How We Know that Global Warming is Accelerating and that the Goal of the Paris Agreement is Dead

[rwtwm]

14 hours ago, Mucka said:

Copenhagen Recorded the Coldest November of the Century

ETURBONEWS.COM

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Denmark experienced its coldest November night in 30 years with a temperature of -15 degrees Celsius. Copenhagen also br...

I think you're in the wrong thread... This belongs here.

I think any optimism on climate progress that I had after Paris has long since faded. Unless CO2 sensitivity is variable (we've emitted enough that we have empirical evidence of the bounds, troubling in itself given how long we've known of the issue), we only have around 8-10 years to dramatically slow global net emissions. 

There are too many people still denying it's a problem, combined with too many accepting it's a problem and carrying on anyway for sufficient progress to be made.

 

 

[WYorksWeather]

9 hours ago, rwtwm said:

I think you're in the wrong thread... This belongs here.

I think any optimism on climate progress that I had after Paris has long since faded. Unless CO2 sensitivity is variable (we've emitted enough that we have empirical evidence of the bounds, troubling in itself given how long we've known of the issue), we only have around 8-10 years to dramatically slow global net emissions. 

There are too many people still denying it's a problem, combined with too many accepting it's a problem and carrying on anyway for sufficient progress to be made.

 

 

Not sure about this - don't think the only X many years to do something is a very good way of framing the discussion, as a lot of people's response is 'there's no chance of emissions coming down anything like that fast, in which case

I think the key point is that every fraction of a degree is worth trying for, since the known impacts of temperature increase are not linear. Secondly, beyond 2C, there are a lot more unknowns to factor in, and even beyond 1.5C to some extent.

My general view of things is that 1.5C would be about as good an outcome as we could have got 5-10 years ago, but that's not likely to happen. I think we need best endeavours to get to 2C and ideally come in below it if we can, and even then we'll need a lot of adaptation.

Beyond 2C and especially towards 3C I think it becomes very questionable how resilient societies are. What a lot of people forget is that land warms faster than ocean, so at e.g. 3C of warming you're looking at something like 5C for globally averaged land, and unevenly distributed, so near 10-15C or more in the Arctic. You're likely going to trigger several major tipping points that would have vast regional consequences, like the destruction of the Amazon, or the collapse of the AMOC, loss of Arctic sea ice in summer, etc.

So, I think the best way of framing it is that we need as much action as we can, as fast as we can. It would have been great if we'd started 30 years ago, but we didn't. Hence, we shouldn't think that if nothing major changes in the next 10 years that's it, we need to then try to keep warming as low as we can from that point. Even if we passed 2C, which personally I think would be a pretty disastrous outcome, I'd still rather live in a 2.5C world to a 2.7C world or a 3.0C world. And more optimistically, if we missed 1.5C, we might still manage 1.7C or 1.8C.

Personally, I think my attitude has kind of stayed the same overall. My expectation of future temperature rise has dropped, since emissions are no longer rising rapidly. But my expectation of the impacts has increased. In other words, I think we might finish up somewhere between 2.0C and 2.5C by late century, but that the impact of that will be similar to things people talked about for 3C or more 10-15 years ago. I would say I take a neutral outlook on human behaviour, why is why that estimate intuitively feels right to me. We'll come around to doing the right thing eventually (arguably we already are), but it'll take longer than it really should have done.

 

[rwtwm]

3 hours ago, WYorksWeather said:

Not sure about this - don't think the only X many years to do something is a very good way of framing the discussion, as a lot of people's response is 'there's no chance of emissions coming down anything like that fast, in which case

I think the key point is that every fraction of a degree is worth trying for, since the known impacts of temperature increase are not linear. Secondly, beyond 2C, there are a lot more unknowns to factor in, and even beyond 1.5C to some extent.

My general view of things is that 1.5C would be about as good an outcome as we could have got 5-10 years ago, but that's not likely to happen. I think we need best endeavours to get to 2C and ideally come in below it if we can, and even then we'll need a lot of adaptation.

Beyond 2C and especially towards 3C I think it becomes very questionable how resilient societies are. What a lot of people forget is that land warms faster than ocean, so at e.g. 3C of warming you're looking at something like 5C for globally averaged land, and unevenly distributed, so near 10-15C or more in the Arctic. You're likely going to trigger several major tipping points that would have vast regional consequences, like the destruction of the Amazon, or the collapse of the AMOC, loss of Arctic sea ice in summer, etc.

