Scientists Sound the Alarm: CO2 Levels

[Hellravager]

What do you think of this?
http://www.ecowatch.com/noaa-carbon-...321635970.html

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) reported that carbon dioxide levels in 2016 broke records for the second year in a row with an increase of 3 parts per million (ppm).

This graph shows the annual mean carbon dioxide growth rates observed at NOAA's Mauna Loa Baseline Atmospheric Observatory. Further information can be found on the ESRL Global Monitoring Division website.
NOAA

The measurements are coming from the Mauna Loa Baseline Atmospheric Observatory in Hawaii and were confirmed by NOAA's Earth System Research Laboratory in Boulder, Colorado. The numbers show that the rate of CO2 in the atmosphere is now at 405.1 ppm, the highest it has been in more than 10,000 years. Pieter Tans, lead scientist of NOAA's Global Greenhouse Gas Reference Network, said the findings are accurate and disturbing.

"The rate of CO2 growth over the last decade is 100 to 200 times faster than what the Earth experienced during the transition from the last Ice Age," Tans said in a press release. "This is a real shock to the atmosphere."

A shock, indeed. An atmosphere of 400 ppm is dubbed the "carbon threshold," a point of no return. To sum it up, levels this high throw the whole balance of the climate cycle into chaos, making it more difficult to predict climate changes and causing sea level rise, severe tropical storms, drought and flooding.

Emissions from fossil-fuel consumption have remained at historically high levels since 2011, and according to Tans, these emissions are contributing to the dramatic spike in atmospheric CO2 levels, which, up until the industrial revolution in 1760, averaged about 280 ppm.

Even if humans were to stop burning fossil fuels today, the carbon will continue to be trapped for at least the next few decades. Back in October 2016, when levels finally reached the 400 ppm threshold, Tans said, "It's unlikely we'll ever see CO2 below 400 ppm during our lifetime and probably much longer."

[Underverse]

I'm sure it will be fine, because opinions and coal jobs.

[Daelak]

I'm sure it will be fine, because opinions and coal jobs.

Hahaha yes! Nothing spells leader of the free world by investing and being bought by the fossil fuel industry!

[Mafic]

At least the next ice age will come quicker. I want to see some baby woolly mammoths...aaaaaaaaaaw.

[Endus]

I think "sound the alarm" is really an improper way to phrase this.

They were sounding the alarm on this issue 50 years ago. We passed the point of being able to prevent anthropogenic climate change more than a decade back. We've already pushed enough CO2 into the atmosphere that if we cut our emissions to zero, tonight, the warming trend is still going to continue for centuries before the CO2 can be naturally sunk out of the atmosphere. That's the reality of the "400ppm" figure; that's the point where we're darn certain that the atmospheric conditions have changed enough that human emissions are no longer necessary to push the warming. Additional emissions will further exacerbate that warming, but we're already past that tipping point, largely because world governments (ALL world governments, this isn't targeted at anyone) heard the alarm bells the scientists have been ringing, and said, overwhelmingly, "meh". Things like the UNFCCC and the Kyoto Accord were small cautious steps towards doing something, when big leaps were required if it was going to have any long-term effect; just far too little, too late.

Don't take this as "doomsaying", either. We're not doomed. We just need to recognize that we've already fucked the global climate balance up, and get ready to adapt to the consequences, proactively rather than reactively. Which is totally doable. I'm just pointing out that the warnings have been clear for better than 30 years, and we've let it happen regardless. So rather than cry over the milk we've sat watching slowly pour all over the floor rather than picking up the jug and stopping it, let's pick up a mop and deal with it.

[Nadiru]

Don't take this as "doomsaying", either. We're not doomed. We just need to recognize that we've already fucked the global climate balance up, and get ready to adapt to the consequences, proactively rather than reactively. Which is totally doable. I'm just pointing out that the warnings have been clear for better than 30 years, and we've let it happen regardless. So rather than cry over the milk we've sat watching slowly pour all over the floor rather than picking up the jug and stopping it, let's pick up a mop and deal with it.

So, really what we ought to ask is: what are the net negatives and benefits of +1-3 C on average?

