The Crisis Report - 78

A "Short Take" on Termination Shocks

Remember this? This is what is known as a “Termination Event”. The International Maritime Organization decided in 2016 to reduce the sulfur content in marine diesel fuel by 85% in 2020. By 2023 SOx particulate levels in the atmosphere were estimated to fall DRAMATICALLY. We GUESSED, based on the Moderate understanding of how much SOx was cooling the Earth, that it would only cause +0.06°C of warming.

Cutting the sulfur content 85% at once in marine diesel fuels was a “Termination Event” in the Climate System. A large component of the system suddenly changed state.

Termination Events are followed by Termination Shocks as the system adjusts to the change.

The First Termination Shock was the “Dimming Albedo.

This graph shows the downward trend in Earth’s albedo, as measured by earthshine (black) and CERES data (blue) in watts per square meter. Image credit: Goode et al. (2021), Geophysical Research Letters.

As the Albedo dimmed, more ENERGY from the Sun surged into the Climate System.

The MASSIVE JUMP in the Earth Energy Imbalance is a Termination Shock.

This surge in the EEI is the Second Termination Shock.

This ENERGY from the Sun went straight into the Global Ocean.

There is more HEAT in the Oceans than there has been in millions of years.

This surge in Ocean Temperatures is the Third Termination Shock.

Imagine this is the world. This image is a metaphor for our world. In this image the “ocean” around the island is the Earth’s Oceans. The middle ring is the “biosphere”. The castle in the middle represents the “Anthroposphere”. The constructed world we have built over the last 10,000 years.

The ocean in the image encircles the island and touches every part of it.

We are at a conservative +1.65°C over the 1850 baseline.

The Rate of Warming (RoW) is a conservative +0.36°C per decade.

This puts us at +2°C over the baseline by 2035. AT the LATEST.

This warming will cause a sudden decline in agricultural productivity.

Report: Warmer planet will trigger increased farm losses.

Extreme heat is already harming crop yields, but a new report quantifies just how much that warming is cutting into farmers’ financial security.

For every 1 degree Celsius of warming, yields of major crops like corn, soybeans and wheat fall by 16% to 20%, gross farm income falls by 7% and net farm income plummets 66%.

Those findings, reported in a policy brief released Jan. 17, are based on an analysis of 39 years of data from nearly 7,000 Kansas farms. The brief is a collaboration between the Cornell Atkinson Center for Sustainability, the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) and Kansas State University.

We are about to see a SIGNIFICANT (-20%) loss in agricultural production by 2035. At the latest.

That’s 1.5 billion people starving to death, at a MINIMUM.

The Global Population is about to ABRUPTLY decline.

That’s the Fourth Termination Shock.

In Pakistan, the people “on the chopping block first” have nuclear weapons. Does anyone think they are just going to quietly starve?

The questions we should be confronting are:

1. Can the existing world governance structures withstand a crisis of this magnitude?

2. What actions are immediately necessary to make #1 possible?

“Radical Acceptance” of the coming COLLAPSE is NOT about “giving up”.

It’s about accepting that Collapse is happening. So that we can stop holding on “to the world that was” AND start the “Manged Retreat” to the “world that will be”.

What we DO during this time can make differences in what kind of legacy we leave behind for the survivors.

It’s our FUCKING RESPONSIBILITY to TRY.

That’s my “short take” on this.

• rc — 06182024

NOTE:

This is the kind of thing I think of in the middle of the night these days.