Category:Climate Change

GreenPolicy360 & Strategic Demands: Strategic Focus on #EnvironmentalSecurity

New Definitions of National Security are necessary to meet the Challenges of our Era

Global Warming Terminology to the Climate Change Term, the First National Climate Change Plan to International Climate Conferences and Summits, our GreenPolicy360 Reports Are Tracking the Climate Challenge -- for 50+ Years

Here we are, Planet Citizens in action....

Take a quick look at our ToC -- https://greenpolicy360.net/w/Table_of_Contents_(ToC)_GreenPolicy360

Consider joining in, making a positive difference, Visit our GreenAction Intro -- https://www.greenpolicy360.net/w/GreenAction

Where are you? Review GreenPolicy360's National Climate Plans database -- https://greenpolicy360.net/w/National_Climate_Plans

Planet Citizens, Where Are You on Earth!

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Scientists have captured Earth’s climate over the last 485 million years

A history of wild temperature shifts and offered a warning on the consequences of human-caused warming

(Science) What was Earth’s temperature tens to hundreds of millions of years ago? The planet has gone through different periods, some with extensive polar ice caps and others being completely ice-free. Estimating past global temperature is important for understanding the history of life on Earth, for predicting future climate, and more broadly, to inform the search for other habitable planets. ...

Judd et al. have brought a powerful new tool to this task: data assimilation. They combined a large set of climate model simulations at different global temperatures across the last 485 million years with the oxygen isotope dataset as well as with other less frequently sampled temperature indicators such as temperature-sensitive organic molecules. Joining the model and the geological data enabled the authors to account for regional variations in predicted temperature. For example, a sample from a polar region was compared to climate model predictions in the same region. This produces a more accurate estimate of the global average temperature of Earth over time.

https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.ads1526

September 2024

{WaPo) An ambitious effort to understand the Earth’s climate over the past 485 million years has revealed a history of wild shifts and far hotter temperatures than scientists previously realized — offering a reminder of how much change the planet has already endured and a warning about the unprecedented rate of warming caused by humans.

The timeline, published Thursday in the journal Science, is the most rigorous reconstruction of Earth’s past temperatures ever produced, the authors say. Created by combining more than 150,000 pieces of fossil evidence with state-of-the-art climate models, it shows the intimate link between carbon dioxide and global temperatures and reveals that the world was in a much warmer state for most of the history of complex animal life.

At its hottest, the study suggests, the Earth’s average temperature reached 96.8 degrees Fahrenheit (36 degrees Celsius)... The revelations about Earth’s scorching past are further reason for concern about modern climate change, said Emily Judd, a researcher at University of Arizona and the Smithsonian specializing in ancient climates and the lead author of the study. The timeline illustrates how swift and dramatic temperature shifts were associated with many of the world’s worst moments — including a mass extinction that wiped out roughly 90 percent of all species and the asteroid strike that killed the dinosaurs.

“We know that these catastrophic events … shift the landscape of what life looks like,” Judd said. “When the environment warms that fast, animals and plants can’t keep pace with it.”

At no point in the nearly half-billion years that Judd and her colleagues analyzed did the Earth change as fast as it is changing now, she added: “In the same way as a massive asteroid hitting the Earth, what we’re doing now is unprecedented.”

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Thin Blue Layer

Look at how thin our atmosphere is

Planetcitizens.org | Climate News | New Definitions of National Security

GreenPolicy360:

When climate change came 'on the radar'

GreenPolicy360 journeys across 50+ years of the modern environmental movement

This story is now 50 years plus old and at GreenPolicy360 we have been attempting to bring to light many of the salient, and key moments of the history and crucial-to-know events that have led to today's activism dealing with climate change. The origins of earth science, atmospheric science, the environmental protection movement, the technology to measure and monitor earth system and dynamic change have brought us to today.

Thank you for visiting us and please feel free to click through our content and links. We are an open-source MediaWiki platform after all and our originating model was to share 'green best practices' worldwide. Climate change and climate policy, realization of the problems bring us to climate action.

