We Are Witnessing the First Stages of Civilization's Collapse
By: Michael T. Klare (The Nation)
Our 'elites' have pushed a narrative that climate change is being caused by fossil fuels and that eliminating fossil fuels will fix the problem. The problem is that carbon dioxide (and, now, methane) are not the only greenhouse gases emitted by humans. Humans are emitting many other man-made gases that are thousands of times more potent than either carbon dioxide or methane.
The 'elite' approved narrative for climate change completely ignores the role of water vapor. Some estimates indicate that water vapor is responsible for 97 pct of the natural greenhouse effect. But the socio-political arguments being put forward by academic experts and the political ruling class dismiss human caused changes in the water cycle as insignificant and unimportant. The 'elite' narrative concludes that changes in the water cycle are a symptomatic results of fossil fuel use. So, in spite of the noise made be the 'elite', fossil fuels may only be a contributing factor of unknown magnitude and not a sole cause.
The current socio-political remedy may actually speed collapse of civilization. 2023 demonstrates that the consequences of climate change cannot be avoided and are going to be expensive. The politically mandated transition to alternative energy already competes for resources needed to adapt to the changing climate. Political inattention to adaption means that today's cities (particularly coastal cities) may go the way of Mayan cities.
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
In his 2005 bestseller Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed, geographer Jared Diamond focused on past civilizations that confronted severe climate shocks, either adapting and surviving or failing to adapt and disintegrating. Among those were the Puebloan culture of Chaco Canyon, N.M., the ancient Mayan civilization of Mesoamerica, and the Viking settlers of Greenland. Such societies, having achieved great success, imploded when their governing elites failed to adopt new survival mechanisms to face radically changing climate conditions.
Bear in mind that, for their time and place, the societies Diamond studied supported large, sophisticated populations. Pueblo Bonito, a six-story structure in Chaco Canyon, contained up to 600 rooms, making it the largest building in North America until the first skyscrapers rose in New York some 800 years later. Mayan civilization is believed to have supported a population of more than 10 million people at its peak between 250 and 900 A.D., while the Norse Greenlanders established a distinctively European society around 1000 A.D. in the middle of a frozen wasteland. Still, in the end, each collapsed utterly and their inhabitants either died of starvation, slaughtered each other, or migrated elsewhere, leaving nothing but ruins behind.
The question today is: Will our own elites perform any better than the rulers of Chaco Canyon, the Mayan heartland, and Viking Greenland?
As Diamond argues, each of those civilizations arose in a period of relatively benign climate conditions, when temperatures were moderate and food and water supplies adequate. In each case, however, the climate shifted wrenchingly, bringing persistent drought or, in Greenland's case, much colder temperatures. Although no contemporary written records remain to tell us how the ruling elites responded, the archaeological evidence suggests that they persisted in their traditional ways until disintegration became unavoidable.
These historical examples of social disintegration spurred lively discussion among my students when, as a professor at Hampshire College, I regularly assigned Collapse as a required text. Even then, a decade ago, many of them suggested that we were beginning to face severe climate challenges akin to those encountered by earlier societies—and that our contemporary civilization also risked collapse if we failed to take adequate measures to slow global warming and adapt to its inescapable consequences.
But in those discussions (which continued until I retired from teaching in 2018), our analyses seemed entirely theoretical: Yes, contemporary civilization might collapse, but if so, not any time soon. Five years later, it's increasingly difficult to support such a relatively optimistic outlook. Not only does the collapse of modern industrial civilization appear ever more likely, but the process already seems underway.
Precursors of Collapse
When do we know that a civilization is on the verge of collapse? In his now almost 20-year-old classic, Diamond identified three key indicators or precursors of imminent dissolution: a persistent pattern of environmental change for the worse like long-lasting droughts; signs that existing modes of agriculture or industrial production were aggravating the crisis; and an elite failure to abandon harmful practices and adopt new means of production. At some point, a critical threshold is crossed and collapse invariably follows.
Today, it's hard to avoid indications that all three of those thresholds are being crossed.
To begin with, on a planetary basis, the environmental impacts of climate change are now unavoidable and worsening by the year. To take just one among innumerable global examples, the drought afflicting the American West has now persisted for more than two decades, leading scientists to label it a "megadrought" exceeding all recorded regional dry spells in breadth and severity. As of August 2021, 99 percent of the United States west of the Rockies was in drought, something for which there is no modern precedent. The recent record heat waves in the region have only emphasized this grim reality.
The most recent report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change offers many examples of such negative climate alterations globally (as do the latest headlines). It's obvious, in fact, that climate change is permanently altering our environment in an ever more disastrous fashion.
It's also evident that Diamond's second precursor to collapse, the refusal to alter agricultural and industrial methods of production which only aggravate or—in the case of fossil-fuel consumption—simply cause the crisis, is growing ever more obvious. At the top of any list would be a continuing reliance on oil, coal, and natural gas, the leading sources of the greenhouse gases (GHGs) now overheating our atmosphere and oceans. Despite all the scientific evidence linking fossil-fuel combustion to global warming and the promises of governing elites to reduce the consumption of those fuels—for example, under the Paris Agreement of 2015—their use continues to grow.
