How warm air stirs Greenland’s waters and accelerates even submarine melting!

I seem to be on some sort of COVID plateau. My temperature hasn’t gone above 37.5,  and my throat and lungs have been mostly fine, but my ability to regulate my temperature is still wonky, and my snot production is still far too high. My eyeballs also aren’t thrilled about all of this.

That said, I’m starting to feel bad about just posting videos, so instead you get a somewhat gloomy climate science report! How excited you must be! I should say, however, that thus far the ocean is not hot enough to melt submarine vessels, in case the headline had you confused. We’ve got at least another couple years before the oceans get hotter than burning jet fuel.

Well, since you’re so excited, I won’t keep you waiting any longer. According to new research, the Greenland ice sheet may be more vulnerable to climate change than previously thought:

Rising air temperatures amplify the effects of melting caused by ocean warming, leading to greater ice loss from the world’s second largest ice sheet, a study reveals.

While previous studies have shown that rising air and ocean temperatures both cause the Greenland ice sheet to melt, the new study reveals how one intensifies the effects of the other.

Experts liken the effect to how ice cubes melt more quickly if they are in a drink that is being stirred – the combination of warmer liquid and movement accelerates their demise.

In Greenland, amplification occurs when warm air temperatures melt the surface of the ice sheet, generating meltwater.

Meltwater flowing into the ocean creates turbulence that results in more heat melting the edges of the ice sheet submerged in the ocean – so-called submarine melting.

The team found that air temperature has had almost as much impact as ocean temperature on submarine melting, with some regional variations.

For example, ocean temperature is the main factor that controls submarine melting in south and central-west Greenland, while atmospheric warming is equally damaging in the island’s northwest.

The findings suggest that if the atmosphere had not warmed since 1979, the retreat of Greenland’s glaciers, driven by submarine melting, could have been reduced by a half in the northwest region, and by a third across Greenland as a whole.

At this point I think it’s important to note that this is new understanding, not a new phenomenon. That means that even if this “stirring” effect is not accounted for in estimates and predictions for ice melt and sea level rise, it is accounted for in the actual data we have about sea level. This process has been ongoing for as long as ice melt has been increasing. Knowing about it will allow for more accurate estimates and predictions, which can only be a good thing. The bad news, of course, is that ice melt and sea level rise are likely to progress faster than currently predicted.

The effect we investigated is a bit like ice cubes melting in a drink – ice cubes will obviously melt faster in a warm drink than in a cold drink, hence the edges of the Greenland ice sheet melt faster if the ocean is warmer. But ice cubes in a drink will also melt faster if you stir the drink, and rising air temperatures in Greenland effectively result in a stirring of the ocean close to the ice sheet, causing faster melting of the ice sheet by the ocean. This unfortunately adds to the overwhelming body of evidence showing the sensitivity of the Greenland ice sheet to climate change, hence the need for urgent action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
-Dr Donald Slater, School of GeoSciences

Whenever we get bad news like this about the climate, it’s important to remember that for us, this changes very little. Those in power continue to demonstrate their inability to deal with climate change in a responsible manner, which means that we need to build the collective power to change who’s in power, or ideally end this antiquated insistence on having a ruling class. That means questioning “common sense” about the hierarchies and rules set over us, and it means encouraging people to think about direct action. It means organizing, and it means preparing for bad times so we can help our communities if the need arises. As ever, humanity’s greatest strength is our ability to cooperate, and we’ll need that going forward.

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Video: What the new “Climate Declaration” doesn’t tell us

Well, I’m still sick. It feels different from yesterday – my sinuses feel too hot and dry rather than full of gunk – but I’m still out of it enough to want another day “off”.

Thankfully, a blast from the past is here to save me!

Longtime skeptic/atheist types are probably familiar with Peter Hadfield, known on Youtube as Potholer54 for his work debunking creationists, and overseeing the Golden Crocoduck award, for lying in defense of creationism. He’s also done some good work debunking climate deniers, and exposing their bullshit. I hadn’t thought of him in a little while, but recently I saw a new letter/petition “signed by hundreds of scientists” saying that there’s no climate emergency, and it made me think of him.

Sure enough, he was good enough to pop up and demonstrate how this letter is as much empty propaganda as its predecessors. This is an old tactic, and as you’ll see if you watch, a predictable one.

It’s not warming, but if it is, it’s not humans doing it, but if it is, there’s nothing to worry about, and – get ready for this one – there might be something to worry about, but there’s nothing we can do, so we shouldn’t try.

I also like the fact that we can see that our climate action – woefully inadequate as it has been – has had some effect.

Nord Stream gas leak underscores the need to end all fossil fuel use

From what I can tell, there are still rather a lot of people clinging to the notion that we’ll be able to keep the fossil fuel industry by just capturing all the carbon that’s emitted, and storing it. That line of thinking is useful in two ways – first and most importantly, it justifies continued obsession with short-term profits. The second is that it’s a framing of the problem that doesn’t require systemic change. At it’s core, I think the popularity of this idea comes from its appeal to the group of insatiable ghouls who would rather see humanity go extinct than lose their ill-gotten fossil fuel empires. It’s the bedtime story they tell themselves to quell those rare pangs of conscience, and to give their sycophants an excuse to maintain their blind loyalty.

