Essay by Eric Worrall
“That’s the big question we’re all trying to pin down,” Professor Matthew England from UNSW told 9news.com.au.
How close is our planet to suffering the most catastrophic effects of climate change?
By Daniel Jeffrey 12:34pm Jul 30, 2024
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How many years until we can’t stop climate change?
Rather than talking about whether climate change can be stopped it’s a bit more helpful to look at key “tipping points”.
“(These) include ice sheet collapse, permafrost thaw, ocean deoxygenation, ocean acidification, the die-back of the Amazon rainforest, and changes in ocean circulation, such as the slowdown of the Atlantic overturning circulation,” UNSW Climate Change Research Centre director Katrin Meissner told 9news.com.au.
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So how far away are we from hitting them?
“That’s the big question we’re all trying to pin down,” Professor Matthew England from UNSW told 9news.com.au.
“In a way, that’s the biggest unknown we have.
“It’s safe to say we know these tipping points exist. What we know less about is how close to the tipping points we are.
“Some people say we’re already, for example, past a tipping point for the Greenland ice sheet.”
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“On timescales that are relevant to humans, none of the effects we see right now can be reversed, not even those that are not related to tipping points,” Meissner says.
“They can only stay the way they are or get worse.”
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Read more: https://www.9news.com.au/national/climate-change-progress-how-long-until-climate-change-is-irreversible/87a22a09-2420-44af-b243-f60280531766
The big question I’d like to pin down is whether these people are actually practicing science.
In science prediction is king – if your theory doesn’t make testable predictions, it’s not scientific.
Falsifiability (or refutability) is a deductive standard of evaluation of scientific theories and hypotheses, introduced by the philosopher of science Karl Popper in his book The Logic of Scientific Discovery (1934).[B] A theory or hypothesis is falsifiable (or refutable) if it can be logically contradicted by an empirical test.
Read more: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falsifiability
A statement like all the ice caps will one day melt – the paleo climate history of Earth is full of periods when the polar ice caps melted. For much of Earth’s history there were no polar ice caps, by paleo-climate standards today’s world is experiencing a period of extreme cold.
From NOAA;
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Striking during the time period known as the Pleistocene Epoch, this ice age started about 2.6 million years ago and lasted until roughly 11,000 years ago.
Like all the others, the most recent ice age brought a series of glacial advances and retreats. In fact, we are technically still in an ice age. We’re just living out our lives during an interglacial.
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Read more: https://www.climate.gov/news-features/climate-qa/whats-coldest-earths-ever-been
But a statement like “They can only stay the way they are or get worse.” implies things are getting worse – but doesn’t give us a way to falsify this hypothesis.
In my opinion making predictions which are not testable in a very fundamental way violates the basic principles of science. If your prediction of imminent catastrophe does not have a firm timetable, if it cannot be falsified with a scientific test, then it’s not science.
A prediction like “the ice caps will melt by 2030, and this will catastrophically inundate 100 billion dollars worth of realestate”, this would be a testable prediction. All we have to do is wait until 2030, then point and laugh.
More importantly we could use such predictions as a yardstick to measure the comparative value of proposed climate action. Should people living at higher elevations be taxed a trillion dollars, to pay for the mitigation of $100 billion of problems which only affect wealthy, high income lowlands? Perhaps the cities allegedly at risk should decide for themselves how credible such predictions are, and pay their own climate adaption bills.
Nice Eric. I would never expect the CAGW crowd to be concerned about the science. If they put any stock in the science they wouldn’t say the things they are saying. What they are saying is more important to them than any notion of science or honesty. You can’t shame them into leaving the cult, they have too much invested in it right or wrong.
Seeing as we’ve already surpassed the Global 1.5°C of Global temperature increase between 1909 and 2023, I would suggest that we’re already suffering the catastrophic effects of Climate Change Policy
How do we know this when in 1850 there were no thermometers in the southern hemisphere?
The entire CAGW theory is based on assumptions of temperature in 1850 when we basically had thermometers in England and the US. Then they add the assumption that it’s all due to CO2. It’s absolute BS. Yes, we warm and we cool. That’s what happens in a natural system.
It seems about the same as it has always been in most of the US, nice summers and cold winters.
I couldn’t speak for 1909 as I wasn’t born yet but I can speak for 1962 onwards with A/C running in summer and Gas Heat in winter. And summertime swimming at the Cambridge Public Pool to beat the heat
“It’s safe to say we know these tipping points exist.”
