Collapse

Abstract

Mass loss from ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica has quadrupled since the 1990s and now represents the dominant source of global mean sea-level rise from the cryosphere. This has raised concerns about their future stability and focussed attention on the global mean temperature thresholds that might trigger more rapid retreat or even collapse, with renewed calls to meet the more ambitious target of the Paris Climate Agreement and limit warming to +1.5 °C above pre-industrial. Here we synthesise multiple lines of evidence to show that +1.5 °C is too high and that even current climate forcing (+1.2 °C), if sustained, is likely to generate several metres of sea-level rise over the coming centuries, causing extensive loss and damage to coastal populations and challenging the implementation of adaptation measures. To avoid this requires a global mean temperature that is cooler than present and which we hypothesise to be closer to +1 °C above pre-industrial, possibly even lower, but further work is urgently required to more precisely determine a ‘safe limit’ for ice sheets.

Abstract

Carbon storage in soils is important in regulating atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2). However, the sensitivity of the soil-carbon turnover time (τsoil) to temperature and hydrology forcing is not fully understood. Here, we use radiocarbon dating of plant-derived lipids in conjunction with reconstructions of temperature and rainfall from an eastern Mediterranean sediment core receiving terrigenous material from the Nile River watershed to investigate τsoilin subtropical and tropical areas during the last 18,000 years. We find that τsoil was reduced by an order of magnitude over the last deglaciation and that temperature was the major driver of these changes while the impact of hydroclimate was relatively small. We conclude that increased CO2 efflux from soils into the atmosphere constituted a positive feedback to global warming. However, simulated glacial-to-interglacial changes in a dynamic global vegetation model underestimate our data-based reconstructions of soil-carbon turnover times suggesting that this climate feedback is underestimated.

Could be worse./s

Durham University’s Prof Chris Stokes, lead author of the study, said: “We’re starting to see some of the worst-case scenarios play out almost in front of us. At current warming of 1.2C, sea level rise is accelerating at rates that, if they continue, would become almost unmanageable before the end of this century, [which is] within the lifetime of our young people.”

The average global temperature hit 1.5C for the first time in 2024. But the international target is measured as the average over 20 years, so is not considered to have been broken yet.

Tens of millions of Americans are expected to be at risk of severe weather this weekend as many states brace for high winds and tornadoes.

According to the National Weather Service, a “very active and complex mid-May weather pattern” is set to bring about heavy rain, high winds and anomalous temperatures throughout the US this weekend and until at least next Tuesday.

Although triple-digit weather is common for the state during summers, this year’s early season heat is unusual, making Texas hotter than California’s Death Valley, the hottest place on Earth.

Leopards Ate My Face moment ?

The severe weather events across the US come amid a growing global climate crisis, largely due to human activity, including the burning of fossil fuels. Last year was confirmed as the hottest year on record as carbon emissions hit an all-time high.

Yet, despite the increasing frequency of such severe weather events, Donald Trump’s administration has issued a wave of rollbacks on environmental regulations. In addition to widespread dismissals across federal agencies, federal websites have been purged of information pertaining to climate change and extreme weather events since Trump took office in January.

For the last three years, Wilson has been researching and writing a book on systems collapse, the first chapter of which is called Hope – about “how there is no hope, and we need to face this”.

Well,.yes :) as Nathan Rees opined, all we can do is endure

I thought tbis interesting

Wilson moved to Paris two years ago on an artist’s visa to work on her book. The topic of collapsology is one the French are “really on top of” – collapse experts there do morning TV, and books on the subject top bestseller charts, making it a more fitting place to get to work than Sydney. “It’s a topic that I would say Australians are just not alive to yet,” she sighs.

While this article is not tied to collpase per se, this excert.from Peggy is on point.

Mods can delete it if they think its too far off topic but we're not exacrly swamped with posts jere.

Climate change is going to cull us as a species. There won’t be any big bands and we won’t have any producers of guitar strings, so we’re going to have to rely on our own voices and make instruments out of whatever we can find. But we’ll always need music that expresses the hopes and dreams of the community.

