As land ice on Greenland, other Arctic islands, and Antarctica melts, the water enters the ocean. This, not only causes sea levels to rise but also redistributes the planet’s mass with the added water giving Earth an expanded waistband at the equator.

An article appearing on March 27, 2024, in the journal Nature, describes how the atomic clock based on the precise vibrations of cesium atoms and used by computing networks to keep time can go out of sync with Earth days bound to the planet’s rotation.

Since 1972 a method to keep the two in synch has added leap seconds 27 times with the last added on December 31, 2016. Meanwhile, Earth’s spin continues to slow by a couple of milliseconds (0.001 seconds) per century.

There are fluctuations. For example, June 29, 2022, saw length of day (a term scientists use for precise timekeeping) equal to one planetary rotation faster by 1.59 milliseconds. This marked the shortest day on record since the atomic clock was adopted.

Today, the world’s official time is Coordinated Universal Time (UTC). It is used to regulate clocks across time zones around the planet. UTC replaced Greenwich Mean Time (GMT), a term still used, and facilitates international communication, navigation, scientific research, and commerce.

Before the discovery that climate change was altering the speed of Earth’s rotation, the known physical forces impacting length of day were the Moon, the Sun and the spin of the planet’s solid iron core. The Moon causes ocean tidal bulges which subtly change the planet’s shape. The Sun’s gravitational pull causes the side of Earth facing it to bulge affecting the spin. Recently, scientists discovered that Earth’s solid core spins at a different rate than the planet’s surface and appears to be slowing down. The consequences of the latter have yet to be determined related to changes in length of day.

Until now, melting ice from atmospheric warming had never been considered a factor affecting length of day. Now geophysicists are concluding that human-caused climate change may play a bigger role in altering Earth’s spin rate. Instead of adding leap seconds, scientists are predicting we may introduce negative seconds to account for the planet’s changing rotation.

One of the Nature study article authors, Duncan Agnew, a geophysicist at the University of California San Diego, told CNN “Part of figuring out what is going to happen in global timekeeping … is dependent on understanding what is happening with the global warming effect …To me, the fact that human beings have caused the rotation of the Earth to change is kind of amazing.” Stated Ted Scambos, a glaciologist at the University of Colorado who is not one of the paper’s authors, this could cause “a yikes moment for some computer applications.”

Our planet is more dynamic than previously thought. If melting ice speeds up rotation, what would massive amounts of ice in the Northern Hemisphere during the last Ice Age do? The flattening of the poles would have slowed the planet’s rotation.

Is anthropogenic global warming the only human influence on Earth’s spin? Last year, the American Geophysical Union published a letter in a scientific journal stating that humans had been using so much groundwater in the last two decades it was causing a shift in Earth’s mass causing the poles to move nearly a metre in the last two decades. In other words, human activity was tilting the planet.

The latest satellite data based on 25 years of observation shows that sea level rise by 2100 will double the original projections based on climate models. Originally the increase was expected to be a steady rate. But the data says something entirely different.

The cause is accelerated melting in Greenland and Antarctica with current projections indicating mean global sea levels will rise by 65 centimetres (26 inches). The implications for cities lying on coastlines are significant.

Steve Nerem, a professor of Aerospace Engineering Sciences at The University of Colorado – Boulder, who is working with NASA’s Sea Level Change project, believes the projected rise is a conservative estimate based on changes seen in the Arctic and Antarctic.

How is sea level measured? Since 1992, a series of satellites have been remotely monitoring the ocean surface using onboard altimeters. They initially observed an annual rise of 1.8 millimetres (0.07 inches) in 1993. Today the rise is 4.2 millimetres (0.17 inches) per year. The total rise since 1993 is 9.4 centimetres (4 inches).

The satellite data has been supplemented by tide gauge data collected for more than three decades. What is a tide gauge? It is an Earth-bound piece of monitoring equipment with sensors to record surrounding water level heights. Before we started measuring global sea level rise, tide gauges were used to support safe navigation along coastlines.

Gary Mitchum, at the College of Marine Science, University of South Florida, notes that the tide gauge data is “essential for determining the uncertainty in the global mean sea level acceleration estimate.” These Earth-based metrics provide backup to the satellite observations.

In the past, sea levels have dropped after volcanic eruptions and La Niña Southern Ocean oscillations, and have risen from thermal expansion during El Niños like the current strong one which no doubt has raised ocean levels temporarily.

The melting of polar ice from Greenland and Antarctica isn’t just contributing to rising seas. A 2021 Harvard study notes that when the glacial ice from these two areas melts it impacts the land lying beneath. We are still witnessing a phenomenon called isostatic rebound in North America from the last Ice Age which started 2.6 million years ago and ended in geological time very recently a mere 11,000 years ago.

