Building Climate Stability
All Earth is now subject to forces creating climate instability, all worsening simultaneously. The extreme degradation of the global ecosystem and climate recently merited the CODE RED called by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (UNIPCC) issued in the summer of 2021. However, in many reports issued over the past decades, carbon dioxide (CO2) levels have been narrowly defined as the cause when CO2 is only one of many causes in a multi-dimensional problem. Addressing climate change effectively requires understanding factors other than CO2 and greenhouse gas emissions.
Not enough attention has been given to other inter-related factors impacting global climate health: heat, water, and photosynthesis. Heat is our greatest problem now, accumulating in excess of our current estimation as described by Whitmarsh et al. (2015), exacerbating climate instability. The transfer of heat energy each time water changes state gives us a method to manage heat for global climate health. As water melts, or evaporates, it absorbs large amounts of heat to change from solid to liquid or liquid to gas. Either of these endothermic, heat absorbing, changes offer us an opportunity to move heat energy within the global climate system. As we lose the heat absorbing capacity of ice melting, we must find alternatives. Evaporation is one strong alternative. Photosynthesis sequesters carbon, occurring as water evapo-transpires from plants’ leaves, simultaneously cooling Earth and sequestering carbon. The powerful combination of evaporation and photosynthesis can stabilize the runaway heat and carbon event now happening on Earth. Humans must protect and nurture plant life to stabilize the climate.
The climate is a vastly complex, multi-dimensional, interactive system. The correct action to restore equilibrium to our climate must account for all the variables accurately measured, in correct relationship to each other, recognizing the massive scale of these materials and forces. Determining the full risk of “unintended consequences” is very difficult. For example, heat is a primary problem now, not just carbon. To sequester carbon without cooling exacerbates the heat problem. To cool without capturing carbon is also inadequate. Nature’s complex ecology has many healthy symbioses and interactive stabilizing feedback loops. By working with Nature, we include these existing balancing systems in our efforts to restabilize the climate. We must work with Nature in the full glory of her capacity to build climate stability.
Figure 1 shows how oceans have absorbed far more heat than the land, as has melting ice in the Arctic Ocean, Antarctica and Greenland. Warming oceans and melting ice have been a buffer from incoming heat, maintaining climate equilibrium. Whitmarsh et al. underscore these factors must be fully included to have an accurate model. Without ice to melt, we will need other means to cool the climate. It is possible to move heat by managing heating and cooling forces in water’s change of state, melting, freezing, evaporation, condensation. Forests cool earth and build climate stability. With less ice to melt, the only other cooling force of equal capacity is evaporation. Increased evaporation from warmer ocean water is fueling massive storm events. On land, trees transpire, evaporating water vapor, cooling the locale, while simultaneously sequestering CO2 through photosynthesis. These many evaporative processes are Nature’s effort to re-establish a heat equilibrium in Earth’s climate system. We can thoughtfully manage these ecosystems to restore global climate equilibrium.
In 2015, Whitmarsh et al. described the heat-absorbing capacity of the ocean waters as a heat store of such magnitude that "if the lower 10 km of the atmosphere were able to absorb this same quantity of heat, [as the oceans have, it] would warm by 36°C." Heat energy is highly mobile; it seeks equilibrium. If we cool the air, the oceans will warm the air again until there is an equilibrium.
Our goal is to keep Earth’s warming to 1.5°C. How do we keep Earth at 1.5°C warming, when there is enough heat stored in the oceans to warm the atmosphere by 36°C? The ocean heat store must be considered in setting realistic climate goals. The present goal of limiting atmospheric temperature increase to 1.5°C underweights the heat stored in the oceans. We must accurately assess all factors that determine climate disintegration and climate health.
Figure 1: Water and Energy: What is a ZettaJoule? (1021 Joules)
The amount of heat energy in Figure 1 is difficult to comprehend. We must consider the limits of our human cognitive capacities as we try to understand the climate problem facing us and how we might constructively respond to the challenge it presents. Water, with its high heat capacity, absorbs and holds more heat than other materials do. The oceans have absorbed 93% of the accumulated heat energy that has come to Earth since 1985 (Whitmarsh, 2015). A goal of 1.5°C warming of the atmosphere is ignoring the power of ocean energy. Oceans will be a heat store long into the future. Even the ocean animals are migrating toward the poles to avoid the hot, equatorial ocean waters. We must accurately measure and describe the danger we are in so that we will be able to leverage all available resources and solutions to address this significant collective action problem.
Climate risk assessment has focused on sea level rise from melted ice and on the loss of albedo: with the white ice gone, the Arctic waters will be darker and absorb more heat. However, melting itself is very powerful. As water changes from ice to liquid water, it absorbs heat without increasing the temperature. Melting is a buffer that has protected us from incoming heat without our comprehending its vast power. The energy required to melt one gram of 0°C ice to 0°C water, requires 80 calories. Add another 80 calories to one gram of 0°C water, and that water warms to 80°C, almost boiling. Once the ice melts, the heat will continue to arrive on earth; water temperatures will rise rapidly, bringing cascades of unfortunate consequences, such as extreme heat events, desiccation, wildfires and desertification. Vastly increased evaporation from the oceans is increasing storms to such an extent that there is a Category 6 Hurricane under development. Jeff Masters, writing for Scientific American in 2019, notes that Dorian hit the Bahamas on September 1, 2019 with sustained winds of 185, gusting to 220mph, which would be “worthy of a Category 6 hurricane, if it existed.” Presently Category 5 is the highest rating for a hurricane with winds exceeding 156mph. Heat without the buffering of ice melting or ocean evaporation is a greater threat than sea level rise or changes in Arctic albedo.
