For the first time in 40 years, scientists have new insight into one of the most fundamental measures of the climate's future. "We’ve ruled out ‘We’ll be fine,’ and we don’t think ‘doom’ is very likely,” one researcher told @yayitsrob: https://t.co/hBhaCyTL1k
This appears to be a study of physics, heat transfer and heat retention due to 'instant' change in CO2. It did not look at feedback loops, like melting of glaciers or polar ice causing more heat retention, it is not a "climate" model, but a temperature model. Doom is still quite possible, with feedback loops like that, release of methane from melting permafrost**, release of coastal plain frozen methane, and 'doom' from sea level rise flooding coastal cities, infrastructure.
The authors wanted to know what would happen, in essence, if the amount of CO2 in Earth’s atmosphere doubled instantaneously. .. climate change could launch unpleasant feedback loops, causing more carbon dioxide to enter the atmosphere. For instance, if runaway wildfires were to torch millions of square miles of forest, then the carbon once stored in those trees would enter the atmosphere. But climate sensitivity isn’t meant to measure that feedback.
** Right now, the Earth's atmosphere contains about 850 gigatons of carbon. (A gigaton is one billion tons—about the weight of one hundred thousand school buses). We estimate that there are about 1,400 gigatons of carbon frozen in permafrost
6/29/20 - Siberian Wildfires Swell Amid Historic Heatwave - The Moscow Times - 1.37 million hectares (3.4 million acres) were burning in areas unreachable to firefighters as of midnight Monday. [...] In addition to the wildfires, a recent massive oil spill near the Arctic city of Norilsk is believed to have been caused by melting permafrost that has accelerated with the region’s warming climate.
I have no idea how that compares to the massive wildfires in Australia last year.
I do remember reading decades ago in, iirc, The Discovers by Daniel Boorstin that a forest fire in Africa once burned for at least 17 years. It was observed by the early Portugese explorers slowly feeling their way around Africa to reach India.
Comments
This appears to be a study of physics, heat transfer and heat retention due to 'instant' change in CO2. It did not look at feedback loops, like melting of glaciers or polar ice causing more heat retention, it is not a "climate" model, but a temperature model. Doom is still quite possible, with feedback loops like that, release of methane from melting permafrost**, release of coastal plain frozen methane, and 'doom' from sea level rise flooding coastal cities, infrastructure.
** Right now, the Earth's atmosphere contains about 850 gigatons of carbon. (A gigaton is one billion tons—about the weight of one hundred thousand school buses). We estimate that there are about 1,400 gigatons of carbon frozen in permafrost
by NCD on Sat, 07/25/2020 - 8:14am
FWIW
I have no idea how that compares to the massive wildfires in Australia last year.
I do remember reading decades ago in, iirc, The Discovers by Daniel Boorstin that a forest fire in Africa once burned for at least 17 years. It was observed by the early Portugese explorers slowly feeling their way around Africa to reach India.
by EmmaZahn on Sat, 07/25/2020 - 9:46am