Currant Spanworm (Macaria ribearia)
Driftless Area South Central Wisconsin, Dane County USA
2015-06-23 New-Out99999_330_331_99998aaaa2
This is no joke or hyperbole. Sadly, it is likely this will happen at some point in the next decade. It will be final, irreversible, and very horrific.
CO2 is not the only GHG for instance Methane. By “Extreme C02” I think they mean C02e and we are already very close to the limit:
“Extreme CO2 levels could trigger clouds ‘tipping point’ and 8C of global warming”
“If atmospheric CO2 levels exceed 1,200 parts per million (ppm), it could push the Earth’s climate over a “tipping point”, finds a new study. This would see clouds that shade large part of the oceans start to break up.” [see below where I attempt to illustrate the calculation of C02e]
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METHANE KEEPS SPIKING EXPONENTIALLY
Methane keeps rising:
“WMO REPORT ON GREENHOUSE GASES
In 2020 and 2021, the global network of the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) detected the largest within-year increases (15 and 18 ppb, respectively) of atmospheric methane (CH₄) since systematic measurements began in the early 1980s.
Methane reached 1908 parts per billion (ppb) in 2021, 262% of the 1750 level, while carbon dioxide (CO₂) reached 415.7 parts per million (ppm) in 2021, 149% of the 1750 level, and nitrous oxide (N₂O) reached 334.5 ppb, 124% of the 1750 level.
The WMO adds that analyses of measurements of the abundances of atmospheric CH₄ and its stable carbon isotope ratio ¹³C/¹²C (reported as δ¹³C(CH₄)) indicate that the increase in CH₄ since 2007 is associated with biogenic processes.
Methane's rise has been accelerating since 2007, which makes this a scary suggestion, since this suggests that increasing decomposition of plant material is taking place as a result of climate change, a self-reinforcing feedback loop that will be hard to stop. Interestingly, a 2019 analysis points at a different explanation.
Another explanation, discussed in an earlier post, is that there was a slowdown from 1984 to 2004 in the rise of methane as a result of rising temperatures increasing the water vapor in the atmosphere, resulting in more hydroxyl decomposing more methane in the atmosphere in the 1990s (compared to the 1980s). Accordingly, while the rise in methane concentration appeared to slow down over those years, methane emissions actually kept growing and continued to do so at accelerating pace, but since an increasingly large part of methane was decomposed by hydroxyl, this continuing rise in methane emissions was overlooked.
This could still mean that plant material is now getting decomposed at higher rates, but an even larger danger is that methane emissions started to increase more strongly from the early 2000s due in part to more methane eruptions from the seafloor of the Arctic Ocean. In other words, while hydroxyl kept increasing, seafloor methane emissions kept increasing even faster, to the extent that methane emissions increasingly started to overwhelm this growth in hydroxyl, resulting in a stronger rise in overall methane abundance in the atmosphere.
Sadly, there are few measurements available for methane that could erupt from the seafloor of the Arctic Ocean. Moreover, WMO and NOAA data that are used to calculate global means are typically taken at marine surface level, which may be appropriate for carbon dioxide that is present more strongly at sea surface level, but methane is much lighter and will rise quickly and accumulate at higher altitude. Moreover, the lack of measurements of methane over the Arctic Ocean and at higher altitudes makes it hard to determine from where the methane originated. Much methane could originate from the seafloor of the Arctic Ocean and rise to the Tropopause, while moving from there closer to the Equator, all largely without getting reported.
From the post 'Methane keeps rising', at:”
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Sam Carana
September 12, 2022
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VERY HIGH METHANE LEVELS
A trend in an earlier image shows that the clouds tipping point at 1200 ppm CO₂e could be reached as early as in 2028, if methane rises to 780 CO₂e and CO₂ remains at 420 ppm. Moreover, this could happen even earlier, since there are further forcers, while further events and developments could additionally push up the temperature further. Furthermore, the NOAA data used in the trend are for marine surface measurements. More methane tends to accumulate at higher altitudes.
NOAA's globally averaged marine surface mean for April 2022 was 1909.9 ppb. The MetOp image shows that, on September 4, 2022 am, the MetOp satellite recorded a mean methane concentration of 1904 ppb at 586 mb, which is close to sea level. At 293 mb, however, the MetOp satellite recorded a mean of 1977 ppb, while at 218 mb it recorded a peak of 2805 ppb.
Such high methane levels could be caused by destabilization of methane hydrates at the seafloor of the Arctic Ocean, with large amounts of methane erupting (increasing 160 x in volume) and rising up at accelerating speed through the water column (since methane is lighter than water), concentrated in the form of plumes, which makes that less methane gets broken down in the water by microbes and in the air by hydroxyl, of which there is very little in the Arctic in the first place. Such a methane eruption entering the atmosphere in the form of a plume can be hard to detect as long as it still doesn't cover enough of the 12 km in diameter footprint to give a pixel the color associated with high methane levels.
