chubbs

Another paper summarizing 2023 ocean warming with a comparison to other methods of estimating global heat imbalance. Ocean warming is accelerating. Reasonably good agreement among the methods considering the measurement uncertainty. Global heating rates are running above the worst case scenario (bottom graph). Why? - aerosols are coming down faster than projected due to air pollution control. This warming boost will last another decade or two unless CO2 emissions start to fall as well. https://www.mercator-ocean.eu/en/news/new-paper-co-authored-by-moi-oceanographers-reports-record-breaking-ocean-heat-content-levels-in-2023/

Yes it will take decades to transition away from fossil fuels. Decades of emissions and increasing temperatures in the best of cases. We are committing ourselves to a warmer and warmer future.

Fossil fuels won't provide the same economic benefits in the future that they did in the past, not even close. The best resources are increasingly depleted and climate costs are ramping. Gasoline doesn't cost of $3.50/gal because demand is exploding. We would need alternative energy sources without a climate crisis. An increasing number of countries, the US included, have declining CO2 emissions with a growing economy.

Ceres net radiation data has been updated through January. As expected in a strong nino, the radiation imbalance has been shrinking since last summer, as the warmer atmosphere increases outgoing radiation. The downcycle should run for a while longer; but, we have a ways to go to return to 2015/16 conditions.

There is confusion about whether the warming rate is accelerating and/or climate sensitivity is higher than expected. An acceleration in the warming rate starting around 2010 is expected due to reductions in aerosol emissions. Per a recent Real Climate blog, Hanson's yellow cone is inline with CMIP6 model predictions. There is a large body of work on climate sensitivity, so will need multiple studies and sustained warming above the red line to move the needle. We will see. One final comment: increased forcing from aerosol reduction is better than increased forcing from CO2 emission increases. Aerosol emissions are going to zero anyway. The acceleration has a shelf life on the order of decades before aerosols are depleted.. By pulling the aerosol reductions forward in time due to air pollution control we are giving ourselves a preview of our climate future. Maybe it will spur action. Not that we have placed ourselves in a good position, with warming accelerating just as we approach 1.5C warming; which means we are leaving our comfortable Holocene climate. https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/04/much-ado-about-acceleration/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=much-ado-about-acceleration

Funny, Chesco is helping make the "alarmist" case. Googling indicates we have the same CO2 concentrations today as 14 million years ago. Only the ocean and cryosphere, which are slow to adjust to higher CO2, are keeping us close to our old climate. The good news is that the ocean will take up CO2 if we get emissions under control. We aren't committed yet to going back 14 million years. Its up to us to decide how far back in time we want to go. One thing is certain though. Ignoring the problem is going to make the future more alarming, not less. https://news.climate.columbia.edu/2023/12/07/a-new-66-million-year-history-of-carbon-dioxide-offers-little-comfort-for-today/ https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.adi5177

I agree that albedo effects from fertilization are not.as important as CO2 radiation effects or plant evapotranspiration, which is important in the case of midwest corn. On-the-other hand, don't think Maguire has debunked albedo effects either. CO2 fertilization has a relatively small climate effect that needs to be evaluated carefully to determine if it is positive or negative. Found a paper (link below) which isolated the biophysical effects of CO2 fertilization on climate. CO2 fertilization had a net warming due to effect mainly due to the albedo effect of the northward advance of Boreal forests. Considered separately in the paper, increased CO2 sequestration would offset the albedo effect in the short-term but not in the long-term. In any case the climate effects of CO2 fertilization are small,and the radiation effects of CO2 are dominating. Note also that increasing CO2, increases atmospheric water vapor leading to a radiation effect that is in the same ballpark as the effect of increased CO2 alone. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/j.1600-0889.2006.00210.x

I don't know Paul, I get a different picture after checking the reference. For one thing I couldn't find the chart you posted. It must be from the supporting material. As for the body of the paper, it showed clear evidence for climate change in temperature and heavy precipitation. Below is a text snippet, a couple of charts and the paper link. This leaves me wondering where you get your information from. https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2019JD032263

I have no problem going back before 1960. I'll go way back, but I'm not going to limit myself to a small slice of biased data. No. I want to look at all the data and use the best methods to analyze it. From the last IPCC report

Don't get me wrong there are many reasons to plant trees and trees produce a net cooling in many parts of the world. Once it is in the atmosphere removing CO2 will be costly and slow. Using renewables/batteries/electrification to not emit CO2 in the first place is by far the cheapest strategy, particularly with costs continuing to drop.

Related to the CO2 fertilization post above, the recent study below accounted for the albedo effect of planting trees. In many places around the world, planting trees causes warming, as increases in absorbed sunlight offset the benefit from CO removal. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-024-46577-1

The article linked was more sanguine about CO2 effects than your write up. Not all of the greening is due to CO2 and increased greening is a mixed blessing. Your description of radiation effects isn't correct. Increased photosynthesis causes plants to absorb more sunlight, and reflect less, so greening generally causes warming. The effect is particularly large in the arctic where greening is mainly due to expansion of shrubs and trees northward. The greener surface absorbs much more sunlight than the snow or tundra surface it replaces. I believe these effects are included in models but am not familiar with the details. Finally here's a short interview with an ag expert, who expects a negative impact from CO2 on agriculture in most areas. https://www.theclimatebrink.com/p/is-co2-plant-food

This recent study shows that global heat waves are becoming more frequent, lasting longer, covering larger areas, moving slower, and bringing higher temperatures. https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.adl1598 Compounding the effects of high temperature, global dew point and wet bulb temperatures are also rising.

Chesco didn't show us Figure 1 and 2, must have been an oversight.