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RegGuheert said:
Clearly Barrow is warmer, but it appears that according to The Alaska Climate Research Center the average temperature change for Alaska for the 38-year period through the end of last year is -0.1F.

Amusing. Yet another case of down the up escalator. For the whole period of record: "the average change over the last 6 decades is 3.0°F."

http://www.skepticalscience.com/graphics.php?g=47

StateWide_Change_1949-2014_F.png


The PDO went from warm phase (making Alaska warmer) to the cold phase (making Alaska cooler), and this local change was about the same as warming over a period of 38 years for one state.

Of course, once PDO goes back to warm phase, Reg will be so kind as to point out how wrong he was. Right Reg?
 
ColumbiaRiverGorge said:
Animal production and consumption is the leading cause of global warming, water consumption, deforestation, & ocean dead zones. Go Vegan! http://Www.cowspiracy.com" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Don't forget species extinction as one of the main problems of animal agriculture.

Going vegan would be nice especially since the reduced methane emissions (see below) would help fix the problem in the short term while we figure out our carbon issues. Unfortunately most people don't care about global warming if it requires any sacrifice at all (even people preaching how bad it will be and climate scientists). Even eating less meat would help a ton but people aren't about to sacrifice.

Methane has a large effect (100 times as strong as carbon dioxide) for a brief period (having a half-life of 7 years in the atmosphere[6][verification needed]), whereas carbon dioxide has a small effect for a long period (over 100 years). Because of this difference in effect and time period, the global warming potential of methane over a 20 year time period is 86.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atmospheric_methane
 
Very good comment listing some of the innumerable heat records set in the last year, and also since anthropogenic heating began.

Also presents a good summary of the projections of much higher temperatures, and many more heat records, in the future:

Yearly, Monthly Heat Records Dissolve In 2015's Global Onslaught

By: Jeff Masters and Bob Henson

The year 2015 ended in spectacular fashion, winding up as the warmest year in more than a century of recordkeeping--and it’s wasn’t even close to a photo finish ...

The margin of 2015’s victory is itself noteworthy. NOAA calculated that 2015 beat the previous record warmth of 2014 by 0.16°C (0.29°F), which is the largest such margin for any year...

The second year of a major El Niño tends to warm the global atmosphere even more than the first, as the atmosphere gradually adjusts to the ocean-surface warming. This means that 2016 has a very good shot at breaking the global temperature record that was just set by 2015...
http://www.wunderground.com/blog/JeffMasters/yearly-monthly-heat-records-dissolve-in-2015s-global-onslaught
 
Limiting global heating to merely disastrous levels (~2C total) is now looking increasingly implausible, IMO.

In the vehicle market for example, we probably can no longer depend on the ICEVs (and hybrids/PHEVs) we are manufacturing today to wear out, before we need to replace them with lower-emission vehicles.

Instead, we would probably need to institute buyback-and-crush programs for those vehicles coming out of the world's factories today, to prevent them from continuing to spew CO2 for decades to come, further contributing to pushing us beyond ~2C of heating.

Not much chance of building the worldwide political consensus to bring that about, IMO.


February Smashes Earth's All-Time Global Heat Record by a Jaw-Dropping Margin

On Saturday, NASA dropped a bombshell of a climate report. February 2016 has soared past all rivals as the warmest seasonally adjusted month in more than a century of global recordkeeping. NASA’s analysis showed that February ran 1.35°C (2.43°F) above the 1951-1980 global average for the month, as can be seen in the list of monthly anomalies going back to 1880. The previous record was set just last month, as January 2016 came in 1.14°C above the 1951-1980 average for the month. In other words, February has dispensed with this one-month-old record by a full 0.21°C (0.38°F)--an extraordinary margin to beat a monthly world temperature record by...

Averaged on a yearly basis, global temperatures are now around 1.0°C beyond where they stood in the late 19th century, when industrialization was ramping up. Michael Mann (Pennsylvania State University) notes that the human-induced warming is even greater if you reach back to the very start of the Industrial Revolution. Making matters worse, even if we could somehow manage to slash emissions enough to stabilize concentrations of carbon dioxide at their current level, we are still committed to at least 0.5°C of additional atmospheric warming as heat stored in the ocean makes its way into the air, as recently emphasized by Jerry Meehl (National Center for Atmospheric Research). In short, we are now hurtling at a frightening pace toward the globally agreed maximum of 2.0°C warming over pre-industrial levels...
http://www.wunderground.com/blog/JeffMasters/february-smashes-earths-alltime-global-heat-record-by-a-jawdropping
 
edatoakrun said:
Limiting global heating to merely disastrous levels (~2C total) is now looking increasingly implausible, IMO.

