Will humans go extinct soon?

The image below shows the June 2025 temperature anomaly versus 1951-1980, using ERA5 data.

[ June 2025 temperature anomaly, click on images to enlarge ]

    [ from earlier post, click to enlarge ]

The above image shows relatively low anomalies over the Arctic Ocean, with a relatively cool area persisting in the North Atlantic, south of Greenland. This appears to reflect heavy melting, slowing down of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) and strong evaporation followed by more rainfall further down the track of the Gulf Stream, as illustrated by the image on the right.

The above image also shows high anomalies over parts of Antarctica and Antarctic sea ice. This appears to reflect changes to the Southern Meridional Overturning Circulation (SMOC).

   [ marine heatwave in North Pacific ]

The image on the right shows that the sea surface temperature was as much as 7.5°C (13.4°F) higher than 1981-2011 on July 16, 2025, 12:00 UTC, at the location marked by the green circle, reflecting a strong marine heatwave in the North Pacific. The image also shows a distorted Jet Stream (at 250 hPa).

[ image from: 10°C or 18°F warmer by 2021? ]

Rising temperatures result in a loss of carbon storage, concludes a recent study led by Thomas Werner into marine heatwaves. 

Covering more than 70% of Earth’s surface, our global ocean has absorbed 90% of the warming that has occurred in recent decades due to increasing greenhouse gases, and the top few meters of the ocean store as much heat as Earth's entire atmosphere, as described by a NASA post. 

A small change in this ratio could result in a huge rise in the global air temperature, and studies warn about changes that are occurring in the AMOC and SMOC, as discussed in earlier posts such as this one.

A 2024 study led by Judd finds that climate sensitivity has historically been about 8°C. According to James Hansen, equilibrium global warming for today’s amount of greenhouse gases is 10°C, which includes a 2°C rise that would eventuate by the falling away of the aerosols that currently mask the temperature rise. 

The 36-month running average for albedo (reflectivity) for May 2025 is down to a record low of 28.711%, as illustrated by the above Eliot Jacobson image.

The 36-month running mean for the Earth energy imbalance grew in May 2025 to 11.36 Hiroshimas per second. That's roughly 980,000 Hiroshimas per day in planetary warming, adds Eliot Jacobson.

    [ NOAA ENSO outlook ]

Meanwhile, the IPCC keeps down-playing the potential impact of feedbacks such as changes to ocean currents, wind patterns, clouds, water vapor, sea ice and permafrost, thus failing to warn that the temperature is likely to rise strongly with a new El Niño and with further reduction of the aerosol masking effect, triggering numerous feedbacks to kick in and more extreme weather events to strike with greater ferocity, frequency and ubiquity. 

For now, ENSO-neutral conditions dominate and are expected to persist during the Northern Hemisphere fall and winter 2025-2026 (image right).

The current ENSO-neutral conditions make it even more significant that on July 14, 2025, the global temperature was 16.86°C, as illustrated by the image below, adapted from Climate Reanalyzer. 

The earlier image below shows a preliminary 16.85°C that was later upgraded to 16.86°C (final). The point is that this is a record high for that day and 0.3°C below the highest daily temperature on record (17.16°C) that was reached on July 22, 2024 (image adapted from Copernicus).

The image below shows monthly temperature anomalies through June 2025, based on ERA5 anomalies vs 1951-1980 from Jan 2014-June 2025 (red circles). 

In the above image, data are adjusted by 1°C to reflect a pre-industrial base (black circles). Cubic trends are added to show that 3°C could be crossed late 2028 (red) or early 2027 (black). 

The image below shows surface air temperature anomalies April 1, 2023, through July 14, 2025 (final), with a red trend added that warns about a potentially huge temperature rise later in 2025.

Furthermore, sea surface temperatures are on the rise again. The image below shows the global sea surface temperature through July 20, 2025 (60°S–60°N, 0–360°E).

How much could temperatures rise? The image below is a combination image. The top image shows a trend based on annual sea surface temperature anomalies in the Northern Hemisphere through 2022. The bottom image shows a trend based on annual sea surface temperature anomalies in the Northern Hemisphere through 2023. The trend in the bottom image shows an even steeper rise than the trend in the top image. This shows that a polynomial trend can sometimes be a good indicator of the rise to come.

The image below repeats the IPCC's response, or rather its failure to respond.

A 3°C rise constitutes an important threshold, since humans will likely go extinct with such a rise. As illustrated by the image below, we may already be more than 2°C above pre-industrial and face a potentially huge temperature rise over the next few years.

