by Brouse and Mukherjee
Human-induced climate change is a dynamic component of an intricate and unordered system, as per chaos theory. This implies that global warming is accelerating exponentially in a complex manner. Over the period from 1992 to 2023, we have presented compelling evidence, proposed remedies to mitigate climate change, and amassed valuable information through the engagement of millions with this climate model. Your participation has been invaluable. The incontrovertible data underscores that human-induced climate change is rapidly deteriorating our habitat.
This climate model/experiment employs chaos theory to comprehensively consider human impacts, projecting a potential global average temperature increase of 9°C above pre-industrial levels. Global warming results from elevated thermal energy within the climate system, which includes various interconnected subsystems. Chaos theory highlights the intricate and nonlinear nature of these dynamic systems. Previous climate models inadequately incorporated "social-ecological systems," as human involvement was not a significant factor in past climate changes.
The United States ranks among the least prepared countries globally and has the highest percentage of climate deniers. Politicians worsen the situation by obstructing efforts to combat climate change. The Republican Party often dismisses climate change as a manufactured crisis and proposes increasing fossil fuel production. It's ironic because human industrial 'manufacturing' activities are a primary driver of climate change. Despite some efforts under President Biden, the U.S. remains the largest global producer of oil, including crude oil, natural gas liquids, and other petroleum products. Both parties have consistently opted to provide unlimited emergency funding for climate disasters rather than focusing on prevention. In 2023, the United States experienced an unprecedented number of climate disasters, with 28 significant weather and climate-related events, each costing over a billion dollars. These disasters ranged from hurricanes and wildfires to severe storms and flooding. Some of these individual events resulted in economic damages reaching hundreds of billions of dollars.
In June 2024, the Supreme Court significantly curtailed the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) authority, severely limiting its ability to enforce environmental protection laws. This ruling marked a drastic shift, undermining decades of regulatory progress aimed at mitigating environmental damage and climate change. It effectively nullified the EPA's mandate to regulate emissions and enforce environmental standards.
The government's actions, or lack thereof, represent their constituents' hate and ignorance, leading to a situation where "worst-case" predictions for climate change have become the "best-case" expectations. Revised climate models now suggest that global temperatures could rise by as much as 9°C within this century, compared to earlier projections of a 4° C increase over the next millennium. Such a dramatic temperature rise could push Earth toward a "wet-bulb" temperature threshold, which combines heat and humidity. Beyond this limit, the human body cannot cool itself through perspiration, leading to potentially fatal heat stress.
What Can I Do? There are numerous actions you can take to contribute to saving the planet. Each person bears the responsibility to minimize pollution, discontinue the use of fossil fuels, reduce consumption, and encourage a culture of love and care. The Butterfly Effect illustrates that a small change in one area can lead to significant alterations in conditions anywhere on the globe. Hence, the frequently heard statement that a fluttering butterfly in China can cause a hurricane in the Atlantic. Be a butterfly and positively impact the world. Most importantly, strive to remove hate from your heart and foster love.
"We've entered the Age of Loss and Damage, but we're just at the start. What we are seeing already just makes you want to cry," expressed Dr. Christopher Trisos from the University of Cape Town in a recent BBC interview (MP3 Format). He highlighted the inevitability of loss and damage but emphasized that there are significant measures we can take to mitigate it.
In the 20th century, the Earth's surface temperature averaged 13.9℃. However, in the first weeks of July 2023, the global average temperature surged to 17℃, marking a concerning shift. The question arises: Can humans endure temperatures greater than 3℃? The answer is a grim "probably not long," as such extremes have never been experienced by humanity before.
September 6, 2023, marked a dire warning from United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, following the World Meteorological Organization's report on the hottest Northern Hemisphere summer in human history. Guterres stated, "The dog days of summer are not just barking, they are biting," emphasizing the severity of the situation.
Climate breakdown, the most alarming development, occurs when feedback loops are triggered, and tipping points are crossed. This leads to the extinction of plants, the disappearance of carbon sinks, and an exponential acceleration of Earth's temperature. The consequences are dire, with the potential disappearance of vital resources like food, fresh water, and breathable air, likely followed by catastrophic impacts on human survival.
