We Fucked the Jetstream...BIG TIME..... [View all]

[Junkdrawer]

Last edited Sat Jun 1, 2013, 09:23 AM - Edit history (2)

Our Too-Clever-By-Half attempt to mitigate Climate Change by doubling down on our Faustian Bargain has taken a BAD situation with the jetstream and made it UNREAL.

How? What?

The Jetstream is screwed because we took this:



and turned it into this:



Source:
http://skepticalscience.com/jetstream-guide.html#climate

November 1st LAST YEAR I posted this:

We're already doing poorman's GeoEngineering...

The US is switching from Coal to Fracked Methane. Meanwhile, the Coal is being shipped to China where it will be burned with little or no smokestack cleanup. While this will aggravate an already awful public heath problem in China, the short-lived particulates and sulfur aerosols should mask some of the warming caused by the vast increases in global CO2 levels.

Hansen refers to this in his "Storms of my Grandchildren" as the great Faustian bargain.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1127&pid=27062

Dr. Hansen confirms the increase of the Faustian Bargain (but not 'poorman's geoengineering') here:
(On edit: responding to the critique by muriel_volestrangler. See Below.)

Doubling Down on Our Faustian Bargain

Humanity's Faustian climate bargain is well known. Humans have been pumping both greenhouse gases (mainly CO2) and aerosols (fine particles) into the atmosphere for more than a century. The CO2 accumulates steadily, staying in the climate system for millennia, with a continuously increasing warming effect. Aerosols have a cooling effect (by reducing solar heating of the ground) that depends on the rate that we pump aerosols into the air, because they fall out after about five days.

Aerosol cooling probably reduced global warming by about half over the past century, but the amount is uncertain because global aerosols and their effect on clouds are not measured accurately. Aerosols increased rapidly after World War II as fossil fuel use increased ~5 percent/year with little pollution control (Fig. 1). Aerosol growth slowed in the 1970s with pollution controls in the U.S. and Europe, but accelerated again after ~2000.

....

The principal implication of our present analysis relates to the Faustian bargain. Increased short-term masking of greenhouse gas warming by fossil fuel particulate and nitrogen pollution is a "doubling down" of the Faustian bargain, an increase in the stakes. The more we allow the Faustian debt to build, the more unmanageable the eventual consequences will be. Yet globally there are plans to build more than 1,000 coal-fired power plants and plans to develop some of the dirtiest oil sources on the planet. These plans should be vigorously resisted. We are already in a deep hole -- it is time to stop digging.
….

Unfortunately, the satellite mission designed for that purpose failed to achieve orbit, suffering precisely the same launch failure as the Orbiting Carbon Observatory (OCO). Although a replacement OCO mission is in preparation, no replacement aerosol mission is scheduled.

….

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dr-james-hansen/doubling-down-on-our-faustian-bargain_b_2989535.html

So, referring to the second picture above, leave the Arctic 'A lot Warmer' side alone and lower the 'A bit Warmer' side down.

Result: A MASSIVELY screwed jetstream. Weather Weirding on Steroids.