The amount of warming is based primarily on how much CO2 there is in the atmosphere.
This is what is known as a STOCK. Think of it like the water in a sink.
The amount of climate change gases we are putting into the atmosphere is a FLOW. Think of it as the net amount of water going into the sink.
So, when you read an article talking about how much gas is being produced, if it says that amount is going down, what that means is that warming is still increasing.
If we want to reduce the amount of warming, we have to get to a negative amount of gasses going into the pool; into the stock. The flow needs to be negative, like turning off the water and pulling the plug.
Unfortunately, and that is what I’ve been concerned by, at a certain point, stored climate change gasses start being released. Methane in the permafrost and in swamps, for example. Once the permafrost areas heat up enough, methane which has been kept out of the stock and flows starts flowing into the pool.
This is a flow we have only indirect control over and it makes it much harder to get to a negative flow or even slow the increase of the stock.
So, if we ever want the old world back we’re going to have to reduce CO2 in the atmosphere or take other radical steps like orbital mirrors which reflect sunlight so there’s less incoming heat.
Removing CO2 is HARD. It’s not an easy problem and many of the ways of doing it, like ocean seeding, may cause other problems. As with a lot of problems, the easiest way to deal with it was not to let it occur in the first place.
It’s too late to do that.
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