by Frank Thomas
It’s astonishing to still hear the science-evidence-empty, non-peer or weakly reviewed reports or shallow tabloid slogans of skeptics and outright deniers who say the science and reality of man-made climate change is uncertain, not true, and based on incorrect data modelling techniques. To this, our president offered a ‘little’ of his scientific wisdom, “One of the problems that a lot of people like myself have, we have very high levels of intelligence, but we are not necessarily such believers. You look at our air and our water, and it’s right now at a record clean.” That’s as hollow as a typical denier remark, “CO2 is important for plants. You can never have enough of a good thing.”
Evidence linking CO2 to the global average temperature rise is achieved by using high spectroscopy to measure the exact wavelengths of long-wave surface infrared radiation reaching the Earth's surface. This shows that carbon dioxide is adding substantial warming along with methane, nitrous oxide, and F-gases. This surface radiative forcing and measurements thereof are part of the empirical evidence that CO2 is causing Earth warming. Unprecedented, coordinated critical actions on a global scale are required to reduce global current 49 Gt CO2 equivalent emissions by at least 50% by 2050 to have any chance whatsoever of keeping global surface temperatures from rising more than 2 degree Celsius the next 3 decades. The world environmental damage is approaching the point of no return.
The new scientific evidence coming forward in recent weeks is more and more illuminating and precise on the ultra-seriousness of the man-made atmospheric CO2 concentration build-up, the acceleration of same, and the diverse regional impacts. A U.S. government study indicates scientists have greatly underestimated the heat absorbed by oceans at all depths since the 1960s – which means sea surface temperatures could well increase by as much as 3 degrees Celsius. The oceans absorb over 90% of excess energy trapped within the world's atmosphere. More ocean heat leads to more heat kept within the climate system each year instead of escaping into space. Thick Arctic sea ice takes much time to melt. The fact it has been disappearing fast is of great concern. Scientists have observed that current Arctic peak warming events have been the most intense, longest-living events ever observed during winter in 50 years. The Arctic's short-term extreme warming events may be underestimated – and they can trigger even greater warming because of feedback loops.
For millions of years and notably over the last 800,000 years including the industrial revolution up to 1850, Earth's CO2 concentration in the air remained pretty steady or near equilibrium at 280-300 ppm in warmer interglacials, dropping to 170-200 ppm in glacial periods. The equilibrium of incoming and outgoing radiation makes the Earth habitable with an average temperature of 15 degree Celsius (59 degrees Fahrenheit). But a massive store of excess carbon inaccessible to the carbon cycle for many, many millions of years is being rapidly reintroduced into the system in an incredibly exceptionally short time period. Result? The atmospheric CO2 concentration is out of equilibrium. Scientists have determined that a 'natural' CO2 concentration change of 100 ppm takes 5,000 to 20,000 years. In contrast, during 1950-2018 it took a TINY 68 years for the Earth to be struck by a colossal CO2 concentration change of 108 ppm from 300 ppm to 408 ppm today; and it is expanding at unprecedented rates of 2.1 ppm per year.
CO2 in the atmosphere is now increasing 100 times faster than at the end of the last ice age - thanks to the human-enhanced "greenhouse effect" - where GHGs act like a blanket absorbing and trapping more of the sun's infrared radiation, preventing it from escaping back out into space, thus warming up the Earth's surface temperatures above normal levels. The past decade has been one of a startling number of record-breaking heat waves, forest fires, droughts, storms, floods, coral bleaching, an unparalleled rate of ocean acidification around the world - with only a 1C increase in global temperatures! Imagine what the damage will be when temperature increases reach 1.5C, 2C, and, potentially, 3C, and 4C over the next 30-50 years. And many climate scientists say we are currently on track for a more than 3C increase in ground temperature warming.
The 1950-2018 climate change process has been fired up by burning increasingly giant quantities of fossil fuels to meet a tripling of world's population from 2.4 billion in 1950 to 7.7 billion today and commensurate strong growth in transportation, industrialization, household electricity/heating, intensive agriculture, and extensive deforestation. In brief, a mammoth store of excess carbon inaccessible to the carbon cycle for millions of years is being rapidly introduced into the system in an extraordinarily short 'split-second' of time from a geological standpoint.
Humans have burned so much fuel that there is about 40% more CO2 in the air today than 150 years ago. In fact, ice cores show that there’s now more CO2 in the atmosphere than there has been the last 420,000 years. Human CO2 emissions are thus upsetting the natural balance of the carbon cycle. While the extra fossil fuel derived CO2 is a small component of the global carbon cycle, the extra CO2 is cumulative because the 'natural' carbon exchange cannot absorb all the extra CO2. (See: California Free Press -"Shockingly Rising Atmospheric CO2 Emission Levels - Perilously Worsening The Warming Up of Planet Earth," by F. Thomas, Sept. 15, 2018).