According to a 2022 report produced by the International Energy Agency (IEA), global oil consumption, given current government policies, will rise from 94 million barrels per day in 2021 to an estimated 102 million barrels by 2030 and then remain at or near that level until 2050. Coal consumption, though expected to decline after 2030, is still rising in some areas of the world. The demand for natural gas (only recently found to be dirtier than previously imagined) is projected to exceed 2020 levels in 2050.
The same 2022 IEA report indicates that energy-related emissions of carbon dioxide—the leading component of greenhouse gases—will climb from 19.5 billion metric tons in 2020 to an estimated 21.6 billion tons in 2030 and remain at about that level until 2050. Emissions of methane, another leading GHG component, will continue to rise, thanks to the increased production of natural gas.
Not surprisingly, climate experts now predict that average world temperatures will soon surpass 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) above the pre-industrial level—the maximum amount they believe the planet can absorb without experiencing irreversible, catastrophic consequences, including the dying out of the Amazon and the melting of the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets (with an accompanying rise in sea levels of one meter or more).
There are many other ways in which societies are now perpetuating behavior that will endanger the survival of civilization, including the devotion of ever more resources to industrial-scale beef production. That practice consumes vast amounts of land, water, and grains that could be better devoted to less profligate vegetable production. Similarly, many governments continue to facilitate the large-scale production of water-intensive crops through extensive irrigation schemes, despite the evident decline in global water supplies that is already producing widespread shortages of drinking water in places like Iran.
Finally, today's powerful elites are choosing to perpetuate practices known to accelerate climate change and global devastation. Among the most egregious, the decision of top executives of the ExxonMobil Corporation—the world's largest and wealthiest privately-owned oil company—to continue pumping oil and gas for endless decades after their scientists warned them about the risks of global warming and affirmed that Exxon's operations would only amplify them. As early as the 1970s, Exxon's scientists predicted that the firm's fossil-fuel products could lead to global warming with "dramatic environmental effects before the year 2050." Yet, as has been well documented, Exxon officials responded by investing company funds in casting doubt on climate change research, even financing think tanks focused on climate denialism. Had they instead broadcast their scientists' findings and worked to speed the transition to alternative fuels, the world would be in a far less precarious position today.
Or consider China's decision, even as it was working to develop alternative energy sources, to increase its combustion of coal—the most carbon-intense of all fossil fuels—in order to keep factories and air conditioners humming during periods of increasingly extreme heat.
All such decisions have ensured that future floods, fires, droughts, heatwaves, you name it, will be more intense and prolonged. In other words, the precursors to civilizational collapse and the disintegration of modern industrial society as we know it—not to speak of the possible deaths of millions of us—are already evident. Worse yet, numerous events this very summer suggest that we are witnessing the first stages of just such a collapse.
The Apocalyptic Summer of '23
July 2023 has already been declared the hottest month ever recorded and the entire year is also likely to go down as the hottest ever. Unusually high temperatures globally are responsible for a host of heat-related deaths across the planet. For many of us, the relentless baking will be remembered as the most distinctive feature of the summer of '23. But other climate impacts offer their own intimations of an approaching Jared Diamond-style collapse. To me, two ongoing events fit that category in a striking fashion.
The fires in Canada: As of August 2, months after they first erupted into flame, there were still 225 major uncontrolled wildfires and another 430 under some degree of control but still burning across the country. At one point, the figure was more than 1,000 fires! To date, they have burned some 32.4 million acres of Canadian woodland, or 50,625 square miles—an area the size of the state of Alabama. Such staggering fires, largely attributed to the effects of climate change, have destroyed hundreds of homes and other structures, while sending particle-laden smoke across Canadian and American cities—at one point turning New York's skies orange. In the process, record amounts of carbon dioxide were dispatched into the atmosphere, only increasing the pace of global warming and its destructive impacts.
Aside from its unprecedented scale, there are aspects of this year's fire season that suggest a more profound threat to society. To begin with, in fire terms—or more accurately, in climate-change terms—Canada has clearly lost control of its hinterland. As political scientists have long suggested, the very essence of the modern nation-state, its core raison d'etre, is maintaining control over its sovereign territory and protecting its citizens. A country unable to do so, like Sudan or Somalia, has long been considered a "failed state."
By now, Canada has abandoned any hope of controlling a significant percentage of the fires raging in remote areas of the country and is simply allowing them to burn themselves out. Such areas are relatively unpopulated, but they do house numerous indigenous communities whose lands have been destroyed and who have been forced to flee, perhaps permanently. Were this a one-time event, you could certainly say that Canada still remains an intact, functioning society. But given the likelihood that the number and extent of wildfires will only increase in the years ahead as temperatures continue to rise, Canada—hard as it might be to believe—can be said to be on the verge of becoming a failed state.
