Most Important Message Ever
“A catastrophe of unimaginable proportions is unfolding. Life is disappearing from Earth and runaway heating could destroy all life. At 5°C heating, most life on Earth will have disappeared. When looking only at near-term human extinction, 3°C will likely suffice. Study after study is showing the severity of the threat, yet too many keep ignoring or denying it, at the peril of the world at large.”
Sam Carana, in: Most Important Message Ever (July 2019)
“Science is non-negotiable, yet it inherently cherishes alternative views; nature can brutally close the door for some alternatives, yet it produces the most astonishing species. Reality is unequivocally founded on diversity”
Sam Carana (June 2019)
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| Sam Carana, in Antarctica linked to Arctic |
“No time before in human history has such a huge amount of ocean heat accumulated in the North Atlantic and the North Pacific.”
“This heat is now threatening to invade the Arctic Ocean and trigger huge temperature rises due to methane eruptions from the seafloor.”
https://arctic-news.blogspot.com/2014/09/methane-levels-threaten-to-skyrocket.html
Carbon Budget
Sam Carana (2013):“the IPCC appears to be acting as if there was a carbon budget to divide among countries, whereas in reality there is a huge carbon debt to our children, while the situation could become catastrophic any time soon.”
https://arctic-news.blogspot.com/2013/10/just-do-not-tell-them-the-monster-exists.html
Sam Carana (2014):
“There is no carbon budget to divide between nations, instead there is just a huge debt of CO2 to be removed from the atmosphere and the oceans. Comprehensive and effective action must be taken to stop run-away warming.” https://arctic-news.blogspot.com/2014/09/methane-levels-threaten-to-skyrocket.html
Sam Carana (2018):
"In reality, there is no carbon budget to be divided, there is just a huge carbon debt to be repaid. The urgency and imperative to act is such that progress in one area cannot make up for delays elsewhere. The best policies should be implemented immediately, and everywhere across the world."
https://arctic-news.blogspot.com/2018/10/ipcc-keeps-feeding-the-addiction.html
Sam Carana (2014)
Huge sea surface temperature anomalies are present off the coast of North America and in the Arctic. Nations are ignoring the growing dangers and keep each seeking a bigger share of a 'carbon budget', but in reality there is no carbon budget to divide. Instead, there is a huge debt built up by a joint failure of nations to act on pollution. As oceans keep warming, the Gulf Stream will keep moving ocean heat into the Arctic Ocean, and ever more methane threatens to erupt from the seafloor of the Arctic Ocean. From: Methane Erupting From East Siberian Arctic Shelf
http://arctic-news.blogspot.com/2014/11/methane-erupting-from-east-siberian-arctic-shelf.html
Permanent abundance
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| Sam Carana, on Climate Plan http://climateplan.blogspot.com |
Extinction
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| John Davies, in: A Runaway Greehouse Event', at: http://arctic-news.blogspot.com/2013/09/a-runaway-greenhouse-event.html |
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| The Most IMPORTANT Video You'll Ever See (part 1 of 8) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F-QA2rkpBSY |
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| Sam Carana: An exponential trendline shows methane release in the ESAS reaching 22 Tg by 2013, 36 Tg by 2015, 2 Gt by 2031 and 50 Gt by the year 2043. In: http://arctic-news.blogspot.com/2013/11/quantifying-arctic-methane.html |
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| Sam Carana: “the polynomial trendline points at methane reaching mean global levels higher than 3000 ppb by the year 2030. If methane starts to erupt in large quantities from clathrates underneath the seafloor of the Arctic Ocean, this may well be where we are headed."” In: http://arctic-news.blogspot.com/2014/05/will-the-anthropocene-last-for-only-100-years.html |
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| Sam Carana: "This image illustrates the danger that temperature will rise to intolerable levels if little or no action is taken on climate change." From: http://arctic-news.blogspot.com/2014/05/how-many-deaths-could-result-from-failure-to-act-on-climate-change.html |
“With business as usual, life on earth is largely doomed.”
John Davies, at:
Arctic sea ice
“In 2012, Arctic sea ice area fell by 11.4745 million square km from March 28, 2012, to September 12, 2012, a fall of 83.7% in 168 days.”
Sam Carana in: Polar jet stream appears hugely deformed - Arctic-News blog, December 10, 2012.
“Of the Arctic sea ice, 75% has been lost over the past 30 years.”