[Deleted]

it will take many years until it affects us , so we shouldnt bother . next genaration should take care of thereselfs

[Deleted]

it will take many years until it affects us , so we shouldnt bother . next genaration should take care of thereselfs

After the previous one fucked it up? That´s a great attitude

[Deleted]

After the previous one fucked it up? That´s a great attitude

the chinnes , muslims and indians that will take over the earth wont be able to run a factory. The world will be safe

Infracted

[Eazy]

I hate it when people write "Scientists" - like every smart people in the world is scientist or every people with degree are actually agreeing with it.

[Endus]

So, really what we ought to ask is: what are the net negatives and benefits of +1-3 C on average?

More negatives than benefits. In the long-long-term (like, 500 years), everything will reach a new balance point, and it won't really matter, but that intervening period is challenging, because of the instability. Rising ocean levels mean that coastal cities and settlements will see steadily increasing impacts on their infrastructure; it will become a matter of "when" we abandon stuff, not "if". Particularly since most protection measures, like seawalls, always have a potential to fail; we saw what that looked like in New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina. Places like the Netherlands are designed around knowing this, so it's not quite the same as trying to protect a city that wasn't so built.

Beyond the obvious issues of sea level rise, you've got issues like changes in storm patterns, which put previously-protected communities at risk (tornadoes and hurricanes and such, particularly). You've got deeper weather pattern shifts, especially if they affect rainfall; a previously-fertile area suddenly becoming more arid as rain stops falling as often means that you either need to source water for the agriculture, or watch it dry up. And new rains falling in previously-arid areas are just as much a risk; they lack the soils to absorb it, meaning that erosion rates are higher, and there's little chance of using them as farmland, not without giving them centuries to slowly adapt to the new conditions and build up that soil base. Increased global temperatures adjust the ranges for various species, and if they can't propagate quickly enough to those new ranges, they could die out; this is particularly an issue with corals, which require very narrow ranges, and are slow to propagate/rebuild.

Defrosting permafrost has a potential for long-term growth in the North, but in the short term, it A> releases a TON of locked-in methane and CO2, exacerbating warming, and 2> threatens Northern communities which often are connected to by roads built on that permafrost; when it stops being permafrost, those "roads" become, basically, muddy bogs that are next to impassable. Same for houses built on that permafrost; the solid base is suddenly mud.

It's the instability and the rapidity of change that are the risk, not the new balance point, in short.

[Nadiru]

More negatives than benefits. In the long-long-term (like, 500 years), everything will reach a new balance point, and it won't really matter, but that intervening period is challenging, because of the instability. Rising ocean levels mean that coastal cities and settlements will see steadily increasing impacts on their infrastructure; it will become a matter of "when" we abandon stuff, not "if". Particularly since most protection measures, like seawalls, always have a potential to fail; we saw what that looked like in New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina. Places like the Netherlands are designed around knowing this, so it's not quite the same as trying to protect a city that wasn't so built.

Beyond the obvious issues of sea level rise, you've got issues like changes in storm patterns, which put previously-protected communities at risk (tornadoes and hurricanes and such, particularly). You've got deeper weather pattern shifts, especially if they affect rainfall; a previously-fertile area suddenly becoming more arid as rain stops falling as often means that you either need to source water for the agriculture, or watch it dry up. And new rains falling in previously-arid areas are just as much a risk; they lack the soils to absorb it, meaning that erosion rates are higher, and there's little chance of using them as farmland, not without giving them centuries to slowly adapt to the new conditions and build up that soil base. Increased global temperatures adjust the ranges for various species, and if they can't propagate quickly enough to those new ranges, they could die out; this is particularly an issue with corals, which require very narrow ranges, and are slow to propagate/rebuild.

It's the instability and the rapidity of change that are the risk, not the new balance point, in short.

You can fast track some of these adaptations, though. Soils can be augmented and given some additives to improve water retention, plants can be set down to decrease rates of erosion, things like that. It's already demonstrated that old growth forests can have their development jumpstarted, too. That might be a useful way to mitigate atmospheric CO2 in the present.