In October 2023, the European Space Agency's Copernicus Climate Change Service reported that the average temperature for September hit 16.38 degrees Celsius, surpassing the previous record set in September 2020 by 0.5 degrees Celsius. Copernicus Director Carlo Buontempo described it as "mind-blowing" and emphasized the devastating impacts on people and ecosystems, citing destruction of assets, infrastructure, and harvests. "What we are observing, are not only new extremes but the persistence of these record-breaking conditions, and the impacts these have on both people and planet, are a clear consequence of the warming of the climate system," Director Buontempo said.
By January 2024, the Earth had experienced an alarming annual average temperature increase of over 1.5 degrees Celsius. This temperature rise continued in February 2024, with a monthly average reaching 1.77 degrees above pre-industrial levels, occurring centuries earlier than previously predicted. The urgency to address and combat climate change has never been more critical.
In a significant update from May 2024, scientists determined through tree ring analysis that the average temperature increase in 2023 reached 2.07 degrees Celsius, further underscoring the escalating pace of climate change and its profound impact on global ecosystems.
On June 6, 2024, scientists from NOAA and the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California San Diego announced that carbon dioxide is accumulating in the atmosphere faster than ever, accelerating on a steep rise to levels far above any experienced during human existence. "Over the past year, we've experienced the hottest year on record, the hottest ocean temperatures on record and a seemingly endless string of heat waves, droughts, floods, wildfires, and storms," said NOAA Administrator Rick Spinrad, Ph.D. "Now we are finding that atmospheric CO2 levels are increasing faster than ever. We must recognize that these are clear signals of the damage carbon dioxide pollution is doing to the climate system and take rapid action to cut fossil fuel use as quickly as we can."
In July 2024, the Copernicus Climate Change Service confirmed that Earth experienced its hottest day in recorded history, breaking the previous record set in July 2023. "What really stands out is the difference between the temperatures since July 2023 and all previous years." This record-breaking trend indicates that the rapid acceleration of climate change is not an anomaly but rather the new normal.
Humans will experience greater loss and damage to life and quality of life from air pollution, decreasing supply of potable water, extreme weather events, disease, and other adverse health outcomes. The greatest short term climate change risk to human health is deadly humid heat (wet-bulb temperature).
A warmer world will present widespread challenges across many aspects of food-energy-water security and economic development. Infrastructure including roads, bridges, sewer and water plants will become unsustainable. Personal property will suffer loss and damage as homeowners' insurance and flood insurance become increasingly difficult to obtain. Storm surges in Florida are an example. Parts of the coastline have seen sea levels rise over 14-20 feet in the last decade. Although the storm surge was only for hours, you wouldn't want to live there during those hours. Not to mention, the frequency of these extreme weather events is rising exponentially. Thus, our recommendation to evacuate Florida now (i.e. Managed Retreat). The billions of dollars spent to rebuild after Hurricane Ida will all be for naught. Allowing building there will needlessly endanger property and lives. Parts of the world have already seen storm surges of 40 feet. We expect most North American coastlines will see sea levels rise, if only temporarily, by 20-40 feet this century. All real estate is at risk from climate change.
The environmental changes and uncertainties associated with climate change can contribute to mental health issues, including anxiety, depression, and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Almost all survivors of climate-related disasters suffer from mental distress and experience PTSD. Of those who have not experienced climate disasters, over two-thirds of U.S. adults (68%) report having climate change anxiety.
The Age of Loss and Damage is a new way of thinking about economics by combining economics, climate science, statistics, and physics. Until now, economic models have been unfit to capture the full extent of climate damage. Traditionally, "integrated assessment models" (IAMs) were used to forecast "shock" events. IAMs use "quadratic function" to calculate GDP losses by squaring the temperature change, yet ignore other methods (such as the exponential function) that are better suited for rapid change. "Climate change is fundamentally different to other shocks because once it has hit, it doesn't go away," said Thierry Philipponnat, author of a report by Finance Watch, a Brussels-based public interest NGO on financial issues. "And if the fundamental assumption is flawed, all the rest makes little sense -- if any."