Environmental protection with green activism/politics/education is a story that has gone on over decades, from the 1960s on. With GreenPolicy360 we look back to joining in ... involved directlyn with the first Earth Day (via Senator Gaylord Nelson and Representative George Brown in the envisiong, planning and organizing) and with Earth System Science initiatives, especially to collect data through new NASA and NOAA programs, to identify the extent of climate change.

A First Earth Day

Being there with George's assist, organizing

Youth-energy eco 'Teach-ins' and events across the nation

* https://www.greenpolicy360.net/w/Category:Earth_Day

* https://www.greenpolicy360.net/w/Earth_Day

We are, as we say, 'planet citizens, planet scientists'. We look to sound science to guide climate policy solutions

Climate Problems, Climate Solutions

https://www.greenpolicy360.net/w/Climate_Problems,_Climate_Solutions

https://www.greenpolicy360.net/w/Planet_Citizens,_Planet_Scientists

https://www.greenpolicy360.net/w/Category:Climate_Policy

https://www.greenpolicy360.net/w/Category:Earth_System_Science

https://www.greenpolicy360.net/w/Category:Earth_Science_from_Space

https://www.greenpolicy360.net/w/File:Good_science_needs_good_data_.png

Get with the action

It was time to step up, go to work and do our best to make a positive difference. Earth is, as we say, in human hands.

Here are a number of pages and sites to explore as you 'get with the action':

Start with "Earthrise", and the beginnings of the Modern Environmental Movement, and the first "Earth Day"...

https://www.greenpolicy360.net/w/Earthrise

Beginnings of the Modern Environmental Movement

* https://greenpolicy360.net/images/1969_beginnings_of_the_modern_environmental_movement.pdf

Generation Green... in the making, Going Green

* https://www.greenpolicy360.net/w/Earth_Day_Memories_on_the_50th_Anniversary

Flashback to 1978, Climate Action Memories

GreenPolicy360 Siterunner: Our friend George steps up in the U.S. Congress

George E. Brown Jr

https://www.greenpolicy360.net/w/George_E._Brown_Jr

The First National Climate Act, Historic Work

GreenPolicy360 Siterunner / SJ Schmidt: The beginnings of modern environmental and climate science can be traced to the 1960s and 1970s. The U.S. National Academy of Sciences played a key role in laying a foundation of scientific reports and data.

Energy and Climate Report, 1977, National Academy of Sciences / 175 pp. / PDF via GreenPolicy360

Rep. George Brown took the findings of the 1977 Energy and Climate Report from the Academy of Sciences and made the science actionable. In a historic moment, he proposed and drafted the legislation of the first U.S. National Climate Program and shepherded its passage in 1978.

This first federal program established to study and assess scientifically the issues and risks of human-caused climate change became a foundation for comprehensive initiatives, with an array of new Earth Science missions led by NASA and NOAA, the EPA and USGS.

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1992 -- Earth Summit

Launch of Annual International Climate Conferences

Earth Summit (1992)

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It's no ride in the park looking back at some 50+ years of environmental protection work. The obstacles were many, the climate change denial purposeful, and the dis- and mis-information pervasive. Those of us who were developing the field of climate science were, although we didn't describe it as such, creating a story arc of the climate change movement. The genesis of climate science was becoming a key 'atmospheric science' question to Congressman George E. Brown in the 1960s and I was, as a high school student, becoming a political follower of my representative's work. George went on to be a 'mover and shaker' in Congress and leader, as a trained physicist and practicing engineer, in the science and policy of climate. His work is essential in understanding how climate change powered up a constellation of NASA/NOAA/USGS programs and missions, many of which were the first of their type gathering digital data and earth science imaging. I was fortunate, as an environmental activist, to be along for the ride over the years until George's untimely passing in 1999.