[ from the post When will humans go extinct? ]

   [ from: When Will We Die? ]

Recent research led by David Fastivich finds that, historically, vegetation responded at timescales from hundreds to tens of thousands of years, but not at timescales shorter than about 150 years. It takes centuries for tree populations to adapt - far too slow to keep pace with today’s rapidly warming world.

Note that vegetation depends on the presence of a lot of things including healthy soil, microbes, moisture, nutrients and habitat. 

A 2018 study by Strona & Bradshaw indicates that most life on Earth will disappear with a 5°C rise (see box on the right). Humans, who depend on a lot of other species, will likely go extinct with a 3°C, as discussed in the earlier post When Will We Die? 

Climate Emergency Declaration

The situation is dire and the precautionary principle calls for rapid, comprehensive and effective action to reduce the damage and to improve the situation, as described in this 2022 post, where needed in combination with a Climate Emergency Declaration, as discussed at this group.

Links

• Climate Reanalyzer
https://climatereanalyzer.org

• Saltier water, less sea ice
https://arctic-news.blogspot.com/2025/07/saltier-water-less-sea-ice.html

• Nullschool.net
https://earth.nullschool.net

• Marine heatwaves as hot spots of climate change and impacts on biodiversity and ecosystem services - by Thomas Wernberg et al.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s44358-025-00058-5

discussed on Facebook at: 
https://www.facebook.com/groups/arcticnews/posts/10162992131044679

• Copernicus
https://pulse.climate.copernicus.eu

• NASA - Ocean warming (December 2024) 
https://climate.nasa.gov/vital-signs/ocean-warming/?intent=121

• Arctic Blue Ocean Event 2025? (update June 2025)

https://arctic-news.blogspot.com/2025/06/arctic-blue-ocean-event-2025-update-June-2025.html

• A 485-million-year history of Earth’s surface temperature by Emily Judd et al. (2024) 
https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.adk3705

discussed on Facebook at: 
https://www.facebook.com/groups/arcticnews/posts/10161741588279679

• Global warming in the pipeline - by James Hansen et al. 
https://academic.oup.com/oocc/article/3/1/kgad008/7335889

discussed on Facebook at: 
https://www.facebook.com/groups/arcticnews/posts/10161110558744679

• Pre-industrial
https://arctic-news.blogspot.com/p/pre-industrial.html

• NOAA - Climate Prediction Center - ENSO: Recent Evolution, Current Status and Predictions
https://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/analysis_monitoring/lanina/enso_evolution-status-fcsts-web.pdf

• When will humans go extinct? 

https://arctic-news.blogspot.com/2022/02/when-will-humans-go-extinct.html

• Coupled, decoupled, and abrupt responses of vegetation to climate across timescales - by David Fastovich et al. (2025)

https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.adr6700

discussed on Facebook at: 

https://www.facebook.com/groups/arcticnews/posts/10162972980774679

• When Will We Die?

https://arctic-news.blogspot.com/2019/06/when-will-we-die.html

• Transforming Society
https://arctic-news.blogspot.com/2022/10/transforming-society.html

• Climate Plan
https://arctic-news.blogspot.com/p/climateplan.html

• Climate Emergency Declaration
https://arctic-news.blogspot.com/p/climate-emergency-declaration.html

AI-controlled apes with apps at seconds to Midnight

by Andrew Glikson

What further evidence do the inhabitants of planet Earth need to have to convince them the liveable climate, the lungs of the Earth, is sharply deteriorating, species are dying, the mere failure of a computer chip or of a human neuron are capable of terminating civilization, that the powers that be are leading to one of the greatest mass extinction in the history of the Earth and that mass migration to Mars is a cynical myth. At the death of détente the powers that be, aimed toward World War III, do not appear to be concerned with the consequences of extreme global warming, clear evidence for their lack of concern for life on Earth.

[ Guernica, mural by Pablo Picasso, from Wikipedia ]

On Monday 26 April 1937, the Basque town of Guernica was bombed by Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy at the request of the Spanish Nationalists under the command of General Francisco Franco during the Spanish Civil War. No painting other than Pablo Picasso’s Guernica more strikingly depicts the massacre of the oncoming fascism – the human death cult reaching a peak in World War II and re-emerging toward World War III, as nuclear fleets and climate extremes aim at life on Earth, as Governments and snake-oil merchants spend $trillions threatening to radioactivate the atmosphere, reinventing the killing fields under false-flags as Goebbels-like agents with blood on their hands deceive the multitude to the tune of canned laughter, women carry dead children, multi-billionaires plan future space shots out of the mouths of the hungry, Olympic cyclists write themselves into history and only the young rebel against the global insanity.

