Can Ecological Economics let us Survive and Reset: Adjusting to Abrupt Climate System Change // 3/10/23
A few years ago Nate Hagens wrote a brilliant peer reviewed scientific paper (Ref1) in the journal “Ecological Economics” titled: “Economics for the Future: Beyond the SuperOrgasm” (sic Organism).
I chat about the crucial messages of this paper, which are that energy constraints will soon result in a collapse of our present way of life. Orthodox economics does not consider energy constraints, and our Superorganism society is on its last legs as we create more and more credit (this debt) to extract dwindling fossil fuels.
One barrel of oil contains 1700 kW hr of energy. Human power can generate 0.6 kW hr with a days work. Thus, 11 years of human labour is replaced by one barrel of oil. Thus, our fossil fuels powering society do the equivalent work of an imaginary workforce of 500 billion people; meanwhile the globe has about 4 billion workers. Clearly, things will scale back enormously without fossil fuels. That’s the physics, folks.
Of course burning fossil fuels releases carbon which has changed the chemistry of our atmosphere and oceans, and we are cracking up.
We are addicted to the present.
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Bug-Out Places Escaping Abrupt Climate System Collapse: Bunkers Underground, Underwater, and on Mars… https://t.co/wfOG4Vfdjp
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Ref1: Our environment and economy are at a crossroads. This paper attempts a cohesive narrative on how human evolved behavior, money, energy, economy and the environment fit together. Humans strive for the same emotional state of our successful ancestors. In a resource rich environment, we coordinate in groups, corporations and nations, to maximize financial surplus, tethered to energy, tethered to carbon. At global scales, the emergent result of this combination is a mindless, energy hungry, CO2 emitting Superorganism.
Under this dynamic we are now behaviorally ‘growth constrained’ and will use any means possible to avoid facing this reality. The farther we kick the can, the larger the disconnect between our financial and physical reality becomes.
The moment of this recalibration will be a watershed time for our culture, but could also be the birth of a new ‘systems economics’. and resultant different ways of living. The next 30 years are the time to apply all we’ve learned during the past 30 years. We’ve arrived at a species level conversation.
Cleaner fuels for ships are bringing public health benefits, but are also unleashing huge climate risks that could lead to many more deaths in the long run. Dr.Hansen forecasts a bump in warming that will likely trigger feedbacks and take us to 4°C of warming by 2100. What to do? pic.twitter.com/0bZHaot7J3
— Let's Rewild a Billion Hectares 🇺🇦 🇺🇦 (@JustPlants4Life) March 7, 2023
The Global Reach of Atmospheric Rivers: From the Arctic to Antarctica to the Equator and In-Between / 2/10/23
The Arctic sea ice is near a record low extent and area for its winter regrowth, and the Antarctic sea ice is at a record low by a long shot. It turns out that Atmospheric Rivers – ARs, which carry vast amounts of heat and moisture in thin ribbons of air stretching 1000s of km, are reaching the two polar regions and acting like garden hoses carrying near boiling water to etch out the sea ice, and even the on-land glacial ice.
A new peer reviewed scientific paper on the Arctic was just published clearly showing that atmospheric rivers reaching deep into the Arctic in the winter (when the sea ice is reforming) are responsible for 34% of ice loss, meaning that when the summer melt starts to occur the ice is already extremely weak, thin, and fragile. In fact very little ice makes it from one year to the next.
The exact same phenomena of ARs was responsible for the large quantities of rainfall that hit California in late December 2022 and January 2023. It seems like only a matter of time before a massive AR series of storms has catastrophic effects on California food production by flooding out large parts of the Central Valley region as happened in 1861-1862z
In this video I chat about the global reach of these ARs. I discuss how Atmospheric Rivers can be affected by ENSO (El Niño- La Niña cycles) and abrupt climate system change.
Ref: More Frequent Atmospheric Rivers Are Hindering the Recovery of Arctic Sea Ice, by Columbia Climate School |Feb 6, 2023
‘“Arctic sea ice decline is among the most obvious evidence of global warming from the past several decades,” said lead author Pengfei Zhang of Penn State University. “Despite temperatures in the Arctic being well below freezing, sea ice decline in winter is still very significant. And our research shows atmospheric rivers are one factor in understanding why.”
The FBI defends collecting the data of U.S. citizens if it happened while spying on foreigners. They say it was just incidental but this has happened millions of times.