Unfortunately, even scientists are failing to see, let alone forecast, the rapid acceleration in climate change. Due to their complexity, the impacts of the Domino Effect are being underestimated. The Domino Effect is also known as "tipping cascades" in climate science. Cascading impacts in relation to tipping points include cascading impacts across biogeophysical and social systems. Until recently, scientist have been drastically underestimating the social-ecological systems. The University of Exeter reports, "There is a notable lack of topic clusters dedicated to how humans will be impacted by climate-related tipping cascades." 2023 was a wake-up call to social-ecological scientists. The record breaking physical and economical impacts could be felt worldwide. The record warming year was seventeen times greater than any other record increase in history. Typically, record-breaking temperatures are measured in 100th degrees. There were also 200 consecutive days of record-breaking temperatures. Usually, there are one or two record breaking days in a row. The increase in intensity and frequency of record-breaking heat requires forecasting models to be recast.
As flow velocities go up due to climate change, force and damage scale as square of the velocities.
Reuters reported, "Critics say this (IAMs) choice is doomed to underplay the likely impact - particularly if the planet hits environmental tipping points in which damage is not only irreversible but happens at an ever-accelerating rate." Thierry Philipponnat's report, Finance in a Hot House World, concludes: "Climate risk is growing to disruptive levels throughout the financial system and the guardians of financial stability urgently need to adapt their tools to regain control." The report calls for economic models that do not mislead, scenario analyses that prepare the market, and a new prudential tool to address the build-up of systemic climate risk.
Traditional economics is based upon the "costs and benefits" to society. Since there are no known long-term benefits of climate change to society, the Age of Loss and Damage economics focuses on the exponential costs of climate change to society.
Loss and damage litigation against oil companies and governments will change world economics.
-- from The Age of Loss and Damage / Brouse (2023)
In October of 2023 Sidd said, "Now I am thinking the violent rain will be a bigger problem before we die... still thinking it through. In the long run, ya, sea level rise will hit big. If you look at the history, it is episodic, and in the fast bits it can go up 3 feet every twenty years for five hundred years. But, the rain intensity is increasing faster today, and drainage cannot cope, whether in the city or out, culverts and such put in over the last hundred years cannot handle. So, I am paying a lot of attention to terrain and drainage far inland from the seacoast (like Ohio.) By drainage I don't mean just human built. I mean that the natural streams and gullies and ravines have not evolved to a state that can handle the water volumes we see and the worse, larger volumes we will see. So expect huger erosion, steeper slopes to waterways, land collapses and such. Build out your drainage."
The rain intensity is increasing faster today than ever known. Multiple factors figure into the physics of violent rain. The Momentum of Rain is p = mv (p = momentum, m = mass, v = velocity.) Part of the increasing momentum is transferred to the sides and upward increasing wind turbulence, as well as updrafts. Most of the momentum is transferred upon impact. You may notice the rain bouncing higher off the streets and sidewalks. As rain becomes more massive, it will have greater momentum when it hits the ground causing more damage. The momentum of rain and the turbulence of wind are part of a larger equation that includes not only the mass and velocity of precipitation but also the density. The combination of these variables results in an increased intensity of the flow dynamics. Increased updrafts will result in an increase in the frequency of hail. When violent rain becomes denser and turns into hail, it can be deadly. Ground without groundcover will be hit harder causing more damage. The groundcover will also be hit harder causing more damage. Concrete, asphalt, solar panels, roofs, and plants will sustain more damage. Hail may also impact your skull. Infants and young children are at highest risk. Several infants have been killed by hail in the past year.
