What could be behind these persistently high temperatures? Many causes such as El Niño and sunspots have been discussed in earlier posts. How much do emissions contribute to these high temperatures?
Have feedbacks taken over as the dominant driver of the temperature rise? The image below shows NOAA March 2009 through May 2024 monthly CO₂ concentration at Mauna Loa (black) with a trend (magenta) added for a joint 30-year coverage. The trend shows how CO₂ could cross the clouds tipping point at 1200 ppm (parts per million) in 2038, which in itself would push up temperatures by a further 8°C.
What could cause such a steep rise? Many studies point at organic carbon and inorganic carbon releases from soils that could further raise both CO₂ concentrations and temperatures. A recent study by Weiskopf (2024) finds that biodiversity declines from climate and land use change could lead to a global loss of up to 103.14 GtC for a global sustainability scenario and up to 145.95 GtC for a fossil-fueled development scenario, indicating a self-reinforcing feedback loop where higher levels of climate change lead to greater biodiversity loss, in turn leading to greater carbon emissions.
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 and at the threat page.
There are many further developments and feedbacks that should be taken into account. Furthermore, note that anomalies in the image at the top are calculated from a 1991-2000 base. The temperature rise and the resulting feedbacks are even larger when anomalies are calculated from a pre-industrial base.
[ from earlier post ] |
[ from Moistening Atmosphere ] |
Surface precipitable water reached a record high of 27.139 kg/m² in July 2023, as illustrated by the image below, adapted from NOAA.
[ from earlier post ] |
As said, more water in the atmosphere further accelerates the temperature rise. Furthermore, high relative humidity also makes high temperatures more unbearable. The human body can cool itself by sweating, which has a physiological limit that was long described as a 35°C wet-bulb temperature, i.e. once the wet-bulb temperature reaches 35°C, one can no longer lose heat by perspiration, even in strong wind, but instead one will start gaining heat from the air beyond a wet-bulb temperature of 35°C.
[ click on images to enlarge ] |
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
• United Nations - Adoption of the Paris Agreement (2015)
• NOAA - Global Monitoring Laboratory - Carbon Cycle Gases, Mauna Loa, Hawaii, U.S.
https://gml.noaa.gov/dv/iadv/graph.php?code=MLO&program=ccgg&type=ts
• NASA - datasets and images
https://data.giss.nasa.gov
• Climate Reanalyzer
https://climatereanalyzer.org
• Pre-industrial
https://arctic-news.blogspot.com/p/pre-industrial.html
• Extinction
https://arctic-news.blogspot.com/p/extinction.html
• Copernicus - Climate Pulse
https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/ad2c23
discussed on facebook at
https://www.facebook.com/groups/arcticnews/posts/10161298567849679
• Size, distribution, and vulnerability of the global soil inorganic carbon - by Yuanyuan Huang et al. https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.adi7918
discussed at facebook at
https://www.facebook.com/groups/arcticnews/posts/10161354439024679
• Biodiversity loss reduces global terrestrial carbon storage - by Sarah Weiskopf et al. (2024) https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-024-47872-7
https://www.facebook.com/groups/arcticnews/posts/10161454674974679
• Very high temperatures in Tropics
https://arctic-news.blogshttps://arctic-news.blogspot.com/2023/07/wet-bulb-globe-temperature-tipping-point.htmlpot.com/2024/05/very-high-temperatures-in-tropics.html
• Extreme heat stress
https://arctic-news.blogspot.com/2023/06/extreme-heat-stress.html
• Wet Bulb Globe Temperature Tipping Point
• Evaluating the 35°C wet-bulb temperature adaptability threshold for young, healthy subjects (PSU
HEAT Project) - by Daniel Vecellio et al. (2022)
https://journals.physiology.org/doi/full/10.1152/japplphysiol.00738.2021
Discussed at facebook at:
• Temperature rise may soon accelerate even more
https://arctic-news.blogspot.com/2024/05/temperature-rise-may-soon-accelerate-even-more.html
• nullschool
• Convert the temperature between Celsius and Fahrenheit
• Feebacks in the Arctic
https://arctic-news.blogspot.com/p/feedbacks.html
• Jet Stream
https://arctic-news.blogspot.com/p/jet-stream.html
• Cold freshwater lid on North Atlantic
https://arctic-news.blogspot.com/p/cold-freshwater-lid-on-north-atlantic.html
• Arctic Ocean Feedbacks
https://arctic-news.blogspot.com/2017/01/arctic-ocean-feedbacks.html
• Arctic sea ice set for steep decline
https://arctic-news.blogspot.com/2024/03/arctic-sea-ice-set-for-steep-decline.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