I know everyone is hesitant to speculate too much on the heat wave of 2023 but doesn't it almost have to be some enhanced heat exchange from the ocean to the atmosphere? I think you both agree it is not Hunga Tonga and it is not some "aerosol termination shock." The only process that has been identified that can act on this short time-scale is something that is "El Nino like."
When I look at the MEI.v2 for 2023, https://psl.noaa.gov/enso/mei/ , I can't help but notice how deep the negative swing is compared to other El Ninos. Maybe we need to think about defining El Nino in terms of the temperature swing or delta instead of a threshold of +0.5 C.
Been great reading the Substack this year; a much better venue for good research than The Platform Formerly Known As Twitter. In the next year, it'd be great to have a serious breakdown of whether climate change under *plausible* scenarios is likely to cause civilizational collapse. As a young person trying to figure out whether there's much point to long-term planning, it'd be helpful to have two climate scientists (both with kids) chime in as to what's rational to expect, given that the dominant view among scientists and certainly activists seems to be that collapse is inevitable.
Two blokes in a pub discussing the end of the world. One says to the other, "What would you?"
"I'd shag everything that moves; you?"
"I'd keep very still."
I take your question seriously but there are no answers you as an individual can take seriously, unfortunately. You must do as we humans always have, live your life as best you can.
Incidentally, people have always had children for their own pleasure, and many humans have faced terrible times - it's always been so. (I am 81 this year and sometimes wonder if I've ever made the right decision about anything important!)
I have to disagree with these guys. Hunga Tonga reduced ozone in the SS up to 7%, with a rise in water aerosols of up to 10%. That's an insane amount. To say that it has neglible effects then to say more time to see what exactly the impacts are is contradictory
Circling back to what is driving the dramatic increase in surface air temperatures, maybe we are putting too much emphasis on El Nino as a leading indicator/engine for the increase. Maybe we need to be paying more attention to the global average sea surface temperature.
One more thought. In 2016, the average sea surface started to cool off in March. Based on the latest data, https://climatereanalyzer.org/clim/sst_daily/ , the sea surface temperatures do not appear to be cooling off. If this is a leading indicator we could be in for another hot year in 2024.
I am interested in hearing about recent advances in paleoclimatology and how they constrain earth system sensitivity (ESS) and thereby constrain the equilibrium climate sensitivity (ECS).
I follow Jessica Tierney because she does a great job of making paleoclimatology accessible and approachable through her video presentations. Her most recent video, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7SEcE4K9OQ , she discusses how using modeling they are able to assimilate data that differs both geographically and temporally. Towards the end of the presentation at the 1:04 time mark she shows graphs of GMST vs CO2 concentration for different paleological time periods with a very good correlation especially for the Cenozoic era.
They both appear to constrain the apparent earth warming potential to 4 to 5 degrees above preindustrial temperatures at our present CO2 concentration of 420 ppm. Both of these speak to how far we have driven earth's system away from nature's equilibrium.
Thanks so much for this Substack. I would have loved to read your book but the up-to-date knowledge here is indispensable. I posted the below comment on YouTube but realize now that's maybe not the best place for it. I'd rather engage with the community here, where TCB actually lives. Apologies for the double-post:
I know you all avoided talking about the Hansen paper but I would really love to hear your perspective. I do think it matters: if ECS is like 5C, then the current trajectory (~plateauing emissions) seems downright apocalyptic rather than merely catastrophic. Are aerosols really way undercounted? It's hard to know who to trust on this issue (e.g. does Leon Simons know what he is talking about? Are people "ignoring" the CERES data as he claims here [https://x.com/LeonSimons8/status/1743008355008778687?s=20] and many other places? ). If Hansen is right, it seems we need to start looking into geoengineering as a serious near-term option. It sure seems like the energy transition is going to be an evolutionary process that takes at least a century to play out and if we are in a high sensitivity world (in addition to if politics gums up the transition this decade) then I do not see a ton of room for optimism...
I am writing this in part because I encountered the paper, "Robust acceleration of Earth system heating observed over the past six decades" (https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-023-49353-1) includes one of Hansen's co-authors as an author. It is really difficult for me, as a layman, to parse these radiative forcing figures and disentangle whether or not this is a cause for major new alarm or simply a sort-of expected discover in line with what the IPCC has found. Once again, I do think the rate matters--I am trying to decide how to plan my next few years. If Hansen is right and we follow the current likely trajectory (an emissions plateau emissions for a couple decades before slowly pushing towards new energy technologies) I do not see the point in making many long-term future plans.
