The Global Warming Thread

[Alefroth]

Religion is a helluva drug.

[Kraken]

Melting ice is slowing Earth's spin, shifting its axis and even influencing its inner core

Climate change is altering the Earth to its literal core, new research suggests.

As polar and glacial ice melts because of global warming, water that was once concentrated at the top and the bottom of the globe is getting redistributed toward the equator. The extra mass around Earth’s middle slows its rotation, which in turn has a lengthening effect on our days.

A new study offers more evidence of that dynamic and further suggests that changes to the planet’s ice have been profound enough to affect the Earth’s axis — the invisible line at its center around which it rotates. Together, those shifts are causing feedback beneath the surface, affecting the fluids that move around in Earth’s molten core.

[Isgrimnur]

Texas crude oil pipelines full to the brim, getting worse

Crude oil pipelines connecting the busiest Texas oil fields to a critical export hub across the state are nearly out of space, threatening to cap US oil exports at a time when the world needs more.
...
If growth in the US’s crude exports stalls, it threatens to create pockets of oversupply domestically and exacerbate supply tightness in other regions of the world, which have come to rely on US barrels more than ever after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and OPEC+ supply curbs.

[Isgrimnur]

Religion is a helluva drug.

[WYBaugh]

https://www.news4jax.com/business/2024/ ... nd-scarce/

WELLINGTON – Air New Zealand scrapped its 2030 carbon emissions reduction targets on Tuesday, citing lags in producing new planes, a lack of alternative fuel and “challenging” regulatory and policy settings.

The move by the national carrier — one of New Zealand’s biggest companies by revenue — was the highest-profile reversal yet of an airline’s commitments to a U.N. framework for corporations to stay on track to meet the Paris Agreement on emissions reductions, highlighting the hurdles facing carriers and policymakers in cutting aviation emissions.

“If even Air New Zealand can't do it, it kind of cements the reality that reducing emissions from aviation is an impossible task under the current technical regime,” said James Higham, a sustainable tourism expert at Griffith University in Australia.

It just can't be done

[Isgrimnur]

Fossil discovery in Greenland ice sheet reveals increased risk of sea level rise

Greenland has melted before, and as the climate warms, it will melt again — this time leading to what scientists warn could be 20 to 25 feet of sea-level rise.

During one of the warm periods within the last 1.1 million years, the center, not just the edges, of Greenland's massive ice sheet melted away, new research has found, giving way to a dry and barren "tundra landscape" that was home to various insects and plant life. The findings were shared in a new paper published today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
...
The researchers have been studying materials from beneath the hood of the Greenland ice sheet, the largest in the Northern hemisphere, since 2014. They examined sediment from the bottom of an ice core — dubbed GISP2 — extracted from two miles below the surface at the center of the ice sheet nearly 30 years ago.

The 1-ounce sample of sediment was filled with clues of Greenland's past. Tiny little black specks, when put under the microscope, revealed an insect eye, an Arctic poppy seed, parts of an Arctic willow, and tiny bits of soil fungus and spike moss — what Bierman referred to as a "frozen ecosystem underneath the ice."

According to researchers, the fossils provide "direct confirmation" that 90% of the ice sheet was once gone.

[Kraken]

The understated good news is that it will take 1,000+ years for Greenland to fully melt, by which time we should be safely extinct.

[Isgrimnur]

May the next sentient species with opposable thumbs be better.

[Isgrimnur]

Down into the ocean's 'twilight zone' with Boaty McBoatface

With sheets of water pouring from its body, the UK’s most famous robot - Boaty McBoatface - was winched up after 55 days at sea.
...
Boaty has completed a more-than-2,000km scientific odyssey from Iceland that could change what we know about the pace of climate change.

It was hunting for marine snow - “poo, basically” in the words of one researcher. This refers to tiny particles that sink to the ocean floor, storing huge amounts of carbon.

The deep ocean, referred to as the “twilight zone”, is enormously mysterious. Acting as the eyes and ears of the scientists, Boaty went there on the longest journey yet for its class of submarine. BBC News had exclusive access to the expedition.
...
They want to understand something called the biological carbon pump - a constant and huge movement of carbon inside the oceans.

