Dear reader,
Beneficial as the accumulated knowledge of about forty years of climate research is, it can give the misleading impression that humanity knows exactly what the effects of the damage it is wreaking on the planet are.
From which tenth of a degree of warming the sea level rises by an exact amount, or how severe the harvest losses in global agriculture will be in 2050, depending on the warming scenario.
There are actually estimates for these questions, some more others less precise, mostly expressed in probabilities.
Theoretically, as a global community, we could now agree on what damage we are willing to accept, for example in the case of conflicting goals, such as those that occur all the time in politics.
A current example in the energy crisis is the trade-off between the short-term benefits of more fossil fuels and the resulting long-term climate damage.
Apart from the many problems that such a consideration would entail - regionally different effects of climate change etc. - a research team showed again this week that it is hardly possible anyway: Because we simply do not know in detail how the climate system works responding to the significant amounts of greenhouse gases that we have been depositing in the atmosphere for decades.
Or to put it another way: It is not certain that the changes due to warming that we are already seeing increase linearly with rising temperatures.
It is possible that they will rise sharply when certain threshold values, so-called tipping points, are reached.
"The earth may have left a safe climate state if global warming exceeds one degree Celsius," write the researchers led by David Armstrong McKay from the University of Exeter in their study in the journal Science.
"Even the goal of the Paris Agreement is not certain." Global warming is already at plus 1.1 degrees.
At 1.5 degrees there is a "significant probability" that several tipping points will be exceeded.
"In the Paris framework of 1.5 to under two degrees of warming, the probability continues to rise," the team notes.
The current temperatures are already endangering five of 16 identified tipping elements: There are already first signs that parts of the West Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets, some permafrost areas, the Amazon rainforest and the Atlantic overturning current, to which the Gulf Stream belongs, for example, are destabilized.
"Earth is on course to cross several dangerous tipping points, which will have catastrophic consequences for people around the world," warns co-author Johan Rockström, director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research.
In order to maintain livable conditions on earth, everything must be done to prevent tipping points from being exceeded.
"Every tenth of a degree counts."
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The topics of the week
Climate researchers criticize the relief package: "This is a fatal signal"
The government wants to freeze the price of CO₂ to relieve households.
That's wrong, experts warn.
They have ideas for social and climate-friendly crisis management - but they are ignored.
On course for 2.7 degrees: companies in the G7 countries can hardly achieve the Paris climate goals
There is a gap between the intentions of the largest industrialized nations to protect the climate and the transformation of the economy.
Germany is also on the wrong track, but is still doing quite well in comparison.
Insufficient climate target: tipping points could be exceeded even with a warming of just 1.5 degrees.
If certain regions of the world, such as the Greenland ice sheet, change irrevocably, there is a risk of domino effects.
Pessimistic scenarios are becoming increasingly likely, even if the Paris climate agreement is adhered to.
»Urgently needed relief«: the EU is producing more solar power than ever before
Solar power led a shadowy existence in Europe for a long time.
Gradually, however, the expansion is picking up speed - and the sunny summer did the rest.
stay confident
Yours, Kurt Stukenberg