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Runaway Daily
Posts Tagged 'runaway climate change'
Not Necessarily the News
Posted on May 2, 2011 in Miscellaneous
SPUR planner cites 5M sea level rise
Today I began researching news about runaway climate change on the Web – and the bad news is, there is no news.
A search on the term “runaway climate change” for the last 24 hours, using Google News, yielded no results. None. Zip. Nada.
This is sad. Runaway climate change means that human-generated warming has set off new processes in nature. These processes, if the “runaway” assertion is true, have their own momentum. Warming from these processes will continue, whether human-generated warming continues or not. The Earth will warm by at least several more degrees, with huge consequences for humanity, no matter what. (Slowing or stopping human-generated warming would still slow warming in the coming years, greatly easing sustainability crises, and perhaps limiting the ultimate extent of warming that occurs.)
MIT in Journal of Climate: 10°F Warming by 2100
Posted on June 21, 2010 in What is RCC
An MIT report says the world is on track to get much warmer, much faster. An increase of +9F this century is predicted – nearly 1F per decade. This is on top of the 1F increase seen between pre-industrial times to 2000, for total global warming of 10F by 2011.
MITers and "roulette wheel" of temperature increases
Total warming of 10F means a very different world, one in which the natural world is decimated and feeding current and projected populations is impossible.
The report, which was the subject of stories earlier this year, has just been published in the prestigious Journal of Climate. If the report is correct, the survival of most people on Earth is at risk. A 10F warmer planet will support many billions fewer people, and with a transition period quite possibly marked by massive war and conflict. Any steps that save many lives are likely to be so draconian as to feel like wartime, even if implemented as benignly as possible.
Why “Runaway”?
Posted on March 5, 2010 in What is RCC
“Runaway climate change” is what happens when global warming becomes self-sustaining. A global warming spiral kicks in if:
- The environment absorbs less CO2. About 50% of our current emissions are absorbed by the environment – roughly half of that by the oceans, the other half by plants on land. This uptake of CO2 by the environment may already be in decline.
- Reflection of sunlight drops. As snow and ice cover retreat – as cover is smaller in geographic extent, or seasonal cover lasts for less of the year – dark ground and even darker water are exposed, which absorb sunlight, further warming the earth.
- More CO2 and methane are emitted from nature. Soils, forests, peat, the seas, organic deposits in permafrost, and methane clathrates all emit some CO2 and methane. As the environment warms, “natural” emissions increase.