Sophie Coulson is the lead author of the 2021 Harvard study published in Geophysical Research Letters. In an article in The Harvard Gazette, Coulson talked about the various forces imposed on Earth’s crust by tectonic movement. She stated, “We need to be able to separate…motion generated by modern-day ice-mass loss.” In addition, she noted that “Earth is actually still rebounding from that ice melting.”

Coulson is making reference to an observed phenomenon, that parts of North America continue to rise from the disappearance of the ice causing warping of the continental landmass hundreds of kilometres away. A good example is the land around the Chesapeake Bay warping downward as Pennsylvania does the opposite and rises to the northwest.

Another consequence of melting polar ice is changes to the composition of ocean surface water. Freshwater ice melt is diluting the saltwater. Freshwater’s lower specific gravity causes it to overlay heavier saltwater layers.

In addition, the land ice melt contributes to changes in the amount of sea ice exposing more surface water to the atmosphere with its increasing burden of carbon dioxide (CO2) from anthropogenic sources of pollution. The greater exposure means a warmer ocean surface which can then absorb more CO2 which creates carbonic acid which makes the Arctic Ocean more acidic, threatening regional biodiversity.

For humans on land, these dynamic forces represent a variety of challenges. If sea levels are accelerating, coastal communities will be further subjected to flooding. It means coastal freshwater aquifers will experience more saltwater intrusion. And if biodiversity within the ocean is negatively impacted, it means that communities dependent on the largesse of the ocean will face greater food insecurity.

Climate predictability is an important aspect of planning for farmers. It is equally important for cities and towns. In Canada, the Canadian Centre for Climate Modelling and Analysis (CCCma) simulates Canada’s future climate from seasonal to hundred-year forecasts. CCCma has six models simulating global, regional, ocean and atmospheric changes. The ability to drill down to localities is not currently available. The last update on the government site bears a June 6, 2017 date stamp. A lot has happened to the world’s climate since these simulations were constructed. If I am a city manager looking for mitigation and adaptation strategies in the future, Canada’s federal effort to date needs work. 

The United States, on the other hand, has developed a far more robust climate simulation capacity. The Center for Climate Resilience and Decision Science (CCRDS) is located at The Argonne National Laboratory in Illinois. It has launched a Climate Risk and Resilience Portal (ClimRR) for individuals, governments and organizations to study simulated future climate conditions from mid-century to 2100. 

CCRDS is using a supercomputer to manage and model the data. Local communities can examine current, mid-century and end-of-century climate data points and download Local Climate Projections Reports. The National Map Explorers tool provides historical baseline, mid-century and end-of-century heat indices, temperature maximum and minimums, degree days, fire weather indices, precipitation, drought and wind-speed projection maps for the entire country with the ability to drill down to specific towns, cities, counties and states. Data reports can be generated in CSV formats to populate spreadsheets and databases.

The portal offers sample cases to help users how to create similar ones for their localities. These use cases can allow public health officials and emergency response managers to prepare for extreme climate changes and update mitigation and adaptation plans. Communities with limited resources can use the climate vulnerability data to help apply for federal, state and philanthropic funding to build local resilience.

The supercomputer that hosts ClimRR is currently the second fastest in the world. Called Aurora (see picture above), it will soon be upgraded to become the fastest. Aurora is being used to train artificial intelligence weather models to help with extremely local forecasting. The granularity that ClimRR can produce using Aurora’s supercomputer horsepower will allow for neighbourhood-specific weather forecasts that predict precipitation leading to flooding, or thunderstorms spawning tornadoes. Aurora’s ability to do 2 billion-billion calculations per second will make it Earth’s most powerful climate change prediction tool.

The climatologists tell us that we have El Niño to thank or blame for the crazy weather we are experiencing. That plus global warming of the atmosphere from rising carbon dioxide (CO2) levels is also cited.

The weather is getting odder almost everywhere. In Atlantic Canada, Nova Scotia has seen record snowfalls in the last week. Scientists are studying changes in the Atlantic Meridional Current (AMOC) that is fuelled by the Gulf Stream and North Atlantic Drift noting that there are signs of a future collapse which would dramatically alter the weather of Western Europe and parts of Eastern North America. What is fuelling the change which has been described as a tipping point?

The melting of Greenland ice as well as that from other lands and islands in the North Atlantic and Arctic Ocean are leaving a noticeable temperature and salinity footprint. Freshwater melt that washes into the North Atlantic overlays the denser saltwater. AMOC’s northeastern flow from Florida to the coast of Europe is intercepted south of Greenland and Iceland. The result, Newfoundland and Labrador have seen increasing quantities of spectacular icebergs calving off Greenland’s glaciers. When the warmer water from the south hits the fresh meltwater and saltier, colder ocean off Greenland the latter sinks and gets conveyed south where ocean heating in the tropics causes it to rise and start the journey back northward.

