There is a school which argues that the climate situation in the Arctic is now completely out of control due to various positive feedbacks involving albedo, methane, fires, soot, fires and maybe others. It posits that consequently we face a 10C increase in global temperatures over pre-industrial levels within 10 years… Central to this argument is that most climate models don’t consider some of these feedback loops and that the IPCC’s assessment of the situation is too conservative. A sudden release of 50 gigatons of methane from clathrates and permafrost would put us over the top.
Which question requires input by those literate on the subject? Is it “Will humans be extinct by 2026 due to climate change?” If so, I really, really doubt it, although I’m all but illiterate on the subject.
There are over seven billion of us and it’s going to take quite a lot to kill all.
Well, I am not particularly literate on the subject, but I still need to see the evidence that it’s going to happen, and what, if anything, can be done.
This is the old “methane hydrates” thing, yes? My understanding is that they’re there (undersea methane deposits currently frozen), warming faster than expected, and that survival would be rough if they all vaporized at once (basically causing a runaway greenhouse effect).
What’s less understood is what’s actually happening and what the effects would be. Exterminating humans by 2026? Not a chance; that’s less than a decade from now. But apparently this is a serious-but-less-than-extinction level threat, and like many other climate change issues not getting looked at with the attention it deserves because apparently “science” is now a liberal conspiracy or something.
If the (average) temperature did increase by 10C then for example, what happens to cloud cover and the resulting loss of solar heating? How much would that balance out - and what about the effect on rainfall? Climate is far more complex than most computer models can account for. However, if New York gets the climate of New Delhi and crops have to be planted in the fall and harvested in the spring, some people will still be alive - the world will just look very very different.
You think Europe or California has an illegal migrant problem now… wait until wholesale crop failures and flooding are the order of the day in Africa and anywhere north of Brazil. I’m thinking Canada better plan to beef up its border security to keep those pesky Yankees away.
But full on extinction? I doubt it.
(What’s the mechanism for removing methane from the atmosphere - I assume with a much higher concentration that would kick in. )
There are a very large number of people, they are very creative, and the world is a big place. The possibility that climate change can wipe out everyone on the planet within 9 years is so far from plausible that plausible can’t be seen from here with the Hubble Space Telescope. We didn’t conquer a planet by accident.
A really, really bad farming crisis – large-scale crop-failure – could kill hundreds of millions, but would even that croak a billion of us? Let alone 7 billion?
Pretty much. Even if climate change wipes out 99% of the human race, that still leaves 70 million people. That is the population around 2000BC.
Also keeping humans alive isn’t hard. Water, food, protection from microbes, protection from temperature extremes, protection from violence and physical trauma are about all it takes to push life expectancy up to ~75.
Even if climate change causes lots of agricultural land to fail, other lands will be opened up. Plus you have hydroponic farming and other technologies.
There are combinations of worst case scenarios that would greatly accelerate warming. But it is not clear at what rate and temperature these events would occur.
I personally suspect that warming will happen considerably faster than the generally touted time frame. But 2026? That is a bit too soon for even my pessimistic guess.
My reason for thinking it will be sooner than later, is the methane release. There are many places with huge amounts of stored methane. Some can be released in almost an instant. The large deposits underwater for instance. Slower, but still frighteningly fast is the arctic areas with methane trapped in currently thawing areas.
I think we will be in real trouble. Possibly end of us trouble by 2050 temperature wise. As well as food wise because of temperature, water and our other causes.
Mother nature already did a human wipe, twice i believe?
She was not successful, we are too stubborn.
We can eat almost anything, our range of eatable things might be almost the widest on the planet.
Water? well if you render a planet devoid enough of water to kill all humans, it is a planet probably mostly devoid of any larger complex life.
If there is an ocean, we can get water and high tech is not needed.
Protection from microbes we come with, we may need time when encountering new ones but we spent a million years learning how to adapt to them, we will just continue adapting.
Temperature extremes man had mastered long ago, we live naturally in almost every area of the planet aside from antarctica
Warming may be an issue, but there is no way it will make humans extinct, some other creatures yes, but as screwed up as human nature can be, we are very resilient and will learn to adapt. Global warming isn’t going to turn the world into a giant desert or something, like Mad Max style. At worst people will move to the areas near the poles that have potentially arable land. Nature is very good about correct her imbalances. The mere fact that (most) of us are aware that global warming is a potential issue, is enough to set us on a path to assist in correcting the imbalance. We’ll be fine, life may be more difficult, but it will go on.
I remember when 2008 - 2010 was when Peak Oil was supposed to become noticeable to us, and by 2012 society would already have fundamentally changed because of it (Predictions that gas would be $20 a gallon in America meant no more airlines except for the ultra-wealthy, no more Wal-Mart and other giant retailers since fuel costs would destroy their profit margins, no more drive-throughs since people didn’t want to waste gas idling in them etc.)
About peak oil. From one who works in the oil exploration business. Hubbert did accurately predict the peak of conventional oil production in the U.S. With the production technologies of the time and what was thought to be reasonable economics.
One needs to delve into the odd twists of economics, finance and state subsidies in their various forms to see how we have bypassed Hubberts valid conclusions.
In general, oil should be more expensive. The Saudis turned up the flow of their much cheaper crude to counter expensive U.S. shale products and oil sands and such, which are artificially cheap due to zero interest rate regime. And other competitors. Plus some political reasons. U.S. shale producers are in deep debt. Extracting expensive, selling cheap to keep paying their loans. The debtors are stringing it along to not go bust.
Oil is more expensive than it seems. The costs are being put off. As are so many of our expenses. They will come due at much more cost.