The reality is that we must end the extraction and use of fossil fuels, and we must do it as quickly as we can.

Even if the day-to-day operations of fossil fuel corporations didn’t do massive environmental damage, and leak unforgivable amounts of greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere, the fact remains that the infrastructure is both prone to failure (because the corporations are too greedy to spend on improvements), and it’s also vulnerable to attacks. We do not currently know for sure whether the Nord Stream pipelines burst due to accident, negligence, or a deliberate attack, but no matter what the cause turns out to be, we are all being hurt by this:

Scientists fear methane erupting from the burst Nord Stream pipelines into the Baltic Sea could be one of the worst natural gas leaks ever and pose significant climate risks.

Neither of the two breached Nord Stream pipelines, which run between Russia and Germany, was operational, but both contained natural gas. This mostly consists of methane – a greenhouse gas that is the biggest cause of climate heating after carbon dioxide.

The extent of the leaks is still unclear but rough estimates by scientists, based on the volume of gas reportedly in one of the pipelines, vary between 100,000 and 350,000 tonnes of methane.

Jasmin Cooper, a research associate at Imperial College London’s department of chemical engineering, said a “lot of uncertainty” surrounded the leak.

“We know there are three explosions but we don’t know if there are three holes in the sides of the pipe or how big the breaks are,” said Cooper. “It’s difficult to know how much is reaching the surface. But it is potentially hundreds of thousands of tonnes of methane: quite a big volume being pumped into the atmosphere.”

Nord Stream 2, which was intended to increase the flow of gas from Russia to Germany, reportedly contained 300m cubic metres of gas when Berlin halted the certification process shortly before Russia invaded Ukraine.

That volume alone would translate to 200,000 tonnes of methane, Cooper said. If it all escaped, it would exceed the 100,000 tonnes of methane vented by the Aliso Canyon blowout, the biggest gas leak in US history, which happened in California in 2015. Aliso had the warming equivalent of half a million cars.

The Aliso Canyon gas leak was the first time I can remember that the public was able to actually see greenhouse gas emissions in a major way, thanks to this infrared footage:

I don’t know if anyone had their minds changed by that incident and the coverage of it, but if so it clearly wasn’t enough. I’ve said in the past that one of my concerns with nuclear power is the danger posed by war and by terrorism. I still think we should be using nuclear power, but I think that security and the dangers of a rapidly changing climate are both valid concerns if we’re going to massively increase our use of that technology. Fossil fuels have all of the same problems, except that they are already driving us towards extinction at a rate few believed possible even a couple decades ago.

This leak, to use an overly-appropriate simile, is like pouring gasoline on a flame.

I believe the warming of our climate has already gained enough momentum that it would keep warming for centuries even if we cut off all fossil fuel emissions tomorrow. I believe we can influence that, and in time possibly even reverse it, but it’s important to understand that we are already rolling down that hill. Our current emissions mainly serve to accelerate us further out of control.

And this? Well, I suppose time will tell how severe of a problem it is, but we did not need this right now. We really didn’t. Things were going badly enough already.

Prof Grant Allen, an expert in Earth and environmental science at Manchester University, said it was unlikely that natural processes, which convert small amounts of methane into carbon dioxide, would be able to absorb much of the leak.

Allen said: “This is a colossal amount of gas, in really large bubbles. If you have small sources of gas, nature will help out by digesting the gas. In the Deepwater Horizon spill, there was a lot of attenuation of methane by bacteria.

“My scientific experience is telling me that – with a big blow-up like this – methane will not have time to be attenuated by nature. So a significant proportion will be vented as methane gas.”

Unlike an oil spill, gas will not have as polluting an effect on the marine environment, Allen said. “But in terms of greenhouse gases, it’s a reckless and unnecessary emission to the atmosphere.”

Germany’s environment agency said there were no containment mechanisms on the pipeline, so the entire contents were likely to escape.

The Danish Energy Agency said on Wednesday that the pipelines contained 778m cubic metres of natural gas in total – the equivalent of 32% of Danish annual CO2 emissions.

We’re not going to see a global spike in warming that’s clearly due to this leak. It’s a lot, but it’s not that much. That’s the good news. That said, this would not have happened if sundry global “leaders” were not continuing to build new fossil fuel infrastructure as though change is neither wanted, nor needed. I suppose for them, it’s not. They can just leave when things get rough. It will be interesting to see what changes are attributable to this leak – it wouldn’t shock me if there was measurable local warming associated with the methane plume and prevailing winds. This is just speculation but it’ll take time for that much gas to disperse around the world, which means it should be in higher concentrations in some areas for a while.

The real problem is that I can say with complete confidence that this will not be the last massive natural gas leak. There will be more. If greed and lust for power continue to fuel war around the world, then whether or not this pipeline was attacked, others definitely will be, wherever warring nations depend on this energy source. More than that, changing weather conditions will also lead to pipeline ruptures, and the day to day operations of the natural gas industry are already criminally destructive to the climate. Even if all emissions were captured at the smokestack and tailpipe, the gas leaked daily, and the gas leaked from incidents like this will continue adding speed to our “downhill” tumble into global warming hell. At this stage, the mere existence of the fossil fuel industry is a global security risk.

