The News: burning

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As an earlier Arctic-news analysis shows, Earth may have long crossed the 1.5°C guardrail set at the Paris Agreement.

Earth may have already been in the Danger Zone since early 2014. This is shown by the image on the right associated with the analysis, which is based on NASA data that are adjusted to reflect a preindustrial baseline, air temperatures and Arctic temperatures.

As the added 3rd-order polynomial trend shows, the world may also be crossing the higher 2°C guardrail later this year, while temperatures threaten to keep rising dramatically beyond that point.

What is the threat?

As described at the Threat, much carbon is stored in large and vulnerable pools that have until now been kept stable by low temperatures. The threat is that rapid temperature rise will hit vulnerable carbon pools hard, making them release huge amounts of greenhouse gases, further contributing to the acceleration of the temperature rise.

Further release of greenhouse gases will obviously further speed up warming. In addition, there are further warming elements that could result in very rapid acceleration of the temperature rise, as discussed at the Extinction page.

The Danger Zone

Below are some images illustrating just how dire the situation is, illustrating how vulnerable carbon pools are getting hit exactly as feared they would be with a further rise in temperature.

On July 5, 2018, it was as hot as 33.5°C or 92.3°F on the coast of the Arctic Ocean in Siberia (at top green circle, at 72.50°N). Further inland, it was as hot as 34.2°C or 93.5°F (at bottom green circle, at 68.6°N).

The satellite image below shows smoke from fires over parts of Siberia hit strongly by heat waves.

The fires caused carbon monoxide levels as high as 20,309 ppb over Siberia on July 3, 2018.

Methane levels that day were as high as 2,809 ppb.

On July 4, 2018, forest fires near the Lena River cause smoke over the Laptev Sea and East Siberian Sea. CO (see inset) and CO₂ levels that day were as high as 45080 ppb and 724 ppm (at the green circle), as illustrated by the image below.

The Copernicus image below shows aerosol forecasts for July 4, 2018, 21:00 UTC, due to biomass burning.

Another Copernicus forecast shows high ozone levels over Siberia and the East Siberian Sea.

EPA 8-hour ozone standard is 70 ppb and here's a report on recent U.S. ozone levels. See Wikipedia for more on the strong local and immediate warming impact of ozone and how it also makes vegetation more vulnerable to fires.

The global 10-day forecast (GFS) below, run on July 3, 2018, with maximum 2 meter temperature, shows that things may get even worse over the coming week or more.

Could we move out of the Danger Zone?

What can be done to improve this dire situation?

One obvious line of action is to make more effort to reduce emissions that are causing warming. There's no doubt that this can be achieved and has numerous benefits, as described in an earlier post. Emission cuts can be achieved by implementing effective policies to facilitate changes in energy use, in diet and in land use and construction practices, etc.

One complication is that the necessary transition away from fossil fuel is unlikely to result in immediate falls in temperatures. This is the case because there will be less sulfur in the atmosphere to reflect sunlight back into space. Furthermore, there could also be an increase in biomass burning, as discussed at the Aerosols page, while the full wrath of recent carbon dioxide emissions is yet to come. As said, the resulting rise in temperature threatens to trigger numerous feedbacks that could accelerate the temperature rise even further. For more on how much temperatures could rise, see the Extinction page.

While it's clear that - besides emission cuts - further action is necessary, such as removing greenhouse gases from the atmosphere and oceans, the prospect is that such removal will have to continue for decades and decades to come before it can bring greenhouse gases down to safer levels. To further combat warming, there are additional lines of action to be looked at, but as long as politicians remain reluctant to even consider pursuing efforts to reduce emissions, we can expect that the world will be in the Danger Zone for a long time to come.

The situation is dire and calls for comprehensive and effective action, as described in the Climate Plan.

Levels of carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere are accelerating, even though emissions from fossil fuel burning have remained virtually the same over the past few years.

One of the reason behind this is accelerating emissions from wildfires as temperatures are rising.

Wildfires in Nevada caused CO2 to reach levels as high as 742 ppm on July 12, 2017 (green circle image on the right).