Will AMOC Run Amok?

A study published this week in the journal, Science Advances, states that all the elements are in place for an amok AMOC with a collapse leading to significant global climate impacts. The earliest warning signs are showing up in the South Atlantic off the coast of South Africa.

The study mentioned above notes that “ocean, atmosphere, and sea-ice responses strongly influence the regional climates across the globe.” Changes to AMOC can cause climate-altering effects in Europe, North America and the Amazon rainforest. After a collapse both hemispheres would see changes, the North getting colder, the South getting warmer.

We see climate-altering effects from the ocean today. The reverse sea ice albedo effect occurs every winter in the Northern Hemisphere when the Arctic freezes. This causes dramatic temperature drops in North Atlantic coastal communities from Greenland to Norway, to Newfoundland and Labrador.

Historically we may have seen an AMOC hiccough in the 18th century with Europe’s Little Ice Age from 1750 through to 1850. The cause may have been a sudden increase in sea ice melt in the North Atlantic causing surface freshwater forcing.

Prehistoric records show evidence of an AMOC collapse at the end of the last Ice Age. When the ice advance peaked in North America 21,000 years ago and the melting began, it formed Lake Agassiz, larger than all of the Great Lakes combined. The outlet to this post-glacial lake that stretched from where Lake Winnipeg and Lake Ontario are today was the Mississippi River because a lobe of the melting ice blocked the northeasterly outlet following the St. Lawrence River valley. When that lobe disappeared the flow from Lake Agassiz reversed from south to northeast meeting the North Atlantic in the Gulf of St. Lawrence. This caused massive freshwater forcing and a complete disruption of the AMOC. As the lake emptied sea levels in the North Atlantic rose 1.5 metres (almost 5 feet) submerging coastlines and altering plant and animal habitats.

The Warning Signs Today and Consequences

Climatologists believe the AMOC tipping point will first show observable changes in the Atlantic Ocean, both north and south of the equator. The ocean off South Africa today is showing early warning signs with negative freshwater flows being observed affecting the ocean’s Global Conveyor Belt. These observed negative trends at around 34 Degrees South will in time increasingly impact ocean salinity. Between 25 and 50 years from now, this could lead to a loss of about 75% of the heat transport from the South Atlantic to the North which will affect the Gulf Stream and North Atlantic Drift. How near or far are we from this AMOC tipping point?

The AMOC collapse could be fast or slow taking as long as a century to play out. If fast, Europe would generally experience average temperature declines of between 5 and 10 Celsius (9 and 18 Fahrenheit) within a century. The collapse would reverse the wet and dry seasons in the Amazon, disrupt weather over the Sahara, and impact seasonal monsoons in the Indian Ocean.

If the collapse is slow, the observed changes will be more manageable. We may have time to intercede through a rapid reduction in greenhouse gas emissions from industrial sources. We may have more time to adapt.

A final note: Based on the latest climate modelling, current global climate change policies have the world on a path to heat up by 2.7 Celsius (4.9 Fahrenheit) by 2100.

Decarbonization can happen naturally or can involve human intervention. When we think of natural ways to decarbonize, the first image that comes to mind is reforestation. Trees are great at sucking up carbon dioxide (CO2), so we should plant more of them and cut less of them. But there are other natural ways to decarbonize. Soil can be an effective carbon sink. Grasslands as well. And then there is peat, which can suck up its fair share of CO2 and sequester it, that is until we dig it up and burn it. And not to be overlooked, there is algae.

Algae is what constitutes seaweed. Seaweed can form huge kelp farms or can float on ocean surfaces like sargassum. Recently, The Economist published a special report on CO2 removal. One of the projects described in its report is being run by Maine-based Running Tide, a self-described “world leader in ocean carbon removal.” The location is Iceland where the company is building Carbon Buoys (see picture below), made from alkaline-coated woody biomass seeded with Ulva lactuca, a common seaweed. The goal of the project is to create a fast-cycle carbon sink in the ocean.

What I didn’t mention at the outset of this article is that the biggest natural decarbonizer on the planet are the world’s oceans, absorbing 30 to 40% of all the CO2 humans emit into the atmosphere. Seaweed plays a part in ocean carbon capture. When it dies, it sinks to the ocean floor where its biomass either gets consumed by the fauna that inhabit the ocean depths or remineralizes when coming in contact with marine sediments.