So, I think the best way of framing it is that we need as much action as we can, as fast as we can. It would have been great if we'd started 30 years ago, but we didn't. Hence, we shouldn't think that if nothing major changes in the next 10 years that's it, we need to then try to keep warming as low as we can from that point. Even if we passed 2C, which personally I think would be a pretty disastrous outcome, I'd still rather live in a 2.5C world to a 2.7C world or a 3.0C world. And more optimistically, if we missed 1.5C, we might still manage 1.7C or 1.8C.

Personally, I think my attitude has kind of stayed the same overall. My expectation of future temperature rise has dropped, since emissions are no longer rising rapidly. But my expectation of the impacts has increased. In other words, I think we might finish up somewhere between 2.0C and 2.5C by late century, but that the impact of that will be similar to things people talked about for 3C or more 10-15 years ago. I would say I take a neutral outlook on human behaviour, why is why that estimate intuitively feels right to me. We'll come around to doing the right thing eventually (arguably we already are), but it'll take longer than it really should have done.

 

I agree with pretty much every word. When I'm discussing it in circles where I'm trying to influence people, I use the same pitch. In my post I was referring to my optimism, not whether it's worth trying anyway. 

We've got no choice but to fight for every fraction of a degree, but I mention the time because the idea of halving emissions by 2030 to have a chance of staying within 1.5c is fairly widely accepted.

[cheeky_monkey]

8 minutes ago, rwtwm said:

 

We've got no choice but to fight for every fraction of a degree, but I mention the time because the idea of halving emissions by 2030 to have a chance of staying within 1.5c is fairly widely accepted.

how does this happen ? for example i have said before without China and India onboard you have two hopes..no hope and Bob Hope ..esp when we have statements like this

The world's biggest producer of climate-warming greenhouse gases (China) has pledged to bring its emissions to a peak "before 2030", but its construction of new coal-fired power plants has raised concerns that carbon dioxide (CO2) would peak at a much higher level than previously estimated.

For Context UK emissions peaked in 1990 at 817 million tonnes and now sits at 331 million China is at 12000 million today and is projected to be at 14000 million in 2030.

Globally if all the planets align the best case scenario is a 1-2% reduction from 2019 levels by 2030 a far cry from 50%

[alexisj9]

21 minutes ago, cheeky_monkey said:

how does this happen ? for example i have said before without China and India onboard you have two hopes..no hope and Bob Hope ..esp when we have statements like this

The world's biggest producer of climate-warming greenhouse gases (China) has pledged to bring its emissions to a peak "before 2030", but its construction of new coal-fired power plants has raised concerns that carbon dioxide (CO2) would peak at a much higher level than previously estimated.

For Context UK emissions peaked in 1990 at 817 million tonnes and now sits at 331 million China is at 12000 million today and is projected to be at 14000 million in 2030.

Globally if all the planets align the best case scenario is a 1-2% reduction from 2019 levels by 2030 a far cry from 50%

Problem is, we can't just sit back a relax just cause of China, who may we'll have a rethink soon anyway. They've had quite a few weather disasters of various types recently, they'll know they are not immune by now. 

[cheeky_monkey]

14 hours ago, alexisj9 said:

Problem is, we can't just sit back a relax just cause of China, who may we'll have a rethink soon anyway. They've had quite a few weather disasters of various types recently, they'll know they are not immune by now. 

China has always suffered massive weather disasters in the past far worse than recent ones...so that is a weak argument..point is you can achieve net zero in the UK and force people into energy poverty but when emissions keep rising then what? are you going to force 2.8 billion Chinese and Indians to do the same?..there needs to be a better way 

[reef]

I'm extremely pessimistic. I think we'll blast through 1.5C, 2C, 3C. I have no confidence at all that most countries will do anything. When I hear things like "peak by 2030 or 2050", to me that means "we're going to increase at a flat out rate until then so our emissions will be much higher than now."

The very fact this COP28 is being held in Qatar, with a president who's head of the national oil company and backroom deals are going on says it all. 20,000 people flying there by jet. Its a total extraction of urine. How can you convince Joe or Jane Bloggs in the street what needs to be done when they see this? Then there's the right-wing Press and governments attacking anything green as some sort of assault on personal freedom.