The American West's megadrought has been accompanied by another indicator of abiding environmental change: the steady decline in the volume of the Colorado River, the region's most important source of water. The Colorado River Basin supplies drinking water to more than 40 million people in the United States and, according to economists at the University of Arizona, it's crucial to $1.4 trillion of the US economy. All of that is now at severe risk due to increased temperatures and diminished precipitation. The volume of the Colorado is almost 20 percent below what it was when this century began and, as global temperatures continue to rise, that decline is likely to worsen.
The floods in China: While American reporting on China tends to focus on economic and military affairs, the most significant news this summer has been the persistence of unusually heavy rainfall in many parts of the country, accompanied by severe flooding. At the beginning of August, Beijing experienced its heaviest rainfall since such phenomena began being measured there more than 140 years ago. In a pattern found to be characteristic of hotter, more humid environments, a storm system lingered over Beijing and the capital region for days on end, pouring 29 inches of rain on the city between July 29 and August 2. At least 1.2 million people had to be evacuated from flood-prone areas of surrounding cities, while more than 100,000 acres of crops were damaged or destroyed.
It's not that unusual for floods and other extreme weather events to bedevil China, causing widespread human suffering. But 2023 has been distinctive both in the amount of rainfall it's experienced and the record heat that's gone with it. Even more strikingly, this summer's climate extremes forced the government to behave in ways that suggest a state at the mercy of a raging climate system.
When flooding threatened Beijing, officials sought to spare the capital from its worst effects by diverting floodwaters to surrounding areas. They were to "resolutely serve as a moat for the capital," according to Ni Yuefeng, the Communist Party secretary for Hebei province, which borders Beijing on three sides. While that might have spared the capital from severe damage, the diverted water poured into Hebei, causing extensive harm to infrastructure and forcing those 1.2 million people to be relocated. The decision to turn Hebei into a "moat" for the capital suggests a leadership under siege by forces beyond its control. As is true of Canada, China is certain to face even greater climate-related disasters prompting the government to take who knows what extreme measures to prevent widespread chaos and calamity.
These two events strike me as particularly revealing, but there are others that come to mind from this record-breaking summer. For example, the Iranian government's decision to declare an unprecedented two-day national holiday on August 2nd, involving the closure of all schools, factories, and public offices, in response to record heat and drought. For many Iranians, that "holiday" was nothing but a desperate ploy to disguise the regime's inability to provide sufficient water and electricity - a failure that's bound to prove ever more destabilizing in the years to come.
Entering a New World Beyond Imagining
Half a dozen years ago, when I last discussed Jared Diamond's book with my students, we spoke of the ways civilizational collapse could still be averted through concerted action by the nations and peoples of the world. Little, however, did we imagine anything like the summer of '23.
It's true that much has been accomplished in the intervening years. The percentage of electricity provided by renewable sources globally has, for example, risen significantly and the cost of those sources has fallen dramatically. Many nations have also taken significant steps to reduce carbon emissions. Still, global elites continue to pursue strategies that will only amplify climate change, ensuring that, in the years to come, humanity will slide ever closer to worldwide collapse.
When and how we might slip over the brink into catastrophe is impossible to foresee. But as the events of this summer suggest, we are already all too close to the edge of the kind of systemic failure experienced so many centuries ago by the Mayans, the ancient Puebloans, and the Viking Greenlanders. The only difference is that we may have no place else to go. Call it, if you want, Collapse 2.0.
Michael T. Klare, The Nation's defense correspondent, is professor emeritus of peace and world-security studies at Hampshire College and senior visiting fellow at the Arms Control Association in Washington, D.C. Most recently, he is the author of All Hell Breaking Loose: The Pentagon's Perspective on Climate Change.
Let's not deny climate change is happening. And let's not deny that human activities are major contributors to climate change. The issue (and topic) that needs to be addressed is what to do about climate change.
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Adapting to climate change is going to require more than just using alternative energy as an excuse to continue our consumption-based civilization. The current political response to climate change appears to be intended to protect our consumption-based economy rather than avoid the consequences of climate change.
Political efforts to use climate change to make the rich richer suggests that the bulk of the unwashed masses are expendable. How much did that attitude contribute to the disappearance of the Mayan civilization? Have our 'elite' put us on the same path as the Maya?
What's with you and 'the elites?'
A coherent answer would be great.
Didn't read the article, did you?
So water vapor is the problem not being accounted for that is a major contributor to climate change?
97%
I call bullshit.
Does MIT qualify as a bullshit source?
“Water vapor accounts for about 97 percent of the total (natural plus man-emitted) greenhouse warming of the planet. See, e.g., John Houghton's ‘The Physics of Atmospheres, 3rd edition,’ Cambridge University Press, 2002.”
Groundwater pumping is causing problems that may contribute to climate change in other ways.
Yes, the tilt of the earth's axis really does have an effect on polar climate.
Yes, we've pumped more groundwater than is contained in the Great Lakes.
