Greenhouse gas discussion (tread carefully, be respectful)

Off-Topic (In the weeds/General Discussion)
184

Heat waves grip three continents

Punishing heat waves in Europe, North America and Asia broke records in cities around the Northern Hemisphere less than two weeks after the Earth recorded what scientists said were most likely its hottest days in modern history.

The temperatures, afflicting so much of the world all at once, were a withering reminder that climate change is a global crisis, driven by human-made forces: the emissions of heat-trapping gases, mainly caused by the burning of fossil fuels. The return of El Niño, a cyclical weather pattern, is also having wide-ranging effects on weather around the world.

The planet has warmed about two degrees Fahrenheit since the 19th century and will continue to grow hotter until humans essentially stop burning coal, oil and gas, scientists say. The higher temperatures contribute to extreme weather events and help make periods of extreme heat more frequent, longer and more intense.

In Europe: Officials in many cities have introduced cooling stations. And mindful of the danger — more than 61,000 people died in last summer’s heat waves, according to a recent study — they have urged visitors and residents alike to stay indoors during the day’s hottest hours. Low-income workers are particularly vulnerable.

Danger zone: The heat index in Iran reached 152 degrees Fahrenheit in recent days, near the limits of what healthy humans can normally withstand.

185

Warnings about more heat in August

Last month was the warmest June since global temperature record-keeping began in 1850, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said yesterday. The agency warned that August may also see unusually hot temperatures across almost all of the U.S.

The first two weeks of July were also most likely the Earth’s warmest on human record, for any time of year, according to the E.U.’s Copernicus Climate Change Service.

Successive heat waves in southern Europe over the past week have forced those who can afford it to seek shelter in air-conditioned homes and offices or at seaside retreats. But for many seniors, heat has become the new Covid, reinforcing their isolation and pushing governments and social services to take extraordinary steps to try to protect them.

Viva la siesta: Spain’s sacred afternoon break was once mocked as lazy. But as temperatures rise, countries like Germany are taking another look.

186

July is likely to be Earth’s hottest month in hundreds if not thousands of years, Gavin Schmidt, the director of Nasa’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, told reporters yesterday, as a persistent heatwave baked swaths of the US south.

Schmidt made the announcement during a meeting at Nasa’s Washington headquarters attended by agency climate experts and other leaders, including the Nasa administrator Bill Nelson and the chief scientist and senior climate adviser Kate Calvin.

The meeting came during a summer that has put the climate crisis at the front of the news agenca. Deadly floods have struck New England. Canadian wildfire smoke has choked US cities, and tens of millions of people have been placed under heat advisories, with areas across the US south and west breaking temperature records.

“We are seeing unprecedented changes all over the world,” Schmidt said. Though the changes may feel shocking, they are “not a surprise” to scientists, he added. “There has been a decade-on-decade increase in temperatures throughout the last four decades.”

The Earth had its hottest June on record, according to Nasa’s global temperature analysis, the agency announced last week.

  • What impact will the heat have? Successive heatwaves threaten nature’s ability to provide us with food, say researchers, as they warn of an “unseen, silent dying” in our oceans amid record temperatures scorching the Earth. Heatwaves are ripping through Europe, the US and China, with the global hottest day ever recorded at the start of July, endangering human life as well as the land and sea it depends on.
187

Climate check: ‘People need to be riled up’ – meteorologist names US heatwaves after oil and gas giants

The summer’s heatwaves have been so blistering they have inspired their own names. In Europe, they have been called nightmarish figures from Greek mythology, but one meteorologist in the US has taken a more pointed approach – by naming the country’s heatwaves after the oil and gas companies that have worsened the climate crisis. The heatwave that has baked much of the US south-west in recent weeks, helping bring a record-breaking string of days over (43C) 110F to Phoenix, has been named Heatwave Chevron by Guy Walton, a veteran former Weather Channel meteorologist. The rebadging of heatwaves as being directly the fault of companies like Chevron is “a naming and shaming thing”, according to Walton, who wants weather forecasters and the media to be more explicit between the links between extreme heat and the burning of fossil fuels that has caused the climate crisis.

That is blerrie clever …

188

Deadly heatwaves undeniably result of climate crisis, scientists show

The human-caused climate crisis is undeniably to blame for the deadly heatwaves that have struck Europe and the US in recent weeks, scientists have shown.

Both would have been virtually impossible without the global heating driven by burning fossil fuels, their analysis found. Another searing heatwave, in China, was made 50 times more likely by the climate crisis.

The results make it crystal clear that human-caused global heating is already destroying lives and livelihoods across the world, making the need to cut emissions ever more urgent. Such brutal heatwaves are no longer rare, the scientists said, and will worsen as emissions continue to rise. If the world heats by 2C, they will happen every two to five years.