I guarantee by 2050 global emissions will be higher than now. Nothing will be done until its too late. Sorry its a negative look on things, but I genuinely believe we're up the creek.

[WYorksWeather]

6 hours ago, reef said:

I'm extremely pessimistic. I think we'll blast through 1.5C, 2C, 3C. I have no confidence at all that most countries will do anything. When I hear things like "peak by 2030 or 2050", to me that means "we're going to increase at a flat out rate until then so our emissions will be much higher than now."

The very fact this COP28 is being held in Qatar, with a president who's head of the national oil company and backroom deals are going on says it all. 20,000 people flying there by jet. Its a total extraction of urine. How can you convince Joe or Jane Bloggs in the street what needs to be done when they see this? Then there's the right-wing Press and governments attacking anything green as some sort of assault on personal freedom.

I guarantee by 2050 global emissions will be higher than now. Nothing will be done until its too late. Sorry its a negative look on things, but I genuinely believe we're up the creek.

I think you're almost certainly right about 1.5C and 2C. The reason I'm a little more hopeful than you on saying pretty firmly that I think we're staying below 3C is because of charts like this one from Climate Action Tracker: 

Temperatures | Climate Action Tracker

CLIMATEACTIONTRACKER.ORG

The key point is that they view that a current policies scenario (AKA business-as-usual) is now below 3C, and a 2030 target scenario is 2.5C. I don't buy the other projections based on targets like Net Zero in 2050, but in other words a 3C world looks more unlikely than likely, even if we don't do any more.

The 2030 targets curve looks like it might be achievable - a long, very slow path downwards, with emissions not even dropping below 1990s levels until late century.

In short, it wouldn't require anything overly drastic, mostly just a continuation of what countries are already doing, plus action that is within the political timeframe most politicians care about (the next election cycle or two).

Hence, I'm optimistic about <3C, but <2C I'm pretty pessimistic about, and 1.5C is just a joke at this point. It's like the biggest elephant in the room in climate policy. Look at that chart again, it's quite sobering from that perspective. Even the best possible scenario is only just coming in under 2C, and that's based on governments meeting highly aspirational targets several decades away. And of course that has an uncertainty range around it, so 1.8C if all targets are met in fact carries a significant probability of >2C.

As for COP28 - agree that it's a total joke. A few token agreements will be made but you're never going to get an agreement on major pieces of wording like phasing out fossil fuels in an oil-rich petrostate.

[Guest]

Interesting thread.

What is really scary isn't just the ppm CO2 (highest in over 13 million years) but the rate of increase, its unprecedented, perhaps as far back as extinction events.

The Anthropocene age is something new and there are so many unknown unknowns about the effects of this unprecendated rate of warming that makes predictions very very difficult.

One thing is becoming clear, the sharp uptick is like pressing a fast forward button on natural warming processes. The warming seas (expansion) and loss of ice (less reflection) could be our biggest problem in the long term, which stays in the system for a long time. So we have lost this round already and there will be a terrible cost to pay for humanity, of that there can be no doubt.

The worse is likely to come and I believe the warming will accelerate (and exceed current pessimistic expectations) again at another terrible cost. This time extinction rates of animals will increase sharply along with huge swaithes of the earth's natural habitats as species struggle to adapt. That's the second round all but lost.

The third round is where humans leave the information age and progress into a 'doing' age. Where the reduction in ppm is now actually having an effect [of lower temps] on the climate which brings about an optimism, here we accelerate and expand on the oasis of habitats that the earth (and humans) has saved and we enter a new age. After this we rebuild and create a wonderful green world with a thriving eco system. Here humanity will reach a new peak.

Time scale for these three rounds? 100 years, which is a blink of an eye. Quite something.

Feel miserable, because that's the truth, we are heading into an awful era. But remain optimistic as it'll pass (how fast depends on us all).

There is something else to mention, and that's the world population - there are too many of us. There are more people alive today than have ever died. The population is expected to peak and fall. We need it to fall. This signifies good education and a rebalancing, at around this time we will likely start to see the ppm reduce and we shall see the green shoots of a new era.

Do your bit to help. You all know what I mean, you all feel it. 

 

[SnowBear]

5 hours ago, DCee said:

There are more people alive today than have ever died

Umm, this is false, it's estimated that there has been somewhere around 110+ billion so far. 

Do the dead outnumber the living?