Unfortunately, it seems unlikely that we’ll see the needed change any time soon. That means that we keep looking for ways to build collective power, and we keep preparing to help our communities through disasters when they hit. There’s a lot of grim news out there, so just remember that it’s not over till it’s over. Till then, we fight.

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Reminder: Action on climate change will cause a short-term increase in temperature, so we should plan for that.

It is my opinion that humanity’s response to climate change, going forward, should be guided by the assumption that it’s going to keep warming for at least a century. If we can get things under control faster than that, it’ll be a nice surprise, but it would be dangerous and reckless to assume that we’ll be able to do it. That means that we cannot simply focus on reducing emissions. We must also be working to prepare for the warming that we know we can no longer avoid. There are a number of reasons for this belief. Feedback loops like methane from melting permafrost are part of it, as is my view of global politics, but a big part is the fact that air pollution has been keeping the temperature lower than it would otherwise be.

Basically, some air pollution reflects sunlight back into space, reducing the amount of solar energy that actually reaches the planet. As we reduce air pollution, more sunlight hits the planet, and the temperature rises more quickly. This is something we’ve known about for a long time, but apparently worldwide efforts to reduce air pollution since 2000 have been successful, and that has caused a measurable increase in the planet’s temperature:

In a new international analysis, Professor Johannes Quaas, a meteorologist at Leipzig University, and colleagues from across Europe, China, and the US have now documented robust evidence of this effect on the climate of improved air quality. “We analysed data from NASA’s Terra and Aqua satellites. They have been providing comprehensive satellite observations of the Earth since the year 2000, measuring incoming and outgoing radiation, but also clouds and aerosol pollution. The latter has decreased significantly across North America, Europe and East Asia since 2000,” says Professor Johannes Quaas, lead author of the study, which was initiated in a meeting by the two European research projects CONSTRAIN and FORCES.

This has also reduced the cooling effect of aerosols. Compared to the year 2000, it has led to an increase in the warming effect that is up to 50 per cent of the one by CO2 increases in the same period. This means an acceleration of the drivers of global warming compared to the previous period. “Our study should not be interpreted to mean that we should now be emitting more aerosols to cool the climate. On the contrary: aerosols are harmful to human health and the environment, which is why we need to keep reducing emissions,” Quaas concludes. And it is why air quality legislation has become increasingly stringent since the 1970s and is being implemented by more and more countries. Professor Quaas and his colleagues on the new study stress the ever more urgent need for rapid and strong reductions in greenhouse gas emissions.

This effect will continue as we keep reducing air pollution. As the study authors say, reducing air pollution is very important. Not only will it save lives under normal conditions, but the higher temperatures of the coming decades will make air pollution much more dangerous than it already is. While geoengineering projects could change the equation in theory, relying on them to save us seems like a bad idea; at best, they would kick the can down the road. As I’ve said before, I think we’re likely to need the time that would buy us, but only if we’re actually using it to end fossil fuel use and to adapt to those change that are set in stone.

There was a little leeway in the 20th century, but we blew that. Things are more volatile now, and we’re out of time. Still, it’s good that air pollution has been going down, and it’s good to have confirmation that our understanding of how things work is accurate. It’s going to be a bumpy ride no matter what, but we do know what we need to in order to get through it.

If you like the content of this blog, please share it around. If you like the blog and you have the means, please consider joining my lovely patrons in paying for the work that goes into it. Due to my immigration status, I’m currently prohibited from conventional wage labor, so for the next couple years at least this is going to be my only source of income. You can sign up for as little as $1 per month (though more is obviously welcome), to help us make ends meet – every little bit counts!

Breadfruit to the rescue!

When it comes to adapting to/preparing for global warming, resilience is key. It’s absolutely worth finding ways to increase our resistance to climate disasters, but being able to recover quickly will matter much more.  There’s no roadmap for how the next few decades are going to go – we’ve got good general guesses, but those don’t allow us to predict what’s going to happen where. We can prepare for some things – ensure access to air conditioning and reliable potable water during heatwaves, for one example – but the ability to take an unexpected hit without collapsing is key.

Resilience, in my view, is best achieved through diversity. Diversity of strengths, diversity of thought, diversity of experience, diversity of species – I make no secret of my interest in ecology, or of my belief that we should see ourselves as part of the ecosystems around us. In ecosystems, biodiversity is key to resilience. The more species you have living in a given area, the less damage will be done by removing any one of those species. There are a lot of ways in which I think this concept applies fractally. At the level of a local community, a diversity of people makes it more likely that whatever problem arises, someone will have some idea of what to do about it. A diversity in diet – in types and sources of food – means that if one kind of crop fails, there are other kinds of food available. Zoom out to the national or global scale, and the same remains true.

That’s why it’s such a problem that so much of our population depends on so few species. Even leaving aside the disease and pest risks of monoculture farming, relying on a small number of crops means depending on a narrow range of growing conditions. At risk of stating the obvious, growing conditions are changing worldwide. I maintain that our first priority should be investing heavily in indoor food production, but in the interest of diversity and resilience, I think there’s real value in exploring other options.

