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Tropical forests facing increasing risks of exposure to critical temp thresholds

pnas.org

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Re: Tropical forests facing increasing risks of exposure to critical temp thresholds

#11

Post by littlexsparkee »

colechristensen wrote: post #7
rtutz wrote: post #3

Climate change already feels chaotic in a sense that earth is heading towards so many tipping points that it is impossible to keep track. In addition, each aspect resides in a niche of a complex system, difficult to grasp. AMOC collapse, melting permafrost methane release, species extinction, intense El Niño, ... All of them are not easily to follow, let alone understand. It's getting wild. To my surprise, media cove…

>A couple years ago, I would have expected some kind of awakening with global efforts, but the opposite is the case. The only thing we can do is slightly tweak the exponential adoption curve of solar, it's already here, already the cheapest option, already growing exponentially. We're right in the meaty part of the growth phase of solar and "moral" adoption pushes really don't have much to do with growth any more. An…

That new land has thin, acidic, waterlogged soil with few nutrients, is unstable and prone to collapse (see thermokarst), with photoperiods not suited for what those crops need. What's next is a world of hurt, especially if approached with techno-optimist myopia.

Re: Tropical forests facing increasing risks of exposure to critical temp thresholds

#12

Post by littlexsparkee »

smallerfish wrote: post #9

Anybody have a non paywall link to the paper?

https://web.archive.org/web/20260711174045/https://www.pnas....

that's just background/abstract, might be better to access journals through your library

Re: Tropical forests facing increasing risks of exposure to critical temp thresholds

#13

Post by gtowey »

littlexsparkee wrote: post #11
colechristensen wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>A couple years ago, I would have expected some kind of awakening with global efforts, but the opposite is the case. The only thing we can do is slightly tweak the exponential adoption curve of solar, it's already here, already the cheapest option, already growing exponentially. We're right in the meaty part of the growth phase of solar and "moral" adoption pushes really don't have much to do with growth any more. An…

That new land has thin, acidic, waterlogged soil with few nutrients, is unstable and prone to collapse (see thermokarst), with photoperiods not suited for what those crops need. What's next is a world of hurt, especially if approached with techno-optimist myopia.

It's fine. We can just add fertilizer -- made from petroleum extraction of course then fire up some coal power plants for artificial grow lights.

Thus solving the problem once and for all.

Re: Tropical forests facing increasing risks of exposure to critical temp thresholds

#14

Post by leonidasrup »

colechristensen wrote: post #7
rtutz wrote: post #3

Climate change already feels chaotic in a sense that earth is heading towards so many tipping points that it is impossible to keep track. In addition, each aspect resides in a niche of a complex system, difficult to grasp. AMOC collapse, melting permafrost methane release, species extinction, intense El Niño, ... All of them are not easily to follow, let alone understand. It's getting wild. To my surprise, media cove…

>A couple years ago, I would have expected some kind of awakening with global efforts, but the opposite is the case. The only thing we can do is slightly tweak the exponential adoption curve of solar, it's already here, already the cheapest option, already growing exponentially. We're right in the meaty part of the growth phase of solar and "moral" adoption pushes really don't have much to do with growth any more. An…

In the global share of primary energy solar is this very small player (less the hydro, much less then coal, or natural gas, or oil), data from 2024.

https://ourworldindata.org/energy-production-consumption

How much does the increase solar production decrease world-wide CO2 emmisions? Because CO2 emissions in 2025 were still increasing. I see that in many growing countries solar power is not seen as a replacement for fossil power, but as an addition to fossil power.

https://www.iea.org/reports/global-energy-review-2026/co2-em...

There are many places where the photosynthesis is not limited in CO2 amounts, but in amounts of other elements, like iron (about one third of the surface ocean), phosphorus (tropical rainforests).

https://www.us-ocb.org/microbial-iron-limitation-otz/

https://www.jircas.go.jp/en/release/2022/press202218

Warming of Siberia could increase methane leakage, which could increase global warming and then increase in methane leakage, the “methane time bomb”

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/ticking-timebomb-s...

In the Earths history, we know of periods of emission of large magnitudes of CO2. One of them is Permian–Triassic extinction event (level of atmospheric carbon dioxide rose from around 400 ppm to 2,500 ppm), extinction of 57% of biological families, 62% of genera, 81% of marine species, and 70% of terrestrial vertebrate species.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Permian%E2%80%93Triassic_extin...

Lets hope we don't reproduce the PT event.

Re: Tropical forests facing increasing risks of exposure to critical temp thresholds

#15

Post by pstuart »

rtutz wrote: post #3

Climate change already feels chaotic in a sense that earth is heading towards so many tipping points that it is impossible to keep track. In addition, each aspect resides in a niche of a complex system, difficult to grasp. AMOC collapse, melting permafrost methane release, species extinction, intense El Niño, ... All of them are not easily to follow, let alone understand. It's getting wild. To my surprise, media cove…

It's beyond disheartening. In a sick way, we totally deserve getting hit now because it seemed like a lot of climate "reasoning" was "this is going to be bad for future generations, we don't have to worry about it now".