WWW.BBC.COM

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The population of the planet reached seven billion in October last year, according to the United Nations. But what's the figure for all those who have lived before us?

 

[Gowon]

36 minutes ago, SnowBear said:

Umm, this is false, it's estimated that there has been somewhere around 110+ billion so far. 

Do the dead outnumber the living?

WWW.BBC.COM

---

The population of the planet reached seven billion in October last year, according to the United Nations. But what's the figure for all those who have lived before us?

 

There's less of us but we're living longer, and over our lifespan we're adding more pollution with our bad habits - I say we exterminate the serial polluters    

[Methuselah]

3 hours ago, Gowon said:

There's less of us but we're living longer, and over our lifespan we're adding more pollution with our bad habits - I say we exterminate the serial polluters    

We could do with taking out one or two Deniers too. . . 

[Gowon]

26 minutes ago, Methuselah said:

We could do with taking out one or two Deniers too. . . 

Depends what they are denying and their lifestyle? Who would you exterminate; a heavy polluting believer, or a nature loving/caring denier? 

 

[jonboy]

This thread has taken a nasty turn when people talk about exterminating or taking out those who they call deniers or are counter to their particular take on things. Its not acceptable in my view. 

[Methuselah]

17 minutes ago, jonboy said:

This thread has taken a nasty turn when people talk about exterminating or taking out those who they call deniers or are counter to their particular take on things. Its not acceptable in my view. 

I guess that it's due to the fact that AGW is now a proven fact, on a par with Evolution and Quantum theory? 

[Derecho]

23 hours ago, reef said:

I'm extremely pessimistic. I think we'll blast through 1.5C, 2C, 3C. I have no confidence at all that most countries will do anything. When I hear things like "peak by 2030 or 2050", to me that means "we're going to increase at a flat out rate until then so our emissions will be much higher than now."

The very fact this COP28 is being held in Qatar, with a president who's head of the national oil company and backroom deals are going on says it all. 20,000 people flying there by jet. Its a total extraction of urine. How can you convince Joe or Jane Bloggs in the street what needs to be done when they see this? Then there's the right-wing Press and governments attacking anything green as some sort of assault on personal freedom.

I guarantee by 2050 global emissions will be higher than now. Nothing will be done until its too late. Sorry its a negative look on things, but I genuinely believe we're up the creek.

Yup, geoengineering is the only answer.

I don't think the rate in which green technologies are required to grow in order to mitigate the increases in temperature are possible. I don't think many people want to drop everything and go back to living in caves either. Now there is also the narrative from developing countries that it is the fault of the developed world. Climate change only became a part of mainstream science in the 1980s in which point we were already locked in to technologies that fueled anthropogenic climate change.

So I only have apathy now, 'might as well enjoy myself before we are all doomed' outlook. As soon as I hear someone saying they will solve climate change I switch off because they clearly don't know how bad the problem is and unlike China and India I don't think people of the west have blood on their hands. A lot more should have been one from the 1980s onwards but corporate interests from those at the very top derailed that.

The more time that passes by the more unrealistic it is to be able to do something. There will be geopolitical consequences, and people will need to adapt but sadly the only way to prevent things now is geo-engineering, we are already engineering the climate in one direction already....

Would the response of world leaders be different if CO2 made the planet colder? 

[alexisj9]

9 hours ago, SnowBear said:

Umm, this is false, it's estimated that there has been somewhere around 110+ billion so far. 

Do the dead outnumber the living?

WWW.BBC.COM

---

The population of the planet reached seven billion in October last year, according to the United Nations. But what's the figure for all those who have lived before us?

 

I thought that was an impossibility when I read it to be honest. We've been about for over a thousand years for sure, so, thinking how many would have died even in that time, till now, has got to be more than are alive now surely.

[alexisj9]

11 minutes ago, Derecho said:

Yup, geoengineering is the only answer.

I don't think the rate in which green technologies are required to grow in order to mitigate the increases in temperature are possible. I don't think many people want to drop everything and go back to living in caves either. Now there is also the narrative from developing countries that it is the fault of the developed world. Climate change only became a part of mainstream science in the 1980s in which point we were already locked in to technologies that fueled anthropogenic climate change.

