It seems to me that a few important points are relevant.
One is that the current anomalously high temperatures are definitely related to the 2023-2024 El Niño oscillation. As with the El Niño oscillation of 1997-1998, we experienced record temperatures in 1998, followed by cooler temperatures for several years prior to experiencing the 1998 record being broken in the mid- and latter-half of the 2010s.
If El Niño is an important contributor to our current, anomalously high temperatures (along with greenhouse warming), we should expect cooler temperatures soon, for a least the next few years. However, James Hansen and colleagues have also identified reduction in sulfur emissions from maritime shipping as a factor, so perhaps we won't see the same sort of "pause" as we did after 1998.
Another point is that we should balance our discussions on items of "shock value" with info that expresses hope. For example, thanks to the development and commercialization of low-carbon and zero-carbon technologies, that are now economically-competitive with fossil energy technologies, worldwide anthropogenic CO2 emissions are no longer increasing at an exponential rate. And we certainly seem to have departed from the IPCC's "business-as-usual" pathway. In fact, if the International Energy Agency (IEA) projections are correct, we will see peak anthropogenic CO2 emissions during this decade.
The IEA, in noting that we are "bending the emissions curve", attributes this to the development of mass-producible, modular energy technologies like solar photovoltaics, wind turbines, heat pumps, batteries and electric vehicles -- which become cheaper through assembly line mass production. That is, economies of hardware mass production, at high enough mass production rates, are able to beat the traditional economies of scale that we previously achieved for large power plants and chemical plants in the 20th Century.
We can expect the same with fuel cells and hydrogen, the latter of which can be produced from water and biomass, with high efficiencies, using distributed, mass-producible, modular technologies as well.
These facts make it clear that the issues today aren't just political. They are also technoeconomic.
But the real bottom line is that, after flattening annual anthropogenic CO2 emissions, economic forces will naturally drive the continued development and adoption of low-carbon and zero-carbon energy technologies, so the likely outcome is continued worldwide reductions in annual CO2 emissions.
All of this brings me to a final point. The 2015 Paris Agreement, in targeting peak temperature increases of no more than 2 deg C, and still more preferably at 1.5 deg C, calls for the achievement of a) halting the rise in annual anthropogenic CO2 emissions and b) reaching a balance between anthropogenic emissions and removals by sinks, and calls for the latter of these to take place during the second half of the 21st Century.
Certainly, the IEA projection says that we are on route to achieving a) within a few years. In addition, even modest decreases in emissions each year after that will lead us to b).
By my calculations, taking into account the continued performance of the natural carbon sinks, we could hit peak CO2 concentrations in the neighborhood of ~500 ppm (or less), perhaps within a few decades, with declining values shortly after.
How quickly we achieve the balance between emissions and sinks depends on how aggressively we act, so this is a time to use our continuing success as evidence that we can do this -- in fact, we are already doing this -- and can get control of the greenhouse gas content of our atmosphere. This is certainly not a time for negativity or hopelessness!
Many good points, but let me rid my same hobby horse: What's the policy occlusion? Could one look at your conclusions and think the current policy set has solved the problem? I doubt that is what YOU think, but that's my point. :)
Certainly, that's correct. Some of the current policies are working, but this is a good time to recognize that getting climate change under control soon requires aggressive action, and some policy suggestions are not really very useful. The best policies will be those that are well-grounded in science, technologies and economics -- think of it like a Venn Diagram -- with success being dependent on the encouragement of business ecosystems and infrastructure that encourages financial investment.
We're making good progress, but this is not the time to be complacent. I like to tell engineering students that they are the modern-day wizards that will produce and deploy even cleaner, more affordable, energy technologies, that we can barely imagine today. But which will overwhelmingly get us past the climate conundrum.
Thomas, did you mean to type "occlusion", not "conclusion"?
IMHO, Robert's comment is best aimed at someone who accepts the climate-science consensus but hasn't kept up with very recent developments in energy production globally, specifically to give them heart for the hard tasks remaining. It's even heartened me! Thomas's caveat is nonetheless well taken. In the present, however, the important issue for US voters is whether our federal government should officially deny the overwhelming consensus of climate scientists globally and continue to guarantee the profit streams of fossil-fuel producers and investors, or acknowledge the need for collective intervention to decarbonize our national and global economies. The "current policy" consists principally of the IRA of 2022, for which all but one Democrat in Congress voted, and no Republicans did. Harris, having broken the tie in the Senate as VP, has stated she'll work with Democrats to secure and extend the IRA, and build public support for further decarbonization measures. The upshot: debating the fine points of this versus that decarbonization policy must be subordinate to simply keeping the Democratic Party in power.
It’s especially valuable to send this message out through Fox. Even though some Fox viewers just won’t believe the science, some will IF they hear the message, and maybe some attitudes will shift toward positive action to reduce greenhouse emissions.
A triumph of hope over experience perhaps but what else can you do? The loonies and liars are convincing but please keep sowing the seeds of doubt in the minds of their disciples.
I guess there is a danger of me wanting to turn all good faith climate reporting sites into clones, but I'd like to see the reporting linked to the long term modeling, as that alone ought to be the basis of policy. [And you did that in part by mentioning that infrastructure is out of date. It is also possible, however, the variability we are seeing was there 50years ago and just was not detected. This as i understand it is Roger Pielke's skepticism about extreme weather events being evidence of climate change.]
It seems to me that a few important points are relevant.
