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Science / Global Warming Would Stop Quickly After Emissions Go To Zero

« on: January 05, 2021, 01:30:10 AM »

A lot of people still assume that temperatures would continue to increase after emissions go to zero.  However, that's no longer what the science shows.

https://insideclimatenews.org/news/03012021/five-aspects-climate-change-2020/

Many Scientists Now Say Global Warming Could Stop Relatively Quickly After Emissions Go to Zero
That’s one of several recent conclusions about climate change that came more sharply into focus in 2020.
By Bob Berwyn
January 3, 2021

Some scientists punctuate their alarming warmings with hopeful messages because they know that the worst possible outcome is avoidable.

Recent research shows that stopping greenhouse gas emissions will break the vicious cycle of warming temperatures, melting ice, wildfires and rising sea levels faster than expected just a few years ago.

There is less warming in the pipeline than we thought, said Imperial College (London) climate scientist Joeri Rogelj, a lead author of the next major climate assessment from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

“It is our best understanding that, if we bring down CO2 to net zero, the warming will level off. The climate will stabilize within a decade or two,” he said. “There will be very little to no additional warming. Our best estimate is zero.”

The widespread idea that decades, or even centuries, of additional warming are already baked into the system, as suggested by previous IPCC reports, were based on an “unfortunate misunderstanding of experiments done with climate models that never assumed zero emissions.”

Those models assumed that concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere would remain constant, that it would take centuries before they decline, said Penn State climate scientist Michael Mann, who discussed the shifting consensus last October during a segment of 60 Minutes on CBS.

The idea that global warming could stop relatively quickly after emissions go to zero was described as a “game-changing new scientific understanding” by Covering Climate Now, a collaboration of news organizations covering climate.

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Policy and solutions / Seaweed and Seashell Farming

« on: March 09, 2018, 07:06:37 PM »

I read "Atmosphere of Hope" by Tim Flannery recently and came across a topic I didn't know about, seaweed farming.  Apparently it's a way to reduce ocean acidification and draw down CO2 from the atmosphere.  It's been growing exponentially in the past decade and people are making money and producing food from it.

Globally, around 12 million tonnes of seaweed is grown and harvested annually, about three-quarters of which comes from China. The current market value of the global crop is between US$5 billion and US$5.6 billion, of which US$5 billion comes from sale for human consumption. Production, however, is expanding very rapidly.

Seaweeds can grow very fast – at rates more than 30 times those of land-based plants. Because they de-acidify seawater, making it easier for anything with a shell to grow, they are also the key to shellfish production. And by drawing CO₂ out of the ocean waters (thereby allowing the oceans to absorb more CO₂ from the atmosphere) they help fight climate change.

Here are a couple of links to articles about it:

https://theconversation.com/how-farming-giant-seaweed-can-feed-fish-and-fix-the-climate-81761

https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/food/seaweed-is-easy-to-grow-sustainable-and-nutritious-but-itll-never-be-kale/2015/10/26/1d1719b8-7750-11e5-b9c1-f03c48c96ac2_story.html?utm_term=.ddbbc9294451

https://e360.yale.edu/features/new_breed_of_ocean_farmer_aims_to_revive_global_seas