Enter the breadfruit.

While researchers predict that climate change will have an adverse effect on most staple crops, including rice, corn and soybeans, a new Northwestern University study finds that breadfruit — a starchy tree fruit native to the Pacific islands — will be relatively unaffected.

Because breadfruit is resilient to predicted climate change and particularly well-suited to growing in areas that experience high levels of food insecurity, the Northwestern team believes breadfruit could be part of the solution to the worsening global hunger crisis.

The study was published today (Aug. 17) in the journal PLOS Climate.

“Breadfruit is a neglected and underutilized species that happens to be relatively resilient in our climate change projections,” said Northwestern’s Daniel Horton, a senior author on the study. “This is good news because several other staples that we rely on are not so resilient. In really hot conditions, some of those staple crops struggle and yields decrease. As we implement strategies to adapt to climate change, breadfruit should be considered in food security adaptation strategies.”

[…]

Despite having “fruit” in its name, breadfruit is starchy and seedless, playing a culinary role more like a potato. Closely related to jackfruit, the nutrient-rich food is high in fiber, vitamins and minerals. In tropical parts of the world, people have been eating breadfruit for thousands of years — whether steamed, roasted, fried or fermented. Breadfruit also can be turned into flour, in order to lengthen its shelf life and be exported.

“Breadfruit trees can live for decades and provide a large amount of fruits each year,” said Zerega, a conservation scientist with the Negaunee Institute for Plant Conservation Science and Action at the Chicago Botanic Garden. “In some cultures, there is a tradition to plant a breadfruit tree when a child is born to ensure the child will have food for the rest of their life.”

This sounds like something worth looking into, doesn’t it? As ever, this needs to come with systemic economic and political change – there’s no point to  increasing consumption of breadfruit if it’s just rich countries buying it from the people who currently rely on it, and forcing those people to then buy food on the international market. Fortunately, it seems likely that the number of places capable of growing breadfruit will go up as the temperature rises, particularly compared to current staples like wheat.

To conduct the study, the researchers first determined the climate conditions required to cultivate breadfruit. Then, they looked at how these conditions are predicted to change in the future (between the years 2060 and 2080). For future climate projections, they looked at two scenarios: an unlikely scenario that reflects high greenhouse-gas emissions and a more likely scenario in which emissions stabilize.

I love the optimism of their likely/unlikely labeling. I hope history proves them right about that.

In both scenarios, areas suitable for breadfruit cultivation remained mostly unaffected. In the tropics and subtropics, the suitable area for growing breadfruit decreased by a modest 4.4 to 4.5%. The researchers also found suitable territory where growing breadfruit trees could expand — particularly in sub-Saharan Africa, where breadfruit trees are not traditionally grown but could provide an important and stable source of food.

“Despite the fact that climate will drastically change in the tropics, climate is not projected to move outside the window where breadfruit is comfortable,” Yang said. “From a climate perspective, we can already grow breadfruit in sub-Saharan Africa. There is a huge swath of Africa, where breadfruit can grow to various degrees. It just has not been broadly introduced there yet. And, luckily enough, most varieties of breadfruit are seedless and have little-to-no likelihood of becoming invasive.”

According to Zerega, once established, a breadfruit tree can withstand heat and drought much longer than other staple crops. But the benefits don’t end there. Because it’s a perennial crop, it also requires less energy input (including water and fertilizer) than crops that need to be replanted every year, and, like other trees, it sequesters carbon dioxide from the atmosphere over the tree’s lifetime.

“A lot of places where breadfruit can grow have high levels of food insecurity,” Yang said. “Oftentimes, they combat food insecurity by importing staple crops like wheat or rice, and that comes with a high environmental cost and carbon footprint. With breadfruit, however, these communities can produce food more locally.”

This brings us back to the need for systemic change. There’s a long history of rich nations using their wealth and power to undermine efforts at self-sufficiency in poor nations. Forcing a country to remain dependent on imports means that they have to put all their resources into generating cash crops to sell on the international market. That benefits capitalists, but it’s terrible for the kind of resilience we need. This is yet another example where we have what looks to be a good solution to part of the climate problem, but it’s unlikely to be implemented in any useful capacity without revolutionary political change.

It’s also worth underlining that there’s very little chance of the plant becoming invasive if grown in new locations. I’ve talked before about the damage that invasive species can do, and now is not the time to be adding more burdens to already-crumbling ecosystems.

The scale of change that we need is daunting, to say the least. I don’t think humanity has ever undertaken a task of this size and complexity. The upside is that “humanity” is also big and complex, and we’ve learned how break down big problems into more manageable parts. For climate change, one of those parts is changing our food system. Some of that change will just be differences in proportion – maybe we’ll have less wheat and corn, and more rice breadfruit, for example. I find it helps to remember that there are thousands of teams like the one behind this breadfruit research. More than that, there are millions of people not just doing research, but also taking direct action, and working out how to do more.

