Is it possible to avoid a massive die off?

[PS_RalphW]

This is the best analysis I have seen of the global population problem, putting the balance between rich and poor, CO2 emissions and per capita income, etc.

It does not cover aspects to limits to growth, like limited fresh water and fertile land, etc., but at as a broad brush it is excellent.

Bottom line - US, China, India. with the US first in each category. But then we all knew this anyway...

http://www.resilience.org/stories/2013- ... on-problem

[emordnilap]

Is it possible to avoid a massive die off?

Yes, quite possible if - amongst other things - we can prevent the global average temperature rising.

[biffvernon]

Is it possible to avoid a massive die off?

Yes, quite possible if - amongst other things - we can prevent the global average temperature rising.

So that's a no then.

[snow hope]

Is it possible to avoid a massive die off?

Yes, quite possible if - amongst other things - we can prevent the global average temperature rising.

So that's a no then.

So we have had AGW since 1988 then Biff - let me see now that must be 25 years of global warming.....must be really tough over in Louth dealing with all that GAT rise is it?? Is it really hard to exist over in Louth in all those extreme temperatures? Did you just about make it through the summer? Were there many deaths in Louth due to the global warming?

Some folks really need to catch a grip and get real........

[kenneal - lagger]

Snow, this blog gives a summary of the recent science on Climate Change and it is pretty scary even from the few links that I have followed.

Much of the warming, 90%, has taken place in the oceans and this is now showing as gas seepage from deep sea methane deposits in the Arctic and from sea edge permafrost. This, it is thought, could result in 6 deg of warming within 50 years if this positive feedback loop continues.

The warming is showing as localised hot spots in our latitudes not an overall even warming and is due to the changes in the jet stream. The lower temperature difference between a much warmer Arctic and southerly latitudes has caused a slowing of the jet stream which now meanders in great loops which cause alternate hot and cold airstreams in front of and behind the meanders. It is these meanders which have caused our recent very cold winter spells and hot dry periods interspersed with very wet periods during recent summers.

The one place which was predicted to be warmer, and has consistently been, is the Arctic. This is reinforced by the steady loss of sea ice over the last 40 or 50 years. This warming is not thought to come from solar sources, "Contrary to the notion that changing solar radiation is responsible for rising global temperature, the amount of solar radiation passing through Earth’s atmosphere and reaching the ground globally peaked in the 1930s, substantially decreased from the 1940s to the 1970s, and changed little after that."

This would agree with research into regular solar minima, such as the Maunder Minimum, and work by Landscheidt which predict a drop in solar output over the next forty or so years caused by movements of the major planets around the sun and their effect of the sun's magnetic field. The current sunspot cycle is of a very low magnitude indeed not seen since the last great solar minimum of the Dalton minimum in the 1800s when the weather was extremely cold (think of Napoleon's retreat from Moscow). To enjoy such a warm spell at a time of low solar activity bodes ill for us for when the sun finally perks up!

[biffvernon]

Yes, quite possible if - amongst other things - we can prevent the global average temperature rising.

So that's a no then.

So we have had AGW since 1988 then Biff - let me see now that must be 25 years of global warming.....must be really tough over in Louth dealing with all that GAT rise is it?? Is it really hard to exist over in Louth in all those extreme temperatures? Did you just about make it through the summer? Were there many deaths in Louth due to the global warming?

Eh-up! Someone's not quite understanding things. AGW has been going on for a century and more, since we started altering the concentration of greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere. Of course the bit we notice, the surface air temperature, has only gone up by about 0.8 degrees averaged across the globe, with a good deal of variation hidden by the average. Over 90% of the extra energy being retained as the planet moves towards a new radiation balancing temperature is absorbed by the oceans where we don't feel it. But of course you knew all that and you're just playing silly-buggers.

I don't expect any global-warming related deaths in Louth for quite a while. Another reason for choosing this nice corner of the world.

[woodburner]

Is that "nice" as soon to be able to sit on a bridge over a ford and watch the lorries go past?

[emordnilap]

Is it possible to avoid a massive die off?

Yes, quite possible if - amongst other things - we can prevent the global average temperature rising.

So that's a no then.

(nods)

[Billhook]

Yes, quite possible if - amongst other things - we can prevent the global average temperature rising.

So that's a no then.