Thanks again for this great publication. I loved the recent post on the Fermi Paradox.
PS: Have you read, Earth in Human Hands by David Grinspoon, the astrobiologist? It addresses the same question and I really enjoyed it.
there is not much said about what must and can be done to prevent worst case scenarios. Below is a info-ad we (Humane Civilization Worldwide, humanecivilization.org) put into the NYT.
Cordially, Heinz Aeschbach, MD - I am a Swiss-American 77 years old psychiatrist - I followed relevant developments since the 1960 and designed and built, self-contracting, our solar house in 1979.
THE TRAJECTORIES OF CLIMATE CHANGE ARE TERRIFYING.
A GOVERNMENT RESPONSE, AS RADICAL AS DURING WWII, IS URGENTLY NEEDED.
Scientists, activists, NGO leaders, science writers – please help educate the people about alternate paths forward and demand corresponding government actions. We are on a destructive path!
· Dire consequences have been predicted, if global temperatures surpass 1.5°C above preindustrial levels. But in spite of COP28 pledges, we are now on a trajectory to reach the 1.5°C point before 2040 and 2.5°C or more by 2100. Still, always focusing on some “good news,” few want to visualize scenarios of the 2040s and beyond: worsening, deadly heat waves, droughts, storms with flooding, wildfires and crop failures; probably hundreds of millions dying or having to migrate, and much violence with war-like conditions at borders. Do we really want a gradual ‘energy transition’ while promoting profit-driven, greenhouse-gas-spewing economic growth?
· Like the human body, the world’s ecosystems are very delicate concerning temperature and mineral balances. “Our world has a fever, and we keep covering it with thicker blankets!” Polar ice, glaciers and permafrost are rapidly melting; CO2 acidifies the oceans, vicious cycles are worsening; we are overstepping points-of-no-return.
· Efforts to lower emissions only slow the rise in atmospheric CO2 levels - we must lower levels from presently 420ppm to about 350ppm to prevent further worsening of climates.
· Where are we growing trees, bamboo, algae and other fast-growing plants for carbon absorption, reforestation, and for commercial uses? Where are we building ultra-light, slow, electric mini cars? and trains, high-speed and a dense network of light rail lines, most small, narrow track, 100cm and less, many on existing roads? As feasible, we must replace steel and concrete with wood, bamboo and recycled materials, in buildings, light vehicles, rail cars, bridges, etc. Radiative cooling paints, shade trees, and geothermal heating and cooling must minimize buildings’ energy needs. In addition, our diets must become mostly vegetarian, rich in legumes.
· We must durably sequester huge amounts of carbon: any organic material, particularly plants that were grown for carbon sequestration may be buried and covered with stagnant water, kept dry, or prevented in other ways from decomposing.
· Our government must severely restrict bank lending to curb consumerism and inflation; it must create new money to fund public-private partnership nonprofit enterprises that will reform industries and land management. We need high taxes on all greenhouse gas releases and on wealth. Governments must take care of people’s needs and establish comprehensive safety nets.
Living simpler and healthier, more leisurely, closer to nature, with more interpersonal connectedness, people will be happier.
Zeke and Andy - thanks for a wonderful service, I for one really hope that TCB continues to grow in 2024. In this video you reference how climate change skepticism is following a well worn path as it transitions from a focus on the science to a focus on the economics (cost v benefit etc). Who in your view is the economic expert that has wrapped their head around the economic impacts of CC? I recently read Robert S Pindyck’s 2020 Climate book and thought he articulated the issues well - I. E that rather than arguing over the accuracy of the economic models (IAM’s etc) the profession should acknowledge both the degree of uncertainty and the possibility/likelyhood of catastrophe and use that potentially lethal outcome be a catalyst for action.
That may seem true depending on which information silo you live in, but I guarantee that a lot of people in other silos (e.g., the Fox News silo) are completely disengaged.
Happy New Year, everyone!
I know everyone is hesitant to speculate too much on the heat wave of 2023 but doesn't it almost have to be some enhanced heat exchange from the ocean to the atmosphere? I think you both agree it is not Hunga Tonga and it is not some "aerosol termination shock." The only process that has been identified that can act on this short time-scale is something that is "El Nino like."
