As extreme weather slams people and records around the world, Dr. James Carton points to super marine heat waves. Hotter oceans change everything. Carbon dioxide poured into the atmosphere faster in 2023. Even record fossil fuel use cannot explain it. A new study finds natural recapture of CO2 by land plants has “collapsed” during record heat. French co-author Dr. Philippe Ciais joins us.
Listen to or download this Radio Ecoshock show in CD Quality (57 MB) or Lo-Fi (14 MB)
Show song: “Down Under” (re marine heat waves) 1:58
WELCOME
Hello Europe where summer ended with crazy weather like I’ve never seen! It was boiling hot then snowy cold followed by Central European floods, maybe floods of the century. At one point the continent was split between a cold down wave of the Jet Stream and the upward sweep of dry heat from the Sahara. You can guess which side settled over Portugal. New calculations show carbon released from fires in Portugal are large enough to affect climate.
Likewise, a foot and a half of rain dumped over parts of North Carolina and huge areas in Nigeria were underwater, just the rooftops of buildings visible as far as the eye can see. Extreme rains were predicted by scientists years ago. The hotter atmosphere can hold more moisture and whatever goes up must come down.
The atmosphere gets that bigger load of water vapor from the sea. Super marine heat waves are adding to extreme rains and changing winds we feel on land. Seventy one percent of this “blue Planet” is covered by the oceans. Unseen by humans, this water world is heating up.
In late August 2024, Sea surface temperatures hit 97.7°F (36.5°C) in the Persian Gulf, just barely cooler than our bodies. It was one of the highest sea surface temperatures ever recorded on Earth. This is just one of a series of what scientists now call “marine super heat waves”.
We know hotter oceans provide more energy to hurricanes, cyclones or typhoons. So when those spin up we get damaging storms like Yagi, labelled “Asia’s most powerful storm”. After bashing through the Philippines as Severe Tropical Storm Enteng, Yagi powered up to Category 5, a rare super typhoon in the South China Sea. After striking South China, large parts of Vietnam and Thailand were submerged, with many deaths and huge damages.
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SUPER MARINE HEAT WAVES
JAMES CARTON
Our new climate revealed itself in 2023. It was a year of incredible heat, amazing wildfires, and extreme rains with flash floods. But there was another unreported front: global sea surface temperatures went off the charts. With marine heat waves and now super marine heat waves, we are about to hear how and why.
Dr James Carton is Professor in the Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Science at the University of Maryland. He works with the University’s Ocean Climate Lab. James has been a Visiting Scientist, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center and he is a Fellow of the American Meteorological Society. His many papers since 1983 are cited all over.
James Carton has been tracking ocean-atmosphere relations for over four decades. His Simple Ocean Data Assimilation project or SODA is still in use. The new paper “Record High Sea Surface Temperatures in 2023” is Open Access.
Listen to or download this 26 minute interview with James Carton in CD Quality or Lo-Fi
WHAT CAUSES SUPER MARINE HEAT WAVES?
Looking at graphs of sea surface temperatures (globally averaged) from 1982 to 2023 – the year 2023 soars above the rest, at one point reaching the top of the chart – heading toward the proverbial off-the-charts heating.
With a team of eight scientists, Dr. Carton co-authored the new study. The paper suggests three causes for this abnormally hot ocean surface. We tackle them in reverse order.
The first everyone knows: after three years of La Nina events that release cooler ocean waters, the planet switched to the hotter El Nino in the Pacific Ocean. Can that ENSO change explain the hotter surface seas, and what was strange about this recent switch in the back-and-forth cycle of La Nina and El Nino?
Scientists discovered longer cycles at work in the oceans. One that happens over decades is called the multi-decadal Pacific-Atlantic-Arctic mode or PAA, Most of us have never heard of it. CoPilot says:
“The Pacific-Atlantic-Arctic (PAA) Mode:
The PAA mode is like a slow dance between the North Pacific, North Atlantic, and Arctic Oceans. It’s a multidecadal (spanning several decades) pattern. When the PAA mode shifts to its warm phase, it affects ocean temperatures in these regions. Specifically, it contributes to higher SSTs north of 30°N.
So, during the 2023 marine heatwave, the PAA mode was in its warm phase, amplifying the already rising temperatures.”
If the long PAA cycle is natural, can we say 2023 marine surface records were partly due to a collision of some natural factors?
The third and likely primary cause of record-breaking marine heat is long warming over the past hundred and fifty years during the age of coal, oil, and gas burning.