I've been saying that for a decade or more. 2.0C never looked to me to be realistic. But don't forget part of this record is due to the El Nino, and is likely to not be broken for a decade or so.

I'm in a pool on when the next "global cooling" or "warming pause" headline hits the AP wire. I've got July 7, 2017. Yea, I'm an optimist.
 
="WetEV"...don't forget part of this record is due to the El Nino...
In perspective:
February Blows Away Global Heat Record

...While a strong El Niño has given global temperatures a boost, the main reason for the spate of intensely warm months is the long-term warming of the planet caused by the accumulation of heat-trapping greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, scientists have found...

The incredible heat so far this year — even though it is only two months in — could set the planet up for its third record warm year in a row, besting the record set just last year. 2015 also saw the biggest single-year jump in carbon dioxide levels at the observatory atop Hawaii’s Mauna Loa, a record that came in part because of El Niño’s influence on greenhouse gas-emitting wildfires in the tropics.

The biggest area of anomalous warmth in February was the Arctic, which also had record-low sea ice levels during January and February.

It’s likely that as the year goes on and El Niño continues to wane, that the monthly temperature anomalies will also ease off, but when and by how much remains uncertain, Blunden said.
http://www.climatecentral.org/news/february-blows-away-global-heat-record-20134
 
edatoakrun said:
Instead, we would probably need to institute buyback-and-crush programs for those vehicles coming out of the world's factories today, to prevent them from continuing to spew CO2 for decades to come, further contributing to pushing us beyond ~2C of heating.

That is even worse than doing nothing. Any harsh act like "lets destroy this to make a better one" must be heavily reconsidered. Maybe closing power plants before they get old makes sense but not crushing vehicles that consume 50% more fuel than Prius. The best thing for CO2 reduction (total sum on the whole Earth) is apply worldwide carbon tax. And not a single country in the world could ignore that, even North Korea or Iraq. All money should go on clean energy incentives and not on poor people. Unfortunately this is most likely not possible without casualties, millions.

That way nobody has to deal with all kind of regulations and incentives, crush this-make this. Counting carbon is really easy. Cars count on oils, tires, fuel, production. Homes and appliances count on energy efficiency by counting electricity/flammables used. etc...

If China or India does not cooperate then no point on going crazy here. VW cheat kills a dozen* after two decades, China kills a million*.. each year.

*number has not been calculated.
 
With so many new heat records being reported so frequently this year, it is not practical to post them all.

The graphic below is one attempt to visually summarize the crises as the rise in temperatures has accelrated:

See Earth’s Temperature Spiral Toward 2°C

The steady rise of Earth’s temperature as greenhouse gases accumulate in the atmosphere and trap more and more heat is sending the planet spiraling closer to the point where warming’s catastrophic consequences may be all but assured.

That metaphoric spiral has become a literal one in a new graphic drawn up by Ed Hawkins, a climate scientist at the University of Reading in the United Kingdom. The animated graphic features a rainbow-colored record of global temperatures spinning outward from the late 19th century to the present as the Earth heats up...

The graphic displays monthly global temperature data from the U.K. Met Office and charts how each month compares to the average for the same period from 1850-1900, the same baselines used in the most recent report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

At first, the years vacillate inward and outward, showing that a clear warming signal had yet to emerge from the natural fluctuations that happen from year to year. But clear warming trends are present in the early and late 20th century...
http://www.climatecentral.org/news/see-earths-temperature-spiral-toward-2c-20332
 
NYT has a good story about the effect of present and future seal level rise on USA coasts, concluding with the inevitable results of our actions.

Flooding of
Coast, Caused
by Global
Warming, Has
Already Begun


Scientists’ warnings that the rise of the
sea would eventually imperil the United
States’ coastline are no longer theoretical


...For decades, as the global warming created by human emissions caused land ice to melt and ocean water to expand, scientists warned that the accelerating rise of the sea would eventually imperil the United States’ coastline.

Now, those warnings are no longer theoretical: The inundation of the coast has begun. The sea has crept up to the point that a high tide and a brisk wind are all it takes to send water pouring into streets and homes...

In 2013, scientists reached a consensus that three feet was the highest plausible rise by the year 2100. But now some of them are starting to say that six or seven feet may be possible. A rise that large over a span of decades would be an unparalleled national catastrophe, driving millions of people from their homes and likely to require the abandonment of entire cities...

The region has one mayor, Philip K. Stoddard of South Miami, who is a scientist himself — he studies animal communication at Florida International University — and has been a close reader of scientific papers about climate change since the 1990s.

“I remember lying in bed at night thinking, ‘I hope this isn’t real,’” Dr. Stoddard, a Democrat, recalled. “I hope other data comes in that contradicts it. It took me several years to get my head around it and say, ‘Oh, God, it is real.’”

