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https://phys.org/news/2023-05-earth-energy.html
A recent report from the World Meteorological Organization about the state of the climate indicates that the global mean temperature in 2022 was 1.15°C above the 1850-1900 (preindustrial reference period) average. Moreover, the last eight years have been the warmest since the beginning of instrumental temperature records 173 years ago.
In other words, the climate system has been out of balance for several decades.
[...] Earth's energy imbalance -- Solar radiation is virtually Earth's only energy source, the other energy sources—such as Earth's interior heat and tidal energy—being negligible. The Earth reflects around 30 percent of the solar radiation and emits radiation towards space.
The greenhouse gases (carbon dioxide, methane) let solar radiation pass, but not the radiation emitted by the Earth, thus trapping this energy. Earth's near-surface temperature, which is 15°C, would be around -19°C without the greenhouse effect.
If the difference between the incoming energy—solar radiation—and outgoing energy—the sum of the solar radiation reflected by the Earth and the radiation emitted by the Earth—is not equal to zero, as is the case currently, we refer to this as Earth Energy Imbalance (EEI).
It is human activity, through the emission of greenhouse gases (generating an additional greenhouse effect), that has caused the Earth energy imbalance.
But where does the excess energy accumulate? It accumulates under the form of heat in the different components of the climate system (atmosphere, land, hydrosphere, cryosphere, biosphere). And this is what explains why the Earth is warming, or more globally, climate change.
Such an inventory corresponding to the period 1960-2020 has been provided by a recently published study. This study shows that the Earth system has been accumulating heat since 1971. Moreover, the rate of heat accumulation corresponding to the period 2006-2020 is higher than that corresponding to 1971-2020. Most of the excess heat is stored in the ocean (89 percent), mainly in the upper ocean (0-700 metres in depth). The rest of the excess heat is stored in the land (six percent) and the atmosphere (one percent), and has led to the melting of the components of the cryosphere—glaciers, ice sheets and sea ice (four percent).
In addition to storing excess heat, the ocean is also an important CO₂ sink, thus playing an essential role in the regulation of the climate. However, the ocean will become less efficient at capturing CO₂ with the increase in the cumulative emissions of this gas. Why? Because of the positive feedback between the ocean warming and the decrease in the capacity of the oceans to absorb CO₂.
Unfortunately, the current state of the ocean is concerning. In 2022, the ocean heat content reached a record high, and 58 percent of the ocean surface experienced at least one marine heatwave. Since mid-March this year, the mean ocean surface temperature is the highest ever observed since the beginning of the satellite era. Among other negative impacts on the marine ecosystems, marine heatwaves cause coral bleaching events.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by bradley13 on Thursday June 01 2023, @10:19AM (4 children)
That's a good explanation, but there are also other factors which we do not entirely understand. The earth was *already* warming from the Little Ice Age, but there is no solid agreement on why the Little Ice Age happened or why it ended. The Earth is a complex system, and we only understand parts of it.
That's the one, huge reason we shouldn't mess with the climate directly. Proposals to put reflective particles in the atmosphere, for example. Messing with a system you don't understand can easily have...unfortunate...effects. Of course, that also includes burning fossil fuels, which also change the atmosphere. It also includes mass deforestation, as is happening in Brazil and other places. Generally speaking, we need to tread more lightly on the planet.
The best way to do that is to reduce the human population. There are too many of us, and if we don't get the human population under control, nature eventually will...
Everyone is somebody else's weirdo.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 01 2023, @12:33PM (1 child)
Earth has been warming since the last ice age began it's end 20000 years ago, and 30000 years before that at the start of the last ice age earth was cooling. There have been dozens of warming-then-cooling cycles even in just the past few million years. A few dozen million years ago Antarctica was ice free.
As for why certain green-energies like wind and solar are being promoted by the goverment but fission is not, look at who in the government stands to get rich off solar and wind: mining companies. Scraping the earth with open pit mines the size of small cities, many located in tropical rainforests, for lithium and other rare earth elements for batteries and other components of 'green' energy is predicted to increase by over 1000% by 2040, so any investment in those mining companies will have a very good return for Democrat shareholders. Then there is the push to dredge for rare-earths in deep-sea thermal vents, a very fragile ecosystem. Residental developments have been stopped over the outrage of the possible impact on a rare bird or salamander, but scraping a mile-wide swath of the sea floor 2000km from shore is 'out of sight & out of mind' so nobody really cares.
Fission is not a darling of the greenies because it is funded by public money-not as many people get rich off that. Sure it provides some jobs, but the Clintons, Obamas, Pelosis, Gates and their cronies dont make a much money.
Human population will never be voluntarily reduced, especially now that Africa is experiencing a population explosion that will contribute 80% of the population increase by 2100. 5 billion people on one continent-imagine the scale of what that ecological disaster will be! Good bye Lake Victoria, good bye Congo rain forest, good bye Savanna for irrigated cropland. But nothing is being done about it because the of the skin color of the continent's residents.
(Score: 2, Informative) by dalek on Thursday June 01 2023, @01:10PM
The energy imbalance to melt the ice sheets was around 0.2 W/m^2, occasionally peaking around 0.4 W/m^2. The present day energy imbalance is around 0.6 W/m^2.
Yes, it's true that there have been significant oscillations in temperature during the Cenozoic era, though there has been an overall trend toward cooler temperatures. There have been periods of rapid warming, and the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM) has been studied as an analogue for present day climate change. However, the rate of warming associated with the PETM was significantly smaller than in the present day. I'll refer you to the PBS Eons video at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ldLBoErAhz4 [youtube.com] for more information about the PETM. Although the PETM did not cause a mass extinction, it was stressful on life, particularly in the oceans. As in the present day, the oceans acidified during the PETM. One reason a mass extinction did not occur during the PETM was that the warming was still slow enough to allow species to migrate as needed.
Yes, it's true that during the Quaternary period, there have been periods of rapid warming following glacial maxima. As I noted, the radiative imbalance in the present day is significantly larger than in the few thousand years following the last glacial maximum.
This is important because life has to adapt as the climate warms, and it's more difficult to adapt to more rapid temperature changes. That's why the rate matters, and why it's concerning that our rate of warming is relatively fast compared to other warming events. Although what you said about past temperature fluctuations is true, it comes across as dismissive of the impact of the current warming. There have been many warming events, but this one is unusual because it's quite rapid.
I'm not going to get into the politics. I'm just here to provide a more complete discussion of the science.
THIS ACCOUNT IS PERMANENTLY CLOSED
(Score: 3, Insightful) by JoeMerchant on Thursday June 01 2023, @02:56PM
>It also includes mass deforestation, as is happening in Brazil and other places.
And, as happened in the United States 100-200 years ago.
Yes, we have replaced a lot of that "forest" in recent decades. No, the replacement commercial tree farms aren't a great substitute for what was lost - better than desert, but far from what once was.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 01 2023, @08:43PM
Cool! Who do we kill first? Some cultures, on the other hand, want to dominate through mass reproduction.