Water vapor is a gas. When it condenses into liquid cloud droplets or "fog" it gives off stored heat into the atmosphere. It's called " latent " heat.
Latent heat - Wikipedia From the article:
"Latent heat is energy released or absorbed by a body or a thermodynamic system during a constant-temperature process. Two common forms of latent heat are latent heat of fusion ( melting ) and latent heat of vaporization ( boiling ). These names describe the direction of energy flow when changing from one phase to the next: from solid to liquid, and liquid to gas.
In both cases the change is endothermic , meaning that the system absorbs energy. For example, when water evaporates, an input of energy is required for the water molecules to overcome the forces of attraction between them and make the transition from water to vapor.
If the vapor then condenses to a liquid on a surface, then the vapor's latent energy absorbed during evaporation is released as the liquid's sensible heat onto the surface."
Water vapor is also a combustion product. That's why water can be seen dripping from exhaust pipes sometimes. Burning a gallon of gasoline really does produce a gallon of water as water vapor.
The hysteria continues unabated, it seems. Not all experts believe in the "consensus" BS
The Fake Climate Consensus (townhall.com)
WALKER: Americans Deserve Better Than Climate Change Lies. Here’s What Really Caused The Maui Wildfires (msn.com)
Science is real. Climate reporters apparently just don't bother to read it (msn.com)
Sorry Mainstream Media, Climate Change Has Not Caused 2023’s Heatwaves (townhall.com)
56 Years of Climate Codswallop That Never Happened – PJ Media
The Climate Crisis Frenzy Is a Mass Hysteria Movement (townhall.com)
A consensus isn't needed to understand that a public money spent on alternative energy won't do anything to prepare for storms, droughts, fires, or sea rise. Are EV makers going to start selling insurance? It looks like insurance companies are getting out of the business because the costs have grown astronomically.
The climate alarmists don't seem to be listening to their own hysteria.
Of course not, how foolish, but more EVs equals less use of fossil fuels.
What a dumb comparison or whatever you would call that foolishness.
Some states, like Florida, it is hard to get insurance because they will be under water at some point, not because of whatever foolishness you're talking about.
Who says we must have EVs to use less fossil fuels?
Explain how solar panels, wind turbines, and EVs are going to keep Florida above sea level? Are we really spending public money where it is needed?
I think the real danger climate change poses to our civilization is the response to it.
Good point. Draconian seems to be the word of the day................
“…is the response to it.”
…with the abject denial of irrefutable scientific data idiotically subverting policy.
The problem is that there no irrefutable scientific data. All the climate change crazies have been capable of doing is stir up a big batch of fearmongering based on cherry picked or false data. Left wingers bitch and whine about climate change but won't do anything substantial to mitigate it.
I am not sure what anyone can realistically do about our species overpopulation issue that is draining our planet's resources that are required to sustain our lives.
However, when the resources become more scarce, I believe that most of us know that it will be an endless fight for survival until either the population declines to the point of sustainable numbers or our species goes extinct because our biology is not compatible with our planet's atmosphere.
What happen when goods are delayed or even re-routed from the Panama Canal? There will be shortages and prices will continue to rise more and more. This brings on all kinds of economic woe that ripples through the world economy.
Is there any person in the world that is capable of leading the planet through scarity and change? Are people capable of making wise changes that are not government mandated? Does personal responsibility play a role in our species survival?
The irrefutable scientific data points to increasing droughts, storms, fires, and sea rise. What's the current political policy to adapt to those changes? Are we just supposed to hop in our EVs to escape the next disaster?
What policy?
Right??!!! I mean, there is no WAY 8 billion people on this planet could possibly have ANY effect on the environment at all!!! /s
Climate science,” notes 2022 Nobel Prize for Physics laureate John F. Clauser , “has metastasized into massive shock-journalistic pseudo-science.”
This is what we were told in 2004:
"major European cities will be sunk beneath rising seas as Britain is plunged into a ‘Siberian’ climate by 2020"
.
Disaster is always a few years away, and never arrives. Warming of a degree or two, which is what is predicted, will no doubt have an impact (though not an increase in natural disasters) It will not be civilization threatening. Humans will adapt, as they've adapted to bigger changes in climate throughout our existence.
Who is a quantum physicist and not a climate scientist and ...
There is always someone who will make contrary claims. What matters is the scientific argument, not a mere claim.
CLauser, a Nobel Prize winner, is simply articulating what any half way informed person who's paid attention already knows. The only thing surprising is how long it takes people to catch on. Don't worry, in 2033 we'll be told that "we have 7 years to save the planet" too. It's a game that been going on for 35 years.
as we in this note already generates extreme weather events with impacts around the world .
Crazy how you know that, yet the IPCC itself just said, again,
So even the IPCC say it has little confidence extreme weather events will increase even after even more warming, you see it happening today. It's almost like you've been duped by shock-journalistic pseudo-science into believing things that aren't true. But that's what happens when every single "extreme event" which have always, and will always happen, is blamed on climate change by hucksters. People still fall for it.