While ice melting absorbs 80 calories per gram, water evaporating absorbs 590 calories per gram, or 7.375 times more heat energy. Both of these endothermic, heat absorbing, changes of state of water offer us opportunities for cooling. Plants’ leaves transpire, evaporating and cooling their local environment, a powerful force for stability (Jehne, 2018). Simultaneously, they photosynthesize, building sugars they feed to the soil biota, the soil sponge, lowering greenhouse gas levels. We are erroneously focused on the risks of greenhouse gas levels, albedo and sea level rise, while it is transpiration and photosynthesis in plant leaves that offer great capacity for building climate stability. The power of evaporation and photosynthesis together can stabilize climate collapse.
Melting ice in the Arctic, Antarctica, Greenland, Iceland, and glaciers around the world is well documented, but the secondary and tertiary effects are less recognized. The ice-melt water coming off Greenland has created a surface "cold blob" of fresh water in the North Atlantic. The “cold blob” lens of fresh water sits on top of the incoming Gulf Stream, preventing sea water from freezing, becoming hyper-salinated and heavier (Francis, 2020). Without that resulting normal increase in sea water salinity and density, the Gulf Stream has stopped sinking deep and recirculating through the South Atlantic and on into the Pacific.
Instead, just south of Greenland, the Gulf Stream disperses into disorganized eddies and meanders, causing a back-up in the Gulf Stream. The measured flow of the Gulf Stream has decreased by 30% or more. Currents have backed up around the globe, creating two new Pacific currents. One goes west from the South Pacific into the Indian Ocean, warming Antarctica. The other new Pacific current goes due north, through the Bering Strait, warming the North Pacific, the Arctic Ocean and the east Siberian Ice Shelf. The summer melting of the Arctic Ocean now starts from the Bering Strait. Peter Wadhams (2019) reports that the Arctic Ocean was recently 11°C or 51.8°F. The warmer North Pacific and Arctic Oceans are likely warming the west coast of North America, drying the region. These multiple interrelated cascades of consequences pose great danger, particularly if we underestimate them, or their interacting effects, which can last for centuries and longer. How do we assess the obvious and the obscure, and plan constructive action?
The Arctic Ocean is warming, as are the Arctic sea floor and the adjacent tundra, unleashing more dangerous destabilizations. Methane is a greenhouse gas with greater global warming potential (GWP) than CO2. The EPA (2021) writes, “Methane (CH4) is estimated to have a GWP of 28–36 [x CO2] over 100 years.” Methane was formerly stable in Arctic ice as methane hydrate (a.k.a methane clathrate). As the ice melts, the methane is freed from the solid context of methane hydrate into its gaseous form. In warming seas, lakes, ponds and tundra, bacteria come to life digest organic matter, making more methane. Free, gaseous methane is seen when it is caught under the ice as bubbles. It is escaping from the sea and the land as ice melts and oceans warm.
Figure 2: New Gas Emissions Craters in the Arctic and Siberia (Rocklin, 2021)
As shown in Figure 2, since 2014, methane has been erupting from the Siberian Tundra, creating craters that are 300 feet across, with deep vertical shafts filling with water (Rocklin, 2021). The amount of methane held in frozen form in the tundra and in sediments of the Arctic Ocean is approximately 1500 gigatons. Atmospheric methane levels are presently at 2 ppb, a total of 5 gigatons. In 2013, Natalia Shakhova, research scientist working on Arctic methane, said the danger of a release of 50 gigatons was likely within years or decades. A small release of some of the Arctic methane stores (50 gigatons) would increase atmospheric methane by a factor of 10, a massive, dangerous change in the climate system dwarfing the threat from human extraction of methane. Fifty gigatons of the 1500 gigatons of methane frozen in the Arctic is only 3% of the total methane hydrate store. There would remain 97% of the still frozen, now melting, methane stores to erupt. The multiple greenhouse gas (GHG) load from carbon dioxide and methane as well as other GHGs is dangerously exacerbating climate instability.
