This is why we talk of extinction - a slideshow precis/analysis for-the-busy of the latest UN IPCC scientists report on the climate crisis

....today they just got a whole lot worse
A slideshow precis for busy people by Jeremy Leggett
This is why we talk
of extinction
A slideshow precis/analysis for-the-busy
of the latest UN IPCC scientists report
on the climate crisis
by Jeremy Leggett

UN scientists review impacts of observed and
predicted global heating on land
7th Jan
2016
8th Aug
2019
This presentation covers the
impacts of global heating – the
first section of this IPCC report.
The IPCC report also considers
adaptation and mitigation
response options, which I will
cover in a later presentation.
Content from the report is clearly
labelled “IPCC” to distinguish it from
slides selected from the FutureToday
chronology to augment and amplify
points the IPCC makes.

Global heating is real, irrefutable, and is already
badly impacting humans, ecosystems, and land use
Change in surface air temperature
over land = 1.53˚C
relative to 1850 - 1900
Change in global (land & ocean) mean
surface temperature (GMST) = 0.87˚C
relative to 1850 - 1900
ipcc
Climate
Change
and Land
“Since the pre-
industrial period, the
land surface air
temperature has risen
nearly twice as much
as the global average
temperature”
“Climate change,
including increases in
frequency and intensity
of extremes, has
adversely impacted
food security and
terrestrial ecosystems
as well as contributed
to desertification and
land degradation in
many regions.”
2˚C: Paris Agreement
commitment (195
governments)
1.5˚C: Paris aspiration
0.87˚C: Global heating

7th Jan
2016
6th Feb
2019
2018 was the 4th hottest year ever, and all the
top 5 have been in the last 5: NASA and NOAA
Heatwaves are killing hundreds, wildfires are wiping out whole towns,
and there is much more to come as emissions rise, the agencies warn.

7th Jan
2016
June
2019
By how much will global temperatures rise?
….What a difference a degree makes
1.5˚C
0˚C
2˚C
4˚C
Paris Agreement target
Paris Agreement aspiration
3.3˚C
3.3˚C
4.4˚C
Current
policies
3.0˚C
2.4˚C
3.8˚C
Pledges
& targets
Source:

Above 1˚C risks to humans and ecosystems from
changes in land-based processes soar
Globalmeansurfacetemperaturechange˚C
relativetopre-industrialtime1850-1900
Yellow is moderate risk.. Red is high risk.. Purple is very high risk..
Levels of IPCC confidence in assessments: H is high, M is moderate, L is low.
2006
- 2015
Dryland
water
scarcity
Soil
erosion
Vegetation
loss
Wildfire
damage
ipcc
Climate
Change
and Land
We are near 1˚C already
Permafrost
degradation
Tropical
crop yield
decline
Food supply
instabilities
“Risks, including cascading risks, are projected to become increasingly severe”

Human land use has grown to affect more than 70%
of the global, ice free land surface of Earth today
Inorganic N fertiliser use
Cereal yields
Irrigation water volume
Total ruminant livestock
Changein%relativeto1961
As things stand we are (collectively) aiming for more, despite manifest
stresses: e.g. agriculture accounts for c. 70% of global fresh-water use.
ipcc
Climate
Change
and Land

23% of anthropogenic GHG emissions are now from
Agriculture, Forestry and Other Land Use (AFOLU)
Net CO2 emissions
from FOLU
CH4 emissions
from agriculture
N20 emissions
from agriculture
If emissions associated with pre- and post-production activities in the
global food system are included, the emissions are estimated to be up to
37% of total net anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions.
ipcc
Climate
Change
and Land

Above 1˚C risks to humans and ecosystems from
changes in land-based processes soar
Globalmeansurfacetemperaturechange˚C
relativetopre-industrialtime
Yellow is moderate risk.. Red is high risk.. Purple is very high risk..
Levels of IPCC confidence in assessments: H is high, M is moderate, L is low.
2006
- 2015
Dryland
water
scarcity
Soil
erosion
Vegetation
loss
Wildfire
damage
ipcc
Climate
Change
and Land
We are near 1˚C already
Permafrost
degradation
Tropical
crop yield
decline
Food supply
instabilities
“Risks, including cascading risks, are projected to become increasingly severe”