Wind and water flow forces scale as the square of velocity, so as flow speeds increase (say due to more intense heating or heavier rain) the damage scales as the square of the velocity. Look at drag physics and you will see that force is proportional to density times square of velocity (v^2). So a twenty mile an hour wind exerts four times as much force as a ten mile an hour wind. And a forty mile an hour wind exerts sixteen times as much force as a ten mile an hour wind. A wind of fifty miles an hour exerts twenty five times and a wind of sixty miles an hour exerts thirty six times as much force as one of ten miles an hour. Then you have the density term. Water is about eight hundred times denser than air, So the force exerted by a ten mile an hour flow of water is eight hundred times that of a ten mile an hour wind. So as flow velocities go up due to climate change, force and damage scale as square of the velocities. What is not clear is how much these velocities increase with climate change. But in a sense we are seeing this already as, for example, flood and sewage systems succumb and hillsides fall down, and so on.
-- from The Reign of Violent Rain / Brouse and Mukherjee (2023)
Tipping points are Critical Milestones that directly impact the rate of acceleration in climate change by multiplying the number and intensity of feedback loops. Identifying and understanding these tipping points is crucial for climate science and policymaking. Crossing multiple tipping points could lead to a domino effect, resulting in a much more rapid and severe climate change than currently projected.
Push a glass toward the edge of a table and eventually it will fall off on its own. No matter how slowly or meticulously you push... no matter how you weight or fill the glass, it will reach a tipping point and fall off before being pushed completely off the table. No matter whether you believe the glass is half-empty or half-full, when the tipping point is reached it will plummet out-of-control to its end. This is science not fate, faith, nor belief. Human induced climate change has resulted in environmental tipping points being breached.
Tipping points, when crossed, trigger self-sustaining feedback loops that are no longer dependent on human activity. Similar to when a domino topples over hitting two more dominoes that in turn fall hitting more dominoes. Thus, the name The Domino Effect. It can also be visualized as The Snowball Effect. A tipping point is like a snowball rolling down a hill growing in mass and velocity (momentum). When a tipping point is crossed, it results in cumulative and reinforced global warming.
A look at seven of the nine tipping points crossed that show the proverbial snowball is already rolling. The first dominoes have fallen and will continue to knock down more tiles with each escalating step.
Crossing even a single tipping point is alarming. For instance, crossing the tipping point for 'mountain glacier loss' has immediate consequences: millions of people in Europe will be impacted by the lack of fresh water. Billions of people that live along coasts will be impacted by the saline infiltration and eventually by the submerging of their property. In September of 2022, UNESCO reported accelerated melting of glaciers in World Heritage sites, with glaciers in a third of sites set to disappear by 2050. In September of 2023, the GLAMOS glacier monitoring center found 10% of Swiss glaciers had disappeared in the last 2 years. They do not expect any Swiss glaciers will be left by 2050 no matter what actions are taken. If extreme measures are taken, they anticipate we may be able to save some polar glaciers.
This in and of itself should be alarming; however, it gets worse. Tipping points are parts of feedback loop systems. The ice-albedo feedback loop is an expression of the ability of surfaces to reflect sunlight (heat from the sun). Any loss of ice over a darker surface means the surface will absorb more heat and reflect less heat. This process makes the Earth warmer causing more loss of ice, which in turn causes more warming of the Earth. So, yes, the mountain ice tipping point is quite alarming for both its immediate impact as well as its self-sustaining growth to global warming; but wait, it gets more alarming. The increasing temperatures due to crossing a tipping point cause other tipping points to be toppled (The Domino Effect).
By the Autumn of 2023, it had become evident the West Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets will completely melt. The process is irreversible and inevitable. The cool water from the melting ice at the poles is being drawn toward the center of the Earth and getting warmed to record high temperatures. The warm, moist air is circulating and moving over land. These changes in climate systems will cause other areas to experience unprecedented drought. We expect sea level rise will total about 270 feet over the next several millennia. It is episodic, and in the fast bits it can go up 3 feet every twenty years for five hundred years. The melting Arctic and Antarctic have multiple feedback loops including: enhanced oceanic heating and ice-albedo, Planck feedback, lapse-rate feedback, and cloud feedback.
