Monday, February 7, 2022

Wake

by Malcolm Light

~ Wake represents the last chance for humanity to “Wake Up” to the extreme global extinction nightmare facing us; a Wake is also a Celtic “Death Watch” on our Planet Earth’s near term demise. ~


Above image shows the exponential increase of the Mean Global Atmospheric Temperature Anomaly in Degrees Celsius (Light 2021, Carana 2022, 2021; Carter, 2022) and the relative increase in Volume of Heat Transport and Temperature of the Gulf Stream–Svalbard Current into the Arctic Ocean (Smedsrud et al., 2021; Carter 2022). 

[ from earlier post ]
The Volume of Gulf Stream Heat Transport has increased by 30% in the last 100 years (Smedsrud et al., 2021) and is estimated to be some 33.6% larger by 2030.

The Gulf Stream Temperature–Heat Transport Volume Trend intersects the Mean Global Atmospheric Temperature Anomaly Trend at 2030 with an equal and combined Arctic Atmospheric and Ocean Temperature of 11.7°C.

By this time the sub-sea Arctic shelf edge methane hydrates will be exponentially destabilizing, releasing vast volumes of methane gas into the Arctic Ocean, and this will convert the sea into a ‘Methane Bubble Foam’, vastly increasing the rate of evaporation of Arctic Ocean water.

By the Northern Summer of 2035, the Arctic Ocean and Mean Global Atmospheric Temperature Anomaly will together have reached 107.5°C and will pass 117.4°C by the Northern Summer of 2036.

After 2035, the loss of the Planet's ocean water will occur at an exponential rate, as the Ocean and Mean Global Atmospheric Temperature Anomalies rise in unison and convert Earth into a high temperature, uninhabitable planet like Venus.

[ from earlier post ]

It is completely self-evident that if the Gulf Stream heat transport to the Arctic Ocean is not immediately stopped, it will cause a Catastrophic Arctic Atmospheric Global Extinction event starting in 2 to 5 years culminating around 2030 (8 Years hence) (Light 2021; Carana 2022, 2021; Carter 2022).

[ Created by Sam Carana with nullschool.net ]
Because of the very short time now left to the start of the Catastrophic Global Extinction Event, the Gulf Stream heat transport to the Arctic Ocean must be stopped.

The animation on the right shows that, on February 2, 2022, sea surface temperatures off the coast of North America were as much as 11.2°C higher than 1981-2011 (at green circle).

Present data indicates that the Mean Global Atmospheric Temperature Anomaly will have reached 5°C in the Summer of 2024 when massive Global extinction will begin in earnest. Therefore the latest date for effective action is the summer of 2023.


References

• Terrifying Arctic Methane Levels - by Sam Carana (2022)
https://arctic-news.blogspot.com/2021/12/terrifying-arctic-methane-levels.html

• Terrifying Arctic greenhouse gas levels continue - by Sam Carana (2022)
https://arctic-news.blogspot.com/2022/01/terrifying-arctic-greenhouse-gas-levels-continue.html

• Will COP26 in Glasgow deliver? - by Sam Carana (2021)

• Climate change: Satellites map huge methane plumes from oil and gas (BBC, 2022)

• Global assessment of oil and gas methane ultra-emitters - by Thomas Lauvaux et al. (2022)

• Nordic Seas Heat Loss, Atlantic Inflow, and Arctic Sea Ice Cover Over the Last Century - by Lars Smedsrud et al. (2021)
https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2020RG000725

• The Gulf Stream has increased steadily over the last century - by University of Bergen (News Release associated with above study, 2022)
https://www.uib.no/en/climateenergy/150992/gulf-stream-has-increased-steadily-over-last-century

• Carter, Peter; 2022.
The 2021 Temperature Increase (1.1°C to 1.2°C) makes the Past Seven Years the Warmest on Record. Note Rapid Surface Heating of North America from Copernicus.

• Carter, Peter; 11 January 2022.
Arctic Sea Surface Temperature is Increasing at a Rate Far Above the Very Worst Case. 

• Carter, Peter; 5 January 2022. 
Through 2021 Global Warming Atmospheric Greenhouse Gases have the Planet Headed to Catastrophic Heating. 

• Hampton, Steve 2021. 
Modern climate change is 10x faster than historic global warming mass extinction events

• Light M.P.R., 2021. 
Planetary Extinction due to Arctic Atmospheric Methane Veil

• Light M.P.R., 2015. 
Planetary Genocide - Ecocide between 2023 and 2031
https://arctic-news.blogspot.com/2015/01/planetary-genocide-ecocide-between-2023-and-2031.html

• Light M.P.R., Hensel H. and Carana S., 2014. 
Arctic Atmospheric Methane Global Warming Veil

• Light M.P.R., 2013. 
Act now on methane (extract)
Act now on methane (full version)
https://sites.google.com/site/runawayglobalwarming/the-non-disclosed-extreme-arctic-methane-threat

• Light M.P.R., 2012. 
Global extinction within one human lifetime as a result of a spreading atmospheric methane heatwave and surface firestorm 
https://arctic-news.blogspot.com/p/global-extinction-within-one-human.html

• Light M.P.R., 2012. Edited by Sam Carana. 
How much time is there left to act, before methane hydrate releases will lead to human extinction?