I no longer think climate change is just the result of all of us being collectively irresponsible – that would ignore how power works, and how our system is designed. That said, we are collectively living through it. You are not alone, and even if it’s not your day, your week, your month, or even your year, there are countless others out there working.

To grow breadfruit.

The image shows two breadfruits close to the camera. They’re green, oblong, and seem to be covered in small scales. The leaves behind them are very big, and toothed. Other breadfruits can be seen out of focus in the background.

If you like the content of this blog, please share it around. If you like the blog and you have the means, please consider joining my lovely patrons in paying for the work that goes into it. Due to my immigration status, I’m currently prohibited from conventional wage labor, so for the next couple years at least this is going to be my only source of income. You can sign up for as little as $1 per month (though more is obviously welcome), to help us make ends meet – every little bit counts!

Unequal distribution of temperature and green space is killing people.

Racial and economic inequality have always come with environmental inequality. The least powerful tend to be forced to live closest to our most dangerous waste products, from traffic pollution, to industrial or electronic waste. As the planet warms, there’s a new kind of environmental inequality, but rather than the things we’ve come to expect – poisoned air and water – we’re facing unequal distribution of temperature.

Equipped with heat sensors, this group of citizen scientists were participating in a groundbreaking study: the first ever street level assessment of heat in New York City. The goal was to find differences in neighborhoods – which communities were relatively cool? Which were sweltering hot? – and map the city’s heat inequality.

Joined by others in upper Manhattan and Harlem, the volunteers scanned temperatures along the streets with sensors attached to their cars and bikes. The results, presented to community members in January, showed a harsh reality of city living: the south Bronx was 8F (4.5C) hotter than the Upper West Side and Upper East Side, some of the city’s richest neighborhoods, just a few miles away.
“The variation in temperature is stark,” said principal investigator Liv Yoon. The data was analyzed by Climate Adaptation Planning and Analytics Strategies and is part of a nationwide heat-mapping initiative by Noaa. “The built environment really matters on how heat manifests and what people feel,” said Yoon.

The results mirror what residents and researchers have known and brought attention to for years: in cities like New York City,heat is distributed unequally – and people of color and low-income residents shoulder the highest burden of heat. Poor air quality, inadequate access to cooling and air conditioning further exacerbates the likelihood of heatstrokes and deaths from heat exposure. There are approximately 370 heat-related deaths in New York City on average each year, with the Bronx being especially vulnerable.

This is not a surprise. I’ve talked before about the various health benefits of living near greenery, and I think it’s no accident that wealthier parts of cities tend to have more trees, more parks, and more vegetation in general. As the temperature continues to rise, that inequality will increasingly become a matter of life and death.

Heat is especially severe for people with pre-existing conditions such as heart disease, and as higher night-time temperatures prevent people from recuperating overnight, it is also driving a rise in sleep-related mental health problems.

Some residents, who have been living in close proximity to sweltering asphalt and further away from parks and trees, may not be surprised by this.

“The thing is, we already knew where the hotter areas were,” said Yoon. “What we wanted to contribute is connecting the dots.”
Environmental advocates say the data, because of how granular it is, can help make the case that certain neighborhoods need better resources and access to green space.

“We have always gotten the brunt of the city’s pollution,” said Melissa Barber, researcher and co-founder of environmental justice group South Bronx Unite.

The difference in temperature between the south Bronx and the Upper West Side reflect a myriad of other environmental inequalities. There are five major highways that run through and around the south Bronx, including the hulking Cross Bronx Expressway, which contributes to the surrounding area’s noise and air pollution. Despite being bounded to the south by the Harlem River, the waterfront in the south Bronx is so developed that residents cannot readily access the blue space. Meanwhile, the Upper West Side sits between Central park and Riverside park, which looks out on to the Hudson River.

Asphalt roads and densely built buildings in cities trap heat. These urban pockets of heat can also overlap with other health disparities: the south Bronx has one of the highest asthma rates in the country. Residents here also live in housing that tends to trap heat, and where the median age of apartment buildings is nearly 90 years.

“These spaces are not only deprived because of the heat they’ve acquired, the existing infrastructure is failing as well,” said Satpal Kaur, an architect who volunteered in the heat-mapping survey.

Climate change is killing people right now, and it was entirely predicted that it would hit the poorest first and hardest. That very fact may well be part of why the richest among us felt comfortable ignoring the problem for their own benefit. As things continue to get hotter, and people continue to suffer and die because of it, remember this: We, as a species, have the resources to help. It does not have to be this way.

Ground-breaking research expedition gives dire new meaning to “glacial speed”

For a while now, glaciologists have been worried that as the oceans warm and rise, coastal glaciers will be lifted clear of the sea floor, allowing them to flow much faster. The Thwaites glacier in Antarctica has been of particular concern, because it’s holding back enough ice to raise global sea levels by as much as ten feet. If the glacier starts flowing into the ocean faster, the ice behind it will also speed up. As you can imagine, knowing the shape of the sea floor is key to understanding and predicting what the glacier will do. More than that, it can give us insight into what the glacier has done in the past.

