A marked acceleration into uncharted territory
The world is almost certain to experience new record temperatures in the next five years, and temperatures are likely to rise by more than 1.5C above pre-industrial levels, scientists have warned.
The breaching of the crucial 1.5C threshold, which scientists have warned could have dire consequences, should be only temporary, according to research from the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO).
However, it would represent a marked acceleration of human impacts on the global climate system, and send the world into “uncharted territory”, the UN agency warned.
Bad uncharted territory.
New record temperatures have been set in many areas around the world in the heatwaves of the past year, but those highs may only be the beginning, according to the report, as climate breakdown and the impact of a developing El Niño weather system combine to create heatwaves across the globe.
El Niño is part of an oscillating weather system that develops in the Pacific. For the past three years, the world has been in the opposing phase, known as La Niña, which has had a dampening effect on temperature increases around the world.
As La Niña ends and a new El Niño develops, there is a 98% likelihood that at least one of the next five years will be the hottest on record, the scientists found.
There’s more. It’s all grim.
On the plus side I believe that 2022 was the first year we burnt less fossil fuel than the year before (barring pandemics, etc.). Of course, we can’t avert a catastrophe (and probably another mass extinction) it’s just a matter of how terrible that catastrophe will be.
The atmosphere-biosphere-lithosphere-hydrosphere-cryosphere assemblage is the most complex system we know about: anywhere in the Universe, and about the least understood.. And the short-term thinking, self-and-profit-obsessed fossil-carbon lobby are very good at finding reasons a. to not give a damn about it and b. opposing renewables.
But Nature has her own way of correcting things. My guess is that increased ocean temperatures will result in increased moisture in the atmosphere, increasing cloudiness on Earth, resulting in increased planet-reflectivity until it all cools sufficiently for the balance between incoming and outgoing (reflected) solar energy is restored. Of course, millions of us humans may die in the course of this process.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Storms_of_My_Grandchildren
And that process could take millions of years. For instance, while the melting of glaciers can occur in decades, it takes centuries to build up glaciers.
To paraphrase George Carlin, “the planet will be fine. The PEOPLE will be fucked. The Earth will shake us off like a case of fleas.”
Of course this would be much less bad if for the last several decades humanity had been replacing fossil fuels with nuclear for electricity generation, and shifting to electricity for many uses eg: electrify and expand the rail system, heat pumps for warming the insides of dwellings…
The planet as an object orbiting the sun may be fine, but many of the animals and plants that live on it won’t.
Jim @# %:
Except that “replacing fossil fuels with nuclear for electricity generation,” could result in nuclear power stations being dotted all over the planet: terrorist targets and accidents (Fukushima, Chernobyl, in economically advanced countries) galore. Never mind the Third World’s more dodgy regimes.
All my life, the ideal of controlled fusion has been about 50 years away in front of us. Alternatively, we might just have to cut our clothes to suit our cloth, as my little old grandmother did. She went to bed with the sparrows and got up with them too, and was largely self-sufficient off a 1.25 acre block of land. (Wouldn’t watch any TV; might see a murder.)
The “50 years” thing has long annoyed me. It was 50 years back in the 50s. When I was studying physics in the 80s it was 30 years. (At least that’s what we students were told.) Now, probably, 10 years to get it up and running. The fact that so many private companies are working on it now is pretty strong evidence that we’re close. Capitalists have no interest in things that will happen 50 years in the future.
Of course, 10 years is too late. We needed it 10, 20 or 30 years ago. Lot’s of thing will die and go extinct because of what we’ve done, but of course it won’t be the first mass extinction. It won’t even be the first time it’s happen because a species has gotten just too successful (see: cyanobacteria). I better stop now lest I incur iknklast’s wrath!
The most heavily glaciated mountain in the lower 48 USA states is Mt. Baker, which is a shortish (45 minutes) drive away. I’ve hiked all over it, including mountaineering routes. When I first moved here, a couple of decades ago, the only way up was via roped glacier travel; the crevasses were yawning and deep and forbidding. Now, though, for several years, there has been a completely ice-free route all the way up to the main camp. And this melt has many more implications than just ruining mountaineering: the normally controlled yearly melt feeds the Nooksack river, which is one of the biggest salmon habitats in North Puget Sound, and which also hydrates huge regions of agricultural land lower down. With the ice now disappearing, what is to become of the salmon? Of the livelihoods of the farmers? Of the people who depend upon the crops, and the hay grown to feed livestock?
Francis Boyle, in environmental science, we have a saying about fusion: “It’s 10 years away forever”.
Omar #7
Fukushima (and Three Mile Island) killed *ZERO* people.
Even the screw up at Chernobyl killed less than 100.
Only the Soviets had enough hubris to use the RBMK design.
http://alderspace.pbworks.com/w/page/122002278/Bombs%20Wastes%20and%20Accidents
scroll down to Chernobyl
http://alderspace.pbworks.com/w/page/122016519/why%20on%20earth%20did%20they%20build%20the%20RBMK
Meanwhile every other energy source is at least as ‘dangerous’ as nuclear and usually much worse
https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2016/06/update-of-death-per-terawatt-hour-by.html
Stop believing the anti-nuclear lies