by Daniel Brouse
The atmosphere is acting like a blanket… and the earth (land and sea) is acting like a battery. 91% of the energy (as heat) is trapped/stored in the oceans.
Feedback Loops Example
The Albedo feedback loop between the earth and the CO2 in the atmosphere accelerates global warming at an exponential rate. Albedo is the fraction of incoming solar radiation that gets reflected back into space. Carbon plays a double whammy role in feedback loops.
Brown carbon on ice, snow, or permafrost absorbs more heat and releases more carbon and methane into the atmosphere… resulting in more warming… leading to more carbon being released from the earth, etc.
Brown carbon is light-absorbing organic carbon with a very low Albedo. “This class of organic carbon, known for its light brownish color, absorbs strongly in the ultraviolet wavelengths and less significantly going into the visible,” reports the Argonne National Laboratory.
There are several feedback loops between brown carbon, lightning, wildfires, and arctic warming. Brown carbon from wildfires warms the arctic. The warmer arctic absorbs more heat causing more wildfires. In turn, more wildfires cause more brown carbon resulting in a warmer arctic. The cycle keeps reinforcing itself as it repeats.
Studies have found lightning and forest fires are creating a feedback loop. Global warming causes more extreme weather events and conditions for lightning. More lightning sparks a vicious cycle, as trees and soil set ablaze release warming CO2 creating more storms and more lightning. The study Forests at Risk Due to Lightning Fires found a sensitivity of extratropical intact forests to potential increases in lightning fires, which would have far-reaching consequences for terrestrial carbon storage and biodiversity.
More wildfires create more CO2 and more brown carbon that result in more global warming that results in more lightning strikes creating more wildfires resulting in more global warming thawing more permafrost allowing more emissions of CO2 and methane resulting in more warming, creating many more feedback loops.
Feedback loops and tipping points are parts of an equation that determine the rate of acceleration in climate change. Triggering these tipping points results in the CO2 stored in nature to be released without the assistance of humans. Though we do not know how much carbon is stored in nature, it would be reasonable to assume that the temperature could be pushed from 3 degrees to 6 degrees above pre-industrial levels. Humans cannot thrive above a rise of 1.5 degrees. Much of the Earth will be uninhabitable if the temperature rises an additional 6 degrees Celsius. If humans also add 3 degrees Celsius, the temperature and humidity will approach a wet-bulb temperature that will not sustain human life.