Tiny plants that absorb carbon grow near the ocean's surface. Animals, often microscopic, eat the plants and then poo. Those particles - the marine snow - sink to the ocean floor. That keeps the carbon locked in and reduces the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, one of the drivers of human-induced climate change.

But that carbon pump is still largely a mystery to scientists. And they are deeply concerned the warming of our oceans caused by climate change is disrupting that cycle.

Packed with sensors and instruments in its belly, Boaty turned into a mobile lab to help the scientists.

Cruising at 1.1metres per second and diving thousands of metres, Boaty had more than 20 sensors monitoring biological and chemical conditions like nutrients, oxygen levels, photosynthesis and temperature.

[gilraen]

How soon will the Atlantic Ocean break? Maybe next year...maybe in 100 years...maybe it already tipped, and we just haven't realized it yet

Off the southwest tip of Iceland, you’ll find what’s often called a “marginal” body of water. This part of the Atlantic, the Irminger Sea, is one of the stormiest places in the Northern Hemisphere. [...]As the rest of the planet has warmed since the 20th century—less in the tropics, more near the poles—temperatures in this patch of ocean have hardly budged. In some years they’ve even cooled. [...] If global warming were a blanket, the Irminger Sea and its neighboring waters are where the moths ate through. Scientists call it the warming hole.

The warming hole could be a very big problem. That’s because it’s a sign that something may be wrong with the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation. The AMOC is the main current system that crisscrosses the ocean. It flows like a big river up, down, and across the two hemispheres. All that moving water performs an amazing service—it’s basically a supremely massive, 1-petawatt heat pump for the North Atlantic.

The mega-current hauls warm, salty surface water from the tropics near the Americas up to northern Europe. There the warm water meets cold air and evaporates. The atmosphere heats up. The water that’s left in the AMOC is now colder and saltier—which is to say, it’s much denser than the surrounding water. And if you’re a cod swimming west of Iceland, you’re in for an astonishing show. Here the heavy AMOC water doesn’t merely sink, it plummets nearly 3 kilometers down. (Two miles!) Some 3 million cubic meters of water fall per second, in what amounts to the world’s most record-smashing, invisible waterfall. This cold river joins up with other falling water—more underwater cataracts—and crawls through the depths of the ocean, following the topography of the seabed, all the way to Antarctica. The flow intersects other currents, things get messy, and eventually the current rises to the surface near South America and continues its loop.

The big takeaway is a Europe that’s cozier than geography says it should be. That warm gift—the one where the AMOC dumps much of its heat near Iceland—helps, for example, the Norwegian city of Tromsø to enjoy temperatures as warm as –1 degree Celsius in late January, while, at the same latitude in Canada, Cambridge Bay often gets down to –34 degrees Celsius (or 30 degrees Fahrenheit and –30 degrees Fahrenheit, respectively). The heat delivery is also why the northern hemisphere is a few degrees warmer than the southern hemisphere and why Earth’s warmest latitude is (on average) not the point closest to the sun—the equator—but 5 degrees north of it.

But, that warming hole. This spot isn’t feeling the full kapow of rising global temperatures because, in recent years, less heat has been arriving from the tropics. Which means the currents must be slowing. By some calculations, the AMOC’s flow has weakened by 15 percent since the middle of the 20th century. Looking back further, it is the weakest it has been in a millennium.

[...]It could be headed to a full stop. That would take about a century. Or it might settle into a much weaker flow. Both are bad. The AMOC transports a staggering amount of energy. Like a million nuclear power plants. It is such a core element of the Earth system that its collapse would radically alter regional weather patterns, the water cycle, the ability of every country to provide food for its inhabitants.

[$iljanus]

I suggest the creation of a Climate Resilience Fund funded by a $5 Federal surcharge on drivers license renewals. I don’t care if you’re going to take mass transit, drive an electric car, bike or walk because in the society we live in we all use something that contributes to global warming in some way.

The fund would go towards…

1. Strengthening infrastructure to withstand future climate events which could mean clearing brush to mitigate wildfires, strengthening dams and bridges, etc. Would also kick in grants to fund efficient cooling solutions in homes and businesses along with town and city development which includes things to mitigate the higher temperatures we're experiencing. More green space, less heat reflecting surfaces and the like.

