Science Snippets: All Life is Interconnected, Climate Change Destroys “Protected” Areas

 

AVID Audio Course Description (Conservation Biology)

 

 

Latest Peer-Reviewed Journal Article:

McPherson, Guy R., Beril Sirmack, and Ricardo Vinuesa. March 2022. Environmental thresholds for mass-extinction events. Results in Engineering (2022), doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rineng.2022.100342.

 

Draft script:

Amazon rainforest deforestation is influencing weather in Tibet. That’s the headline of an article at Phys dot org published 5 January 2023. The paper points to two articles in the peer-reviewed journal Nature Climate Change. This short video provides an overview of these articles and their findings.

In addition, I use information from two related peer-reviewed articles, one each in One Earth and Global Change Biology from 17 February 2023 and 7 March 2023, respectively. The information from these latter two journals call into question our ability to respond positively to the dire news reported in Nature Climate Change.

First up, an overview of the information about the reported connection between the Amazon rainforest and the weather in Tibet. Bear in mind that the rainforest is more than 15,000 kilometers from Tibet. In the country of my birth, that’s more than 9,000 miles, or about 3 trips from San Francisco to New York City. I have no idea why you would want to travel from San Francisco to New York City, much less three times.

The initial article in Nature Climate Change was written by 13 authors. It’s titled, Teleconnections among tipping elements in the Earth system. From the abstract of this open-access paper comes this information: “We find that the Amazon Rainforest Area exhibits strong correlations with regions such as the Tibetan Plateau … and West Antarctic ice sheet. Models show that the identified teleconnection propagation path between the Amazon Rainforest Area and the Tibetan Plateau is robust under climate change. In addition, we detect that Tibetan Plateau snow cover extent has been losing stability since 2008. We further uncover that various climate extremes between the Amazon Rainforest Area and the Tibetan Plateau are synchronized under climate change. Our framework highlights that tipping elements can be linked and also the potential predictability of cascading tipping dynamics and the Tibetan Plateau are synchronized under climate change. Our framework highlights that tipping elements can be linked and also the potential predictability of cascading tipping dynamics.”

In other words—and this is no surprise if you’ve been following my work for more than 20 minutes—so-called tipping points, once crossed, are irreversible. In fact, any one self-reinforcing feedback loop, or tipping point, is sufficient to make climate change irreversible. I identified a few dozen of these self-reinforcing feedback loops in a long essay at guymcpherson dot com before I stopped keeping track in August 2016. The feedback loops I identified were, and are, rooted in the peer-reviewed literature. Remember, only one is required to ensure the irreversibility of climate change. Ever late to the evidentiary party, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change finally concluded that a so-called tipping point had been crossed in its IPCC Special Report on the Ocean and Cryosphere in a Changing Climate, published 24 September 2019.

The second paper in Nature Climate Change merely comments on the first paper, pointing out with considerable excitement that this research had established a long-distance linkage between tipping points. This is hardly new, of course, with well-known examples being reported for many years involving the El Niño Southern Oscillation and the impacts of the warming Arctic Ocean on the entire planet.

Mongabay provides additional perspective on the peer-reviewed, open-access paper in Nature Climate Change. This article published on 8 March 2023 begins with four italicized bullet points, and continues to this paragraph: “There’s a recent saying, grown popular among climate scientists: ‘What happens in the Arctic doesn’t stay in the Arctic.’ Now, new research adds to our understanding that, likewise, what happens in the Amazon Rainforest  doesn’t stay there.”

In other words, the story in Mongabay begins by highlighting the long-known teleconnection between the Arctic and the rest of the world. It’s unclear to me how the writers at Mongabay understand this well-established connection, yet the writer of the second article at Nature Climate Change, a Principal Research Scientist in Mathematics and Modelling at the National Physical Laboratory in Teddington, Great Britain, somehow remains surprised and excited about the identification of a long-distance, climate-change teleconnection.