India unveiled a 2.44 trillion rupee ($29.6 billion) plan to build transmission lines to connect renewable generation, as it aims to nearly triple its clean-power capacity by 2030.#cleanenergy#energytransmissionhttps://t.co/D4mmAwHPfm
Tipping Points in Permafrost Systems: Impact of Local Tipping Points // 1/28/23
As permafrost rapidly thaws in northern regions from abrupt climate system change caused Arctic Temperature Amplification, we reach local tipping points that greatly accelerate warming and more permafrost thawing.
This video discusses recent science examining these localized tipping points.
Please donate here to support my research and videos as I connect the dots on abrupt climate system change and bring you the most recent cutting edge scientific findings on climate change in a jargon free, easily digestible video format. ——— ———-
This is an amazing table of the cost overruns of mega projects
Nuclear storage has a mean cost overrun of 238%, while with nuclear power its 120%
If we lose the Arctic, we lose the world: COP27 Science Talks from the Cryosphere Pavillion / 1/27/2023
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Here are a series of cutting edge scientific topics on the massive changes occurring in the Arctic region. ——— ——–
Reducing Black Carbon (BC) and Methane Emissions: COP27 scientific presentations / 1/26/2023
Many scientists think that to rapidly chip away at the radiative forcing warming the planet, it would be very beneficial to reduce black carbon (BC) emissions and methane emissions.
While attending some scientific presentations on cutting edge research in this field at COP27 in Sharm el Sheikh, Egypt these very topics were discussed in detail, and I thought it very worthwhile to video record them and present them here on my channel.
Paul Beckwith: Summary of my recent work that does not appear here on my own YouTube channel
I am often on many videos, above and beyond my own YouTube channel here. In fact, when I attend conferences such as COP27 in Sharm el Sheikh, Egypt and COP15-CBD (Conference on Biodiversity) in Montreal, Canada, most of my work is recorded on videos that other people film, and post on their respective channels, and I don’t repost them on my own channel (I usually have more than enough of my own videos to post)!!
People often ask me to summarize my work “outside” this channel so that they can follow me for work I do outside of my own channel. In this video here, I attempt to do exactly that.
Essentially every week, Climate Emergency Forum films a video on a cutting edge climate topic with regulars Regina Valdez, Peter Carter, and myself, plus we often have a guest. The brains and brawn behind the organization, operation, and video editing and production are Charles Gregoire and Heidi Brault. When we attended COP27 in Sharm el Sheikh we filmed numerous press conferences (every other day for two weeks) plus individual “roving” style interview as well. These videos are very high production quality, and well worth watching. Please follow the Twitter feed @ClimateEForum and the website http://climate emergency forum.org and the YouTube channel @ClimateEmergencyForum to see our groups work.
I also work with the group Facing Future, who also had many press conferences at COP27; essentially every other day. The excellent work of this fantastic group of dedicated, highly motivated people can be found at the website http://facingfuture.earth and on the YouTube channel @FacingFuture
A long-time friend of mine is Metta Spencer in Toronto; she is a bundle of energy at her spry young age of 94 years old. She produces weekly videos on her Saving the Planet video channel, and got me to join the Pugwash Group. She is very active in deeply questioning scientists, engineers, and others to find the most promising climate solutions that are scalable. I am usually on her program a few times per month. Please follow her excellent YouTube video channel @ToSaveTheWorld that I always love appearing on as much as possible.
Another group whose videos I have frequently appeared on is the World Talent Economy Forum, run by Sharif Uddin Ahmed Rana who is based in Bangladesh. Up until a few months ago, I appeared as a panelist on a few shows per week, covering a huge variety of interesting current topics. I plan on restarting my appearances on this great forum starting next week. Please check out this groups website at http://wteforum.org and YouTube channel at WTE Forum @wteforum1212
All of the above groups are those that I regularly appear on. In addition, there are many other great organizations (groups) that I am a special guest on. I also appear often on mainstream media TV, radio stations, and I endeavour to post links on Social Media to.
As far as Social Media goes, apart from my website http://PaulBeckwith.net and YouTube channel @PaulHBeckwith I am most active on Twitter @PaulHBeckwith and Facebook Paul.beckwith.9 and LinkedIn and Instagram.
I am planning on using Reddit this year, as well as joining Mastodon, Telegraph, etc. etc. soon to further the reach of my abrupt climate system change work this year.
