Catching up with Paul Beckwith - 03/17/2-16

I don't agree with everything Paul says, especially about geoengineering, but I had this to say on Facebook today

A few thoughts of my own.

The climate news gets worse and worse every day and is becoming more difficult for governments and media to ignore. The evidence is clear that there is no "solution" to this and we have already gone over a threshold and we are in an era of runaway climate change.

I cannot but accept the conclusions of Guy McPherson that we are on a fasttrack to the extinction of our species.

I also accept that while the evidence is clear there are many unknown variables in this so cannot say that this is inevitable and so cannot put a date on this.

One thing I refuse to do. Having accepted the evidence I am not going to turn that into an ideological position that I have to fight for. How can there be anything like an "extinction movement"?!

I bristle at suggestions that people like Robertscribbler have somehow "joined the ranks of the enemy" because they make public their faith that this can be "solved", either through renewables or geoengineering.

That is not my position and I will say it publicly.

But I will never attack any well-meaning person for expressing an opinion differing from my own when they play such a crucial role in conveying the truth about our predicament.

Consequences Of Catastrophic Climate Change

http://paulbeckwith.net/2016/03/17/consequences-of-catastrophic-climate-change/

“Suppose that your mom is sick. None of her brothers, sisters or children have taken her complaints seriously. Everybody has carried on with their own busy lives, thinking that mom was imagining things, and assuming that she was fine.
And then she took a turn for the worse. Everybody close suddenly realized that she was very frail and ill, depleted of her energy and resources. She was no longer the ageless, sacred source of life that nurtures all living beings.
Now, suppose that she is everyone’s mother. She is Mother Earth.
And her illness is abrupt climate change…” Paul Beckwith
———-

Something that I put together March 12th in reply to interview questions with Will Fox at FutureTimeline.net.  Please forward, etc. Use as you want..

‘1) Hi Paul. Thanks for agreeing to do this interview. First of all, could you tell us a bit about your background, how long you’ve been involved in climate science, and what areas of climatology you specialise in?

‘Hello Will. Thank you. It is my pleasure to have this interview with you.

‘I am an Engineer with a Bachelor of Engineering Degree in Engineering Physics (often called Engineering Science) from McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. I finished at the top of my class and received many …’ [Click here, to go to the fully elaborated text, continues.]
———- ———-

Consequences Of Catastrophic Climate Change // Published on Mar 14, 2016

Never before in human history have we faced such a global-reaching upheaval like that underway today from early stages of abrupt climate system change. Will humanity continue its haphazard and disconcerted feeble attempts to address the gut-wrenching disruption and pretend that everything will work out fine as we spiral into civilization collapse? Or will we finally do what is required and treat the system turmoil as a global emergency far larger than we have ever faced before, and throw all our resources into surviving it?
———-

Three-Legged BarStool For Surviving Climate Change // Published on Mar 14, 2016

Society desperately needs a multi-pronged approach to survive ongoing abrupt climate system change:
Leg 1: zeroing fossil fuel emissions
Leg 2: halting extreme Arctic temperature rise
Leg 3: removing CO2 from atmosphere/ocean
Without 3 legs society topples, like the barstool. A harsh reality…
———-

Methane Warming At Least 34x Higher than CO2 // Published on Mar 14, 2016

My Methane Pet Peeve. Almost all reports (blogs, articles, newspapers, mainstream or not) incorrectly state that methane is 25x, or 24x or 22x stronger for warming than carbon dioxide. WRONG. Did I say WRONG. Over 100 years, the correct number from IPCC AR5 (2013) is 34x. It is 86x over 20 years, and up to 200x over a year or two. Methane lifetime is about 11 years in the atmosphere, but varies with latitude. The risk of large methane burps, especially in the Arctic is HUGE and growing.
———-

Why WE MUST a) cool the Arctic, b) lower CO2 levels // Published on Mar 14, 20

We have run OUT of time on climate change. All heck is breaking badly. We must zero fossil fuel emissions, but this is not enough to restore climate stability. I discuss why and how we will cool the Arctic, and why and how we will remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and/or oceans. There is no other option. If you are against this then DO NOT understand how severe abrupt climate change is, and what it will cost us. Basically, everything…
———-

Climate change - another positive feedback

Guy McPherson comments – positive feedback #21

The Methane Monster Grows New Teeth: Sea Level Rise Found to Cause Slope Collapse, Tsunamis, Methane Release

Undersea Landslide Complex

(Image source: Sea-level–induced Seismicity and Submarine Landslide Occurrence.)

