About half of all CO2 emissions every year are taken back out of the atmosphere by being dissolved in the ocean or being sucked up by growing trees and plants. But the oceans are getting hotter and can therefore absorb less CO2 while on land hotter and drier conditions and more wildfires mean less plant growth.
Global land carbon sink halved in 2024, AI model suggests (phys.org) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45815912
There is credible evidence that warming has kicked into overdrive, and we will see more warming in the next 10 years than in the last 50. Think +3℃ not long after 2035, +4℃ some time before 2045.
+3℃ will see the tropics - the entire band between the Tropic of Cancer and the Tropic of Capricorn - see lethally high wet bulb temperatures in almost every region for at least a few weeks out of every year, meaning 4+B people will need to migrate away from the tropics or die. Imagine if America had 3× its population crash through its borders as climate refugees in a desperate attempt to continue living. And India is already flirting with lethal heat in real-time.
+4℃ is the point at which all megafauna - animals more than 55Kg (100lbs) - go extinct because of chaotic weather making it impossible to find sufficient food to survive. And humans are megafauna, too.
And with the Return on Research - how effective the discovery of new things is, per dollar spent - cratering by almost 98% in the last century, we will not be able to innovate our way out of our own extinction.
Fun times.
msie•3mo ago