CO2 levels in the atmosphere grew more in past 12 months than at any time in the past 56 years
Yes, that title is a direct quote from this BBC article online. It’s beyond frightening. The greenhouse gas needle is way past the red dial danger zone. And no one in the media during this election campaign is talking about it. Because, horse races are easier to cover, I guess. Meanwhile planet earth is not waiting around for our media and political elites to take notice of the world of sh*t that we are mucking around in as I write these words.
Measurements at the Mauna Loa Observatory in Hawaii went up by more than three parts per million(ppm) in 2015.
Scientists say the spike is due to a combination of human activities and the El Niño weather pattern.
Put another way, this represents an explosion in the growth of CO2 in our atmosphere.
In another first, NOAA found that 2015 was the fourth straight year in which carbon dioxide concentrations grew by more than 2 ppm, according to Pieter Tans, who leads NOAA's Global Greenhouse Gas Reference Network.
“Carbon dioxide levels are increasing faster than they have in hundreds of thousands of years,” Tans said in a press release. “It’s explosive compared to natural processes.” [...]
According to Tans, the current rate of increase in carbon dioxide levels is 200 times faster than the last time the planet saw such a sustained increase, which was between 17,000 and 11,000 years ago, when there was an 80 ppm increase during that timespan.
Two hundred times faster than the last time there was a sustained rise in the levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide. Back then, it took 6000 years for atmospheric CO2 levels to rise 80 parts per million. That works out to .013 ppm a year. Our current rate over the past five years exceeds 2 ppm per year.
Is it any wonder that the hottest year on record was 2015, beating the prior record which occurred in — 2014. Or that of the ten hottest years on record, nine of them occurred since 2003. Yet, no one in the media is talking about this threat to our nation and the world, and certainly little if any attention during the current campaign is being spent on addressing the threat of climate change, not even during the Democratic Party debates.
Leonardo DiCaprio spoke about climate change for a longer amount of time at the Academy Awards than the presidential candidates have in the debates. In the 18 debates held so far, moderators have asked about everything from Super Bowl picks to flower arrangements, while posing only a handful of questions on climate. They ignored it entirely in the December debates, even though the world had just united around the landmark climate agreement in Paris. This must change. [...]
People are paying attention. A bipartisan group of 21 Florida mayors, whose constituents are already coping with impacts of climate change, sent a letter to the debate moderators calling on them to ask questions on sea level rise and climate change. The news outlets-- Washington Post, Univision and CNN-- should follow-through.
I do not care who you support, this is a topic that needs to be brought up at every debate gong forward. We know the Republicans are not going to bother, but why are the Democratic debates ignoring climate change? As even the author of The Hill article noted, this must change. Unfortunately, the next scheduled Democratic Party debate is not until April 9th, far too long to wait. I urge you to contact the DNC and your Congressional representatives and demand a separate debate on Climate Change be held at the earliest opportunity.
The DNC Main phone number: 202-863-8000
Twitter accounts: @TheDemocrats, @DWStweets, @BernieSanders, @HillaryClinton
Comments
For Reference, Dragonflies used to be 2 feet wide.
When oxygen levels dropped, the amount of megafauna did as well.
It's happened before, we know the results. Congress, supply your climate change denier fellows with a BULLSHIT mike cutter, and get to fucking business.
I do not pretend I know what I do not know.
Thanks for the diary
I'm contacting them through the contact page like you suggested. The problem I think is that many of the DNC funders are the same interests that would be vested in this not being discussed. So to have the DNC bring up discussion about this will be difficult, I think pressure on one or more of the candidates to bring it up purposefully in a debate might at least start a dialog. Not meaning to be a Debbie Downer but I'm very worried that our citizens aren't smart/concerned/educated enough to make the sacrifices to avoid all but the most drastic of changes.
There is nothing which I dread so much as a division of the republic into two great parties.. This...is to be dreaded as the greatest political evil under our Constitution.--John Adams
asdf
That is actually pretty normal rate for a warming event, about 1 ppm per century, give or take. We are now forcing increases at around 200-250 times that, as you noted. It probably makes a difference. The system is not at equilibrium, CO2 is increasing too fast. Generally it is thought that there is a 10-40 year lag between emissions and the full warming effect. Emissions are not heat, they are insulation, and it takes a while for the furnace (the sun) to warm the place up. We do not yet have a 400 ppm climate, much less a 480 ppm equivalent (counting other greenhouse gases) climate, or a 600 ppm equivalent (if you do the math correctly) climate, we have more like a 350 ppm climate. Yet another thing the IPCC report neglected.
Also worth noting, there were claims that emissions fell in 2015.
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/dec/07/global-emissions-to-f...
Yet concentration in the atmosphere grew 3 ppm. WTF? I see three possibilities:
Or some combination of the three.
"The greatest shortcoming of the human race is our inability to understand the exponential function." -- Albert Bartlett
"A species that is hurtling toward extinction has no business promoting slow incremental change." -- Caitlin Johnstone
Actually I believe that the reason is that CO2 level rise
is delayed from emission levels due to hysteresis-like effects.
Even if ALL emissions were to be (say) cut in half immediately, CO2 levels would still continue to rise for another 30-50 years.
