damonmatthews.bsky.social
Climate scientist at Concordia in Montreal, co-creator of climateclock.net and Director of sustainabilitydigitalage.org. Interested in carbon budgets, nature-based solutions, AI-climate applications and many other things.
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If you subtract a large negative number (2015 aerosol forcing) from a smaller one (2024 aerosol forcing) you get a positive number (warming caused by decreased aerosol emissions between 2015 and 2024). This is what Zeke means by “unmasking”
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Congratulations!
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lol
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In reality your best bet is probably 1) more mitigation and 2) a diverse portfolio of durable CDR, as Fuhrman et al note here: iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1...
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The rate of warming is approximately proportional to annual emissions. So 50% cut in emissions would mean warming would continue at about half the current rate, and by that time we would also be approaching 2C and all of the climate disasters currently visible would be at least 50% worse
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The science: news.cornell.edu/stories/2024...
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Generative AI (language or images) is very energy intensive.
But many AI applications are not -- AI is many different things and it is helpful not to lump them all together, especially since the less energy intensive version are the ones that have the most potential to contribute to climate goals
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The report has ~400 beautiful figures and graphics. These are shareable (each has alt text you can copy and paste), downloadable, and reproducible via transparent metadata. They’re even available in powerpoint slides that can be dropped into your presentations. nca2023.globalchange.gov/all-figures/
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As parent of 2 Minecraft-obsessed boys it did strike pretty close to home
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Also nature-based solutions :)
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Can you add me to the Canadian climate scientists pack also?
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You are indeed the starter pack queen — I think everyone appreciates it
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Rate of attributable warming has increased — now 0.26C per decade (see: essd.copernicus.org/articles/16/...)
But this is a straightforward response to increasing global GHG emissions + declining aerosols emissions
I haven’t seen any evidence that the climate response to emissions is increasing
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Well the best way to deflect calls for climate reparations (I think) would be to step up and lead the world on decarbonization efforts ... until that happens, I think the fingers will continue pointing at the US to either step up or start compensating the rest of the world for its failure to do so
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The UK seems pretty on board already — their emissions have dropped by more than 50% since 1990 and they seem on track to meet their net zero by 2050 target
The US is who needs to step up
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To stabilize climate eventually all countries need to get to zero emissions. But the idea here is that the US should get there faster because of both higher historical responsibility and (in theory) higher capacity to do so
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In any case, if all of this is about whether EU or China is more responsible for historical warming, then their similar contribution to temperature increase is only one factor. Also need to consider things like relative wealth accrued, capacity to pay for damages, etc
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Good point! Though a surprising number of impacts scale reasonably well with global temperature. For some the non-linearity goes the other way also (e.g. cumulative stressors leading to higher vulnerability now -> same impact now has a larger effect than it would have earlier)
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But aerosols and other GHGs complicate the picture -- if we stop emitting everything then we would see short-term warming followed by longer-term cooling
see www.nature.com/articles/ncl... for example but more recent papers have shown the same thing
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If CO2 were the only greenhouse gas, then instantaneous zero emissions *would* halt warming (though not reverse it). This is the whole rationale for net zero as a requirement to stabilize climate
(see: www.nature.com/articles/s41... out this week)
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CO2 is recaptured gradually (not instantaneously) at about the same rate as the temperature response to the emission. The net effect is that each CO2 emission causes a ~step increase in T that stays constant over time (does not grow)
See agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....
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You seem very confident, but many papers suggest you are wrong about this one.