Climate Letter #1319

New information about significant melting activity in glaciers of East Antarctica.  The fast-flowing Totten Glacier was already well-studied.  Now, according to NASA, there are four more identifiedin hand  in the same coastal region that are stirring.  “If this trend continues, it has consequences for future sea levels.  There is enough ice in the drainage basins in this sector of Antarctica to raise the height of the global oceans by 28m – if it were all to melt out…..Once again the melting culprit is likely to be warm water that is being pulled up from the deep by shifting sea-ice and wind patterns in the region.”  That should still be treated as a consequence of today’s global warming, the bulk of which is stored at depth in the oceans, where it has unlimited freedom to circulate.

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A bit of welcome news about the movement of high glaciers in the Himalayan region.  A major revelation from satellite studies shows that their downward velocity decreases when they get thinner from melting or any other reason.  This slowdown keeps them from reaching lower elevations where the rate of melting would speed up, creating an advantage both for the populations below and their impact on sea level rise.
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Very high risk of infrastructure damage by 2050 from thawing of permafrost.  According to this study, about 70% of residential, commercial and industrial infrastructure in the Arctic region faces severe damage from ground degradation over the next thirty years, with little hope for avoidance.  About 3.6 million people now living on the permafrost will be affected and any plans for new development greatly limited.
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Climate Action Tracker has an update on current national pledges and policies.  This research consortium keeps close track of what all respondents to the Paris Accord are actually doing to meet the targets.  The sum of all pledges that have been made, if adhered to, would hold the warming increase to 3.0 degrees.  Actual policies that are in place and being followed would result in a 3.3 degree warming, which at least is 0.1 better than a year ago.  Most countries have been moving in the right direction since 2015.  Some, “including the United States, Australia, Brazil, Indonesia, Russia and the United Arab Emirates have made either no progress or taken backward steps.”
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A new study draws broad pictures of where climate change may ultimately be taking us, and how fast.  The research in hand is all up to date but the conclusions are not particularly new.  The main point is that humans, over just 200 years, really do have the capability to raise the CO2 level high enough to cause a return to climate conditions that existed 50 million years ago, which seems absurd.  However, everything we can see in this review is couched in RCP language, which I think is confusing, as opposed to CO2 language, and the study itself is not available for reading.  Also, bear in mind that humans are soon going to get alarmed about fossil fuels, based on changes we are seeing right now, and will begin pushing much harder for conversion to alternative energy over the next decade.  It will still be difficult to prevent eventual warming of 3C (from pre-industrial) when equilibrium is reached, but holding the increase below 4C is obtainable if we can manage to keep the CO2 level well below 550.
Carl

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