Ummm – we are in dangerous climate change territory and this Government will only make it far worse

Ummmm.

Soz too keep bringing this up, but I think we are really, really, really fucked…

‘Simply mind-boggling’: world record temperature jump in Antarctic raises fears of catastrophe

On 18 March, 2022, scientists at the Concordia research station on the east Antarctic plateau documented a remarkable event. They recorded the largest jump in temperature ever measured at a meteorological centre on Earth. According to their instruments, the region that day experienced a rise of 38.5C above its seasonal average: a world record.

This startling leap – in the coldest place on the planet – left polar researchers struggling for words to describe it. “It is simply mind-boggling,” said Prof Michael Meredith, science leader at the British Antarctic Survey. “In sub-zero temperatures such a massive leap is tolerable but if we had a 40C rise in the UK now that would take temperatures for a spring day to over 50C – and that would be deadly for the population.”

This amazement was shared by glaciologist Prof Martin Siegert, of the University of Exeter. “No one in our community thought that anything like this could ever happen. It is extraordinary and a real concern,” he told the Observer. “We are now having to wrestle with something that is completely unprecedented.”

Poleward winds, which previously made few inroads into the atmosphere above Antarctica, are now carrying more and more warm, moist air from lower latitudes – including Australia – deep into the continent, say scientists, and these have been blamed for the dramatic polar “heatwave” that hit Concordia. Exactly why these currents are now able to plunge so deep into the continent’s air space is not yet clear, however.

Nor has this huge temperature hike turned out to be an isolated event, scientists have discovered. For the past two years they have been inundated with rising numbers of reports of disturbing meteorological anomalies on the continent. Glaciers bordering the west Antarctic ice-sheet are losing mass to the ocean at an increasing rate, while levels of sea ice, which float on the oceans around the continent, have plunged dramatically, having remained stable for more than a century.

…we are six sigma outside normal standard deviation, we are fucked and let’s be very clear, this new hard right racist climate denying beneficiary bashing Government will only make this all far worse!

Independent panel to review 2050 methane target, government announces

An independent panel is to review the country’s methane target, the government has announced.

Climate change minister Simon Watts and agriculture minister Todd McClay announced the review on Saturday.

They said a panel of experts would review the available agricultural biogenic methane science before reporting back to the government by the end of 2024.

They would “provide evidence-based advice on what our domestic 2050 methane target should be, consistent with the principle of no additional warming”, McClay said.

Methane is a greenhouse gas that contributes to climate change.

Here is the new climate denying Government’s latest mutilation of our environment, they are trying to redefine methane gas as not a problem because it dissipates in 8 years, but the fucking problem is that Methane is 28 times more potent than C02, so while the methane does dissipate and isn’t a permanent gas, producing it creates heat spikes that allow for abnormalities within the biosphere to exponentially explode causing enormous disruption and the lives of billions impacted in severe ways.

My fear and my concern is that what we are seeing methane hydrates melting and that is what is driving temperatures…

Seafloor methane tipping point crossed in 2024?

The heat in December 2023 was felt most strongly in the Arctic, as illustrated by the NASA image below, showing anomalies above 1951-1980 as high as 9.9°C. 

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The image below further illustrates heat striking the northern latitudes in 2023, showing that the temperature anomaly in 2023 was 2.19°C above 1880-1920 in between 24°North and the North Pole. 

The danger is that ocean heat could abruptly be pushed from the North Atlantic into the Arctic Ocean, temporarily raising temperatures at the seafloor of the Arctic Ocean, as discussed in earlier posts such as this one. 

Like within a couple of decades we are talking mass death events, forest fires beyond our capacity to contain, ruptured countries and failed states leading to an exodus into the West who will only want to erect walls.

This is coming and there is no attempt whatsoever to confront the reality of this situation.

The looming omnicrisis and omnicide demands a level of self sufficiency, adaptation and degrowth Capitalism that we are not ready for yet, the speed of collapse however will generate shockwaves at the ballot box once the enormity of what we confront reveals itself to even the most blind.

That is when a new militant socialist political vehicle needs to be crafted.

Until then it’s a cavalcade of neoliberal crony capitalism the venal interest of which will vandalise the common good beyond recognition.

This is the age of consequences.

We need to be kinder to individuals and crueller to corporations.

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