ATLANTIC COOLING?
In The New Scientist, August 19, 2024, James Dineen says: “The Atlantic is cooling at record speed and nobody knows why. After over a year of record-high global sea temperatures, the Atlantic is cooling off more quickly than ever recorded, which could impact weather around the world”. We get Carton’s read on this news. If New Scientist is behind a paywall you can read the free version here.
LAND-SEA INTERACTIONS
This year in 2024, the Mediterranean, Persian Gulf and around the Indian Ocean added to record misery for humans on land. Temperatures and humidity above 140 degrees Fahrenheit, 50 C just punished people along the Gulf in Iran. These big events tend to get buried by large global averages. Planetary oceans hit a new record high in August 2023, with 19.0 C sea surface temperatures.
Two scientists on this program told us the North Atlantic circulation system is weakening. Australian scientist Matthew England found the other end of this great conveyor belt – overturning has tipped around Antarctica and could stop. If there is less marine circulation, perhaps there is less mixing of cooler bottom water, and maybe that contributes to warmer sea surface temperatures? How much does sea surface temperature really tell us about warming in the whole ocean?
Find more about Jim Carton’s work, check out the UMD Ocean Climate Lab web site.
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COLLAPSE OF PLANT CO2 SINK
PHILIPPE CIAIS
Next in a series investigating possible causes of the sudden record heat in 2023 and 2024 – a new factor no one is talking about. Land plants react to weather extremes, including drought, and capture less carbon. That means more of our daily emissions stay in the atmosphere, possibly pushing climate heating.
Carbon dioxide poured into the atmosphere at a much faster rate in 2023. Even record fossil fuel use cannot explain it. A massive new study suggests natural recapture of CO2 by land plants has “collapsed” during record heat. From the Institut Pierre Simon Laplace, a top-level research institute west of Versailles, co-author Dr. Philippe Ciais joins us.
Listen to or download this 23 minute interview with Phillipe Ciais in CD Quality or Lo-Fi
Then new paper is “Low latency carbon budget analysis reveals a large decline of the land carbon sink in 2023” The paper finds
“record warming in 2023 had a strong negative impact on the capacity of terrestrial ecosystems to mitigate climate change.”
We are talking about a positive feedback where a warming world reduces land ecosystems’ ability to capture and hold carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, adding more warming. The hotter the world gets as we continue to pour greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, the weaker Nature’s vast carbon capture system becomes.
In an excellent Twitter thread on this discovery, Ciais says:
“The decline of the northern sink was masked by recent good conditions in the Tropics absorbing CO2, but in the coming years if this decline continues, we may see a rapid acceleration of CO2 and global warming which was unforeseen in future climate models projections.”
We get an inside look at three ways the growth of CO2 can be measured. Most of us count on the long-standing records taken at Mauna Loa station (MLO) in Hawaii. But those measurements can be influenced by short-lived atmospheric fluxes in Asia or the Tropics, meaning the higher CO2 measurements may not yet be evenly distributed across the planet. This paper also check measurements taken from a network of marine stations (ocean) of MBL. Those are lower than from Mauna Loa in 2023. Coming in the middle are independent OCO-2 satellite observations was 3.03 ± 0.14 ppm yr-1. The increase is anywhere from half a part per million to almost a whole added part per million, compared to the growth of CO2 during the previous decade, 2013-2022.
Getting the GROWTH rate accurate is important to the argument of this paper, because if carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is growing at a faster rate than can be accounted for by any increase in the burning of fossil fuels or agricultural changes, that means plants and their ecosystems are taking up less carbon. Where is this happening and why? This paper explains.
BIG CARBON FROM CANADIAN FOREST FIRES IN 2023
The new paper says: “The year 2023 was a record high for boreal forest fires in Canada, with 184,961 km2 of burned area, more than 2.5 times the previous recorded peak, and six times the decadal average.”
Last November, Philippe and I talked about a doubling of global fire carbon emissions in 2021. In 2023 fires over northern Canada were frightening, even astounding, releasing carbon that could change the global climate. But Ciais cautions dynamic global vegetation models “…have strong weaknesses in capturing extreme forest fires such as those observed in Canada…” Does that mean we really don’t know how much carbon those 2023 Canadian fires released? When this team investigated the total carbon cycle for northwestern North America in that fire year of 2023, they found a balancing factor of increased “greening”.