[Endus]

You can fast track some of these adaptations, though. Soils can be augmented and given some additives to improve water retention, plants can be set down to decrease rates of erosion, things like that. It's already demonstrated that old growth forests can have their development jumpstarted, too. That might be a useful way to mitigate atmospheric CO2 in the present.

To reiterate something I said in my first post, none of these things are stuff we can't deal with. But we need to be proactive in doing so, and it's not gonna be free. We absolutely CAN adapt to this; my current career is rooted in adaptation policy, I've been working in this field off and on for the better part of a decade now, and my MA thesis is on this stuff. I'm just taking a stand against the people who jam their fingers in their stupid ears and refuse to pay attention to what's going on.

[Nadiru]

To reiterate something I said in my first post, none of these things are stuff we can't deal with. But we need to be proactive in doing so, and it's not gonna be free. We absolutely CAN adapt to this; my current career is rooted in adaptation policy, I've been working in this field off and on for the better part of a decade now, and my MA thesis is on this stuff. I'm just taking a stand against the people who jam their fingers in their stupid ears and refuse to pay attention to what's going on.

That's reasonable, I'm just coming at it from a different angle: the people who refuse to do anything because they believe the problem is unsolvable or that we just don't know how to do it.

[unbound]

More negatives than benefits. In the long-long-term (like, 500 years), everything will reach a new balance point, and it won't really matter, but that intervening period is challenging, because of the instability. Rising ocean levels mean that coastal cities and settlements will see steadily increasing impacts on their infrastructure; it will become a matter of "when" we abandon stuff, not "if". Particularly since most protection measures, like seawalls, always have a potential to fail; we saw what that looked like in New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina. Places like the Netherlands are designed around knowing this, so it's not quite the same as trying to protect a city that wasn't so built.

Beyond the obvious issues of sea level rise, you've got issues like changes in storm patterns, which put previously-protected communities at risk (tornadoes and hurricanes and such, particularly). You've got deeper weather pattern shifts, especially if they affect rainfall; a previously-fertile area suddenly becoming more arid as rain stops falling as often means that you either need to source water for the agriculture, or watch it dry up. And new rains falling in previously-arid areas are just as much a risk; they lack the soils to absorb it, meaning that erosion rates are higher, and there's little chance of using them as farmland, not without giving them centuries to slowly adapt to the new conditions and build up that soil base. Increased global temperatures adjust the ranges for various species, and if they can't propagate quickly enough to those new ranges, they could die out; this is particularly an issue with corals, which require very narrow ranges, and are slow to propagate/rebuild.

It's the instability and the rapidity of change that are the risk, not the new balance point, in short.

To support Endus' point, here is a worthwhile article to read regarding the infrastructure they are having to build to reduce the impact of the rising oceans...already.

http://www.miamiherald.com/news/loca...e41141856.html

The design — featuring a street and sidewalk perched on an upper tier, 2 ½ feet above the front doors of roadside businesses, and backed by a hulking nearby pump house — represents what one city engineer called "the street of tomorrow."

This foundation for Miami Beach’s future is actually a complicated and expensive experiment: As much as $500 million to install 80 pumps and raise roads and seawalls across the city. A first phase appears to be working, at least for now. But just one year into a massive public works project that could take six more, it’s way too soon to say whether and for how long it can keep the staggeringly valuable real estate of an international tourist mecca dry — especially in the face of sea level rise projections that seem to only get scarier with every new analysis.

"We don’t have a playbook for this," said Betsy Wheaton, assistant building director for environment and sustainability in Miami Beach.

But in many ways, Miami Beach is writing just that — the first engineering manual for adapting South Florida’s urban landscape to rising seas. The entire southern tip of the peninsula tops climate change risk lists but Beach leaders have acted with the most urgency, waiving competitive bidding and approving contracts on an emergency basis to fast-track the work. Tidal flooding lapping at posh shops and the yards of pricey homes makes a persuasive argument that climate change isn’t only real, but a clear and present threat.

Furthermore, the environment impacts can already be felt. Planting zones have shifted north with animals moving to locations they've never been seen before. Those animals unable to move to a new environment are dying off...which will drastically impact the way we do things.