No, you know no such thing. Better to grasp from direct observation that the weather operates at overwhelming levels of power intensity and energy conversion to keep heat energy from accumulating down here from the minor static radiative effect of incremental non-condensing GHGs – certainly not to harmful extent.
“– certainly not to harmful extent. “
After 40-50 years of this nonsense, no-one has ever observed or measured any warming from atmospheric CO2.
It is either too tiny to measure.. or it doesn’t exist
Would the red thumb coward please put forward measured evidence of CO2 warming.
oh wait.. you can’t !!
Some have a really hard time seeing the core problem with attribution – that the dynamics of atmospheric motion, along with cloud formation and dissipation, completely obscure any attempt to isolate cause and effect concerning GHGs.
This also means that a climate system temperature response (ECS, TCR, whatever) to incremental CO2 cannot be reliably distinguished from zero by any means we have available to us. It may take a few more years for this to sink in, but even the self-described “lukewarmer” (not being derogatory here) will eventually have to accept that the atmosphere is the authentic model of its own operation, and cannot be “forced” by what incremental non-condensing GHGs do.
It’s safe to say that the purported tipping points don’t exist. If they had, they would have occurred during the Holocene Climate Optimum.
Either there is something in the local water, or they get grants and funding by spouting this nonsense.
At the very least, they should propose moving the University to Katoomba (better water) just in case the Greenland ice sheet does have a near-term tipping point. Show us you believe!
And these people call J. D. Vance weird.
Don’t worry, it’s not an admiral in the Navy. It’s never been in the military, just government bureaucracy.
The usual form just keep saying we can solve this just send more money
“In science prediction is king – if your theory doesn’t make testable predictions, it’s not scientific.” Worrall
Prediction is central to the process of science—it is fundamental to the scientific method.
In the late 1970’s a very large majority of scientists predicted that manmade CO2 emissions would cause global warming.
The predictions appear to be correect.
Does that prove their claims about CO2 were right or did the warming have other causes?
What if in 100 years climate science has advance to a point where every climate change variable is understood. But it is also understood that 100 year climate prediction are impossible. Does that mean everything known about each individual climate change variable is not science simply because 100 year climate predictions are still impossible?
“predicted that manmade CO2 emissions would cause global warming.”
And yet no-one has been able to produce any empirical evidence showing any CO2 warming.
Correct. There are two effects of burning fossil fuels that have empirical evidence support.
Firstly greening of the planet through photosynthesis enhancement.
Second, an enormous improvement in basic quality of life, now being actively throttled back by the GangGreen pretend “Scientists”.
“In the late 1970’s a very large majority of scientists predicted that manmade CO2 emissions would cause global warming.’
“A very large majority”? “Scientists” … what sort of “scientists”? Please provide evidence to backup up your assertion.
In 1896 Arrhenius predicted global warming, and he considered this to be a good thing.
And he was right.
I don’t want to listen to this vacillating or any doubt about tipping points whatsoever as the dooming is settled and it’s all been peer reviewed-
Australian universities accused of awarding degrees to students with no grasp of ‘basic’ English (msn.com)
There’s only one thing to do-
Benny Hill Ting-A-Ling-A-Loo Song (youtube.com)
The correct answer is always 10 years:
Climate crisis in 10 years
Better EV batteries in 10 years
Fusion power in 10 years
RG will lose weight in 10 years
RG will finish household to do list in 10 years
At the end of 10 years, a new 10 year period starts.
The way I view it is…
So long as there’s something on my To Do List, God can’t call me home yet…I still have something to accomplish first
Whatever you do, don’t get on an elevator with a Chinese Li-ion battery.
Holy Fvck !! E BIKE battery.
I’ll take the stairs
Is that real?
Wondering that too. The emergency response looked staged.
And then there’s… Don’t park next to a charging EV
Well that’s why spooked women like Juanita require men with standards who value their good name-
(187) Lithium Battery TORTURE TEST – Renogy 100 Pro Smart Lithium – YouTube
Oh and never trust lefties Juanita.
I am prepared to make a prediction on this. Those living in 400 years will be fully aware of an impending glacial episode as the permafrost makes steady progress southward.
Within 2000 years, there will be substantial issues for existing fisheries and port infrastructure as ocean levels fall 40mm a year. Not to mention loss of arable land in mid to high northern latitudes but the Sahara will be productive again.
I have some confidence in these predictions because it has all happened before.