That's why climate scientists are urging a drastic cutback in emissions, starting NOW, b/c world temperatures will still keep rising.
An immediate stop, NOW, to emissions will still cause the world tome close, if not exceed, the hypothetical 2 deg C "limit"
There are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns – the ones we don't know we don't know.
ummm... nope
emissions/concentrations/temperature
The levels of CO2 are quite responsive to changes in emissions - it's just a matter of mixing. The reason CO2 levels are measured at Mona Loa is that it is remote from most human sources of CO2 so that it shows the mixed result rather than a local concentration. Most human CO2 sources are in the equator through the mid-latitudes north and south, and mix fairly quickly. Look at the seasonal concentration variance overlaying the long-term accumulation. Response is a matter of weeks/months. Contrast that to methane levels in the arctic which take quite some time (years) to mix with the greater atmosphere. Once CO2 has been released into the air, it's there. Some is sequestered (for example, dissolved into the ocean or taken up by plants), for the rest it is simply a matter of mixing it into the bulk of the atmosphere.
The methane in the atmosphere will react with hydroxyl radicals over time, forming CO2 and H2O. That CO2 will continue to accrue, but CH4 is only present at 1.8 ppm (usually represented as 1800 ppb, always check the units), and produces only a single CO2 for each molecule of CH4, so that represents a minor contribution of CO2 over time. Methane's warming potential is another story.
Nope. Even if ALL emissions were to be (say) cut in half immediately, temperature would still continue to rise for another 30-50 years.
Temperature rises until the energy balance is restored, with the warmer Earth radiating heat at a faster rate. It takes time for that temperature rise to happen, given the fixed rate of energy input from the sun.
"The greatest shortcoming of the human race is our inability to understand the exponential function." -- Albert Bartlett
"A species that is hurtling toward extinction has no business promoting slow incremental change." -- Caitlin Johnstone
Yes, brain fart on my part!
Quite right. I don't know what I was thinking of. Blast.
There are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns – the ones we don't know we don't know.
Environmental groups
Wondering out loud here, but why don't the different environmental organizations team-up, call some media outlets, and try to organize their own debate focused on climate issues? If the media outlets bail, do a live stream on YouTube.
I know Bernie would show up...
Great read but utterly depressing. Thank-you.
Progressive to the bone.
According to this graph from ucsd
One year Keeling curve
the current CO2 levels average out to about 404 ppm, compared to 401-2 ppm last year at this date, so yes up ca. 2 ppm over the year.
I'm fully expecting the CO2 concentrations to not fall below 400 ppm ever again, certainly not after this September.
The rise appears to be following a power law, if not an exponential.
This is most unpleasant.
There are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns – the ones we don't know we don't know.
From Jim Hansen:
From Jim Hansen:
> Because of the buildup of CO2 in the atmosphere, stemming mainly from the burning of fossil fuel, Earth is in a state of significant energy imbalance. That imbalance now averages about 0.6 Watts per square meter over the entire planet — equivalent to exploding more than 400,000 Hiroshima-sized atomic bombs per day, 365 days per year.
> This imbalance — more energy coming in than going out — means that additional warming of terrestrial and ocean systems remains “in the pipeline,” to be felt by future generations. Already, based on modern instrumental and paleoclimate records, Earth’s surface temperature is rising out of the range of the Holocene, the current 10,000 year geological period characterized by a relatively stable climate and coastlines that enabled civilization to develop.
Greenhouse gases inhibit IR energy radiation into space from the planet. The surface of the planet will have to warm up to counter the effects of CO2, NH4, etc. in order to balance the energy gain from the sun during the day. The Earth has a complex thermal structure, with lots of thermal "flywheels" and heat energy paths. If we were to zero out CO2 tomorrow, the planet would continue to warm up until reaching energy balance. The problem at this point is that we are increasing the level of GHGs, therefore chasing our tails. Our total progress is microscopic, judged by the penetration of sustainable energy sources, the bbls of oil pumped per day, and tons of coal mined. Solar energy provides 4/10 of one percent of our energy needs in the US. Projections are that it could grow to 10%, but that would require enormous will to develop and deploy. Why spend trillions of dollars reinvention our energy supply, when the current one is perfectly adequate, except for this one problem? The other side of this problem is that our current stated goals are unrealistic. The goal should be 4 deg C and 500 ppm of CO2. And if we don't get serious, we will blow through that at full speed. Now we have to consider the effects of the habitats of the planet. We are changing the planet so fast that there is no opportunity for species to evolve and adapt to the new climate. We are going to wind up with a planet full of cockroaches and jellyfish. What are we going to do about that?
We have to entirely redesign our energy infrastructure starting now. This can only happen when we have the political will to do it. This should be an integral part of the Revolution that we are talking about.
Capitalism has always been the rule of the people by the oligarchs. You only have two choices, eliminate them or restrict their power.
It's important to note that
even if we were to zero out CO2 emissions tomorrow, the Earth will continue to warm...
I believe I mentioned that previously (or was it on the receipt blog).
There are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns – the ones we don't know we don't know.
yes I said it here but I "misspoke"
saying CO2 levels would rise whrn I meant to say temperature levels would continue to rise (as above).
There are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns – the ones we don't know we don't know.