Running Tide’s Carbon Buoys are made from harvested biomass taken from sawmills and agricultural operations. They are given an alkaline coat which is sourced from lime kiln dust, olivine, or basalt. They are seeded with juvenile sea lettuce or other seaweeds and set adrift. The seaweed grows quickly, eventually reaching a state of negative buoyancy causing them to sink. Seaweed like sea lettuce sequesters three times more carbon than phytoplankton. The Carbon Buoys also sink faster than phytoplankton after they die.

What is the purpose of the alkaline coating? When the ocean decarbonizes the atmosphere the CO2 that dissolves in it makes the water more acidic. As the Carbon Buoys drift, the alkaline coating counters this acidity, a bonus.

Running Tide plans to deploy Carbon Buoys in ocean currents to grow seaweed that within two weeks will drop to the ocean floor. Areas, where the buoys are to be released, have ocean floors with high rates of sedimentation to ensure the carbon becomes embedded in the seafloor. These include areas of the North Atlantic, North Pacific, and Antarctic Southern Ocean.

Sargassum is also seen as a decarbonizing candidate. At Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, oceanographers are looking to use it. Sargassum is found in temperate latitudes of the Mid-Atlantic Ocean. Researchers associate recent massive sargassum blooms that have drifted onto Caribbean island beaches as evidence of climate change. On the beaches, sargassum is unattractive and also a health hazard. It emits hydrogen sulphide gas and is not good for tourism. If gathered offshore, however, it could become an excellent decarbonizer if sunk.

A third seaweed decarbonizing idea comes from the University of California – Davis. Off California’s coast, giant kelp grows more than a half-metre (almost 2 feet) a day. Kelp can take up to 20 to 30 carbon atoms for every nitrogen atom absorbed. An underwater 100-metre (330-foot) square kelp field, if grown along 63% of the world’s coastlines would sequester 0.1 gigatons of carbon per year according to a committee report produced for the United States National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. Not all ocean areas provide conditions favourable to this approach.

Another study published in the journal Communications Earth & Environment last June proposed to pull nutrient-rich water from the ocean depths using artificial upwelling to make large-scale seaweed farming viable as a decarbonizing strategy.

It remains unclear if there is a downside to dropping massive amounts of biomass on the seafloor. If local marine life cannot consume it, and if the mineralizing potential of the seabed is less than optimal, when it rots it will deoxygenate the deepest parts of the water column making this area of the ocean uninhabitable for anything but anaerobic microbes.

But what is missing when describing CH4’s atmospheric impact is its short duration lasting a mere 12 years, and certainly no more than 20. CH4 after becomes CO2 and water vapour. So we still have two potent greenhouse gasses to deal with after the fact.

A quick comparison with CO2 shows that its impact is far greater lasting between 300 and 1,000 years. CO2 only leaves the atmosphere when it is absorbed by oceans, plants, soil, and the weathering of rocks. The latter occurs when CO2 combined with water falls as precipitation on basalt which turns into calcium carbonate, better known as limestone.

Greenhouse Gas Facts

CH4 and CO2 aren’t the only greenhouse gasses. What follows gives you some pertinent facts:

• A kilogram of CH4 is expressed as equivalent to 29.8 kilograms of CO2 in terms of its molecular heat-trapping potential.
• Nitrous oxide (N2O) another potent greenhouse gas is equivalent to 298 kilograms of CO2 in comparison.
• Hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), Perfluorocarbons (PFCs), Sulphur hexafluoride (SF6), and Nitrogen trifluoride (NF3) used in industry and refrigerants today represent much smaller volumes but over 20 years have a warming potential that ranges from 460 to 16,300 times greater than CO2.
• Water vapour is the most potent greenhouse gas but human activity plays no direct part in Earth’s water cycle. When discussing anthropogenic climate change, therefore, the impact of water vapour on atmospheric warming is not factored in.
• Compared to all of the above, CO2 has the lowest atmospheric warming potential. But it makes up for the low potential in volume and by the length of time it lingers.
• A kilogram of CO2 entering the atmosphere today will be around for as long as a thousand years. Humans are not putting kilograms but rather megatons of CO2 into the air annually. When compared to volcanic eruptions each year, we produce 60 times more. Our total emissions for 2022 were 36.8 billion tons. That was 0.9% higher than in 2021 but lower than the rate of global economic growth at 3.2%.

The Fallacy of Focus at COP28 

Why is a potency comparison between CH4 and CO2 such an issue? Because headlines from COP28 in Dubai included agreements about CH4 and got front-page coverage.

A global pledge by 155 governments and 50 oil and gas companies to reduce CH4 from oil and gas, waste, and agricultural activities was featured in press conferences and the final communiqué. It contained a CH4 reduction target of 30% by 2030 from 2020 levels, describing this as “the fastest way to reduce near-term warming” and “to keep a 1.5 Celsius temperature limit within reach.”

