The Crisis Report - 90
Let’s be CLEAR about what “Mainstream” Climate Science actually says. (Part Two)
SPEED
How fast will “The Great Warming” happen?
Because, it’s the Science that our governments and leaders are using when they think about Climate Change and how to respond to it.
If you disagree with what’s being done, you are disagreeing with the current mainstream paradigm in Climate Science.
In Part One of this paper (The Crisis Report — 89) I boldly reduce Climate Science down to what I consider its “essentials”.
Climate Science boils down to just 5 key Points.
Everything else is “details”.
In Part One we looked at the two “most important” aspects of the Climate System: Climate Sensitivity and Latitudinal Gradient Sensitivity.
CLIMATE SENSITIVITY — How much will the Earth warm up if the atmospheric CO2 level is raised to 560ppm?
The essential problem with “climate sensitivity”. Is that after 130 years we still don’t know what value to assign to it.
Climate Alarmists think the Climate System is twice as “sensitive” to CO2 as the Climate Moderates. They have since 1979, they STILL do.
Moderates — +2.6°C up to +3.9°C.
Alarmists — +4.5°C up to +5.7°C.
PALEOCLIMATE EVIDENCE — 2XCO2 means +5°C to +6°C of warming.
And “Breaking News”.
The Newest Studies indicate that 2XCO2 could mean as much as +8°C of warming.
Cenozoic evolution of deep ocean temperature from clumped isotope thermometry.
Science/30 Jun 2022/Vol 377, Issue 6601 pp. 86–90/DOI: 10.1126/science.abk0604
A 485-million-year history of Earth’s surface temperature.
Science, 20 Sep 2024, Vol 385, Issue 6715, DOI: 10.1126/science.adk3705
— — — — — —
LATITUDINAL TEMPERATURE GRADIENT SENSITIVITY — How much will the poles warm up in response to warming in the Tropics?
“How variable is the latitudinal temperature gradient with climate change?”
“This question is second in importance only to the question of overall climate sensitivity.” — David Rind 1998
Moderates (1998) — Arctic Amplification of close to a factor of 2.
Alarmists (1998) — Arctic Amplification of 3x to 4x that of the equator.
REALITY (2020) — The Arctic has warmed nearly four times faster than the globe since 1979.
— — — — — —
SO.
I have been overwhelmed by this paper. There is just too much to hold in my head at once. I get overloaded with TOO MUCH information and a sort of paralysis sets in. The stealthy coils of depressive lassitude get me in their grip. I get STUCK.
As an autistic child I LOVED sci-fi. To this day it remains my favorite genre. One of the reasons I loved it was that I found ways to “cope” in its pages. This particular book had a lesson for me, that became part of my identity I assimilated it so completely.
It taught me that if a problem was “too big” to “move”. You broke it down into pieces until they were “small enough” to push.
Weirdly, this is the core programming of the alien AI’s who destroyed their creators when they tried to turn them off. The same AI’s that have “pushed” the Earth out of its orbit and reduced the human population to around 100 million.
The book seems eerily prescient in light of stories like this.
Microsoft deal propels Three Mile Island restart, with key permits still needed
Constellation Energy and Microsoft have signed a power deal to help resurrect a unit of the Three Mile Island nuclear…
www.reuters.com
In which the ENTIRE output of a nuclear power plant is going to be dedicated to running one of Microsoft’s AI Data-centers.
However, the point of all this being that there are going to be more than two parts to my examination of “what “Mainstream” Climate Science actually says”. I need to “break it down” into manageable bites that my brain can handle.
With that in mind let’s look at what “Mainstream” and “Alarmist” Climate Science say about.
SPEED
How fast will “The Great Warming” happen?
And why this is a HUGE problem for the Moderate Climate Paradigm.
Look at the chart above from one of James Hansen’s recent articles. The RED line is the 10 year “running mean” global temperature. For those uncertain of the term, a running mean is nothing more than a moving average calculated each year using the last 132 months as a dataset.
It’s showing you how much “hotter or cooler” each year was against the average temperature of the last 132 months (10 years). When GISS and NOAA issue a statement next year with the “official” number saying how hot 2024 was, they will be using a 2014 to 2024 dataset.
The reason they use this 10 year running mean is that it “smooths out” the year to year swings in the global temperature. Shown in the chart as the thin BLUE line.
Notice what happens in 1976.
The Rate of Warming suddenly shoots up like a rocket. From a basically stable global temperature between 1950 and 1975, to one that was increasing at a rate of +0.18C per decade.
That +0.18°C per decade rate of warming is the GREEN line.
That “green line” is what the Moderate projections and models all say is the answer to the question of “how fast” the Earth will keep warming up in the future. There is a CRITICAL assumption buried in this estimate that isn’t “obvious”.
To understand WHY the Moderates, Techno-Optimists, and current crop of “Climate Hopium” peddlers consistently think that the Rate of Warming can be “flattened” and brought down to ZERO as the global economy is de-carbonized. You have to understand that they believe that the increases in the Global Mean Temperature are the IMMEDIATE result of the increases in the atmospheric CO2 levels.