From: 'Jarvis Cocker: the iceman cometh', by Lucy Siegle, in The Guardian, June 2, 2012. [See also 'Three-quarters of Arctic sea ice lost in 30 years? We check.' by Verity Payne in The Carbon Brief blog, June 7, 2012]
The Pan-Arctic Ice-Ocean Modelling and Assimilation System (PIOMAS) which measures ice volume shows that last September there was only a quarter of the ice in the Arctic that there had been in 1979. Prof Wadhams says in summer "it could easily happen that we'll have an ice-free North Pole within a year or two".
Professor Peter Wadhams in: Wikileaks cables show race to carve up Arctic, by Meirion Jones and Susan Watts, May 12, 2011.
“. . we can also say with great confidence that the decline in observed ice thickness is not just an effect of measurement sampling and that the total sea ice volume has been declining over the past 32 years at astonishing rates (for instance a 75% reduction in September volume from 1979 to 2011).”
From: 'Arctic Sea Ice Volume: PIOMAS, Prediction, and the Perils of Extrapolation', Guest Commentary by Axel Schweiger, Ron Lindsay, and Cecilia Bitzin in RealClimate.org, April 11, 2012.
“Arctic sea ice minimum volume in 2012 was only 19.3% what it was in 1979.”
Sam Carana in: Polar jet stream appears hugely deformed - Arctic-News blog, December 10, 2012.
"It suggests, he said, that Septembers could be ice-free within just a few years."
Professor Peter Wadhams, reported in BBC News, March 17, 2012, commenting on an analysis drawing on data and modelling from the PIOMAS ice volume project at the University of Washington in Seattle.
“in 30 years we've lost 75 per cent of the Arctic sea ice.”
From: 'In 30 years we've lost 75% of the Arctic sea ice', by jamess, in Greenpeace UK Blog, February 10, 2012. [See also 'Three-quarters of Arctic sea ice lost in 30 years? We check.' by Verity Payne in The Carbon Brief blog, June 7, 2012]
“The ice that forms over the Arctic sea is shrinking so rapidly that it could vanish altogether in as little as four years' time.”
Professor Peter Wadhams in: The Telegraph, 8 Nov 2011
“We're entering a new epoch of sea-ice melt in the Arctic Ocean due to climate change. In five years' time most of the sea ice could be gone in summer with just an 'Alamo of ice' remaining north of Ellesmere Island.”
Professor Peter Wadhams in: Scientific American, September 18, 2009
How much methane is in the Arctic
"Accumulated methane potential of the ESAS: 1) C-org in permafrost ~500 Gt; 2) Methane accumulation in hydrate deposits (GHSZ=100m) ~1000 Gt; 3) Free gas beneath the GHSZ ~700 Gt"
Dr. Natalia Shakhova et al. in: Presentation at Symposium, November 30, 2010
Methane venting in the Arctic
". . . we consider release of up to 50 Gt of predicted amount of hydrate storage as highly possible for abrupt release at any time."
Dr. Natalia Shakhova et al. in: EGU General Assembly 2008
Conclusion from above paper, on the background of a frame from a video
"Available data suggest the ESAS sub-sea permafrost is currently leaking a substantial amount of CH4."
Dr. Natalia Shakhova et al. in: EGU General Assembly 2012
Heating in the Arctic
"[Measures identified to reduce black carbon and tropospheric ozone] could reduce warming in the Arctic in the next 30 years by about two-thirds . . ."
Dr. Drew T. Shindell et al. in: Summary for Policy Makers, UNEP/WMO 2011
"In 2007, the water [off northern Siberia] warmed up to about 5C (41F) in summer, and this extends down to the sea bed, melting the offshore permafrost."
Professor Peter Wadhams in BBC News March 17, 2012
“GWP for soot (BC) is approximately 2000 for 20 years”
Dr. James Hansen et al., in: 'Climate change and trace gases', Phil. Trans. R.Soc. A (2007)
". . data obtained in the ESAS during the drilling expedition of 2011 showed no frozen sediments at all within the 53 m long drilling core . ."
Dr. Natalia Shakhova et al. in: EGU General Assembly 2012
"It seems clear that in a warming world (for whatever reason), methane will be released in increasing quantities, e.g. from warming permafrost, thus augmenting global warming. Disturbances on the sea bed may also cause the decomposition of methane-hydrate. It is known that drilling into methane hydrate poses a hazard to oil prospecting operations, and it is also thought that decomposition of methane hydrate with an eruption of methane could trigger a tsunami."
