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2022 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #38

Posted on 24 September 2022 by John Hartz

A chronological listing of news articles posted on the Skeptical Science Facebook Page during the past week: Sun, Sep 18, 2022  thru Sat,  Sep 24, 2022. 

Story of the Week

Tipping points: How could they shape the world’s response to climate change?

Larsen C Ice Shelve in Antarctica

The Larsen Ice Shelf is situated along the northeastern coast of the Antarctic Peninsula, one of the fastest-warming places on the planet. In the past three decades, two large sections of the ice shelf (Larsen A and B) have collapsed. A third section (Larsen C) seems like it may be on a similar trajectory, with a new iceberg poised to break away soon.

The mosaic above, centered on the northern part of Larsen Ice Shelf, is comprised of four natural-color satellite images captured by the Operational Land Imager (OLI) on Landsat 8 on Jan. 6 and 8, 2016. It shows the remnant of Larsen B, along with the Larsen A and smaller embayments to the north covered by a much thinner layer of sea ice. The remaining shelf appears white with some deep rifts within it.

Areas with sea ice anchored to the coastline or ice shelf—fast ice—are light blue where covered with melt water and white where covered by wind-blown snow. The ocean is dark, nearly black, where it is not covered by sea ice. The white areas near where glaciers meet the sea have multitudes of small icebergs called bergy bits that broke off from land ice.

Image Credit: NASA Earth Observatory image by Jesse Allen, using Landsat data from the U.S. Geological Survey, Caption: Adam Voiland

Source of the above: Antarctica’s Changing Larsen Ice Shelf, NASA


Researchers, economistand civil society representatives gathered in Exeter this week to discuss the prospect of “tipping points” in a warming world.

Over three days at the University of Exeter, the conference aimed to both improve “warnings of the imminent risks of catastrophic climate tipping points” and accelerate “positive tipping points” to trigger “rapid and transformative solutions” to climate change.

The conference followed closely after a major new review study – published last week in Science and covered by Carbon Brief – which warns that there is a “significant likelihood” of multiple tipping points being crossed if global warming exceeds 1.5C. 

Tipping points: How could they shape the world’s response to climate change? by Robert McSweeney & Ayesha Tandon, Carbon Brief, Sep 16, 2022

Links posted on Facebook

Sun, Sep 18, 2022

Mon, Sep 19, 2022

Tue, Sep 20, 2022

Wed, Sep 21, 2022

Thu, Sep 22 2022

Fri, Sep 23, 2022

Sat, Sep 24,2022

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Comments

Comments 1 to 3:

  1. The climate that the Earths is in is a long-term ice age named the Quaternary Glaciation or fifth ice age. The climate of the Earth alternates between normal temperatures and ice ages. The cause is the orbit of the Earth changes from a near circle like the present, and it is warmer, but not warm enough to melt all of the natural ice, to a slight ellipse.  It then receives much less sunlight and the glaciers grow and advance and that ususally lasts about 90,000 years. The warm, near circular, time periods last about 10,000 years. This is all because of the pull of the other planets, mainly Jupiter.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quaternary_glaciation

    0 0
    Moderator Response:

    [PS] I am not quite sure what point you are trying to make, but note detailed write-up in this here https://skepticalscience.com/Milankovitch.html. Note that the Milankovich orbital cycles were only able to induce ice age when the CO2 level in atmosphere dropped by ~400ppm.

  2. The CO2 levels dropped because the Eath receives less sunlight when it is in the more elliptical phase of its orbit. It got 25% less sunlight that made it colder and colder water can absorb more CO2 so the CO2 levels dropped.

    0 0
    Moderator Response:

    [BL] You have returned to continue  your trip through the various climate myths. You are continuing to get things wrong.

    Yo have previously been pointed to the SkS page on Milankovitch cycles. Your 25% number is way off, when looking at global annual values. For global annual values, variations in eccentricity only cause from +0.014% to -0.17% compared to today’s average. Your 25% figure is something you must have obtained from a source that only looked at 65N on the summer solstice. Climate lasts more than one day, and the globe covers more than one line of latitude.

    Your assumption that cooling causes decreases in atmospheric CO2 is also wrong - and is also covered in other posts here at SkS. With our current warming oceans, ocean absorption of atmospheric CO2 is fighting against the rise caused by burning fossil fuels.

     

  3. The Quaternary Glaciation has two main phases. There is the phase when the Earth's orbit is almost circular like today and it is warmer and there is the phase where the Earth's orbit is more elliptical and it gets less sunlight and is colder. When it is warmer the oceans release more CO2, like today, and when it is colder the oceans absorb more CO2. The colder phase lasts about 90,000 year and the warmer phase lasts about 90,000 years for a total of about 100,000 years for each complete cycle. The Earth's orbit varies like this because of the gravational pull of Jupiter, although the other planets have some effect. This is from Wikipedia, mainly.

    0 0
    Moderator Response:

    [BL} See the moderator's note on your previous comment. You are very, very wrong on the links between CO2 uptake and ocean temperature, and vastly overestimate the effect of orbital ellipticity on the earth's receipt of solar radiation.

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