I recently upgraded the accuracy on the initial timing as I am now fully aware we are close to the peak off the modern climate optimum so the solar irradiance will be dropping off to LIA levels by 2400. The difference this time from the LIA is that the oceans will be warmer meaning lots more atmospheric water poised to make lots more snow when the NH land has low winter sunshine.
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2024/07/25/claim-global-warming-is-messing-with-our-rainfall/
Correct link:
?fit=1040%2C720&ssl=1
We’re going to need a lot more Live Aid concerts.
Let’s hope they have some decent Rock Bands in Africa then.
Hi Rick, can you share a bit more about how you generated this plot, how you are interpreting it, and why you think this drives solar irradiance? Part of the reason for my questions is that he last LIA was in 1600, and the Medieval Warm Period peak was around 1000AD. Thanks.
“How many years until we can’t stop climate change” This out right foolish, climate is the average of weather over a period of time in a location, therefore, as far as I can tell, weather determines climate not the opposite and since no one has found a way to change the weather then stopping climate change is a non-starter.
“How many years until we can’t stop climate change”
Goalposts must continually be moved lest demand for new forms of taxation dries up and novel capacity for slushfunding/anointing special interest groups goes with it-
(187) Zero Emissions Vehicles go from £10 per year to £5,475 per year. What’s this about? – YouTube
The deplorables must be constantly kept in a state of anxious flux about that or they might begin to question the whole modus operandi.
Well, first off, we need to know if we’re talking about climate change, or bogus climate change.
Apart from a slight, very beneficial natural rise in temperature..
… In what way has the global climate changed ?
Please provide evidence of human causality.
Let’s see if any of trendologist trolls dare to even try an answer. 😉
Ah no. All WE need to know is that at some time in the future a tipping point will arrive so we better comply w all the measures to not make that moment come sooner.
At least that is the general approach. No need to go into the details because that would be..mm.. confusing and would cost too much energy to absorb. Much better to signal yr virtue of being a caring person and go with the flow. And believe the experts. You know, Trusted Sources. Anyway, all those deniers are paid by the oil industry so should be treated w contempt.😁.
This is what i see happening when i am involved in a conversation. Most people havent a clue, they actively don’t want to know or pretend to know. It is easier that way. But if you scratch the surface there is nothing there.
Climate alarm is the Forever Covid19..
Bogus climate change. They are now calling 30-year weather the “climate”, so like the the weather, it is always changing.
If hey really figured out a way to stop climate change, then we’d all truly be screwed.
Just another useful idiot.
Well, if it keeps getting more morally bankrupt with everyone doing whatever is right in their own eyes, then we’re pretty close to it being judged by fire.
We can start off with ducking stools for deniers. Years ago, I turned a big tall English bloke into a newt, but it was just a temporary spell. It made the BBC though.
Judges
“past a tipping point for the Greenland ice sheet.”
Greenland? The Greenland ice are is only just a bit below its maximum in 8000+ years.
Way above the RWP, MWP etc.
What are these kooks yabbering about !!
I’m so glad someone had mentioned the Greenland Ice Cap which has been causing a sea level rise of a terrifying one millimetre a year for years
I think the last few years show an increase in ice formation of the Greenland ice sheet. I cant remember where i saw that. On this site perhaps?
Anyway, alarmists believe in linear processes. For them natural variability is always a small factor. By default.
‘What are these kooks yabbering about !!’
Complete political dominance.
Matt England has been a CAGW carnival barker for about 20 years now.
He just has to stretch the gig out for another 5 years or so until retirement.
Imagine the worrisome self evaluation a mid-career CAGW carnival barker would suffer behind closed doors..
I have come to the inescapable conclusion that anyone in more enlightened times who spouted such nonsense about “climate change.” Was burned as a heretic or sent to a lunatic asylum. Problem solved.
Half right. They were hanged on a gibbet at a crossroad. The crows pecked their eyes out first. I wonder what the modern equivalent will be?
“I wonder what the modern equivalent will be?”
Getting a post at a “climate authority” !
Thus immediately destroying what tiny credibility they might once have had.
‘They can only stay the way they are or get
worsebetter’.Even in the comparatively recent past things have been a lot ‘worse’ at least for the biosphere when the planet was a lot colder and the atmospheric CO2 concentration went down to around 180 ppm.
If he can imagine disasters then so can I (but I am not a scientist)
He forgot the arrival of aliens, Earth (or the moon) being hit by a meteor and the sun going super nova as possible tipping points.