One is that the current anomalously high temperatures are definitely related to the 2023-2024 El Niño oscillation. As with the El Niño oscillation of 1997-1998, we experienced record temperatures in 1998, followed by cooler temperatures for several years prior to experiencing the 1998 record being broken in the mid- and latter-half of the 2010s.
If El Niño is an important contributor to our current, anomalously high temperatures (along with greenhouse warming), we should expect cooler temperatures soon, for a least the next few years. However, James Hansen and colleagues have also identified reduction in sulfur emissions from maritime shipping as a factor, so perhaps we won't see the same sort of "pause" as we did after 1998.
Another point is that we should balance our discussions on items of "shock value" with info that expresses hope. For example, thanks to the development and commercialization of low-carbon and zero-carbon technologies, that are now economically-competitive with fossil energy technologies, worldwide anthropogenic CO2 emissions are no longer increasing at an exponential rate. And we certainly seem to have departed from the IPCC's "business-as-usual" pathway. In fact, if the International Energy Agency (IEA) projections are correct, we will see peak anthropogenic CO2 emissions during this decade.
The IEA, in noting that we are "bending the emissions curve", attributes this to the development of mass-producible, modular energy technologies like solar photovoltaics, wind turbines, heat pumps, batteries and electric vehicles -- which become cheaper through assembly line mass production. That is, economies of hardware mass production, at high enough mass production rates, are able to beat the traditional economies of scale that we previously achieved for large power plants and chemical plants in the 20th Century.
We can expect the same with fuel cells and hydrogen, the latter of which can be produced from water and biomass, with high efficiencies, using distributed, mass-producible, modular technologies as well.
These facts make it clear that the issues today aren't just political. They are also technoeconomic.
But the real bottom line is that, after flattening annual anthropogenic CO2 emissions, economic forces will naturally drive the continued development and adoption of low-carbon and zero-carbon energy technologies, so the likely outcome is continued worldwide reductions in annual CO2 emissions.
All of this brings me to a final point. The 2015 Paris Agreement, in targeting peak temperature increases of no more than 2 deg C, and still more preferably at 1.5 deg C, calls for the achievement of a) halting the rise in annual anthropogenic CO2 emissions and b) reaching a balance between anthropogenic emissions and removals by sinks, and calls for the latter of these to take place during the second half of the 21st Century.
Certainly, the IEA projection says that we are on route to achieving a) within a few years. In addition, even modest decreases in emissions each year after that will lead us to b).
By my calculations, taking into account the continued performance of the natural carbon sinks, we could hit peak CO2 concentrations in the neighborhood of ~500 ppm (or less), perhaps within a few decades, with declining values shortly after.
How quickly we achieve the balance between emissions and sinks depends on how aggressively we act, so this is a time to use our continuing success as evidence that we can do this -- in fact, we are already doing this -- and can get control of the greenhouse gas content of our atmosphere. This is certainly not a time for negativity or hopelessness!
Many good points, but let me rid my same hobby horse: What's the policy occlusion? Could one look at your conclusions and think the current policy set has solved the problem? I doubt that is what YOU think, but that's my point. :)
Certainly, that's correct. Some of the current policies are working, but this is a good time to recognize that getting climate change under control soon requires aggressive action, and some policy suggestions are not really very useful. The best policies will be those that are well-grounded in science, technologies and economics -- think of it like a Venn Diagram -- with success being dependent on the encouragement of business ecosystems and infrastructure that encourages financial investment.
We're making good progress, but this is not the time to be complacent. I like to tell engineering students that they are the modern-day wizards that will produce and deploy even cleaner, more affordable, energy technologies, that we can barely imagine today. But which will overwhelmingly get us past the climate conundrum.
Thomas, did you mean to type "occlusion", not "conclusion"?
IMHO, Robert's comment is best aimed at someone who accepts the climate-science consensus but hasn't kept up with very recent developments in energy production globally, specifically to give them heart for the hard tasks remaining. It's even heartened me! Thomas's caveat is nonetheless well taken. In the present, however, the important issue for US voters is whether our federal government should officially deny the overwhelming consensus of climate scientists globally and continue to guarantee the profit streams of fossil-fuel producers and investors, or acknowledge the need for collective intervention to decarbonize our national and global economies. The "current policy" consists principally of the IRA of 2022, for which all but one Democrat in Congress voted, and no Republicans did. Harris, having broken the tie in the Senate as VP, has stated she'll work with Democrats to secure and extend the IRA, and build public support for further decarbonization measures. The upshot: debating the fine points of this versus that decarbonization policy must be subordinate to simply keeping the Democratic Party in power.
Another excellent explainer post.
Wow. I had no idea.
I will be following you
to advance my education. Thank you for sharing your knowledge with us all. We need you very much right now!
It’s especially valuable to send this message out through Fox. Even though some Fox viewers just won’t believe the science, some will IF they hear the message, and maybe some attitudes will shift toward positive action to reduce greenhouse emissions.
100%. I always love talking to groups that don't normally get this message.
A triumph of hope over experience perhaps but what else can you do? The loonies and liars are convincing but please keep sowing the seeds of doubt in the minds of their disciples.
I think most people completely missed this headline with all the election excitement going on.
Keep in mind that last year was the hottest on record... till this year.
I guess there is a danger of me wanting to turn all good faith climate reporting sites into clones, but I'd like to see the reporting linked to the long term modeling, as that alone ought to be the basis of policy. [And you did that in part by mentioning that infrastructure is out of date. It is also possible, however, the variability we are seeing was there 50years ago and just was not detected. This as i understand it is Roger Pielke's skepticism about extreme weather events being evidence of climate change.]
Anyway, Well done!