Climate chaos: the world warms as Europe faces a new Ice Age

JULIAN CRIBB

The hottest January ever recorded in human history has passed, without even a wink from governments around the world and the international media. For an entire year, the Earth has exceeded the danger level of +1,5 degrees set by the Paris Agreement in 2015. And 2024 may be even hotter, American scientists warn.

Forest fires spread out of control across half the planet, while Western Europe faces a local Ice Age, as the ocean circulation that warms it shows signs of rupture. Meanwhile, meteorologists, shocked by the storms' increasing violence, debate adding a new category 6 hurricane to the 5 already existing, one with winds of more than 309 kilometers per hour.

All are ominous indicators of the climate wrath to come.

However, responsible warning voices remain few and surprisingly muted. “We are heading towards a catastrophe if we do not radically change the way we produce and consume energy within a few years,” declared Danish Minister of Global Climate Policy Dan Jorgensen. And the head of the UN, Antonio Gutteres, who warned in 2023 that “the era of global boiling has arrived”, optimistically predicted the end of the fossil fuel era.

Meanwhile, big fossil fuel companies, which are stoking climate chaos, They are paying record amounts to their shareholders. And the 151 governments that pledged in Paris to achieve net-zero carbon emissions “…continue to plan to produce more than twice as much fossil fuels in 2030 as would be compatible with limiting global warming to 1,5°C,” according to the United Nations Environment Program Production Gap Report.

That governments and the carbon lobby are now in an undeclared war against humanity is evident in politics. In the United States, President Biden has conceded 10.000 new oil drilling permits and there are still more to concede, while his rival, Donald Trump promises to “drill, drill, drill”. In Australia, coal, oil and gas companies continue to fund both the Government and opposition political parties to “go slow” in reducing carbon emissions.

Perhaps the most disturbing news of emerging climate ravages was the warning from dutch scientists that the Atlantic Meridional Circulation (AMOC), which transports heat from the tropics to warm Western Europe, may be approaching breaking point due to global climate change. The cause is the massive influx of cold, fresh water - known as a "cold blob" - into the North Atlantic, as Greenland and the Arctic melt, which is causing the AMOC to retreat on itself.

Based on current observational data, Dutch researchers discovered, to their horror, that once it reaches its tipping point, the AMOC can quickly break down. It is not yet clear when that tipping point will occur, but the team is developing a model that will provide early warning. However, the climate effects could be catastrophic.

Cities such as London, Paris, Bergen, Oslo, Vienna and Reykjavik could suffer temperature drops of between 5 and 15 degrees C. The cultivated area in northwest Europe could be reduced by half. At the same time, the retreat of the AMOC due to the melting of the northern ice cap will likely increase flooding and sea level rise along the North American east coast.

A mini Ice Age in Western Europe as the Earth as a whole continues to warm may seem like a climate denier's wet dream. But it is the perfect illustration of the climate chaos that the planet's natural heat transfer physics is unleashing on the world. A physics that world leaders ignore ad nauseum.

It will turn one of the most food-secure regions in the world, with a population of 200 million people, into a potential famine zone. It could turn one of the main receiving regions for migrants from Africa, the Middle East and the Indian subcontinent into a volcanic eruption of climate refugees.

Don't expect grain surplus countries like Australia or Argentina to come to the rescue. (Or Ukraine, if Russia has its way.) In Australia, the local continental temperature has already increased 1,5 degrees Celsius since 1910, faster than in most of the rest of the world, which is not a good sign for cereal crops.

Behind all this concern is the continuous and pronounced increase in ocean temperatures:

On February 9, 2024, sea surface temperature reached the highest level ever recorded, with an average of 21,13 degrees. The oceans are the planet's main heat sink, absorbing most of the excess incoming energy trapped in the atmosphere by the man-made carbon layer.

Rising ocean temperatures translate into increased evaporation, leading to more intense downpours and storms, worse flooding and the loss of polar ice caps on land, and a faster approach to key tipping points such as the collapse of the AMOC and the explosive discharge from Antarctic glaciers.

It is clear that the governments of the world have neither the capacity, nor the intelligence, nor the moral integrity to get out of such a crisis, and they continue to obey their fossil fuel lords. They are willing to sacrifice the next ten generations of humanity, at a minimum, for the unbridled desire for fossil riches. However, as climate chaos intensifies, one of the first victims will be the global economy, so all this “wealth” may prove illusory.

Currently, no government has a plan to save humanity on a habitable Earth. Without a global agreement to develop one, it will never happen. It is likely that the next UN Future Summit, which will be held in September 2024, outlines some – but not all – of the main threats to humanity and what needs to be done about them. And it will likely be sabotaged by the same forces that torpedoed the US climate talks. COP27 and COP28.

Many people have called for climate action to be put “on a war footing.” But so far, the only war that has begun is the one waged against humanity and the planet it hopes to live on, by the dark powers of global industry and politics.

Now it is of utmost urgency that all citizens of the world unite to demand a Earth System Treaty, a global agreement that commits us all to work to preserve a livable planet for our children.

Unless we agree to save ourselves, we cannot save ourselves.

Julian Cribb is an Australian science writer, author of several books on the climate emergency. Latest “How to fix a broken planet” (2023). This article is published in collaboration with the Australian information portal “Pearls and irritations.”