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posted by chromas on Tuesday February 26 2019, @07:09PM   Printer-friendly
from the löylyä-lissää dept.

A recent report on climate simulations show that global warming could break up stratocumulus clouds[$], letting in more energy as High CO2 levels break up stratocumulus cloud decks, once the levels rise above 1,200 ppm. Stratocumulus provide no precipitation but do cover about 20% of the low-latitude oceans and are especially prevalent in the subtropics, cooling by providing shade. If they disappear then, according to calculations, the added sunlight hitting the ground or ocean would increase temperatures by over 8°C.

Now, new findings reported today in the journal Nature Geoscience make the case that the effects of cloud loss are dramatic enough to explain ancient warming episodes like the PETM — and to precipitate future disaster. Climate physicists at the California Institute of Technology performed a state-of-the-art simulation of stratocumulus clouds, the low-lying, blankety kind that have by far the largest cooling effect on the planet. The simulation revealed a tipping point: a level of warming at which stratocumulus clouds break up altogether. The disappearance occurs when the concentration of CO2 in the simulated atmosphere reaches 1,200 parts per million — a level that fossil fuel burning could push us past in about a century, under “business-as-usual” emissions scenarios. In the simulation, when the tipping point is breached, Earth’s temperature soars 8 degrees Celsius, in addition to the 4 degrees of warming or more caused by the CO2 directly.

Once clouds go away, the simulated climate “goes over a cliff,” said Kerry Emanuel, a climate scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. A leading authority on atmospheric physics, Emanuel called the new findings “very plausible,” though, as he noted, scientists must now make an effort to independently replicate the work.

To imagine 12 degrees of warming, think of crocodiles swimming in the Arctic and of the scorched, mostly lifeless equatorial regions during the PETM. If carbon emissions aren’t curbed quickly enough and the tipping point is breached, “that would be truly devastating climate change,” said Caltech’s Tapio Schneider, who performed the new simulation with Colleen Kaul and Kyle Pressel.

Huber said the stratocumulus tipping point helps explain the volatility that’s evident in the paleoclimate record. He thinks it might be one of many unknown instabilities in Earth’s climate. “Schneider and co-authors have cracked open Pandora’s box of potential climate surprises,” he said, adding that, as the mechanisms behind vanishing clouds become clear, “all of a sudden this enormous sensitivity that is apparent from past climates isn’t something that’s just in the past. It becomes a vision of the future.”


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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 26 2019, @08:56PM (12 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 26 2019, @08:56PM (#807253)

    There is a serious problem with the moderation on this site. The above post is +5 insightful even though they clearly did not comprehend the post they are referencing before writing that.

  • (Score: 3, Funny) by PartTimeZombie on Tuesday February 26 2019, @09:48PM (11 children)

    by PartTimeZombie (4827) on Tuesday February 26 2019, @09:48PM (#807280)

    The A/C post above is modded +1 Interesting even though it starts

    The bible says a lot of insightful things actually...

    and then speculates about some forgotten race of super-scientists who understood the molecular structure of water and left the knowledge to the ancient Hebrews who wrote it down in Genesis thereby giving a scientific basis for the Bible.

    Yes, there truly are some weirdos on this site. It's partly what keeps me coming back to be fair.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 26 2019, @09:52PM (10 children)

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 26 2019, @09:52PM (#807284)

      You don't find thinking about that possibility interesting?

      • (Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Tuesday February 26 2019, @11:29PM (7 children)

        by PartTimeZombie (4827) on Tuesday February 26 2019, @11:29PM (#807333)

        What possibilities? That a lost race of super-scientists existed? Well, yes, it's fun to think about those sorts of things, and I enjoy sci-fi as much as the next nerd, but let's not pretend it's anything other than fiction.

        The Bible has nothing coherent to say about the origins of the solar system, let along the origins of our galaxy or universe

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 26 2019, @11:53PM (6 children)

          by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 26 2019, @11:53PM (#807347)

          What is super about the theory? Sounds like a theory anyone could have come up with in the last couple hundred years.

          • (Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Wednesday February 27 2019, @12:44AM (5 children)

            by PartTimeZombie (4827) on Wednesday February 27 2019, @12:44AM (#807379)

            OK, I have stopped understanding what you're getting at now.

            • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 27 2019, @12:56AM (4 children)

              by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 27 2019, @12:56AM (#807386)

              The original post about this speculated that there was some antediluvian civilization that had some theory about the sun consisting of a fluid that started glowing at some point. This was then simplified, passed down and recorded as the beginning of the book of genesis. Just look at how much gibberish was generated by people who don't understand stuff about a physics paper here: https://soylentnews.org/article.pl?sid=19/02/25/2037223 [soylentnews.org]

              Same thing on a larger scale.

              All the responses here seem to be from people without reading comprehension who think the AC proposed the bible was the word of god or generated by super-beings or something.

              • (Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Wednesday February 27 2019, @01:23AM (3 children)

                by PartTimeZombie (4827) on Wednesday February 27 2019, @01:23AM (#807402)

                Yeah, the bits in the OP that caught my eye were:

                The bible says a lot of insightful things actually.
                If you imagine that possibly the authors had some scientific knowledge perhaps from an antedeluvian society...

                For which there is no evidence, and the Bible has nothing to say on the matter either.

                Then he goes on:

                I find the "they moved upon the surface of the deep (waters)", to be particular poignant. The sun is made of hydrogen, hydrogen is the primary component of H20. The Sun's fusion ignition would have sent shockwaves through the intra-stellar medium and this would have caused hydrogen and oxygen to link together forming water. So it is possible that the real "let there be light" event did set in motion the events pretty much exactly like the bible says.

                Which just a desperate effort to shoehorn god into something the ancient Hebrews knew nothing about.

                • (Score: -1, Redundant) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 27 2019, @01:33AM (2 children)

                  by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 27 2019, @01:33AM (#807409)

                  No. It is called abduction. They speculated on a possible explanation for an odd thing they read in the bible. This is absolutely a legitimate scientific activity.

                  Actually it is better that usual since they didn't then take their own speculative explanation to be verified by the same info used to generate it like 99% of the "science" articles posted here do.

                  • (Score: 1, Offtopic) by PartTimeZombie on Wednesday February 27 2019, @06:26AM (1 child)

                    by PartTimeZombie (4827) on Wednesday February 27 2019, @06:26AM (#807488)

                    How could any of that be a possible explanation for what they read in Genesis? I'm curious.

                    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 27 2019, @10:47AM

                      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 27 2019, @10:47AM (#807529)

                      Sorry, but you seem to be incapable of comprehending the original post. There is really no reason to be confused like you are, it was quite clear.

      • (Score: 2) by captain normal on Wednesday February 27 2019, @01:42AM (1 child)

        by captain normal (2205) on Wednesday February 27 2019, @01:42AM (#807412)

        If you weren't most likely a millennial, I would say you'd been exposed to way too much Robert E. Howard.

        --
        When life isn't going right, go left.
        • (Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 27 2019, @02:25AM

          by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 27 2019, @02:25AM (#807427)

          Why is that?

          To me the funny part of this conversation is I am probably more anti-christian than anyone else in this thread. I will not step foot in a church for any funeral or wedding or other reason ever.

          Still, I can understand attempts to make sense of the strange old stories written in the bible. Other people here have a mental block to doing that.