Carbon dioxide, mass extinction of species and climate change

Figure 4. Sea level changes 1993-2009 scanned by the Topex and Jason satellites. University of Colorado, 2009

The Earth poles are warming at rates three to four times faster than low latitudes. The most detailed satellite information available shows that ice sheets in Greenland and western Antarctica are shrinking and in some places are already in runaway melt mode. A new study, using 50 million laser readings from a NASA satellite, calculates changes in the height of the vulnerable but massive ice sheets and found them especially worse at their edges, where warmer water eats away from below. In some parts of Antarctica, ice sheets have been losing 30 feet a year in thickness since 2003.

The consequences of open ended rise in atmospheric CO2 are manifest in the geological record (Frontispiece). The world is in a lag period, when increasing atmospheric energy is expressed by intense hurricanes, increased pressure at mid-latitude high pressure zones and shift of climate zones towards the poles. With ensuing desertification of temperate zones, i.e. southern Europe, southern Australia, southern Africa, the desiccated forests become prey to firestorms, such as in Victoria and California.

There is nowhere the 6.5 billion of contemporary humans can go, not even the barren planets into the study of which space agencies have been pouring more funding than governments allocate for environmental mitigation to date. At 460ppm CO2-equivalent, the climate is tracking close to the upper stability limit of the Antarctic ice sheet, defined at approximately 500ppm. Once transcended, mitigation measures would hardly be able to re-form the cryosphere.

According to Joachim Schellnhuber, Director of the Potsdam Climate Impacts Institute and advisor to the German government:

“We're simply talking about the very life support system of this planet”.

Humans can not argue with the physics and chemistry of the atmosphere. What is needed are urgent measures including:

1. deep cuts in carbon emissions;
2. parallel Fast track transformation to non-polluting energy utilities - solar, solar-thermal, wind, tide, geothermal, hot rocks; and
3. global reforestation and re-vegetation campaigns, including application of biochar.

The alternative does not bear contemplation.