[ from: The Madness of Nuclear and Climate Horror ]

Cycles of death, repeated almost every generation, follow breakups in the international order, women die alongside their men as in the Spanish Civil war, or are left to rebuild their shattered homes.

Over the past few decades the probability of a nuclear war has grown to some 12,121 hair-triggered weapons aimed at all life, that the criminal powers refuse to dismantle, propagating hollow Orwellian speak on the airwaves. But while it is common for the misguided to attribute atrocities to so called “leaders”, including in parliaments, which the people initially elected under false pretences.

The consequences range from fatal imperial wars to global climate calamities. According to Jeffrey D. Sachs (July 16, 2024): “The quest for hegemony has pushed the world to open warfare between the world’s two leading nuclear powers”.

As conveyed by Thucydides Trap, the rise of empires constitutes a major driver of international conflict, from the Persian superpower to the Roman empire. In the modern era, détente could hardly survive while submarine and space weapon systems proliferate and adversaries seek “victory” at the price of millions of lives in World wars. There is no evidence current promoters of the looming nuclear war can be brought to trial in a future round of Nuremberg trials.

Fascism, coined after the Roman fascia, tantamount to military barbarism, represents the hallmark of tribal killing through history, as contrasted with a small percent of peaceful nomadic tribes. The ratio of male deaths in modern wars is far less.

The ultimate control of a future global biosphere by AI-weapon systems can only subject civilization and the living biosphere to an intelligence-free world, hard to conceive less brutal than World wars I, II or the looming World War III.

But blame cannot be exclusively attributed to “leaders”, so-called, who once elected into positions of “power” need to conform to those in control of industry and society. Opinion makers manufacture consent. The mega-rich, tycoons, corporate directors, shareholders and managers of the “fourth estate” paint black as white propagating major untruths, for example making it look as if carbon exports can be distinguished from domestic greenhouse emissions in terms of their effects on the atmosphere.

While responsibility belongs to all of humanity, it is the relatively affluent “first world” governments which generate the oncoming collapse (Jared Diamond, 2005).

A/Prof. Andrew Y Glikson
Earth and climate scientist

Andrew Glikson

Books:
The Asteroid Impact Connection of Planetary Evolution
https://www.springer.com/gp/book/9789400763272
The Archaean: Geological and Geochemical Windows into the Early Earth
https://www.springer.com/gp/book/9783319079073
The Plutocene: Blueprints for a Post-Anthropocene Greenhouse Earth
https://www.springer.com/gp/book/9783319572369
The Event Horizon: Homo Prometheus and the Climate Catastrophe
https://www.springer.com/gp/book/9783030547332
Climate, Fire and Human Evolution: The Deep Time Dimensions of the Anthropocene
https://www.springer.com/gp/book/9783319225111
Evolution of the Atmosphere, Fire and the Anthropocene Climate Event Horizon
https://www.springer.com/gp/book/9789400773318
From Stars to Brains: Milestones in the Planetary Evolution of Life and Intelligence
https://www.springer.com/us/book/9783030106027
Asteroids Impacts, Crustal Evolution and Related Mineral Systems with Special Reference to Australia
https://www.springer.com/us/book/9783319745442
The Fatal Species: From Warlike Primates to Planetary Mass Extinction
https://www.springer.com/gp/book/9783030754679
The Trials of Gaia. Milestones in the evolution of Earth with reference to the Antropocene
https://www.amazon.com.au/Trials-Gaia-Milestones-Evolution-Anthropocene/dp/3031237080

The predicament of climate scientists on the road to a super tropical Earth

 by Andrew Glikson

Figure 1. 2023 was the Earth's warmest year since modern record-keeping began in 1880.

As temperatures in large parts of the Earth are soaring (cf. 52.3°C in Delhi, flames engulf large regions in California, tornadoes ravage the Gulf of Mexico states, severe drought starve populations in southern Africa and climate extremes continue to taking over large parts of the Earth. Much like oncologists advising patients and their families of a terminal illness, so do climate scientists agonizing while reporting the advent of dangerous warming as temperatures rise and tipping points are broken. But while climate change has become more than evident, there is a heavy price to be paid by those who try to alert the public.

Figure 2. Global temperature relative to 1880-1920 based on the GISS analysis (Hansen et al., 2024).

