“Truly the stuff of nightmares”: unprecedented low in Antarctic sea ice recorded
By Jeremy Smith, May 31, 2024, https://johnmenadue.com/truly-the-stuff-of-nightmares-unprecedented-low-in-antarctic-sea-ice-recorded/?fbclid=IwZXh0bgNhZW0CMTEAAR0LBw8Xpve2S05Os1FH_y7RYvvv8tqj0qhXrhsM-Z3e49hH1Uu2E44lQr4_aem_AbLMAUeHwooBl6H86wLEqHTtPllDKldX5fzB5e2_5LYTTkXQuf4y_brUHNORL5PsxpdKGuD227S1VVLTWCOjJj7N
Each winter the surface of the sea freezes around Antarctica, over a vast area, mostly to a depth of about one metre. But this is starting to change. Last year, the sea ice reached an unprecedentedly low maximum extent of only 17 million square kilometres.
Why aren’t we talking about sea ice? Perhaps it’s because most people haven’t even heard of it, which is a shame because it’s important.
Each winter the surface of the sea freezes around Antarctica, over a vast area, mostly to a depth of about one metre. The continent effectively doubles in size, with 18-20 million square kilometres being covered by floating ice. That’s an area 2.5 times that of Australia; 4% of Earth’s surface.
But this is starting to change. Last year, the sea ice reached an unprecedentedly low maximum extent of only 17 million square kilometres. Although this year looks like being a little less extreme, a clear and concerning trend appears to be under way. This is emphasised in the ice minimum values in late summer. By February each year the sea ice extent shrinks typically to about three million square kilometres (mostly in two large embayments, the Weddell Sea and the Ross Sea), but through most of the present decade it has dwindled to below two million.
Why does this matter? Well for a start, it is the underside of this huge area of sea ice where algae live and multiply, which feed the shrimp-like krill that in turn sustains an entire ecosystem: fish, seals, penguins, whales, the lot. The upper surface of sea ice is also crucially important. Its albedo, or reflectivity, means that 80-90% of the incoming summer sunshine is bounced back into space. Replace the ice with dark ocean and only about 9% is reflected, the rest going to warm the water. So the loss of sea ice is not only a symptom of climate change, it also contributes to it, in a feedback loop that might accelerate.
There’s more. When sea water freezes, the developing ice crystals comprise nearly pure water. Most of the salt is extruded as a heavy brine, and this cold, dense water sinks, becoming the Antarctic Bottom Current. This circulates around the Southern Ocean before spinning off into the other major ocean basins. As this deep cold flow moves north it displaces warmer water which then up-wells and forms the main surface currents. Without the annual ‘push’ of the Antarctic Bottom Current, these warmer currents might slow and cease.
The global ocean is so vast that it changes very slowly. We are only now beginning to see the results of the ocean’s absorbance of a century of industrial environmental heating, in the form of anomalously warm seas particularly this year. Any pronounced weakening of the ocean circulation due to sea ice loss will be slow – but inexorable.
The results, which are probably not going to happen in our own lifetimes but could well become part of our legacy to future generations, are likely to be dire. It could eventually mean goodbye to the Gulf Stream and the other currents which maintain benign climates on the European Atlantic coast, around Japan, and elsewhere in the northern hemisphere.
The possible consequences of such climate change for human societies are truly the stuff of nightmares.
Copernicus online portal offers terrifying view of climate emergency
Looking at the mass of information, there is only one conclusion: we are running out of time
Paul Brown, 29 Mar 24, https://www.theguardian.com/news/2024/mar/29/copernicus-online-portal-offers-terrifying-view-climate-emergency
here is so much information on the newly launched Copernicus Climate Change Service atlas that my laptop started to overheat trying to process it all. As well as all the past data, it predicts where the climate is going and how soon we will breach the 1.5C “limit”, and then 2C. You can call up the region where you live, so it is specific to what is happening to you and your family – and all the more disturbing for that.
