BREAKING: catastrophically rapid global warming via an 'aerosol termination shock' in the 2020s and 2030s cannot be ruled out say scientists as they urge immediate media coverage 🧵
1. A recent albedo decrease and increase in planetary heat uptake coincided with a decrease in anthropogenic sulfur emissions.
This trend could accelerate further with more sulfur emission reductions.
3. There’s a fix for at least some of this short-term increase in the rate of warming:
"The only measures that can counteract this increased rate of warming over the next decades are methane reductions"insideclimatenews.org/news/15092021/…
4. Methane is rising sharply
5. The thread is being updated with further details:
6. global warming acceleration is due to the one huge climate forcing that we have chosen not to measure: forcing caused by imposed changes of atmospheric aerosols
expect warming rate for 2015-2040 to double 'unless appropriate countermeasures are taken' mailchi.mp/caa/july-tempe…
7. Scroll up to read this helpful conversation.
Dire 1.5°C can be expected by the 2020s, or if not, by the 2030s.
2°C hell looks hard/impossible to avoid by the 2030s-2060s to my mind, though theoretically it could be delayed for many decades/centuries.
Conservative analysis reveals utterly horrific global warming of 1.75-2°C is likely set to hit within 4 to 12 years with truly catastrophic consequences for food systems.
Estimate of 1.44°C (20-year average) warming for 2015-34:
12-40% of species extinct is considered catastrophic. So many amphibian species (~50%), plant & bird species (~40-50%), insect & mammal species (~30-40%), and reptile & fish species (~25%) are currently seen as being at risk. 48% of species are in decline. How will humans cope?
1. under a pessimistic global warming scenario (~4°C increase), climate change alone might only cause the extinction of ~20–30% of extant species in the next ~50–100 years [41,42]. Taken together, these losses would be catastrophic, but very far from 75%.' sciencedirect.com/science/articl…
2. 'Current projections of future extinction seem more consistent with ~12–40% species loss, which would be catastrophic but far from the 75% criterion used to argue for a 6th mass extinction.'
Earth's species will suffer 2-2.6°C and rising even in capitalism's most ambitious decarbonization scenario. Scientists anticipate unsurvivable 3-7°C, with geologic periods like the Miocene climatic optimum (MCO) seen as good analogues for our current 21st century climate hell.🧵
1/The race is now on to improve our knowledge of the Earth system in order to understand whether.. moderate levels of pCO2 may.. cause a devastating..increase of up to 7°C in the (near?) future, and if so, take action to prevent it. agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/20…x.com/ClimateBen/sta…
2. The temperature regime reconstructed for most of the Miocene, ∼5°C–8°C above modern, is equivalent to projected future warming in about a century under unmitigated carbon emissions scenarios.. an important warm-climate analog.. agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.10… x.com/ClimateBen/sta…
COLLAPSE/EXTINCTION: scientists fear global warming of 3.5°C, which wipes out 33-70% of species (IPCC AR4 2007, IPCC AR6 2022), will likely hit by the 2060s give or take a decade or two 🧵
1. IPCC scenario SSP3-7.0 shows 3.5°C by 2080 or from 2062 (not the worst-case scenario). Even a moderate emissions scenario can lead to 3.5°C this century (new research shows 2060s-80s possible).
2. A new pre-print from highly respected climate scientists implies 3.5°C by 2065-77 at current rates of warming. The authors warn this rate could increase or decrease perhaps suggesting 3.5°C by around 2055-2087 rather like IPCC high emissions scenarios. researchsquare.com/article/rs-607…
BREAKING: scientists say Earth's major systems are undergoing abrupt changes — and soon we'll all feel them 🧵
1. 'prepare for a future of abrupt change.. choices made now will determine whether we face a future of worsening impacts and irreversible change or one of managed resilience to the changes already locked in.' phys.org/news/2025-08-s…
2. Society must now brace for catastrophic impacts.
Destruction of habitats and wildlife has intensified and accelerated to an almost unimaginable degree during the capitalist era. Scientists say the 40-50% of plant species now facing extinction will be obliterated in a handful of decades. It didn't have to be like this. Rethink.
'previous mass extinctions.. took 10,000s, 100,000s, even millions of years to happen. this is happening so fast, now in just two, three decades..' google.com/amp/s/www.cbsn…
2. Current estimates of plant extinctions are, without a doubt, gross underestimates. Extinctions will surpass background rates by 1000s of times over the next 80 years. universityofcalifornia.edu/news/plants-ar…