More carbon dioxide is helpful to the environment but animals today have adapted to a low CO2 environment
The main issue is that we built on coastlines. Whether due to human activity or natural cycles, it is possible for the sea to rise almost 200ft if all ice on Earth melts
Too little carbon dioxide rather than too much is what will one day eradicate all life on earth. But that’s 500+ million years away
So much of our infrastructure is on coastlines. Being here on the Texas Gulf Coast, I recall just about every oil refinery and chemical plant is near the Gulf of Mexico, right at sea level.
So lest anyone think, “Let New York and Boston and DC drown, they can cry liberal tears, I live up here in the hills”, you won’t be getting any gasoline from Texas / Louisiana to power your lifestyle because salt water is the Devil to electromechanical systems.
So we have our gasoline infrastructure at sea level? Don’t you think they’ll move those refineries as sea level rises? Wouldn’t the infrastructure be relocated?
If you believe humans are the primary cause for climate change, it is ironic if the refining plants get flooded by rising sea levels
Yes this is undesirable but far from catastrophic to our survival. A higher average temperature means less people freezing to death, more carbon dioxide for plants, and an opening up of the Arctic and possibly Antarctic. It would increase droughts in certain areas leading to those areas becoming deserts but this is not linear as certain deserts would also get more rain. Actually wouldn’t precipitation increase in a warmer world and wouldn’t more carbon dioxide help plants?
Well, the newest refinery in the USA was built in 1977. You don’t just move these things, or build a new one. Well, sure you can, but what will resultant cost of fuel be then to recapture the cost of rebuilding all of the coastal refineries? $10 per gallon? $20 ? $50? I have no idea, except it would be fabulously expensive.
I suspect the environmental impact studies would take years.
True. Of course it is more pollution to allow the refinery to remain in a region flooded by a hurricane or rising seawaters then the pollution of a new refinery
I’m just thinking that there won’t be a population decline if we went from 15.4C to 16.9C just like there wasn’t a problem going from 13.9C to 15.4C since 1882
Magical thinking is a little different than scientific research. And tipping points are a real thing.
Tipping points: putting your hand in water and heating it from 100 F to 120 F is materially different than leaving it in and heating it further to 140 F, even though the Delta is identical. Your tissues will be burned.
As the earth’s permafrost melts it releases CO2, a LOT of CO2. Here’s an estimate from Scientific American of what a LOT of CO2 really is:
“Permafrost covers a quarter of the Northern Hemisphere’s land and stores around 1.5 trillion metric tons of organic carbon, twice as much as Earth’s atmosphere currently holds. Most of this carbon is the remains of ancient life encased in the frozen soil for up to hundreds of thousands of years.” and " Arctic warming is rising at twice the global average rate since 2000, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration."
And CO2 acts like a cozy blanket, keeping us warm in a cold place in space, but too much of a good thing can make it waaay to hot! Here’s a picture of what that looks like:
Yes the arctic increases at a faster rate because it gets less sunlight and benefits more from the greenhouse effect then the equator. That said, we are only at 420 parts per million of CO2.
Currently having 140% of CO2 has led to a temperature increase from 13.9C to 15.4C but the 13.9C was only 0.5C over the 1750 low
If the permafrost were released, it would triple atmospheric CO2 from preindustrial levels. This would have a peak temperature average of 17.11C
So, basically, humans would go extinct. The animals that are similar to those that thrived during other periods of geologic history when CO2 levels and temps were similar would carry on.
17.11C = 37.64F. Add that on top of 100F. No one’s alive at 138F. That’s almost the temperature for sous vide cooking in my Instant Pot!
Way wrong answer, lol
The temperature would be a global average of 17.11C or 62.8F including the poles.Yes if the temperature was spread evenly, there would be some areas of Earth that would become uninhabitable without air conditioning and the Antarctic and Arctic wouldn’t warm enough to become habitable
But there are areas that would become uninhabitable due to heavy rainfall and other areas as they become parched desert
The models you refer to predict a linear increase in temperature based on atmospheric CO2 levels. They are modeled results, not actual predictions. They do not take into consideration the impact of our warming oceans’ degraded ability to absorb CO2 nor do they factor in the additive effect of melting permafrost which itself will substantially increase CO2 levels.
With the advent of AI and quantum computers, I think we’ll see some revisions in the next several years regarding what to expect from added CO2 to our atmosphere.
You’re right, it doesn’t take into effect albedo but carbon dioxide is logarithmic not linear
Sea ice is highly reflective. Oceans are not
Albedo, (reflectivity,) of of a white surface (sea ice) does not affect it’s absorption of heat energy. The albedo of a white surface causes it to reflect the visible light but not the infrared spectrum. The heat from the sun that penetrates through the atmosphere to the earth’s surface arrives as infrared radiation.
White does not reflect infrared energy, it absorbs it. The polar regions of our planet are cold because of the angle of incidence the sun’s rays hit them, not because they are capped in white.
BTW: If all the sea ice in the northern hemisphere was to melt, it would not raise the level of earth’s oceans. The floating ice has already displaced the water it contains by virtue of the fact it is floating upon the ocean.