A separate part called Climate Pulse intended particularly for journalists is easier to operate. The refreshing bit is that the maps, charts and timelines from 1850 to the present day on the main atlas are entirely factual measurements, so there can be no argument on the trends. It then follows those trends into the likely scenarios for the next few years. Examining current temperature increases, it seemed to this observer that scientists have been underestimating for some time how quickly the situation is deteriorating.
Looking at the mass of information all pointing one way makes the current political arguments about how soon the UK should reach net zero seem trivial. We are clearly running out of time. Still, the idea is that people can use the atlas to make up their own minds.
Atlantic Ocean circulation nearing ‘devastating’ tipping point, study finds
This is pretty serious, but especially for Northern Hemisphere countries.
But I’m also wondering what’s going on with Pacific Ocean currents, as the Antarctic melts at a racing pace. Nobody’s telling us about this, and about the impacts on our weather etc
Collapse in system of currents that helps regulate global climate would be at such speed that adaptation would be impossible
Jonathan Watts, 12 Feb 24,
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/feb/09/atlantic-ocean-circulation-nearing-devastating-tipping-point-study-finds
The circulation of the Atlantic Ocean is heading towards a tipping point that is “bad news for the climate system and humanity”, a study has found.
The scientists behind the research said they were shocked at the forecast speed of collapse once the point is reached, although they said it was not yet possible to predict how soon that would happen.
Using computer models and past data, the researchers developed an early warning indicator for the breakdown of the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation (Amoc), a vast system of ocean currents that is a key component in global climate regulation.
They found Amoc is already on track towards an abrupt shift, which has not happened for more than 10,000 years and would have dire implications for large parts of the world.
Amoc, which encompasses part of the Gulf Stream and other powerful currents, is a marine conveyer belt that carries heat, carbon and nutrients from the tropics towards the Arctic Circle, where it cools and sinks into the deep ocean. This churning helps to distribute energy around the Earth and modulates the impact of human-caused global heating.
But the system is being eroded by the faster-than-expected melt-off of Greenland’s glaciers and Arctic ice sheets, which pours freshwater into the sea and obstructs the sinking of saltier, warmer water from the south.
Amoc has declined 15% since 1950 and is in its weakest state in more than a millennium, according to previous research that prompted speculation about an approaching collapse.
Until now there has been no consensus about how severe this will be. One study last year, based on changes in sea surface temperatures, suggested the tipping point could happen between 2025 and 2095. However, the UK Met Office said large, rapid changes in Amoc were “very unlikely” in the 21st century.
The new paper, published in Science Advances, has broken new ground by looking for warning signs in the salinity levels at the southern extent of the Atlantic Ocean between Cape Town and Buenos Aires. Simulating changes over a period of 2,000 years on computer models of the global climate, it found a slow decline can lead to a sudden collapse over less than 100 years, with calamitous consequences.
The paper said the results provided a “clear answer” about whether such an abrupt shift was possible: “This is bad news for the climate system and humanity as up till now one could think that Amoc tipping was only a theoretical concept and tipping would disappear as soon as the full climate system, with all its additional feedbacks, was considered.”
It also mapped some of the consequences of Amoc collapse. Sea levels in the Atlantic would rise by a metre in some regions, inundating many coastal cities. The wet and dry seasons in the Amazon would flip, potentially pushing the already weakened rainforest past its own tipping point. Temperatures around the world would fluctuate far more erratically. The southern hemisphere would become warmer. Europe would cool dramatically and have less rainfall. While this might sound appealing compared with the current heating trend, the changes would hit 10 times faster than now, making adaptation almost impossible.
“What surprised us was the rate at which tipping occurs,” said the paper’s lead author, René van Westen, of Utrecht University. “It will be devastating.”
He said there was not yet enough data to say whether this would occur in the next year or in the coming century, but when it happens, the changes are irreversible on human timescales.
In the meantime, the direction of travel is undoubtedly in an alarming direction.
“We are moving towards it. That is kind of scary,” van Westen said. “We need to take climate change much more seriously.”