Photosynthesis: A Connection for Equilibrium Between Plants and Animals
Nature’s many stabilizing ecological forces normally work together harmoniously. The five natural kingdoms -- bacteria, protoctists, animals, fungi and plants (Schwartz & Margulis, 1997) -- work together to remain in balance. Photosynthesis and animal respiration are complementary. Animals inhale oxygen and exhale CO2. Plants inhale CO2 and exhale oxygen. Plants photosynthesize, capturing CO2, building sugars, feeding plants and the soil biome, a living community and carbon store. Whether it is ocean evaporation or transpiration, every gram of water evaporated is cooling the locale by 590 calories. High in the clouds, condensation makes rain, releasing approximately half of the heat energy to outer space. Ocean evaporation cools, moving vapor and rain inland which can be incorporated into the small water cycle (Kravćik, 2018) to build biodiverse ecosystems with healthy soil biomes. These reciprocal symbioses have been in equilibrium for many millennia. Yet, now, large quantities of land mass have lost vegetation. Oceans evaporate more. Heavy rains damage the land: without plant cover and soil biology water just runs off, eroding the land. Emissions have increased while Earth's carbon absorptive capacities have decreased, creating a dangerous imbalance. We still have the capacity to act, respecting Nature’s stabilizing forces to protect life on earth.
Many have recommended regenerative plant and soil management to stabilize the environment (Attenborough, 2020; Jehne, 2018; Kravćik, 2018; Laurie, 2018; Savory, 2021; Tree, 2019; Wilson, 2020; Woodwell, 2020). The soil sponge (Jehne, 2018) and the plant world can tame the present runaway heat and carbon event. In “Regenerate Earth,” Jehne calculates that 12.5 billion acres of regenerative, biodiverse eco-restoration would generate enough transpiration to cool the planet. Jim Laurie (2018), in his white paper, “Scenario 300,” calculates the photosynthesis of 12 billion acres of regenerative eco-restoration would sequester carbon into plants and soil, dropping the CO2 level to 300 by 2061. Karvćik’s (2018) work on the small water cycle describes the importance of rebuilding and maintaining the small water cycle where plant ecologies keep the water local, evaporating and raining over and over in the same place. Woods, fields and wetlands keep the water cycling locally, preventing runoff and erosion while photosynthesis and transpiration contribute to climate stabilization.
The symbiotic, mutually beneficial interconnections among all plants and animals have evolved over eons and have the capacity, scope and scale, to rebuild climate stability. We must “re-invigorat[e] the natural biogeochemical mechanisms by which our planet regulates climate” (Goreau, 2015). Water “governs 95% of the heat dynamics of the blue planet” (Jehne, 2018). Woodwell Climate Research Center (2020) states that forest preservation and restoration are central to achieving carbon neutrality. We must go further and achieve carbon negativity, put the carbon back in the ground. Nature itself is the most powerful, responsive method we have to restore climate equilibrium.
We Still Have the Capability to Work with Nature and Stabilize the Climate
Attenborough (2020) speaks to the importance of human behavior and the choices we make in determining the outcome of this runaway collapse (Diamond, 2005). Professor Dan McKanan of Harvard has urged the adoption of creative solutions and innovation as new technologies offer change in our everyday lives that cumulatively will have a global impact. From conservation to renewable energy and more, we can make changes in our individual, family and local contexts that will echo and ramify cutting the atmospheric carbon load. For some, change is difficult; education, incentives and reassurance will help. Choices can be defined so all available options are healthier. We humans have the capacity and responsibility to act constructively now.
Attenborough (2020) emphasizes the importance of protecting biodiversity and “a return of the wild [to] bring back stability to the Earth.” We must move beyond growth, switch to clean energy, rewild the seas, take up less space, rewild the land, plan for peak human population and achieve more balanced lives. In many examples, he describes treaties and agreements, preserved areas in the lands and the seas that bring these goals into reality. He writes, “We can… again become a species in harmony with nature. All we require is the will. The next few decades represent a final opportunity to build a stable home for ourselves and restore the rich, healthy, wonderful world that we inherited from our distant ancestors. Our future on the planet, the only place as far as we know where life of any kind exists, is at stake.”
Business as usual doesn’t work anymore. We have lost our climate equilibrium. Constructive, stabilizing action now is of utmost urgency. As we know, major modifications must be adopted immediately to move off carbon dependence and stop emissions, to cool the Earth and to move atmospheric carbon into Earth’s biology. However, the solution also lies in conservation, efficiency, photovoltaics and wind with regenerative biodiverse eco-restoration for cooling and carbon sequestration. We can use the state change of water to cool Earth, and to move some of the heat to space. We can support rewilding and the protection of biodiversity throughout the Earth to build a more stable carbon balance, temperature and climate. These many forces can work together harmoniously to maintain climate equilibrium. It is up to us to be resilient, to take responsibility, to regulate our choices and actions, and to respect Earth’s biodiverse, regenerative biology and cycles of stability in order to achieve true environmental justice, for humans, and for all life.
About the Author:
Susan Farist Butler, a Harvard Divinity School Visiting Scholar, has a Ph.D. in Cognitive Psychology from Tufts University and is Co-Prinicpal Investigator at Tufts’ Laboratory for Probabilistic Reasoning. She has served on a number of boards related to her research and climate activism including Sierra Club, Biodiversity for a Livable Climate, Green Decade/Cambridge, and the Home Energy Efficiency Team. Her academic work in experimental psychology of judgment and decision-making and her work as a nurse clinical specialist inform her advocacy and her work for the environment. A documentary of her work creating a zero-carbon footprint home is available at: http://www.leavingthecarboneconomy.com/.