We don’t really understand the pace of change
We’re getting closer and closer to the buzzsaw.
A series of climate records on temperature, ocean heat, and Antarctic sea ice have alarmed some scientists who say their speed and timing is unprecedented. Dangerous heatwaves in Europe could break further records, the UN says.
It is hard to immediately link these events to climate change because weather – and oceans – are so complex. Studies are under way, but scientists already fear some worst-case scenarios are unfolding. “I’m not aware of a similar period when all parts of the climate system were in record-breaking or abnormal territory,” Thomas Smith, an environmental geographer at London School of Economics, says.
Scary enough yet?
The average global ocean temperature has smashed records for May, June and July. It is approaching the highest sea surface temperature ever recorded, which was in 2016. But it is extreme heat in the North Atlantic ocean that is particularly alarming scientists. “We’ve never ever had a marine heatwave in this part of Atlantic. I had not expected this,” says Daniela Schmidt, Prof of Earth Sciences at the University of Bristol.
In short, they’re scared.
The area covered by sea-ice in the Antarctic is at record lows for July. There is an area around 10 times the size of the UK missing, compared with the 1981-2010 average. Alarm bells are ringing for scientists as they try to unpick the exact link to climate change. A warming world could reduce levels of Antarctic sea-ice, but the current dramatic reduction could also be due to local weather conditions or ocean currents, explains Dr Caroline Holmes at the British Antarctic Survey.
She emphasises it is not just a record being broken – it is being smashed by a long way. “This is nothing like anything we’ve seen before in July. It’s 10% lower than the previous low, which is huge.” She calls it “another sign that we don’t really understand the pace of change”.
And the pace we don’t really understand is worse than we thought.
And here’s me thinking that I’m old enough that the bad stuff was never going to affect me personally.
Right? Haven’t we all.
On the abrupt pace of change: The Bronze Age ended within fifty years. “Sea Peoples” were likely “climate refugees.” Complex trade networks don’t like abrupt change. Mycenae, Hatti, and Egypt were some bad-ass empires. Until they weren’t.
All is connected. A brief para in this morning’s paper about 2,000 dead penguins, mostly juvenile, washed up on Uruguayan shores. Cause of death unknown.
https://i.postimg.cc/SNZxHdRw/2023-07-23-09-03-18.png
There are many ways to summarise the Second Law of Thermodynamics, one of which is to say that entropy (disorder) is increasing. For example, iron ore deposits (order through concentration) are being mined, converted into this an that, and ultimately finish up in scrapyards, rubbish tips, wrecked ships like the Titanic and spread far and wide.
Living systems, and us with them, are part of the great cycling and recycling projects of Nature; her triumph over her own Second Law. The Carbon ,Water, and Nitrogen cycles are outstanding examples. But substances not part of any such cycle are at whatever pace, truly said to be running out. To my knowledge, if there are Iron, Potassium and Magnesium cycles (three of the ten or so elements that in some bulk are essential for life, not including trace elements) they cycle and recycle at not even a snail’s pace. And so we get ‘peak’ this and ‘peak’ that, with the future totally dependent on the one to peak soonest; which I would guess is potassium.
But the world’s fossil carbon deposits were laid down across a period stretching from about 400 to 65 million years ago, and will last at present rates of consumption for about another 1,000 years, give or take a century or two. After that, our descendants will be dressed in animal skins, or stark naked, and driving donkey carts with wooden wheels over cobbled roads. Their language all the while will likely be such as to make a sailor blush.
You know it’s bad when scientists are scared. Not that they haven’t been scared for a while, but those “predictions” for the “future” are more like tomorrow’s weather forecast.
We wasted the better part of fifty years we could have had to deal with this so that a handful of shareholders and CEOs could get stinking rich for a little while longer. The human population was less than half of what it is now. With our current numbers, we’re putting that much more pressure on Earth systems, and we’re that much closer to biophysical limits that will impose a hard stop on human activity whatever we now choose to do. Our choices are fewer, the margins for error are slimmer, and the stakes are higher. Things are going to get bad enough that we will yearn for the relative calm, safety, and stability of the most recent World War. We’ve been at war with the planet for several centuries (if not millenia). If we win this war, we all lose. Our only chance is immediate, unconditional surrender, and the hope that we can save enough of what is to let us live through what is to come.
And, if we’re looking for words to redefine, let’s skip “woman” and “man,” and take a long, hard look at such ideas as “wealth”, “success”, and “happiness.”
In case it wasn’t obvious (it probably wasn’t) my comment above was meant to be in the persona of the SUV-driving-cruise-taking-I’ve-got-mine asshole – the sort of person who convinces themselves that climate change will just mean milder winters and, if some places do become uninhabitable, well, it will only affect brown-skinned people (though of course they’re careful not to say that last part too loudly).
I think the progression is:
Climate change is not happening.
If it is, we’re not responsible.
And it won’t really be that bad.
And if it is that bad, it will be bad somewhere else,
And if it is bad here, I’ll be safely dead.
Oh shit!
At least I’m hoping for the “oh, shit” reaction. I’m not exactly hopeful. Self-deception is a powerful drug.
Omar #6
“totally dependent on the one to peak soonest; which I would guess is potassium.”
Actually Phosphorus is the one to worry about.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peak_phosphorus
Potassium chloride deposits are far larger compared to annual use than phosphate rock deposits