About a quarter of the Earth’s ice-free land area is
subject to human-induced degradation
In 2015, about 500 (380-620) million people lived within areas which
experienced desertification between the 1980s and 2000s.
Population in areas
experiencing desertification
Dryland areas in drought
annually (increased >1%
per year 1961-2013)
Inland wetland extent
ipcc
Climate
Change
and Land

“Australia is devastated by drought, yet
it won't budge on climate change”
Dire droughts like the record-breaker in Australia currently
are increasingly common around the world.
nd
7th Jan
2016
22nd Aug
2018

Australian farmers are committing suicide at twice
the rate of the general population
Other countries are reporting the same problem. The suicide rate for
American farmers is more than double that of veterans.
nd
7th Jan
2016
20th May
2019
IPCC: “The stability of food supply is
projected to decrease as the magnitude
and frequency of extreme weather events
that disrupt food chains increases”

Soil erosion from conventionally-tilled agricultural
fields is c. 100 times higher than soil formation rate
It is c. 10-20 times even without tillage. The IPCC policymakers summary
does not explore where this takes us if the trend continues.
ipcc
Climate
Change
and Land

This in Jeremy Grantham’s update of his classic letter to investors
on climate change in holistic context, “The Race of Our Lives.”
7th Jan
2016
9th Aug
2018
Average Annual Agricultural Productivity Growth in the United States
Average of yield growth for corn, wheat, and rice
Source:USDANASS
*GMOprojectionexcludingfutureeffectsof
erosionandclimatechange.Asof1/31/18
.
US & Europe under food stress as is: productivity of
grains per acre is falling as natural limits approach
7th Jan
2016
9th Aug
2018

7th Jan
2016
9th Aug
2018
“It is the one or two great downpours every few years that cause the
trouble. We’re losing perhaps 1% of our collective global soil a year. We
are losing about a half a percent of our arable land a year.”
Soil erosion and climate change impacts intersect to
create a truly dire threat to food supply
Gullying after heavy rain Soil Depth in Iowa Has Halved
Since Intensive Cultivation Began

“The scary thing is that our crude attempt to put all these factors
together is the first that you, dear reader, have ever seen!”
7th Jan
2016
And when we combine the effects of grain
productivity limits, climate change, and soil erosion….
US grain yields, historical and projected
Index averaging corn, soy and rice yields 2017 =1
.
Source:USDANASS,Rhodes2014,Liangetal
2017,GMO.AsofendApril2018.
“It is calculated that
there are only 30 to 70
good harvest years left,
depending on your
location”

Land vegetation is a sink for carbon dioxide
…and global heating will reduce its effectiveness
ipcc
Climate
Change
and Land
Diagram of the carbon cycle from an IPCC report in 2007 (AR4)

Amazon deforestation is accelerating towards an
unrecoverable tipping point, Brazilian scientists say
7th Jan
2016
24th Jul
2019
Government data show a surge to three football pitches a minute in the
7 months since hard-right populist president Bolsonaro came to power.

“The natural response of land to human-induced
environmental change caused a net sink of around
11.2 GtCO2/yr during 2007-2016”
This is equivalent to 29% of total CO2 emissions. “The persistence of the
sink is uncertain due to climate change” (my emphasis).
ipcc
Climate
Change
and Land
Siberian wildfires July 2019

7th Jan
2016
18th July
2018
There have been many fires before in Sweden, but never over such a
wide area. EU nations asked for emergency assistance in firefighting.
Wildfires rage across the Arctic Circle - worst in
Sweden, which calls for international help

“More and more Americans are starting to accept climate change is
happening, despite Trump….”
7th Jan
2016
5th Aug
2018
“Our climate plans are in pieces as killer summer
shreds records”: CNN

7th Jan
2016
10th Nov
2018
Northern California wildfire incinerates
most of a town called Paradise, killing many
27,000 people escape on a highway through “a wall of fire”. Wildfires
also rage in south. 150,000 evacuated in all, including all of Malibu.