Thank you George for all you did, the perseverance, the vision, the hard work. You made a world of difference, a positive difference that goes on and on (and you changed my life) -- https://www.greenpolicy360.net/w/Earth_Day_Memories_on_the_50th_Anniversary

To our GreenPolicy360 readers, please take a look, a close look, at George E. Brown as I've recalled many of his contributions here -- https://www.greenpolicy360.net/w/George_E._Brown_Jr

Let us also all take a look at some of the history of climate conferences over the years here -- https://www.greenpolicy360.net/w/File:Climate_Conferences_1979-2020.jpg

The work continues as we step up and do our best, becoming Planet Citizens day-by-day, month-by-month, year-by-year, decade-by-decade.

Climate Policy

Planet Citizen Action | Planet Citizens, Planet Scientists

Environmental movement | The Commons | Eco-nomics | Environmental protection

New Definitions of National Security | Earth Right Now | Earth Science Vital Signs | Generation Green

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Climate Change Forecasts and Hindcasts: How Accurate Have Predictions Been of Climate Scientists?

Study Confirms Climate Models are Getting Future Warming Projections Right

NASA Science Editorial Team

JAN 09, 2020

https://science.nasa.gov/earth/climate-change/study-confirms-climate-models-are-getting-future-warming-projections-right/

An animation of a GISS (Goddard Institute for Space Studies) climate model simulation made for the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Fourth Assessment Report, showing five-year averaged surface air temperature anomalies in degrees Celsius from 1880 to 2100. The temperature anomaly is a measure of how much warmer or colder it is at a particular place and time than the long-term mean temperature, defined as the average temperature over the 30-year base period from 1951 to 1980. Blue areas represent cool areas and yellow and red areas represent warmer areas. The number in the upper right corner represents the global mean anomaly.

NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies

There’s an old saying that “the proof is in the pudding,” meaning that you can only truly gauge the quality of something once it’s been put to a test. Such is the case with climate models: mathematical computer simulations of the various factors that interact to affect Earth’s climate, such as our atmosphere, ocean, ice, land surface and the Sun.

For decades, people have legitimately wondered how well climate models perform in predicting future climate conditions. Based on solid physics and the best understanding of the Earth system available, they skillfully reproduce observed data. Nevertheless, they have a wide response to increasing carbon dioxide levels, and many uncertainties remain in the details. The hallmark of good science, however, is the ability to make testable predictions, and climate models have been making predictions since the 1970s. How reliable have they been?

Now a new evaluation of global climate models used to project Earth’s future global average surface temperatures over the past half-century answers that question: most of the models have been quite accurate.

Forecast_evaluation_for_models_run_in_2004_in_F_and_C

Models that were used in the IPCC 4th Assessment Report can be evaluated by comparing their approximately 20-year predictions with what actually happened. In this figure, the multi-model ensemble and the average of all the models are plotted alongside the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) Surface Temperature Index (GISTEMP). Climate drivers were known for the ‘hindcast’ period (before 2000) and forecast for the period beyond. The temperatures (in degrees Fahrenheit on the left and degrees Celsius on the right) are plotted with respect to a 1980-1999 baseline.

-- Gavin Schmidt

In a study accepted for publication in the journal Geophysical Research Letters, a research team led by Zeke Hausfather of the University of California, Berkeley, conducted a systematic evaluation of the performance of past climate models. The team compared 17 increasingly sophisticated model projections of global average temperature developed between 1970 and 2007, including some originally developed by NASA, with actual changes in global temperature observed through the end of 2017. The observational temperature data came from multiple sources, including NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies Surface Temperature Analysis (GISTEMP) time series, an estimate of global surface temperature change.

The results: 10 of the model projections closely matched observations. Moreover, after accounting for differences between modeled and actual changes in atmospheric carbon dioxide and other factors that drive climate, the number increased to 14. The authors found no evidence that the climate models evaluated either systematically overestimated or underestimated warming over the period of their projections.

“The results of this study of past climate models bolster scientists’ confidence that both they as well as today’s more advanced climate models are skillfully projecting global warming,” said study co-author Gavin Schmidt, director of NASA’s Goddard Institute of Space Studies in New York. “This research could help resolve public confusion around the performance of past climate modeling efforts.”