(nods)

Not a chance - by a global climate treaty solely on rapid feasible CO2e Emissions Control of say near-zero by 2050.
With the loss of fossil sulphate emissions and the consequent loss of the cooling sulphate parasol,
plus the timelag on warming being realized of over 30 years,
that would give till the 2080s of accelerated anthro warming to accelerate the interactive feedbacks way beyond the possibility of control.

OTOH, add in protocols on UN supervised global programs of Carbon Recovery and Albedo Restoration
and we've got a good fighting chance.

To those with a phobia of Geo-E, I'd ask from whom they contracted it, and whether they can offer a feasible alternative.

Regards,

Lewis

[RenewableCandy]

Depends on the type of Geo-E. Mass treeplanting, or char burial, are Geo-E I don't have a problem with. Mirrors and cloudseeding etc are just silly.

[JavaScriptDonkey]

Depends on the type of Geo-E. Mass treeplanting, or char burial, are Geo-E I don't have a problem with. Mirrors and cloudseeding etc are just silly.

Why bother? We have solid paleoclimate evidence that life has flourished with higher CO2 levels than are currently being projected as being catastrophic.

[kenneal - lagger]

But what sort of life?

[kenneal - lagger]

Depends on the type of Geo-E. Mass treeplanting, or char burial, are Geo-E I don't have a problem with. Mirrors and cloudseeding etc are just silly.

Char burial is also essential for the long term rescue and fertility of our soils. Even more reason to start burying now. Not that many modern agronomists would agree when you can just add another expensive chemical.

[Billhook]

Depends on the type of Geo-E. Mass treeplanting, or char burial, are Geo-E I don't have a problem with. Mirrors and cloudseeding etc are just silly.

Char burial is also essential for the long term rescue and fertility of our soils. Even more reason to start burying now. Not that many modern agronomists would agree when you can just add another expensive chemical.

I'd well agree that afforestation for biochar is the best option for Carbon Recovery by a whole box of long chalks, due to its multiple beneficial yields from enhanced soil fertility and moisture regulation to co-product methanol supply to massively raised biodiversity and rural employment to its partly self-funding potential to unlocking the 'historic emissions' logjam on the negotiations.

But, it's a non starter without Albedo Restoration, as we probably couldn't get the afforestation established, and certainly couldn't maintain it, without restoring global temperature, and climate stability, to its pre-industrial norm. (No other level is negotiable, since at each stage since some nations have been gaining and some losing. The change now is that all are losing; some faster than others).

In addition, if we fail to stabilize climate rather soon, both the afforestation for biochar and the climate treaty itself will be nullified, as we are heading towards global crop failures in the 2020s, and the geopolitical instability arising from the resulting famines would make them unworkable.

As to which options of AR offer an outcome that is worth researching, it would seem that a UN scientific commission needs to be mandated to accredit options with a rational objective, a reasonable research time frame, potential operational viability socially, ecologically and financially, and a feasibility for localised trials prior to any decision by UN member states over their trial deployment.

I'm afraid the best option I've seen is still Cloud Brightening, using wind-powered vessels to loft a fine mist of natural seawater so that natural sea salt can seed clouds over chosen sea areas, which then rain out on average within 9 days.

The fact that some well-funded entities have been persistently conflating low troposphere cloud brightening with dangerous stratospheric sulphate aerosols has for a while been pointing to a duplicity on their part which, if it is right that the US does not want climate destabilization resolved before it has imposed geopolitical change, I suppose is only to be expected.

A critical and largely unremarked benefit of AR is its transformative effect on negotiations, in that it removes the wicked problem of perceived open-ended climate damages, and also the perceived open ended liabilities therefrom, from the discussion.

I wouldn't go near saying it will be easy, but we can do this if we choose to commit to it.

Regards,

Billhook

[JavaScriptDonkey]

[But, it's a non starter without Albedo Restoration, as we probably couldn't get the afforestation established, and certainly couldn't maintain it, without restoring global temperature, and climate stability, to its pre-industrial norm.

You think the climate in around 1640 was somehow normal for our planet?

Fantasy driven by arrogance!

Take a brief tour of our climate just in the past 20,000 years and try to pick a better 'stable'.

All we can hope to do is adapt to the changes that will occur. Maybe industrial output has postponed the next cold spell. I'd call that a win for bio-diversity.