2. Rebuilding housing and commercial structures to better withstand future climate events. If a structure is in a vulnerable area whether it’s a flood plain or steep elevation prone to mudslides I have no problem helping to pay for relocation elsewhere. But no Federal assistance if you’re just going to rebuild in the same place or not rebuild up to a more stringent code.

3. Additional emergency funding for FEMA and other emergency agencies providing assistance during a climate disaster. Federal grants for improvements in emergency services infrastructure such a the 911 system, charging facilities powered by generators in town buildings for families without power, emergency WiFi, etc.

4. Low to no interest loans to help people and businesses back on their feet.

There’s a lot of people who have drivers licenses. I think a few additional bucks is a small price to pay to address this issue which isn’t going away. Of course, something like this won’t get passed so it’s just a thought.

From Wikipedia:

According to the United States Department of Transportation, as of 2023, there are approximately 233 million licensed drivers in the United States (out of the total United States population of 332 million people).

At five bucks a pop that’s alotta moolah. And it wouldn’t be a one time fee but constantly generated. Until the climate crisis is fixed…in a few hundred years or so.

[Blackhawk]

2. Rebuilding housing and commercial structures to better withstand future climate events. If a structure is in a vulnerable area whether it’s a flood plain or steep elevation prone to mudslides I have no problem helping to pay for relocation elsewhere. But no Federal assistance if you’re just going to rebuild in the same place or not rebuild up to a more stringent code.

I think if I were living in certain areas of the south, I'd be focusing on what things are going to look like in another 10 or 20 years. Many of those areas just don't seem viable anymore, and I have to question the wisdom of people who insist on staying in places that get repeatedly hit, and are only going to get worse.

[Alefroth]

At five bucks a pop that’s alotta moolah. And it wouldn’t be a one time fee but constantly generated. Until the climate crisis is fixed…in a few hundred years or so.

It's not, really. If every driver renewed every year, that's just over $1B. That wouldn't go far at all towards all you listed.

[$iljanus]

At five bucks a pop that’s alotta moolah. And it wouldn’t be a one time fee but constantly generated. Until the climate crisis is fixed…in a few hundred years or so.

It's not, really. If every driver renewed every year, that's just over $1B. That wouldn't go far at all towards all you listed.

To get everything done at once, no it's not enough. But we can start funding some things supported by other spending initiatives like the huge Inflation Reduction Act which has funds allocated towards climate change related items. And it wouldn't be a one off spending bill.

I'll go as high as $7.50 a renewal.

In the end,. we're all going to be paying for climate related disasters. I don't mind kicking in some cash now for more things to help us adapt. Or maybe fuck it.

[Pyperkub]

At five bucks a pop that’s alotta moolah. And it wouldn’t be a one time fee but constantly generated. Until the climate crisis is fixed…in a few hundred years or so.

It's not, really. If every driver renewed every year, that's just over $1B. That wouldn't go far at all towards all you listed.

Yeah, it doesn't even come close to just CA's Calfire spend:

The job of battling these larger, more stubborn California wildfires has become more complicated, fearsome and deadly, straining the state’s already overworked firefighters.

And much, much more costly. The Legislative Analyst’s Office provided this sobering calculation: CalFire’s total funding for fire protection, resource management and fire prevention has grown from $800 million in 2005-06 to an estimated $3.7 billion in 2021-22.

And yeah, most of the Forests in CA aren't California's responsibility, but Federal:

But in fact, the biggest forest landlord in California, by far, is the federal government, which manages 18 national forests in the state.

And Federal monies are up from ~$1B/year to almost $4B too.

And this doesn't touch root causes, just dealing with what's happening right now.

[Blackhawk]

Know what's better than a $5 tax on 90% of the population once every four years? A thousand 1-cent taxes every day. A penny on a gallon of gas, a penny on licenses (driving, hunting, fishing, etc), a penny on cigarettes, a penny on liquor, a penny on each fast food item, a penny on new cars, a penny on used cars, a penny on funny looking hats. Just the fast food tax alone would be worth four or five hundred million per year.

The trick would be to ensure that 100% of it goes to some blend of actually solving the problems, and some on ameliorating the effects (and the regular disaster area funding should be limited to relocation costs, not rebuilding.) Oh, and have the law written such that it can't be 'borrowed' from.