“The Terrifying Science Behind California’s Massive
Camp Fire”
7th Jan
2016
10th Nov
2018
“This is what a climate change reckoning looks like.” “The atmosphere as
it gets warmer is thirstier.” “Climate change is sucking California dry.”
Meteorologist Rob Elvington in a prescient
tweet the day before the fire broke out:
“Worse than no rain is negative rain.
Evaporative Demand Index (EDDI) is
maxing out for some areas for the last 4
weeks.”

Wildfires burn across UK amid highest winter
temperatures ever recorded
7th Jan
2016
26th Feb
2019
Eye witness: “It looks like the end of the world,
it looks like the apocalypse is happening.”
Saddleworth Moor
….February in Britain

“At around 2°C the risk from permafrost
degradation is projected to be very high”
“Projected thawing of permafrost is expected to increase the loss
of soil carbon (high confidence).”
ipcc
Climate
Change
and Land

7th Jan
2016
17th Feb
2017
A study by the Northwest Territories Geological Survey shows 52,000
square miles in rapid decline.
“Massive Permafrost Thaw Documented in
Canada, Portends Huge Carbon Release”
“Scientists estimate that the world's permafrost holds
twice as much carbon as the atmosphere.”

7th Jan
2016
16th Jan
2019
Average warming 0.5˚Fahrenheit between 2007 and 2016. The most
dramatic warming was found in the Siberian Arctic: 1.6˚F.
Global deep permafrost monitoring network
shows alarming warming in last decade
Temperature
data collected at
an average depth
of 45 feet at
>120 sites in
Arctic, Antarctic,
and high
mountains.

7th Jan
2016
2nd Aug
2019
The Greenland ice sheet is melting much faster
than the historical average this year
Reminder, re humans and their land use on coastal plains: if the entire
sheet melts it would raise global sea levels by more than 7 metres.
2019
1981 - 2010 median
Surface area
melting
sq km
Guardian graphic Source: National Snow and Ice Data Center,
University of Colorado Boulder

7th Jan
2016
2nd Jan
2019
These measurements, published today in Nature, are the third set of
sub-glacier data of this kind. None of it is included in climate models.
New data: Greenland melt water drives continuous
export of methane from below the ice-sheet
“Our results indicate that ice
sheets overlie extensive,
biologically active
methanogenic wetlands and
that high rates of methane
export to the atmosphere
can occur via efficient
subglacial drainage
pathways.”
Guillaume Lamarche-Gagnon
(Bristol University) et al in Nature

Cyclone Idai: “one of the worst weather-related
disasters ever to hit the southern hemisphere”
7th Jan
2016
20th Mar
2019
>100 km/hr winds and vast flooding in Mozambique, with grave damage
to Zimbabwe and Malawi, including to crops.

“Especially storms of previously unobserved strength.” Very bad news
for the insurance industry, and all who live in the cyclone belt.
“Global warming is making tropical cyclones
stronger”, renowned climatologists conclude
7th Jan
2016
30th May
2018
Future Today

World's food supply under “severe threat”
from loss of biodiversity: FAO report
7th Jan
2016
21st Feb
2019
Data collated from 91 governments in the first UN survey
of the lifeforms that put food on our plates.

7th Jan
2016
28th Nov
2018
Global food system is broken, say 130 of the world’s
national academies of science and medicine
Agriculture = 1/3rd of all greenhouse-gas emissions, and 1/3rd of all food
produced is wasted. Radical change is needed: less meat, improved
farming methods, focus on nutritious food rather than cheap food.
Hunger continues to grow. In
2017, 821 million people -
one in every nine - went
hungry, the UK FAO reports.

The IPCC report, being written by a
committee of 100+ experts, is a lowest-
common-denominator synthesis
….and hence pulls significant punches
Some examples:

Synergy between climate and other global risks
“threatens 2008-style system collapse”
7th Jan
2016
12th Feb
2019
So concludes the IPPR, describing the intersection of climate with e.g.
soil infertility, pollinator loss, chemical leaching and ocean acidification
as a “new domain of risk” to which many policymakers seem blind.