As earth records hottest year, Coalition digs in against climate action and renewables
Pearls and Irritations, By Sophie Vorrath, Jan 23, 2024
The science is in. The European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service has overnight confirmed that 2023 was the earth’s warmest year on record: 0.16°C warmer than the previous record year (2016); 0.6°C warmer than the 1991-2020 average; 1.48°C warmer than the pre-industrial period.
The report from Copernicus notes that each month from June to December in 2023 was warmer than the corresponding month in any previous year, with July and August the warmest two months on record.
“2023 marks the first time on record that every day within a year has exceeded 1°C above the 1850-1900 pre-industrial level for that time of year,” the report says.
“Close to 50% of days were more than 1.5°C warmer than the 1850-1900 level, and two days in November were, for the first time, more than 2°C warmer.”
Furthermore, it is likely that a 12-month period ending in January or February 2024 will exceed 1.5°C above the pre-industrial level – the threshold climate scientists had hoped to limit global warming to through the sort of emissions reduction policies and actions they have been calling for for decades.
Around the world, the changing climate manifested itself in extreme heat waves in southern Europe, North America and China, devastating wildfires in Canada and Hawaii, record-breaking sea surface temperatures and record low sea ice extent around Antarctica.
Australia, remarkably, was the only continent that did not see large areas register record temperatures. But the impacts of global warming are no less evident.
Far North Queensland is picking up the pieces following a devastating cyclone and floods, while large parts of Victoria remain on flood watch after some regions experienced rainfall “higher than their 100-year rates” over 48 hours, according to the BOM. In Western Australia, a searing heatwave is on the cards.
“It’s not surprising, unfortunately,” prime minister Anthony Albanese said on Wednesday from Queensland, where he announced a $50 million federal support package for people affected by the state’s most recent extreme weather events.
“All of this is a reminder that the science told us that climate change would mean there would be more extreme weather events and they would be more intense. And unfortunately, we’re seeing that play out with the number of events that we’re having to deal with right around Australia.”
Climate Council research director Simon Bradshaw says the most alarming thing about the news from Copernicus is that 2023 broke heat records by such a considerable margin, with 2024 projected to be even hotter.
“We’re seeing how much more extreme our climate becomes as we approach the 1.5°C warming threshold,” he said on Wednesday.
“This is why we must limit future warming as much as possible by getting our emissions down fast by rapidly phasing out the burning of fossil fuels such as coal, oil and gas. We can’t keep stoking the fire if we want the room to cool down.”
But as the reality sinks in that 2023 shattered annual heat records and that the world looks like sailing past the safe climate zone hoped for by scientists, the federal Coalition has set to work walking back national emissions targets, railing against renewables and still – still! – banging on about nuclear.
On Wednesday, reports emerged that a majority of Liberal and National Party MPs will oppose taking a 2035 emissions reduction target to the 2025 election, arguing it will worsen the cost-of-living crisis for regional and vulnerable Australians.
“This is why we must limit future warming as much as possible by getting our emissions down fast by rapidly phasing out the burning of fossil fuels such as coal, oil and gas. We can’t keep stoking the fire if we want the room to cool down.”
But as the reality sinks in that 2023 shattered annual heat records and that the world looks like sailing past the safe climate zone hoped for by scientists, the federal Coalition has set to work walking back national emissions targets, railing against renewables and still – still! – banging on about nuclear.
On Wednesday, reports emerged that a majority of Liberal and National Party MPs will oppose taking a 2035 emissions reduction target to the 2025 election, arguing it will worsen the cost-of-living crisis for regional and vulnerable Australians
A survey by The Australian has found most Liberal MPs are privately opposed to any sort of 2035 target and didn’t see any point in putting a number to the Australian people.
Nationals MPs were more forthcoming with their views on the matter, with Barnaby Joyce, Colin Boyce, Keith Pitt, Matt Canavan and Bridget McKenzie on the record as rejecting “any target” or expressing serious reservations about adopting one, the Australian reports.
