December 2016 Atmospheric CO2 Content: 404.48 ppm; December 2015: 401.85; December 2014 398.91

[hatrack]

Last edited Mon Jan 9, 2017, 08:50 AM - Edit history (1)

Updated from 404.64: 1/9/17.



https://www.co2.earth/

[Snackshack]

1. We are so screwed.

Just read this yesterday about the Larsen C ice shelf. 5000 sq kilometer piece, roughly the size of Delaware is in the process of calving and likely to break off in the near future.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/01/170106131954.htm

[hatrack]

2. And the crack has about 12 miles to go, maybe a bit less . . .

And it's only January - the sea doesn't really warm up (relatively) until mid-March.

[Snackshack]

3. Yep.

The article I read yesterday quoted a researcher as saying they think the piece will fully calve with-in the next year or two. I think it will be much sooner then that summer this year.

Climate scientists have a tough job. Gathering the data to understand these processes isn't easy. Add to that the microscope they are under from fossil fuel lobbies, peers and others (republicans) to find flaws or discredit their work altogether and I completely understand their caution. They are usually right on with their climate models for predictions but they are also usually very overly conservative about the timeframes for those predictions.

Climate change is going to rewrite civilization as it is currently known and that is just the change that is already coming. Change that even if we stopped burning fossil fuels today would not stop. It may already be too late. Methane is already being released globally from areas that have been frozen solid for hundreds of millennia. The temp will eventually catch up to the CO2 as it has for hundreds of thousands of years. The science is in. There is no doubt that it is happening and that we are a big reason for it happening. The red flags are everywhere, if we don't get serious about this and very soon...not 2020...in the next century or two the planet could be well on it way to a complete collapse of all living systems.