Meltdown
The current trajectory of carbon dioxide emissions means that global temperatures could increase by as much as 4.4°C by the end of the century. RICHARD PRICE says that scientists think if that happens, the planet will be able to support fewer than a million people.
On a particularly hot day in June, Alex Booth, a Hastings seven-year-old, complained to his mother that he was worried about El Nino and the heat. His Mother replied: “It’s no good telling me I can’t fix it. If you’re worried, write about it.” She packed him off to school and he told his teacher, who helped Alex create a weather news report.
He wrote:“El Niño is the warm phase of a larger phenomenon that affects the Pacific Ocean and the global climate … El Niño has an impact on ocean temperatures, the speed and strength of ocean currents, the health of coastal fisheries, and local weather.”
He was quite right. For oceans, small changes in water temperature can have devastating consequences. Marine heat waves cause ecosystem collapse and mass mortality of fish and shellfish. This year global sea surface temperatures continue to rise – an anomaly rapidly breaking records.
Scientists are concerned that tipping points have been crossed – critical thresholds which, when exceeded, lead to large and often irreversible changes in the climate system. Heatwaves in 1997, 2015 and even hotter years in 2024/5 have a time-lag effect, accelerating the amount of oceanic heat which is predicted to cause a ‘Super El Niño’.
Sea ice at poles is vital because of the ‘albedo’ effect. Light-coloured ice reflects sunlight back into space, regulating air and ocean temperature and circulating ocean water. Scientists say that loss of sea will also trigger a tipping point. In February 2023, sea ice around Antarctica reached the lowest level ever observed. The continent is losing ice mass at an average rate of about 150 billion tons per year. Greenland is even worse at about 270 billion tons per year.
The Earth Energy Imbalance (EEI) is the difference between the amount of energy from the sun arriving at the Earth and the amount returning to space. EEI is now at a record 1.36 watts per square metre, which has been equated to 11 Hiroshimas of excess energy per second accumulating in Earth’s climate system over the past three years.
Europe is currently experiencing an extreme heatwave that is causing wildfires. Here in the UK, we have just experienced the hottest June on record. A heatwave across the western United States broke all-time records in multiple states, with temperatures above 100 degrees Fahrenheit for days on end in some places. Since March, Canada has been experiencing an ongoing record-setting series of wildfires. Smoke from millions of hectares of burning forests drifted across into the USA where on 30 June, the US capital was engulfed in thick smoke.
Ironically a stratospheric wind anomaly is developing over the Equator which is expected to impact the weather along with the El Niño even in the next winter season making it colder in Europe, Canada and North America as a polar vortex is likely to develop.
Species extinctions are accelerating. Nature is declining globally at rates unprecedented in human history, with grave impacts on people around the world now inevitable.
Action on limiting emission and adhering to the IPCC’s targets has been ineffective. World governments have constantly misled their citizens that the problem is being dealt with. However, emissions of CO2 and methane continue to rise. The situation is clearly an emergency yet global action is ineffective. We are locked into the paradigm of economic growth. Legislation prevents change. In 1994, the UK government along with several other European countries signed the Energy Charter Treaty (ECT). The ECT allows oil and gas companies to use secret corporate courts to sue governments. When the Italian government introduced a ban on offshore oil drilling, it was sued by UK-based oil and gas company RockHopper, who won £210m.
I am sixty years old and realise that the world that I grew up in no longer exists because the climate has changed. Seven-year-old Alex may be experiencing the coolest summer of his life. When he reaches adulthood, what will the global temperature be? Surely any responsible government would not allow this to continue.
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