Earth is hotter than ever — So what happens next?

[Admin]

This week, NASA revealed that 2020 tied with 2016 as the hottest year on record. So what does this mean for the future of our planet and life on Earth?

Earth is hotter than ever — So what happens next? : Read more

 

[sam85geo]

Without some testable mathematical modeling, we appear to speculating and considering solutions without adequate measurement capability. (Please, educate me to the contrary. The continual carping about climate change is difficult to sift through). My speculation is that the increasing human population, and the economic activities related to that are the main drivers of climate change, decreasing biodiversity and potential natural catastrophes. As far as the near future effect of global warming on the Earth, I see only contentious arguments and hopefully a few workable, remedial proposals. Such is worrisome not so much immediately for us, but for the progeny of many species.

 

[newtons_laws]

Well, if global temperatures rise sea levels will rise for sure. Not good news for those living by the coast.....

 

[Helio]

The key to adequate predictive modeling must be focused on determining "climate sensitivity". What specifically happens to a planet with this or that change, especially increases in industrial emissions? We can't just address "kind" -- we know greenhouse gases cause greenhouse effects, but rather "degree" (ah, a pun). Traveling to other planets will help us understand better how atmospheres actually work. They are incredibly complicated.

 

[GeoXXX]

I do agree the Earth is sexier than ever!

 

[Ken Fabian]

Helio, do not underestimate the depth of understanding that climate science has won for us. We now have a very good understanding of how our climate works. We had most the fundamentals of the processes involved worked out more than a century ago, certainly by half a century ago, but lacked until more recently what the NAS in 1975 called "quantitative understanding', ie data on how strong each process and effect is, sufficient to be able to predict in broad strokes what is likely to happen. We don't need other planets to study to know what excess fossil fuel burning can do.

Climate sensitivity is likely between 2.3 and 4.5 C, and very likely to be between 2.0 and 5.7 C.

There will be greater warming than that over land - around here global 1C rise has been experience as 1.4C rise. For people like me who live in a hot and often dry climate, already subject to droughts, heatwaves and catastrophic wildfires the prospect of raised temperatures even in the middle of that range is properly terrifying; the high end is actually hard for me to contemplate. It makes for crop and livestock killing heatwaves and firestorms off the scale - made even worse without opportunities to do cool weather fuel reduction burning safely at all. Others will lose their properties to rising sea levels but large parts of Australia - including the most productive farmland - are in grave danger.

 

[Helio]

The paper (per link) doubles the CO2 level to predict what happens by the end of the century. I am not remotely knowledgeable enough to say much on climate change as there are too many non-independent variables to consider.

One site I enjoy following, when interested, is Climate Etc. that helps explain many topics within papers, and offers some scrutiny, too. Her background story is worth reading, as well.

 

[Ken Fabian]

Helio, if you are relying on Climate Etc, a site devoted to building mistrust in mainstream climate science, you are getting a highly distorted view of climate science - especially wrt exaggerated levels of uncertainty. You really need to make the mainstream sources your primary sources. Picking as principle sources only the views of a tiny minority of climate scientists that are notable for insisting everyone else is wrong will lead you to the false conclusion that mainstream climate science is wrong. If the IPCC reports are too much - the most recent references over 10,000 science papers - there are orgs like the NAS and Royal Society that draw on the best scientists in the world to review and critique and make sense of complex science.