[✔️] March 17, 2024 Global Warming News | Blue Ocean near, Antarctic heatwave, Activism in Europe, 2013 Friedman Carbon tax

[Richard Pauli]

/*March*//*17, 2024*/

/[ Antarctic severe ramifications - recent papers - immanent changes ]/
*As Antarctic Blue Ocean Approaches, Global Ocean Circulation System 
Weakens*
Paul Beckwith
Mar 16, 2024
Up until 2014, Antarctic Sea Ice Area exhibited a slow yearly increase. 
Then the system broke.

Since then, there have been three years of record low sea ice and two 
years of very high sea ice; basically variability or whiplashing has 
more than doubled.

The major problem for the global climate is that with record low sea ice 
formation and record low sea ice area circumventing Antarctica, there is 
much less dense water created from salt rejection as sea ice forms. 
Thus, less water sinks to the abyss, in fact over 30% less in the 
Weddell Sea; thus formation of Antarctica Bottom Water (AABW) is reduced 
about 15%. This slows the Global Meridional Overturning Circulation 
(Global MOC) and has profound effects on global climate stability.

Very serious indeed.

There are also many problems local to Antarctica as well, such as 
enhanced wave action erosion (melting) and calving of ice sheets, 
disruptions to phytoplankton, mass mortality of emperor penguins, to 
name a few.

However, by far the most profound and far-reaching problem is the MOC 
reduction and global climate instability, with cascading feedbacks much 
more likely.

Most important articles discussed in this video:

“There are growing fears of an alarming shift in Antarctic sea ice”: 
https://www.newscientist.com/article/2421376-there-are-growing-fears-of-an-alarming-shift-in-antarctic-sea-ice/

“Slowdown of Antarctic Bottom Water export driven by climatic wind and 
sea-ice changes”:
Antarctic Bottom Water (AABW) is pivotal for oceanic heat and carbon 
sequestrations on multidecadal to millennial timescales. The Weddell Sea 
contributes nearly a half of global AABW through Weddell Sea Deep Water 
and denser underlying Weddell Sea Bottom Water that form on the 
continental shelves via sea-ice production. Here we report an observed 
30% reduction of Weddell Sea Bottom Water volume since 1992, with the 
largest decrease in the densest classes. This is probably driven by a 
multidecadal reduction in dense-water production over southern 
continental shelf associated with a greater than 40% decline in the 
sea-ice formation rate…”:
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-023-01818-x.pdf

“Abyssal ocean overturning slowdown and warming driven by Antarctic 
meltwater”: https://www.nature.com/articles/s4158...

“Extensive melting of West Antarctic ice sheet now looks unavoidable”: 
https://www.newscientist.com/article/2398913-extensive-melting-of-west-antarctic-ice-sheet-now-looks-unavoidable/

“Unavoidable future increase in West Antarctic ice-shelf melting over 
the twenty-first century”: …We find that rapid ocean warming, at 
approximately triple the historical rate, is likely committed over the 
twenty-first century, with widespread increases in ice-shelf melting, 
including in regions crucial for ice-sheet stability...”:
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-023-01818-x.pdf

“Emperor penguin colonies lost all their chicks due to ice breakup”: 
https://www.newscientist.com/article/...

“Large-scale drivers of the exceptionally low winter Antarctic sea ice 
extent in 2023”: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/...

“Impacts of recent Antarctic Sea-Ice Extremes”: 
https://agu.confex.com/agu/OSM24/meet...

“Observational Evidence for a Regime Shift in Summer Antarctic Sea Ice”: 
In recent years, the Southern Ocean has experienced extremely low sea 
ice cover in multiple summers. These low events were preceded by a 
multidecadal positive trend that culminated in record high ice coverage 
in 2014. This abrupt transition has led some authors to suggest that 
Antarctic sea ice has undergone a regime shift… We find that the 
standard deviation of the summer sea ice record has doubled from 0.31 
million km2 in 1979–2006 to 0.76 million km2 for 2007–22. This increased 
variance is accompanied by a longer season-to-season sea ice memory. The 
atmosphere is the primary driver of Antarctic sea ice variability, but 
using a linear predictive model we show that sea ice changes cannot be 
explained by the atmosphere alone. Identifying whether a regime shift 
has occurred is difficult without a complete understanding of the 
physical mechanism of change. However, the statistical changes that we 
demonstrate (i.e., increased variance and autocor- relation, and a 
changed response to atmospheric forcing), as well as the increased 
spatial coherence noted by previous re- search, are indicators based on 
dynamical systems theory of an abrupt critical transition. Thus, our 
analysis is further evidence in support of a changed Antarctic sea ice 
system.”:
https://journals.ametsoc.org/Downloads/clim-JCLI-D-23-0479.1%20(1).pdf