When I look at the MEI.v2 for 2023, https://psl.noaa.gov/enso/mei/ , I can't help but notice how deep the negative swing is compared to other El Ninos. Maybe we need to think about defining El Nino in terms of the temperature swing or delta instead of a threshold of +0.5 C.
Been great reading the Substack this year; a much better venue for good research than The Platform Formerly Known As Twitter. In the next year, it'd be great to have a serious breakdown of whether climate change under *plausible* scenarios is likely to cause civilizational collapse. As a young person trying to figure out whether there's much point to long-term planning, it'd be helpful to have two climate scientists (both with kids) chime in as to what's rational to expect, given that the dominant view among scientists and certainly activists seems to be that collapse is inevitable.
Two blokes in a pub discussing the end of the world. One says to the other, "What would you?"
"I'd shag everything that moves; you?"
"I'd keep very still."
I take your question seriously but there are no answers you as an individual can take seriously, unfortunately. You must do as we humans always have, live your life as best you can.
Incidentally, people have always had children for their own pleasure, and many humans have faced terrible times - it's always been so. (I am 81 this year and sometimes wonder if I've ever made the right decision about anything important!)
that's a good idea, I should write something about doomerism.
I have to disagree with these guys. Hunga Tonga reduced ozone in the SS up to 7%, with a rise in water aerosols of up to 10%. That's an insane amount. To say that it has neglible effects then to say more time to see what exactly the impacts are is contradictory
Circling back to what is driving the dramatic increase in surface air temperatures, maybe we are putting too much emphasis on El Nino as a leading indicator/engine for the increase. Maybe we need to be paying more attention to the global average sea surface temperature.
I found this article by Dr. Nicholas Gruber, https://phys.org/news/2023-09-environmental-physicist-discusses-marine.html , about how the ocean's average temperature is setting records and started to exceed past records back in March, which preceded the GMST exceeding records by 3 to 4 months, https://www.carbonbrief.org/state-of-the-climate-global-temperatures-throughout-mid-2023-shatter-records/ . He believes to some degree that this anomaly was in fact the result of a perfect storm of factors, i.e., hard to predict.
One more thought. In 2016, the average sea surface started to cool off in March. Based on the latest data, https://climatereanalyzer.org/clim/sst_daily/ , the sea surface temperatures do not appear to be cooling off. If this is a leading indicator we could be in for another hot year in 2024.
I am interested in hearing about recent advances in paleoclimatology and how they constrain earth system sensitivity (ESS) and thereby constrain the equilibrium climate sensitivity (ECS).
I follow Jessica Tierney because she does a great job of making paleoclimatology accessible and approachable through her video presentations. Her most recent video, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7SEcE4K9OQ , she discusses how using modeling they are able to assimilate data that differs both geographically and temporally. Towards the end of the presentation at the 1:04 time mark she shows graphs of GMST vs CO2 concentration for different paleological time periods with a very good correlation especially for the Cenozoic era.
There is also recent publication in Science entitled, "Toward a Cenozoic history of atmospheric CO2, http://droyer.wescreates.wesleyan.edu/Honisch_2023_Science_CenozoicCO2PIP.pdf . Their plot of GMST vs CO2 has quite a bit more spread in the data but probably suggests a ESS between 5 and 8.
They both appear to constrain the apparent earth warming potential to 4 to 5 degrees above preindustrial temperatures at our present CO2 concentration of 420 ppm. Both of these speak to how far we have driven earth's system away from nature's equilibrium.
Thanks so much for this Substack. I would have loved to read your book but the up-to-date knowledge here is indispensable. I posted the below comment on YouTube but realize now that's maybe not the best place for it. I'd rather engage with the community here, where TCB actually lives. Apologies for the double-post:
I know you all avoided talking about the Hansen paper but I would really love to hear your perspective. I do think it matters: if ECS is like 5C, then the current trajectory (~plateauing emissions) seems downright apocalyptic rather than merely catastrophic. Are aerosols really way undercounted? It's hard to know who to trust on this issue (e.g. does Leon Simons know what he is talking about? Are people "ignoring" the CERES data as he claims here [https://x.com/LeonSimons8/status/1743008355008778687?s=20] and many other places? ). If Hansen is right, it seems we need to start looking into geoengineering as a serious near-term option. It sure seems like the energy transition is going to be an evolutionary process that takes at least a century to play out and if we are in a high sensitivity world (in addition to if politics gums up the transition this decade) then I do not see a ton of room for optimism...
