Macdoc wrote:2040s arriving early.....

Paris 1.5°C target may be smashed by 2026
A change to a positive phase of the Interdecadal Pacific Oscillation could see global warming accelerate rapidly
Date:
May 8, 2017
Source:
University of New South Wales
Summary:
What appears to be a recent change to a positive phase of the Interdecadal Pacific Oscillation is likely to accelerate global warming, breaking through the agreed Paris target of 1.5°C by as early as 2026.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2 ... 184929.htm

but not to worry ...it's all been predicted and accounted for ....nothing to see here...

OlivierK wrote:Yep. The Paris target of attempting to keep warming below 1.5C over pre-industrial temps by 2100 was so ambitious as to make you wonder whether they had a clue how impossible that was. These last few months have been ratcheted up by El Nino, but the sort of temperatures that were records during the 1998 El Nino were commonplace by 2015, and the temperature we're seeing now will be commonpace by 2030 or so, with El Nino years in the 2030s set to be much warmer than it is now. At the time I thought the Paris targets would be breached (not just for a month, but for a whole year) within 10-15 years. I think we're pretty much on track for that. Then we can spend the 70 remaining years of the century wondering why we were ever so optimistic that warming could be contained at 1.5C, given the absurd amount of CO2 we've already emitted.

‘We all knew this was coming’: Alaska’s thawing soils are now pouring carbon dioxide into the air.

Even as the Trump administration weighs withdrawing the United States from the Paris climate agreement, a new scientific paper has documented growing fluxes of greenhouse gases streaming into the air from the Alaskan tundra, a long-feared occurrence that could worsen climate change.

The new study, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, suggests that frozen northern soils — often called permafrost — are unleashing an increasing amount of carbon dioxide into the air as they thaw in summer or subsequently fail to refreeze as they once did, particularly in late fall and early winter.

“Over a large area, we’re seeing a substantial increase in the amount of CO2 that’s coming out in the fall,” said Roisin Commane, a Harvard atmospheric scientist who is the lead author of the study. The research was published by 19 authors from a variety of institutions, including NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Can Meadows Rescue the Planet from CO2?
An unusual research project is determining whether restoring California’s meadows can reduce atmospheric carbon dioxide

Some 88 million tonnes of food are wasted in the European Union every year, the equivalent of 173 kilos per person. The Dutch waste the most food, while households all over Europe represent over 50% of food waste. One of the main causes has to do with the fact that people are clueless about labels.

Estimates show that every year European waste about 88 million tonnes of food, with the Dutch (541 kg per person), Belgians (435 kg per person), and Cypriots (327 kg per person) being the most wasteful.

At the other end, people from Malta, Romania, and Slovenia waste under 77 kg per person a year, according to Eurostat.

The food waste problem has both an ethical and environmental aspect. According to Eurostat, 55 million people – about 9.6% of the EU’s population – were unable to afford a quality meal every second day in 2014. At the same time, food waste also contributes to climate change.

whereas, according to recent studies, for every kilogram of food produced, 4,5 kg of CO2 are released into the atmosphere; whereas in Europe the approximately 89 Mt of wasted food generate 170 Mt CO2 eq./yr, broken down as follows: food industry 59 Mt CO2 eq./yr, domestic consumption 78 Mt CO2 eq./yr, other 33 Mt CO2 eq./yr; whereas the production of the 30 % of food which ends up not being consumed is responsible for an additional 50 % of water resource irrigation use, while the production of one kilogram of beef requires 5-10 tonnes of water;

Increased leaf abundance is a double-edged sword
Date:
May 25, 2017
Source:
American Association for the Advancement of Science
Summary:
A new global assessment reveals that increases in leaf abundance are causing boreal areas to warm and arid regions to cool. The results suggest that recent changes in global vegetation have had impacts on local climates that should be considered in the design of local mitigation and adaptation plans.
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A new global assessment reveals that increases in leaf abundance are causing boreal areas to warm and arid regions to cool. The results suggest that recent changes in global vegetation have had impacts on local climates that should be considered in the design of local mitigation and adaptation plans.

A substantial portion of the planet is greening in response to increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide, nitrogen deposition, global warming and land use change. The increase in leafy green coverage, or leaf area index (LAI), will hold important implications for climate change feedback loops, yet quantifying these impacts on a global scale can be challenging. Here, Giovanni Forzieri and colleagues analyzed satellite data of global LAI coverage between 1982 and 2011.

Their results varied depending on the local biome, where increased LAI in boreal regions caused a reduction in surface albedo (reflection of sunlight), and thus resulted in a warming effect; in contrast, increased LAI in arid regions caused an increase in transpiration, and thus drove a cooling effect.

What's more, the authors found that these relationships between LAI and surface biophysics were amplified up to five times under extreme warm-dry and cold-wet years.

They estimate that, across about 60% of the global vegetated area, greening has buffered warming by about 14%; for the remaining areas, which mostly include boreal zones, LAI trends have amplified the raise in air temperatures, leading to an additional warming of about 10%.

Emmanuel Macron offers refuge to American climate scientists after Donald Trump takes US out of Paris climate deal
French leader immediately condemns US President's decision to abandon pact for environmental action and raises fears it co

felltoearth wrote:Is that adjusted for inflation?

The climate of the United States is strongly connected to the changing global climate. The statements below highlight past, current, and projected climate changes for the United States and the globe.

Global annually averaged surface air temperature has increased by about 1.8°F (1.0°C) over the last 115 years (1901–2016). This period is now the warmest in the history of modern civilization. The last few years have also seen record-breaking, climate-related weather extremes, and the last three years have been the warmest years on record for the globe. These trends are expected to continue over climate timescales.

...

Birth of a storm in the Arabian Sea validates climate model
Date:
December 6, 2017
Source:
Princeton University
Summary:
Extreme cyclones that formed in the Arabian Sea for the first time in 2014 are the result of global warming and will likely increase in frequency, warn scientists. Their model showed that the burning of fossil fuels since 1860 would lead to an increase in the destructive storms in the Arabian Sea by 2015, marking one of the first times that modeled projections have synchronized with real observations of storm activity.

Northeast farmers weigh warming climate, drenched fields
Date:
December 14, 2017
Source:
Cornell University
Summary:
Farmers in the Northeast are adapting to longer growing seasons and warming climate conditions -- but they may face spring-planting whiplash as they confront fields increasingly saturated with rain, according to a research paper.

For the past two decades, the Northeast has been getting warmer for longer periods of time. It also has seen a 71 percent increase in the frequency of extreme precipitation events -- more than any other region in the United States, according to the paper. Heavy rainfall, for example, increases the likelihood of diseases such as potato and tomato late blight, along with plant-root fungal problems that stress carrots and other root vegetables.

Macdoc wrote:1.5 C limit by 2100 eh?

Current GWI: +1.020335444

Abstract

Global temperature is rapidly approaching the 1.5°C Paris target. In the absence of external cooling influences, such as volcanic eruptions, temperature projections are centered on a breaching of the 1.5°C target, relative to 1850–1900 before 2029. The phase of the Interdecadal Pacific Oscillation (IPO) will regulate the rate at which mean temperature approaches the 1.5°C level. A transition to the positive phase of the IPO would lead to a projected exceedance of the target centered around 2026. If the Pacific Ocean remains in its negative decadal phase, the target will be reached around 5 years later, in 2031. Given the temporary slowdown in global warming between 2000 and 2014, and recent initialized decadal predictions suggestive of a turnaround in the IPO, a sustained period of rapid temperature rise might be underway. In that case, the world will reach the 1.5°C level of warming several years sooner than if the negative IPO phase persists.