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In a recent paper , Guy McPherson, Beril Sirmacek and Ricardo Vinuesa discuss Environmental thresholds for mass-extinction events. Authors point at an image by  Song et al. (2021) that shows how major mass extinctions over the past 541 million years (the Phanerozoic) are linked to temperature rises higher than 5.2°C and rates of change higher than 10°C/Myr. Earlier, a 2018 study by Strona & Bradshaw found that at 5°C rise, most life on Earth will be extinct (see box below on the right, from an earlier post) .   In the video below, authors Guy McPherson, Beril Sirmacek and Ricardo Vinuesa discuss their analysis 'Environmental thresholds for mass extinction events'. Authors point out that, next to temperature rise and rates of change, there are further variables such as rates of deforestation, ocean acidification and spreading of toxic substances that can additionally contribute to cause species to disappear. Accordingly,  many ...

Many people could face unbearable temperatures soon.  Temperature anomalies on land in the Northern Hemisphere (red) are spread out much wider and they are more than 0.5°C higher than global land+ocean anomalies (blue). The pale green and grey trends are both long-term trends based on January 1880-August 2020 NOAA data. The short-term red and blue trends, based on January 2013-August 2020 NOAA data, are added to show the potential for a rapid rise. How could temperatures possibly rise this fast?  A rapid temperature rise could eventuate by 2026 due to a number of contributing factors: • crossing of the latent heat and methane tipping points • moving toward an El Niño  • entering solar cycle 25 • changes in aerosols • feedbacks kicking in more strongly as further tipping points get crossed. Crossing the Latent Heat and Methane Hydrate Tipping Points The image below, updated from an earlier post , shows two such tipping points. The August 2020 ocean temperature anomaly on t...

Above image depicts how humans could go extinct as early as 2020. The image was created with NASA LOTI 1880-Nov.2019 data, 0.78°C adjusted to reflect ocean air temperatures (as opposed to sea surface temperatures), to reflect higher polar temperature anomalies (as opposed to leaving out 'missing' data) and to reflect a 1750 baseline (as opposed to a 1951-1980 baseline), with two trends added. Blue: a long-term trend based on Jan.1880-Nov.2019 data. Red: a short-term trend, based on Jan.2009-Nov.2019 data, to illustrate El Niño/La Niña variability and how El Niño could be the catalyst to trigger huge methane releases from the Arctic Ocean. How was above image created? Let's first look at the baseline. The NASA default baseline is 1951-1980. The added trend in the image below shows early 1900s data to be well below this 1951-1980 baseline. In this analysis, a 0.28°C adjustment was therefore used to reflect this, and to reflect a 1750 baseline, a further 0.3°C was used, adding...

The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) just released its annual Emissions Gap Report , warning that even if all current unconditional commitments under the Paris Agreement are implemented, temperatures are expected to rise by 3.2°C, bringing even wider-ranging and more destructive climate impacts. The report adds that a continuation of current policies would lead to a global mean temperature rise of 3.5°C by 2100 (range of 3.4–3.9°C, 66% probability) and concludes that current policies will clearly not keep the temperature rise below 3°C and that temperatures may rise by much more than that. Below is the UNEP video On the brink: Emissions Gap Report findings in 60 seconds . [ image from earlier post ] Indeed, the rise in greenhouse gas levels appears to be accelerating, despite pledges made under the Paris Agreement to holding the increase in the global average temperature to well below 2°C above pre-industrial levels and pursuing efforts to limit the temperature increase to...

The Arctic Ocean is overheating, as illustrated by above image. [ from  earlier post  ] Heating of the water in the Arctic Ocean is accelerating, as illustrated by above map that uses 4-year smoothing and that shows temperatures in the Arctic that are up to 4.41°C hotter than the average global temperature during 1880-1920. The NOAA image on the right shows the sea surface temperature difference from 1961-1990 in the Arctic at latitudes 60°N - 90°N on September 7, 2019. Where Arctic sea ice disappears, hot water emerges on the image, indicating that the temperature of the ocean underneath the sea ice is several degrees above freezing point. The nullschool.net image on the right shows sea surface temperature differences from 1981-2011 on the Northern Hemisphere on September 8, 2019, with anomalies reaching as high as 15.2°C or 27.4°F (near Svalbard, at the green circle). Accelerating heating of the Arctic Ocean could make global temperatures skyrocket in a matter of years. Decl...