• Light M.P.R., 2011. Edited by Sam Carana. 
Use of beamed interfering radio frequency transmissions to decompose Arctic atmospheric methane clouds. 

• Light M.P.R., 2011. 
Stratospheric methane global warming veil

• Light M.P.R. and Solana C., 2002. 
Arctic Methane Hydrates: A Potential Greenhouse Gas Hazard

• Light M.P.R. and Solana C., 2002. 
Arctic methane hydrates - Mapping a potential greenhouse gas hazard. Abstract and Poster, EGS, Nice. In: Light, M.P.R. and Carana, S., 2011. Methane linked to Seismic Activity in the Arctic

• Light M.P.R. and Posey, H.H., 1992. 
Chapter 10 Diagenesis and its Relation to Mineralization and Hydrocarbon Reservoir Development: Gulf Coast and North sea Basins

• Light M.P.R., Posey, H.H., Kyle, J.R., and Price P.E., 1987. 
Integrated hydrothermal model for the Texas Gulf Coast Basin; origins of geopressured brines and lead-zinc, uranium, hydrocarbon, and cap rock deposits

• Light M.P.R., Posey, H.H., Kyle, J.R., and Price P.E., 1987. 
Model for the origins of geopressured brines, hydrocarbons, cap rocks and metallic mineral deposits: Gulf Coast, U.S.A.. In: Lerch, Ian, and O'Brien, J.J., Dynamical geology of salt and related structures: Orlando, Florida, Academic Press, pp. 787-830

• Light M.P.R., 1985. 
Structure, facies, continuity and internal properties of the Frio "A" sandstone, N.E. Hitchcock Field, Galveston County, Texas. In: Dorfman, M.H. and Morton, R.A. eds., Geopressured-Geothermal Energy, Proceedings of the Sixth U.S. Gulf Coast Geopressured-Geothermal Energy Conference: Pergamon, p. 229 - 238.






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Saturday, February 5, 2022

When will humans go extinct?

In a recent paper, Guy McPherson, Beril Sirmacek and Ricardo Vinuesa discuss Environmental thresholds for mass-extinction events. Authors point at an image by Song et al. (2021) that shows how major mass extinctions over the past 541 million years (the Phanerozoic) are linked to temperature rises higher than 5.2°C and rates of change higher than 10°C/Myr.



Earlier, a 2018 study by Strona & Bradshaw found that at 5°C rise, most life on Earth will be extinct (see box below on the right, from an earlier post).
 
In the video below, authors Guy McPherson, Beril Sirmacek and Ricardo Vinuesa discuss their analysis 'Environmental thresholds for mass extinction events'.

Authors point out that, next to temperature rise and rates of change, there are further variables such as rates of deforestation, ocean acidification and spreading of toxic substances that can additionally contribute to cause species to disappear.

Accordingly,  many species are likely to go extinct at rises much lower than 5°C. 

Humans - who depend on many species - could go extinct with a 3°C rise, as the above-mentioned earlier post concluded.

This makes it even more critical to assess how much the temperature has already risen from pre-industrial. 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.




Below, the video associated with the analysis Environmental thresholds for mass-extinction events.



The situation is dire and calls for comprehensive and effective action, as described in the Climate Plan.


Links

• Environmental thresholds for mass-extinction events - by Guy McPherson, Beril Sirmacek and Ricardo Vinuesa (2022)
https://arxiv.org/abs/2108.08933

• Thresholds of temperature change for mass extinctions - by Haijun Song et al. (2021)
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-021-25019-2

• Co-extinctions annihilate planetary life during extreme environmental change - by Giovanni Strona and Corey Bradshaw (2018)
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6233172

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

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

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


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Wednesday, January 19, 2022

The climatic effects of a nuclear winter on a warming Earth

 by Andrew Glikson

Figure 1. “The Nuclear Winter” by Carl Sagan

The Cretaceous-Paleocene boundary (~66 million years-ago) asteroid impact, described in 1980 by Alvarez et al., caused enough dust and debris to cloud large parts of planet and result in the mass extinction of some 80% of all species of animals.

