Tag Archives: Sea-Level Rise

Climate Solutions, News, Observation, Politics, Science

‘Our House Is Truly on Fire’: Earth Now Has 50% Chance of Hitting 1.5°C of Warming by 2026

June 30, 2022 Creative Commons

“The 1.5°C figure is not some random statistic,” said the head of the World Meteorological Organization. “It is rather an indicator of the point at which climate impacts will become increasingly harmful for people and indeed the entire planet.”

The World Meteorological Organization warned Monday that the planet now faces a 50% chance of temporarily hitting 1.5°C of warming above pre-industrial levels over the next five years, another signal that political leaders—particularly those of the rich nations most responsible for carbon emissions—are failing to rein in fossil fuel use.

“For as long as we continue to emit greenhouse gases, temperatures will continue to rise.”

In 2015, by comparison, the likelihood of briefly reaching or exceeding 1.5°C of global warming over the ensuing five-year period was estimated to be “close to zero,” the WMO noted in a new climate update. The report was published amid a deadly heatwave on the Indian subcontinent that scientists say is a glimpse of what’s to come if runaway carbon emissions aren’t halted. Thus far, the heatwave has killed dozens in India and Pakistan.

Signatories to the Paris climate accord have agreed to act to limit the global average temperature increase to well below 2°C—preferably to 1.5°C—by the end of the century. Climate advocates have deemed the 1.5°C target “on life support” following world leaders’ refusal to commit to more ambitious action at the COP26 summit in Glasgow late last year.

“We are getting measurably closer to temporarily reaching the lower target of the Paris Agreement,” Petteri Taalas, the secretary-general of the WMO, said in a statement Monday. “The 1.5°C figure is not some random statistic. It is rather an indicator of the point at which climate impacts will become increasingly harmful for people and indeed the entire planet.”

“For as long as we continue to emit greenhouse gases, temperatures will continue to rise,” Taalas added. “And alongside that, our oceans will continue to become warmer and more acidic, sea ice and glaciers will continue to melt, sea level will continue to rise and, our weather will become more extreme. Arctic warming is disproportionately high and what happens in the Arctic affects all of us.”

BREAKING from the World Meteorological Organization @WMO: There is now a 50% probability that at least one of the next 5 years will temporarily reach the Paris Agreement threshold of 1.5°C. In 2015 this chance was estimated to be zero.Our house is truly on fire. #ClimateEmergency https://t.co/u5sTx63weR
— Scientist Rebellion (@ScientistRebel1) May 10, 2022

Dr. Leon Hermanson, a climate expert at the U.K. Met Office who led the WMO report, stressed that a short-lived breach of the 1.5°C threshold would not mean that the world is guaranteed to fall short of the Paris accord’s most ambitious warming target, which climate experts and campaigners have long decried as inadequate.

Such a breach, however, would “reveal that we are edging ever closer to a situation where 1.5°C could be exceeded for an extended period,” said Hermanson.

The WMO’s latest research also estimates that there is a 93% chance that at least one year between 2022 and 2026 will be the warmest on record. Currently, 2016 and 2020 are tied for the top spot.

Even if global warming is limited to 1.5°C by 2100, countless people across the globe will still face devastating heatwaves, droughts, and other extreme weather, with the poor facing the worst consequences.

Meanwhile, key ecosystems could be damaged beyond repair in a 1.5°C hotter world. One recent study found that 99% of the world’s coral reefs would experience heatwaves that are “too frequent for them to recover” if the planet gets 1.5°C warmer compared to pre-industrial levels.

Scientists behind the latest Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report cautioned last month that if there’s to be any hope of keeping warming to 1.5°C or below by 2100, “it’s now or never.”

“Without immediate and deep emissions reductions across all sectors, it will be impossible,” said Jim Skea, co-chair of IPCC Working Group III.

Originally published on Common Dreams by JAKE JOHNSON and republished under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).

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Climate Solutions, Earth and Ecology

Climate Crisis: Report Reveals New and more extreme Dangers to our Oceans

June 17, 2021 Kat Lee

International Report Documents Expanded Risks from All Sides…

For decades, the human species has been treating its oceans poorly. Oil spills, pollution, overfishing, melting ice caps, and above all climate change have made our seas into perpetual punching bags. As a recent report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) shows, however, the ocean is now at its most fragile. If we do not help it, then it will soon start punching back.

The report is based on an extensive review of more than six thousand studies from scientists in 36 countries and the results are voluminous and, frankly, very scary for any sane observer. These compounded dangers are becoming harder to dispute, and previously challenged assertions such as how to measure the acceleration of the rising sea levels are being more clearly defined and more confidently confirmed by scientists.

The ocean has always been one of the earth’s most crucial natural deterrents to global warming. As a pool of water that covers over seventy percent of the world’s surface, the ocean is an enormous carbon drain. Like a forest, it sucks in lots of our carbon emissions and uses it to sustain its ecosystem.

Unfortunately, as climate change evolves and accelerates, the ocean’s ability to absorb that carbon diminishes. There is so much CO₂ in the atmosphere that the ocean is all but overwhelmed. Simultaneously, other kinds of pollution—such as plastic or oil—are also taking their tolls on the seas’ ecosystems.

