4 ms·

The next 5 years will be the hottest yet

43 points by no_wizard 3y ago

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
vkou 3y ago
Meta-comment: Why exactly are we talking about paths for 'Getting to a 1.5C warming', when we've already hit 1.2C warming, and are still emitting more carbon each year than we have at any other point in our history? Given the lag between carbon emissions and warming, and given the lag for introducing net emission reductions, how exactly are we expected to not blow right on past that 1.5C budget? Are we all going to permanently turn the lights off next week?
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- jzawodn 3y ago
  Turn the lights off? Nah, we're gonna ramp it up! https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/may/01/private-jet-sales-likely-to-reach-highest-ever-level-this-year-report-says https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/may/01/private-jet-sa...
- nerdchum 3y ago
  What happens at 1.5?
  - vkou 3y ago
    Avoidance of the worst impacts of climate change on agriculture. If you're interested in hearing more about why we should be concerned about the stability of agriculture, consider looking at what happened to your grocery bill, just because a regional war broke out half a world away.
    - erulabs 3y ago
      This is made somewhat more complex than might be immediately obvious as there is a huge amount of land which is too cold to be used for agriculture. Plants do not mind higher CO2 levels. It will cause dramatic chaos, don’t get me wrong, but it’s not clear the total amount of arable land will decrease.
    - paulddraper 3y ago
      > consider looking at what happened to your grocery bill, just because a regional war broke out half a world away Assuming you are in the US...there is very little agricultural import from a region half a world away.
      - vkou 3y ago
        > there is very little agricultural import from a region half a world away. And yet, I feel the price shocks nevertheless.
        paulddraper 3y ago
        Or they are from other more immediate sources.
  - no_wizard 3y ago
    Lots of bad things[0]: >1.5 degrees is about the level of warming that scientists say would be more likely to start setting off irreversible feedback loops, such as the disintegration of ice sheets in Greenland and the West Antarctic, the abrupt thawing of permafrost in the Arctic, or the collapse of the Atlantic Ocean’s Gulf Stream current [0]: https://grist.org/science/el-nino-tipping-points-amazon-great-barrier-reef/ https://grist.org/science/el-nino-tipping-points-amazon-grea...
  - jfengel 3y ago
    At 1.5C the Greenland Ice Sheet can't sustain itself. It will take a long time to disappear, but disappearance becomes inevitable. A bunch of coral reefs die at 1.5C. Not just die back and bleach, but dead-dead. Shifts in the location of equatorial rains, which are especially important in agriculture in poor countries. https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.0705414105 https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.0705414105 That starts to happen at 1.5C and becomes really inevitable at 2C. The goal was to hold it to 1.5C to mitigate the worst of the damage. Note that this is referring to when it gets above 1.5C every year. This paper doesn't predict that. It predicts that one year will be above 1.5C. That, in and of itself, is less relevant, except that it arrived a good decade or more sooner than expected. Which means that the consequences of permanently hitting 1.5C will also happen sooner.
- LeoPanthera 3y ago
  Amusing side note: South Africa's power generation crisis contributed to it beating its CO2 emissions targets because their power stations aren't working. https://businesstech.co.za/news/energy/688215/south-africa-unintentionally-beats-climate-goals-due-to-load-shedding/ https://businesstech.co.za/news/energy/688215/south-africa-u...
- antisthenes 3y ago
  Given the lag, we're already committed to 2.0C minimum. Thinking anything less is wishful thinking. It doesn't really change anything. People will be putting up solar panels because it's cheaper than buying electricity from their utilities and run AC during sunny days when it's essentially free.
- candiddevmike 3y ago
  > Are we all going to permanently turn the lights off next week? More likely we're going to be turning on a bunch of ACs and increasing our energy demands like we do every summer.
- unchocked 3y ago
  There is no chance that we will remain below 1.5C. Because there is (rightly) moral value attached to staying below 1.5, that fact is (also) hard to accept. The formalized narrative makes sense through a values-based lens, as does the conversation moving through stages of grief as geophysics makes itself felt.
