Free AI web copilot to create summaries, insights and extended knowledge, download it at here
3578
Abstract
quote id="5e30"><p>“This 12-month record is exactly what we expect from a global climate fueled by carbon pollution,” Dr. Andrew Pershing, vice president for science at Climate Central said. “<b>Records will continue to fall next year, especially as the growing El Niño begins to take hold, exposing billions to unusual heat.</b> While climate impacts are most acute in developing countries near the equator, seeing climate-fueled streaks of extreme heat in the U.S., India, Japan, and Europe underscores that no one is safe from climate change.”</p></blockquote><h1 id="f7b6">Is This Just Weird Weather, or Climate Change?</h1><p id="2bab">One of the biggest (and dumbest) arguments against climate change is that these temperature extremes can just be chalked up to “weird weather this year”.</p><p id="732c">While it’s true that some variation is caused by cyclical weather patterns (see El Nino above), there is now a measure of how much of our exteme climate is likely to have been caused by humans through fossil fuel and other emissions.</p><p id="5282"><a href="https://www.climatecentral.org/tools/climate-shift-index">The Climate Shift Index</a> was created to show just how much influence human activity has on weather.</p><blockquote id="ef7b"><p>The CSI is a categorical scale, with the categories defined by the ratio of how common (or likely) a temperature is in today’s altered climate vs. how common it would be in a climate without human-caused climate change.</p></blockquote><p id="62b2">To simplify this, let’s look at another number.</p><p id="a456">Of the 7.8 billion people who experienced warmer than average temperatures this year, the weather for 7.3 billion of those people was 300% more likely to have occurred due to human activity.</p><p id="55c8">In other words, it is 3x more likely that the GHG emissions caused warmer temperatures than other natural causes, like El Nino.</p><p id="1394">Now, I understand that many people will find this a) difficult to understand and b) hard to believe because humans, as a species, have a tough time with probability based math. We like things to be black and white, right and wrong; not a set of possibilities that might, could have, or probably will cause global warming.</p><p id="35cb">But think of it this way.</p><p id="feb1">The 1990’s Bulls had a 300% increase in the probability of winning when they had Michael Jordan on their roster each night.</p><p id="1aac">Could they have won without Jordan? Absolutely they could have. Just like areas of Earth could have seen these higher temps without GHG emissions.</p><p id="2028">Is it likely to happen every night? Probably not. Just like the global higher temps are unlikely to be seen without GHG emissions.</p><h1 id="ac38">Impacts Beyond Humans</h1><p id="b910">As I’m sure you are aware, climate change impacts all living creatures on Earth, not just humans. However, we are blindly ignorant of the mechanisms of this negative impact.</p><p id="6cc5">I’ve written before about how high heat impacts the <a href="https://readmedium.com/climate-change-will-kill-the-weakest-and-youngest-of-everything-66f16ed8afc8">young and weak first</a>, and the <a href="https://phys.org/news/2022-11-climate-endangered-african-wild-dogs.html">African wild dog is no exception</a>.</p><p id="73ff">Wild dogs normally give birth at a time when the pups can be raised in cooler months. But the higher temps have pushed that back by about three weeks, forcing them to give birth later and later each year.</p><p id="9a97">At first glance, that’s not a big deal, ri
Options
ght? The babies are born later but still raised in the cooler months. The problem is that the seasons of cooler temps is not only getting pushed back later, but it is also ending sooner.</p><p id="3a96">This inadvertently results in wild dog mothers giving birth at just the wrong time.</p><p id="13d1">Now, someone might suggest that they just move to cooler regions. After all, they are wild animals and can go where they please.</p><p id="9ed6">Well, that’s another issue altogether, as wild dogs are now confined to just 7% of their historical range. It’s not like they can just get up and move to a neighborhood park in what was originally their hunting grounds decades ago.</p><p id="c9ee">Why does this matter? Because wild dogs are acting as a proxy for other keystone animals. But it’s hard to get the right data.</p><blockquote id="8156"><p>Because monitoring large carnivore populations over several decades is challenging and expensive, such long-term data either don’t exist or have not been assessed for most large carnivores.</p></blockquote><blockquote id="a1d5"><p>Every time we look for an impact of temperature on African wild dogs, however, we uncover something new and unexpected. <b>Climate-driven impacts on large carnivore behavior, populations and life histories may well be more widespread than previously thought.</b> Because large carnivores play an important role in shaping ecosystems, such impacts have much broader implications.</p></blockquote><blockquote id="cee9"><p>With <a href="https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/wg1/">continued temperature rises projected across their range</a>, the effects of climate change on this already endangered species — and others like it — are of great concern.</p></blockquote><p id="832c">The whole situation is a kind of “climate trap”. Too hot to breed and too many humans around to move.</p><p id="806b">And it’s just the beginning for the animals, too. <a href="https://www.un.org/en/climatechange/science/climate-issues/biodiversity">Biodiversity </a>loss is being touted as an equal to climate change, with both issues clamoring for solutions that actually go <a href="https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2811131">hand-in-hand for each crisis</a>.</p><h1 id="7e95">The Takeaway</h1><p id="05b3">Humanity is finally reaping what we have been sowing since the beginning of the last century. Billions of tons of CO2e, along with myriad other emissions (NOx, SOx, aerosols, etc.) are finally having the impact that was warned about for decades prior.</p><p id="a9da">There is no sustainability.</p><p id="d724">There is no remediation.</p><p id="0d05">There is only adapting to an ever warming world.</p><p id="34c8">We’ll be lucky to merely start reducing global GHG emissions by 2050, which means climate change will be here to stay for at least the rest of the century.</p><p id="b3f7">Best be prepared for the inevitable.</p><div id="e5fb" class="link-block">
<a href="https://anguspeterson.medium.com/subscribe">
<div>
<div>
<h2>Bypass the algorithm. Control your inbox.</h2>
<div><h3>Bypass the algorithm. Control your inbox. Stop letting Medium force content you don't want into your feed. Subscribe…</h3></div>
<div><p>anguspeterson.medium.com</p></div>
</div>
<div>
<div style="background-image: url(https://miro.readmedium.com/v2/resize:fit:320/0*Tkvm3Ht3q7tN0uL9)"></div>
</div>
</div>
</a>
</div></article></body>
