De
klimaatverandering en zaken als luchtvervuiling ‘trekken zich’ niets
aan van grenzen, zo schopt Tracey Keeling terecht een open deur in, met een artikel op
The Canary. Niet moeilijk te bedenken dat de bosbranden in Australië* sinds september vorig jaar een enorme bak CO2 extra
hebben toegevoegd aan de atmosfeer en dat dit de klimaatverandering
verder aanjaagt…

Bovendien
zullen de gebieden in Australië die door de brand grotendeels
ontbost zijn meer zon opnemen, waar bomen de opname van warmte nog
tegen konden houden, zoals je begrijpt zullen deze gebieden extra
warmte opnemen en zal de warmteontwikkeling zorgen dat de temperatuur op aarde nog verder op zal
lopen….. Daarnaast zullen deze gebieden hoogstwaarschijnlijk extra wind genereren, de oorzaak van het moeilijk onder controle krijgen van deze branden…..

Ondanks
alle klimaattoppen, die zelf al een aanjager zijn van de
klimaatverandering, stijgt de uitstoot van CO2 nog steeds, jaar op jaar
wordt er meer CO2 uitgestoten, je behoeft dan ook geen professor te zijn
om te concluderen dat met het grote aantal bosbranden dit jaar weer een
fikse stijging te zien zal zijn van de CO2 uitstoot…..

Jammer
dat Keeling niet schrijft over het feit dat de rook van deze
bosbranden over de hele wereld trekt, zo liet men een dag of tien
geleden al weten dat de rook zich inderdaad verspreidt over de
hele aarde….. Als dit nog een paar maanden doorgaat en bedenk dat
het bepaald niet Australië alleen is dat deels in brand staat (Australië waar de zomer nog maar net een maand gaande is), wordt de
kans steeds groter dat we misoogsten over de hele wereld zullen gaan
zien……

The
terrifying fallout from the Australian fires that is about to hit the
whole world

Tracy
Keeling
24th January 2020

Afbeeldingsresultaat voor The terrifying fallout from the Australian fires that is about to hit the whole world

When it comes to the
climate, our obsession with national borders is immaterial. The world
has watched in horror as Australia has burned
over the last five months. But the fires aren’t solely affecting
those in their immediate and devastating path or, indeed, those
choking on the
smoke from them in near (or far) countries.

As the UK’s Met
Office has recently pointed
out, one terrifying fallout from the fires is coming to all of us
this year. Because, on this shared planet, we really are all in this
together.

A
grim forecast

Australian wildfires
will help push up carbon dioxide (CO2) levels in the atmosphere to
new highs in 2020, the Met Office has said.
It predicts 2020 will see one of the highest annual increases in CO2
levels since records began more than 60 years ago.

This year, levels of
CO2 are set to rise by around 2.7
parts per million (ppm) compared to 2019, peaking at 417ppm of
CO2 in the atmosphere in May. 2019 itself also saw a steep
rise in CO2 by 3.5ppm in May compared to the previous year, with
the overall level rising to 414.8ppm that month. May is generally the
month of the year where CO2 levels reach their yearly
peak; September/October is usually the lowest
annual point.

The predicted average
CO2 level for 2020 is 414ppm.
Pre-industrial levels of CO2 were around 280ppm.
Levels are set to remain above 410ppm throughout the year for the
first time, according
to the Met Office

The increasing levels
of greenhouses gases like CO2 in our atmosphere push up the
temperature of the planet. As NASA explained
in a 2010 study:

carbon
dioxide is responsible for 80 percent of the radiative forcing that
sustains the Earth’s greenhouse [warming] effect.

Actions
have consequences

Detailing the cause of
the CO2 increase, the Met Office said:

While
human-caused emissions cause the CO2 rise in concentration, impacts
of weather patterns on global ecosystems are predicted to increase
the rise by 10% this year. Emissions from the recent Australian
bushfires contribute up to one-fifth of this increase.

As the Met Office
noted, human activities such as burning fossil fuels have been
pushing up levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere every year. But
around a tenth of the projected increase in 2020 is due to the impact
of weather patterns. According to analysis
in 2019 by Carbon
Brief:

68% of all
extreme weather events studied to date were made more likely or more
severe by human-caused climate change. Heatwaves account for 43% such
events, droughts make up 17% and heavy rainfall or floods account for
16%.

These weather patterns
create conditions in which plants grow less and absorb less CO2.
Weather patterns linked to swings in temperatures in the Pacific
Ocean also affect the rise in carbon dioxide levels, because in years
with a warmer tropical Pacific many regions become warmer and drier.

This will make blazes
such as Australia’s devastating bush fires more likely.

As Professor Richard
Betts, of the University of Exeter and the Met Office Hadley Centre,
explained:

Although the
series of annual levels of carbon dioxide have always seen a
year-on-year increase since 1958, driven by fossil fuel burning and
deforestation, the rate of rise isn’t perfectly even because there
are fluctuations in the response of ecosystem carbon sinks,
especially tropical forests.

Essentially,
ecosystems have limited some of the potential temperature rise on our
earth, by absorbing the CO2 we’ve put into the atmosphere. But
human-induced warming and atmospheric disruption drive weather
patterns that are damaging those ecosystems. That leaves nature in
much less of a position to help us.

A
downward spiral

In short, we’re
heading nowhere good – and we’re hurtling towards that
destination fast. Scientists say we must not exceed CO2 levels of
450ppm,
which would set us on course for global warming of 2°C.
Indeed, many argue we should not go beyond a temperature rise of
1.5°C.
That is if we want to avoid catastrophe.

We’ve now seen a
dramatic increase in CO2 levels for eight
years running. The average temperature increase in 2019 reached
1.1°C.
Yet we’re still destroying
forests and gobbling up fossil
fuels. We’re literally sprinting towards the apocalypse with
open arms.

Featured image via
Guardian
News/YouTube and additional reporting from PA

TAGS:
australia
Australia
fires climate
change Climate
emergency CO2
greenhouse
gas emissions Met
Office