Is This The Start of Runaway Global Warming?

This is an essay by William P Hall, President, Kororoit Institute, Evolutionary Biology of Species and Organisms.

The observations show a growing risk to human society from runaway global warming, and they beg explanation.

This essay focuses on observations of what appears to be the start of runaway warming in the Arctic that may have profound effects on global climates over the next few years; and a plausible cause – the warming driven release of methane gas from permafrost forming a strong greenhouse cap over the Arctic Ocean.

The observations summarized here are based on computerized analyses of many millions of data points collected per day covering the entirety of the satellite era, beginning in 1979.

I wonder how many of these kinds of alerts will need to be published before the world at large takes serious notice. Of course, this is a rhetorical question. Our past response indicates that we are still far away from being seriously concerned – even when it acknowledged that we are past critical tipping points.

You should take a look at this essay, as it encompasses many of the points of concern that have been unfolding over the last several years. I’ve been warning here about tipping points for some time, but this essay is an easy and short read that summarizes what you need to know.

The large temperature anomalies in the Arctic have been of particular interest, since this was all happening during winter when there was no sun. This should have been a clear signal to all observers, including climate scientists, but either because of reticence, muzzling or the simply inability to be forward thinking, it did not garner the attention that it should have. And to be honest – it still hasn’t.

A warm Arctic in winter means a too-warm Arctic in spring (most likely), and summer follows spring, when Arctic sea ice will be at its lowest levels ever. A world-record ice loss is expected this year, including a Blue Ocean Event where there is no summer ice in the Arctic. This is bad news for every living entity on the planet because it means that the Arctic will have warmed up past the point where any ice can survive in summer, which in turn means the ice will be too low in fall and in winter, setting up a chain-reaction event from a warming ocean where less and less ice and the critical temperature gradient from the equator will greatly lessen. A highly disrupted jet stream is the result – with stuck weather patterns (too hot, too cold, too much precipitation and too little precipitation). All-in-all, it’s bad, bad news for human survival because it will dramatically affect temperatures, crop seasons, harvests, plant propagation, pollination and the number of field days where crops can be tended.

I’ve been warning about this for years. This was a “given” – a known outcome already years ago if we lost the Arctic sea ice – which looks like is going to happen pretty soon. If not this year then perhaps next. I expect to see rapid global warming immediately preceding this event and certainly, thereafter.

Long-time readers are well aware of my own position on these events. There is an extensive blog history of what I expect to unfold as the planet continues to warm up, which is an absolute take-it-to-the-bank certainty. In any case, this essay by Hall is yet another clear warning to the world about what is unfolding now. Don’t ignore this. The world needs to prepare for what this means. Here is the conclusion of the essay:

My conclusion from what appears to be undeniable evidence is that we have already passed the tipping point where we had any hope of stopping warming at 2 or even 3 °C, and urgently need to focus on greatly improving our scientific understanding and learning learning how to live with and survive decades of rapid heating, and to develop global geoengineering tools to actively remove greenhouse gases from the atmosphere before most life on the planet (including ourselves) is exterminated heat stroke and starvation in collapsing ecosystems.

This is why I devised the LIFE project, preparing for reduced human survival with the full-knowledge and awareness that most of humanity will either refuse to act, or be unable to do so.  Moreover, it is already evident that not every country, nor the inhabitants within those countries, will survive. Many regions of the world are already deemed uninhabitable in the future. The number of refugees will be absolutely massive (hundreds of millions, at least). Nobody is preparing for this, but this is not something you can do overnight. It will take years of planning.