And what it has done in the past is worrisome, to say the least:

For the first time, scientists mapped in high-resolution a critical area of the seafloor in front of the glacier that gives them a window into how fast Thwaites retreated and moved in the past. The stunning imagery shows geologic features that are new to science, and also provides a kind of crystal ball to see into Thwaites’ future. In people and ice sheets alike, past behavior is key to understanding future behavior.

The team documented more than 160 parallel ridges that were created, like a footprint, as the glacier’s leading edge retreated and bobbed up and down with the daily tides. “It’s as if you are looking at a tide gauge on the seafloor,” said Graham. “It really blows my mind how beautiful the data are.”

The image is a collage of pictures showing renderings of the sea floor, with regular

a–d, Examples of high-frequency sidescan imagery illustrating the back-stepping conformity of ridge shape (a), non-alignment of ribs to underlying lineations (b), rib formation on terraces (c) and the ‘beading’ (red circle) and overprinting (red arrow) of existing subglacial features (d). e, Multibeam hillshade showing fine-scale landforms, <20 cm high, crossing lineation ridges and grooves. f, Corresponding profile X–X′, demonstrating the subtle geometries of some of the landforms (5–20 cm) and their surprising depth (>740 m). g,h, Multibeam swath bathymetry covering the longest series of ribs (profile Y–Y′ and Z–Z′ combined; stars mark start and end of profile sections). Inset shows close-up example of lateral continuity in the southern portion of the ribs. Black arrows in ‘b’ mark lateral continuation of one oblique ridge. Yellow arrows in each image show ice flow direction inferred from lineations.

Beauty aside, what’s alarming is that the rate of Thwaites’ retreat that scientists have documented more recently are small compared to the fastest rates of change in its past, said Graham.

Yeah, “alarming” feels like the right word.

With global warming, it’s not just the changes that are happening that causes problems – it’s the speed. Faster changes mean more people dead. It really is that simple. That’s also why slower action to respond to climate change means more people dead. We know that this sea level rise is coming, we know we’re not ready for it, and we’re doing next to nothing to get ready. The death-cult of Neoliberalism, with its dogmatic adherence to laissez-faire capitalism, could not have taken over the United States at a worse time.

To understand Thwaites’ past retreat, the team analyzed the rib-like formations submerged 700 meters (just under half a mile) beneath the polar ocean and factored in the tidal cycle for the region, as predicted by computer models, to show that one rib must have been formed every single day.

At some point in the last 200 years, over a duration of less than six months, the front of glacier lost contact with a seabed ridge and retreated at a rate of more than 2.1 kilometers per year (1.3 miles per year) — twice the rate documented using satellites between 2011 and 2019.

“Our results suggest that pulses of very rapid retreat have occurred at Thwaites Glacier in the last two centuries, and possibly as recently as the mid-20th Century,” said Graham.

“Thwaites is really holding on today by its fingernails, and we should expect to see big changes over small timescales in the future – even from one year to the next – once the glacier retreats beyond a shallow ridge in its bed,” said marine geophysicist and study co-author, Robert Larter, from the British Antarctic Survey.

Completely aside from its implications, this mission was an accomplishment all on its own. Getting close to the edge of a rapidly retreating glacier is difficult and dangerous. In this case, it was only possible because of record lows in sea ice, combined with advances in technology.

To collect the imagery and supporting geophysical data, the team, which included scientists from the United States, the United Kingdom, and Sweden, launched a state-of-the-art orange robotic vehicle loaded with imaging sensors called ‘Rán’ from the R/V Nathaniel B. Palmer during an expedition in 2019. Rán, operated by scientists at the University of Gothenburg in Sweden, embarked on a 20-hour mission that was as risky as it was serendipitous, Graham said. It mapped an area of the seabed in front of the glacier about the size of Houston – and did so in extreme conditions during an unusual summer notable for its lack of sea ice. This allowed scientists to access the glacier front for the first time in history.

Anna Wåhlin, a physical oceanographer from the University of Gothenburg who deployed Rán at Thwaites, said, “This was a pioneering study of the ocean floor, made possible by recent technological advancements in autonomous ocean mapping and a bold decision by the Wallenberg foundation to invest into this research infrastructure. The images Ran collected give us vital insights into the processes happening at the critical junction between the glacier and the ocean today.”

“It was truly a once in a lifetime mission,” said Graham, who said the team would like to sample the seabed sediments directly so they can more accurately date the ridge-like features. “But the ice closed in on us pretty quickly and we had to leave before we could do that on this expedition,” he said.

While many questions remain, one thing’s for sure: It used to be that scientists thought of the Antarctic ice sheets as sluggish and slow to respond, but that’s simply not true, said Graham.

“Just a small kick to Thwaites could lead to a big response,” he said.

And that brings us back to our regularly scheduled existential dread!

I believe this glacial retreat, and associated sea level rise are going to happen. I do not think it is a question of “if”, but of “when”. I suppose it is hypothetically possible that all of the world’s rich and powerful decide to completely change how they’ve always behaved. It’s “possible” that they could invest in truly dealing with climate change and its attendant problems. Were that to happen, it’s possible that through herculean effort, we could even stop the warming in my lifetime. Maybe.

I think it is equally possible that I will be named king of the world.

