- cross-posted to:
- collapse@lemm.ee
- cross-posted to:
- collapse@lemm.ee
I don’t know how realistic his time predictions are, given how few years he’s extrapolating from, but his overall concern seems very realistic to me. Especially with the earth dimming over the last decade.
Record global temperature in 2023 helps reveal acceleration of global warming on decadal time scales. The proximate cause of the acceleration is increase of Earth’s energy imbalance, specifically a substantial darkening of the planet (decreased albedo) equivalent to a CO2 increase of more than 100 ppm -The paper where James Hansen says that
This fact alone is terrifying to me. I don’t know if there is a reason to think it will slow. La Nina is weak, and not lowering temperatures.
“astonishing and frankly terrifying” that January remained at record highs despite a La Niña emerging.
This is what makes it a bit of a surprise: you’re not seeing this cooling effect, or temporary brake at least, on the global temperature that we were expecting to see.
The brakes are burning out. A massive change is happening. I really believe the earth is dying. I have been crying off and on since seeing this analysis. If the next decade really is as bad as the last five years have been, a lot of people will die. Even if it takes twice as long, three times, it will still happen. In front of me. I will watch everything be destroyed. This is the peak of human civilization. So, so many people are going to die.
I know it’s weird of me to be anti-doomer about this stuff, but this is dumb. It’s not like Earth system models don’t account for non-CO2 GHGs and albedo; if they were looking solely at CO2-related radiative forcing, they’d be even more off base. In the past when CO2 levels were higher, methane was also higher and albedo was probably lower, so saying that we’re actually looking at a situation analogous to a world where CO2 is at 624 ppm is double-dipping. Extrapolating from a single year of difference, even if it was one where the models substantially underestimated the degree of warming is also a little premature. It’s a sign that the models need to be revised, but assuming we’re just going to keep going at this rate is probably not a good idea.
That said, at this point I think we’re just debating over which generation is going to end up holding the hot potato, not whether there will be someone to pull it out of the oven. This article was written almost three years ago and goes into a lot of the same scenarios. We’ve got several Damoclean swords hanging over us, including the AMOC and the stratospheric cloud deck and the seabed methane clathrates and so on. Even if the rate of warming returns to its pre-2020’s levels, it’s still faster than any time since the Siberian traps and that was not an awesome time for complex life.