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qc_rtkspPME

- -

/[ Oh drat. A new condition  ]/
*A single Antarctic heatwave or storm can noticeably raise the sea level*
Published: February 20, 2024
A heat wave in Greenland and a storm in Antarctica. These kinds of 
individual weather “events” are increasingly being supercharged by a 
warming climate. But despite being short-term events they can also have 
a much longer-term effect on the world’s largest ice sheets, and may 
even lead to tipping points being crossed in the polar regions.

We have just published research looking at these sudden changes in the 
ice sheets and how they may impact what we know about sea level rise. 
One reason this is so important is that the global sea level is 
predicted to rise by anywhere between 28 cm and 100cm by the year 2100, 
according to the IPCC. This is a huge range – 70 cm extra sea-level rise 
would affect many millions more people.

Partly this uncertainty is because we simply don’t know whether we’ll 
curb our emissions or continue with business as usual. But while 
possible social and economic changes are at least factored in to the 
above numbers, the IPCC acknowledges its estimate does not take into 
account deeply uncertain ice-sheet processes.

*Sudden accelerations*
The sea is rising for two main reasons. First, the water itself is very 
slightly expanding as it warms, with this process responsible for about 
a third of the total expected sea-level rise.
Scientists have long known that there is a potential for sudden 
accelerations in the rate at which ice is lost from Greenland and 
Antarctica which could cause considerably more sea-level rise: perhaps a 
metre or more in a century. Once started, this would be impossible to stop.

Although there is a lot of uncertainty over how likely this is, there is 
some evidence that it happened about 130,000 years ago, the last time 
global temperatures were anything close to the present day. We cannot 
discount the risk.

To improve predictions of rises in sea level we therefore need a clearer 
understanding of the Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets. In particular, 
we need to review if there are weather or climate changes that we can 
already identify that might lead to abrupt increases in the speed of 
mass loss.

*Weather can have long-term effects*
Our new study, involving an international team of 29 ice-sheet experts 
and published in the journal Nature Reviews Earth & Environment, reviews 
evidence gained from observational data, geological records, and 
computer model simulations.

We found several examples from the past few decades where weather 
“events” – a single storm, a heatwave – have led to important long-term 
changes.

The ice sheets are built from millennia of snowfall that gradually 
compresses and starts to flow towards the ocean. The ice sheets, like 
any glacier, respond to changes in the atmosphere and the ocean when the 
ice is in contact with sea water.

These changes could take place over a matter of hours or days or they 
may be long-term changes from months to years or thousands of years. And 
processes may interact with each other on different timescales, so that 
a glacier may gradually thin and weaken but remain stable until an 
abrupt short-term event pushes it over the edge and it rapidly collapses.

Because of these different timescales, we need to coordinate collecting 
and using more diverse types of data and knowledge.

Historically, we thought of ice sheets as slow-moving and delayed in 
their response to climate change. In contrast, our research found that 
these huge glacial ice masses respond in far quicker and more unexpected 
ways as the climate warms, similarly to the frequency and intensity of 
hurricanes and heatwaves responding to changes with the climate.

Ground and satellite observations show that sudden heatwaves and large 
storms can have long-lasting effects on ice sheets. For example a 
heatwave in July 2023 meant at one point 67% of the Greenland ice sheet 
surface was melting, compared with around 20% for average July 
conditions. In 2022 unusually warm rain fell on the Conger ice shelf in 
Antarctica, causing it to disappear almost overnight.
These weather-driven events have long “tails”. Ice sheets don’t follow a 
simple uniform response to climate warming when they melt or slide into 
the sea. Instead their changes are punctuated by short-term extremes.