The unfortunate reality is that before we can devote the needed time and resources to climate mitigation and adaptation, we need revolutionary political and economic change. It’s my hope that in working towards that will also push more incremental change, like the recent climate bill. Things like that will never be enough to solve the problem, but they can slow things down, and buy us the time that this research shows we very much need.

This is one more warning among so many that it almost feels like white noise at this point. I think that could be a very real danger. In addition to our propensity to think that “the weather has always been like this”, after a certain point we just don’t have the energy to get worked up over every new apocalyptic update. I think the antidote to that is to keep the focus on the step we’re currently on – building collective power. Networking and organization aren’t just tools for affecting political change – they can also make a community more resilient, and better able to survive the disasters that our governments are too corrupt and incompetent to prevent.

When disaster strikes, humanity is always forced back to our single greatest strength – the ability to work together to achieve more than any of us could alone. Warnings like this give us a heads-up that we need to be exercising that muscle now, so that it’s fit for purpose when we really need it.

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Shocking and unexpected news! Overfishing and climate change are bad for fish!

So, I actually think there’s a lot of value in doing research on subjects with “obvious” answers. We’ve done a lot of damage to this planet by assuming we already know what’s what, and I think that it would be reckless and short-sighted to assume that because we know more than we used to, we don’t need to examine what we think we know. That doesn’t mean wandering through life in a state of existential befuddlement, but it does mean scientists actually taking the time to check that we’re right.

This kind of research is also useful in a world full of highly-paid industry propagandists who spend all of their time finding ways to spread doubt about the harm done by various industries. In this case, the fishing industry, and the fossil fuel industry (because of course).

Researchers at UBC, the Stanford Center for Ocean Solutions and University of Bern projected the impact that different global temperature increases and ranges of fishing activity would have on biomass, or the amount of fish by weight in a given area, from 1950 to 2100. Their simulations suggest that climate change has reduced fish stocks in 103 of 226 marine regions studied, including Canada, from their historical levels. These stocks will struggle to rebuild their numbers under projected global warming levels in the 21st century.

“More conservation-oriented fisheries management is essential to rebuild over-exploited fish stocks under climate change. However, that alone is not enough,” says lead author Dr. William Cheung, professor in the Institute for the Oceans and Fisheries (IOF). “Climate mitigation is important for our fish stock rebuilding plans to be effective”

The research team, including co- author Dr. Colette Wabnitz of Stanford Centre for Ocean Solutions, used computer models to find out the climate change levels at which over-exploited fish stocks cannot rebuild. Currently, the world is on track to exceed 1.5 degrees of warming relative to preindustrial levels and approach two degrees in the next few decades, says Dr. Cheung.

The study projected that, on average, when fisheries management focuses on the highest sustainable catch per year, the additional climate impacts on fish at 1.8 degrees Celsius warming would see fish stocks unable to rebuild themselves.

If people around the world fished only three quarters of the annual highest sustainable catch, fish stocks would be unable to rebuild at a higher degree of warming, 4.5 degrees.

That last bit strikes me either over-optimistic, or over-pessimistic. I do believe that if we were to dramatically decrease fishing, fish populations would recover, even with another degree of warming, but at 4 degrees? At that point it seems like mass extinction would be far more likely than not, even without overfishing. Still, if we get to that temperature and we haven’t made dramatic change to society, I doubt that we’ll have the capacity for over-fishing, even if we do somehow still exist, and still have most of our current technology.

On the one hand, I appreciate the rosy view of the future. I also would like to think that there would be a way for humanity to thrive even at those temperatures, but I think that in order to get there, we will have to have already solved problems like overfishing. This article feels a bit like the whole “end of history” thing, where it’s assumed that Liberal Democracy with minor adjustments is the “final form” of human politics, and the need for revolutionary change – despite all evidence to the contrary – is a thing of the past.

It is entirely possible that I’m reading far too much into this, but I feel like it’s an example of how the indoctrination of our society has placed boundaries on the kinds of society we’re capable of imagining. I don’t know whether those limitations also influence the design of models like this. I certainly hope they don’t, but when I see that kind of projection, I do have to wonder what’s being missed because nobody involved in the research would even think to check it. It’s not a new problem by any stretch, nor is it limited to our society. I think this is a concern in any society, which is part of why institutionalized hierarchies seem like a dangerous thing to have normalized. I mainly focus on the society in which I live, because I can clearly see the path that we’re on because of it, and it does not look good.

I suppose this is an odd conclusion for an article about fish populations, but I think there’s a degree to which we need to become more comfortable with political uncertainty. Not the “will the president try to become a dictator?” kind, but rather “our society is flexible enough that we might briefly form a formal institution in order to get something particular done, and then dissolve that institution”. Maybe a circumstance will arise in which we need a corporate structure with incentives to work particular jobs, but that doesn’t mean that that institution will need to exist in perpetuity. The same is true of governments, nations, and borders. There may be a case for setting certain geographical boundaries – bioregionalism is interesting, and when it comes to commons like the oceans, it’s clear that some coordination is required.

But I think we may need to let go of the notion of an ever-lasting government as a means of achieving security and stability. It doesn’t seem to be providing either very well, especially with a global perspective.