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(1979-2020)

"A Timeline of International Climate Conferences"

Accompanied by 'Trends in Atmospheric CO2 vs Global Temperature Change'

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Climate_change_conferences

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Climate_Conference

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_Climate_Change_conference

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_Framework_Convention_on_Climate_Change

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_United_Nations_Climate_Change_Conference

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth_Summit

https://unfccc.int/cop3/fccc/climate/fact17.htm

https://public.wmo.int/en/bulletin/history-climate-activities

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"Climate Change", "Climate Devastation"

Thinbluelayer.com

Environmental Security

Earth Observations

Environmental Security, National Security

Earth Science Research from Space

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GreenPolicy360 & Strategic Demands:

www.strategicdemands.com

https://strategicdemands.com/environmental-security/

https://strategicdemands.com/new-definitions-of-security/

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Atmospheric Science

Earth Science

Our "Thin Blue" focus on atmospheric science & climate change

www.thinbluelayer.com

Rarely recognized as a 'strategically vital' natural resource, our home planet's thin blue layer of life protecting atmosphere is being disrupted

Today's industrial emissions are 'externalities', ominous costs adding up relentlessly in an experimental brew of risk & change to "Thin Blue"

Earth Science

Oceans heating accelerates

2015: Hottest in modern times Not new news, it's hotter

It's Hot: Is It Deniable? Ask the US Congress

'External Costs' and "Mother Nature's 'Invisible Hand'"

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After the Paris Agreement: "Now What?"

December 2015: The Climate Plan Agreement

INDC/Climate Plan Updates from GreenPolicy360

Paris Climate Agreement Tracker / CAIT Climate Data Explorer

http://cait.wri.org/indc/#/

http://cait.wri.org/indc/#/map

http://cait.wri.org/pledges/

Click on the Map for the Latest Country-by-Country News

GreenPolicy360 - Climate Plans Enforcement Initiative

Methods to Enforce Climate Plan Pledges

Pressuring Nations to Step Up, Cooperate, and Act Now

Com't on Earth Observation Satellites

Environmental Laws, Regs, Rules... Lawsuits & Legal Actions

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Pope Francis on the eve of the Climate mtgs

"It would be sad, and dare I say even catastrophic, were special interests to prevail over the common good and lead to manipulating information in order to protect their own plans and interests."

"The Pope focuses comments to those who reject the science behind global warming..."

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More Climate Policy Updates @GreenPolicy360

"Climate Change", aka, "Climate Disruption"

Climate News

Earth Science Politics

Earth Observations

Environmental Security

Climate Summit Agreement in Paris

More on National Climate Plans/INDCs

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Begin with the History of Climate Change Science

The Discovery of Global Warming

https://www.aip.org/history/climate/author.htm

https://www.aip.org/history/climate/summary.htm (with hyperlinks)

Congressman Brown / Science Committee in Front of Climate Action

National Climate Program Act, 1978 / PDF

The first US federal program established (1978) to study and assess scientifically the issues and risks of human-caused climate change

1981

Climate Impact of Increasing Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide

From the Journal of Science

28 August 1981, Volume 213, Number 4511

James Hansen et al.

Greenhouse Effect

Atmospheric CO2 increased from 280 to 300 parts per million in 1880 to 335 to 340 ppm in 1980, mainly due to burning of fossil fuels....

Summary. The global temperature rose by 0.20C between the middle 1960’s and1980, yielding a warming of 0.4°C in the past century. This temperature increase is consistent with the calculated greenhouse effect due to measured increases of atmospheric carbon dioxide. Variations of volcanic aerosols and possibly solar luminosity appear to be primary causes of observed fluctuations about the mean trend of increasing temperature. It is shown that the anthropogenic carbon dioxide warming should emerge from the noise level of natural climate variability by the end of the century, and there is a high probability of warming in the 1980’s. Potential effects on climate in the 21st century include the creation of drought-prone regions in North America and central Asia as part of a shifting of climatic zones, erosion of the West Antarctic ice sheet with a consequent worldwide rise in sea level, and opening of the fabled Northwest Passage.