For example, brief periods of melting in Greenland can melt far more ice 
and snow than is replaced the following winter. Or the catastrophic 
break-up of ice shelves along the Antarctic coast can rapidly unplug 
much larger amounts of ice from further inland.

Failing to adequately account for this short-term variability might mean 
we underestimate how much ice will be lost in future.

*What happens next*
Scientists must prioritise research on ice-sheet variability. This means 
better ice-sheet and ocean monitoring systems that can capture the 
effects of short but extreme weather events.

This will come from new satellites as well as field data. We’ll also 
need better computer models of how ice sheets will respond to climate 
change. Fortunately there are already some promising global 
collaborative initiatives.
We don’t know exactly how much the global sea level is going to rise 
some decades in advance, but understanding more about the ice sheets 
will help to refine our predictions.
https://theconversation.com/a-single-antarctic-heatwave-or-storm-can-noticeably-raise-the-sea-level-223768

- -

/[ PDF article ]/
*Short- and long-term variability of the Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets*
Abstract
The variability of the Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets occurs on 
various timescales and is important for projections of sea level rise; 
however, there are substantial uncertainties concerning future ice-sheet 
mass changes.In this Review, we explore the degree to which short-term 
fluctuations and extreme glaciological events reflect the ice sheets’ 
long-term evolution and response to ongoing climate change. Short-term 
(decadal or shorter) variations in atmospheric or oceanic conditions can 
trigger amplifying feedbacks that increase the sensitivity of ice sheets 
to climate change. For example, variability in ocean-induced and 
atmosphere-induced melting can trigger ice thinning, retreat and/or 
collapse of ice shelves, grounding-line retreat, and ice flow 
acceleration. The Antarctic Ice Sheet is especially prone to increased 
melting and ice sheet collapse from warm ocean currents, which could be 
accentuated with increased climate variability. In Greenland both high 
and low melt anomalies have been observed since 2012, highlighting the 
influence of increased interannual climate variability on extreme 
glaciological events and ice sheet evolution. Failing to adequately 
account for such variability can result in biased projections of 
multi-decadal ice mass loss. Therefore, future research should aim to 
improve climate and ocean observations and models, and develop 
sophisticated ice sheet models that are directly constrained by 
observational records and can capture ice dynamical changes across 
various timescales.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s43017-023-00509-7.epdf?sharing_token=EJZ02zq3kFQO4XKwZVTBLdRgN0jAjWel9jnR3ZoTv0NlXBkse_V2fGVmyGVwGFcXe8LM4zjSaytnzbxkpU3vleMHbbCbjypxjcJ3p1wJddVoe1nKU4klsbQfMwCvE-m9plem7c8GygdxBfIr9KNkFEXV23v6oF28LZQkvsWpQm4%3D



/[  Activism ratchets up   ]/
*Climate activists across Europe block access to North Sea oil 
infrastructure*
Blockades at facilities in Germany, the Netherlands, Norway and Sweden, 
with protests in Scotland and action expected in Denmark
Damien Gayle Environment correspondent
Sat 16 Mar 2024
Climate activists in four countries are blocking access to North Sea oil 
infrastructure as part of a coordinated pan-European civil disobedience 
protest.

Blockades have been taking place at oil and gas terminals, refineries 
and ports in Germany, the Netherlands, Norway and Sweden, in protest at 
the continued exploitation of North Sea fossil fuel deposits.

Further actions were expected in Denmark, while in Scotland activists 
staged banner drops calling for an end to the exploitation of North Sea 
oil and gas.

The protest comes in the same week a report found none of the big fossil 
fuel producing countries in the region had plans to stop drilling soon 
enough to meet the 1.5C (2.7F) global heating target set by the Paris 
climate accords.

Under the campaign North Sea Fossil Free acts of civil disobedience are 
happening all around the North Sea,” Extinction Rebellion said.

“The governments of these six countries are permitting new fossil 
extraction infrastructure, harming not only the North Sea ecosystem, but 
also committing the whole world to dangerous levels of warming.

“Activists have come together today in a series of actions – unfolding 
across the day – to demand all North Sea oil countries align their 
drilling plans with the Paris agreement now.”

