The fucking billionaires will not save us. Absolutely not. We need to get onto saving ourselves. Possibly by fertilizing that tree of liberty, you know…
I just finished the original article and I think the Guardian has not given it due treatment. The body is 40 pages, three columns; it could easily be produced as a short book (with double the page count) especially if the supplements and some of the referenced papers were included.
As much as it is information dense, it communicates well, with its data communicated in helpful plots, and is really not particularly technical. The notes are extensive and between those and the supplementary material, provide the detail and background used to draw conclusions that carry serious urgency.
Urgent take-aways for me were
- that the worst-case IPCC warming scenarios are 50% off the mark.
- The removal of sulphur from shipping fuel is indeed a far better explanation for the warming of the past two years than the Tonga Hunga eruption. Hansen identifies the factors that had confounded earlier analysis. Aerosols in the atmosphere have been cooling the earth at a rate that has been under-estimated, particularly pollution over otherwise pristine environments such as the oceans.
- I’d also not read much, at least that I’d absorbed, about the Eemian warming of 120,000 years ago. Hansen speaks of his 2016, peer-reviewed study, pointing out the rapid 50-150 year sea level rise was under climate heating milder than we are experiencing now. Ice modelling is hard, and assumptions in the IPCC models often can’t produce events in the paleological record.
- The 4 page Epilogue has a number of interesting insights into the politics that has so far failed to address what is a mounting problem. The details are frustrating. Hansen’s frank support of a fast nuclear build-out has probably dampened enthusiasm for his message from the less nuclear-hardened among us.
Given the Guardian’s light, nigh-on dismissive treatment, I can recommend taking a couple of hours to read the paper.
Apropos this point, I’d missed the most recent post from the The International Thwaites Glacier Collaboration from December last year. There had been some news earlier pointing to a lower than expected melt rate. The hypothesis is that lighter, colder fresh water was being trapped under the glacier, protecting it from the heavier, relatively toasty seawater working its way in from the open ocean. Melting is only part of the problem…
Lead author of the study, Dr Christian Wild from Oregon State University says: “We anticipated that the Thwaites Eastern Ice Shelf would break up within the next decade, but never so quickly – it’s like watching the final act of a disaster unfolding.”
Details are in the original paper:
Wild CT, Kachuck SB, Luckman A, et al.
Rift propagation signals the last act of the Thwaites Eastern Ice Shelf despite low basal melt rates.
Journal of Glaciology. 2024;70:e21. doi:10.1017/jog.2024.64
The ice shelf’s speed has increased by ~70% during this period, transitioning from a rate of 1.65 m/d in 2019 to 2.85 m/d by early 2023 in the central area. The increase in longitudinal strain rates near the grounding zone has led to full-thickness rifts and melange-filled gaps since 2020.
How anyone can hear “big savings on disaster relief” and think it’s a good thing is beyond me. (Also the whole “spent money on Democrat areas against orders” would be a serious tell, but not of anything we didn’t know.)
They (meaning the MAGA cultists) believe that those dollars will end up going back into their pockets as tax refunds, rather than to the “undeserving” people who get money from the government…
Perhaps, in part, his actions to vilify FEMA are meant to eventually privatize FEMA’s mission, something that could put many millions of dollars into his own pockets via (at the very least) kickbacks. Right out the chute into his second term, he’s been working on taking down guardrails to corruption, a prelude to kleptocracy.
They didn’t even throw any paper towels at North Carolina!!!
A revolution in heat pump technology;
I have had a heat pump for a few years now; this is my 4th winter, and I’m really happy with it. It works down to -25 C (-13 F), and we haven’t gotten that low in Toronto in that time, so mine works fin in my area, but this new one will work well in places much further north, and will be even more efficient and have a longer lifespan than current models.
ETA; the commenters on the article at CleanTechnica are dubious about the claims, and they are a knowledgeable bunch, so I guess we’ll see if the company’s claims pan out.
Surprise!!!
Well, fuck.
unexpectedly?
yeah, nobody saw that coming.
jfc, we are all going to die…
Sorry, I’m a visual guy. On second thought, maybe this was a bad idea.
The warmer years are usually the El Nino years, with La Nina being cooler. But this, all-time record, was La Nina. Just let that sink in a moment.
This very low winter extent doesn’t necessarily mean the Arctic will end up with record conditions throughout 2025, as conditions can change quickly at the poles.
But, with the Arctic warming nearly four times faster than the global average, declines over the coming decades are almost inevitable.
Shocked/Not Shocked.