Rising Sea Levels, Extreme Weather Events, other threats are in Extreme Acceleration

The biggest threat that the ocean poses if climate change is not effectively combatted is rising water levels. The IPCC report shows that with our current level of carbon emissions, arctic ice will start to melt at a more rapid pace, and sea levels will rise significantly. By the next century, certain coastal communities and entire island nations could be uninhabitable. As a huge percentage of the world lives by the water, this could leave millions of people incredibly vulnerable.

The water is not only getting higher, though. It is also getting warmer. As the world’s temperature increases with an oversaturation of atmospheric carbon, the oceans follow suit. Water temperatures are rising and the rate of that rise is increasing.

Warmer water has already brought with it a whole new line of ecological issues. When the temperature changes, it affects marine life behavior and migratory patterns. This is impacting everything from the food chain to the fishing industry, making it a far greater issue than just a few confused fish ending up on the wrong side of the sea.

Furthermore, hurricanes thrive off of warm water, so as the ocean gets hotter, we are already seeing larger and more brutal storms washing up on our coasts. The IPCC report underscores an increased occurrence of powerful storms, with category 4 and 5 hurricanes becoming far more frequent. Flooding will also continue to occur more frequently, and beachside infrastructure will find itself in dire straits all-year around.

Dangers Lurk beyond rising Sea Levels: Pollution, Disease and Contagions Threaten to Rise as well

Then, there is also the fact that our oceans are getting dirtier. Acidification and pollution have led to the extinction of certain species, the eradication of coral reefs, and numerous health problems that find their way to the surface. More foodborne illnesses are turning up in seafood; Marine heat waves affect seabirds and amphibious mammals as well as fish; And a summer dip in the ocean may soon become a grimy bath that leaves you sick and dirty.

The ocean is powerful and beautiful. Ever since humankind evolved out of its depths millions of years ago, the great blue saltwater haven has been helping sustain us on land. Its wondrous waves and illustrious currents have inspired many, and mystified even more. Conscienceless as a silent part of this humble planet we call home, the ocean has asked for nothing in return for her millions of years of ecological service. Now, however, in no small part due to our exploitative nature, she is suffering. If we do not help her now when she is desperate, then her years of docility will soon run out, and we will feel her wrath.

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Climate Solutions

2% Beneath The Surface is Big: Report Shows Oxygen Levels in the Ocean are at Severe Risk

January 26, 2020 Kat Lee

At the Climate Summit in Madrid, the International Union for Conservation of Nature recently released a report stating that the amount of oxygen in the ocean has decreased by two percent between 1960 and 2010. The report was penned by 67 scientists from 17 countries, nearly all of whom found evidence linking this deoxygenation to climate change and other human activities.

A two percent reduction in oxygen over fifty years may not seem like a lot, but it is an unprecedented rate of decline for the ocean, causing the sea to warm and acidify at a record speed. Being a body of salt water, the oceans respond to such elemental losses differently than the surface would. Dr. Dan Laffoley, one of the report’s editors, explained to The New York Times that if the heat absorbed by the ocean in the last fifty-five years went into the atmosphere instead, then the surface world would experience a roughly 65 degree (Fahrenheit) increase in global temperatures.

Furthermore, the two percent figure is only an average; oxygen levels are not uniform across the entire ocean. Some areas have a healthy amount of oxygen, but it is not evenly distributed. According to the journal Science, certain tropical waters have found a 40 to 50 percent drop in oxygen.

Most of the ocean’s oxygen is actually getting condensed towards the surface. In a self-perpetuating cycle, deoxygenation makes the water warmer, and warmer water is more buoyant. Therefore, the O2 floats to the top, but it comes at the expense of deeper waters that end up gasping for air. Likewise, when the water is warmer, marine life actually uses the reduced oxygen at a faster rate because all the creatures are vying for each breath.

Without adequate oxygen in the ocean, its vast species cannot survive. If they want to keep sustaining themselves, they have to change their behavior. This means altering migratory patters, diets, and habitats. When one species deviates from its typical behaviors, it can jeopardize entire food chains and ecosystems. Given the surplus of oxygen near the surface, for example, more animals are moving towards higher waters, oversaturating these environments with competing and invasive life-forms.

The main solution that the scientists offer for this issue principally involves reducing greenhouse gas emissions around the world. The ocean is the world’s largest natural carbon drain, but it is now becoming overburdened and overheated, making it incapable of holding as much oxygen or effectively doing its job. As another side effect, warm water also takes up more space through thermal expansion, so deoxygenation in the ocean actually accelerates sea level rise as well.

This report should be a reminder to world leaders at the UN Climate Conference that nature is not expendable in the fight against climate change. Preserving our oceans and forests is an essential element in protecting the human race. These landscapes mean more than just animals and plants. It is these very ecosystems and everything in them that give us the privilege of living in an environmentally sound world. We should not take them for granted, for an ocean ruined by humans will eventually lead to a ruined humanity.