oceans also have become vast stores of heat, the effect of which is being gradually revealed by changes at the poles and on global weather systems, and will continue to be felt for decades to come.
The findings were presented at the UN Environment assembly Wednesday, where a report written by 250 scientists and experts from over 70 countries also warned that "damage to the planet is so dire that people's health will be increasingly threatened unless urgent action is taken."
I'm sure some "cogent, studied, factually-handy, helpful and altruistic" Republican friends will be here to child-splain to us that this is all a hoax, inevitable, not happening, but also unstoppable and we shouldn't try.
We at some point have to listen to science. Obviously since we haven't kicked these long-time-oil-funded denialists to the curb entirely, we aren't to that point yet.
So the question becomes : How long are we going to entertain these no-credential no-science-background 1950's "I got mine's" and their Fox News hot air before we ignore them and begin to really address this?
I'm tired of their lies, always the same predictable shit in the face of scientific facts they will never acknowledge - and never read except to take single lines out of context as if that debunks the rest of it.
It's time to debunk their Big Tobacco playbook and forget them.
What's Draconian? That you might have to eat meat only once a day (healthier anyway)? Or that you might have to take an electric train on a 500 mile trip, not fly in a fossil-powered Spam can? Or that you'll have to drive in an electric or hydrogen car, not a hydrocarbon-belcher? Or that your apples might not come in a wasteful plastic bubble pack? Or that you might end up telecommuting a few times a week or even (OMG!) live in a more urban area or small town closer to your job? Or that your electricity might come from clean nuclear and renewables, not a coal-burning smog-belcher? OMG, the horror!!! Society will move on, just like it did when the EPA was introduced and car exhaust no longer smelled like an oil rig, rivers no longer caught fire, and bird populations increased as DDT was banned...
When you have nothing constructive to say, resort to death threats.
If you look at the "recommendations" section, you can see what they want us to do:
"Current patterns of consumption, production and inequality are not sustainable....[Solutions] include changes in lifestyle, consumption preferences and consumer behaviour on the one hand, and cleaner production processes, resource efficiency and decoupling, corporate responsibility and compliance on the other hand. ...Efforts to combat biodiversity loss must also address poverty eradication, food security challenges, gender inequality, systemic inefficiencies and corruption in governance structures and other social variables.
So there it is, that's what we have to do to stop global warming: you need to change your consumption preferences, and all those social variables.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
Carbon is not the only grernhouse gas, nor the most potrnt one.
You're welcome.
True, but it's among the longest lived.
Gases like methane are more potent initially but they break down much faster (maybe 20 years for methane to turn into CO2).
CO2 can hang around for hundreds of years, maybe even 1000 years.
Right now though, 20 years is still far too long. I'll give you that.
No sig today...
That renewables are not going to save us. And that we need to switch to nuclear ASAP in order to save the planet? How much longer are they going to oppose nuclear power, insisting that the only way to fix things is with renewables? Because their opposition is really the only thing stopping us from solving the CO2-induced global warming problem once and for all. None of the climate change skeptics have a problem with nuclear power (well, maybe the coal and oil industries do). It's only the environmentalists preventing us from solving global warming.
Nuclear power doesn't have to be the endgame. After we've replaced fossil fuels with nuclear power, we can still work on developing renewables (and battery tech). And as they become more capable, we can shut down nuclear plants and replace them with renewables. But what's important here and now is to get us off of fossil fuels ASAP. And right now that means replacing all our base load fossil fuel plants with nuclear plants.
so solar output doesnt matter now when talking about climate but it matters suddenly in the juriassic?
Solar output has slowly increased over billions of years as the Sun has gotten older and denser. It was not "suddenly".
Is NOTHING compared to the age of the Earth
Suppose you're setting on the couch in your home, and you feel a bit cold. You look around to see that somebody left a window open.
How long, relative to age of the Earth, should you wait until you conclude that the open window is the cause of the cold ?
We should research everything, and scale up what works.
We have, only nuclear scales. Also, Thorium and MSRs scale better than LWRs.
It is nerds, not politicians, who will save the world.
Couldn't agree more.
"Those that start by burning books, will end by burning men."