“There is also a smaller rump within the Nationals, including Senator Canavan and Mr Boyce, who want the Coalition to drop the current policy of net zero emissions by 2050,” the paper says
The context to this is that the latest climate science says 2050 net zero targets are now not enough to rein in global warming at the rate required to keep the planet safe and liveable. It has also been argued that such a distant target allows governments to take their time on policy – time they do not have.
Recent modelling by Monash University’s Climateworks Centre found Australia must move its net-zero emissions target forward by a decade to 2040 and cut national emissions by 68 per cent below 2005 levels by 2030 in order to have any hope of limiting warming to 1.5°C.
Federal Labor – which wants to get to 82 per cent renewables by 2030 – is under pressure to adopt a 2035 emissions target of more than 70 per cent, and is in consultation on the size of the interim target it has promised to bring to the 2025 election.
But the LNP is having none of it, preferring to believe that its constituents are unable to make the mental leap that “cost of living” might be intrinsically linked with the social, environmental and economic costs of ever increasing extreme weather events.
“I’m not confident the Labor Party’s current targets, let alone anything more ambitious, can be achieved without significant social and economic detriment to the nine million of us that don’t live in capital cities,” said McKenzie…………………………………………………………………
A National Rally Against Reckless Renewables is on the calendar for February 6 – federal parliament’s first sitting day for 2024 – with the Facebook page for the event promising “lots of great speakers,” including Joyce, Senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price, David Gillespie MP, Senator Gerard Rennick, Senator Malcolm Roberts, and old mate Matt Canavan……………………………………..
But not all of the Coalition’s “people,” as Pitt claims regional Australians to be, are drinking this particular brand of Kool Aid.
“The impact of climate change on our communities is immediate and devastating,” said Major General Peter Dunn, a member of Emergency Leaders for Climate Action and former Commissioner for the ACT’s Emergency Services Authority on Wednesday.
“The urgency to stop relying on fossil fuels such as coal, oil and gas, which only worsen this crisis, has never been greater. The time has come for Australia to decisively move away from these harmful pollutants.”
Peter Lake, a northern NSW farmer and member of Farmers for Climate Action says the ongoing drought his farm is experiencing shows how climate change is continuing to make farming “unpredictable.”
“The sooner we get serious about reducing our burning of fossil fuels and start to reduce the amount of carbon dioxide going into our atmosphere the better,” he said on Wednesday.
For federal Labor’s part, it is now imperative that they move faster and with more ambition in the opposite direction to the Coalition and hold their nerve against what is bound to be a ramping up of anti-renewables propaganda……………… more https://johnmenadue.com/as-earth-records-hottest-year-coalition-digs-in-against-climate-action-and-renewables/
Climate summit in an oil state: can COP28 change anything?
You are going to be hearing a lot about COP28 over the next two weeks. The
world’s most important climate meeting, beginning on Thursday, is being
hosted in Dubai by the United Arab Emirates (UAE) – one of the world’s top
ten oil producers. COP28 will be the biggest gathering of world leaders of
the year. King Charles III and Rishi Sunak will be there, along with dozens
of other world leaders and some 70,000 other attendees.
Hosting a climate
conference in a petrostate was already controversial – but the BBC’s
evidence that the UAE team planned to use climate talks ahead of COP28 to
do oil and gas deals has heightened concerns. So, can a summit in one of
the world’s richest oil states deliver meaningful action on climate change?
Campaigner Greta Thunberg has said these UN climate summits are just “blah,
blah, blah” – meaning all talk and no action. But if the COP process did
not exist, we would certainly want something like it.
BBC 30th Nov 2023
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-67557533
Special Report: Managing Climate Change. As world leaders meet in Dubai for
the COP28 climate summit, success will depend on whether there is an
agreement to dump fossil fuels. Plus: China under pressure; African nations
unite; EU rewilding plans; cleantech advances; rising sea levels.
FT 30th Nov 2023
1 This month
of the week – Disrupting War & Militarism in Oceania. Active solidarity. Radical practice.
Antinuclear 