CH4 was described as contributing 30% of current global warming and was further seen as a contributor to tropospheric ozone (aka ground-level ozone), the latter described as being the cause of hundreds of thousands of deaths and millions of tons in crop losses annually.

The communiqué went further, stating that a rapid reduction in CH4 emissions would mitigate near-term global warming and contribute to better health, food security, and energy security for humanity and the planet.

CH4 Balderdash Revealed

CH4 emissions are the least of our greenhouse gas worries. The amount of warming caused by CH4 is short-term because it doesn’t accumulate in the atmosphere for 12 to 20 years. Then it degrades to become a CO2 problem. Delay CH4 action and its effect vanishes in two decades. Delay acting on CO2, and it keeps accumulating for up to 1,000 years. That’s why every added kilogram of CO2 is the much greater global warming threat.

If you don’t believe me, Raymond Pierrehumbert, a physicist and professor at the University of Oxford, in a recent interview appearing in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists makes the same point. He states,

“Whereas a kilogram per year of CO2 will mount up to a certain amount of warming in the first 20 years…if you keep emitting that kilogram per year, the amount of warming you get continues to increase indefinitely, which does not happen with CH4.”  

Pierrehumbert compares the two gasses for their global warming impact using the analogy of a car trip.

“CO2 is like the total distance your car has gone, so it’s the cumulative progress towards your destination, and our destination, in this case, is making the world too hot to be livable. Whereas CH4 is just like the speed at which the car is going…a stock versus flow problem…CH4 is a flow pollutant; it doesn’t accumulate in the atmosphere. CO2 is a stock pollutant. The harm is determined by the cumulative stock of it in the atmosphere.”

Regarding COP28, Pierrehumbert concludes that the fixation with CH4 is a “seduction” a “mass delusion and wishful thinking.” The focus on CH4 reduction will not contribute significantly to mitigating climate change when “compared to how much warming we’re going to get in 100 years if we don’t decarbonize.”

For the industry in Canada to be emission-free by 2050, the current 2030 cap will need to see rapid decreases beyond that date. The federal governing party is in the minority and could lose its mandate anytime in the next two years. Its Conservative opposition wants to eliminate Canada’s carbon pricing policy which currently sets a price for carbon pollution at $65 CDN (approximately $48 US) per ton, rising $15 per ton per year until 2030. So far, the Conservatives have no plan to replace carbon pricing, and no stated policy to reduce carbon emissions. They are an outlier when it comes to supporting the United Nations’ goal of a zero-emissions world by mid-century.

Not having a plan in the face of evidence that tipping points are getting nearer for the Earth’s climate, which is the current position of Canada’s federal Conservative Party, is negligence of the highest order and, in my book, a crime against both humanity and nature.

Climate Global Tipping Points Are Near And Now

At COP28, a report released provides a scientific assessment by more than 200 researchers, 96 organizations and 26 countries, called Global Tipping Points. In its summary, it states

“Harmful tipping points in the natural world pose some of the gravest threats faced by humanity. Their triggering will severely damage our planet’s life-support systems and threaten the stability of our societies.”

What is the common denominator to set these tipping points off?

Exceeding a rise of 1.5 Celsius (2.7 Fahrenheit) of atmospheric warming will mean that business as usual is over, that linear incremental change, favoured by governments today, no longer cuts it.

The tipping points report says“transformational change” is needed now. It acknowledges some of this is happening now through the growth of renewables and an increase in electric vehicles. The pace of change, however, is not fast enough to stop triggering five tipping points that are already lines that have been crossed. There are three more in the offing that likely will happen in the 2030s.

So what are the ones we have already set off?

• The collapse of Greenland’s glaciers is happening now.
• The melting of the West Antarctic ice sheet is visible on satellite images.
• Widespread permafrost thaw is leaking thousands of tons of potent greenhouse gas into the atmosphere.
• Coral reefs are experiencing massive die-offs.
• The North Atlantic Meridional Current is slowing and in danger of stopping.

Tree additional tipping points that may occur in the 2030s include:

• The widespread loss of mangroves that protect coastlines from rising sea levels and extreme weather.
• The loss of seagrass meadows that keep coastal erosion in check and provide a rich environment for marine life.
• The wholesale loss of much of our tropical and boreal forests.

Some of these tipping points are interlinked. For example:

• The collapse of Greenland’s glaciers is directly linked to what will happen to the North Atlantic Meridional Current which warms Europe. When it stops, Europe will be a much colder and inhospitable continent.
• Permafrost thaw will cause temperatures to spike temporarily even higher causing a domino effect for other tipping points.
• The melting of Greenland and West Antarctica will raise sea levels which will contribute to mangrove and seagrass loss.