Greening of Earth continued in 2023 and reached peak values in mid-western USA, parts of equatorial Africa, central and south-eastern Europe, southern Brazil and northern Australia. The Ciais paper says: “The year 2023 thus provides evidence for a decoupling between global greenness and carbon sinks over land...” This is very important to understand and remember.
And carbon changes develop in waves. A period of extreme wildfires releasing CO2 as their trunks and branches burn, can be followed by months of greening and carbon uptake. What matters is the grand sum of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, of which carbon dioxide is the main warming agent and lasts for tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands of years, building cumulatively.
Find good quick summaries from the paper, with charts, by Philippe here.
The new science we discuss in this show implies a positive feedback where a warming world reduces land ecosystems ability to capture and hold carbon dioxide from the atmosphere/ That adds more warming. The hotter the world gets as we continue to pour greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, the weaker Nature’s vast carbon capture system becomes. As one thing speeds another, and tipping points are crossed, I think the rate of global warming could speed up beyond anything we have seen or predicted.
MORE CLIMATE CHAOS
We did not get time to cover climate chaos in Southern Hemisphere. For example, on August 26, Australia experienced its hottest winter day ever recorded, topping out at an unbelievable 106.8°F or 41.6°C. Over at Climate Code Red David Spratt says: “Within 40 years large parts of Australia will be unliveable due to extreme climate heat, but don’t worry the new conservative Northern Territory has just abolished the climate change portfolio.”
At the end of summer, there was a strange heat wave over Antarctica, as atmospheric rivers are delivered right to the poles. I have an interview on that coming up.
According to Colin McCarthy at @US_Stormwatch. on September 8 it was 116°F or 46.7°C in Beverly Hills, California. The minimum temperature in the hills of Malibu was 96°F or 35.6°C. Fires raged burning homes and large landscapes. Mexico tied it’s hottest September temperatures ever, with 49.0 C or 120 Fahrenheit at Presa Morelo.
American scientist Zeke Hausfather, who tends to be conservative, says, quote: “August 2024 was 1.49C above preindustrial levels, and 2024 is now virtually certain to be the warmest year on record.” A study published this September in Nature Geoscience says extreme weather will strengthen rapidly over next two decades.
“May you live in interesting times.”
That is supposedly from an ancient Chinese curse, where “interesting’ is ironic for trouble. But for what it is worth, I still enjoy most of my days. While strange things explode in the Middle East and weird weather chases us, we must make room for joy in our lives. Joy is necessary like food. It’s the simple things like people, pets, and plants. Changing light in the sky and signals of the seasons. To be aware and grateful. I wish you some happiness, every day, even in the storm.
I’m Alex Smith. Thank you for listening, and caring about our world.
The one hour version ends with a clip of Stefan Ramsdorf, Director of the Potsdam Institute, speaking with Dr. Nate Hagens.
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Listen to or download the show song “Down Under” (Creative Commons license, go ahead and share or use it)
’DOWN UNDER” – LYRICS
[Verse 1]
Down below
Where the fishes swim
Water getting hotter
Old residents
Moving out
For cooler water.
[Chorus]
Heat wave!
Down in the Sea
Changing all
Too much energy.
[Verse 2]
Octopus
and bottom feeders
Surface divers
Whales as leaders.
They can’t say
what’s going on.
[Bridge]
Who is turning up
The hot water tap?
Where is the current
changing to
From tiny cells
To ocean shells
Marine heat waves
Change the game.
[Chorus]
Heat wave!
Down in the Sea
Changing all
Too much energy.
[Outro]
Who is turning up
The hot water tap?
Who?
Is that you?
Who?
Is that you?
Thank you for your programming. I have always been interested in weather and have a home weather station. I am more interested in climate weather and your show is teaching me a lot. I hope you will continue with the great programming.
I am interested in the behavioral aspects of climate change and ways to help people understand their environment better and become proactive instead of reactive.
Hi. We have covered some of the psychology of climate in previous shows. Probably if you search “Radio Ecoshock psychology” they would come up.
Next week I hope to talk to an author writing about the connections between climate and violence. But I get your meaning – we can hope that some insights into our “operating systems” might ease us out of our very dangerous path. I’m currently reading “Nexus” by Yuval Harari, where he clearly explains how the simple mechanism of going after more eyeballs or attention drove everything from YouTube to Facebook into extreme attention-grabbing behaviors that do not reflect the values we considered important for generations. Somehow that machine needs to point to a just sustainable future, while coping with disasters already of our own making. Maybe unlikely, but not impossible in my view.