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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.”
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 26 2019, @11:43PM (3 children)
It's funny how only protestant Christians take the old testament creation stories literally. The Jews, the originators of the old testament, and the religion from which the old testament was poached, see it as allegory, as does the Catholic church (well in modern times anyway).
Even more hilarious, taken literally the new testament basically contradicts the old testament. And the new testament is basically all about loving, and spreading love. Yet, these fundamentalist Christians seem to prefer the old testament authoritarian controlling and punishing God model. So they ignore Jesus' teachings, and basically do the exact opposite while arguing inconsequential minutiae and literal interpretation of something that neither has any bearing to their lives in the physical world, nor to their spiritual growth.
Whenever I see 'Christians' 'in the news', they embody all the activities and attitudes that are specifically frowned upon in the new testament. Gandhi was more Christian than these 'Christians'.
(Score: 4, Informative) by PartTimeZombie on Wednesday February 27 2019, @01:38AM
To be fair, A/C, the vengeful old testament loving Protestant Christian arseholes you describe are a pretty American phenomenon.
They do exist in other countries, but we've never let them ever gain any real power, so they don't try to inflict their awful closeted lifestyle on the rest of us.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 27 2019, @03:13AM (1 child)
You sound like one of them fluffy bunny Christians who want to interpret the Bible when in fact if you read you will see the Bible is perfect and contains ZERO contradictions [landoverbaptist.net].
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 27 2019, @03:25AM
The way it works is you are free to assume whatever you want. In the long run those with better assumptions will acquire more resources more often, etc. Whatever assumption most helps with that is "correct" for the current circumstances.