Tipping points cross environmental thresholds.  Humanity has not experienced anything quite like these since the end of the last Ice Age. Yes, there have been droughts. Remember the Dust Bowl of the Dirty 30s. But the retreat of ice beginning 12,000 years ago soon led to the start of the Holocene, coincident with the beginning of the Neolithic Revolution. We owe our modern civilization’s roots to a tipping point in the climate at that time.

Are we prepared to cross thresholds that will lead to a cascade of tipping points with ecological and sociological consequences? Are we sufficiently ready to deal with tipping points that could lead to a wholesale breakdown of our economic, social and political systems?

The Global Tipping Points report wants us to have answers to these questions and acknowledges that we are doing some things right in the present. The rapid growth of renewables and the emergence of electric vehicles (EVs) may slow down climate change. But we need much more transformational change than what these two can provide.

What is so frustrating is that the solutions to stop tipping points are already known. The report lists them.

1. Phase out fossil fuels and land use emissions now.
2. Strengthen adaptation and loss-and-damage governance.
3. Include tipping points in Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs), a term that is readily bandied about at annual COP meetings, assessing exposure, measuring preventive actions, and managing potential impacts.
4. Coordinate and trigger more positive tipping points through coalitions of state and non-state actors.
5. Create a global forum that meets regularly to focus on tipping point threats and actions.
6. Increase our scientific knowledge about climate change and monitor the planet more closely to track the negatives and positives we do to contribute to tipping points.

The scientists behind the report recognize that the term “tipping points” may become overused. If we call what will happen something else, however, it doesn’t change what the impact of atmospheric mean temperatures rising 2.5 to 4.0 Celsius (4 to 7.2 Fahrenheit) will be.

We know what science reveals about Earth’s past through the geological and fossil record which shows evidence of dramatic changes over hundreds of millions of years that altered our planet over time. We have put placeholder names on the timeline of the planet designating these momentous and dramatic changes: Cretaceous, Carboniferous, Jurassic, Triassic, etc. The difference today is that what geology recorded over hundreds of millions of years of changing climate is happening now in decades. If that isn’t disturbing, I don’t know what is.

Here in Canada, we could face our own tipping point if a future elected government ignores what well-supported scientific research and data collecting is revealing. Science and governance need to be on the same page.

Today, according to the Global Coal Mine Tracker there are:

• Approximately 4,300 working coal mines and projects around the world account for 95% of the coal burned today.
• 9,000 coal-fired thermal power plants contributed 40% of the carbon emissions produced by utilities in 2022 producing 15.5 Gigatons of carbon dioxide (CO2) released into the atmosphere that year.
• Coal provides 90% of the energy used to make cement, 70% of the energy for steel, and 61% for aluminum. How much CO2 is produced? Using cement as an example, if it was a country it would be the third-biggest source of CO2 emissions, with only China and the United States generating more.

Burning coal produces aerosols and particulate matter which form the haze and smog enveloping cities like New Delhi, Beijing, Shanghai, and others. A recent University College London study attributes 1 in 5 global deaths each year or approximately 8 million from breathing air containing the aerosols and particulate matter produced by burning fuels like coal (other fossil fuels like oil, gasoline and diesel are contributors as well). Burning coal’s particulate matter emissions aggravate respiratory conditions like asthma and contribute to lung cancer, coronary heart disease, and strokes.

Rebranding Coal Messaging is an Exercise in Greenwashing

The Alliance for Sustainable Coal would rather we ignore all of the above. In its rebranding, it has produced Coal Hard Facts to do, as it states, increase our collective coal IQ.

Want to see greenwashing at its best and find out why coal is good for us? Read what follows.