Global warming is greatly increasing the chance for what was previously seen as an extreme weather event to occur, such as a combination of droughts and storms. Heat waves and droughts can cause much vegetation to be in a bad condition, while high temperatures can come with strong winds, storms and lightning.

Wildfires cause a range of emissions, including CO2, soot, methane and carbon monoxide (CO). In Nevada, CO levels were as high as 30.43 ppm (green circle image right).

Above satellite image below shows the smoke plumes and the charred area. The google maps image below further shows where the fires were burning.

At the moment, wildfires are hitting many places around the world.

Wildfires caused carbon dioxide to reach levels as high as 746 ppm in Kazakhstan on July 11, 2017 (green circle on image on the right).

Carbon monoxide levels in the area were as high as 20.96 ppm on July 10, 2017.

The satellite image shows wildfires in Kazakhstan on July 9, 2017.

The satellite images show wildfires in Kazakhstan on July 11, 2017.

On July 16, 2017, CO₂ reached levels as high as 830 ppm in North America at the location marked by the green circle on the image below. Note that fires are burning at multiple locations.

The image below shows the location (red marker) where the fires burned in Canada.

That same day, July 16, 2017, CO₂ reached levels as high as 873 ppm in Mongolia, as shown by the image on the right.

The image also shows further fires burning in Siberia.

Carbon monoxide levels were as high as 37.19 ppm where the fires burned in Mongolia on July 16, 2017, as shown by the image below.

The image below shows the location (red marker) where the fires burned in Mongolia. The image also shows Lake Baikal across the border with Russia.

On July 22, 2017, CO₂ reached levels as high as 1229 ppm in Montana, while CO levels at the time were as high as 56.38 ppm at that location (green circle on image below).

The satellite image below shows the situation in Montana on the next day, July 23, 2017. See also the
NASA post Grassland Fires Tear Through Montana.

Furthermore, on July 23, 2017, CO₂ reached levels as high as 884 ppm at another (nearby) location in Montana (green circle on image below).

Meanwhile, temperatures keep rising. Surface temperature as high as 53.1°C or 127.5°F were forecast in Iran for July 11, 2017, at the location marked by the green circle on the image below.

At 1000 mb (image below), temperatures in Iran were forecast to be slightly lower, i.e. as high as 51.9°C or 125.3°F at the location marked by the at green circle, but note the difference in color, especially over Greenland, the Himalayas and the Tibetan Plateau.

The situation is dire and calls for comprehensive and effective action as described at the Climate Plan.

Aerosols

Some aerosols, particularly sulfur dioxide, have a cooling effect, making that they partly mask the warming effect of other emissions by people. The IPCC AR4 image below shows that the direct and cloud albedo effect of aerosols equals a radiative forcing of as much as -2.7 W/m². In other words, if this masking effect were to fall away, warming would increase by as much as 2.7 W/m², according to IPCC AR4 figures.
Anthropogenic aerosols are also suppressing the Pacific Decadal Oscillation, making that less heat gets transferred from oceans to the atmosphere. Recent research concludes that future reduction of anthropogenic aerosol emissions, particularly from China, would promote positive Pacific Decadal Oscillation, thus further speeding up warming over the coming years.

Dimethyl sulphide emissions from oceans constitute the largest natural source of atmospheric sulphur, and such emissions can decrease with ongoing ocean acidification and climate change. This could particularly impact specific regions such as Antarctica, speeding up warming and loss of sea ice there, as discussed at this paper.

The net warming effect of open biomass burning was estimated in a 2014 study by Mark Jacobson to amount to 0.4 W/m² of radiative forcing. Imagine a scenario in which many people stopped burning fossil fuels for heating, cooking and energy. That would be great, but if many of them instead switched to burning biomass in woodburners and open fires, while wildfires increased strongly, the net warming from associated aerosols would increase dramatically.

A recent paper by James Hansen uses equilibrium fast-feedback climate sensitivity of ¾°C per W/m², while another recent paper suggest that the temperature rise per W/m² could be even stronger.

A high-end increase in net radiative forcing combined with a strong temperature rise per W/m² could cause a temperature rise as a result of changes in aerosols of as much as 2.5°C in a matter of years, as suggested in earlier posts such as this one.

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