In Norway, dozens of activists blocked the road entrance to the 
petroleum refinery in Rafnes, on the country’s south-east coast. Others 
were braving snowy conditions to block tankers from docking at the facility.

Jonas Kittelsen, a spokesperson for Extinction Rebellion Norway, said: 
“I’m ashamed to be a Norwegian. Norway profits massively from 
aggressively expanding our oil and gas sector, causing mass suffering 
and death globally. My government portrays us as better than the rest of 
the world, which we are not.”

In the Netherlands, Extinction Rebellion and Scientist Rebellion were 
blocking the main access roads to Pernis refinery, the largest refinery 
in Europe, owned by Shell, which plans to increase and expand its North 
Sea oil and gas production.

Bram Kroezen, a spokesperson for XR Netherlands, said: “The fossil 
industry and our governments want us to believe that gas from the North 
Sea is clean, but clean gas is a dirty lie.”

In Germany, activists in white overalls from the Ende Gelände climate 
protest group blocked access to the floating liquified natural gas 
terminal at Brunsbüttel; and in Sweden XR activists were blocking the 
oil harbour in Gothenburg.

In Scotland, local XR groups staged a series of banner drops at 
locations they described as of “strategic importance” to plans to expand 
oil and gas production. The UK government has handed out dozens of new 
licenses for oil and gas exploitation off Scotland’s north-east coast 
since late last year.

This week a report by the campaign group Oil Change International found 
the UK, Germany, the Netherlands, Norway and Denmark had failed to align 
their oil and gas policies with their climate promises under the Paris 
agreement.

The report found that policies in Norway and the UK were furthest from 
the Paris climate agreement because the countries were “aggressively” 
exploring and licensing new oil and gas fields.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/mar/16/climate-activists-across-europe-block-access-to-north-sea-oil-infrastructure



/[The news archive - the impossible carbon tax  ]/
/*March 17, 2013 */
March 17, 2013: New York Times columnist Tom Friedman muses on the 
economic benefits of a federal carbon tax.

    *It’s Lose-Lose vs. Win-Win-Win-Win-Win*
    Thomas L. Friedman
    By Thomas L. Friedman
    March 16, 2013
    ONE of my favorite quotes about the state of U.S. politics was
    offered a couple years ago by Gerald Seib, a Wall Street Journal
    columnist, when he observed that “America and its political leaders,
    after two decades of failing to come together to solve big problems,
    seem to have lost faith in their ability to do so. A political
    system that expects failure doesn’t try very hard to produce
    anything else.” That’s us today — our entire political system is
    guilty of the “soft bigotry of low expectations” for ourselves.

    I raise this now because it strikes me as crazy that one of the
    obvious solutions to our budget, energy and environmental problems —
    the one that would be the least painful and have the best long-term
    impact (a carbon tax) — is off the table. Meanwhile, the solution
    that is as dumb as the day is long — a budget sequester that slashes
    spending indiscriminately — is on the table.

    Shrinking the tax deduction for charity is on the table. Shrinking
    Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid for the poor are on the
    table. But a carbon tax that could close the deficit and clean the
    air, weaken petro-dictators, strengthen the dollar, drive clean-tech
    innovation and still leave some money to lower corporate and income
    taxes is off the table. So the solutions that are lose-lose and
    divisive are on the table, while the solution that is
    win-win-win-win-win — and has both liberal and conservative
    supporters — is off the table.