No, he is saying that CO2 is a good thing and that increasing the CO2 level beyond 400ppm is beneficial.
Don't move the goalposts, Sean.
So where do you see me arguing that? My comment was that Clauser is NOT a climate scientist and has NOT engaged in serious research / publication in this field.
Just deal with what I wrote without the strawman crap.
Clauser is NOT a climate scientist and makes claims without providing formal scientific backings for his claims.
But everyone needs more, more, more possessions to gain status and validate their existence - absolutely nothing else matters.
Eat, Drink and Be Merry for tomorrow We Die????
The End is Nye.
I highly recommend the series if you have access to streaming Peacock.
So why is Bill Nye flying? We're not going to have electric airliners anytime soon. Seems like Nye is blaming the rest of us for his consumption of fossil fuels. Just keep in mind that people like Bill Nye are the 'elite' the seeded article is talking about.
I found the entire series interesting because it tells what WILL happen regardless of who does what.
I see no future where these disasters will be averted. The powers that be should probably take steps to protect our electrical grid from solar flares because that may be easily preventable.
There is no question that our sun will go dark or that all life on Earth will be extinguished long before that happens. It is just today we know enough about how this works that some of us will treasure our lives more and others will do whatever it is that they do with their lives.
No idea what that 'elite' approved narrative is supposed to be, but I assure you climate scientists don't ignore it. The thing is, it's generally not a causal factor, it's mostly a reactive factor. While having high heat retention properties, it's also extremely transient. It generally condenses out of the air in about a week, and doesn't stick around for a decade like methane, or centuries like CO2. Even though it can produce its own feedback (heat retained by a little vapor can enable more vapor), there needs to be other forcing agents present before it can do its thing. That's where CO2, methane, etc., come into play. If there were no other greenhouse gasses, water vapor couldn't keep the planet warm by itself. We'd quickly revert to snowball earth.
In other words, water vapor is not a driver of man-made climate change, it's more of a rider. Increases in other, longer lasting greenhouse gasses are the drivers, and mostly the formerly-underground and super long lasting CO2 that we've dug/pumped up and unnaturally added to the mix.
No, it is water and water vapor that is driving the warming and it will continue until enough of the ice of Greenland and Antarctica enters the seas to cause enough of a sea level rise to move more warm water into the colder regions therefore causing more precipitation that freezes in during the winters that the summers can no longer melt it all and we will then enter the next ice age. CO2 isn't a greenhouse gas, the increase in CO2 is a symptom of the warming not the driver. Please note that there is a human caused spike but the levels were rising well before this and so were the temperatures as the on land ice melts and returns to the seas. Every single ice age cycle has proven this.
No offence, bccrane, but you've apparently gotten hold of some extremely bad information. Mind if I ask the source of it?
If you search for info on water vapor and climate and/or the greenhouse effect – and stick to scientifically reputable sources – you'll see it pointed out in entry after entry that while water vapor is a potent greenhouse gas in already warmed air, it can't keep the air warm by itself. Without the radiative forcing of other non-condensing greenhouse gasses, too much water vapor would condense out and the planet would freeze.
And CO2 is absolutely a greenhouse gas (incidentally, the most important one). Like any other greenhouse gas, it absorbs thermal radiation at a couple of different wavelengths and then releases it again when the surrounding energy state drops (like at night), with quite a bit of it being redirected downward, back toward the surface instead of outward to space. The physics of this are not in dispute. Not even a little bit.
Furthermore, speaking of things not in dispute,
From Wikipedia:
The radiative forcing caused by a doubling of atmospheric CO2 levels (from the pre-industrial 280 ppm) is approximately 3.7 watts per square meter (W/m2). In the absence of feedbacks, the energy imbalance would eventually result in roughly 1 °C (1.8 °F) of global warming. That figure is straightforward to calculate by using the Stefan–Boltzmann law [note 2][18] and is undisputed.[19]
Earth's history, the sea level rises and CO2 rises before every Ice Age as we are now seeing and NASA's own graph shows rising CO2 levels as a symptom of warming not the cause.
too much water vapor would condense out and the planet would freeze.
This would only happen it there were no input from the sun. If the water vapor condensed out that would leave the water on land and sea to be heated easier by the suns energy and lift into the atmosphere again and just the warm waters of the seas alone without the suns input will release water vapor into the atmosphere, I don't see this as being in "dispute" it isn't CO2 keeping the water vapor in the air its the atmosphere in general.
And CO2 is absolutely a greenhouse gas
Still not seeing the evidence, even the Wikipedia page states "the energy imbalance" which was preceded by this "In the absence of feedbacks". If more water vapor in the atmosphere is created by this energy imbalance then more will condense and release more to space, so water will take care of the imbalance.
releases it again when the surrounding energy state drops (like at night),
Water does this to to a much greater extent as well as every other molecule in the atmosphere, even Argon which is in heavier concentrations percentage wise in the atmosphere than even CO2.
with quite a bit of it being redirected downward, back toward the surface instead of outward to space.