The tipping point for the collapse of AMOC (Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation) was thought to be centuries away, at the earliest. In July of 2023, the study Warning of a forthcoming collapse of the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation was published in the journal Nature Communications. "Here we provide statistical significance and data-driven estimators for the time of tipping. We estimate a collapse of the AMOC to occur around mid-century (2025-2095) under the current scenario of future emissions." The collapse is likely to cause faster sea level rise on the east coast of the US, more severe storms in Europe, and increasing drought in the Sahel in Africa. "From the study of past climate, we know changes in the AMOC have been some of the most abrupt and impactful events in the history of climate," said Prof. Stefan Rahmstorf, at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research in Germany and world leading oceanographer. During the last Ice Age, winter temperatures changed by up to 10C within three years in some places. "We are dealing with a system that in some aspects is highly non-linear, so fiddling with it is very dangerous, because you may well trigger some surprises," he said. "I wish I knew where this critical tipping point is, but that is unfortunately just what we don't know. We should avoid disrupting the AMOC at all costs. It is one more reason why we should stop global warming as soon as possible." A feedback loop created by the AMOC tipping point would cause a disruption of weather systems and circulation. The result would be the loss of naturally occurring carbon sinks. One scenario is desertification of the Amazon rainforest. In 2023, the Amazon River and the Rio Negro set record low levels.
The tipping point / feedback loop problem is very complex (chaos theory) and exponentially alarming. Yet another tipping point appears to have been triggered before 2024 -- Amazon Rainforest Dieback. The Amazon is often referred to as 'the lungs of our planet.' Not only does the Amazon suck in huge quantities of CO2 and breath out O2, but the Amazon soils also store huge amounts of CO2. The desertification of the Amazon would result in a release of the carbon as the soils disappeared.
1) part of July was spent at record temperatures +3C
2) the collapse of the Amazon rainforest is likely to happen between +2 - 4C. The collapse of the Amazon is expected to occur because of changing weather patterns and circulation that result in drought.
3) Brazil set up a task force for "unprecedented drought in the Amazon"
Low river levels and hotter waters have killed masses of fish seen floating on river surfaces, contaminating the drinking water, Environment Minister Marina Silva said. "We have a very worrying situation. This record drought has disrupted river transport routes (dropping 30 cm / day) threatening food and water shortages, and a large fish mortality is already beginning." This was the effect of a periodic El Nino mixing with changes in weather patterns brought by global warming. "We are seeing a collision of two phenomena, one natural which is El Nino and the other a phenomenon produced by humans, which is the change in the Earth's temperature." Worsened by climate change, this combination has caused drought not seen before in the Amazon and "is incomparably stronger and could happen more frequently."
The average temperature for Brazil had been above the historical average from July through October of 2023. Rio de Janeiro recorded 42.5C on November 12, 2023 (a record for November) and high humidity on the 14th meant that it felt like 58.5C, municipal authorities said. Heat and humidity are the greatest short term climate change risk to human health. On November 17, "a young Brazilian fan of US singer Taylor Swift died in Rio de Janeiro after falling ill inside the sweltering stadium where the superstar's concert was held, amid a record-breaking heatwave across large swathes of Brazil," as reported by ABC. "The show took place on the same day that Rio recorded its highest-ever heat index reading, which combines temperature and humidity, at 59.3 degrees Celsius (139 degrees Fahrenheit)."
Brazil's Pantanal wetlands are famous for their paradise of biodiversity. There were 2,387 fires in the Pantanal in the first 13 days of November 2023, an increase of more than 1,000 percent from the entire month of November last year, according to satellite monitoring by Brazilian space research agency INPE. "The situation is completely out of control. And between the heatwave and the wind, it's only going to get worse," says biologist Gustavo Figueiroa, head of the environmental group SOS Pantanal.
Rio Negro Climate Change Case Study
What do you know about the Rio Negro as it relates to climate change and carbon sinks? The Rio Negro gets its name from its color. The black water is caused by highly acidic and carbon rich water. One scientist that lives on the river called it similar to Coca-cola. In 2023, the Rio Negro recorded record low levels.
Most of the carbon discharged into the water helps the carbon to eventually sink in the ocean as a literal carbon sink. The lack of rain and drought conditions result in more vegetation dying and contribute to a feedback loop -- more plants die from less rain... and there is less rain to wash the excess carbon to the bottom of the ocean... resulting in more global warming... resulting in more dead vegetation.