Abstract

Focusing on predicting anomalously warm temperatures in Europe, this study delves into a coupled mechanism within the North Atlantic ocean. By examining the accumulation of heat in the North Atlantic ocean, we unveil its potential for forecasting extreme European summers several years in advance. Through a novel ensemble selection approach that integrates this mechanism, we evaluate its impact on decadal temperature prediction skill. Our analysis demonstrates significant enhancements in both deterministic and probabilistic predictions of Central European summer temperature extremes over multiple lead years. These findings underscore the value of incorporating sub‐decadal oceanic processes into climate prediction methodologies, offering critical insights for mitigation strategies against the impacts of anomalous heat events.

Plain Language Summary

The occurrence of extremely warm summers in Europe has increased dramatically in recent years, and this trend is expected to continue as global temperatures rise. These anomalous heat events have significant impacts on society and the economy. It would be very helpful if we could predict these high‐impact events reliably and accurately several years in advance to minimize their potential consequences. In another study, we found that the heat buildup in the North Atlantic ocean plays a crucial role for the prediction skill of anomalously warm European summers. We discovered that the accumulation of heat in the North Atlantic ocean precedes these anomalous events by several years. By using this storage of heat in the North Atlantic ocean, we improve the ability to accurately predict anomalously warm European summers.

Toxic pollution from wildfires has infiltrated the homes of more than a billion people a year over the last two decades, according to new research.

The climate crisis is driving up the risk of wildfires by increasing heatwaves and droughts, making the issue of wildfire smoke a “pressing global issue”, scientists said

The tiny particles produced by wildfires can travel thousands of miles and are known to be more toxic than urban air pollution, due to higher concentrations of chemicals that cause inflammation. Wildfire pollution has been linked to early deaths, worsened heart and breathing diseases and premature births..

What a debacle :(

Abstract

Global warming results from anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions which upset the delicate balance between the incoming sunlight, and the reflected and emitted radiation from Earth. The imbalance leads to energy accumulation in the atmosphere, oceans and land, and melting of the cryosphere, resulting in increasing temperatures, rising sea levels, and more extreme weather around the globe. Despite the fundamental role of the energy imbalance in regulating the climate system, as known to humanity for more than two centuries, our capacity to observe it is rapidly deteriorating as satellites are being decommissioned.

Key Points

Earth's energy imbalance more than doubled in recent decades

The large trend has taken us by surprise, and as a community we should strive to understand the underlying causes

Our capability to observe the Earth's energy imbalance and budget terms is threatened as satellites are decommissioned

Plain Language Summary

Global warming is caused by the imbalance between the incoming radiation from the Sun and the reflected and outgoing infrared radiation from the Earth. The imbalance leads to energy accumulation in the atmosphere, oceans and land, and melting of the cryosphere, resulting in increasing temperatures, rising sea levels, and more extreme weather around the globe according the the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Observations from space of the energy imbalance shows that it is rising much faster than expected, and in 2023 it reached values two times higher than the best estimate from IPCC. We argue that we must strive to better understand this fundamental change in Earth's climate state, and ensure our capacity to monitor it in the future.

Abstract.

Earth’s albedo (reflectivity) declined over the 25 years of precise satellite data, with the decline so large that this change must be mainly reduced reflection of sunlight by clouds. Part of the cloud change is caused by reduction of human-made atmospheric aerosols, which act as condensation nuclei for cloud formation, but most of the cloud change is cloud feedback that occurs with global warming. The observed albedo change proves that clouds provide a large, amplifying, climate feedback. This large cloud feedback confirms high climate sensitivity, consistent with paleoclimate data and with the rate of global warming in the past century.