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Flooding in Pakistan highlights the need for global solidarity.

In this Age of Endless Recovery, we’re being treated to a rolling barrage of escalating climate disasters. The increasing frequency of extreme events is already making it clear that having a global society like ours comes with unique vulnerabilities. Our just-in-time system has no room or redundancy for the kinds of disruption that we’re just starting to see. Those people in the United States who’ve been under the misapprehension that their nation and lives are somehow removed from the rest of the world, are going to be increasingly confronted by the economic effects of climate change, even if they somehow manage to tune out the human effects.

And while climate activists and “communicators” try frame the issue in terms of how it will directly affect some of the most insulated people in the world, other people are fighting to survive.

Pakistan declared a national emergency on Friday as catastrophic monsoon rains, exacerbated by the fossil fuel-driven climate crisis, continued to pummel the country for the third consecutive month.

Since mid-June, flash floods and landslides across the South Asian nation have killed least at 937 people, injured more than 1,300, and destroyed well over half a million homes, according to the National Disaster Management Authority. In addition, nearly 800,000 livestock have died and at least 1,900 miles of roads and 145 bridges have been wiped out, disrupting the supply of food and further driving up prices.

This is a “climate-induced humanitarian disaster of epic proportions,” Sherry Rehman, the nation’s climate change minister, told reporters on Thursday.

“Pakistan is going through its eighth cycle of monsoon while normally the country has only three to four cycles of rain,” said Rehman. “The percentages of super flood torrents are shocking.”

More than 100 districts across Pakistan’s four provinces have been hit by flooding since the start of the monsoon season. The impacts have been especially devastating in the southern provinces of Sindh and Balochistan, which have received 784% and 496% more rain this month compared with the August average, according to the minister.

The two provinces have lost at least 306 and 234 people, respectively, and tens of thousands more have been forced to live in makeshift camps far away from their inundated cities and towns.

“Thirty-three million have been affected in different ways,” said Rehman. “The final homeless figure is being assessed.”

https://twitter.com/Joyce_Karam/status/1563252444179492866?

Countries like the US should be helping Pakistan because they have the resources to do so (assuming they ever decide they stand for more than enabling the ultra-rich), but also out of self-interest. It’s hard to predict who’s going to get hit next, or when the next major supply chain disruption will come. We’re entering a period of time in which trying to maintain “business as usual” will be increasingly destructive and dangerous. The longer the warming continues, the more we’re all going to need help, and the less we’ll be able to afford to support a useless and negligent ruling class.

Now is the time for those nations with the means to reach out to people and nations in need of help, both to improve the resilience of those who are currently struggling, and to build up more solidarity and trust between people, groups, and nations. It’s something that the aforementioned useless ruling class ought to be doing. It’s also something that they will not do.

The good news is that with the internet, we can network internationally, and hopefully start building connections between the working classes of various countries. That could be a good tool for generating empathy in the imperial core, and for breaking through people’s personal bubbles.

I don’t know if there’s much any of us can do about the death and suffering in Pakistan right now, at least directly. Keep an eye out for ways to help, of course, but in many ways the best thing an average resident of the U.S. can do is work to change how the U.S. government conducts itself. This is not only key to actually doing good for humanity with the riches of “the richest nation on the planet”, but also to ending a pattern of military and political interference.

In light of what’s happening to the climate, we really don’t have time for the petty and destructive games of a spoiled and callous aristocracy.

If you like the content of this blog, please share it around. If you like the blog and you have the means, please consider joining my lovely patrons in paying for the work that goes into it. Due to my immigration status, I’m currently prohibited from conventional wage labor, so for the next couple years at least this is going to be my only source of income. You can sign up for as little as $1 per month (though more is obviously welcome), to help us make ends meet – every little bit counts!

Video: What Siberia’s sinkholes mean for the climate

This week has been hectic and exhausting for a number of largely unrelated reasons. I’ll have something more substantial up tomorrow, but in the meantime, this video is a good look at something worrisome that’s been happening in the Arctic. Some of you may remember hearing about a number of larger, bizarre craters appearing in Siberia. As I followed the story, it became pretty clear that the culprit was the explosive release of a gas buildup under the permafrost. I had assumed that the gas buildup was from microbial activity in newly thawed organic matter, but it turns out they’re actually from a different scary problem.

Apparently, the permafrost has been acting as a lid on oil and gas deposits for the last few hundred thousands years, and now that it’s thawing, the methane from those deposits is finding its way to the surface. This isn’t methane from rotting permafrost, it’s climate change just releasing natural gas into the atmosphere. It’s currently not certain that these are a new phenomenon. It seems likely that they are, but all we can currently say is that this is new to science. The best-case scenario is that this has been happening all along. Given how rapidly these craters turn into lakes that look the same as other permafrost lakes, it is possible that even prior to the recent warming, this is just one way in which the permafrost has always “bubbled”.

Personally, I’m inclined to believe that these are either a new thing, or an old thing that is becoming much more common. As ever, bad news doesn’t much change what needs to be done. Do what you can to build collective power, and community resilience. Do what you can to move politics and political discourse leftwards, and in keeping with those ideals, do what you can to take care of yourselves.