Now he is focused on easing the pain for South Miami, with a $50 million system of sewer pipes to replace septic tanks threatened by the rising water table.

“You can play it really badly and let unpleasant things happen earlier,” he said. “Or you can push them off by doing some infrastructure repairs and some thoughtful planning.”

He is, though, under no illusions about the long-term fate of the region he calls home.

“We’re putting enough heat in the ocean to send water over us, no question,” Dr. Stoddard said. “Ultimately, we give up and we leave. That’s how the story ends.”

 
Click the link to see the graphic illustration of by how much last Winter was the outlier for hottest ever
recorded:
Streak of Record-Hot Temps Adds Another Month

The unprecedented streak of record-hot months that the world has experienced over more than a year just tacked on one more month: Data released Tuesday by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration showed last month was easily the hottest August on record.

That makes 16 straight record-hot months, unparalleled in NOAA’s 137 years of record-keeping. The previous record streak was only 10 months, set in 1944. NASA’s data, released earlier, also said August was record hot, not to mention tying for the hottest month the planet has ever recorded...

Though there are still several months left in the year, it is a virtual certainty that 2016 will be the hottest year on record, and by a significant margin...
http://www.climatecentral.org/news/record-hot-temps-another-month-20715
 

The Doomsday Clock just advanced, ‘thanks to Trump’: It’s now just 2 ½ half minutes to ‘midnight.’


It's now 2 ½ minutes to “midnight,” according to the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, which warned Thursday that the end of humanity may be near.

The group behind the famed Doomsday Clock announced at a news conference that it was adjusting the countdown to the End of it All by moving the hands 30 seconds closer to midnight — the closest the clock has been to Doomsday since 1953, after the United States tested its first thermonuclear device, followed months later by the Soviet Union's hydrogen bomb test.

In announcing that the Doomsday Clock was moving 30 seconds closer to the end of humanity, the group noted that in 2016, “the global security landscape darkened as the international community failed to come effectively to grips with humanity’s most pressing existential threats, nuclear weapons and climate change.”

But the organization also cited the election of President Trump in changing the symbolic clock...
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/speaking-of-science/wp/2017/01/26/the-doomsday-clock-just-moved-again-its-now-two-and-a-half-minutes-to-midnight/?utm_term=.62d12eb7f6a4&wpisrc=nl_p1most-partner-1&wpmm=1

http://thebulletin.org/doomsday-dashboard
 
Time to rest the clock, closer to midnight...?

Donald Trump confirms US will quit Paris climate agreement

Donald Trump has confirmed that he will withdraw the US from the Paris climate agreement, in effect ensuring the world’s second largest emitter of greenhouse gases will quit the international effort to address dangerous global warming.

The US will remove itself from the deal, joining Syria and Nicaragua as the only countries not party to the Paris agreement...

Trump’s decision risks destabilizing the Paris deal, with remaining participants faced with the choice of trying to make up the shortfall in emissions cuts or following the US’s lead and abandoning the agreement.

The US emissions reduction pledge accounts for a fifth of the global emissions to be avoided by 2030, with an analysis by not-for-profit group Climate Interactive showing that a regression to “business as usual” emissions by the US could warm the world by an additional 0.3C by 2100. This would help push the global temperature rise well beyond 2C, causing punishing heatwaves, sea level rise, displacement of millions of people and the loss of ecosystems such as coral reefs...
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/jun/01/donald-trump-confirms-us-will-quit-paris-climate-deal

You know you're getting old if you can remember a time when all republicans were not sociopaths:

GOP congressman on climate change: Don’t worry, God’s got it all under control
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/gop-congressman-on-climate-change-dont-worry-gods-got-it-all-under-control-2017-06-01
 
"Trump’s decision risks destabilizing the Paris deal, with remaining participants faced with the choice of trying to make up the shortfall in emissions cuts or following the US’s lead and abandoning the agreement.

The US emissions reduction pledge accounts for a fifth of the global emissions to be avoided by 2030"

If other countries leave the agreement blaming US then they were just looking for an excuse to do it. Instead they should do their part and work with US as much as they can.

Truth is that US is not anymore a leader in many international aspects of human life. Why follow us?
 
Meanwhile, via GCC:
EU greenhouse gas emissions from transport increased for the second year in a row in 2015; on-road up 1.6%
http://www.greencarcongress.com/2017/06/20170602-eea.html

Total European Union greenhouse gas emissions increased by 0.5% in 2015—the first annual increase since 2010—according to new European Environment Agency (EEA) data. Transport was a key reason for that increase: better fuel efficiency in that sector was not enough to counter the effects of an increasing demand for transport.