When Turco et al. (1983) and Carl Sagan (1983) warned the world about the climatic effects of a nuclear war, they pointed out that the amount of carbon stored in a large city was sufficient to release enough aerosols (smoke, soot and dust) to block sunlight over large regions, leading to a widespread failure of crops and thereby extensive starvation.

Current nuclear arsenals by the United States and Russia could inject 150 Teragram (Tg) (10⁹ kilogram) of soot from fires ignited by nuclear explosions into the upper troposphere and lower stratosphere (Coupe et al., 2019), lasting for a period of 10 years or longer, followed by a period of intense radioactive radiation over large areas. Even a “limited” nuclear war, such as between India and Pakistan, would release enough aerosols to affect large regions, killing millions or billions through starvation. As stated by Robock et al., 2007): “The casualties from the direct effects of blast, radioactivity, and fires resulting from the massive use of nuclear weapons by the superpowers would be so catastrophic … the ensuing nuclear winter would produce famine for billions of people far from the target zones”.

By 2021, with a global arsenal of ~13.000 nuclear warheads, 90 percent of which held by Russia and the US, regional conflicts such as in the Ukraine and Taiwan threaten to spill world-wide. As the clock of the atomic scientists is set at 100 seconds to doomsday, the rising probability of an intended or inadvertent nuclear war, in the background of rising global warming, indicate an hour of truth for the species―a choice between the defence of life on Earth and global suicide.

While the inhabitants of the planet are preoccupied with the 24 hours news cycle, media hype, superlatives, a deadly Virus, economic issues and sport games, the hair-trigger nuclear gun loaded by the powers to be, east and west, are threatening all life on Earth.

Figure 2. Robock et al. (2007): Global average surface air temperature change from the 5 Tg standard case (red) in the context of climate change over 125 years climate change (125 years NASA data). From Robock et al. (2007).

A release of 5Tg (Tera-gram) of black carbon is modelled to lower the average global temperature by about 1.5°C (Robock et al. 2007), although over the continents cooling is likely to be more abrupt. 

Figure 3. Robock et al. (2007): Time variation of global average net surface shortwave radiation, surface air temperature, and precipitation changes for the 5 Tg standard case. The global average precipitation in the control case is 3.0 mm/day, so the changes in years 2-4 represent a 9% global average reduction in precipitation. The precipitation recovers faster than the temperature, but both lag the forcing. For comparison the global average net surface shortwave forcing from a model simulation of the 1991 Mt. Pinatubo eruption (Oman et al., 2005) is shown.

Inherent in nuclear war strategy is a “use them or lose them” approach, namely hitting the enemy’s air and missile launch pads before missiles can be launched, which amounts to a virtual guarantee many or most nuclear war heads are potentially used. With the estimated size of the global nuclear warheads inventory of many tens of thousands warheads (Figure 4) this guarantees a global catastrophe.


Such an extreme event would arrest global warming for a period of about 10 years or longer (Figures 2 and 3), possibly in part analogous to the consequences of a less abrupt flow of polar ice melt into the oceans, as modelled by Bronselaer et al. (2018) (Figure 5).
Figure 5. Model 2080–2100 meltwater-induced sea-air temperature anomalies relative to the standard RCP8.5 ensemble (Bronselaer et al., 2018), indicating marked cooling of parts of the southern oceans. Hatching indicates where the anomalies are not significant at the 95% level.

When Sagan and colleagues published their observations of a nuclear winter scenario as a warning to humanity, Sagan was painted as an “alarmist” by many, facing extensive criticism not just from pro-nuclear conservatives but also from scientists who resented him for leveraging his personal fame for advocating what some regarded as political views. A similar situation occurs nowadays with regard to the accelerating global warming and the nuclear threat, as confirmed by the warning by the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists.

From the January 20, 2022 Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists news release:
While the past year offered glimmers of hope that humankind might reverse its march toward global catastrophe, the Doomsday Clock was set at just 100 seconds to midnight. The time is based on continuing and dangerous threats posed by nuclear weapons, climate change, disruptive technologies, and COVID-19. All of these factors were exacerbated by “a corrupted information ecosphere that undermines rational decision making.” The Doomsday Clock statement explains that the “decision does not, by any means, suggest that the international security situation has stabilized. On the contrary, the Clock remains the closest it has ever been to civilization-ending apocalypse because the world remains stuck in an extremely dangerous moment.”




Time is running out.