1. Coal comes from organic matter laid down hundreds of millions of years ago. All the industry is doing is using that stored ancient solar energy that was transformed over time. So, essentially, coal is solar energy preserved.
2. Coal provides 36% of global electricity with predictions that it will still account for 22% by 2040 making it the single largest power source on the planet for the foreseeable future.
3. Coal abatement technologies which remain in their infancy, with many unproven, could capture up to 99% of emissions. These technologies can tackle sulphur dioxides, nitrogen oxides, particulate matter (PM), CO2, methane (CH4) and other waste products. What the Alliance doesn’t address is the timelines to perfect and build abatement technologies such as flue gas desulphurization add-ons, electrostatic precipitators to trap PM, and carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) and carbon capture utilization and storage (CCUS).
4. Coal can be used to produce cheap hydrogen seen as a critical fuel source for a sustainable energy future. The Alliance states that coal is the cheapest way to produce hydrogen which it projects will account for 14% of the world’s energy needs by 2050. Today, a first-of-its-kind coal-to-hydrogen plant in Yulin, China is operating, producing 350,000 tons of the gas annually and reducing CO2 emissions by 220,000 tons. The Alliance doesn’t talk about the industry’s commitment to building many more.
5. Coal can feed the planet by reducing the need for nitrogen-based fertilizers. Instead, through coal gasification, the industry can produce ammonia for fertilizers, and brown or immature coals can be turned into soil supplements called humates, which constitute a major organic ingredient found in soils.
6. What are currently seen as toxic leftovers from coal production, the heavy metals found in coal waste ash and sludge can be mined to extract essential metals like aluminum, cobalt, copper, iron, lead, silver, nickel and zinc. Many of these materials are needed for the electrification of transportation. The Alliance calls them “indispensable” in transitioning to a low-carbon future.
7.  Coal is indispensable to building civilization. It is a critical resource in steel, cement, and aluminum production. Coal is indispensable in producing wind and solar energy materials and, in essence, a key building block to address the environmental challenges its burning has produced.

The Alliance argues that all energy sources need to be considered equally if the global community is to be true to the Paris Climate Agreement which required the world to take action “using all means necessary.” So by all means, coal needs to be in the mix.

A Future for Coal in a Low-Carbon World

Coal’s sustainable future beyond the burning of could lead to business opportunities that go beyond what the Alliance is championing in its Coal Hard Facts. These include:

• Coal-to-liquids (CTL) to produce gasoline, diesel, and jet fuel.
• Synthetic liquid hydrocarbons including paraffins such as alkanes, alkenes, alkynes, and naphthenes, such as cycloalkanes, and aromatics, such as xylene and benzene.
• Methanol, and agrichemicals.
• Graphene for use in electronics, energy storage, and photovoltaics.
• Carbon fibre to be used in composites to make lightweight and durable manufactures such as air and spacecraft parts, automotive bodies, bicycle frames, fishing rods, tennis rackets and golf clubs, automobile springs, sailboat masts and more.
• Carbon or char bricks used where high heat resistance structures are needed.
• Olefins for use in plastics, adhesives and detergents.
• Alumina for the production of aluminum and high-voltage insulation.
• Activated carbon filters to remove organic chemicals from water.

If the world moves to a low-carbon future, it doesn’t mean the end of coal. It does mean the end of burning coal. That should be the most important Coal Hard Fact that the Global Alliance for Sustainable Coal needs to present at COP28 and implement if it wants to support the mineral’s use in charting a future within the 21st century.

• Canada will not meet its 2030 emission reduction targets state government oversight body.
• Canada removes carbon pricing from home heating oil putting its market-driven program to lower the country’s emissions in jeopardy.
• Polls in the United States show that fewer people believe climate change is caused by human activity. The drop is dramatic for both registered Democrats and Independents.
• Climate change loss and damage fund set up with $500 million initially to be managed by the World Bank to cover compensation for rising sea levels, extreme heat waves, desertification, forest fires, crop failures, and other climate-related events.
• COP28, the annual meeting of nations focused on mitigating and adapting to climate change convenes at the end of this month led by a UAE oil executive.

But the one that stood out most comes from James Hansen, the scientist who first raised the climate change alarm to the American government several decades ago. Hansen is the lead author of an Oxford Academic paper published in the last week. In it, the authors describe how declining aerosol emissions since 2010 that we might associate with being a good thing is contributing to the speed-up of atmospheric warming. How so?

Since the onset of the Industrial Revolution, industry and marine transportation have spewed megatons of aerosol particles into the atmosphere making clouds brighter and more persistent and reflecting the Sun’s rays into space. These aerosols countered the warming effects of rising greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions even though their persistence lasted only a fraction of the time compared to carbon dioxide (CO2). But industry and marine shipping have been transitioning from dirty sulphur-rich fuels and have made the atmosphere less cloudy.

The result as described in the above-mentioned paper is an increase in the rate of atmospheric warming not previously accounted for in climate change models. The paper states that without a rapid phaseout of GHG emissions the decline in aerosol emissions since 2010 “should increase the 1970–2010 global warming rate of 0.18 Celsius [0.324 Fahrenheit] per decade to a post-2010 rate of at least 0.27 Celsius [0.486 Fahrenheit] per decade. Thus, under the present geopolitical approach to GHG emissions, global warming will exceed 1.5 Celsius [2.7 Fahrenheit] in the 2020s and 2 Celsius [3.6 Fahrenheit] before 2050. Impacts on people and nature will accelerate as global warming increases hydrologic (weather) extremes.” 