This is kind of odd, I would take it that every molecule/atom in the atmosphere when it takes in energy it tends to spin/tumble faster until it can release it, so if it were on the surface the chances are 50/50 that it would return the energy back to earth and as you rose in altitude the amount returning to earth would decrease, so how is it that the CO2 molecule can tumble all that time until night and then decide to return the energy back toward earth greater than 50/50?
So no scientific literature or peer reviewed research?
Sea levels rise during interglacial periods because they're interglacial periods. It's warmer, so of course ice on land will melt and sea levels will rise. That's why sea levels are higher before glacial periods.
This has been addressed over and over and over again. Earth's orbital cycles over tens of thousands of years (Milankovitch cycles) can affect the amount of solar radiation reaching the ground at various latitudes. This causes a little warming that sets off an explosion of CO2 (ocean degassing), which is then responsible for up to 90% of the interglacial warming that ensues. Here's an analogy from Skeptical Science...
Antarctic ice-core data today provide a continuous record on temperature and atmospheric composition that goes back for some 800,000 years. The data track the last few glacial periods and their abrupt endings, with rapid transitions into mild interglacials. But in some of the ice-cores, temperature rises first and is followed, a few hundred years later, by rising carbon dioxide (CO2) levels.
Certain purveyors of climate-myths seized on this observation, claiming it to be “proof” that carbon dioxide doesn't cause climate change. Wrong, wrong, wrong. But how? The answer lies in a beer-can.
In fact, you can do this one yourself. You need two cans of any fizzy beer...
Please go to the link and read the rest, I don't want to post all of it here.
From NASA – Some people mistakenly believe water vapor is the main driver of Earth’s current warming. But increased water vapor doesn’t cause global warming. Instead, it’s a consequence of it. Increased water vapor in the atmosphere amplifies the warming caused by other greenhouse gases.
From Skeptical Science – To summarize: what deniers are ignoring when they say that water vapour is the dominant greenhouse gas, is that the water vapour feedback loop actually amplifies temperature changes caused by CO2.
When skeptics use this argument, they are trying to imply that an increase in CO2 isn't a major problem. If CO2 isn't as powerful as water vapor, which there's already a lot of, adding a little more CO2 couldn't be that bad, right? What this argument misses is the fact that water vapor creates what scientists call a 'positive feedback loop' in the atmosphere — making any temperature changes larger than they would be otherwise.
How does this work? The amount of water vapor in the atmosphere exists in direct relation to the temperature. If you increase the temperature, more water evaporates and becomes vapor, and vice versa. So when something else causes a temperature increase (such as extra CO2 from fossil fuels), more water evaporates. Then, since water vapor is a greenhouse gas, this additional water vapor causes the temperature to go up even further—a positive feedback.
Water vapor is powerful, but CO2 is the control lever.
Most of the atmosphere (nitrogen, oxygen, etc.) is transparent to thermal radiation. Only the tiny amount of greenhouse gasses have the insulative effect. And I'm not sure what you're getting at with the 50/50 thing, but here's another analogy...
Greenhouse gas molecules act similarly to a ball bearing placed in an oven. When exposed to the higher energy levels in the oven the ball bearing takes on heat, and will eventually reach thermal equilibrium and just stay that way until something changes. If you take the ball bearing out of the oven it's now in a cooler environment with a lower energy state, so it start's radiating the heat off in all directions – some down to the ground, some up to space, until it reaches thermal equilibrium again. Greenhouse gas molecules do the same thing. That's how they catch and redirect back to the surface a portion of the thermal energy that would otherwise be radiating off into space unimpeded.
Earth's orbital cycles over tens of thousands of years (Milankovitch cycles)
First off, Milankovitch was wrong in his assumption that an ice age begins because the climate is colder. I've seen some make the statement that there will be no next ice age because "we" are warming the planet beyond what it takes to start an ice age, which is based on Milankovitch's assumptions.
of the interglacial warming that ensues.
So the climate does warm after an ice age, so at what point do you think it cools again? The only thing that can lift moisture into the atmosphere is heat, the ice sheets were up to a mile thick and with the time it takes to build them and the time they existed resisting the summer melts, just how much heat energy do you think it would take to do that? It gets colder doesn't explain that in fact it is the climate cooling that brings an end to an ice age, because the lift of moisture into the atmosphere lessens as the seas recede. Still I don't see CO2 as doing all this, but I do see an ever increasing amount of warm water in the seas doing the warming as the on land ice melts away.
What do you mean you don't get the 50/50 thing, when in the next paragraph you prove it with your analogy.
So no scientific literature or peer reviewed research?
How can you get past the "peer review" process when the ones doing the reviewing are so heavily invested that CO2 is the problem with all their calculations, charts, graphs, and computer models, all pointing to man being the problem and here I would be saying with the historical records that show sea levels much higher than current levels before every ice age and the CO2 rises because of the warming from higher seas, that completely throws the "man is the problem" scenario right out the window, do you think they would seriously consider it or crumple it up and throw it in the waste basket?