CO2 levels similar to Earth's current high 408 ppm CO2 concentration were last reached during the Pliocene Epoch 2.5 to 5 million years ago. The warmest phase was in the middle of the Pliocene 3 or 4 million years ago when sea levels were 60-80 feet higher than today. Arctic temperatures rose 11-16C and global temperatures rose 3-4C, followed by a long cooling process. In the Cretaceous and Ecocene eras 100 million years ago, atmospheric CO2 concentrations may have gone well over 1000 ppm. BUT, this build-up occurred over thousands of years from carbon stored in rock, including 80% as limestone. When carbon gets trapped in rocks, it can take thousands to millions of years to release it back into the air under 'natural' conditions. So life, ocean chemistry and atmosphere in ancient eras generally had millenniums to adjust to fierce, naturally-caused extinction events.
But humans have been vastly accelerating the carbon release process with the lighting of a match. Burning fossil fuels and heating limestone release CO2 faster than the oceans, land or plants can reabsorb it. Less than half of the CO2 given off by these industrial processes is reabsorbed each year. This leaves an extra increase of billions of tons of CO2 every year that's not showing any signs of slowing down. If our 2.1 ppm rate of increase in atmospheric CO2 per year continues, atmospheric CO2 concentrations and temperatures will likely reach far higher levels than now expected. Over the next 45 years, perhaps sooner, the Earth could be hit by a CO2 concentration of +-500 ppm and global surface temperatures could increase 4-5C and Arctic temperatures 8-12C, causing an extreme meltdown of Arctic and Antarctic ice, rising sea level above the 9 meter range , devastating weather events, declining biodiversity, crippling health problems, and substantial loss of living species. (See: California Free Press- "The Human CO2 Contribution to Planet Earth: GOOD or BAD? A Synopsis of Climate Change in Plain English," by F. Thomas, March 22, 2017).
Some people frame current climate conditions as not good for humanity, but it's a 'natural' environmental problem. Ultimately the Earth will correct its 'naturally' caused carbon-cycle imbalances. This is pure scientific nonsense, putting it politely. Sadly we have Trump at the reins adding to the scientific nonsense by extolling free market forces as the paradigm answer. So Trump's Administration is quickly eliminating air, water, and land pollution regulations and going with dirty coal as a primary energy solution(which he falsely claims is clean) to the intensifying fundamental climate change havoc now occurring.
He's blind or obtuse to the fact our world culture, capitalistic and economic model is built on perpetual consumption, economic growth, and exploitation of finite resources. This inevitably leads to an ever increasing energy resource extraction, burning of fossil fuels, and exponential rise in CO2 emissions and concentrations, making the globe hotter and hotter. The irony is that recoverable CO2 intense oil and gas reserves become technically, economically non-exploitable by 2075 - leaving the world entirely dependent on dirty coal, clean hydro and nuclear energy. That’s another reason why the transition to sustainable, clean sun and wind energy must be developed quickly and effectively now (See: San Diego Free Press- Part 2 & Part 4: "Conversion to Renewable Energy Is Going Too Slow To Avoid Catastrophe," by F. Thomas & J. Lawrence, Dec. 9, 2014 and Feb. 24, 2015).
I'm not into speculative apocalyptic scenarios proclaiming humanity is doomed, no matter what. But the existential climate risks are REAL, NOT ALARMIST, lucidly described in Plain English in following reports: ("What Lies Beneath the Understatement of The Existential Climate Risk," by D. Spratt and I. Dunlop, updated Aug. 2018; “The Real Truth About Greenhouse Gases and Climate Change,” by Climate Scientist Dr. Michael MacCracken, Sept. 21, 2011, Climate Science Watch). The question about whether and when we have reached a serious "threshold or tipping point" is equally about how far we will take it after we have reached a particular tipping point. It is likely we will reach tipping points and each one will make headline news in its passing until normal life gets so intolerable, even a staunch conservative Republican will want to do something sustainably constructive about climate warming ... but of course then it will be too late.
Having spent years in the offshore oil/gas industry and having studied the science and driving forces of climate changes in past ages, it's pretty obvious we have amassed a horrendous environmental destruction "past-due-bill" that's exponentially rising and will have to be paid in full before too long. Most scientists agree the Earth has warmed at least 1C over the last 100 years, reaching short peak records of 1.4C and 1.6C in recent years! The planet's historical warming and cooling shows an average rate of change of 1C per thousand years. So planet’s current warming is more than 10 times faster than ever before thanks to the "greenhouse effect."
