{"id":578,"date":"2016-12-28T15:40:10","date_gmt":"2016-12-28T20:40:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/l-stires.com\/thinking-slowly\/?p=578"},"modified":"2016-12-28T15:40:10","modified_gmt":"2016-12-28T20:40:10","slug":"climate-spirals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/l-stires.com\/thinking-slowly\/climate-spirals\/","title":{"rendered":"Climate Spirals"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/p>Here\u2019s one of\u00a0those animated charts that helps us to see things that might otherwise be difficult to visualize. It\u2019s an animated version of the\u00a0\u201chockey stick\u201d graph<\/a>, showing the increase in global temperature since 1850. This animation is under copyright by British climate scientist Dr. Ed Hawkins<\/a>, and he grants permission to reproduce it provided he is given proper credit.\n

The year 1850 is chosen as the starting point since it was the approximate beginning of the Industrial Revolution. A change of 1.5 degrees Celsius equals\u00a02.7 degrees Fahrenheit. Notice how the 2016 line stands apart from recent years, particularly during the first half of the year, when the temperature reached 1.5 degrees Celsius above baseline for the first time. In less than a week, 2016 will officially become the hottest year on record<\/a>. Here\u2019s how it compares to recent years.<\/p>\n

$\"\"$ <\/p>\n

When the lines in this spiral stop overlapping one another and begin to diverge noticeably, that is an indication that global temperature is increasing exponentially, rather than at a linear rate, as had previously been assumed. Exponential growth<\/a>\u00a0can lead to rapid change\u00a0in a short period of time.<\/p>\n

The primary reason for these temperature increases is the accumulation of greenhouse gases in the upper atmosphere. The most important greenhouse gas is carbon dioxide, and this second Hawkins animation<\/a> shows its accumulation is parts per million.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

This March, carbon dioxide reached 400 ppm<\/a> for the first time, and it will continue to increase. 350 ppm is considered a \u201csafe\u201d level of carbon dioxide.<\/p>\n

If humanity wishes to preserve<\/a> a planet similar to that on which civilization developed and to which life on Earth is adapted, paleoclimate evidence and ongoing climate change suggest that CO2 will need to be reduced . . . to at most 350 ppm.<\/p>\n
Dr. James Hansen<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n
Although the world\u2019s CO_{2<\/sub> emissions have stabilized in recent years, that\u2019s not the same as dropping to zero. CO_{2<\/sub> continues to pile up in the atmosphere. The only way CO_{2<\/sub> can be reduced is to stop\u00a0using fossil fuels.<\/p>\n}}}
The Trump administration has threatened to elimate<\/a> NASA\u2019s $2 million per year budget for Earth science, which is the world\u2019s major source of data on climate change, including the information\u00a0in these charts. Maybe the theory is that what\u00a0we don\u2019t know can\u2019t hurt us.<\/p>\n
You may also be interested in reading:<\/strong><\/p>\n
The Cost of Climate Inaction<\/a><\/p>\n<\/body>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Here\u2019s one of\u00a0those animated charts that helps us to see things that might otherwise be difficult to visualize. It\u2019s an animated version of the\u00a0\u201chockey stick\u201d graph, showing the increase in global temperature since 1850. This animation is under copyright by British climate scientist Dr. Ed Hawkins, and he grants permission to reproduce it provided he … Continue reading Climate Spirals<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[9],"tags":[103,48,102],"class_list":["post-578","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-environment","tag-carbon-dioxide","tag-climate-change","tag-global-temperature"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6FkJj-9k","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/l-stires.com\/thinking-slowly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/578","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/l-stires.com\/thinking-slowly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/l-stires.com\/thinking-slowly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/l-stires.com\/thinking-slowly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/l-stires.com\/thinking-slowly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=578"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/l-stires.com\/thinking-slowly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/578\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":585,"href":"http:\/\/l-stires.com\/thinking-slowly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/578\/revisions\/585"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/l-stires.com\/thinking-slowly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=578"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/l-stires.com\/thinking-slowly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=578"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/l-stires.com\/thinking-slowly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=578"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}