- paganel 3y ago
  > when we've already hit 1.2C warming, And the world hasn't ended, as it was broadcast to all of us when they were mentioning the 1.5C warming. We'll manage.
- oezi 3y ago
  It would just take 2-6% of GDP per year to achieve net zero by 2050. This would avert going over 1.5C.
  - kian 3y ago
    So we can avert this if we enter a 27-year recession? Can't imagine why we've had so much trouble getting everybody on-board.
    - oezi 3y ago
      Spending 2% of GDP on something wouldn't cause a recession. It might even be more of a stimulus.
dividuum 3y ago
At the same time I assume they will also be the coolest for the next hundred years?
- jvm___ 3y ago
  At least!
photochemsyn 3y ago
I like this 'staircase of denial' image: https://twitter.com/mathiasced/status/1616348855842250754?lang=en https://twitter.com/mathiasced/status/1616348855842250754?la... However, what it also demonstrates is that you can't reliably predict 'the next five years', what you see is that if you break up the global temperature trend into ten-year intervals, from one interval to the next you see this stepwise increase. The noise-to-signal ratio is such that it takes about ten years for climatic conditions to become noticeably different from the perspective of a human observer. All we can really say at present is that the trend of extreme floods and droughts and heat waves and so on will be noticeably worse in 2033. Incidentally, this is what the Earth looks like from space to an alien who evolved in a solar system where the Sun was much much redder - rather like Venus. https://youtu.be/f7QttjGu628 https://youtu.be/f7QttjGu628 You can't see the planet's surface in IR, but the black spots are the cloud tops (if you look to the far right, you can see the daily Amazon jungle cloudburst cycle) - and the image is centered over the Pacific Ocean, which is reasonable, as it's hardly Planet Earth, at least not from the climate perspective - it's Planet Ocean. Temperature-wise, this means we won't see the planetary temperature stabilize for at least a century after fossil fuel emissions cease, due to the lag/buffering effect. Don't get depressed, you get to live in interesting times!
- paulddraper 3y ago
  People are very good at picking their source data, depending what they want to prove. Staircase looks a lot less exciting here: https://149366104.v2.pressablecdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/UAH_LT_1979_thru_April_2023_v6.jpg https://149366104.v2.pressablecdn.com/wp-content/uploads/202...
  - xg15 3y ago
    Indeed. Like picking a dataset that is measuring lower/mid atmosphere temperature and was known for producing unusually low temperature measurements. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UAH_satellite_temperature_dataset https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UAH_satellite_temperature_data... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microwave_Sounding_Unit_temperature_measurements#Comparison_of_data_with_climate_models https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microwave_Sounding_Unit_temper...
newsclues 3y ago
I've been thinking a lot about how the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urban_heat_island https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urban_heat_island effect of the sprawl of cities including the eastern seaboard of America could perhaps be effecting climate change. The idea occurred to me after recently watching Twister and thinking why aren't we seeing more of these storms that I remember as a child were more frequent in the news.
- addisonl 3y ago
  > why aren't we seeing more of these storms that I remember as a child were more frequent in the news https://www.climate.gov/maps-data/dataset/monthly-and-annual-numbers-tornadoes-graphs-and-maps https://www.climate.gov/maps-data/dataset/monthly-and-annual... Number of tornados per year has been increasing, on average. Just because you aren't paying attention doesn't mean it's not happening.
  - newsclues 3y ago
    Pretty sure there have been changes in the technology to record (and more accurately) more events. Given that classification is therefore perhaps not consistent, lets see the numbers of big tornados... https://www.wunderground.com/cat6/an-historical-look-at-f5-ef5-tornadoes https://www.wunderground.com/cat6/an-historical-look-at-f5-e...
Decabytes 3y ago
Michigan is one of the most climate change resistant areas in the United States^1 1. https://news.umich.edu/climate-change-and-michigan-challenges-and-opportunities/ https://news.umich.edu/climate-change-and-michigan-challenge...
paulddraper 3y ago
*Hottest in modern history. Still >6C colder than 20 million years ago.