Abstract

Plastics show the strongest production growth of all bulk materials over the last decade. The industry’s current growth trajectory is exponential and plastic production is expected to double or triple by 2050. The rapidly increasing production of plastics and the continued reliance on fossil fuels for production, have contributed to numerous environmental problems and health harms. As a result, plastic pollution has become an increasing threat to natural ecosystems, human health and climate. However, there is a lack of granularity on the contribution of the primary plastics specifically to greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and their impact on the remaining global carbon budget needed to stay below a 1.5°C or 2°C global average temperature rise. In this report, we explore the contribution of primary plastic production to climate change disaggregated by polymer and technology. To this end, we have developed comprehensive bottom-up modeling of GHG emissions from global primary plastic production, with a special focus on polymer value chains. We have analyzed the results under various growth scenarios in the context of carbon budgets compatible with a 1.5°C global trajectory. Modeling includes the material flows of all production stages, processes and technologies used in primary plastic production value chains, including from the extraction of fossil fuels required for production to shaping the final product. We specifically focus on nine major types of fossil fuel-based plastic polymers that are produced and consumed in large quantities: three types of polyethylene (PE) – low-density (LDPE), linear low-density (LLDPE), and high-density (HDPE) – as well as polypropylene (PP); polyethylene terephthalate (PET); polyvinyl chloride (PVC); polystyrene (PS) and other key styrene-based plastics such as styrene acrylonitrile (SAN) and acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS), and polyurethane (PU). Together these account for about 80% of plastics production. Our estimates show that global production of primary plastics generated about 2.24 gigatonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent (GtCO2e) in 2019, representing 5.3% of total global GHG emissions (excluding, agriculture and LULUCF (Land Use, Land-Use Change and Forestry)). Emissions from primary plastic production are generated from the combustion of fossil fuels for process heat and electricity and from other non-combustion processes. Approximately 22%, 21%, and 15% of emissions related to primary plastic production in 2019 come from all PEs together, PET, and PP, respectively. Other key plastics, i.e., PVC, PS, SAN, ABS, and PU are responsible for around 23% of global emissions from plastic production. Most (~75%) GHG emissions from primary plastic production occur from the steps prior to polymerization. Under a conservative growth scenario (2.5%/yr), GHG emissions from primary plastic production would more than double to 4.75 GtCO2e by 2050, accounting for 21-26% of the remaining global carbon budget to keep average temperature increases below 1.5°C. At 4%/yr growth, emissions from primary plastic production would increase more than three times to 6.78 GtCO2e, accounting for 25-31% of the remaining global carbon budget for limiting global warming to 1.5°C. Such detailed modeling of individual primary plastic polymers, where production value chain stages are fully taken into account, can provide a sound technically neutral and scientific foundation to inform the global plastic treaty and enable stronger coordination with other global treaties on climate change (e.g., United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). Such modeling is also critical to understand the climate impacts of proposed mitigation measures under the treaty, as most of these are either polymer-specific or would have different implications per polymer.

Abstract

Social and environmental agendas are intricately connected and shape the international policy discourse. To support these discussions, we present a framework for interpreting global scenario outcomes on energy demand and supply-side transitions through the lens of societal well-being and minimum resource requirements. We develop and apply a new model called Decent living standards and the Environment in Scenarios considering Inequality and Resource Efficiency (DESIRE) to fill a critical gap in modelling inequality-growth-efficiency interactions. Utilising bottom–up literature on energy inequality and minimum energy requirements, we analyse system-wide changes from integrated assessment models to assess whether levels of energy consumption in pathways can be consistent with providing decent living standards (DLS) for all, covering three sectors in 173 countries. We apply DESIRE to multiple new sustainable development pathways (SDPs). By 2040, the combination of ambitious inequality reductions, service provisioning efficiency, and higher energy services in the SDPs reduces the global residential and commercial energy deprivation—currently over 5 billion people—by at least 90%. Industry energy gaps are closed, but transport gaps remain. In the SDPs, more than half of the global population—including in low-income countries—achieve living standards more than twice as high as the DLS benchmark for the residential and commercial sector. Energy use beyond DLS across all sectors accounts for about two-thirds of total energy use globally. Efficiency improvements reduce global energy requirements 30%–46% by 2040 in the SDPs (across countries from 17–35 GJ cap−1 in 2020 to 9–23 GJ cap−1), while climate policies reduce CO2 emissions related to energy for DLS to almost zero in 2050, keeping cumulative emissions for DLS for all until 2050 close to the size of the remaining carbon budget to 1.5 °C (at 50% probability). This work illustrates the possibility of pathways that deliver DLS for all while meeting the Paris Agreement.