Please donate here to support my research and videos as I join the dots on abrupt climate system change. If you prefer Patreon, my account is http://Patreon.con/PaulBeckwith and also please remember to check out all the other forums where I appear regularly, but don’t get posted on my own YouTube channel!!
[ Editor, dk: Paul as a rule, does not like to share or, as it were eschews the broadcast of social media performance stats, but I see no harm in doing this as a ‘one off’ or every four years, as it were. This is part of where your hard earned and deeply valued Donations, go. Tirelessly and ceaselessly spreading the word.
Youtube 6.44m views, 25,300 followers–in 11.5 years (BTW: 254 followers PER view is a very good figure–aka yield or conversion) Twitter followers: 24,500 WordPress 658,000 views, 306,000 visitors cumulative–6.5 years (2.2 page visits per visitor). ]
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El Niño likely to start mid-2023 and cause global average temperatures to exceed 1.5C in 2024
When the next El Niño occurs, it seems pretty obvious that we will likely set the highest global average temperature ever. In this video I chat about how this is likely to occur in the next couple of years.
According to NOAA and others, by mid-2003 we will likely start to transition from our weakening La Niña state to neutral and then to an El Niño, models suggest that by next Fall odds are about even that we will be in an El Niño state, and 2023 global average temperature is likely to compete with the record levels set in 2016. Hold on to your hats. Since the atmospheric warming lags the ocean temperature warming by about 3-4 months, this means that 2024 will likely be the warmest year yet by far, in fact temperatures will possibly exceed 1.5 C for the entire year.
My Part I video was abruptly cut off by my phone alarm, so I continued my discussions with Part II.
How strong will this El Niño be? Even a weak one is likely to push global average temperatures to record levels; while a super-El Nino (like in 2015-2016 and also 1998) will surely blow away the previous global average temperature records. When this happens, we will really wonder about how humanity can survive, let alone thrive with these new extremes in weather and climate.
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Part 2: Next El Niño likely to turbocharge global temperature records into exceeding 1.5C in 2024
Climate Change Emergency Protest #214 “A Reckoning “ January 14, 2023 Gettysburg Pa USA
Climate Change Emergency Protest #215 “Unsustainable” January 19, 2023, Gettysburg, PA USA ———- ———
This Sunday, January 15, will mark one year since the eruption of the Hunga Tonga–Hunga Haʻapai volcano shocked the world. I remember being awestruck by these images.
17 year old Juliane Koepcke survived the LANSA Flight 508 plane crash in 1971. After the plane was struck by lightning, she was sucked out and fell 2 miles still strapped to her seat. She survived the next 11 days alone in the Amazon Jungle. Learn more: https://t.co/zgXiTV6LNipic.twitter.com/4D04iUpbHC
I coined the phrase “weather whiplashing” many years ago to describe the wrenching changes that often occur now due to abrupt climate system change.
The recent weather in North America is a perfect example of this phenomena. Shortly before Christmas, there were warm temperatures and rainfall, followed by a flash freeze, high winds, and heavy snowfall, leading to blizzard conditions in many places. Buffalo, NY and the Fort Erie region were particularly hit hard by the cold front picking up moisture from the warmer than normal Great Lakes causing heavy lake effect snowfalls on the eastern shoreline regions of the lakes. The long duration high winds pushed lake water eastward, causing a seiche whereby water levels on western shorelines dropped 7 feet, and the water piling up on eastern shorelines raised water levels over 10 feet, which combined with 30 foot plus waves to damage coastal properties.
A week later, there was a massive melt of this snow, as temperatures went well over freezing and caused rapid melt and flooding.
Welcome to the turbocharged weather wilding phenomena that is directly caused by abrupt climate system change.
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The total area of solar panels it would take to power the world, Europe, and Germany. This map is from Nadine May’s thesis
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If you prefer to directly support my press conference presentations and recent travel to the global COP27 climate conference in last month then please consider donating to my GoFundMe: https://www.gofundme.com/f/help-paul-…
Of course, most social media savvy people, and definitely my followers all know that Arctic temperature amplification is making the jet streams slow down, and become wavier, greatly increasing the frequency, severity, and duration of extreme weather events. Thus, loss of Arctic sea ice, which greatly increases Arctic amplification, is definitely making mid-latitude weather worse.
It always takes the detailed science a while to catch up, even with what seems to be obvious things.
