It will happen just slow enough for people to get used to it and not panic. And then it will be the new normal. Humans can adapt to terrible situations.
Honestly I'll ride it out but I do feel bad for people with kids.
You can't possibly be from the Southwestern US. We're used to particularly brutal summers here, but this year has just been insane, unlike anything I've ever experienced (and, of course, we've had many "record breaking years" over the past 10-20 years). I already have plans to move north. Phoenix has been one of the fastest growing cities in the US - I definitely believe a lot of people are going to think twice about moving there now.
There are parts of the world that are already hitting wet-bulb temperatures that are lethal to humans. And this is all just the beginning.
Next year will be worse, but after that should be much cooler.
The 90 year "Moctezuma" cycle (think dust bowl 1930's - much warmer than this year, 1840's, 1750's and conquistador records from 1660's) is combined with a peak 11 year solar cycle and an el nino, will subside.
overall warming will still increase, so 2110's will be brutal, but late 2020's should be awesome -- cooler summers and warmer winters, longer growing seasons, more snow, rain, skiing, cheaper food etc.
Often when I talk about climate cycles, it turns into I'm a climate change denier. I am not, I have been writing about climate change since the 90's. It's just not that this year, or next, are indicative of imminent disaster.
Within the next few hundred years the seas will rise around 100m. Nothing will stop that, nothing will save most island countries or coastal cities. We don't have the long term political will to stop that.
The current short term (5 year) climate thinking is that conditions (land + ocean temps, storms, etc) will worsen for "a few years" and then lighten up a little with a slight reduction and general plateau for a few more years.
The ratcheting upward saw toothing is a feature of the El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) pattern .. and the world is just now moving into the upturn phase.
Climate dynamics are akin to the tennis racket theorem - the uninterferred long term arc of the centre of gravity (gross parameters) is essentially deterministic, however the short term specific orientations of the tumblings along that arc resist exact prediction.
I agree with the first sentence and disagree with the second, and the citations also disagree with the second sentence, because we are moving into a downturn phase. And I love the third sentence because I had to read it twice. :)
There are lots of disagreements about whether it will be 2024 or 2025 that the ENSO cycle gets cooler but there is zero disagreement that solar radiation will start decreasing next year.
The third sentence is kind of key to understanding the long term certainty of the AGW case against the difficulty in predicting short term weather and short(ish) term climate cell cycles.
> there is zero disagreement that solar radiation will start decreasing next year.
This is not supported by any of your three links; two are on ENSO, the third on solar magnetic activity (unrelated to the solar visible spectrum energy -> IR energy that drives climate change)
From the nasa solar link:
* “There is no indication that we are currently approaching a Maunder-type minimum in solar activity,”
( 'solar activity' referes to sunspots, flares, etc. NOT to radiant energy in the visible spectrum )
* But even if the Sun dropped into a grand minimum, there’s no reason to think Earth would undergo another Ice Age;
( NASA scientists do not believe that solar mag activity is related to climate changes )
* not only do scientists theorize that the Little Ice Age occurred for other reasons,
( again, the European "Little Ice Age" not related to sun spots )
* but in our contemporary world, greenhouse gases far surpass the Sun’s effects when it comes to changes in Earth’s climate.
Actual flucuations of the suns visible spectrum activity are very very small compared to other more dominant effects.
I'm sticking to the expected behaviour from climate scientists; sunspots and Aztec cycles aren't my department (see my peer comment on solar magnetic activity & climate quoting NASA scientists on their opinions re: .. )
// Honestly I'll ride it out but I do feel bad for people with kids.
When I came to the US in the 90s, one of my teachers was freaking out about peak oil and about how people shouldn't have kids because that would exacerbate the problem and those kids would have a bad life.
Joke's on him I guess. I suspect that at every single point of human history, someone was dismal about something and using it as a reason to not have kids.
If I had to bet, people having kids now are not going to regret it ever.
As a 90s kid a remember peak oil. It was taught every where except in one class - economics. The teacher was adamant we would never run out of oil because as the supply dwindled the cost would go up and new oil or other forms of energy would be found. Makes perfect sense now but at the time this was not the norm. Economics ended up being my favorite class. Slightly related he also predicted the internet bubble collapse as I was explaining how I as a teenager was making money on the internet doing nothing in 99 - and his response was that will end because you don’t get money for nothing forever.
He didn't predict the specifics, like fracking. If he knew that it would become economical, good on him for knowing more. But that's a matter of geology and petroleum science; it couldn't be predicted purely from the economics.
I point it out only to say "somebody will do something to fix climate change, so don't worry about it" is not a sound position either. The economics predict there will be reactions, but they include a lot of suffering. Dealing with it sooner rather than later will reduce the suffering, and we've already lost a lot of time.
> I point it out only to say "somebody will do something to fix climate change, so don't worry about it" is not a sound position either.
That wasn't his position though. His comment had specific context, your critique did not.
Otherwise I absolutely agree with you, my thinking is that humans should try precision in communications (more popularly known as "pedantry", except when scientists do it) about these wicked problems because what we're doing now seems to cause more harm than help, and as you say time is of the essence.
Yes peak oil is a good example of predictions being wrong, it does not mean anything for other predictions of doom.
Dire warnings about things going on in Europe in the 1930s proved to be very true and incredibly costly and horrible for most everyone and from talking to people that had to deal with the aftermath.
I hopped on the comment on peak oil because it was something that I had not heard in long time and I remember the discussion being so out of left field that an alternative idea was never brought up - and it was done under a capitalistic economic model based on supply and demand. I’m not saying we should look at all predictions as potentially wrong. I personally believe in reducing consumption especially along the food chain like a reduction in meat and other animal products as well as ensuring seafood is done sustainably.
No, I am saying that history is full of people saying "it's raining today, better not have kids so they don't die in the flood" and that has never been the right answer in retrospect.
Of course, it is obviously inevitable that at some point the doomsayers will be correct (and, to note, there are also many times they've been right in the past - I wouldn't have wanted to be born in Europe just before the Black Death, or in Rome just before it fell, or in 510 or so just to be in prime age during what is often called "the worst year in history" in 536, ...)
I’m sure it was deeply unpleasant for my ancestors and I’m currently thinking the world may be up being way more unpleasant for my descendants than it was for me.
There were lots of doomsayers in history that weren’t wrong I’d the point, yes those of us talking have ancestors that got through terrible times (some of them predicted some not), that wiped out large swaths of people and survived but there are lots of other terrible outcomes that are terrible and unwelcome.
My grandfather lived through ww2 m, which was a HEAVILY predicted event filled with doomsaying right after WW1, and it was a point of debate.
It wasn’t a pleasant experience, lots of people didn’t make it and entire communities were destroyed, for them it was the end.
... the adjective "Pollyannaish" and the noun "Pollyannaism" became popular terms for a personality type characterised by irrepressible optimism evident in the face of even the most adverse or discouraging of circumstances. It is sometimes used pejoratively, referring to someone whose optimism is excessive to the point of naïveté or refusing to accept the facts of an unfortunate situation.