One of the glaring misconceptions, which ignores the dispersal of greenhouse gases throughout the atmosphere, is as if their global effects depend on the country from which the carbon is extracted. Further, politically originated stigmas labels scientists as some kind of “alarmists” or “Cassandras”. A threat of institutional penalties affects scientist’s jobs. Along with the dominion of vested pro-carbon interests these factors drive humanity blind toward the Sixth Mass Extinction of Species.

Figure 3. A prolonged dry spell in southern Africa in early 2024 scorched crops and threatened food security for millions of people.

In private conversations, many climate scientists express far greater concern at the progression and consequences of global warming than they do in public.

A number of prominent climate scientists representing the scientific consensus on climate change, as documented by the IPCC, have tried their best to convey the message in public forums, but were mostly shunned by conservative media. At the same time many climate scientists tend to regard the IPCC-based climate consensus as too optimistic. An article titled When the End of Human Civilization Is Your Day Job (Richardson, 2015) states … “Among many climate scientists, gloom has set in. Things are worse than we think, but they can’t really talk about it … Climate scientists have been so distracted and intimidated by the relentless campaign against them that they tend to avoid any statements that might get them labelled “alarmists”, instead retreating into a world of charts and data.“

As stated by Noam Chomsky: “It’s interesting that these public climate debates leave out almost entirely a third part of the debate, namely a very substantial number of scientists, competent scientists, who think that the scientific consensus is much too optimistic. A group of scientists at MIT came out with a report about a year ago describing what they called the most comprehensive modelling of the climate that had ever been done. Their conclusion, which was unreported in public media as far as I know, was that the major scientific consensus of the international commission is just way off, it’s much too optimistic … their own conclusion was that unless we terminate use of fossil fuels almost immediately, it’s finished. We’ll never be able to overcome the consequences. That’s avoided in the debate.”

Antarctica is losing ice at an average rate of more than 150 billion tons per year, and Greenland is losing more than 270 billion tons per year, adding to sea level rise. Some glaciologists and Arctic scientists consider the accelerated rate of glacial melt in Greenland and West Antarctica may result in little remaining ice over these terrains toward the end of the century, leading to sea level rise on the scale of many meters, with catastrophic consequences for coastal and river valley population centres.

The Arctic Ocean contains vast amounts of carbon accumulated during the Pleistocene ice ages. The greenhouse effect of methane traps up to 100 times more heat in the atmosphere than carbon dioxide within a 5 year period, and 72 times more within a 20 year period. Atmospheric levels of greenhouse gases – carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide – continued their climb during 2023 according to the latest measurements from NOAA and CIRES scientists. The current CO₂ growth rate threatens an irreversible shift in the state of the Earth climate through looming tipping points, including transient cooling events induced by flow of cold ice melt water into the oceans from Greenland and Antarctica; Glikson (2019).

Figure 4. Carbon dioxide at Mauna Loa, Hawaii.

There is little evidence that climate science had much of an effect on the outcome of the Paris Agreement. The warming target of +1.5°C has already been breached over the continents or is masked by the reflective albedo of transient sulphur aerosols. At the current growth rate of ~3 ppm/year CO₂ will rise closer to the stability threshold of the polar ice sheets.

Little encouragement can be gained from the non-binding promises emerging from climate conferences, which James Hansen described as a “fraud”.

While the implications of the global climate emergency have reached the defence establishment, the world continues to spend near to $2.4 trillion each year on the military instead on the protection of life.

As the portents for a major mass extinction of species are rising – who will defend life on Earth?

A/Prof. Andrew Y Glikson
Earth and climate scientist

Andrew Glikson

Books:

The Asteroid Impact Connection of Planetary Evolution
https://www.springer.com/gp/book/9789400763272
The Archaean: Geological and Geochemical Windows into the Early Earth
https://www.springer.com/gp/book/9783319079073
The Plutocene: Blueprints for a Post-Anthropocene Greenhouse Earth
https://www.springer.com/gp/book/9783319572369
The Event Horizon: Homo Prometheus and the Climate Catastrophe
https://www.springer.com/gp/book/9783030547332
Climate, Fire and Human Evolution: The Deep Time Dimensions of the Anthropocene
https://www.springer.com/gp/book/9783319225111
Evolution of the Atmosphere, Fire and the Anthropocene Climate Event Horizon
https://www.springer.com/gp/book/9789400773318
From Stars to Brains: Milestones in the Planetary Evolution of Life and Intelligence
https://www.springer.com/us/book/9783030106027
Asteroids Impacts, Crustal Evolution and Related Mineral Systems with Special Reference to Australia
https://www.springer.com/us/book/9783319745442
The Fatal Species: From Warlike Primates to Planetary Mass Extinction
https://www.springer.com/gp/book/9783030754679
The Trials of Gaia. Milestones in the evolution of Earth with reference to the Antropocene
https://www.amazon.com.au/Trials-Gaia-Milestones-Evolution-Anthropocene/dp/3031237080

