Climate Letter #2043

In writing these letters I am assuming that anyone who becomes a regular reader is unusually interested in gaining a more complete understanding of the fundamental processes that cause the global temperature of our planet to change. This is what I have personally become the most interested in, after more than eight years of being fully occupied with learning all that I could about every aspect related to the broad subject of climate change. The only conclusion I can come to is that if temperatures keep going up, by continuing on the current trend, the climate will change and there will be real consequences, probably of a most undesirable type. Humans will either want to prevent this from happening, if that is possible, or otherwise figure out how best to adapt to whatever comes. Either of these courses of action presents challenges, because everything going on is so new. We have an absolute minimum of previous experience to fall back on, and worse yet, it is happening so fast.

From all the reading I’ve done these last nine years, as a self-taught student of climate change, it has become clear in my mind that our knowledge base is still woefully limited. In particular, this impression applies to the confusing tangle of the many things that cause temperatures to change. There is still much more to be learned about what caused changes in the past, and the same today. For example, why is half the globe showing rapid increases today while the other half is not? The more we can learn about the past and the present the better will be our prospects for improving future forecasts, through a better understanding of how changes are processed. Such advanced knowledge could only be of benefit to acts tied to either prevention or adaptation, or both. Gaining the right knowledge is the part that interests me the most, and is what I expect to keep on writing about. Anything I can learn that is new and helpful is in some way exciting, regardless of whichever direction it may be pointing toward, and I want to pass it on.

Yesterday’s letter was devoted to a recent study by a group of four researchers in Germany that really excited me. If you haven’t read the letter please do so, and then read as much as you can of the study itself. They have a terrific story to tell, based on research of what I believe is the highest possible quality at this time. If you can take a few minutes to do a full search on each of these authors you will be able to read about their previously published research, quite impressive in each case. One author, Victor Brovkin, has earned a coveted membership in the European National Academy of Science. I still can’t understand the utter lack of publicity given to this study and its profound implications. About 40% of methane’s effect on today’s global temperatures is entirely natural, not under human control, but created primarily as a feedback to whatever warming is already in place, from any cause, and this has very deep significance.

The herbal erection enhancement remedies are the cheap viagra for women best answer for you. If you saw the movie Cast Away with Tom Hanks, you will recall the strong sense of loss Hanks experienced when Wilson, his beloved volleyball, had floated away. cheap levitra In a sildenafil online no prescription downtownsault.org 1997 randomized clinical trial, researchers found that the product can significantly improve ability to get stronger erections. They think that women will make fun of him and viagra discount prices might disclose it in front of your marital partner.

“We find that natural methane emissions, i.e. methane emissions from the biosphere, rise strongly as a reaction to climate warming, thus leading to atmospheric methane concentrations substantially higher than assumed in the scenarios used forCMIP6. We also find that the natural emissions become larger than the anthropogenic ones in most scenarios, showing that natural emissions cannot be neglected.”  The natural component is in fact growing today at a surprisingly rapid rate as a feedback to rising temperatures. Even if we succeed in making sharp cuts in the methane component caused by human activity, the natural component can keep right on growing, at perhaps a slightly slower rate.  The total concentration of methane in the atmosphere, which today is growing more rapidly than that of CO2, and accelerating as well, would also keep on growing, again perhaps at a slightly reduced rate because of the anthropogenic methane contraction.

Now consider this:  Unlike the water vapor feedback, growth of which is subject to and limited by the rules of condensation, no such limitations are known to exist that would inhibit increases in the methane feedback that comes from natural sources. Once methane molecules have been lofted into the atmosphere their average lifetime is relatively brief, owing to the widespread presence of OH radicals that serve as a primary “sink.”  Variations in the level of sink activity can occur, and we presently depend on it not slacking off during this era of rapid growth in the concentration level.  For much more information about methane’s basic characteristics, this heavily-authored 2020 article covering the global methane budget is an excellent up-to-date source:  https://essd.copernicus.org/articles/12/1561/2020/

Carl

This entry was posted in Daily Climate Letters. Bookmark the permalink.