Climate Change News & Discussions

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caltrek
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The article below is a little bit of back to basics. For that reason, it may be helpful in understanding how to talk about the science involved in a more convincing fashion.

Earth’s Energy Budget is Out of Balance – Here’s How It’s Warming the Climate
by Scott Denning
(No date of article apparent, but recently posted at The Conversation)

Introduction
(The Conversation) You probably remember your grade school science teachers explaining that energy can neither be created nor destroyed. That’s a fundamental property of the universe.

Energy can be transformed, however. When the Sun’s rays reach Earth, they are transformed into random motions of molecules that you feel as heat. At the same time, Earth and the atmosphere are sending radiation back into space. The balance between the incoming and outgoing energy is known as Earth’s “energy budget.”

Our climate is determined by these energy flows. When the amount of energy coming in is more than the energy going out, the planet warms up.

That can happen in a few ways, such as when sea ice that normally reflects solar radiation back into space disappears and the dark ocean absorbs that energy instead. It also happens when greenhouse gases build up in the atmosphere and trap some of the energy that otherwise would have radiated away.

Scientists like me have been measuring the Earth’s energy budget since the 1980s using instruments on satellites, in the air and oceans, and on the ground. You’ll be hearing more about those measurements and Earth’s energy budget when the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report is released on Aug. 9.
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Yuli Ban
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Study warns of 'irreversible transition' in ocean currents that could rapidly freeze parts of North America
A large system of ocean currents in the Atlantic – which includes the Gulf Stream – has been disrupted due to human-caused climate change, scientists reported in a new study published Thursday. If that system collapses, it would lead to dramatic changes in worldwide weather patterns.

The Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation, or AMOC, transports warm, salty water from the tropics northward at the ocean surface and cold water southward at the ocean bottom.

“The Atlantic Meridional Overturning really is one of our planet’s key circulation systems,” said the author of the study, Niklas Boers from the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research in Germany.

Findings from a similar 2018 study drew comparisons to the scientifically inaccurate 2004 disaster movie “The Day After Tomorrow,” which used such an ocean current shutdown as the premise of the film. At the time, study authors said a collapse was at least decades away but would be a catastrophe.

A potential collapse of this ocean current system would have severe consequences around the globe, authors of the new study said.
And remember my friend, future events such as these will affect you in the future
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Global warming will hit 1.5C by 2040, warns report from world’s scientists
AUGUST 9 2021

The world is likely to temporarily reach 1.5C of warming within 20 years even in a best-case scenario of deep cuts in greenhouse gas emissions, a landmark report on climate change signed off by 234 scientists from more than 60 countries has concluded.

Even with rapid emissions cuts, temperatures would continue to rise until “at least” 2050, the scientists said, and lead to further extreme weather events.

Without “immediate, rapid and large-scale reductions” in emissions, curbing global warming to either 1.5C or even 2C above pre-industrial levels by 2100 would be “beyond reach”, they said.
https://www.ft.com/content/9a11b08c-4fb ... 853745bfce
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Regenerative farming shift could reduce UK climate emissions, say experts
Wed 11 Aug 2021

There is growing momentum behind a shift to ‘regenerative’ agriculture in the UK, which can help to mitigate the climate crisis, say leading experts in the sector.

“More and more people are seeing other farmers doing it [regenerative farming] and are happier for it,” said John Cherry, who founded Groundswell, the UK’s flagship event for regenerative agriculture, on his farm in Hertfordshire. “People may be getting a higher yield with conventional approaches, but it is costing them more too with all the inputs, so they are not making more money.”

Minette Batters, head of the National Farmers’ Union, has set out an ambition for UK farming to be climate neutral by 2040. Henry Dimbleby’s National Food Strategy has now recommended that the government put aside up to £700m to pay farmers to create nature-rich, carbon sequestering landscapes.

Food and farming – a key UK sector – has a large carbon footprint, accounting for one-fifth of our emissions. That figure rises to about 30% if you factor in the emissions produced by all the food we import. Agriculture accounts for about 10% of emissions, but in recent years there have been a number of commitments to reducing that.

There are already more than 1,700 organic farmers across the UK registered with Soil Association Certification, covering almost half a million hectares of farmland. As well as using fewer pesticides, organic farms have more wildlife and store more carbon in their soils, reducing climate emissions.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment ... ay-experts
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I think we'll get a much better return if we funnel more of our money and resources to develop technologies for vertical farming. We should invest in our existing farmers to learn new skills they can apply for indoor farming.

To be frank, with the way things are going with our climate and the fact its collapse is largely irreversible, we'll have to move our farming indoors. Indoor farming offers more advantages than drawbacks in this kind of environment. Besides outdoor farming is one of the major reasons we have this issue to begin with. Outdoor farming is a very polluting, energy-intensive and resource-depleting endeavor that reduces the Earth's ability to replenish many of the resources we need to live on.
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raklian wrote: Wed Aug 11, 2021 12:59 pm I think we'll get a much better return if we funnel more of our money and resources to develop technologies for vertical farming. We should invest in our existing farmers to learn new skills they can apply for indoor farming.

To be frank, with the way things are going with our climate and the fact its collapse is largely irreversible, we'll have to move our farming indoors. Indoor farming offers more advantages than drawbacks in this kind of environment. Besides outdoor farming is one of the major reasons we have this issue to begin with. Outdoor farming is a very polluting, energy-intensive and resource-depleting endeavor that reduces the Earth's ability to replenish many of the resources we need to live on.
Indoor farming is energy-intensive too, though.
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