Tracking toward mass extinction

 by Andrew Glikson

Where “Two plus two equals five if the party says so” (George Orwell)
and when drilling methane wells reduces global warming

Having turned a blind eye to climate science, ignoring the evidence that extreme atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO₂), methane (CH₄) rise and ocean acidification have led to mass extinctions of species through time, humanity allows an exponential growth of carbon emissions to track toward a global suicide marked by false pretexts and betrayal by the powers that be. The evidence suggests unabated global warming will lead to 3.4 million Deaths Per Year by Century End, fatal consequences calling for a preemptive Nuremberg-like trial exposing the crimes leading to the looming climate suicide.

Note the future estimates of CO₂ levels.

[ Figure 1. Historic CO₂, by Owen Mulhern, image from Forster et al. (2017) ]

Note the sharp current and near-future temperature rise.

[ Figure 2. by Glen Fergus, from: Wikipedia - Temperature of Planet Earth ]

The rise in CO₂ in the atmosphere and oceans and the rise in ocean acidity (decline in pH).

[ Figure 3. As human activities have increased CO2 levels in our atmosphere (red line),
about a third of that CO2 has been absorbed by the ocean (green line), and
ocean pH has decreased (blue line). Adapted from NOAA by UC Museum of Paleontology. ]

According to the IPCC, as stated by the late Prof Will Steffen, Australia’s foremost climate scientist, if the exponential rise in greenhouse gas emissions continues we will already have crossed the upper limit that gives us a two-thirds chance of limiting warming to <2.0°C. Other scientists estimate that we have already missed the boat.

During the 200-plus years since the onset of the industrial revolution, the burning of fossil fuels, changing land use and deforestation increased the concentration of atmospheric CO₂. As the ocean absorbs about 30% of the CO₂ its surface acidity increased by -0.1 pH units on a logarithmic scale, resulting in rising concentration of hydrogen ions, a process with far reaching implications for the survival of marine organisms, altering ecosystems.

Ocean acidification affects marine life by dissolving shells and skeletons made from calcium carbonate. Organisms that produce calcium carbonate structures, like corals, sea urchins, sea snails and oysters, need to spend extra energy repairing damaged shells or thickening them to survive.

The onset of the Sixth mass extinction of species.

[ Figure 4. Cumulative vertebrate species recorded as extinct or extinct in the wild by the IUCN (2012). Dashed black line represents background rate. This is the ‘highly conservative estimate’. Source: Ceballos et al. (2015). ]

There have been five Mass Extinction events in the history of Earth's biodiversity, all caused by dramatic natural phenomena. The current rate of extinction is 10 to 100 times higher than in any of the previous mass extinctions in the history of Earth. Incorporating estimates of the true number of invertebrate extinctions leads to the conclusion that the rate vastly exceeds the background rate and that we may indeed be witnessing the start of the Sixth Mass Extinction Island species have suffered far greater rates than continental ones.

As systematic biologists, we encourage the nurturing of the innate human appreciation of biodiversity, but we reaffirm the message that the biodiversity that makes our world so fascinating, beautiful and functional is vanishing unnoticed at an unprecedented rate. These estimates reveal an exceptionally rapid loss of biodiversity over the last few centuries, indicating that a sixth mass extinction is already under way.

While multitudes of humanity are trying to escape climate disasters, such as Africa, or are engaged in fatal conflicts and geocidal wars, or are perched in front of electronic screens flaunting obscene hubris, cheap entertainment and commercial and political propaganda.

It is far from clear who, apart from the children, would be able to save life on Earth?