[Victoria Raverna]

On everything? What is the administrative cost of doing that? How much money you need to spend to collect, consolidate, and keep track of the fund?

[Formix]

How about offering lower interest mortgages on areas not in climate impacted areas?

[Isgrimnur]

Supreme Court declines to block EPA methane, mercury rules

The Supreme Court on Friday turned down a request from Republican-led states and industry groups to block a rule from the Environmental Protection Agency that imposes more stringent standards on emissions of hazardous air pollutants from coal-fired power plants. At the same time, the justices turned down a similar request from Oklahoma and industry groups to block an EPA rule that seeks to regulate emissions of methane, a powerful greenhouse gas, from crude-oil and natural gas facilities.

Friday’s orders mean that both rules will remain in effect while challenges to them move forward in a federal appeals court in Washington, D.C.

The orders leaving the EPA rules in place come three months after the Supreme Court put another EPA rule, intended to reduce air pollution that affects air quality in “downwind” states, on hold while challenges to it continue in the lower courts.
...
The justices did not provide any explanation for their decisions, and there were no recorded dissents.

The court has not yet acted on a third set of requests to stay a different EPA rule, aimed at reducing emissions of carbon dioxide by power plants. Those requests were filed beginning in late July and have been fully briefed for over a month.

[GreenGoo]

On everything? What is the administrative cost of doing that? How much money you need to spend to collect, consolidate, and keep track of the fund?

Just on the things that depend on the planet.

[LordMortis]

The world is just crazy and sick. Weather forecasters have been asking people to stop with the stupid conspiracies about govt controlling and directing the weather/hurricanes. And because if that, many are now complaining about death threats.

Isn’t it weird that many of the same people who don’t believe in climate change because people can’t impact the weather are the same people that believe that the govt can create/direct hurricanes because the govt can control the weather?

Man, we live in a stupid world. Ever day looks more and more like the movie “Idiocracy”.

Didn't want to R&P the weather thread, but jebus, the whole Project 2025(which TFG disavows while taking on and listening to all its prominent membership) "break up" of NOAA really seems to be crystal clear now.

All this MTG weather control and TFG wanting to nuke hurricanes and the claims the Helene was a democrat plot while FEMA response has been gutted by illegals funding. The arrogance of idiocracy hurts in so many ways.

[Punisher]

The world is just crazy and sick. Weather forecasters have been asking people to stop with the stupid conspiracies about govt controlling and directing the weather/hurricanes. And because if that, many are now complaining about death threats.

Isn’t it weird that many of the same people who don’t believe in climate change because people can’t impact the weather are the same people that believe that the govt can create/direct hurricanes because the govt can control the weather?

Man, we live in a stupid world. Ever day looks more and more like the movie “Idiocracy”.

Didn't want to R&P the weather thread, but jebus, the whole Project 2025(which TFG disavows while taking on and listening to all its prominent membership) "break up" of NOAA really seems to be crystal clear now.

All this MTG weather control and TFG wanting to nuke hurricanes and the claims the Helene was a democrat plot while FEMA response has been gutted by illegals funding. The arrogance of idiocracy hurts in so many ways.

Oh yeah?
If the government doesn't control the weather then how do you explain why it always snowed on the weekend but hardly ever during a school day when I was a kid?!

[Kraken]

The world is just crazy and sick. Weather forecasters have been asking people to stop with the stupid conspiracies about govt controlling and directing the weather/hurricanes. And because if that, many are now complaining about death threats.

Isn’t it weird that many of the same people who don’t believe in climate change because people can’t impact the weather are the same people that believe that the govt can create/direct hurricanes because the govt can control the weather?

Man, we live in a stupid world. Ever day looks more and more like the movie “Idiocracy”.

Didn't want to R&P the weather thread, but jebus, the whole Project 2025(which TFG disavows while taking on and listening to all its prominent membership) "break up" of NOAA really seems to be crystal clear now.

All this MTG weather control and TFG wanting to nuke hurricanes and the claims the Helene was a democrat plot while FEMA response has been gutted by illegals funding. The arrogance of idiocracy hurts in so many ways.