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If you prefer to directly support my press conference presentations and recent travel to the global COP27 climate conference in last month then please consider donating to my GoFundMe: https://www.gofundme.com/f/help-paul-…
Posted on November 23, 2022, by Radio Ecoshock From Johannesburg, Professor Patrick Bond exposes the Just Transition and dirty deeds done. Two reports from COP27 in Sharm El-Sheikh Egypt, Daphne Wysham and Paul Beckwith call in. Daphne, former host of Earthbeat Radio, now heads methaneaction.org. Paul is a Canadian climate scientist with experience in COP conferences and communication.
PAUL BECKWITH FROM COP27 EGYPT From the COP27 climate conference in Sharm El-Sheikh Egypt, Paul Beckwith reports in. Paul is a Canadian climate system scientist and the largest single science video provider on YouTube. He posted some cool YouTube video tours of COP and places like the Glaciology Pavilion.
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Deniers going crazy at cold in Canada/Europe Global warming has weakened Polar Vortex which can create a weak jet stream patter,unlocking cold air, normally confined to Arctic which can now escape from polar regions into the United States and/or Europe https://t.co/i4msTGDGW8pic.twitter.com/aVUncl1zvQ
The Arctic heatwave continues, and has even growing stronger since Sunday. I'm just wondering how long until MSM picks this up. The collapse of the planet is barely in the news, unless it's some Prince giving money away. pic.twitter.com/CH39oxFZO4
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If you prefer to directly support my press conference presentations and travel to the global COP27 climate conference in early November then please consider donating to my GoFundMe: https://www.gofundme.com/f/help-paul-…
Please donate here to support my research and videos on the cutting edge science of abrupt climate system change.
If you prefer to directly support my press conference presentations and travel to the global COP27 climate conference in early November then please consider donating to my GoFundMe, here.
Alternately, you can set up a monthly donation on my Patreon site, here.
Sincerely, Paul
An extremely important peer reviewed scientific paper came out a few months showing how Arctic Sea Ice Loss is projected to lead to more frequent strong El Niño events.
We are presently experience the ENSO (El Niño Southern Oscillation) state of La Niña, for the third year in a row (very unusual), and even with this cooler variability state, we are seeing a world of grief (massive floods, massive droughts, heat waves, massive hurricanes, etc. etc.).
When we next have a powerful El Niño in a few short years then global average temperatures will be sure to skyrocket to unheard off record levels.
Thus, this paper is extremely important. As we move to a seasonally ice free state in the Arctic (I came up with the phrase “Blue Ocean Event” many years ago to describe the first year where there is no sea ice left in the Arctic by the end of the summer) we can expect an increase in the intensity of El Niño’s, and they will occur more often (with higher frequency), and the corresponding La Niña cooling periods will be less intense and happen less often.
I show graphs of global temperature rise overlayed with various ENSO indices, and clearly strong El Niño’s happening more often will be highly destructive to human societies and cause great risk to our global food supplies.
Bottom Line: Elevator Points:
1) Present Arctic Sea Ice Loss has not yet significantly changed the occurrence of strong El Niño’s
2) As Arctic Sea Ice Loss Continues and the Arctic becomes seasonally free (most peer reviewed papers say by 2040) the frequency of strong El Niño events increases by between about 1/3 and 1/2 (actually by between 37% and 48% according to two different climate models (CCSM4 Community Climate System Modelversion 4; and CESM1.2: Climate Earth System Modelversion 1.2)
Basically, buckle your seatbelts.
Abrupt Climate System Change is worsening quickly, and the worsening will continue to accelerate and take mighty highly-nonlinear exponential leaps in severity, frequency, and consequences to us humans, let alone to all of Earth’s Flora and Fauna.
Please donate to http://PaulBeckwith.net to support my research and videos on the cutting edge science of abrupt climate system change.