> A couple years ago, I would have expected some kind of awakening with global efforts, but the opposite is the case.

I'm a literal greybeard who has lived in liberal bubbles on the Left Coast my entire life, and the past ten years or so has rudely educated me at how horrible a large segment of humanity is. We have the resources, science, technology and people to live in an approximation of utopia, but instead we have.... this.

Re: Tropical forests facing increasing risks of exposure to critical temp thresholds

#16

Post by vkou »

warumdarum wrote: post #2

So wouldnt it make sense to give up on the protect a disneyland of nature idea, and genemodify the rainforrest to adapt to heat? Fast forward around die off,adaption,recovery?

Forests take hundreds of years to become mature and healthy.

If your magical yet-to-be-invented gene treatment technology works the first time around, you will see results centuries from now.

Re: Tropical forests facing increasing risks of exposure to critical temp thresholds

#17

Post by colechristensen »

littlexsparkee wrote: post #11
colechristensen wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>A couple years ago, I would have expected some kind of awakening with global efforts, but the opposite is the case. The only thing we can do is slightly tweak the exponential adoption curve of solar, it's already here, already the cheapest option, already growing exponentially. We're right in the meaty part of the growth phase of solar and "moral" adoption pushes really don't have much to do with growth any more. An…

That new land has thin, acidic, waterlogged soil with few nutrients, is unstable and prone to collapse (see thermokarst), with photoperiods not suited for what those crops need. What's next is a world of hurt, especially if approached with techno-optimist myopia.

Thanks Gemini for your reply.

It is not worth discussing anything with a doomer that has no knowledge besides what an LLM can tell them.

Re: Tropical forests facing increasing risks of exposure to critical temp thresholds

#18

Post by colechristensen »

leonidasrup wrote: post #14
colechristensen wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>A couple years ago, I would have expected some kind of awakening with global efforts, but the opposite is the case. The only thing we can do is slightly tweak the exponential adoption curve of solar, it's already here, already the cheapest option, already growing exponentially. We're right in the meaty part of the growth phase of solar and "moral" adoption pushes really don't have much to do with growth any more. An…

In the global share of primary energy solar is this very small player (less the hydro, much less then coal, or natural gas, or oil), data from 2024. https://ourworldindata.org/energy-production-consumption How much does the increase solar production decrease world-wide CO2 emmisions? Because CO2 emissions in 2025 were still increasing. I see that in many growing countries solar power is not seen as a replacement for…

Solar energy production has increased 20-30% year over year every year for the last decade. If this continues peak oil production will occur in the next five years, if not 2026 itself. The wars in Iran and Ukraine are added global motivation for this change.

The velocity and acceleration of CO2 and energy production are the far more important metrics.

>Lets hope we don't reproduce the PT event.

When/if we really need to we can spend tens of billions to fertilize ocean deserts and trigger thousand mile scale algae/jellyfish blooms and maybe nuke a few mountain ranges in the right places to hard accelerate biological and chemical capture of CO2.

If the ice caps actually melt we can replicate the Azolla event when, to simplify, the arctic ocean became much less salty and freshwater essentially duckweed covered the ocean causing global climate change.

Enacting forced major climate change in a restorative direction is entirely within our grasp to prevent mass extinction events, they just have their own caveats which have to make it worth it before we go for it.

Re: Tropical forests facing increasing risks of exposure to critical temp thresholds

#19

Post by littlexsparkee »

colechristensen wrote: post #17
littlexsparkee wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That new land has thin, acidic, waterlogged soil with few nutrients, is unstable and prone to collapse (see thermokarst), with photoperiods not suited for what those crops need. What's next is a world of hurt, especially if approached with techno-optimist myopia.

Thanks Gemini for your reply. It is not worth discussing anything with a doomer that has no knowledge besides what an LLM can tell them.

That's a cheap dismissal - if you had any good counters, you would have attacked the reasoning instead of reaching for that.

Re: Tropical forests facing increasing risks of exposure to critical temp thresholds

#20

Post by colechristensen »

littlexsparkee wrote: post #19
colechristensen wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks Gemini for your reply. It is not worth discussing anything with a doomer that has no knowledge besides what an LLM can tell them.

That's a cheap dismissal - if you had any good counters, you would have attacked the reasoning instead of reaching for that.

No it's not, I'm perfectly willing to discuss the sibling comment. I'm not willing to discuss with an LLM with a human intermediary. Your answer parrots what Google (gemini) says when you search with a question targeted as disagreeing with me. (I tried, out of curiosity)
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