Todistin just dösämatkalla keskustelun siitä kuinka Helsingin metsät on liian hoitamattomia ja kuinka ikävää on että kiertoliittymän karsitun puuston keskelle on jätetty kaikkea skeidaa (=oksia, kaatunut puu ja kanto) 😐
Andrew Dessler (@andrewdessler) has a timely reminder for us about non-linearity, especially as it relates to the climate crisis...
If you’re struggling to understand why the impacts of climate change suddenly seem so awful, it’s time we discuss a key scientific term: non-linearity.
In a linear system, changes occur in a straight line. If climate impacts were linear, each 0.1°C increase in temperature would produce the same increment of damage. In that world, things slowly get worse over decades until, later this century, the accumulations of slow impacts becomes truly terrible.
But impacts of climate change are different — they are non-linear. In a rain event, for example, the first few inches of rain typically produce no damage because existing infrastructure (e.g., storm drains) were designed to handle that much rain.
As rainfall continues to intensify, however, it eventually exceeds the capacity of the storm runoff infrastructure and the neighborhood floods. You go from zero damage if the water stops half an inch below the front door of your house to tens of thousands of dollars of damage if the water rises one additional inch and flows into your house.
Thus, the correct mental model is not one of impacts slowly getting worse over decades. Rather, the correct way to understand climate change is that things are fine until they’re not, at which point they’re really terrible. And the system can go from “fine” to “terrible” in the blink of an eye.
The speed of us passing limits is mind-bending. People who are impacted are often shocked and we frequently see people bemoaning the fact that some impact never happened before — this is the calling card of non-linear effects.
So when we see all of the climate impacts of the last few years suddenly appearing, it shouldn’t surprise us. The very rapid warming we are experiencing is pushing us past many thresholds in our human and natural systems.
Andrew Dessler:
"...correct way to understand climate change is that things are fine until they’re not, at which point they’re really terrible."
"The speed of us passing limits is mind bending. People who are impacted are often shocked and we frequently see people bemoaning the fact that some impact never happened before — this is the calling card of non-linear effects."
James Hansen is one of the world's leading climate scientists. Back in 1988, he famously issued a warning to the US Congress that the age of climate change had arrived, and stated that urgent action was required to avoid the worst outcomes.
Since then, of course, almost nothing has happened. Well, no, that's not quite true. Since 1988, the US and other major polluters have greatly increased greenhouse gas emissions, not reduced them!
Hansen has continued over the years to study the climate, both past and present, and has regularly updated his findings, adding even more urgent warnings. Still, no one pays much attention.
Last week, Hansen and his colleagues, Makiko Sato and Reto Ruedy, provided yet another message about the severity of the climate crisis. New research, they say, shows that the rate of global warming may in fact be accelerating.
This suggests that various tipping points may already have been crossed. Earth's climate system could now be entering a phase change, or, as they put it, reaching "a new climate frontier."
Here is an excerpt from their latest update...
Suspicion that we are headed into new climate territory, not seen in the past million years, is fueled by the present extraordinarily large Earth’s energy imbalance (EEI).
EEI is the proximate cause of global warming: as long as more energy is coming in than going out, we must expect global warming to continue. Given the acceleration of EEI in the past several years, we anticipate an acceleration of global warming.
The 2023-24 temperature curve is likely to fall substantially above the curve for the prior El Niño, and may set new global temperature records continually during the next 12 months. It seems that we are headed into a new frontier of global climate.
Ilmastotutkijat James Hansen, Makiko Sato ja Reto Ruedy arvelevat että ilmastokriisi pahenee ennakoitua nopeammin. Energiatase on epätasapainossa (Earth’s energy imbalance, #EEI), raja-arvoja ylitetty.
Too many people, even here on Mastodon, seem to be in denial about how bad things are likely to get on our current path. I suppose I can understand how they might wish the situation was different, and perhaps some of them aren't psychologically or emotionally ready to handle an honest look at the dire future we face, so they simply avoid it.
But I worry that almost everyone will be unprepared for the collapse of our fragile modern society when it comes.
Ecosystem collapses occur much sooner when there are multiple stresses,and they collapse faster if the primary stress is particularly powerful.
If you were focused on just one stress – because it was easier to measure, for example – the #ecosystem collapse may occur at stress levels you thought were safe.