Oh yeah?
If the government doesn't control the weather then how do you explain why it always snowed on the weekend but hardly ever during a school day when I was a kid?!

It's those Democrat wind turbines. They get those suckers spinning just so.

[LordMortis]

It's those Democrat wind turbines. They get those suckers spinning just so.

But TFG says they are rusted and rotted and don't work.

[Kraken]

Greenhouse emissions are growing faster than ever

Concentrations of carbon dioxide — the most important driver of global warming — are now growing faster than at any time since our species evolved, according to the World Meteorological Organization’s annual Greenhouse Gas Bulletin. The increase can be traced back to stubbornly high rates of fossil fuel consumption, the report said, as well as ecosystems that are becoming more likely to produce emissions and potentially less capable of absorbing excess carbon.

Levels of the potent greenhouse gases methane and nitrous oxide also hit all-time highs in 2023, the WMO said. The total heat-trapping potential of the atmosphere is now 51.5 percent higher than in 1990, when United Nations scientists first warned the world was on track for catastrophic climate change.

“This should set alarm bells ringing among decision makers,” WMO Secretary General Celeste Saulo said in a statement. “Every part per million and every fraction of a degree temperature increase has a real impact on our lives and our planet.”

For the past 14 months, global temperatures have been at least 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) higher than preindustrial levels, according to Europe’s top climate agency. In a report last week, U.N. researchers said nations must cut greenhouse house emissions to 42 percent below 2019 levels to avoid permanently exceeding that threshold and triggering the most dangerous consequences of global warming.

But Monday’s Greenhouse Gas Bulletin shows the world is nowhere near achieving that target.

Drawing on data from hundreds of measurement stations spread across more than 80 countries and all the world’s ocean basins, the report found that atmospheric levels of heat-trapping gases have grown at an accelerating rate in the past decade.

And yet, the climate crisis barely cracks most voters’ top 5 concerns.

[Alefroth]

Newsweek just had an article about my local mountain, Mt. Baker, and how rapidly its glaciers are retreating. 450ft in a year for one of them. That's just unheard of.

https://www.newsweek.com/nasa-images-re ... er-1974865

[Grifman]

Interesting:

[Max Peck]

Good news, everyone! The Arctic is rapidly becoming more habitable!

After storing carbon dioxide in frozen soil for millennia, the Arctic tundra is being transformed by frequent wildfires into an overall source of carbon to the atmosphere, which is already absorbing record levels of heat-trapping fossil fuel pollution.

The transition of the Arctic from a carbon sink to a carbon source is one of the dramatic changes in the Arctic that are documented in NOAA’s 2024 Arctic Report Card. Climatic shifts are forcing plants, wildlife and the people that depend on them to rapidly adapt to a warmer, wetter and less certain world.

[Pyperkub]

Maybe it has room for all the sinking floridians!

Dozens of luxury beachfront condos and hotels in Surfside, Bal Harbour, Miami Beach and Sunny Isles are sinking into the ground at rates that were “unexpected,” with nearly 70 percent of the buildings in northern and central Sunny Isles affected, research by the University of Miami found. The study, published Friday night, identified a total of 35 buildings that have sunk by as much as three inches between 2016 and 2023, including the iconic Surf Club Towers and Faena Hotel, the Porsche Design Tower, The Ritz-Carlton Residences, Trump Tower III and Trump International Beach Resorts. Together, the high rises accommodate tens of thousands of residents and tourists. Some have more than 300 units, including penthouses that cost millions of dollars. “Almost all the buildings at the coast itself, they’re subsiding,” Falk Amelung, a geophysicist at the University of Miami’s Rosenstiel School of Marine, Atmospheric and Earth Science and the study’s senior author, told the Miami Herald. “It’s a lot.” Preliminary data also shows signs that some buildings along the coasts of Broward and Palm Beach are sinking, too.

[Holman]

Interesting:

[Monitoring other countries dimming the sun]

One of the early crises in Kim Stanley Robinson's The Ministry for the Future involves India, after a peak weather anomaly that kills millions, independently attempting to seed the upper atmosphere with sun-blocking substances despite global disapproval.

The book is actually hopeful and worth reading, but the opening episode is very harrowing.