Disclaimer: I am now retired, and am therefore no longer an expert on anything. This blog post presents only my opinions, and anything in it should not be relied on.
I have written almost nothing for almost all of this year
because I have undergone one of those periods where whatever I think of writing
seems to me to contribute nothing – someone else has already said what I might
wish to say, and done it well. However,
it does seem to me with regard to climate change that, still, no one is consistently
monitoring CO2 emissions and drawing conclusions about what they imply for our success
or lack thereof in preventing global warming.
So this piece is a retrospective on 2020 and climate change, focusing on
what’s going on in CO2 emissions as evidenced by measurements at Mauna Loa.
The 2020 chapter of our lives at Mauna Loa was marked by a
pretty consistent monthly atmospheric CO2 rise of 2.5 ppm from 2019’s
levels. This is about in line with the
rises of the last two years.
To me, this is neither good news nor bad news. I might have expected that the effects of
COVID, which over the first ½ of the year apparently meant a 5-8% reduction in
global CO2 emissions, would show up in the Mauna Loa figures, but an article on
their website noted that it would be difficult to distinguish its effects from
the “noise” of normal variation.
Likewise, I might have expected CO2 to increase more rapidly if the
pandemic hadn’t happened, simply from feedback effects like increased albedo
due to some regions like Siberia and the Laptev Sea melting earlier. Perhaps the two effects cancelled each other
out.
The point, I think, is that for the first year since I
started worrying about this in 2010, there seem to be positive developments since
the year before that at least match the negative developments. Of course, we don’t know how much of the
clawback of emissions will remain when the pandemic fades some time in 2021,
probably due to comprehensive vaccination.
Still, as in Alice Through the Looking Glass, perhaps we are finally
running fast enough to stay in the same place, even though we are no closer to
the ultimate goal.
Of course, we should not forget those negative
developments. Here’s my own list.
Arctic Sea Ice
Every year I come back to this, because in determining the
effects of climate change, what happens in the Arctic doesn’t stay in the
Arctic. And it was indeed another
alarming, unprecedented year. Both
extent and volume of Arctic sea ice at minimum were either slightly lower than
ever before or second lowest behind 2012, depending on your measurement. The salient feature of this melting season
was the early and unusually large melt in the Arctic Ocean above Russia, and
its late remelt, so that the Northeast Passage was open perhaps from late June
to early October. When refreeze
occurred, for the first time since I’ve been following things, it happened “up”
from the Russian seacoast rather than “down” from the North Pole to the
seacoast. It appears also that at one
point the Northwest Passage was open to quite high in the Canadian Archipelago.
What this suggests to me is that rather than reaching a
point of higher stability after 2007 or 2012, two years of precipitous drops,
we are now pushing against the lower bounds established in 2012. In other words, the minimum levels in 2013-2019
do not represent a “new normal”, but rather a springback followed by a resumption
of (slow) decline. I fully expect,
therefore, to see a clear new record low sometime in the next 3 years, although
I will be deliriously happy to be wrong. And I won’t repeat, but you the reader should
keep in mind, the fallout when, inevitably, the minimum goes to zero.
Disasters and Weather
Meanwhile, the fires, hurricanes, and other disasters partially
attributable to global warming were certainly on a par with 2019. I am told that the cost of these disasters
set another record in 2020. The
wildfires in California were certainly notable for the record acreage consumed
and for the effect being so widespread in terms of air quality throughout the
state. 2020 saw a record number of
hurricanes, true, but to me the important point was the continuation of
unusually warm water, especially in the Caribbean, that made incipient
hurricanes frequently into Level 4 or 5 ones, when in the years before 2019 those
would have almost always been Level 1 or Level 2 hurricanes. And, of course, record-matching flooding from
slow-moving hurricanes happened again, as well.
Locally, it was an unusually mild winter overall, with temperatures
in February and early March often in the low 50s, while snow never really
stuck. Then summer arrived with consistent
80-plus temperatures around June 20th, earlier than I can ever
remember in my 50-plus years around the Boston area. The highs in July and August were around 95,
not around 90 as in years before, and temperatures in the 80s lasted until
mid-October, while the leaves didn’t finish falling until well into November –
all of this was unprecedented as far as I know.
And at certain times, winds were far more violent than in the past,
although not to the point of hurricane status.
I understand, also, that there’s a new weather term: “thundersnow” – i.e., thunder and lightning
plus snow.
And the New Year
When I look at 2021, I find that for the first time, the
things I foresee that are matters for hope outweigh the negative things that I
expect may come to pass, although the hopes are slender:
1.
It does appear that President-elect Joe Biden is
serious about embedding consideration of climate change in most of the workings
of the U.S. government. I cannot say
that I can clearly point to a comparable effort in any other country, if it
happens. The effects on emissions will
be minimal, at best, for a few years.
But the cumulative effect of the bureaucracy and the “movement” it
creates as it operates on its own momentum could be profound in the medium
term.
2.
For the first time, it appears that banks may
actually follow through on defunding CO2 emitters, especially in the energy
sector. Because banks are such herd
animals, I view this as a potentially serious investment shift away from CO2
polluter firms that may cause far more drastic CO2 cutbacks (except in China
and Russia) than we have seen before.
Bear that in mind as, in 2021, I otherwise anticipate
echoing my sad findings about 2020.