Just think about the impact of bees as a single example. Farmers rely on them heavily for cross pollination. The declining bee population is already a major concern to them, and a sudden loss will result in major losses of food...or an expensive shift to other methods to produce the same results.

And this has been impacting human populations too. Some reasons for the heavy fighting in Africa is because previously stable water supplies are now gone or just a fraction of what was there before. https://qz.com/795692/climate-change...war-in-africa/

United Nations secretary general Ban Ki-moon once described the war in Darfur, Sudan as the world’s first climate change conflict, caused in part by the fighting over scarce water resources. Now, researchers believe climate change may be raising the risk of war across the continent.

In a study published in Science this week, researchers Tamma Carleton and Solomon Hsiang, both from the University of Berkeley, say that rising temperatures in sub-Saharan Africa since 1980 have raised the risk of conflict by 11%.

“Although climate is clearly not the only factor that affects social and economic outcomes, new quantitative measurements reveal that it is a major factor, often with first order consequences,” they wrote in their study, which reviewed more than 100 other studies on the social and economic impacts of climate change.

[Venant]

The planet is in a long term warming trend, and none of these scientists can tell us how much human activity has contributed to it. The most disastrous decisions of the last few decades was to push globalism and the industrialization of China and India. Calls to cut back on emissions are going to have the effect of killing millions of people in the third world, where industrialization has afforded a massive improvement in the standard of living.

Of course, if people really desperately believe that global warming is likely to cause the end of the world by making it uninhabitable for everybody, then perhaps the only way to avoid this is for countries like the United States to eradicate about 90% of the human population on this planet. Then again, people aren't proposing this because they aren't really serious about CO2 levels, because it is really just a political issue at this point.

[Endus]

To support Endus' point, here is a worthwhile article to read regarding the infrastructure they are having to build to reduce the impact of the rising oceans...already.

I just want to comment, while I haven't provided links, if anyone has a question about the specifics of anything I've said, just ask. I brought up a ton of disparate issues, and didn't want to pull up a dozen links in a row, but I can provide further info if someone wants to know more.

[Evangeliste]

To be honest, I didn't read the first post but I know we had a big impact. This does ignore certain issues like rainforests being trimmed and other effects that just make CO2 much worse impending. At least despite how much we still depend on fossil fuels and such we are gradually moving away for certain points of amenities to renewable energy but trying to adapt the entire globe will take it's time but its a step towards the better in terms of consumption/output.

All of it will be an uphill struggle because previous generations having really been ignorant and irresponsible on things but even today generations are abusing it with knowledge around because sadly profit. At the end, we will sort it and have been but as human nature goes we only band together when we really need to rather than use foresight and adopt new policies before it's really important to do so.

Only thing that does make feel a little troubled is not being said, is the sun itself is nearing it's predictive end of lifespan... It will gradually heat up. Then again people will just kickback and scapegoat the sun so that might be why! That and things like volcanoes can add a lot to the air pollution considering Japan have a fair amount of active ones but as always, this planet is a shared effort. If we keep pissing about and not being responsible we're just simply accelerating to the end quicker.

[Endus]

The planet is in a long term warming trend, and none of these scientists can tell us how much human activity has contributed to it.

This is conspiracy-theorist climate change denier nonsense. You may as well be saying we're "not sure" the Earth isn't flat. The only difference between flat-earthers and climate-change-deniers is that the latter get funding support from the oil industry. The positions are equally rooted in blatant willful ignorance and deliberate lies.

The physical science has been clear for decades. And the scientists know very clearly how much human activity is contributing to it. Worse, if natural factors alone were in play, we'd be in a cooling period right now, not a warming one.

https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar5/wg1/

[Berengil]

The physical science has been clear for decades. And the scientists know very clearly how much human activity is contributing to it. Worse, if natural factors alone were in play, we'd be in a cooling period right now, not a warming one.

Speaking of cooling, at what point does the natural trend towards another ice age overcome global warming? 500 years? 1000? More?

I ask because of course we've been in a relatively warm period now for about 12,000 years, and should be cooling off again. Is there a point at which the process of an incoming ice age renders climate change moot, or has industrialization permanently shifted this cycle?