A report by leading climate scientists in March, endorsed by the world’s governments, said: “There is a rapidly closing window of opportunity to secure a livable and sustainable future for all.” The latest analysis demonstrated how rapidly that window is closing.

  • How did the scientists analyse the data? The new analysis by the World Weather Attribution group used peer-reviewed methods to quantify the impact of the climate crisis on the recent heatwaves. They used weather data up to 18 July and computer models to compare today’s climate, with 1.2C of global heating, with the cooler climate of the late 1800s.
  • What did the analysis show? The study found the heatwaves in Europe and the US were, as an absolute minimum, made 950 and 4,400 times more likely by global heating – making it virtually certain that they were the result of human-caused emissions. In China, the heatwave was made 50 times more likely.

Climate check: ‘No one wants to be right about this’ – climate scientists’ horror and exasperation as global predictions play out

“What is playing out all over the world right now is entirely consistent with what scientists expect,” writes Dr Joëlle Gergis, senior lecturer in climate science Fenner School of Environment and Society, associate investigator ARC Centre of Excellence for Climate Extremes at the Australian National University. “No one wants to be right about this. But if I’m honest, I am stunned by the ferocity of the impacts we are currently experiencing. I am really dreading the devastation I know this El Niño will bring. As the situation deteriorates, it makes me wonder how I can be most helpful at a time like this. Do I keep trying to pursue my research career or devote even more of my time to warning the public? The pressure and anxiety of working through an escalating crisis is taking its toll on many of us.”

189

O bugger … this is not good at all.

A study finds the Atlantic Ocean’s tipping point could come soon

Researchers in Denmark announced that a sharp weakening of the ocean currents that shape the climate around the North Atlantic, or even a shutdown, could be upon us by century’s end.

It was a surprise even to the researchers that their analysis showed a potential collapse coming so soon, one of them told The Times. They predict that the Atlantic circulation could collapse around midcentury, though it could potentially occur as soon as 2025 and as late as 2095.

Were the circulation to tip into a much weaker state, the effects on the climate would be far-reaching. Much of the Northern Hemisphere could cool, the coastlines of North America and Europe could experience faster sea-level rise, and the Sahel in Africa could receive less rain.

190

Ok, now it gets personal. :rofl:

112.1m …

image
image1920×3486 401 KB

Ok, this is really personal …

https://picturing.climatecentral.org/location/-33.919821,18.429061/embed?screenshot=false&header=true&labels=true&range=false&arrows=false&percent=50&left=1.5&right=3

From here: 24 Oct 2021

191

Two things pop to mind:

  1. what happened in California, when the snow on the mountains went “on holiday”.
  2. what is really happening ito temp on the South Pole?

Hawaii fires made ‘much more dangerous’ by climate crisis

The devastating fires in Hawaii, where at least 55 people have died after a conflagration that engulfed the historic town of Lahaina, were worsened by a number of factors including the climate crisis, scientists have said.

192

A record-breaking heatwave continued to spread across the central US on Wednesday, placing about 130 million people under heat alerts in 22 states, and prompting warnings from weather experts of potentially deadly conditions. Temperatures above 100F (37.7C) stretched south to states on the Gulf coast, the National Weather Service (NWS) warned in a morning advisory, with “brutal humidity levels” pushing the heat index as high as 120F (48.8C) in some areas. School officials in numerous states, including Colorado, Iowa, Missouri and Oklahoma, closed classrooms or were sending students home early in response to the heatwave, which has caused record temperatures this week in cities from Texas to Louisiana.

193

I wonder what is coming this summer to the southern half of the world …

A heat wave bakes Europe

Large areas of southern Europe — in France, Spain and Italy — baked under extreme temperatures yesterday, the latest in a string of heat waves that have scorched the continent over the summer. Many areas sweltered under temperatures of 86 to 95 degrees Fahrenheit, or 30 to 35 degrees Celsius, and some topped 104 degrees.

Although it is difficult to link individual events to climate change, scientists say that it is fueling more extreme weather events, and heat waves in Europe have increased in frequency and intensity more quickly than practically anywhere else on the planet.

In Greece, firefighters are still battling scores of blazes nationwide. But the threat to Mount Parnitha, a protected wildlife area widely known as the “lungs” of Athens, has provoked special anger among residents.

We started chattin’ Nov 2022 … we are nearly a year later … in bold below rings hollow.

Like my wife will say … What can we do?
Me … Nothing. People are still arguing about the cause and, as a result, missing the point.

194

I’ve always said that I am fine with that. But when you are unsure about something, it behooves you to be cautious.

If I have the building rigged with explosives, the demolition team is ready, the alarm has been sounded, and just as we’re about to hit the big red button, someone claims to have seen something in the building: Do we say naaah, can’t be sure! and hit the button?