A/Prof. Andrew Y Glikson
Earth and climate scientist

Andrew Glikson

Books:

The Asteroid Impact Connection of Planetary Evolution
https://www.springer.com/gp/book/9789400763272
The Archaean: Geological and Geochemical Windows into the Early Earth
https://www.springer.com/gp/book/9783319079073
The Plutocene: Blueprints for a Post-Anthropocene Greenhouse Earth
https://www.springer.com/gp/book/9783319572369
The Event Horizon: Homo Prometheus and the Climate Catastrophe
https://www.springer.com/gp/book/9783030547332
Climate, Fire and Human Evolution: The Deep Time Dimensions of the Anthropocene
https://www.springer.com/gp/book/9783319225111
Evolution of the Atmosphere, Fire and the Anthropocene Climate Event Horizon
https://www.springer.com/gp/book/9789400773318
From Stars to Brains: Milestones in the Planetary Evolution of Life and Intelligence
https://www.springer.com/us/book/9783030106027
Asteroids Impacts, Crustal Evolution and Related Mineral Systems with Special Reference to Australia
https://www.springer.com/us/book/9783319745442
The Fatal Species: From Warlike Primates to Planetary Mass Extinction
https://www.springer.com/gp/book/9783030754679
The Trials of Gaia. Milestones in the evolution of Earth with reference to the Antropocene
https://www.amazon.com.au/Trials-Gaia-Milestones-Evolution-Anthropocene/dp/3031237080

The Orwellian rules-based Climate

By Andrew Glikson

“History is a nightmare from which I am trying to wake” (James Joyce)

Figure 1. Extinctions CC from: The five mass extinctions in Earth History. The rate of the current rise of greenhouse
gas levels and thereby temperatures is higher by more than an order of magnitude than that of previous
mass extinctions. (Figures 11.2, 11.5). Glikson. A.Y., 2023 The Trials of Gaia.

War ─ the mass sacrifice of young generations throughout history, culminating in the barbarism of empires such as the Roman “Pax Romana”, represents the repeated collapse of sanity with transient intervals such as the League of Nations between WWI and the impotent United Nations. More recent bloodsheds such as the Korean, Viet Nam, Rwandan and Middle Eastern wars, along with global heating and nuclear proliferation, herald the collapse of a species dominated by tribalism and the hubris of the 24-hour media cycle ─ A tale full of sound and fury told by an idiot signifying nothing (Macbeth, Shakespeare).

In a human civilization dominated by mega-empires, armed to the teeth with planet-killer weapons, ruled by military juntas, industrial military complexes, Earth-poisoning energy corporations, multi-billionaires and media tycoon, the concept of “democracy” provides a fig leaf covering exploitation, repression and massacres.

The potential consequences of a nuclear war appear to have escaped the mainstream media attention. There is little evidence of peace negotiations between the major adversaries and measures of averting accidental conflagrations, whether human error or the failure of a computer chip, have been minimized. Having betrayed the prospect of a peaceful future, the warring parties keep investing in $trillion-scale re-armament, covered by sophisticated terms such as self-defence, stability and the rules-based international order.

Purporting a climate catastrophe can be averted by development of alternative energy despite a rise in the production of fossil fuels, growing emission of greenhouse gases (~4 ppm/year in 2023-2024), the rise in global temperatures toward +4 degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels and the spate of extreme weather events. A nuclear armada aimed at all advanced life is expanded into space while the young generation is occupied with Tik-Tok games.

According to climate science authorities (Hansen et al., 2016) “Burning all fossil fuels would create a different planet than the one that humanity knows. The paleo-climate record and ongoing climate change make it clear that the climate system would be pushed beyond tipping points, setting in motion irreversible changes, including ice sheet disintegration with a continually adjusting shoreline, extermination of a substantial fraction of species on the planet, and increasingly devastating regional climate extremes”.

According to Baronsky et al. (2017) “Localized ecological systems are known to shift abruptly and irreversibly from one state to another when they are forced across critical thresholds. Here we review evidence the global ecosystem as a whole can react in the same way and is approaching a planetary-scale critical transition as a result of human influence.” and “Climates found at present on 10–48 % of the planet are projected to disappear within a century ... The mean global temperature by 2070, or possibly a few decades earlier, will be higher than it has been since the human species evolved”.

Nor would the oceans fare better. According to Veron (2008): “The five mass extinction events that the earth has so far experienced have impacted coral reefs as much or more than any other major ecosystem. Each has left the Earth without living reefs for at least four million years, intervals so great that they are commonly referred to as ‘reef gaps’. The prospect of ocean acidification is potentially the most serious of all predicted outcomes of anthropogenic carbon dioxide increase. This study concludes that acidification has the potential to trigger a sixth mass extinction event and to do so independently of anthropogenic extinctions that are currently taking place.

Alas, a majority of the world’s 8.1 billion humans is only partly aware of the looming demise of human civilization in the wake of its near to 10 millennia history and of the mass extinction of advanced species, allowing the “powers that be” to perpetrate the biggest crime against humanity and nature in history (Figure 2). 