I am writing this in part because I encountered the paper, "Robust acceleration of Earth system heating observed over the past six decades" (https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-023-49353-1) includes one of Hansen's co-authors as an author. It is really difficult for me, as a layman, to parse these radiative forcing figures and disentangle whether or not this is a cause for major new alarm or simply a sort-of expected discover in line with what the IPCC has found. Once again, I do think the rate matters--I am trying to decide how to plan my next few years. If Hansen is right and we follow the current likely trajectory (an emissions plateau emissions for a couple decades before slowly pushing towards new energy technologies) I do not see the point in making many long-term future plans.
Thanks again for this great publication. I loved the recent post on the Fermi Paradox.
PS: Have you read, Earth in Human Hands by David Grinspoon, the astrobiologist? It addresses the same question and I really enjoyed it.
Dear people,
there is not much said about what must and can be done to prevent worst case scenarios. Below is a info-ad we (Humane Civilization Worldwide, humanecivilization.org) put into the NYT.
Cordially, Heinz Aeschbach, MD - I am a Swiss-American 77 years old psychiatrist - I followed relevant developments since the 1960 and designed and built, self-contracting, our solar house in 1979.
THE TRAJECTORIES OF CLIMATE CHANGE ARE TERRIFYING.
A GOVERNMENT RESPONSE, AS RADICAL AS DURING WWII, IS URGENTLY NEEDED.
Scientists, activists, NGO leaders, science writers – please help educate the people about alternate paths forward and demand corresponding government actions. We are on a destructive path!
· Dire consequences have been predicted, if global temperatures surpass 1.5°C above preindustrial levels. But in spite of COP28 pledges, we are now on a trajectory to reach the 1.5°C point before 2040 and 2.5°C or more by 2100. Still, always focusing on some “good news,” few want to visualize scenarios of the 2040s and beyond: worsening, deadly heat waves, droughts, storms with flooding, wildfires and crop failures; probably hundreds of millions dying or having to migrate, and much violence with war-like conditions at borders. Do we really want a gradual ‘energy transition’ while promoting profit-driven, greenhouse-gas-spewing economic growth?
· Like the human body, the world’s ecosystems are very delicate concerning temperature and mineral balances. “Our world has a fever, and we keep covering it with thicker blankets!” Polar ice, glaciers and permafrost are rapidly melting; CO2 acidifies the oceans, vicious cycles are worsening; we are overstepping points-of-no-return.
· Efforts to lower emissions only slow the rise in atmospheric CO2 levels - we must lower levels from presently 420ppm to about 350ppm to prevent further worsening of climates.
· Where are we growing trees, bamboo, algae and other fast-growing plants for carbon absorption, reforestation, and for commercial uses? Where are we building ultra-light, slow, electric mini cars? and trains, high-speed and a dense network of light rail lines, most small, narrow track, 100cm and less, many on existing roads? As feasible, we must replace steel and concrete with wood, bamboo and recycled materials, in buildings, light vehicles, rail cars, bridges, etc. Radiative cooling paints, shade trees, and geothermal heating and cooling must minimize buildings’ energy needs. In addition, our diets must become mostly vegetarian, rich in legumes.
· We must durably sequester huge amounts of carbon: any organic material, particularly plants that were grown for carbon sequestration may be buried and covered with stagnant water, kept dry, or prevented in other ways from decomposing.
· Our government must severely restrict bank lending to curb consumerism and inflation; it must create new money to fund public-private partnership nonprofit enterprises that will reform industries and land management. We need high taxes on all greenhouse gas releases and on wealth. Governments must take care of people’s needs and establish comprehensive safety nets.
Living simpler and healthier, more leisurely, closer to nature, with more interpersonal connectedness, people will be happier.
Humane Civilization Worldwide / humanecivilization.org
Zeke and Andy - thanks for a wonderful service, I for one really hope that TCB continues to grow in 2024. In this video you reference how climate change skepticism is following a well worn path as it transitions from a focus on the science to a focus on the economics (cost v benefit etc). Who in your view is the economic expert that has wrapped their head around the economic impacts of CC? I recently read Robert S Pindyck’s 2020 Climate book and thought he articulated the issues well - I. E that rather than arguing over the accuracy of the economic models (IAM’s etc) the profession should acknowledge both the degree of uncertainty and the possibility/likelyhood of catastrophe and use that potentially lethal outcome be a catalyst for action.
That may seem true depending on which information silo you live in, but I guarantee that a lot of people in other silos (e.g., the Fox News silo) are completely disengaged.