Since the mid 70’s the buildup of CO2 in the atmosphere has been about +2ppm/year. In the Moderate Climate Paradigm, the +0.18°C per decade Rate of Warming since then, is the result of these yearly CO2 increases.
In the Mainstream Climate Paradigm there is a “one to one” linkage between CO2 increases and temperature increases. So, if CO2 increases got down to ZERO the temperature increases will also go down to ZERO.
As soon as we get to “Net Zero” carbon emissions the Earth’s temperature will stop going up and will stabilize at whatever level we “peak” at. That’s the THEORY of the Moderate faction in Climate Science.
So you can see WHY they constantly emphasize how much progress is being made towards that goal. Stories like this are meant to reassure everyone that PROGRESS is being made and that the “Only thing we have to FEAR is FEAR itself”.
The world reaches a historic tipping point thanks to 'the most rapid change since the Industrial…
Renewable technologies are gathering speed, putting the world within reach of falling greenhouse gas emissions. Climate…
However, it is extremely important to always keep in mind.
THIS THEORY HAS NEVER BEEN TESTED.
How could it be, the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere has increased EVERY year for the last 50 years.
Even during the Pandemic in 2020/2021.
Emission Reductions From Pandemic Had Unexpected Effects on Atmosphere
Earth's atmosphere reacted in surprising ways to the lowering of emissions during the pandemic, showing how closely…
A comprehensive new survey of the effects of the pandemic on the atmosphere, using satellite data from NASA and other international space agencies, reveals some unexpected findings.
The most surprising result, the authors noted, is that while carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions fell by 5.4% in 2020, the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere continued to grow at about the same rate as in preceding years.
The SINGLE actual ‘real world’ test of the Moderate Theory about “how fast” warming will happen showed the EXACT OPPOSITE of what they predicted. CO2 emissions FELL but the atmospheric CO2 concentration still went up and so did global temperatures.
In the face of this “difficult to explain” real world data. The Moderates have had to admit that the Rate of Warming SEEMS to have increased since 2014.
Recently the Moderates have stated that the Rate of Warming has accelerated to +0.24°C per decade. In Hansen’s chart that’s the lower edge of the YELLOW cone.
When you look at the chart it’s easy to see why they chose this estimate. They are HOPING that the RED line will behave like the GREEN line did between 1975 to 2014.
The Moderates are HOPING that the Rate of Warming has stabilized at this new rate of +0.24°C per decade. A rate which is 25% FASTER than warming has been for the previous 40 years.
Now, look at the BLUE line for the last few years. It has been swinging WILDLY up and down the last 10 years.
In 2015/2016 there was a Super El Nino. It peaked at around +1.35°C
In 2019/2020 there was another El Nino that peaked at around +1.3°C.
By 2021 though, the Global Mean Temperature had cooled down to about +1.1°C. That was reported in the 2021 IPCC report this chart is from.
The “Observed Warming” is +1.1°C.
The 2023/2024 El Nino peaked at +2°C in late August of 2023. It then fell to around +1.6°C and STAYED there.
Hansen and the Alarmists think that the Global Mean Temperature just JUMPED +0.5°C in ONLY 4 years. A Rate of Warming of +0.125°C PER YEAR.
However, they think a lot of this warming was due to “hidden” warming being “unmasked” by the changes in maritime diesel fuels in 2020. So, the Alarmists do not think this hyper-accelerated rate of warming will continue.
The Alarmists think that the Rate of Warming has stabilized at a new rate of +0.36°C per decade. A rate which is 100% FASTER than warming has been for the previous 40 years.
So, on the issue of “how fast” will the Earth warm up as a result of increasing CO2 levels. The Moderates and the Alarmists disagree on the CURRENT Rate of Warming by about 50%.
Moderates — the Rate of Warming is now about +0.24°C per decade, an increase of +0.06°C per decade over the current rate.
Alarmists — the Rate of Warming is now about +0.36°C per decade, an increase of +0.18°C per decade over the current rate.
— — — — — — — —
NOW HERE’S THE BIG QUESTION.
Can we expect the Rate of Warming to stabilize at whatever new level it has reached for the next 30 years as we push to get to Net Zero by 2050?
That’s when it gets COMPLICATED.
Because then you are talking about FEEDBACKS and SYSTEM STABILITY. We are just getting hints now at how these factors will influence future warming during the rest of the century.
There’s just so much we still don’t know about how the Climate System will change state from an Extreme Ice House world to a Hot House planet. We don/t know how this is going to play out.
The early indications are that the Climate System is a LOT more unstable than we thought AND that the feedbacks are also going to accelerate warming more than predicted in the Moderate General Climate Models.
There is also the HUGE unanswered question about the theory of the Moderates that warming will STOP when CO2 stops accumulating in the atmosphere. They are saying that the warming we see NOW, is ALL the warming there will be.