“They have just gone missing. Why isn’t this a dramatic item in our
news? One-third of all the food plants that we eat need pollination,
every flower needs a pollinator. What we’ve done is created a toxic
world, which is apparently not conducive to life as we know it.”
7th Jan
2016
9th Aug
2018
“The next piece of very bad news: the 75% loss of
flying insects …These are our pollinators”

Flying insects numbers have plunged by 76% over the past 25 years,
according to a comprehensive German study. Insects are pollinators.
Scientists warn of “ecological Armageddon” after
discovering a dramatic plunge in insect numbers
7th Jan
2016
18th Oct
2017

7th Jan
2016
10th Feb
2019
Rapid extinction of world’s insects threatens a
“catastrophic collapse of nature’s ecosystems”
So concludes the first global
scientific review, of 73 studies, by
Australian & Chinese scientists:
At current rate of decline, 2.5%
p.a. over last 25 -30 years, insects
will be gone within 100 years.
Factors: pesticide use (main),
climate change (especially in
tropics) and urbanisation.
Within the last ten years:

7th Jan
2016
15th Jan
2019
The same study documents steep decline in lizard and bird populations. This is an
ecological system-collapse. Is it a global effect? We do not have the data to know.
Insect numbers in a Puerto Rica rainforest study fall
98% (ground) to 80% (canopy) in 35 years
So finds one of the
few studies of insect
numbers over time, by
scientists at the
Rensselaer
Polytechnic University.
Global warming is
probably to blame,
because many tropical
insects are vulnerable
to heat extremes,
which have increased.

Sea level rise due to Antarctic ice melt has tripled in
the past five years, satellite measurements show
7th Jan
2016
13th Jun
2018
The international Ice Sheet Mass Balance Inter-comparison Exercise,
using multiple satellites, shows most mass change in West Antarctica.

7th Jan
2016
10th Dec
2018
Satellite data show for the first time that many of
East Antarctica’s glaciers are thinning & speeding up
If all the ice were to slide or melt, it would lift global ocean height 28
metres. “That's the water equivalent to four Greenlands of ice,” says
Catherine Walker of Nasa’s Goddard Space Flight Center.

International scientific team warns of coalescing amplifying feedbacks
from melting methane hydrates and other sources risks runaway effect.
7th Jan
2016
7th Aug
2018
“Climate change: 'Hothouse Earth' risks even
if CO2 emissions slashed”

7th Jan
2016
7th Dec
2018
US scientists: modern climate change “solidly in the
same category” as end Permian mass extinction
96% of all oceanic species died in just a few thousands years then, from
reducing oxygen in warming water. With the warming of the last 50
years, oxygen has declined 2%, and continues to drop.

7th Jan
2016
3rd Dec
2018
David Attenborough warns climate summit that
civilisation will collapse if we do not act
“If we don’t take action, the collapse of our civilisations and the
extinction of much of the natural world is on the horizon.”

7th Jan
2016
17th Jan
2019
“If we don’t reduce our dependency on fossil fuels, tackle inequality and
find a way to stop elites from squabbling among themselves, things will
not end well”: Laura Spinney, New Scientist.
Scientists studying systems collapse are gloomy
about global civilizations’ prospects

Jenny Chase, Bloomberg: “I fear my daughter will have to kill” in fights
for habitable land. James Murray, Business Green: “I’m fxxxing terrified.”
7th Jan
2016
7th Aug
2018
Top journalists write graphically about their terror
of climate meltdown, deep fears for their children

This is why we talk of extinction
….and so many are beginning to rebel

UN scientists review impact of observed and
predicted global heating on land
7th Jan
2016
7th Aug
2019
This presentation:
1. Impacts of global heating
2. Adaptation and mitigation
response options
To come

www.jeremyleggett.net
Including links to this and other powerpoints for free use
Much more here
Thank you

This is why we talk of extinction - a slideshow precis/analysis for-the-busy of the latest UN IPCC scientists report on the climate crisis

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This is why we talk of extinction - a slideshow precis/analysis for-the-busy of the latest UN IPCC scientists report on the climate crisis

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