All would make his points seem small in comparison
That’s the wrong question to ask. The correct question is:
How close is our planet to recovering to the perfect global climate due to the current 26% of CO2 emission reduction achieved by the signatories since the 1997 Kyoto Protocol and 2015 Paris agreements?
We know the numbers because they are reported. We want to know the results.
Excuse Me Doonman! Take a look at the Moana Loa Keeling Curve and you will see there has been no reduction in CO2. Nor is there the vestige of a chance that it will be checked whether natural or Asian coal burning. Relax and enjoy.
A close look at the Moana Loa data compared to ocean atmospheric temperatures, draws the conclusion that the rate of CO2 growth is closely linked to ocean atmospheric temperature, lagging a month or two.
Just like atmospheric temperature, there is a surge in the rate of CO2 growth at major El Nino events, and at small step change in the rate of CO2 increase after the transient has gone.
There is a near zero trend in the rate of CO2 increase between those major El Nino events.
There is no discernible signal of human CO2 emissions in the rate of CO2 increase.
You mean to tell me that 25 years of limiting CO2 emissions by the signatories of UN treaties has accomplished absolutely nothing?
What’s that called when you keep doing the same thing over and over but expect different results?
Good question. You hear very little about it. For obvious reasons: we have to go faster and harder, that is the general approach. No need to check. It is an attitude..
The Natural warming of the planet after the mini-ice age is a threat to no one, the only significant threat the world faces today is from the globalists of the IPCC, UN, DNC and the CCP who desire a global socialist tyranny. If achieved billions will die from forced starvation.
This, for me, points to the fundamental source of most of today’s problems – oversized, out of control central government.
And governments are controlled by debt burdens. They have voluntarily enslaved themselves to the financial mafia.
The USA just passed the 35 trillion dollar mark in debt.
Better start mining the country’s resources to sell to reduce it.
Oh Wait. Kamala wants to ban fracking nationally.
Oh Well. At least shes a woman with dark skin, so there’s always that leadership quality.
“Striking during the time period known as the Pleistocene Epoch, this ice age started about 2.6 million years ago and lasted until roughly 11,000 years ago.”
Who in NOAA wrote this nonsense? In truth, the “ice age” has not ended so far as we know. About 2.6 million years ago, earth, previously being ice free, began periods of cyclic glaciation. During the first 1.6 million years glaciers and ice sheets formed and then advanced and retreated on an approximate 40,000 year cycle. Beginning about 1 million years ago, the cycle changed from 40,000 years to about 100,000 years. While at the lowest temperature of these cycles, much of the earth was covered with glaciers and ice sheets including all of Canada and much of the northern US. We are presently at the temperature peak of the most recent cycle when glaciers and ice sheets are least extensive. Whether and when the next cycle will begin is unknown but if the pattern of the past 100,000 year cycles continues, there will be a very gradual decline in temperature over a period of many thousands of years leading to slow growth in glaciers and ice sheets as in the past. If the pattern does not continue, existing glaciers and ice sheets will melt and the earth will return to an ice-free condition as it was during most of its existence.
Measurements of the carbon dioxide content of ancient ice sheets at the bottom of existing Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets shows that changes in atmospheric carbon dioxide did not cause these temperature cycles but instead, responded to their growth and subsequent shrinkage during each cycle.
And icesheet Co2 measurements are averaged over several thousand years..
When it is cold more CO2 can dissolve in the oceans and atmospheric CO2 drop when it warm less CO2 can dissolve in the oceans so the release CO2.
CO2 follows temperatures.
The energy the Earth receives from the Sun along when cloud cover that reflects sunlight back into spaces and the oceans that can store heat for 100+ years, none of which is in the IPCC models, determines, the Earth’s temperatures.
The tipping point I am most concerned about is will the earth tip over from the weight of the ice covering the northern hemisphere when the current interglacial ends? It is surely implied but never explicitly stated by warmist nutters that CO2 has brought about the end to the current ice age. If that wasn’t implicit in their delusion then any sane person would be promoting extreme efforts of any kind to extend the current interglacial. Let’s discuss the science behind the assumption.that the ice age is over and the polar ice caps are gone for a few million years.
“They can only stay the way they are or get worse.”
The only thing we truly know is that they will not stay the same and to suggest that any change is a worse outcome also implies a gormless ignorance that beggars belief.
It has long been evident that many “scientists” have been captured by the cause of climate change. Some observerers have compared their devotion to capture by a religion.