In 1988, James Hansen warned about the correlation of Earth warming with CO2 emissions and the runaway "greenhouse effect" of man-made CO2 emissions. (See: "Losing Earth: The Decade We Almost Stopped Climate Change," by Nathaniel Rich, Aug. 1, 2018). Hansen's research work told him early that the Earth had been warming for some time and the warming would reach "almost unprecedented magnitude in the 21st century." He is NOT an alarmist. He’s a dedicated climate scientist whose vast research and knowledge, e.g., of cooler ice ages and warmer interglacials, have given him deep concern Earth's current global 12-month running mean average global temperature is already nearing 1.3C.
He along with other scientists have analyzed the Eemian interglacial in depth, looking for analogies (and benchmarks) to today's Holocene interglacial. Eemian temperatures rose +5C higher in high latitudes of the Northern Atmosphere versus Arctic's 3C rise today. The global mean surface temperature rise in the Eemian was 1C higher, similar to the Holocene. While Eemian's high temperatures in the Northern Hemisphere came with low CO2 concentrations of 250 to 300 ppm - the high Arctic temperatures were stirred by a very high insolation - abnormally high levels of solar radiation energy that reached the Earth's surface, thus melting ice sheets fast and creating a 6-9 meter rise in sea level.
The scientific insight gained from the Eemian interglacial revolves around the key question: How was the Eemian so much warmer with lower CO2 concentration levels than today? And yet a large sea-ice and ice-sheet meltdown took place that produced a vastly higher sea level increase (and 40 meter high ocean waves) than our current Holocene interglacial has produced? The answer is: the Eemian had a number of "natural forcings" occurring at the same time which the Holocene has NOT had. Earth orbital forcings and related peak seasonal insolation together with the slight rise of global CO2 atmospheric concentrations from 250 to 300 ppm forced a big increase in Northern Hemispheric summer temperatures.
This Eemian climate change forcing was made worse by fact that the Earth at that time was closest to the sun or at its perihelion. A perihelion is when the Earth is closest to the sun which can happen in the summer or winter. During Eemian, that occurred at high latitudes in the summer rather than winter (effectively making the winter shorter). Fortunately, that has not occurred at all with the Holocene and is not expected to occur at high latitudes for many centuries to come. Eemian feedback loops also expanded the insolation effect by causing a substantial loss of sun reflectivity from reduced snow and ice cover and from reforestation at high northern latitudes where trees absorb more sunlight than CO2. This and all the above added to the net high warming effect and very rapid elimination of Arctic ice during Eemian.
Today, Arctic feedbacks and shorter winter seasons are also a major factor in the rapid Arctic ice meltdown in process. A primary concern is that global warming is eroding the polar vortex, the circle of strong winds that keeps the Arctic cold by deflecting other air masses. The North pole receives no or little sunlight in October until March, but a current trend of receiving much more warm air has, for example, pushed up temperatures in Siberia by as much as 35C above historical averages!
If Eemian's thousands of years of strong Arctic insolation and feedbacks had happened in our Holocene with its much higher atmospheric CO2 concentrations over the last few decade , our Earth surface temperatures today would likely be trending significantly HIGHER than what happened during the Eemian. Sea level rise would probably be off the charts now. Luckily, in the next century Holocene insolation from orbital forcings is expected to be even lower than it is now and much lower than the Eemian interglacial. (See: Skeptical Science: "The Last Interglacial Part Two: Why Was It So Warm?" by Steve Brown, July 6, 2011: "The Last Interglacial Part Five: A Crystal Ball?" by Steve Brown, Nov. 17, 2011).
The reputable German scientist, Hans Joachim Schellnhuber Founding Director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research in Germany, summed things up with these words: "After three decades of studying the climate, I've never been as worried as I am today about the future of the planet ... "global heating" is a more accurate description in describing what continued carbon emissions are doing to the climate, to the energy balance of the planet."
CONCLUSION:
Here are three highly condensed simple options :
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Do nothing and live the consequences
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Adapt to the changing climate - rising sea level, floods, wildfires
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Mitigate the impact - aggressively enact policies and actions that actually reduce the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere
One thing is certain: as extreme whether wreaks havoc across the globe we must confront the crisis with urgency and determination if we are to avert an irreversible planetary catastrophe. More cars including large cars, more trucks and airplanes; more asphalt and cement; more plastic and tin cans piling up in oceans and vast landfalls; more consumers and low-income people, progressing and wanting more things; more polluting minerals from heavy use of fertilizers, more agricultural manure, more clear-cutting forests GURANTEE MORE CO2 EMISSIONS AND A HOTTER AND HOTTER EARTH THAT DRIVES HUMANITY BEYOND THE RANGE OF ADAPTABILITY!
Frank Thomas, December 15, 2018, The Netherlands