A study of Dissolved Organic Carbon (DOC) in South American rivers found, "Small and steep catchments hosting organic rich forest soils and peatlands were the most sensitive and showed the highest and fastest DOC release if evaluated on a per unit area basis. Here, rain events caused a rapid exponential increase in DOC release...."
The study Effects of natural light and depth on rates of photo-oxidation of dissolved organic carbon in a major black-water river, the Rio Negro, Brazil found under natural sunlight during the dry seasons rates of complete photo-oxidation and changes in absorbance indices decayed exponentially. The deeper the water the less CO2 emissions created and the more carbon is sequestered at the bottom of the ocean.
The Amazon river was also at record lows during 2023. The drought conditions in the Amazon rain forest are unusual. We are watching the Rio Negro and Amazon Rivers as a case study for the slowing and/or collapse of the AMOC, the die-back of the Amazon, and the carbon cycle.
The carbon sequestration from dissolved organic carbon is only one of the many carbon sinks in the Amazon. It is likely Amazon droughts will become more frequent and intense resulting in decarbonization at an exponential rate. The collapse of the AMOC will hasten the collapse of the Amazon. The collapse of the Amazon will hasten the collapse of the AMOC.
From March 16 through 18, 2024, Brazil experienced a severe heatwave, setting new records in Rio de Janeiro with a wet-bulb temperature reaching 62.3 degrees Celsius (144.1 degrees Fahrenheit). The wet-bulb temperature reflects the body's cooling mechanism through sweat evaporation. Higher heat and humidity levels, indicated by the heat index, impede sweat evaporation. A wet-bulb temperature of 35℃ (95℉) at 100% humidity, or 115℉ at 50% humidity, represents the upper limit of safety, beyond which the human body cannot effectively regulate its core temperature through sweat evaporation.
On March 23, an atmospheric river event brought heavy rains to Brazil's Rio de Janeiro state, resulting in at least nine fatalities, primarily in Petropolis, which bore the brunt of the impact. An astonishing 270 mm (11 inches) of rain fell within a 24-hour period, significantly affecting the region and leading to numerous incidents, including landslides and house collapses.
Coral Reefs' Tipping Point
Coral reefs confront unprecedented challenges arising from various stressors, many of which are directly tied to human activities. Some of these stressors possess critical tipping points, surpassing which can lead to
the collapse of coral ecosystems. According to the European Geosciences Union's statement on January 2, 2024, specific tipping points include a temperature increase of 1.2℃ above pre-industrial levels and atmospheric CO2 concentrations exceeding 350 parts per million. Disturbingly, as of February 2024, the Earth's yearly average temperature has already risen to +1.5℃ and CO2 to 425 ppm, underscoring the urgency of addressing climate-related threats to coral reefs.
Conclusion
Feedback loops and tipping points are parts of an equation that determine the rate of acceleration in climate change. Triggering these tipping points results in the CO2 stored in nature to be released without the assistance of humans. Though we do not know how much carbon is stored in nature, it would be reasonable to assume that the temperature could be pushed from 3 degrees to 6 degrees above pre-industrial levels. Humans cannot thrive above a rise of 1.5 degrees. Much of the Earth will be uninhabitable if the temperature rises an additional 6 degrees Celsius. If humans also add 3 degrees Celsius, the temperature and humidity will approach a wet-bulb temperature that will not sustain human life.
On November 20, 2023, the UN's Emission Gap Report found even if countries carried out their current emissions-reduction pledges, the world would likely continuously exceed +3C degrees of warming this century. Later that day, the International Cryosphere Climate Initiative released State of the Cryosphere Report 2023 saying, "Two degrees is too high. Our message -- the message of the Cryosphere -- is that this insanity cannot and must not continue. The melting point of ice pays no attention to rhetoric, only to our actions."
For the first time in human history, global warming is going to continue no matter what humans do. Even if humans stopped their greenhouse gas emissions today, humans have invoked nature's greenhouse gas emissions. Nevertheless, the sooner humans stop their emissions, the better. In addition, humans must adapt their habitat to remove, reduce, and hinder nature's greenhouse gas emissions.