    Writing in this newspaper in support of a carbon tax back in 2007,
    N. Gregory Mankiw, the Harvard economist, who was a senior adviser
    to President George W. Bush and to Mitt Romney, argued that “the
    idea of using taxes to fix problems, rather than merely raise
    government revenue, has a long history. The British economist Arthur
    Pigou advocated such corrective taxes to deal with pollution in the
    early 20th century. In his honor, economics textbooks now call them
    ‘Pigovian taxes.’ Using a Pigovian tax to address global warming is
    also an old idea. It was proposed as far back as 1992 by Martin S.
    Feldstein on the editorial page of The Wall Street Journal. ...
    Those vying for elected office, however, are reluctant to sign on to
    this agenda. Their political consultants are no fans of taxes,
    Pigovian or otherwise. Republican consultants advise using the word
    ‘tax’ only if followed immediately by the word ‘cut.’ Democratic
    consultants recommend the word ‘tax’ be followed by ‘on the rich.’ ”
    Yes, to win passage of any carbon tax, Republicans would insist that
    it be revenue neutral — to be offset entirely by cuts in corporate
    taxes and taxes on personal income. But maybe they could be
    persuaded otherwise. In an ideal world, you would have 45 percent go
    to pay down the deficit so that we don’t have to cut entitlements as
    much — appealing to liberals and greens — and have 45 percent go to
    reducing corporate and income taxes — to encourage work and
    investment and appeal to conservatives. The remaining 10 percent
    could be rebated to low-income households for whom such a tax would
    be a burden.
    According to the Center for Climate and Electricity Policy at the
    nonpartisan Resources for the Future, a tax of $25 per ton of
    carbon-dioxide emitted — through the combustion of fossil fuels used
    in electricity production, commercial and residential heating and
    transportation — “would raise approximately $125 billion annually.”
    This $125 billion “could allow federal personal income tax
    reductions of about 15 percent or corporate income tax reductions of
    about 70 percent, if all carbon tax revenues were used to replace
    current tax revenues. Alternatively, the federal deficit could be
    reduced by approximately $1.25 trillion over 10 years” — roughly
    what we are trying to do through the foolish sequester. Such a tax
    would add about 21 cents per gallon of gasoline and about 1.2 cents
    per kilowatt-hour of electricity. It could be phased in gradually as
    the economy improves.
    Experts believe that the mere signal of a carbon tax would get
    companies to become more energy efficient. And that’s the point. As
    part of any grand bargain — which will have to include spending cuts
    and tax increases — introducing a carbon tax into the mix makes all
    kinds of options easier and smarter.

    Alas, right now both sides are trying to inflict maximum pain on the
    other, rather than framing the debate as: “Here’s the world we’re
    living in; here’s what we need to thrive; and, if we cut and tax
    here, we can invest in these 21st-century growth engines over here.”
    Our goal is not to balance the budget. It’s to make America great.
    SO how come the best ideas are off the table? (Blessedly,
    Representative Henry Waxman, a Democrat of California, is now
    working to get some kind of carbon tax on the table.) Several
    reasons, argues Adam Garfinkle, editor of The American Interest and
    author of a smart new e-book, “Broken: American Political
    Dysfunction and What to Do About It.”

    First, because our democracy today is perverted more than ever by
    deep-pocketed lobbies and oligopolies. So, “in order to get and stay
    elected today, you have to raise huge sums of money from
    corporations, wealthy individuals and dues-laden unions,” Garfinkle
    notes, and all that money leads to “twisted decision-making at the
    high-politics level” and “regulatory capture” at the
    bureaucratic-administrative level. The fossil fuel, auto and power
    companies have bought a lot of politicians to block a carbon tax.

    The only way around them, argues Garfinkle, would be for leaders to
    galvanize the public, but that requires building “governing
    coalitions” in the center rather than “political coalitions” that
    can get you elected but little else after that. Obama is belatedly
    trying to do that; the Republican Party hasn’t even tried. “This is
    what real leaders do,” said Garfinkle. “They change the
    conversation.” They don’t just read the polls; they shape the polls.

    But we can’t put this all on lobbyists. It’s also our generation.
    “We’re the most self-indulgent generation in American history,”
    argues Garfinkle, always demanding more services than we’re ready to
    pay for. “Too many of us want to be unbound by broader social
    obligations, but the network of those obligations creates the moral
    ballast that makes good governance possible.”

    As Nathan Gardels and Nicolas Berggruen note in their insightful
    book, “Intelligent Governance for the 21st Century: A Middle Way
    Between West and East,” we prefer a “Diet Coke culture — sweetness
    without calories, consumption without savings and safety nets
    without taxes.” No wonder anything hard or smart is off the table.
    We pushed it there.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/17/opinion/sunday/friedman-its-lose-lose-vs-win-win-win-win-win.html?_r=0
https://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/17/opinion/sunday/friedman-its-lose-lose-vs-win-win-win-win-win.html?unlocked_article_code=1.dE0.3KHa.wrz4SU5CBdYv&smid=url-share


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