There are amazing resources for these. Initially I’m just listing them, but I will link them soon.

Climate Forcing Elements

  • Greenhouse Gases
    • C02 – Carbon Dioxide
      • Highest value in over 2 million years (well before humans)
      • Rising at a rapid pace
      • Apparently Accelerating
      • CO2 Concentration: Keeling Curve
      • C02 Concentration: C02-Daily
    • CH4 – Methane – “Natural Gas (almost entirely CH4)”
      • Highest value in over 800,000 years (well before modern humans)
      • Rising at a rapid pace, possibly accelerating
      • NOAA website
    • N20 – Nitrous Oxide
      • Highest Recorded values (only a few decades of measurements)
      • NOAA website
    • H20 – Water
      • Always worth pointing out the Water vapour is a massive greenhouse gas, but as far as I’m aware it “responds to other forcings” … so unlike the other GHG’s we are not actively putting this into the atmosphere, it is just that the warming from other forcings means we have more water vapour in the air. So a feedback / amplifier that is well covered in the various models. Expect 7% increase in water vapour per degree GMST heating.
    • Hydrogen
      • Unlike the others listed above, This one may be controversial. Hydrogen isn’t a green house gas, but it can reduce the amount of “Hydroxyls” which themselves clean up the CH4 molecules. E.g. Hydrogen could increase the lifespan of CH4 in the atmosphere, thereby acting as an indirect climate forcing. This could be a big spanner in the work for plans to move to a Hydrogen economy. Interested to hear more on this.
  • Earth Energy Imbalance
    • Double what it was 15-30 years agoe
    • Apparently Accelerating
    • Hansen has great info on this
  • Albedo (Earths Reflectivity)
    • With the glaciers and Ice Sheets (Ice on land) retreating, less snow to reflect the sun. More absorption.
    • With Arctic and Antarctic Sea Ice melting, less white surface to reflect the sun.
  • Aerosol Masking – Global Dimming
    • Bizarrely pollution is masking some of the heating
    • Hansen’s recent work gives alarming possibilities, suggesting we have underestimated this effect, and therefore Climate Sensitivity is higher than we think
  • Ocean Heat Content
    • 90% of the excess heat into the earth goes into the oceans.
    • Stunning amounts, and stunning rise in global Ocean Heat Content.
    • Apparent acceleration of OHC
  • Sinks vs Sources
    • Amazon, Arctic, Oceans have soaked up 50% of our GHG emissions, acting as a dampener on climate change. All three of these are already / at-risk of turning from C02 sinks, into sources
  • Humans
    • Net Zero yet to be proven. Currently my understanding is that we are excited about our attempts to bail out the titanic with a teaspoon, which drilling more holes in the hull. We’ll see.
    • Planning impressive amounts of fossil fuel extraction over the next decade. Again we’ll see.l

Tipping Elements

As per the work by Tim Lenton, in 2024 we have already entered the zone for 5 tipping elements, and we are looking good to have entered the zone for 10 tipping elements by 2035.

Given that we have already April 2024, see: Climate Milestones – NOAA, GISS, Copernicus, HadCRUT, Berkeley Earth) got the climate to around 1.30-.142C, The following tipping elements are in play:

  • Northern Permafrost Abrupt Thaw
  • Tropical Corals
  • Greenland Ice Sheet
  • West Antarctic Ice Sheet
  • Labrador Sea Current Collapse

Also, I keep reading disturbing reports about the AMOC slowing down, but very unclear on timescales of further slowdown or further impacts.

Ecological Overshoot

Of course, it is disturbing to realise that “Climate Change” is only a symptom, of a much larger set of predicaments including the other “Planetary Boundaries” and Ecological Overshoot. Given that society is suspended on a geyser of fossil fuels, both continuing with fossil fuels, and turning fossil fuels off will be monumentally impactful.

Cooling

There are a few wild-cards that I’m aware of, but not that well informed on:

  • Geo-Engineering – Throwing the dice and see what happens
  • An unexpectedly rapid AMOC collapse could cause a period of utter chaos, including cooling in western Europe.

Hope

Hope has very much been backed into a corner at this point. Magical thinking will help here.