Professor Chris Rhodes in: Methane Gas Hydrates. . Feb 1, 2012
Hydroxyl
"Increases in global methane emissions have caused a 26% decrease in hydroxyl; global carbon monoxide emissions have caused a 13% decrease in hydroxyl."
Dr. Drew T. Shindell et al. in: NASA Research News, from: Science, October 30, 2009
Why
Sam Carana: "Scientists who find out that there is something that constitutes a danger have a duty to speak out."
Sam Carana: "Everyone has a duty of care about the mess we leave behind. In many cases, time will heal the wounds. In this case, however, we're rapidly running out of time."
Sam Carana: "Mainstream media is biased by focusing on climate denial while ignoring the side of the Climate Spectrum that is sounding the alarm."
From: Mainstream Media Biased By Focusing On Climate Denial
"Just the melting of the floating ice in the Arctic Ocean, will add as much heat to the earth, as all the CO2 we put in the atmosphere to date. . . I fear that not many of us will survive, perhaps at best about a billion, possibly a lot less than that . . . now how they will die, it will be by starvation, by war, by disease, who knows, the Four Horsemen really ride when conditions like that happen."
Dr. James Lovelock, in: BBC James Lovelock Interview 2011 - 4/4 from http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00s04qp
“. . . warming greater than 1 degree Celsius raises the likelihood of a large positive feedback from methane hydrates. . . . The Arctic epitomizes the global climate situation. The most rapid feasible slowdown of carbon dioxide emissions, coupled with focused reductions of other forcings, may just have a chance of avoiding disastrous climate change.”
Dr. James Hansen et al., in: 'Climate change and trace gases', Phil. Trans. R.Soc. A (2007)
“I have a confession to make: I was too optimistic.”
Dr. James Hansen in: 'Climate change is here — and worse than we thought', The Washington Post opinions, August 4, 2012.
“Our greatest concern is that loss of Arctic sea ice creates a grave threat of passing two other tipping points -- the potential instability of the Greenland ice sheet and methane hydrates. These latter two tipping points would have consequences that are practically irreversible on time scales of relevance to humanity.”
Dr. James Hansen, quoted in: 'Arctic Sea Ice Heads For Record Low As Melt Beats Forecasts', by Alex Morales, in Bloomberg, August 17, 2012.
“Implications are serious: the increased open water lowers the average albedo [reflectivity] of the planet, accelerating global warming; and we are also finding the open water causing seabed permafrost to melt, releasing large amounts of methane, a powerful greenhouse gas, to the atmosphere.”
Professor Peter Wadhams in: Arctic sea ice reaches record low, Nasa says, by Roger Harrabin, August 27, 2012.
[Professor Peter Wadhams said that] volume of ice was down to about 30 percent of its amount three decades ago . . . If it shrinks to zero you are decreasing the albedo (reflected sunlight) of the Earth. "That's the same warming effect of 25 years of additional carbon dioxide," Wadhams said.
Professor Peter Wadhams in Arctic summer sea ice might thaw by 2015 - or linger for decades, Reuters, August 30, 2012
Loss of Arctic sea ice is effectively doubling mankind's contribution to global warming. Increased absorption of the sun's rays is "the equivalent of about 20 years of additional CO2 being added by man".
Professor Peter Wadhams in: Arctic ice melt 'like adding 20 years of CO2 emissions', by Susan Watts, September 5, 2012.
http://arctic-news.blogspot.com/2014/02/with-business-as-usual-life-on-earth-is.html
Tipping Points
Sam Carana, on Tipping Points: "Instead of facing gradual changes that can be mitigated by planned action, we may suddenly face a future in which many if not most people will have little or no access to food, water, medicine, electricity and shelter, while diseases go rampant and gangs and warlords loot and devastate the few livable areas left. Human beings as a species will face the risk of total extinction, particularly if many species of animals and plants that humans depend on will disappear."
From: Ten Dangers of Global Warming, March 2007
Tipping Points
Sam Carana, on Tipping Points: "Instead of facing gradual changes that can be mitigated by planned action, we may suddenly face a future in which many if not most people will have little or no access to food, water, medicine, electricity and shelter, while diseases go rampant and gangs and warlords loot and devastate the few livable areas left. Human beings as a species will face the risk of total extinction, particularly if many species of animals and plants that humans depend on will disappear."
From: Ten Dangers of Global Warming, March 2007
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| Sam Carana: "The dangers of global warming and its acceleration are best illustrated by means of non-linear trends, in particular polynomial and exponential trends." |
Arctic sea ice
“In 2012, Arctic sea ice area fell by 11.4745 million square km from March 28, 2012, to September 12, 2012, a fall of 83.7% in 168 days.”