43 points by no_wizard 3y ago

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

vkou 3y ago

Meta-comment: Why exactly are we talking about paths for 'Getting to a 1.5C warming', when we've already hit 1.2C warming, and are still emitting more carbon each year than we have at any other point in our history? Given the lag between carbon emissions and warming, and given the lag for introducing net emission reductions, how exactly are we expected to not blow right on past that 1.5C budget? Are we all going to permanently turn the lights off next week?

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
jzawodn 3y ago
Turn the lights off? Nah, we're gonna ramp it up! https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/may/01/private-jet-sales-likely-to-reach-highest-ever-level-this-year-report-says https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/may/01/private-jet-sa...
nerdchum 3y ago
What happens at 1.5?
- vkou 3y ago
  Avoidance of the worst impacts of climate change on agriculture. If you're interested in hearing more about why we should be concerned about the stability of agriculture, consider looking at what happened to your grocery bill, just because a regional war broke out half a world away.
  - erulabs 3y ago
    This is made somewhat more complex than might be immediately obvious as there is a huge amount of land which is too cold to be used for agriculture. Plants do not mind higher CO2 levels. It will cause dramatic chaos, don’t get me wrong, but it’s not clear the total amount of arable land will decrease.
  - paulddraper 3y ago
    > consider looking at what happened to your grocery bill, just because a regional war broke out half a world away Assuming you are in the US...there is very little agricultural import from a region half a world away.
    - vkou 3y ago
      > there is very little agricultural import from a region half a world away. And yet, I feel the price shocks nevertheless.
      - paulddraper 3y ago
        Or they are from other more immediate sources.
- no_wizard 3y ago
  Lots of bad things[0]: >1.5 degrees is about the level of warming that scientists say would be more likely to start setting off irreversible feedback loops, such as the disintegration of ice sheets in Greenland and the West Antarctic, the abrupt thawing of permafrost in the Arctic, or the collapse of the Atlantic Ocean’s Gulf Stream current [0]: https://grist.org/science/el-nino-tipping-points-amazon-great-barrier-reef/ https://grist.org/science/el-nino-tipping-points-amazon-grea...
- jfengel 3y ago
  At 1.5C the Greenland Ice Sheet can't sustain itself. It will take a long time to disappear, but disappearance becomes inevitable. A bunch of coral reefs die at 1.5C. Not just die back and bleach, but dead-dead. Shifts in the location of equatorial rains, which are especially important in agriculture in poor countries. https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.0705414105 https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.0705414105 That starts to happen at 1.5C and becomes really inevitable at 2C. The goal was to hold it to 1.5C to mitigate the worst of the damage. Note that this is referring to when it gets above 1.5C every year. This paper doesn't predict that. It predicts that one year will be above 1.5C. That, in and of itself, is less relevant, except that it arrived a good decade or more sooner than expected. Which means that the consequences of permanently hitting 1.5C will also happen sooner.
LeoPanthera 3y ago
Amusing side note: South Africa's power generation crisis contributed to it beating its CO2 emissions targets because their power stations aren't working. https://businesstech.co.za/news/energy/688215/south-africa-unintentionally-beats-climate-goals-due-to-load-shedding/ https://businesstech.co.za/news/energy/688215/south-africa-u...
antisthenes 3y ago
Given the lag, we're already committed to 2.0C minimum. Thinking anything less is wishful thinking. It doesn't really change anything. People will be putting up solar panels because it's cheaper than buying electricity from their utilities and run AC during sunny days when it's essentially free.
candiddevmike 3y ago
> Are we all going to permanently turn the lights off next week? More likely we're going to be turning on a bunch of ACs and increasing our energy demands like we do every summer.
unchocked 3y ago
There is no chance that we will remain below 1.5C. Because there is (rightly) moral value attached to staying below 1.5, that fact is (also) hard to accept. The formalized narrative makes sense through a values-based lens, as does the conversation moving through stages of grief as geophysics makes itself felt.
paganel 3y ago
> when we've already hit 1.2C warming, And the world hasn't ended, as it was broadcast to all of us when they were mentioning the 1.5C warming. We'll manage.
oezi 3y ago
It would just take 2-6% of GDP per year to achieve net zero by 2050. This would avert going over 1.5C.
- kian 3y ago
  So we can avert this if we enter a 27-year recession? Can't imagine why we've had so much trouble getting everybody on-board.
  - oezi 3y ago
    Spending 2% of GDP on something wouldn't cause a recession. It might even be more of a stimulus.

