Methane Rising

I haven't followed methane much because I couldn't find a good data source, but now I have, from NASA. And even better source is the Global Carbon Project, which is updated every 7.6 days. 

After that weird lull in the mid-aughts, methane is on the rise again and is the highest it's been in 800,000 years.  

Methane's radiative forcing has increased by about 0.4 W/m² since 1979, while CO2's has jumped about 1.6 W/m² in the same interval.

This page has formulas for calculating radiative forcing for the major greenhouse gases. 

Global radiative forcing has increased by about 50% (as of 2022) just since 1990. Here, "AGGI" is the ratio of radiative forcing to what it was in 1990. 

It's incredible that the world, despite all the rhetoric and (token) efforts, keeps allowing this to happen. Clearly, I think, these trends will only be taken seriously once some catastrophic effects happen, and by then it will be too late. So human and we can't even help ourselves.

Tailpipes

Ocean Acidification Projections

The other day I gave the data on global ocean acidification, which I'm reproducing below. But first, here are the projections from the IPCC AR6 (WG1 Figure SPM.8c p22 of SPM):

On the top figure, the black line is the data, which matches the bottom. Of the two projections, maybe SSP2-4.5 is the most likely, with SSP3-7.0 if we're naughty. So a pH decline of about 0.15 by 2100, maybe 0.35. 

[The "4.5" and "7.0" represents the total forcing from...everything, in Watts/m². The AR6 WG1 was published on 9 August 2021.]

And these curves don't stop declining after 2100.

I don't know if a pH decline of 0.35 in a century is large for aquatic animals or not. I suspect they've gotten used to a pretty stable pH over the Holocene. I don't know a lot about this subject, which I've seen people write is "the other global warming problem."

Comments welcome, especially from fish and other ocean dwellers.

US Presidential Prediction Market Post-Debate

Here's what the PredictIt US Presidential Race market shows after last night's debate:

PredictIt is a market where buy and sell "shares" in various categories. One which is closely followed this time of the election cycle is for US president. So here Kamala Harris's price rose sharply shortly after the debate started:

at 9 pm US Eastern Time. The blue column bars are shares traded, labeled on the left vertical axis, and the price per share, labeled on the right. 

Kamala Harris was superb in the debate and she badly outplayed him. Trump was an angry, lying, bombastic, bumbling fool. I'd like to think this sinks his chances, but in today's America apparently nine years of observing such a fool on the political stage may not be enough yet. 

Brains

 A human brain (average size 1,300 grams) versus a dolphin brain (1,600 g). However 

"The human brain has a far more developed hippocampus than the dolphin brain. The hippocampus is a somewhat small region in the human brain that is shaped like a seahorse. The hippocampus is responsible for the elements of memory, learning, motivation, emotion, and more."

Apparently it's too late for dolphins to ever transition back to land again. They're probably safer there anyway. Besides it looks much cooler, with significantly less waiting in line.

The Trend in Ocean Acidification

From a site called the Institute for Environmental Analytics:

So that's a pH change of about -0.075 in 40 years, or an average of -0.019/decade (-0.19/century, if you want to unfairly extrapolate). I don't know what the projections have been--will try to post that later. Is this a significant change in ocean water, if your species has chosen to reside there?  

This site looks legit, since 75% of the males who lead the Institute have beards. 

Seriously though, they looked funded by real sources. Worth exploring more. The data source for this graph is from a legit journal.

The data for the other oceans (at least, Atlantic, Pacific and Indian) look very similar. 

2021 Pacific Northwest Heat Wave

There's an article in JAMA (Journal of the American Medical Association) titled "As Extreme Heat Becomes More Common, the Unprecedented Pacific Northwest Heat Dome Offers Lessons." It might be paywalled, I'm not sure--I'm on their media list and not sure what I get for that. 

Anyway, it says a few interesting things [sorry/not sorry for the bullet point format]:

• An estimate of the total number of deaths is about 900, 600 of them in British Columbia. "Most of the deceased were older adults who lived alone and died at home."
• Seattle, Washington and Portland, Oregon together saw about 200 deaths. "There [Portland], the heat dome lasted from June 25 to June 30. Temperatures reached 116°F (46.6°C) in Portland—more than 40°F (4°C) higher than normal
• Except that last number is wrong, it should be 22°C. Strange they would make that error.
• "June 29 reached 121°F, or 49°C, in Lytton, a small town in British Columbia, becoming the hottest day on record in Canada."
• Researchers have since classified the 2021 event as one of a handful of the most extreme heat waves on modern record.
• They link to "The 2021 western North America heat wave among the most extreme events ever recorded globally" in Science Advances 4-May-2022. That's in terms of the deviation from normal, "coming in at over 4 standard deviations" from average.
• Here's a free PDF of the paper.
• They write, "Throughout the globe, where we have reliable data, only five other heat waves were found to be more extreme since 1960."
• "Excess mortality due to extreme heat is well documented, with an average of 6 heat-related deaths per 100,000 residents each year in North America estimated for 2000–2019.
• "We have shown that the western North America event of 2021may have been caused by a combination of high pressure and dry conditions, but it is well known that heat extremes in different parts of the world may be driven by other combinations of Earth system processes." They don't say anything particular about climate change per se related to this event.
• They give the following table for extreme heat waves with standard deviations of 4 or higher, since 1968.

Anyway you can read it if you want. Back to the JAMA article.

• "And this August, researchers reported in JAMA that heat-related deaths in the US have been steadily increasing since 2016." 
• The article talks with an emergency room physician and a director of emergency management. The latter said "We had heard, anecdotally, folks saying, “I called my uncle at 11 in the morning and he was fine. By 10 at night, he was dead.” I think 15% of the fatalities were in homes that had air conditioning. But these were people oftentimes on fixed income who were afraid they couldn’t afford the extra utility bill, so they never turned their air conditioning on."
• He also says, "I think my call to action on this is that we need to find that sense of community again. The thought of someone losing their life in a heat event by themselves in an apartment or in a mobile home that was 125 °F, 130 °F, 140 °F inside is devastating. There’s no reason in a city like Portland, in a metro area like Portland, in a place like the Pacific Northwest, that someone should be alone and suffering without a neighbor or someone being able to come and check on them." But that's exactly the situation I was in. My own fault, really. If I die here no one will notice for weeks, until I start to smell. My poor cat.

Anyway I obviously find this heat event interesting because I lived through it. (And without air conditioning! Nor did I go to anywhere else to cool down.) Others probably not so much. 

--

PS: Looking back at it, this is kind of a lousy blog post. Sorry. 

Sunspots May Be Getting Back to Normal

 Here's the monthly data, just updated with August's number:

Source: Solar Influences Data Analysis Center, Royal Observatory of Belgium