Figure 2. Henry Fuseli, The Nightmare (1781), in the Institute of Fine Arts, Detroit. Source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:John_Henry_Fuseli_-_The_Nightmare.JPG

A/Prof. Andrew Y Glikson
Earth and climate scientist

Andrew Glikson

Books:

The Asteroid Impact Connection of Planetary Evolution
https://www.springer.com/gp/book/9789400763272
The Archaean: Geological and Geochemical Windows into the Early Earth
https://www.springer.com/gp/book/9783319079073
The Plutocene: Blueprints for a Post-Anthropocene Greenhouse Earth
https://www.springer.com/gp/book/9783319572369
The Event Horizon: Homo Prometheus and the Climate Catastrophe
https://www.springer.com/gp/book/9783030547332
Climate, Fire and Human Evolution: The Deep Time Dimensions of the Anthropocene
https://www.springer.com/gp/book/9783319225111
Evolution of the Atmosphere, Fire and the Anthropocene Climate Event Horizon
https://www.springer.com/gp/book/9789400773318
From Stars to Brains: Milestones in the Planetary Evolution of Life and Intelligence
https://www.springer.com/us/book/9783030106027
Asteroids Impacts, Crustal Evolution and Related Mineral Systems with Special Reference to Australia
https://www.springer.com/us/book/9783319745442
The Fatal Species: From Warlike Primates to Planetary Mass Extinction
https://www.springer.com/gp/book/9783030754679
The Trials of Gaia. Milestones in the evolution of Earth with reference to the Antropocene
https://www.amazon.com.au/Trials-Gaia-Milestones-Evolution-Anthropocene/dp/3031237080

CO2 keeps accelerating

The Scripps Institution of Oceanography, UC San Diego, reported a daily average carbon dioxide (CO₂) at Mauna Loa, Hawaii, of 428.63 parts per million (ppm) on April 26, 2024, as illustrated by the image below. 

This is the highest daily average on record at Mauna Loa, which is the more remarkable since the annual CO₂ maximum is typically reached in May, so even higher values are likely to be reached over the next few weeks. 

The image below, adapted from NOAA, shows that the weekly mean CO₂ at Mauna Loa was 427.94 ppm for the week beginning on April 21, 2024, i.e. 3.98 ppm higher than the 423.96 ppm for the week 1 year earlier.

The image below, adapted from NOAA, shows that the daily mean CO₂ at Mauna Loa on April 26, 2024, was 428.59 ppm, a difference of 4.7 ppm from April 26, 2023.

 

The image below, adapted from NOAA, shows that the annual CO₂ growth at Mauna Loa in 2023 was 3.36 ppm, the highest annual growth on record.

The image below shows the daily average carbon dioxide recorded by NOAA over the past few years at Mauna Loa, Hawaii. 

Clouds Tipping Point

The image below illustrates that a polynomial trend (red) follows the recent acceleration in CO₂ concentration in the atmosphere more than a linear trend (blue). Data used are NOAA Mauna Loa weekly average CO₂ data through the week starting on April 21, 2024 (data downloaded April 28, 2024). 

The image below is the same as the image above, except that the canvas is zoomed out to show all data on record with trends extended to 2060 (X-axis) and CO₂ concentration going from 300 ppm to 1200 ppm (Y-axis). 

The red polynomial trend also illustrates how rising CO₂ can cause the clouds tipping point at 1200 ppm to be crossed well before 2060, i.e. earlier than anticipated in IPCC models (inset).

Moreover, the clouds tipping point could be crossed much earlier than 2060 when also taking into account methane. Peak daily average methane is approaching 2000 parts per billion (ppb) at Mauna Loa, Hawaii, as illustrated by the image below.

A methane concentration of 2000 ppb corresponds, at a Global Warming Potential (GWP) of 200, with a carbon dioxide equivalent (CO₂e) of 400 ppm. Together with the above daily average CO₂ concentration of 428.63 ppm this adds up to a joint CO₂e of 828.63 ppm, i.e. only 371.37 ppm away from the clouds tipping point (at 1200 ppm CO₂e) that on its own could raise the global temperature by 8°C.

This 371.37 ppm CO₂e could be added almost immediately by a burst of seafloor methane less than the size of the methane that is currently in the atmosphere (about 5 Gt). There is plenty of potential for such an abrupt release, given the rising ocean heat and the vast amounts of methane present in vulnerable sediments at the seafloor of the Arctic Ocean, as discussed in earlier posts such as this one.