That's why sea levels are higher before glacial periods.
At what point do you think sea levels will stop rising, where they are currently now or another 20-25 meters higher as before the ice ages? The only way the sea levels can rise that high is mainly from the Greenland ice sheets.
When the sea levels reach a certain level the flow around Greenland will shift and the warm waters from the Atlantic will start flowing up the western side of Greenland causing a cascading of the collapse of the ice sheets and this will happen if it is not already started. The Arctic ocean will warm and become ice free as the water starts evaporating leaving a higher salinity and is replaced by the warm waters of the Atlantic and the Pacific oceans. And that would be it, the next ice age.
Huh? Of course the global average needs to be cooler before glacial periods can begin. Cool enough at the poles and higher latitudes to prevent winter precipitation from melting completely away in the summer so that long term accumulation can occur. That's how the ice grows.
There is a strangeness with Milankovitch cycles, though. Glacial periods over the first 2 million years of the Quaternary seem to have aligned with the obliquity cycle (every 41,000 years or so), while over the most recent million years they align more with the eccentricity cycle (every 100,000 years or so). It doesn't look like that's been sufficiently explained thus far. See the 100,000-year problem.
A reasonable hypothesis, too, if we continue down the path we're on. However, from the recent pattern, the next major glacial period isn't due for about 50,000 years, and honestly I doubt humans are smart enough to last that long, so I suppose it won't really matter. Not that we'd want another glacial period to happen in the first place. At least we now know how to keep the planet warm if we are still around by then.
As I pointed out above, recently things have been on a roughly 100,000 year cycle.
Glaciations don't cover the entire planet, only the northern and southernmost latitudes. It's still plenty warm around the equator and between the tropics to keep the global water cycle going. Evaporation, air currents, and precipitation doesn't stop.
Did you mean that half of it radiates away and half of it doesn't? If so, I suspect the portion that sticks around is much less than 50%. Could be wrong, but not being interested in looking it up at the moment, that's what I would assume.
That right there should tell you something. Scientists generally like getting attention for making discoveries. If the hypothesis had merit, someone would have already jumped all over it, as long as they could actually back it up with data. And if it could indeed be backed up with data, then it would have little problem making it through the peer-review process.
No offense, but I'm gonna say waste basket.
The sea level was actually higher in the last interglacial than it is today... Eemian period.
Setting the current thing aside (even though I seriously doubt a few more meters of depth would matter much), you're saying that the next glacial period will be when the Arctic is free of ice? I'm not quite following that logic.
There is a strangeness with Milankovitch cycles, though.
One of the strange things not mentioned here, the cycles he discovered he attempted to use as an explanation why the northern hemisphere went through ice ages and if all the right parts aligned it would mean a cooler northern climate, but the other thing that happens is the same alignment means a warmer southern hemisphere and there was a southern ice age going on at the same time, which would be impossible using Milankovitch cycles. But the same thing that brings the ice ages in the northern hemisphere is also happening in the southern hemisphere, higher sea levels.
recently things have been on a roughly 100,000 year cycle.
Yes, the amount of time it takes from when the sea levels are at their lowest, the on land ice melts back into the seas until the seas reach their highest point, the seas then lose their water back to the ice forming on land, and the sea levels once again reach their lowest levels.
Glaciations don't cover the entire planet,
Not sure where that came from. But I did a common mistake, I "assumed" you knew I meant where the ice ages happen in the northern latitudes and southern latitudes. Where I am would be under an ice sheet and further south about 200 to 300 miles.
Now one other thing, the Antarctic ice sheet they can bore down to ice that formed 800,000 years ago and the ice ages in the north built ice sheets over a mile thick in well less than 100,000 years and that happened like seven times now, to me that doesn't seem to be a "long term accumulation" that is a very short time to accumulate seven miles plus deep of ice, the plus being the extra needed to compensate for summer melts. That is impossible using the Antarctic weather patterns as a guide, so something else is happening, the northern seas including the Arctic Ocean need to be warm and that heat is lifting more moisture into the northern atmosphere to increase precipitation to the point that more accumulates and freezes in than what the summers can melt.
The sea level was actually higher in the last interglacial than it is today...
That's what I have been saying. And, just for fun, don't throw it in the waste basket yet, keep this in mind when they end up having to readjust their predictions again.
I'm not quite following that logic.
The only way your going to lift that much moisture into the atmosphere in such a short span of time is if all northern seas including the Arctic Ocean is open.
Carbon dioxide in the concentrations we're observing will not warm the planet by 1.5 C. The actual warming is attributed to a feedback response by water. Water clouds really do trap heat at the earth's surface. That can be verified by looking at satellite weather images.
On top of that carbon dioxide is not the only greenhouse gas emitted by humans. And carbon dioxide is far from the most potent greenhouse gas emitted by humans. Some of the fluorinated hydrocarbons (refrigerants being only one type) are thousands of times more potent than carbon dioxide and will persist longer than carbon dioxide. A search of Global Warming Potentials can verify that.