I’m okay with “can’t be sure”. I’m not okay with, okay boys, let’s blow it up!

195

Probeer weer … I’m okay with “can’t be sure”. Let’s go and make sure before we blow it up.

Cause what I’m reading you are saying, let’s not do anything cause we don’t know. Sit on the fence as “they” say. :slight_smile:

Ps. You walked straight into that one …

… and you had a few cups of coffee already. :rofl:

196

Ag man, that goes without saying. I’m also not saying we should do nothing either. I actually find it quite amusing how that works:

Naysayers: Oh! You cannot recycle these wind turbine blades!
Engineers: OK, here is a blade you can recycle.
Naysayers: But what about the bird strikes!
Engineers: OK, we painted it.

Silently, quietly, the objections are being addressed.

Being sure is quite often not an all/nothing thing either. Sometimes you only have a probability.

And then there is also the risk of the alternative. Another example I like to use: Is parachuting safe?

Well, compared to what? Compared to staying on terra firma, parachuting is decidedly unsafe! But if you are already on the plane, and the plane is having trouble, it is by far the safest option.

197

This seemed like the best section to post this.

Absolutely fascinating!!!

3 Likes
198

Fascinating indeed! I can hear some Americans in the background shouting about how the 15-minute city is just a concentration camp… but yeah… very interesting :slight_smile:

199

Very futuristic and the stuff scifi flicks are made of!

But I suspect you’ll have to fork out a hefty sum for your own little abode in such a place.

1 Like
200

Yeah, this carbon credit thing …

Top carbon offset projects may not cut planet-heating emissions

Majority of offset projects that have sold the most carbon credits are ‘likely to be junk’.

The vast majority of the environmental projects most frequently used to offset greenhouse gas emissions appear to have fundamental failings, suggesting they cannot be relied upon to cut planet-heating emissions, according to an analysis.

The global, multibillion-dollar voluntary carbon trading industry has been embraced by governments, organisations and corporations including oil and gas companies, airlines, fast-food brands, fashion houses, tech firms, art galleries and universities as a way of claiming to reduce their greenhouse gas footprint.

It works by carbon offset credits being tradable “allowances” or certificates that allow the purchaser to compensate for 1 ton of carbon dioxide, or the equivalent in greenhouse gases, by investing in environmental projects that claim to reduce carbon emissions.

But there is growing evidence suggesting that many of these schemes exaggerate climate benefits and underestimate potential harms.

  • What did the research find? A total of 39 of the top 50 emission offset projects, or 78%, were categorised as likely to be junk or worthless because of one or more fundamental failing that undermined its promised emission cuts. Overall, $1.16bn of carbon credits have been traded so far from the projects classified by the investigation as likely junk or worthless; a further $400m of credits bought and sold were potentially junk.
201

I recently ran into the “saturation” theory. This says that as soon as you hit around 200ppm of CO2 in the atmosphere, all the IR that can be absorbed is already absorbed. The amount of IR absorbed drops off logarithmically, which means you can double the CO2 while not absorbing much more heat.

Per analogy, think of it as adding roof insulation. The first 100mm or so you add has a drastic effect, but after that you can double the insulation and you will get very little additional insulation.

This sounded like a very compelling argument! You almost want to give a sigh of relief. But then, it turns out this experiment has been done as long ago as 1896, by someone called Arrhenius. He put a laser through some CO2, and concluded that saturation happens even at fairly low concentrations. Nevertheless, with whatever crude methods was available before the advent of the computer, they came upon an estimate that said if we doubled or halved the CO2, we will cause things to heat up or cool down.

By 1931, someone called Hulburt wrote a paper showing that Arrhenius was probably right. Doubling the CO2 will cause a 4°C rise in temperature. This went mostly unnoticed as Hulburt was a fairly unknown guy working for the navy in an area outside climate studies.

A lot of the earlier models also failed to take into account that CO2 mixes in well into the atmosphere (including the upper troposphere), while water vapour is basically non-existent up there. Therefore, while water vapour does the job on the ground (and adding extra CO2 does basically nothing), up in the troposphere it makes a huge difference.

Furthermore, since the industrial revolution the CO2 concentration increased from 280ppm to just over 400ppm, and in the same time we have seen a 1.6°C rise in average temperature. This is more than the “saturation theory” can explain.

In any case, to make a long story short… turns out there is a LOT going on in this field, going back 150 years. We’ve known about this for a really long time, we just didn’t have the means to really calculate it.

202

Yeah …

203

Of course, there is a reason we worry about this.

White stuff (like ice) reflect. Darker stuff (like water) absorbs. If this goes too far, we might continue heating despite meeting the emission goals.

It gets worse. More heat in the lower layers causes more water vapour. Water vapour is a greenhouse gas (but one with a really short cycle, so we’re not worried about it so much… and also we need rain).