Roberscribbler,

23 August, 2013

At the end of the last ice age as the climate warmed, glaciers began to thaw, and sea level began to rise, a troubling spike in the number of undersea landslides and related tsunami events occurred. In total, almost half of all the undersea landslides of the past 125,000 years occurred during this period of deglaciation occurring from 8,000 to 15,000 years ago. A rate many times that seen during either the glacial period or during the Holocene.

This large increase in subsea landslide events had long been observed in the science. But, up until this point, there has been little research to determine why so many landslides occurred. But this year, a team of scientists developed a model to investigate the cause of these continental shelf slope failures and large undersea landslides. The report, published in Geology, is available here: Sea-level–induced Seismicity and Submarine Landslide Occurrence.

The findings of this study and related model run were stark. According to results, rising sea waters spurred by climate change greatly increased the pressure on undersea slope and fault structures. This pressure, rising over 7,000 years to roughly equal that of a human bite over every inch of these undersea fault systems, was found to result in numerous catastrophic failures.

In a slope failure, a strain on an undersea fault in a debris, rock or sediment zone first begins to grow. The region of sediment already rests over a sloping undersea terrain and so the weight of the ocean above constantly pushes down on these structures. Over time, the stress increases due to slow structural change, seismic stresses, the passing of large waves and/or strong storms, and/or loss of slope integrity. If sea levels rise, the added weight of a deeper ocean overhead further increases stress. Eventually, the fault line catastrophically fails causing separation and rapid collapse of slope material toward the ocean bottom.

Undersea Slope Failure

(Image source: UNCW)

Slope collapse zones can stretch for miles and miles along seabed drop-off zones. A slope failure can release millions or billions of tons of material, displacing an equally high volume of water. Under the right circumstances, such large slope failures can result in very large tsunamis, similar to those caused by major ocean earthquakes.

More ominously, perhaps, is the fact that large slope failures can directly expose previously buried deposits of methane hydrates. If large stores of this substance are rapidly uncovered in a warming sea environment they can swiftly out-gas and greatly contribute to an already ongoing warming.

The most vulnerable regions for slope collapse include large, shallow continental shelves that have multiple or large fault zones and that border an ocean drop-off to deeper water. A particularly sensitive region is the shallow East Siberian Arctic Shelf which contains numerous fault zones and extends out into deeper Arctic waters as well as slope structures near the Gakkel Ridge. The ESAS also contains one of the Arctic’s largest stores of methane, estimated at 500 gigatons. Many structures in these regions are already emitting significant, but not catastrophic, volume of methane from undersea hydrate stores. A slope collapse of the kind mentioned in this report in any of these locations would have severe consequences for ESAS, Arctic and global methane release.

Rate of Sea Level Increase During the End of the Last Ice Age

Changes in Sea Level at the End of the Last Ice Age.

(Image source: Commons)

During the period of deglaciation at the last ice age’s end, a global temperature rise of about 5 degrees Celsius caused a 395 foot sea level rise over the course of 70 centuries. On average, sea level rise matched pace with temperature increase. Once ice sheet destabilization began, each .1 C temperature rise coincided with about a 6 foot rise in sea level, or a rate of slightly more than 5.5 feet per century.

Current glacier systems hold enough water to increase sea levels by about another 200 feet. Ocean thermal expansion will add its own increase to this potential sea level rise. At a .8 C temperature increase since the 1880s, current temperatures are near or just above the Holocene maximum, large ice sheet destabilization has begun, and rates of sea level rise are continuing to increase. With temperatures expected to rise between 4 and 7 degrees Celsius by the end of this century under business as usual fossil fuel emissions, a temperature increase roughly equivalent to one that took 7000 years to complete at the end of the last ice age, it is highly likely that a 5 foot per century rate of sea level increase will be matched or exceeded. Such a rapid rate of sea level rise would create stresses to sub-sea ocean slope systems that meet or exceed that seen during the end of the last ice age, greatly increasing the risk of catastrophic slope failure and resulting tsunamis and potential methane release scenarios.

Sea Level Increase Since 1992.

(Image source: AVISO)

 

*****

Links:

Sea-level–induced Seismicity and Submarine Landslide Occurrence

UNCW

AVISO

Commons