The Moderate Climate Paradigm is stating, that if CO2 emissions somehow fell to zero overnight the global temperature would stabilize at the current +1.6°C over the GISS baseline.
The Alarmists and the paleoclimate data are saying that a 425ppm level of atmospheric CO2 means +4°C to +6°C of warming. And that warming will continue until those temperatures are reached.
At +0.36°C per decade we hit +4°C around 2095. In the Alarmist Climate Paradigm that’s “best case”.
After the last 4 years we KNOW “for sure” that the Rate of Warming CAN be as much as +0.125°C PER YEAR.
It seems “likely” that as feedbacks kick in, the current Rate of Warming will increase in the coming years. +4°C by 2095 seems like a VERY optimistic number.
End Part Two of ?
This is my analysis.
This is what I see.
This is my “Crisis Report”.
rc 092224
Personal Thoughts:
2024 DID NOT “Cool Down” like a normal El Nino.
Global temperature DID NOT Cool Down in 2024. They stayed at +1.6°C.
+1.6°C is our new “normal”. The year we just had, is now where we will continue warming from.
It’s just going to keep getting HOTTER at a rate of “at least” +0.36°C per decade.
We will be at +2.0°C by 2035 at the latest. Possibly it could happen by 2030.
With that comes a -16% to -22% ANNUAL yield in global agricultural outputs. With at least one of the world’s “breadbasket” regions suffering output failure each year.
Plus the certainty that every 4 or 5 years there will be “multifocal production failures” among these eight regions. Meaning that, every few years there will be BIG famines.
1.5 Billion people are already “food insecure” according to the UN.
Over the next 10 years 1.5 to 2.5 billion people are probably going to die of starvation and warfare.
That’s what the next 10 years are going to be like.
The “first wave of dying” is starting.
There will NEVER be so many humans alive at once again.
It was a remarkable time to be alive.
In about 18 months we will know if I’m right.
It should be OBVIOUS by then what’s happening.
I mean, all of that is bad enough, but I don't see much in the way of "getting to net zero by 2050." Emissions are up, fracking is up, demand (thanks to the great AI con) is up. The world is gearing up for war, which always raises emissions. As so-called "green" energy is ramped up, burning fossil fuel is ramped up even faster. I don't see revolution eminent, so collapse looks like the only way we're going to reduce emissions.
So, dear Richard, I'm just a retired physician/psychiatrist/addicitionist/stress researcher/recovered alcoholic-addict, with a BA in chemistry and an MD/psychiatry fellowship, but I cannot follow your calculations. I'll stick with C3S, Copernicus Climate Change Service (EU), and their publications, including their running daily "Climate Pulse" page. Last July 18 they published "Hottest May on record spurs call for climate action", in which they stated that the average global temp. had increased 0.75 degC in the period 2020-present, 2024 1/2. If they counted from the end of 2020 to now, then we're looking at an average increase of 0.214 degC PER YEAR, not "decadal" as you reported, and even if they were counting including the whole year of 2020, so 4 1/2 yrs. rather than 3 1/2 yrs., then we're looking at a 0.17 degC PER YEAR increase. With those hard scientific number from the most respected meteorological institution in the world, we're experiencing between a 1 degC global ave. temp increase over the 1991-2020 baseline, which they use, of every 5 to 5.9 yrs. So, if we're already 1.6 degC hotter, then we may reach 2.6 degC increase by 2030, 3.6 degC by 2036, 4.6 degC by 2042, and 5.6 degC by 2048, right? The "hockey stick" curve is accelerating its upward bend.
Without getting into the tall grass of the CO2 controversies, any fool can see Greenland and Antarctica ice melting. 30-41 million tons of Greenland ice are melting HOURLY now, and accelerating, where each pound of melting ice is absorbing 144 BTUs of excess global accumulating heat energy. You do the math, my puter went up in flames when I tried the calculation! ( :)) Polymath and retired college math prof., Eliot Jacobson, calculated that our current "energy imbalance" is the equivalent of 20 Hiroshima nuclear bomb blasts PER SECOND, where each one releases 63 trillion BTUs. The rapidly melting Greenland ice is our "canary in the coal mine" existential warning and it's flashing red for DANGER much faster then your well meant data set.
We are continuing to burn 8 billion tons of coal per year and 100 million barrels of oil per day, 13.3 million here in the US, as the CO2/methane gas produced in the process accumulates in the atmosphere, now totally 980 GT for CO2, that sticks around for 100 yrs. Our AC to balance this heat production is the hydrological cycle evaporating 1-1.4 trillion tons of water vapor daily, but lasting only 10-14 days, so 10-14 trillion tons up there at any one time. It's the heat energy escalator that previously kept us in the "sweet spot" for global ave. temp's. It has been overwhelmed and we are burning up, would be my simple minded summary. Sure, some very cold events interspersed by the ever bigger and more heat energy fueled megastorms , but they are just another symptom of a planet producing too damn much heat energy by burning to damn much fossil fuel. Do you feel me?