Climate change is accelerating rapidly now this 2010 summer and increasingly going forward. That was startlingly unanticipated by climate scientists because they underestimated the effects of the solar cycles among other missing variables. Unanticipated negative feedbacks MAY reduce the effects of CO2 increase forcing and feedbacks, so it's still too early to unequivocally call an immediate and severe global climate destabilization event inevitably imminent. I think a 60% chance would be a conservative man's guess. I'll go with 80%. Call me liberal or progressive? This is urgent.
I'd rather not be bound by either ideologies or labels, but rather look at the facts with a lay-scientist's eye. I call myself a lay-scientist because I am not credentialed to pronounce about climatological matters. But I've watched the data. (And been blown away that we can watch the sunspot count and CO2 numbers and Arctic ice extent graphs daily, monthly, and daily because of the internet and good scientists sharing data.) Partially, what I lack in diplomas, I gain in data-availability given by the modern internet and information released the many great scientists (giants? shoulders?) who are credentialed by universities. I am a journalist of science with some undergraduate university training and much study of science, mathematics, and climate on my own. I call myself a journalist because my father was a Journalism and English teacher who taught me how to investigate and write.
Have you had your coffee? Would you like to join me to review the relevant data succinctly now? I welcome your own conclusions. I would like to report on the facts as a journalist of science. I see imminent climate events occurring rapidly now in a dangerous direction about which we are too late to have options to avert the trend.
I should first call your attention to the graph of Arctic ice extent (NSIDC):
Headline: Current Ice-Extent in Arctic Rapidly Crashes Below Record Year 2007
Yeah that looks bad. But why is it critical now? (Haven't-we-been-screaming-since-nineteen-eighty-or-something?)
Well ... you may have lost track of CO2 levels. The MSM (or what is the PC word these days?) hasn't helped.
CO2: normal from 23 million years ago: 180-280 ppm. (Neogene)
(From NOAA data:)
- CO2: 314.69 PPM (parts-per-million atmosphere content)
- CO2: 368 PPM
- CO2 :382 PPM
- CO2: 390 PPM
We know CO2 increases warming but now greater and greater levels of methane are leaking due to the Arctic melt (among other causes) and methane is a more potent heating greenhouse gas, so this is a powerful feedback.
Wikipedia on Greenhouse Gasses
Ok ... back to why now. It had been masked for several years by the deepest solar minimum since early in the Twentieth Century.
Apr. 2009:
"NASA: Deep Solar Minimum"
http://science.nasa.gov/...
Now:
"NASA: As the Sun Awakens, NASA Keeps a Wary Eye on Space Weather"
http://science.nasa.gov/...
Climate scientists minimize solar cycles because when we heated way up in 1998 and 2005, people pointed at the sun to avert attention from man's heinous deeds. Yeah, it was less a factor in 2005 and 1998.
But ... what they didn't notice is that as the greenhouse gas concentrations increase, the solar forcing is multiplicatively increased.
I can elaborate here if necessary.
How has the weather been where you are lately? I suspect destabilization will affect almost everywhere in some way.
I have more facts. You and I together can find more facts. Comment pls. Let's be honest about the climate.
Diary unfinished but published early due to breaking climate events.
Hottest years? 1998 and 2005 (near solar maxima) so far. But the last 12 months and 2010 are well on the way to breaking record territory. We're heading for a new solar maxima. With methane release accelerating, we're at lift-off, tragically, for serious climate change.
In progress ... pls comment re: incomplete areas.