If you prefer to directly support my press conference presentations and travel to the global COP27 climate conference in early November then please consider donating to my GoFundMe: https://www.gofundme.com/f/help-paul-…
Ref: Arctic sea-ice loss is projected to lead to more frequent strong El Niño events Jiping Liu, Mirong Song, Zhu Zhu, Radley M. Horton, Yongyun Hu & Shang-Ping Xie Nature Communications volume 13, Article number: 4952 (2022) Cite this article. Published: 23 August 2022
Abstract Arctic sea ice has decreased substantially and is projected to reach a seasonally ice-free state in the coming decades. Little is known about whether dwindling Arctic sea ice is capable of influencing the occurrence of strong El Niño, a prominent mode of climate variability with global impacts. Based on time slice coupled model experiments, here we show that no significant change in the occurrence of strong El Niño is found in response to moderate Arctic sea-ice loss that is consistent with satellite observations to date. However, as the ice loss continues and the Arctic becomes seasonally ice-free, the frequency of strong El Niño events increases by more than one third, as defined by gradient-based indices that remove mean tropical Pacific warming induced by the seasonally ice-free Arctic. By comparing our time slice experiments with greenhouse warming experiments, we conclude that at least 37–48% of the increase of strong El Niño near the end of the 21st century is associated specifically with Arctic sea-ice loss. Further separation of Arctic sea-ice loss and greenhouse gas forcing only experiments implies that the seasonally ice-free Arctic might play a key role in driving significantly more frequent strong El Niño events.
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Flowers blooming in the north of Ireland. It’s nearly November. So much heat in the system. The climate is changing before our eyes. The first generation to ever witness environmental change at this rate. Maybe the last. pic.twitter.com/vhTAt7tloK
In this video, I discuss evidence that clearly shows there was large methane clathrate thaw on continental shelves off Africa during the Eeemian Interglacial around 125-126,000 years ago.
The evidence [1] is in the marine core sediment layers on the continental shelf and just outside the shelf in the water column down to 1800 m depths. The sediment core record evidence, using various dating proxies, various types of biologically derived organic proxies, and isotopic analysis give us proof for large methane emission into the water column and oxidation, large atmospheric methane concentrations, and warning of the intermediate water layers by 6.8 C at 700 meters depth (from about 7 degrees C to about 14 degrees C). This warming physically enters deep into the marine sediments destabilizing the methane clathrates, by melting the ice cage and releasing methane gas.
As mentioned in the previous video, in the North Atlantic the subsurface water at 150 meter depth of Newfoundland warmed from about 7 degrees C by between 8 and 12 degrees C, destabilizing the ice sheets and glaciers causing tremendous calving as measured by Ice Rafted Debris (IRD) in Heinrich Events.
In this video, the peer recent reviewed scientific paper shows that intermediate depth water off Africa at 700 meter depth warmed from 7 degrees C by about 6.8 degrees C, destabilizing methane clathrates within the sediment.
Combined, these papers are bad news for present day humanity.
Importance for Present Day Climate System:
1) Clearly, with AMOC (Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation) the intermediate water will warm significantly, by at least 7 degrees C in both the North Atlantic and equatorial East Atlantic (likely also at many other places; two studies were just scratching the surface).
2) In the North Atlantic, we can expect this warming to greatly destabilize Greenland Ice Sheets and Glaciers grounded below sea level.
3) In the equatorial East Atlantic, this warming destabilized methane sediments within the sea floor sediments, and caused massive outbursts of methane changing global climate.
4) Although not discussed here, I recall a paper from a few years ago by Hansen et. al (and other papers) talking about how intermediate water near Antarctica was warming quickly. We know that Antarctica Ice melt is rapidly accelerating, with a doubling period of about 7 years (as is Greenland Ice melt). Clearly, Greenland Ice is melting from below (by warm ocean water) and on top (by warm air temperatures). However Antarctica is not melting a lot on top (still too cold) so therefore HAS to be melting more and more from below, from warming ocean water.
Sincerely, Paul
Ref 1: Evidence for massive methane hydrate destabilization during the penultimate interglacial warming. Link, here. Schneider, Yu, Kylander-Clark. Edited by Mark Thiemens, University of California San Diego, La Jolla, CA; received February 3, 2022; accepted July 2, 2022. August 22, 2022 ———– ———–
Jet Stream Shift 17 degrees Southward to Greenland
Summary
Well known and respected creator of entertaining and comprehensible videos of sometimes daunting subjects, especially in climate system science, meteorology, oceanography and Earth Sciences at YouTube.
Frequently called upon for commentary by fellow educators, activists, and public. Physicist, Engineer, and part-time professor at the University of Ottawa. His primary interest is joining-the-dots on Abrupt Climate System Change to determine where we are heading, and how fast, and what it all means for us and our amazing planet.
Paul Beckwith, Climate System Scientist 