For 30 years I have been trying to understand this, because it has already given proper, hard science a wrong impression in the eyes of the public. It needs to be understood, then halted.
Today, I saw a new angle. I was watching Griff Rhys Jones on TV, “Slow Train Through Africa”. Close to the end, train traveller Jones was unable to finish his project because the African train operators were holding a union stop-work meeting. They had been holding a stop-work meting over no wages for 3 months or so. So, instead of doing some work at reduced rates, they decided that they would find other ways to get money for food, clothing, etc, essentially rendering their work for the railway as inconsequential.
They were able, in their minds, to mount a new personal employment scenario that left out the former essential of “railway”, except that their railway union became central instead of railway operation.
Do we see similarities with this climate change thing, where a group of researchers has changed their central theme to spreading a story, when before it was to conduct scientific research with established, approved methods? Is the IPCC now rather like a Union, dictating what its members shall and shall not do, with any challenge to the IPCC union likely to bring expulsion?
Do readers have any other examples of this messing with mindsets?
Geoff S
https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x8hqu4b
Eric is correct: conjecture is not science. Neither is emoting about imminent catastrophe.
Note that throughout the Q&A the presumptions are:
[QUOTE FROM ARTICLE]”A prediction like “the ice caps will melt by 2030, and this will catastrophically inundate 100 billion dollars worth of realestate”, this would be a testable prediction. All we have to do is wait until 2030, then point and laugh.[END QUOTE]
There were predictions from 1975 of a coming ice age, and 49 years later there has not yet been an ice age.
We were told in 1998 (“An Inconvenient Truth”) that half of Florida would be underwater. Twenty-six years later, people are still buying beachfront property there, on beaches that have been there for centuries.
We were told in 2007 that the North Pole would be open water in ten years, and 17 years later, the North Pole is still ice-covered year-round.
Models run in 1980 predicted temperature rises of double what was actually observed 44 years later.
The dire predictions might scare young people who haven’t studied history, but for those of us who weren’t born yesterday, we hear so many boys (and girls, in Greta’s case) crying wolf over climate change, and still no wolf. We don’t have to wait until 2030 to laugh.
[QUOTE]”How many years until we can’t stop climate change?”[END QUOTE]
The answer to this question is zero. We can never “stop” climate change–but we can adapt to it.
The whole “climate change” theory is based on additional absorption of infrared radiation due to increased CO2 concentration. From a radiation balance, increasing the CO2 concentration from ~300 ppm (in 1896) to ~420 ppm (in 2023) should cause an average surface warming of 0.18 degrees C, but global average surface temperatures warmed by 1.09 C over that time (GISS).
So, if human beings completely stopped burning fossil fuels tomorrow, at best it would slow the warming down by 16%, but would not stop it, since the natural forces causing the recent warming are over 5 times stronger than the influence of CO2.
Human cuts in CO2 emissions in 2020 didn’t make a bit of difference in CO2 levels.
When humans cut their CO2 emissions by about 5.4 percent in 2020 due to COVID-19 restrictions the CO2 kept rising as the same rate as it had been rising.before the pandemic reductions.
https://www.co2.earth/monthly-co2
https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/emission-reductions-from-pandemic-had-unexpected-effects-on-atmosphere
‘Global Daily CO2 emissions for the year 2020’
https://arxiv.org/pdf/2103.02526
story tip
“How many years until we can’t stop climate change?”
A question only an imbecile could ask. We never had and never will have the ability to stop climate change any more than we can alter the rhythms of the sun or redirect the orbits of the planets.
“It’s safe to say we know these tipping points exist.“
It’s safe to say the author of that statement lives in a science-free fantasy world.
“How close is our planet to suffering the most catastrophic effects of climate change?
Now there is a question deserving of consideration. We are roughly 12,000 years into the current interglacial and global temperatures have been declining for several thousand years. Typically recently interglacial periods often ended after only 10,000 or so years. We may be on the cusp of entering reglaciation which would eventually pile a few miles of ice on top of some of the most populated land areas on Earth. It would massively disrupt or destroy much of the production of the necessities of human society and drop sea levels by 120 meters or so making all current sea ports into dry land with no access to open water. Why is that not the most concern issue when it comes to climate change? Why is the fixation only on chasing shadows of doom vomited out of poorly configured climate models?
To put it bluntly we should be worrying about the inhabited temperate land areas becoming very much light Greenland and Antarctica are now rather than the other way around.