Global Warming Risks

What I have learned over the years

I have written about Global Warming a great deal in my work. It is “just” one of the catastrophes that humanity has either already inflicted or is looming. I was recently made aware of this paper on changes in what is called the Southern Ocean, which rings Antarctica. The paper itself was fine, but a rather sensational article regarding it generated a little firestorm, which appeared to be because of an inaccurate press release, some overstated language, and translation problems. A leading Global Warming debunker site had a field day, with its typical over-the-top language.

What that flippant debunker failed to address in his critique of that article is that the Mediterranean is currently more than 11 degrees Fahrenheit higher than its 1982-to-2015 average. That number is so spectacular that it does not seem real. That is like what happened several years ago, when a heatwave in the Pacific Northwest had predictions so extreme that the forecasters thought that their models were broken. But they weren’t. That same heatwave saw the highest recorded temperature ever, north of 45 degrees latitude. The town that recorded it burned down the next day, and a billion or more sea animals were killed. It was one of the most extreme weather events ever recorded. Those in denial of Global Warming astound me.

I don’t need scientists to tell me about Global Warming, as I constantly live with its effects. I have a fan blowing on me as I write this, as it is 86 degrees in my office at home. Fifty years ago, almost no homes in the Seattle area had air conditioning, and now it is hard to live without it (and my home has air conditioning). In the 1990s, Seattle would have a handful of days over 80 degrees in the summer, and now, most summer days are over 80 degrees. It may reach 90 today and 95 tomorrow. I have been watching the glaciers melt, and the forest fires have become so bad that I now have to consult the smoke forecast, as well as the weather forecast, before I go hiking.

American politicians recently complained to Canada about its wildfire smoke. Alaska got its first heat advisory ever last month. The rapidly thawing permafrost portends a catastrophe for Arctic peoples. That is all highly consistent with what scientists have learned about how Earth has warmed and cooled over the eons. The higher latitudes have the most extreme changes. The poles are covered in ice during the ice ages, and forests extend nearly to the poles in the warm periods.

That paper that caused a little firestorm was concerning, on how unexpected events are happening in the Southern Ocean, and I want to discuss the ocean’s currents a little, what I learned in my studies, and what it may well mean for humanity if we do not achieve the Fifth Epoch soon.

Over 96% of Earth’s water is in the ocean. Of the 2.5% of Earth’s water that is freshwater, only about 1% of that is surface freshwater (lakes, rivers, etc.). The solar-driven hydrological cycle gives us that freshwater. The Sun’s energy and Earth’s rotation create the air currents that bring precipitation to Earth. The ocean also circulates with a dominant global current that travels the world, which also influences the air currents. That oceanic current obviously depends on the continental configurations. In the Permian Period, all continents came together to form a supercontinent. The world’s ocean was nearly all contained in what is called the Panthalassic (the ancestor of the Pacific), and there were two landlocked smaller oceans, call the Paleo-Tethys and the Tethys. It is thought that there was not much in the way of ocean currents then. Those stagnant oceans had low oxygen levels, which likely contributed to the greatest extinction event in the eon of complex life. Dramatic changes in the ocean’s currents are ancient events that scientists have long investigated.

For the past 50 million years, Earth has been cooling, with its falling carbon-dioxide levels. While those falling carbon-dioxide levels were the ultimate reason for our ice age, the isolation of Antarctica and the formation of the land bridge between the Americas also contributed, because of what they did to ocean currents. When Earth finally fell into this ice age, variations in Earth’s orientation to the Sun, driven by the gravitational effects of the other planets, created oscillating effects that have made the continental ice sheets grow and shrink like clockwork during the past million years.

We are in one of the rare interglacial periods, when Earth is in its “long summer.” If not for this long summer, the Domestication Revolution might not have happened and there would only be several million humans on Earth, living in a Stone Age. In the glacial intervals, Earth is cold, dry, with reduced carbon-dioxide levels, largely because the ocean has absorbed carbon dioxide, as cooler water can absorb more gases. In that cold, dry world, with lower carbon-dioxide levels, plants do not grow as well as in this long summer. Farming might have been impossible in all but a few places on Earth. Even then, the transition to this long summer had its bumps. Nearly 13,000 years ago, there was a cooling event known as the Younger Dryas, and it has been argued that it wrecked the nascent sedentary populations in the Fertile Crescent, but it may have also led to the first farmers. Over 8,000 years ago, there was another drop in global temperatures, and it may have helped form the farming methods for the first civilization. But almost exactly 4,000 years later, another drop seems to have wiped out most early civilizations. Almost exactly 3,000 years later, the Bronze Age collapse of civilizations in the Fertile Crescent and Mediterranean happened, and a drought is the prime suspect.

For the 12,900-year, 8,200-year, and 4,200-year events, it is thought that changes in ocean currents did it, and climate change is also implicated in the droughts that caused the Bronze Age collapse. For the 12,900-year and 8,200-year events, it is thought that melting ice sheets that flushed to the Atlantic Ocean did it. These all happened in the long summer, when life was good. Life in the glacial intervals was much harsher, with a cold, dry climate. Life was harder for the animals that humans hunted, but they had survived the glacial intervals just fine, to only go extinct when humans invaded.

The staple from early human farming to this day has been seed crops from grasses. Maize, wheat, and rice provide most of humanity’s dietary calories today, and over 80% in the poorest nations. It is a very unnatural reliance on seed crops. Primates evolved in fruit-rich tropical canopies, and their diets were a far cry from humanity’s seed diets. Until industrialization, all civilizations were at the mercy of the weather, as the thin agricultural surpluses were always vulnerable to climate changes.

The calamitous 1300s in Europe were caused by the end of the Medieval Warm Period, which initiated a multi-year famine. The Little Ice Age was a grim time in Europe, which coincided with Europe’s conquest of Earth. Globally, the difference between the Medieval Warming Period and the Little Ice Age was about one degree Fahrenheit. The difference between good times and catastrophe was one degree, global temperatures have already increased by more than one degree in the industrial era, and the current projections are that global temperatures will increase by between three and eight degrees by 2100. Farming has always been dependent on the caprices of Earth’s climate, and farming as know it was only feasible in this brief long summer.

Studying those prior events makes it clear that the ocean is the major driver of climate changes, and especially what happens to the dominant currents. When currents shifted, global climate changed, and regions formerly wet could become dry, and vice versa. Droughts and floods have always been the scourge of farmers. That we have more than eight billion people on Earth today, and the vast majority is dependent on seed crops that are watered by the weather, is insane, from a species perspective. This is a leading reason why humanity tiptoes along the edge of the abyss today. If those oceanic currents shift much, billions of people will starve to death, mainly the world’s poor.

Industrialized nations are causing this problem by burning hydrocarbon fuels, and agrarian nations will reap the whirlwind. Climate change is here. I have been watching the Gulf Stream weaken for many years, and it has global implications.

Those who deny and are “skeptical” of these events are whistling past humanity’s graveyard. In a recent comment, I discussed indoor farms. We already have them, and the main limitation is the energy to run them. Not only is outdoor farming vulnerable to the weather and climate changes, it destroys natural ecosystems.

In what I call the Fifth Epoch, humanity will no longer rely on Earth’s ecosystems for its food. Indoor farms, a hundred stories high, run by AI robotics, placed in deserts, floating on the ocean, on a little piece of Antarctica, or even in orbit, will easily feed humanity a hundred times over, with fresh, whole food, mainly fruit and vegetables, with some seeds crops.

This issue of Global Warming and looming global famines and other catastrophes is one of humanity’s existential risks that free-energy and related technologies easily resolves.