Climate extremes are worse at the edge. A one metre rise in sea level can still affect you if you live five metres above the water. Global warming is a phrase that is slowly disappearing because climate change isn’t linear, it’s a mechanism of extremes. The slow motion video below is a simple way to illustrate what happens when you introduce free energyThe energy of a system that is emitted as waste and is not part of ecosystem processes. There is always some free surplus energy as this creates the basis for evolution where new species exploit gaps in the ecosystem where free energy becomes available. Surplus energy can occur as a result of disruption or disturbance. When free surplus energy reaches More into a system. As we’ve discussed in earlier blogs, we should be more concerned about chaos. A 1.5ºC warming or a 1m sea level rise are averages. When it comes to sea level rise and climate, the extremes being far greater and less predictable are what make life difficult for every animal, including humans.
A simple model of how ecosystems behave
The bowl is a simplified representation of Earth. Imagine it like an ocean basis, or an upturned atmosphere. The glass represents Earth’s physical boundaries, the continents, and stratosphere. The shape of the bowl represents the landscape, without the complexity of mountains and valleys. The water represents the air and oceans, which combine into processes we call ‘climate’. Climate isn’t about whether it’s hot or cold, it’s about comfort, well-being and habitability.
A few hundred years ago, Earth’s biosphere was in a steady stable-state(of an ecosystem) where free surplus energy is minimised, where there is maximum entropy production and minimum waste. In such a system, there is expected to be relatively small fluctuations in atmospheric and other chemistry and where disruption or disturbance occurs, the resulting changes can be absorbed quickly by a succession of new plants and animals that enter to fill More. Things had more or less found their level, even despite humans altering most of the landscape. Our Sun still introduced chaos-forming energyEnergy and nutrients are the same thing. Plants capture energy from the Sun and store it in chemicals, via the process of photosynthesis. The excess greenery and waste that plants create, contain chemicals that animals can eat, in order to build their own bodies and reproduce. When a chemical is used this way, we call it a nutrient. As we More. Every day, every spring and each decade, there would be fluctuations that caused an occasional surplus. This would be like knocking the bowl gently from side to side. Animals meanwhile, had built incredible ecosystem complexity that acted like a sponge, absorbing this excess. Life was quite predictable.
The changing environment
By burning fossil fuels and simultaneously destroying ecosystem complexity by killing animals, we’ve increased the chaos(Of energy and ecosystems). Ecosystems are thermodynamically driven. Disorder occurs when energy dissipates and becomes more chaotic. For example, the release of hot air into the atmosphere results in that energy is freer to disperse (maximum entropy). The opposite is true when energy is locked into biological processes, when it is stored inside molecules (minimum entropy). Stability in ecosystems occurs More. We’ve stopped heat from escaping our atmosphere by blanketing it in carbon dioxide. And, we’ve thinned the ecosystemsHow ecosystems function An ecosystem is a community of lifeforms that interact in such an optimal way that how ecosystems function best, is when all components (including humans and other animals) can persist and live alongside each other for the longest time possible. Ecosystems are fuelled by the energy created by plants (primary producers) that convert the Sun's heat energy More that buffered us against even the smallest changes – imagine that, we only evolved into a system that fluctuated slightly. Now we’ve created a double-whammy of epic proportions.
Earth is being knocked harder and more frequently these days. But you will see the intensity of sea level rise and climate change near the centre is still quite small. A small rise in the water level wouldn’t make much difference there.
At the edges however, waves of free energy multiply and create the extremes we’re seeing today. These can be extremes in both hot and cold. There is talk about needing more sophisticated and expensive models to estimate this but I am suspicious. We are experiencing the increasing volatility of a system that will become even more chaotic. There is a good chance it will become so unpredictable that we will always be playing catch up.
Ecosystems exist because they have been able to cool the planet, to keep this chaos under control. We exist because the ecosystems were made by complex animals like us. We are part and parcel of the system that made us, which acts like a huge refrigerator, to keep Earth from over-heating.
Where does excess heat go?
Plants turn heat into chemicals and the ocean absorbs about 90% of it. The rest dissipates back into space. The hottest places on Earth are down-wind or down-current from the where heat is extracted. This is why ocean health is uniquely connected to our life on land.
I recently wrote about the Banda Sea and bushfires in Australia, and the role animals play in that process. Australia is on the hot side of the Indian Ocean Dipole, while the Pacific ecosystems are the cooling pump.
While there remains any level of normality, the greatest extremes will be in the usual places. However, the next bushfire, flood or blizzard can occur almost anywhere in a system being knocked from all sides. And it can change to a new state. The Atlantic Mid Ocean Current (AMOC) has already slowed, leading to phenomenal heat and monsoon-like rainfall in Europe. If this shuts down altogether, it will lead to a planet-wide change in weather patterns.
But until nature rebuilds and restabilises ecosystems, they will still continue to be chaotic. This is Earth’s way of dealing with a lot of excess heat. It’s the same way you might feel unsettled if you get a temperature from the flu.
The role of humans, other animals and nature
Linear-thinking got us into this mess and continues to thwart our attempts to understand and deal with the consequences and our role on Earth.
Before we can come to terms with the problem, we have to accept that we are part of nature and wildlife.
Ecosystems don’t just absorb heat, they are the vessel for our animal lives. Upsetting that system means we increase the amount of time it will take to resettle. This is why I am sceptical of technical solutions. Other than, perhaps, the urgent need to extract carbon from the atmosphere on an industrial scale – but that can’t be used as an excuse to keep making the situation worse.
Our bigger problem is the lack of wildlife-driven complexity and biodiversityWhat is the definition of biodiversity? When we ask, what is the definition of biodiversity? It depends on what we want to do with it. The term is widely and commonly misused, leading to significant misinterpretation of the importance of how animals function on Earth and why they matter a great deal, to human survival. Here I will try to More as that is the foundation for our existence. It softens natural levels of extreme, making our planet habitable.
Cooling the Earth depends on this and we must make ourselves part of that process, because we are an animal. We evolved because of this, so there is no way we can expect to survive by separating ourselves from it. Also, we cannot do it alone. Wildlife is the buffer against normal levels of extreme, because animals collectively build ecosystem complexity.
Our species’ role has not changed in millions of years.
Nonetheless, we risk becoming a redundant component of Earth’s processes as we are up against forces that we cannot alter. We are not and never have been able to create our destiny. ‘Nature’ is in control and for that to function(Of an ecosystem). A subset of ecosystem processes and structures, where the ecosystem does something that provides an ecosystem service of value to people. More for us, requires a diversity and abundance of wildlife.
We deal with sea level rise and climate problems through conservationWhy is animal conservation important? Animal conservation is important, because animals are the only mechanism to create biodiversity, which is the mechanism that creates a habitable planet for humans. Without animals, the energy from today’s plants (algae, trees, flowers etc) will eventually reach the atmosphere and ocean, much of it as carbon. The quantity of this plant-based waste is so More. That need is every bit as high, if not higher, than climate change. And it must happen now.
Spotlight
The Very First Massive Autumnal Arctic Blast Spreads into Northern Europe this Weekend
Severe-Weather.eu reported this the same day the BBC noted in this article that these freezing temperatures are a response to warming of the Arctic. A great example of how extremes occur from warming. Surplus heat energy disturbs the winds that would have stabilised the polar vortex. Now Europe and North America are regularly plunged into frigid temperatures.