I now turn to the open-access, peer-reviewed paper at One Earth written by eight scholars. The paper is titled, Many risky feedback loops amplify the need for climate action. It begins with an abstract that could have been written by a middle-school science student: “Many feedback loops significantly increase warming due to greenhouse gas emissions. However, not all of these feedbacks are fully accounted for in climate models. Thus, associated mitigation pathways could fail to sufficiently limit temperatures. A targeted expansion of research and an accelerated reduction of emissions are needed to minimize risks.”

Please allow my cynical commentary as I re-read each of the four sentences in this abstract:

Sentence one: “Many feedback loops significantly increase warming due to greenhouse gas emissions.” Duh!

Sentence two: “However, not all of these feedbacks are fully accounted for in climate models.” Of course not! No model is complete.

Sentence three: “Thus, associated mitigation pathways could fail to sufficiently limit temperatures.” Yeah, right. As if we’re making a serious effort.

Sentence four: “A targeted expansion of research and an accelerated reduction of emissions are needed to minimize risks.” Let me know when you’re ready to give up an ounce of privilege to make this happen. Let me know when you’re ready to give up your salary to live off-grid. Let me know when you’re ready to stop long-distance traveling to any of the dozens of events you attend each year. Apparently, reducing carbon emissions is for other people.

The main text of the paper in One Earth begins thusly: “As we increasingly understand climate change as a series of disasters in the short term and a major threat in the longer term, many governmental jurisdictions and world scientists have declared a climate emergency. In addition, nearly all countries have signed on to the Paris Accord, which calls for limiting warming to 2°C, and ideally 1.5°C.”

I’m not a climate scientist. I’ve never claimed to be a climate scientist. But I know that we passed the 2 C Rubicon years ago. Consider this line from page 31 of Andrew Y. Glikson’s 8 October 2020 book, The Event Horizon: “During the Anthropocene greenhouse gas forcing has risen by more than 2.0 Watts per meter squared, equivalent to more than >2 degrees C above pre-industrial temperatures, which constitutes an abrupt event over a period not much longer than a lifetime.”

The 8 authors of the peer-reviewed paper published by One Earth don’t know that 2 degrees is in the rearview mirror. They don’t even know that 1.5 degrees is behind us. Neither do the peer reviews. Or the editor. How could this be?

It gets worse, of course. From a popular article at Earth dot com published 10 March 2023 and titled Dangerous climate feedback loops have been underestimated, we learn this: “current climate models may underestimate some of the effects of global warming because they fail to take full account of the role of amplifying feedback loops.” One of the leaders of the study said of the 27 amplifying feedback loops they considered in their research, “this is the most extensive list available of climate feedback loops, and not all of them are fully considered in climate models.” A quick look at my blog shows 68 self-reinforcing feedback loops, not 27. And, again, I stopped counting in August 2016, more than six-and-a-half years ago. And, again, it only takes one of these so-called tipping points to demonstrate that climate change is irreversible.

It gets much worse, of course. Consider a paper in the peer-reviewed Global Change Biology written by 5 scholars and published 7 March 2023. Titled, Protected areas not likely to serve as steppingstones for species undergoing climate-induced range shifts, the paper demonstrates that, as the title indicates, protected areas are not likely to serve as steppingstones for species undergoing climate-induced range shifts. In fact, the paper concludes, “that over half of protected land area and two-thirds of the number of protected units across the globe are at risk of climate connectivity failure, casting doubt on whether many species can successfully undergo climate-induced range shifts among protected areas. Consequently, protected areas are unlikely to serve as steppingstones for a large number of species under a warming climate.”

To summarize, then. First, Amazon rainforest deforestation is influencing weather in Tibet, and this is hardly the only example of the few remaining butterflies flapping their wings in South America and therefore disrupting the weather in Africa. Second, self-reinforcing feedback loops are occurring, and people who claim to be scholars are surprised. It’s certainly not a surprise to me, nor anybody following my work for the last decade or so, nor anybody who reads the drivel put out by the IPCC. Third, areas set aside as reserves are not going to save the non-human species we claim to love. By the way, they are not going to save us, either. Seems Homo sapiens sapiens, the twice-proclaimed wise species by the not-so-swift species doing the naming cannot live as if there’s no tomorrow and expect a lot of tomorrows. To quote my favorite singer/songwriter, it’s a story that’s sad but it’s true.