So I only have apathy now, 'might as well enjoy myself before we are all doomed' outlook. As soon as I hear someone saying they will solve climate change I switch off because they clearly don't know how bad the problem is and unlike China and India I don't think people of the west have blood on their hands. A lot more should have been one from the 1980s onwards but corporate interests from those at the very top derailed that.

The more time that passes by the more unrealistic it is to be able to do something. There will be geopolitical consequences, and people will need to adapt but sadly the only way to prevent things now is geo-engineering, we are already engineering the climate in one direction already....

Would the response of world leaders be different if CO2 made the planet colder? 

Probably not. It's all about the money re oil, and what it can produce, including plastics, and synthetic materials.

Edited December 6, 2023 by alexisj9

[Scuba steve]

The only way I see any chance of meeting this target is by restricting people’s activities cars travel and eating habits and probably by doing so introducing a surveillance type state to monitor people’s carbon usage ,as I’ve said before it’s a socialist dream and a grim future whatever you believe 

[cumbrian ice]

We are in an unusual state with all the extra water vapour from the Hunga Tonga eruption. We need to see where we are in 3-4 years time when the water vapour has worked its way out. We don't know, but my hunch is we will have cooled.

[jonboy]

1 hour ago, cumbrian ice said:

We are in an unusual state with all the extra water vapour from the Hunga Tonga eruption. We need to see where we are in 3-4 years time when the water vapour has worked its way out. We don't know, but my hunch is we will have cooled.

I await with baited breath to see who utterly disagrees with you I for one agree we don't fully know the impact of hunga tonga and research clearly states it is likely to have had a warming effect on the climate system. 

[Fen Wolf]

This planet is doomed and all of humanity with it, it’s just a waiting game now to watch it occur and see everything wipe themselves out, slowly but surely ends the same way every time and with every species before and after in existence 

Edited December 6, 2023 by Fen Wolf

[alexisj9]

1 hour ago, Scuba steve said:

The only way I see any chance of meeting this target is by restricting people’s activities cars travel and eating habits and probably by doing so introducing a surveillance type state to monitor people’s carbon usage ,as I’ve said before it’s a socialist dream and a grim future whatever you believe 

Lol, you are calling conservatives socialist, as in some ways that's already started in the last few years. It isn't a political matter, however politicians do need to get behind it to help curb usage. It will not be done how you've said, it'll be done how we can already see, by changing what's available for use, non petrol/diesel cars, etc.

[Scuba steve]

7 minutes ago, alexisj9 said:

Lol, you are calling conservatives socialist, as in some ways that's already started in the last few years. It isn't a political matter, however politicians do need to get behind it to help curb usage. It will not be done how you've said, it'll be done how we can already see, by changing what's available for use, non petrol/diesel cars, etc.

lol, they aren’t conservatives that’s for sure and I’m not willing to sacrifice any part of my standard of living to meet some arbitrary target plucked from the sky ,it’s destined to fail and I’ll sit back with the popcorn and watch 

[SnowBear]

45 minutes ago, jonboy said:

I await with baited breath to see who utterly disagrees with you I for one agree we don't fully know the impact of hunga tonga and research clearly states it is likely to have had a warming effect on the climate system. 

Research does say that the increase of water vapour in the stratosphere, and also into the higher mesosphere, by the Hunga Tonga–Hunga Ha'apai volcano would probably cause a temporary increase in warming, bringing us close to the 1.5°c threshold. It would probably also increase rain fall and rain fall rates. 

Both of these we have seen this year in variius places with increased heat, and some extremely high rain fall across the globe. 

Unlike a land based volcano, or even Krakatoa, which blasted mostly ash, rock particles and other aerosols high into the atmosphere, Hunga Tonga–Hunga Ha'apai was mostly water vapour, one of the most efficient greenhouse gases, but short lived. But due to that extreme height reached it will not "rain out" in a matter of days or weeks as normally seen in lower altitude weather, the best estimate I've seen is 2-3 years. 

So, this year, with that high altitude injection of water vapour and also the turbulence caused in the upper atmosphere by Hunga Tonga–Hunga Ha'apai, combined with the El Nino, and also the introduction of the clean emissions laws for shipping, we have seen a big spike in heat.. And rain events. 

As that water vapour decreases I suspect we will see a return to more "normal" levels, eg: the levels we saw before Hunga Tonga–Hunga Ha'apai. 

So yes, its had a warming effect, but it should be only temporary, providing any tipping points are not triggered. 

We shall see.