The paper has attracted significant criticism from many of his climate scientist peers who argue that the hypothesis is more an opinion piece, that it lacks rigour and represents a hotchpotch of gathered facts that do a disservice to the field. One climate scientist characterized the paper as simply “wrong.”

Hansen has never been a big fan of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and the methodology that governs its annual reports. He has seen his role as equivalent to the canary in the coal mine. In an article appearing in Inside Climate News, he points out that humans are geoengineering the climate right now stating, “This is what we’re doing by putting these huge amounts of greenhouse gas into the atmosphere at a greater rate than has ever occurred in the Earth’s history, as far as we know.”

Is Hansen being an alarmist, or is he pointing to something all climate scientists need to consider? After all, the modern treatment of climate science is a little more than a half-century old. The first paper of note appeared in 1967 authored by researchers at the Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory, Environmental Science Services Administration, located in Washington, D.C. It linked atmospheric temperature sensitivity to changes in CO2 levels. Since its publication, more than 41,000 papers have appeared with more than 99% linking human activity to observed climate change. This is the accumulated published science that has become the gospel of climate change.

Will this Hansen-led paper add to it or be a distraction? It is too soon to know, but its publication less than a month before the beginning of COP28 in Dubai is well-timed to turn heads within the climate science community.

This summer in the Northern Hemisphere, temperatures have never been hotter. Is this because of a strong El Niño happening in the Pacific, or is this more evidence that we are losing the battle to mitigate global warming?

The warming isn’t just happening north of the equator. Scientists monitoring sea ice surrounding Antarctica indicated that the maximum reached as of September 13, 2023, was 1.75 million square kilometres (676,000 square miles) less in extent than the mean based on data collected between 1981 and 2010. Antarctica has seen rainy days over the past few years, a rare phenomenon for a continent encased in snow and ice. With less sea ice, the Southern Ocean surrounding Antarctica is warming which accelerates the loss even more.

The Arctic Ocean, in recent years, has seen some of its lowest sea ice maximums but compared to the Antarctic appears more stable. Greenland, however, is exhibiting losses similar to those observed at the southern pole. Named Greenland by early Viking explorers who colonized areas along the coast during the Medieval Optimum, the island may soon begin to earn its green moniker again as it experiences accelerated meltdowns of the island-wide ice sheet. The question that climatologists are asking is can the Greenland ice loss be reversed even if mean global atmospheric temperatures rise beyond 1.5 Celsius?

The latest climate modelling points to abrupt and rapid acceleration should mean atmospheric temperatures rise 2.3 Celsius (4.1 Fahrenheit). Nils Bochow, a climate scientist from The Arctic University of Norway in Tromsø, who is the lead author of a study appearing in Nature doesn’t believe that we are beyond the ability to stabilize and reverse the island’s ice loss even if we surpass these temperature thresholds. He notes, however, that acting now to mitigate global warming will be a good “bet against time” because “it gets only harder the longer we wait.”

The biggest threat from Greenland’s accelerating ice melt is the impact it is having on sea level rise now and in the future. The island contains enough ice to raise ocean levels by 7 metres (almost 23 feet). The current annual ice loss of 270 billion tons is raising sea levels by 4 millimetres (0.157 inches) per year. If the anticipated acceleration from rising temperatures occurs (highly likely) climatologists do not believe the entire Greenland ice sheet will vanish. And if climate mitigating actions throughout the rest of the century were to occur, mean global temperature rise could reverse. But ocean level rise amounting to several metres will be with us for centuries if not millennia in the future.

The Antarctic picture has enormous implications for the fragile wildlife that depends on the preservation of the Southern Ocean sea ice and stable climate conditions. The latest victims of warming in Antarctica are Emperor Penguins who have seen significant losses in numbers with the threat of extinction. And seal populations dependent on sea ice as their habitat are also imperilled.

Vishnu Nandan and Robbie Mallett, from the Universities of Calgary and Manitoba respectively, have been in the Antarctic working with a British project called DEFIANT (Drivers and Effects of Fluctuations in sea Ice in the ANTarctic) with plans to deploy ground-based radar to track sea ice conditions. The data the two have been collecting shows that Antarctic sea ice is thinning. As it thins it loses its white colour, becoming opaque and eventually translucent. When white the ice reflects solar radiation. When opaque and translucent, it absorbs solar radiation converting it to heat. Polar oceans that warm are linked to climate disasters happening elsewhere on the planet.

All in all, the longer we wait to mitigate global warming, the more devastating the consequences. We can reverse temperature rise by eliminating the burning of fossil fuels. But the polar regions will have warmer oceans and changes to the life that has adapted and thrived there since the onset of the Ice Age some 2.58 million years ago.