Higher emissions were caused mainly by increasing road transport, both passenger and freight, and slightly colder winter conditions in Europe, compared to 2014, leading to higher demand for heating. Gains in the fuel efficiency of new vehicles and aircrafts were not enough to offset the additional emissions caused by a higher demand in both passenger and goods transport. Road transport emissions—about 20% of total EU greenhouse gas emissions—increased for the second year in a row in 2015, by 1.6%. Emissions from aviation, representing about 4% of the EU total emissions, increased by 3.3% in 2015. . . .

Neither road transportation nor the residential sectors are covered by the EU emissions trading system (ETS), which explains why overall net emissions increased in spite of the reduction in EU ETS emissions the same year. In fact, ETS emissions for stationary installations decreased by 0.7%, whereas emissions from the non-trading sectors increased by 1.4% in 2015.

In 2015, the EU greenhouse gas emissions increased only slightly, despite the strongest annual economic growth (+ 2.2%) in the EU since 2007 and following a 4% decrease in emissions in 2014. From 1990 to 2015, the EU reduced its greenhouse gas emissions by 22.1%, already surpassing its 2020 target of reducing emissions by 20%. During the same period, the EU economy grew about 50%.

The main reasons behind the emission reductions since 1990 include the effects of EU and national policies (leading to the growing use of renewable energy, use of less carbon intensive fuels and improvements in energy efficiency), structural change towards a more service-oriented economy, the effects of economic recession, and milder winters, leading to reduced energy demand for heating, EEA said. . . .
 
On a more positive note, via the NYT:
China and India Make Big Strides on Climate Change
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/22/opinion/paris-agreement-climate-china-india.html?_r=0

. . . According to research released last week at a United Nations climate meeting in Germany, China and India should easily exceed the targets they set for themselves in the 2015 Paris Agreement signed by more than 190 countries. China’s emissions of carbon dioxide appear to have peaked more than 10 years sooner than its government had said they would. And India is now expected to obtain 40 percent of its electricity from non-fossil fuel sources by 2022, eight years ahead of schedule.

Every one of the Paris signatories will have to reduce emissions to ward off the worst consequences of global warming — devastating droughts, melting glaciers and unstoppable sea level rise. But the tangible progress by the world’s number one producer of greenhouse gases (China) and its number three (India) are astonishing nonetheless, and worth celebrating. . . .

In a recent auction in India, developers of solar farms offered to sell electricity to the grid for 2.44 rupees per kilowatt-hour (or 3.79 cents). That is about 50 percent less than what solar farms bid a year earlier and about 24 percent less than the average price for energy generated by coal-fired power plants.

The shift from fossil fuels has thus been much faster and more pronounced than most experts expected. China has reduced coal use for three years in a row and recently scrapped plans to build more than 100 coal power plants. Indian officials have estimated that country might no longer need to build new coal plants beyond those that are already under construction. . . .
Also see http://climateactiontracker.org/countries/china.html, http://climateactiontracker.org/countries/india.html and http://climateactiontracker.org/countries/usa.html
 
GRA said:
On a more positive note, via the NYT:
There is NOTHING positive about the world's two largest populations and polluters rapidly increasing their pollution. By quoting fake news and praising China and India's practices, you are showing your extreme hypocrisy. Let's look at the actual facts:

- India's "pledge" to the Paris Agreement was to triple their emissions by 2030 and get paid $166B EACH YEAR by foolish nations to do that.
- India's goal is to double emissions by 2020:
India Times said:
The country is the world's third-largest coal producer and the third-biggest greenhouse gas emitter. It depends on coal for about three-fifths of its energy needs and aims to double its output to 1.5 billion tonnes by 2020.
- Promising to reduce "emissions intensity" is simply a con. It is nothing like *actually* reducing emissions.
- At the end of 2016, China was building 205 new coal-fired electricity plants while India was building 65. Both countries are planning to build HUNDREDS MORE on top of those.
- India and China together hold OVER 60% of the world's coal reserves. Paying for them to build coal-fired plants would ensure that coal gets burned quickly.
- Last winter, some cities in Europe reached pllution levels equivalent to seven cigarettes per day while some cities in China and India reached the equivalent of a pack a day.
- The US is building ZERO coal-fired power plants and currently has no plans to build any. The air quality in the U.S. is not nearly as bad as that in some cities in Europe and China.

I'm sorry, GRA, but it is extremely unwise for the U.S. to tax our citizens to PAY India and China to build coal-fired power plants as quickly as they can. If you think that is a good idea, then shame on you. That's the asinine agreement for which Obama signed up and from which President Trump just extricated us.
 
Nubo said:
It's 12:01.
Really?

In reality, you cannot name a single global, climate-related effect which is moving in a negative direction.

No one is interested in listening to this Chicken Little nonsense any longer.
 
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