Sam Carana in: Polar jet stream appears hugely deformed - Arctic-News blog, December 10, 2012.
“Of the Arctic sea ice, 75% has been lost over the past 30 years.”
From: 'Jarvis Cocker: the iceman cometh', by Lucy Siegle, in The Guardian, June 2, 2012. [See also 'Three-quarters of Arctic sea ice lost in 30 years? We check.' by Verity Payne in The Carbon Brief blog, June 7, 2012]
The Pan-Arctic Ice-Ocean Modelling and Assimilation System (PIOMAS) which measures ice volume shows that last September there was only a quarter of the ice in the Arctic that there had been in 1979. Prof Wadhams says in summer "it could easily happen that we'll have an ice-free North Pole within a year or two".
Professor Peter Wadhams in: Wikileaks cables show race to carve up Arctic, by Meirion Jones and Susan Watts, May 12, 2011.
“. . we can also say with great confidence that the decline in observed ice thickness is not just an effect of measurement sampling and that the total sea ice volume has been declining over the past 32 years at astonishing rates (for instance a 75% reduction in September volume from 1979 to 2011).”
From: 'Arctic Sea Ice Volume: PIOMAS, Prediction, and the Perils of Extrapolation', Guest Commentary by Axel Schweiger, Ron Lindsay, and Cecilia Bitzin in RealClimate.org, April 11, 2012.
“Arctic sea ice minimum volume in 2012 was only 19.3% what it was in 1979.”
Sam Carana in: Polar jet stream appears hugely deformed - Arctic-News blog, December 10, 2012.
"It suggests, he said, that Septembers could be ice-free within just a few years."
Professor Peter Wadhams, reported in BBC News, March 17, 2012, commenting on an analysis drawing on data and modelling from the PIOMAS ice volume project at the University of Washington in Seattle.
“in 30 years we've lost 75 per cent of the Arctic sea ice.”
From: 'In 30 years we've lost 75% of the Arctic sea ice', by jamess, in Greenpeace UK Blog, February 10, 2012. [See also 'Three-quarters of Arctic sea ice lost in 30 years? We check.' by Verity Payne in The Carbon Brief blog, June 7, 2012]
“The ice that forms over the Arctic sea is shrinking so rapidly that it could vanish altogether in as little as four years' time.”
Professor Peter Wadhams in: The Telegraph, 8 Nov 2011
“We're entering a new epoch of sea-ice melt in the Arctic Ocean due to climate change. In five years' time most of the sea ice could be gone in summer with just an 'Alamo of ice' remaining north of Ellesmere Island.”
Professor Peter Wadhams in: Scientific American, September 18, 2009
How much methane is in the Arctic
"Accumulated methane potential of the ESAS: 1) C-org in permafrost ~500 Gt; 2) Methane accumulation in hydrate deposits (GHSZ=100m) ~1000 Gt; 3) Free gas beneath the GHSZ ~700 Gt"
Dr. Natalia Shakhova et al. in: Presentation at Symposium, November 30, 2010
Methane venting in the Arctic
". . . we consider release of up to 50 Gt of predicted amount of hydrate storage as highly possible for abrupt release at any time."
Dr. Natalia Shakhova et al. in: EGU General Assembly 2008
Conclusion from above paper, on the background of a frame from a video "Available data suggest the ESAS sub-sea permafrost is currently leaking a substantial amount of CH4."
Dr. Natalia Shakhova et al. in: EGU General Assembly 2012
Heating in the Arctic
"[Measures identified to reduce black carbon and tropospheric ozone] could reduce warming in the Arctic in the next 30 years by about two-thirds . . ."
Dr. Drew T. Shindell et al. in: Summary for Policy Makers, UNEP/WMO 2011
"In 2007, the water [off northern Siberia] warmed up to about 5C (41F) in summer, and this extends down to the sea bed, melting the offshore permafrost."
Professor Peter Wadhams in BBC News March 17, 2012
“GWP for soot (BC) is approximately 2000 for 20 years”
Dr. James Hansen et al., in: 'Climate change and trace gases', Phil. Trans. R.Soc. A (2007)
". . data obtained in the ESAS during the drilling expedition of 2011 showed no frozen sediments at all within the 53 m long drilling core . ."
