Climate chan: Let's hope all hell doesn't break loose

 

Can hope save us – if all hell breaks loose this autumn?

 

Of:  

 

Jonathan Jeppsson  

 

Published: Less than 50 min ago  

 

Updated: Less than 30 min ago  

 

NEWS  

 

More and more point to the return of El Niño this fall.  

 

That could send temperatures soaring toward record highs next year.  

 

Let's hope it doesn't turn out that way.  

 

The new heat records are always set during El Niño years. The warmest for example – 2016 – was the result of a strong El Nino effect. It is about the trade winds over the Pacific slowing down, which means that the surface water has time to warm up.  

 

El Niño affects climate and weather worldwide. 

 

In the Amazon, the drought meant that fires increased by 36 percent in 2015–16. In Southeast Asia, the fires were described as ”hellish”. 

 

The reason why we haven't broken any temperature records in recent years is that the opposite phenomenon La Niña has dominated, with colder surface water in a stretch towards the west coast of South America.  

 

But most forecasts now point to La Niña weakening in the spring and El Niño taking its place in the fall.  

In that case, this means that 2023 could be warm, the forecasts say that it will be hotter than 2022. But an intense El Niño hits with full force in 2024, in the worst case with unprecedented heat waves as a result. 

  

Might go over 1.5 soon  

 

Let's hope it doesn't turn out that way. But if it does happen, there is a 50 percent chance that we will reach 1.5 degrees sometime in the next five years, albeit temporarily. 

  

 

Forest fire outside Bogotá, Colombia, 2016. Photo: AP

So it is the Paris Agreement's 1.5 degree target that is on the table. The risk of temporarily exceeding 1.5°C has increased steadily since 2015, when it was close to zero. For the years between 2017 and 2021, there was a 10 percent risk, but now – 50 percent.  

 

And if it does happen that we exceed 1.5 degrees, then we have to put our hope instead in the fact that the researchers who believe that we will then cross a threshold are wrong. That the studies and reports that warn that we will then reach a so-called "tipping point" do not have a grasp of the situation.  

 

Those who believe, for example, that when the Greenland ice sheet melts, the consequence is that cold fresh water flows into the North Atlantic around the Gulf Stream, which slows down the heat circulation in the North Atlantic, shifts the monsoon systems, dries up the Amazon rainforest and causes more warm salty surface water to remain in the southern hemisphere. 

 

"All hell will break loose in the North Atlantic," as Professor Jim Hansen, a pioneer in climate change research, has put it. 

 

Let's hope he's out cycling.  

 

Jim Hansen and his team's climate model for mid-century temperature. https://acp.copernicus.org/articles/16/3761/2016/  

Even if we break the line, temperatures may settle on a new plateau, or drop back slightly as El Niño fades, before the next one returns. 

 

Let's really hope that the temperatures drop back down and then don't once again step over the 1.5 degree mark (although that is unlikely.)  

 

The technology is not invented  

 

But if it does happen, let's hope we find a way that works to soak up a lot of the carbon dioxide we've already emitted.  

 

The problem is that the technology to achieve this has largely not been invented yet. 

 

We also need to speed up – by 2050, 1,300 times more capture than planned will be needed to keep temperature increase well below two degrees. It's also very expensive, even if the price falls, by 2030 it will cost $75-$100 per ton to absorb and use what we keep pumping out the other end.  

 

Let's hope we can afford it.  

 

Flooding in Missouri, USA, as a result of the natural phenomenon El Niño. Photo: AP  

 

But perhaps we should also hope that the hope we are expected to feel about the climate will soon be translated into action that actually produces results. And that Friedrich Nietzsche was wrong when he said that hope is in reality the worst of all evils, because it prolongs human suffering. 

 

“We predict that 2024 will likely end up off the scale as the warmest year on record. It is unlikely that the current La Niña will continue for a fourth year. "Even a small 'pinch' of an El Niño should be enough for a global temperature record," says Professor Jim Hansen in an interview. 

 

Let's hope he's wrong. 

 

Facts 

Five tipping points close by  

 

Five tipping points are at risk with today's temperature rise of just over 1.1 degrees, according to the new study in Science:  

 

Melting of Greenland's large ice sheets. 

 

Melting of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet.  

 

Large-scale and abrupt thawing of the permafrost.  

 

Collapse of the Great Current in the Labrador Sea in the North Atlantic.  

 

Mass death of the coral reefs of the tropics.  

 

If the temperature rises by 2.6 degrees compared to pre-industrial levels, which the forecasts point towards, it is judged as either "probable" or "possible" that we pass 13 tipping points. 

 

(Sources: TT/Science and others)