Updates from the news #04 – 6 May 2024
Over the summer my updates will be only as frequent as my time permits. Grades for my two courses have been turned in, and on Wednesday 8 May I will travel with Michele to SFO for Sachi’s graduation from Berkeley. I will continue to post some of her writing from her job as a Grist 2024 Fellow. https://grist.org/technology/surging-demand-data-guzzling-water-ai/
I am sorry to yet again be the source of bad news. This time the news is indeed grim. For crying out loud, people, wake up and recognize the consequences that are unfolding all around us. As the data below show, we are in deep trouble. Summer 2024 will be a wild ride for our species and countless other organisms.
I am ashamed of my generation (I was born in 1953). We, and our greedy economic system did this. Young people have a right to be furious. As the estimates of damages below show, the global neoliberal capitalist system cannot continue. Regardless of what the economists hope for and say their models support, this show is coming to a close. We are now entering a period of post-capitalist failure of the Earth System. It is likely that the world’s poor, especially those in the developing countries, will suffer the most from the economic impact of climate change. Fuck the billionaires.
See:
The UN World Meteorological Organization has issued a “red alert” warning that there is a high probability that 2024 will be another record-hot year. “Earth’s issuing a distress call,” U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said. “The latest State of the Global Climate report shows a planet on the brink. Fossil fuel pollution is sending climate chaos off the charts.”
The figure below speaks for itself (data current as of 23 April 2024). I don’t know about you, but I am scared. Because I have been reading the climate change literature and teaching this material for many years, it takes a lot to freak me out. This may be within the projections for the models for a year at the end of El Niño, but to me this is a meaningless academic discussion. Clearly, we are entering a new era of massively disrupted Earth System processes.
An extremely active hurricane season in the Atlantic is projected for 2024. Jeff Masters (co-founder of the Weather Underground) writes in Yale Climate Connections that the Colorado State University hurricane forecast is for a record active season with as many as 23 named storms, 11 hurricanes, and five major hurricanes. Contributing to this is the waning El Niño and onset of the La Niña. During the La Niña phase of the ENSO the Trade Winds are usually diminished resulting in less wind shear, which favors the development of cyclones. On top of this, the sea surface temperatures of the Atlantic are at record highs. Warm oceans provide the raw energy for cyclones.
On 3 April 2024 the sea surface temperatures were extremely high off the western coast of Africa.
Masters reports five years with similar preseason atmospheric and oceanic conditions. The analogue years had a generally increasing trend in number of named storms and hurricanes. 2010 and 2020 were the most recent.
The European Center for Medium-Range Weather Forecast (ECMWF) independently models the North Atlantic Accumulated Cyclone Energy (ACE) as shown here:
The forecast to pay attention to will be the one that will be issued 1 June from the Colorado State forecasting group. This forecast typically has the most skill and predictive value. NOAA is set to issue its first forecast for 2024 in late May.
A recent heatwave in Asia has exceeded the most extreme expectations. Many have died and there will be many more before this summer is over.
The heat has caused a mass fish die-off of freshwater fish in Vietnam.
Given the likelihood of extreme weather and heat, this is certain to be an interesting year. The loss of life and damage to ecosystems and crops would be severe worldwide.
Global carbon emissions in 2023 are reported by Liu et al. 2024. For yet another year, global CO2 emissions increased relative to the year before. “Global CO2 emissions for 2023 increased by only 0.1% relative to 2022 (following increases of 5.4% and 1.9% in 2021 and 2022, respectively), reaching 35.8 Gt CO2. These 2023 emissions consumed 10–66.7% of the remaining carbon budget to limit warming to 1.5°C, suggesting permissible emissions could be depleted within 0.5–6 years (67% likelihood).” India overtook the EU as the third highest emitter. It is important to note the cumulative effect of land-use change – LUC (this includes agriculture).
As reported by Kotz et al. 2024 in Nature, the committed economic damages of climate change are massive. The world economy is committed to an income reduction of 19% within the next 26 years independent of future emissions choices. Yes, you read that correctly: no matter what we do, the economic damage will be 11-29%, with a mid-range estimate of 19%.