Dr. Natalia Shakhova et al. in: EGU General Assembly 2012
"It seems clear that in a warming world (for whatever reason), methane will be released in increasing quantities, e.g. from warming permafrost, thus augmenting global warming. Disturbances on the sea bed may also cause the decomposition of methane-hydrate. It is known that drilling into methane hydrate poses a hazard to oil prospecting operations, and it is also thought that decomposition of methane hydrate with an eruption of methane could trigger a tsunami."
Professor Chris Rhodes in: Methane Gas Hydrates. . Feb 1, 2012
Hydroxyl
"Increases in global methane emissions have caused a 26% decrease in hydroxyl; global carbon monoxide emissions have caused a 13% decrease in hydroxyl."
Dr. Drew T. Shindell et al. in: NASA Research News, from: Science, October 30, 2009
Why
Sam Carana: "Scientists who find out that there is something that constitutes a danger have a duty to speak out."
Sam Carana: "Everyone has a duty of care about the mess we leave behind. In many cases, time will heal the wounds. In this case, however, we're rapidly running out of time."
Sam Carana: "Mainstream media is biased by focusing on climate denial while ignoring the side of the Climate Spectrum that is sounding the alarm."
From: Mainstream Media Biased By Focusing On Climate Denial
"Just the melting of the floating ice in the Arctic Ocean, will add as much heat to the earth, as all the CO2 we put in the atmosphere to date. . . I fear that not many of us will survive, perhaps at best about a billion, possibly a lot less than that . . . now how they will die, it will be by starvation, by war, by disease, who knows, the Four Horsemen really ride when conditions like that happen."
Dr. James Lovelock, in: BBC James Lovelock Interview 2011 - 4/4 from http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00s04qp
“. . . warming greater than 1 degree Celsius raises the likelihood of a large positive feedback from methane hydrates. . . . The Arctic epitomizes the global climate situation. The most rapid feasible slowdown of carbon dioxide emissions, coupled with focused reductions of other forcings, may just have a chance of avoiding disastrous climate change.”
Dr. James Hansen et al., in: 'Climate change and trace gases', Phil. Trans. R.Soc. A (2007)
“I have a confession to make: I was too optimistic.”
Dr. James Hansen in: 'Climate change is here — and worse than we thought', The Washington Post opinions, August 4, 2012.
“Our greatest concern is that loss of Arctic sea ice creates a grave threat of passing two other tipping points -- the potential instability of the Greenland ice sheet and methane hydrates. These latter two tipping points would have consequences that are practically irreversible on time scales of relevance to humanity.”
Dr. James Hansen, quoted in: 'Arctic Sea Ice Heads For Record Low As Melt Beats Forecasts', by Alex Morales, in Bloomberg, August 17, 2012.
“Implications are serious: the increased open water lowers the average albedo [reflectivity] of the planet, accelerating global warming; and we are also finding the open water causing seabed permafrost to melt, releasing large amounts of methane, a powerful greenhouse gas, to the atmosphere.”
Professor Peter Wadhams in: Arctic sea ice reaches record low, Nasa says, by Roger Harrabin, August 27, 2012.
[Professor Peter Wadhams said that] volume of ice was down to about 30 percent of its amount three decades ago . . . If it shrinks to zero you are decreasing the albedo (reflected sunlight) of the Earth. "That's the same warming effect of 25 years of additional carbon dioxide," Wadhams said.
Professor Peter Wadhams in Arctic summer sea ice might thaw by 2015 - or linger for decades, Reuters, August 30, 2012
Loss of Arctic sea ice is effectively doubling mankind's contribution to global warming. Increased absorption of the sun's rays is "the equivalent of about 20 years of additional CO2 being added by man".
Professor Peter Wadhams in: Arctic ice melt 'like adding 20 years of CO2 emissions', by Susan Watts, September 5, 2012.
Professor Peter Wadhams on albedo changes in the Arctic, image from Edge of Extinction
The Climate Plan calls for comprehensive action through multiple lines of action implemented across the world and in parallel, through effective policies such as local feebates. The Climate Plan calls for a global commitment to act, combined with implementation that is preferably local. In other words, while the Climate Plan calls for a global commitment to take comprehensive and effective action to reduce the danger of catastrophic climate change, and while it recommends specific policies and approaches how best to achieve this, it invites local communities to decide what each works best for them, provided they do indeed make the progress necessary to reach agreed targets. This makes that the Climate Plan optimizes flexibility for local communities and optimizes local job and investment opportunities.
ReplyDeleteClick for more on multiple lines of action, on recommended policies, and on the advantages of local feebates.