Already now, local peaks can at times reach very high levels. The image below shows that the NOAA-20 satellite recorded a peak level of 2432 ppb at 399.1 mb on April 25, 2024, am. 

The MetOp-B satellite (also known as MetOp-1) recorded a peak methane level of 3644 ppb and a mean level of 1944 ppb at 367 mb on November 21, 2021, pm, as illustrated by the image below. 

[ from earlier post ]

[ from earlier post ]

Catastrophic crack propagation is what makes a balloon pop. Could low-lying clouds similarly break up and vanish abruptly? Could peak greenhouse gas concentrations in one spot break up droplets into water vapor, thus raising CO₂e and propagating break-up of more droplets, etc., to shatter entire clouds?

Could a combination of high CO₂ levels and high peak levels of methane suffice to cause the clouds tipping point to be crossed?

Moreover, nitrous oxide is also rising and there are additional elements that could further speed up the rise in CO₂e, as discussed at the Extinction page and this earlier post that warn about the potential for a temperature rise of well over 18°C to unfold as early as 2026.

A 2018 study (by Strona & Bradshaw) indicates that most life on Earth will disappear with a 5°C rise. Humans, who depend for their survival on many other species, will likely go extinct with a 3°C rise, as illustrated by the image below, from an earlier post.

Environmental crimes

The accelerating growth in carbon dioxide indicates that politicians have failed and are failing to take adequate action. 

Current laws punish people for the most trivial things, while leaving the largest crime one can imagine unpunished: planetary omnicide!

[ from earlier post ]

The image below is from the post Planetwide Ecocide - The Crime Against Life on Earth, by Andrew Glikson

If we accept that crimes against humanity include climate crimes, then politicians who inadequately act on the unfolding climate catastrophe are committing crimes against humanity and they should be brought before the International Criminal Court in The Hague, the Netherlands.

[ image from earlier post ]

Climate Emergency Declaration

The situation is dire and the precautionary principle calls for rapid, comprehensive and effective action to reduce the damage and to improve the situation, as described in this 2022 post, where needed in combination with a Climate Emergency Declaration, as discussed at this group.

Links

• NOAA - Carbon Cycle Gases - Mauna Loa, Hawaii, United States
https://gml.noaa.gov/dv/iadv/graph.php?code=MLO&program=ccgg&type=ts

• Scripps Institution of Oceanography
https://keelingcurve.ucsd.edu

• NOAA - Weekly average CO2 at Mauna Loa 
https://gml.noaa.gov/ccgg/trends/weekly.html

• NOAA - annual mean carbon dioxide growth rates for Mauna Loa
https://gml.noaa.gov/ccgg/trends/gr.html

• NOAA - greenhouse gases at Mauna Loa 

https://gml.noaa.gov/dv/iadv/graph.php?code=MLO&program=ccgg&type=ts

• Planetwide Ecocide - The Crime Against Life on Earth, by Andrew Glikson 
https://arctic-news.blogspot.com/2021/12/planetwide-ecocide-the-crime-against-life-on-earth.html

• How long do we have?
https://arctic-news.blogspot.com/2019/04/how-long-do-we-have.html

• Arctic Ocean February 2020
https://arctic-news.blogspot.com/2020/02/arctic-ocean-february-2020.html

• Blue Ocean Event 2024?

https://arctic-news.blogspot.com/2024/02/blue-ocean-event-2024.html

• Potential temperature trends

https://arctic-news.blogspot.com/2024/01/potential-temperature-trends.html

• Co-extinctions annihilate planetary life during extreme environmental change, by Giovanni Strona and Corey Bradshaw (2018)
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-018-35068-1

• The Clouds Feedback and the Clouds Tipping Point
https://arctic-news.blogspot.com/p/clouds-feedback.html

• Feedbacks in the Arctic
https://arctic-news.blogspot.com/p/feedbacks.html

• Pre-industrial
https://arctic-news.blogspot.com/p/pre-industrial.html

• Extinction
https://arctic-news.blogspot.com/p/extinction.html

• CO2 rise is accelerating

https://arctic-news.blogspot.com/2024/03/co2-rise-is-accelerating.html

• When Will We Die?
https://arctic-news.blogspot.com/2019/06/when-will-we-die.html

• Transforming Society

https://arctic-news.blogspot.com/2022/10/transforming-society.html

• Climate Plan
https://arctic-news.blogspot.com/p/climateplan.html

• Climate Emergency Declaration
https://arctic-news.blogspot.com/p/climate-emergency-declaration.html