What Can I Do?
There are plenty of things you can do to help save the planet. Stop using fossil fuels. Consume less. Love more. Here is a list of additional actions you can take.
Educate
Climate Change and Science Music With Lyrics and Educational Materials featuring the #1 Downloads
Violent Rain
and Be a Butterfly (The Butterfly Effect)
Sidd said, "Do you remember back in the early 2000's when we thought we wouldn't live to see the extreme changes due to global warming?"
Daniel replied, "I think 2023 is the most significant year so far. We saw confirmation of tipping points being crossed for Mountain Glacier Loss, Greenland Ice Sheet Collapse, Antarctic Ice Sheet Collapse, and potentially the Collapse of AMOC."
Sidd continued, "We already knew that. It was Canada catching on fire that I could not believe. I never thought I'd live to see the day."
Daniel asked, "Do you think the permafrost and peatlands will have zombie fires and cause the permafrost tipping point?"
Sidd responded, "Yes. They are gone, too. We already know from the permafrost peatland fires in Siberia."
Daniel ponders, "Hmmmm... I guess that means my plan went up in smoke? My worst case scenario / last resort emergency plan was to escape to Canada."
NASA reported: Wildland fire experts have described Canada's 2023 fire season as record-breaking and shocking. Over the course of a fire season that started early and ended late, blazes have burned an estimated 18.4 million hectares. Hundreds of fires exceeded 10,000 hectares (39 square miles), large enough to be considered "megafires." These megafires were also unusually widespread this season, charring forests from British Columbia and Alberta in the west to Quebec and the Atlantic provinces in the east to the Northwest Territories and the Yukon in the north.
Forest fires cause a carbon feedback loop. The carbon emissions of Canada's fires outweighed the combined emissions from its oil and gas, transport and agriculture sectors. The fires also cause the melting of the permafrost and zombie fires to burn in the permafrost. The permafrost collapse is a self-sustaining feedback loop/tipping point. As the permafrost melts, the peatlands emit CO2 and methane. The increase in CO2 and methane results in more warming that results in more peatland emissions. A third feedback loop is created with lightning strikes. The study Forests at Risk Due to Lightning Fires found a sensitivity of extratropical intact forests to potential increases in lightning fires, which would have far-reaching consequences for terrestrial carbon storage and biodiversity. The results show that, on a global scale, lightning is the primary ignition source of fires in temperate and boreal forests. Global warming causes more extreme weather events and conditions for lightning creating more forest fires that create more warming and more lightning strikes.
The study Wildfire as a major driver of recent permafrost thaw in boreal peatlands published in the Journal Nature Communications found wildfires have caused a quarter of permafrost thaw (2,000 square kilometres) in Western Canada's boreal peatlands over the past 30 years. "Historically, permafrost in this area underwent a natural cycle of thawing and reforming, but given current climate conditions and projections for the future, this fire-induced thaw appears to be irreversible," said Carolyn Gibson, who conducted the research.
On January 1, 2024, the article, Why Are Alaska's Rivers Turning Orange?, was published in Scientific America. "Streams in Alaska are turning orange with iron and sulfuric acid. Scientists who have studied these rusting rivers agree that the ultimate cause is climate change. Kobuk Valley National Park has warmed by 2.4 degrees Celsius (4.32 degrees Fahrenheit) since 2006 and could get another 10.2 degrees C hotter by 2100, a greater increase than projected for any other national park. The heat may already have begun to thaw 40 percent of the park's permafrost, the layer of earth just under the topsoil that normally remains frozen year-round. McPhee wanted to protect the Salmon River because humans had 'not yet begun to change it.' Now, less than 50 years later, we have done just that. The last great wilderness in America, which by law is supposed to be 'untrammeled by man,' is being trammeled from afar by our global emissions."