Andrew Glikson
A/Prof. Andrew Glikson

Earth and Paleo-climate scientist
School of Biological, Earth and Environmental Sciences
The University of New South Wales,
Kensington NSW 2052 Australia

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
Climate, Fire and Human Evolution: The Deep Time Dimensions of the Anthropocene
https://www.springer.com/gp/book/9783319225111
The Plutocene: Blueprints for a Post-Anthropocene Greenhouse Earth
https://www.springer.com/gp/book/9783319572369
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 Event Horizon: Homo Prometheus and the Climate Catastrophe
https://www.springer.com/gp/book/9783030547332
The Fatal Species: From Warlike Primates to Planetary Mass Extinction
https://www.springer.com/gp/book/9783030754679





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Tuesday, January 11, 2022

Accelerating global warming and amplifying feedbacks: The imperative of CO₂ drawdown

by Andrew Glikson

Satellite measurements indicate that 2021 was one of the warmest years on record, with the past seven years being the hottest period recorded globally (Met Office, January 10, 2022). Attempts at global emission reductions, lowered in part due to COVID-19 economic slow-down, appear to have little effect on atmospheric CO₂ rise, as indicated by the current rise of atmospheric carbon dioxide to record high levels of 420 ppm despite reduced emissions in 2020-2021 (Figures 1 and 2).

Figure 1. A. Mean global CO₂ levels from 800,000 years to the present (NASA).
        B. Mean global temperature rise from 1850 to 2021 (Berkeley Earth).

As stated by CarbonBrief: “The year so far has been one of extremes, featuring record-shattering heatwaves, wildfires and flooding, as well as the warmest-ever northern-hemisphere summer – June, July and August – in the global land-surface record.”

Whereas climate negotiations mostly focus on possible reductions in emissions, the cumulative buildup of greenhouse gases is determining the future of the terrestrial climate. According to NASA “Once it’s (CO₂) added to the atmosphere, it hangs around, for a long time: between 300 to 1,000 years".

Other estimates are much longer. Because of the longevity of CO₂ and other greenhouses gases in the atmosphere, a decrease in carbon emissions, while essential, is not sufficient to reduce CO₂ levels in the atmosphere in time.

According to the IPCC “about 50% of a CO₂ increase will be removed from the atmosphere within 30 years, and a further 30% will be removed within a few centuries. The remaining 20% may stay in the atmosphere for many thousands of years”. According to the US EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) “Atmospheric lifetime: 50-200 years. No single lifetime can be defined for CO₂ because of the different rates of uptake by different removal processes”.

According to Solomon et al. (2009) and Eby et al. (2009) high levels of CO₂ on the scale of 10² to 10³ ppm would persist for millennia.

Global emission reductions, decreased in part due to COVID-19 economic slow-down, have little effect on the atmospheric CO₂ level, as indicated by the current trend of atmospheric carbon dioxide, at record high levels despite reduced emissions in 2020 (Figure 2). This suggests to a significant extent the current rise in atmospheric CO₂ arises from amplifying feedbacks from land and ocean.

Figure 2. A. Observed and forecast monthly and annual CO2 concentrations at Mauna Loa.
Observations from the Scripps CO2 program, forecasts from Met Office. Credit: Met Office.
B. Measured and forecast monthly CO2 concentrations at Mauna Loa Observatory, Hawaii.
Black line: measurements by the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, UC San Diego. Solid red line
with vertical uncertainty bars: forecast by the Met Office, including the revised forecast for 2020
issued in May 2020 accounting for reduced global emissions due to societal responses to Covid-19.
The forecast uncertainty estimate is ± 0.6 ppm. Dotted red line: original Met Office forecast for
2020 issued in January 2020, not accounting for Covid-related emissions reductions.
Horizontal dashed blue line: 417 ppm, a 50% increase above 278 ppm, the level in 1750-1800
from ice core records.

All taking place notwithstanding hollow promises made at COP26, a meeting noted for the near-absence of contributions by climate scientists.

In trying to avoid an exponential rise in greenhouse gases toward catastrophic levels, one option exists, namely urgent attempts at drawing down at least part of the CO₂ concentration of the atmosphere. The $trillions of dollars required, constituting the “Price of the Earth”, may not exceed the $trillion dollars military expenses spent by the world over the last 70 years, including nuclear missile fleets which constitute a separate threat for life on Earth, as warned by Albert Einstein: “The unleashed power of the atom has changed everything save our modes of thinking and we thus drift toward unparalleled catastrophe”.


Andrew Glikson
A/Prof. Andrew Glikson

Earth and Paleo-climate scientist
School of Biological, Earth and Environmental Sciences
The University of New South Wales,
Kensington NSW 2052 Australia

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
Climate, Fire and Human Evolution: The Deep Time Dimensions of the Anthropocene
https://www.springer.com/gp/book/9783319225111
The Plutocene: Blueprints for a Post-Anthropocene Greenhouse Earth
https://www.springer.com/gp/book/9783319572369
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 Event Horizon: Homo Prometheus and the Climate Catastrophe
https://www.springer.com/gp/book/9783030547332
The Fatal Species: From Warlike Primates to Planetary Mass Extinction
https://www.springer.com/gp/book/9783030754679

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