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 energy 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. Things had more or less found their level, even despite humans altering most of the landscape. Our Sun still introduced chaos-forming energy. 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. We’ve stopped heat from escaping our atmosphere by blanketing it in carbon dioxide. And, we’ve thinned the ecosystems 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 biodiversity 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 for us, requires a diversity and abundance of wildlife.

We deal with sea level rise and climate problems through conservation. That need is every bit as high, if not higher, than climate change. And it must happen now.

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