The claim that water does not persist in the atmosphere is junk science. The abundance of liquid water naturally results in a persistent amount of water vapor in the atmosphere.
Water vapor is also a combustion product. Combustion introduces water vapor into the atmosphere as a forcing influence. Emitted water vapor is not present in the atmosphere because of a feedback response. Climate science as recognized that water vapor emitted by aircraft at high altitude contributes to global warming.
Atmospheric circulation plays an important role in transferring planetary heat into space. Recent data suggests that water vapor at higher elevations may be changing atmospheric circulation.
Very good, Nerm. I linked to that exact article above.
Quantity matters. Look at the percentage of radiative forcing in this pie chart:
(from NOAA)
Wow, Dunning-Kruger much?
You know, you can prove this to yourself – just breathe on some glass that's cooler than your breath. You'll see it instantly condense into a liquid. Or just watch dew settle on grass or vehicles on a humid summer evening as the air cools. That's all it takes, a slight change in temp.
We'd be in a world of hurt if it didn't condense out so easily. Actually, we wouldn't exist, as the planet probably would've experienced a runaway greenhouse effect long ago.
Listen, the only point I was trying to make in replying to you was that water vapor isn't a driver of anthropogenic warming, larger amounts of it in the air are a response to the radiative forcing from other non-condensing greenhouse gasses, and mostly the unnaturally added CO2 that humans are responsible for. What is it, 7% more water vapor for every degree C?
That's why nobody's running around pulling their hair out and screaming about how we need to reduce water vapor. In order to reduce water vapor, we need to reduce the radiative forcing from non-condensing greenhouse gasses like CO2, and that means we need to stop artificially increasing the amount of it in the air. CO2 is by far the biggest forcer, which is why it always receives the most attention.
I missed your link. Sorry about the duplication.
Where is water vapor on the pie chart? Water vapor emitted as a combustion pollutant has also been shown to have a forcing influence. And the pie chart doesn't appear to account for the amplifying feedback effect of water vapor.
The point I am trying to make is that the role of water vapor in global warming has been based upon flawed assumptions. Burning one gallon of gasoline, as an example, will produce one gallon of water emitted as water vapor. That emitted water vapor increases ambient temperature which in turn increases the dew point or saturation point of air. So, that artificially produced water vapor will persist longer than is being assumed.
The chemically introduced water vapor did not require solar absorption to become water vapor. So, the artificially introduced water vapor represents an equivalent amount of solar adsorption added to the heat accounting. Even hydrogen combustion should have some influence on climatic conditions because the artificially produced water vapor represents an equivalent amount of solar adsorption.
It's not on there because it's condensable. Note the "long lived" part of the chart title.
I imagine the vapor from billions of pots boiling on billions of cookstoves every day does too. Not to mention the vapor in the breath of billions upon billons of warm-blooded animals, or the vapor respirated by trillions upon trillions of plants every day. So what? It doesn't account for insolation across various surface types either. Accounting for the total heat budget isn't the point of the graph.
Okay, write yourself up a paper and submit it then. Tell those silly scientists with their fancy degrees and decades of observations and measurements how things really are.
Effective radiation forcing of water vapor from irrigation has been estimated to be as high as 0.05 Wm 2 ; that's about half of the radiative forcing of N 2 O on the pie chart. That contribution to global warming has been downplayed by a lot of hand waving about near surface effects and condensation.
If near surface emissions of water vapor does have a measurable contribution to global warming then what about chemically produced water vapor emitted into the atmosphere at 25,000 to 40,000 foot altitudes?
Refusing to collect the data and studying the impact, by consensus, is not good science. At best the claims about water vapor contributing to global warming can only be 'we don't know'.
Bear in mind that the scientific consensus is not that carbon dioxide causes global warming. The consensus position is that carbon dioxide contributes to global warming. By the same token, water vapor doesn't cause global warming but that doesn't refute the contribution of water vapor to global warming.
Politics drives a lot of backwards environmental policy. Here in Maryland tree protection and storm water “quality” regulations have an enormous impact on land development. Environmentalists push and push for these regulations to get more and more onerous, insisting that the environment is benefiting from the mounds of red tape they are suffocating the state with. I say it’s total bullshit, but leaders cave to their outsized influence to gain the votes of those laymen constituents who believe this hype. Consider that new development projects now must devote a huge chunk of their land and budget to shallow grass pooling areas for runoff to be temporarily detained in, on some of the most expensive real estate in the country. To create them, heavy equipment must burn through tremendous amounts of diesel fuel to move and grade massive amounts of earth. The other option being very expensive structures built beneath parking lots to detain the runoff, creating an even larger carbon footprint. We go out of our way to protect trees of large diameter, which are closer to reaching their maximum age anyways. This can have a huge impact on how sites are laid out, ballooning the inefficiency of the land development process even further.
Civilization in some nations may be collapsing a lot faster than in others.