Canadian Wildfires: Over the Tipping Point Brouse (2024)
Wildfires, Climate Change and Extreme Weather Events Brouse and Mukherjee (2024)
Climate Science: The Influence of Love and Hate Brouse (2024)
The Philadelphia Experiment: a Study on the Reign of Violent Rain Brouse (2024)
Chaos Theory and Climate Change Brouse and Mukherjee (2024)
Politicians Hinder Fight Against Climate Change Brouse (2024)
The Snowball Effect Brouse (2024)
Teleconnections Brouse (2024)
Thermal Inertia Brouse (2024)
Climate Change: Rate of Acceleration Brouse and Mukherjee (2023-2024)
The Age of Loss and Damage Brouse (2023)
Tipping Cascades, Social-Ecological Systems, and the Hottest Year in History Brouse (2024)
Inexplicable Consumer Behavior Brouse (2024)
Unintended Consequences Brouse (2024)
How is All Real Estate at Risk From Climate Change? Brouse and Mukherjee (2024)
The Decline of Penn's Sylvania Brouse (2024)
Insurance Cost and Availability Brouse (2024)
Shipping Pollution (Sulfur Emissions and Climate Change) Brouse (2024)
Earth's Vital Signs Brouse (2024)
Understanding Straight-Line Winds Brouse (2024)
Toppled Tipping Points: The Domino Effect Brouse and Mukherjee (2023)
9 Climate Change Tipping Points Crossed Brouse (2024)
Coral Reefs' Tipping Point Brouse (2024)
Climate Change: How Long Is "Ever"? Brouse (2023)
Climate Change: The End of Times Brouse and Mukherjee (2023)
The Reign of Violent Rain Brouse and Mukherjee (2023-2024)
Flood Insurance Brouse and Mukherjee (1995-present)
Wildfires Brouse and Mukherjee (2024)
Wildfire Sunsets Brouse (2024)
How Do Pollution and Climate Change Kill People? Brouse (2024)
Climate Change and Deadly Humid Heat Brouse (2023)
Tree Extinction Due to Human Induced Environmental Stress Mukherjee and Brouse (2005)
Soil Degradation and Desertification Brouse (2024)
Create a Climate-Resilient Environment in and Around Your Home Brouse (2024)
Climate Change Increases Moisture in the Atmosphere Brouse (2024)
Atmospheric Rivers Mukherjee and Brouse (2022-2023)
East Coast Atmospheric Rivers and AMOC (Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation) Brouse (2024)
Climate Change, the Jet Stream, and East Coast Atmospheric Rivers Brouse (2024)
Sea-level Rise: Greenland and the Collapse of the East Antarctic Ice Sheet Mukherjee and Brouse (2022 and 2023)
Sea Level Rise: Then and Now Mukherjee and Brouse (2023)
Measuring Sea Level Rise, Storm Surge, and Gravity Brouse and Mukherjee (2024)
Violent Rain and the Substrate Brouse and Laden (2024)
Climate Change: The Equation Brouse and Mukherjee (2023)
Carbon Offsets and Sequestration: Planting Trees is Greenwashing Brouse (2023-2024)
The Long-term Breathing Experiment Brouse (2023)
Health Impacts of Air Pollution Brouse (2023)
Climate Change and Cigarette Litigation Daniel Brouse (2016 and 2023)
Plymouth Meeting, Pennsylvania and the Creation of the Climate Crisis Daniel Brouse (2023)
Real Estate Underwater: A Florida Climate Change Case Study Daniel Brouse (2023)
Climate Change Impacts on Flood Risks and Real Estate Values Sidd Mukherjee and Daniel Brouse (2023)
Real Estate and Climate Change: Stranded on an Island Daniel Brouse (2023)
Climate Endgame: Exploring catastrophic climate change scenarios Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America (2022)
Emissions Gap Report UN Environment Programme (2022)
Extreme Heat: Uninhabitable Within Decades U.N. humanitarian aid agency OCHA and the International Federation of Red Cross (2022)
Managed Retreat: Relocating Due to Climate Change Extreme Weather Events Politico (2022)
The Momentum of Rain Daniel Brouse and Sidd Mukherjee (2022)
The Missing Risks of Climate Change Nature (2022)
What about solar energy? Can't we use solar for everything? Daniel Brouse (2022)