The Copernicus image shows a forecast for September 9, 2022 18 UTC of methane at 500 hPa.
From the post 'Blue Ocean Event 2022?', at:
“CO2 EQUIVALENTS”
“IEA, Global Methane Tracker 2022”
“Carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e) Definition: For any quantity and type of greenhouse gas, CO2e signifies the amount of CO2 which would have the equivalent global warming impact.
A quantity of GHG can be expressed as CO2e by multiplying the amount of the GHG by its GWP (“Global Warming Potential”) or
[weight in Kilograms of the Greenhouse gas] X [Global Warming Potential] = Carbon dioxide equivalent or CO2e
E.g. if 1kg of methane [CH4] is emitted, this can be expressed as 25kg (the GWP of methane from page 2 table 1 found in the ecometric.com link below) Global Warming Potential of CO2e
(1kg CH4 * 25 = 25kg CO2e)
E.g. 1kg of methane causes 25 times more warming over a 100 year period compared to 1kg of CO2, and so methane as a GWP of 25
As per Artic Blog Spot: “…clouds tipping point at 1200 ppm CO₂e could be reached as early as in 2028, if methane rises to 780 CO₂e and CO₂ remains at 420 ppm”. There are more than just these 2 types of GHG
“Clouds Tipping Point” is the point at which clouds that shade large part of the oceans start to break up resulting in an estimated boost of +8C in addition to the warming caused from increased C02.
When it happens, it's oblivion. The consequences will be so thorough and so severe that even the extremophiles in the volcanic pools of Yellowstone National Park will probably die.
+8C is overkill and should be avoided by as massive a margin of safety as possible – don’t even move in that direction!
Credible sources have Atmospheric Methane currently at 1900 ppb
For additional information on Co2 and the Cloud Tipping Point:
Rising greenhouse gas levels and associated feedbacks threaten to cause temperatures to keep rising, in a runaway scenario that cannot be reverted even if emissions by people were cut to zero.
Peaks in greenhouse gas levels could suffice to trigger the clouds feedback, which occurs when a CO₂e threshold of around 1,200 ppm is crossed, and the stratocumulus decks abruptly become unstable and break up into scattered cumulus clouds.
Once the clouds tipping point is crossed, it will be impossible to undo its impact, in line with the nature of a tipping point. In theory, CO₂ levels could come down after the stratocumulus breakup, but the stratocumulus decks would only reform once the CO₂ levels drop below 300 ppm.
A recent post repeated the warning that by 2026, there could be an 18°C rise when including the clouds feedback, while humans will likely go extinct with a 3°C rise and most life on Earth will disappear with a 5°C rise. In conclusion, once the clouds feedback gets triggered, it cannot be reverted by people, because by the time the clouds feedback starts kicking in, people would already have disappeared, so there won't be any people around to keep trying to revert it.
Methane levels are rising rapidly. The image to the right shows a trend that is based on NOAA 2006-2020 annual global mean methane data and that points at a mean of 3893 ppb getting crossed by the end of 2026.
Why is that value of 3893 ppb important? On April 8, 2021, carbon dioxide reached a peak of 421.36 ppm, i.e. 778.64 ppm away from the clouds tipping point at 1200 ppm, and 778.64 ppm CO₂e translates into 3893 ppb of methane at a 1-year GWP of 200.
In other words, a methane mean of 3893 ppb alone could cause the clouds tipping point to get crossed, resulting in an abrupt 8°C temperature rise.
Such a high mean cannot be ruled out, given the rapid recent growth in mean annual methane levels (14.67 ppb in 2020).
Furthermore, there are more warming elements than just carbon dioxide and methane, e.g. nitrous oxide and water vapor haven't yet been included in the CO₂e total. Moreover, it may not even be necessary for the global mean methane level to reach 3893 ppb. A high methane peak in one single spot may suffice and a peak of 3893 ppb of methane could be reached soon, given that methane just reached a peak of 2862 ppb, while a peak of 3369 ppb was recorded on the afternoon of August 31, 2018.
ABRUPT STRATOCUMULUS CLOUD SHATTERING
Catastrophic crack propagation is what makes a balloon pop. Could low-lying clouds similarly break up and vanish abruptly?
Could peak greenhouse gas concentrations in one spot break up droplets into water vapor, thus raising CO₂e and propagating break-up of more droplets, etc., to shatter entire clouds?
In other words, an extra burst of methane from the seafloor of the Arctic Ocean alone could suffice to trigger the clouds tipping point and abruptly push temperatures up by an additional 8°C.
From the set at:
From the post 'Overshoot or Omnicide?', at:
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