dividuum 3y ago

At the same time I assume they will also be the coolest for the next hundred years?

jvm___ 3y ago
At least!

photochemsyn 3y ago

I like this 'staircase of denial' image: https://twitter.com/mathiasced/status/1616348855842250754?lang=en https://twitter.com/mathiasced/status/1616348855842250754?la... However, what it also demonstrates is that you can't reliably predict 'the next five years', what you see is that if you break up the global temperature trend into ten-year intervals, from one interval to the next you see this stepwise increase. The noise-to-signal ratio is such that it takes about ten years for climatic conditions to become noticeably different from the perspective of a human observer. All we can really say at present is that the trend of extreme floods and droughts and heat waves and so on will be noticeably worse in 2033. Incidentally, this is what the Earth looks like from space to an alien who evolved in a solar system where the Sun was much much redder - rather like Venus. https://youtu.be/f7QttjGu628 https://youtu.be/f7QttjGu628 You can't see the planet's surface in IR, but the black spots are the cloud tops (if you look to the far right, you can see the daily Amazon jungle cloudburst cycle) - and the image is centered over the Pacific Ocean, which is reasonable, as it's hardly Planet Earth, at least not from the climate perspective - it's Planet Ocean. Temperature-wise, this means we won't see the planetary temperature stabilize for at least a century after fossil fuel emissions cease, due to the lag/buffering effect. Don't get depressed, you get to live in interesting times!

paulddraper 3y ago
People are very good at picking their source data, depending what they want to prove. Staircase looks a lot less exciting here: https://149366104.v2.pressablecdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/UAH_LT_1979_thru_April_2023_v6.jpg https://149366104.v2.pressablecdn.com/wp-content/uploads/202...
- xg15 3y ago
  Indeed. Like picking a dataset that is measuring lower/mid atmosphere temperature and was known for producing unusually low temperature measurements. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UAH_satellite_temperature_dataset https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UAH_satellite_temperature_data... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microwave_Sounding_Unit_temperature_measurements#Comparison_of_data_with_climate_models https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microwave_Sounding_Unit_temper...

newsclues 3y ago

I've been thinking a lot about how the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urban_heat_island https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urban_heat_island effect of the sprawl of cities including the eastern seaboard of America could perhaps be effecting climate change. The idea occurred to me after recently watching Twister and thinking why aren't we seeing more of these storms that I remember as a child were more frequent in the news.

addisonl 3y ago
> why aren't we seeing more of these storms that I remember as a child were more frequent in the news https://www.climate.gov/maps-data/dataset/monthly-and-annual-numbers-tornadoes-graphs-and-maps https://www.climate.gov/maps-data/dataset/monthly-and-annual... Number of tornados per year has been increasing, on average. Just because you aren't paying attention doesn't mean it's not happening.
- newsclues 3y ago
  Pretty sure there have been changes in the technology to record (and more accurately) more events. Given that classification is therefore perhaps not consistent, lets see the numbers of big tornados... https://www.wunderground.com/cat6/an-historical-look-at-f5-ef5-tornadoes https://www.wunderground.com/cat6/an-historical-look-at-f5-e...

Decabytes 3y ago

Michigan is one of the most climate change resistant areas in the United States^1 1. https://news.umich.edu/climate-change-and-michigan-challenges-and-opportunities/ https://news.umich.edu/climate-change-and-michigan-challenge...

paulddraper 3y ago

*Hottest in modern history. Still >6C colder than 20 million years ago.