The Fairness of Climate Funding: Just Another 60 Million Euros?

According to Finland's public broadcaster Yle, the financing of climate action is increasingly shifting onto the shoulders of EU countries. This is because the Trump administration is unlikely to be enthusiastic about participating in the whole effort, while China and former developing countries enriched by oil want to continue as recipients of funds rather than contributors.

China and the G77 group of developing countries have also proposed a new target for climate financing. According to their proposal made in Baku, Azerbaijan, a staggering $1.3 billion should be allocated.

It remains to be seen how the EU will respond to this emerging situation. Will it continue humbly to keep its purse open, or will it declare the situation unfair and therefore unfeasible?

In any case, Finland’s government has already decided to reduce its contribution to the green climate fund from 100 million euros to 60 million euros. As a Finnish taxpayer, I believe that if China and the G77 continue along the line they've currently set, that amount should be further reduced by another 60 million euros and the saved funds used to curb the national debt, even though that, too, may be but a drop in the ocean.

Previous thoughts on the same topic:
Russia Pays the Price for Its Foolishness
Correct minister, ridiculous facts
Advice to participants of the COP27 climate implementation summit

The area of Arctic sea ice was exceptionally large in January

According to climate models, the world is warming frighteningly fast. And even faster in the Arctic sea ice area, which, according to a fairly recent study, entered a state in 2007 from which its surface area cannot recover through normal climate variability.

Recently, it has also been reported that the temperature of the Earth's oceans during the past El Niño year has been the highest in recorded history. As well as the average global climate temperature.

Based on these premises, one could assume that the current January area of Arctic sea ice would be exceptionally small, and its maximum size this winter would be smaller than ever before in recorded history. Or actually, this assumption could be considered a hypothesis derived from the prevailing climate theory nowadays.

So, I went to check the statistics maintained by the National Snow & Ice Data Center on January sea ice areas. Looking at this data series that started in 1979, I was amazed and decided to list the information it contains in the table below.

From the table, it can be seen that the January sea ice area in the Arctic was the 21st largest in its 46-year (the table only includes 45 years due to missing data for the year 1988) observational history. This is clearly larger than the median value of the dataset. Additionally, we notice that the situation was very similar two years ago in 2022, when the ice extent was even larger than this past January.

Therefore, it is interesting to follow how the northern sea ice will develop by the end of this year's autumn. By then, its area should reach its minimum size and perhaps even melt to a smaller area than in 2012, when it was historically at its lowest. 

Previous thoughts on the same topic:
Does Arctic sea ice melt as atmospheric greenhouse gases increase?

The increase in carbon dioxide concentration warms more than anticipated
The record-breaking warming of the oceans is not visible in the Arctic

The record-breaking warming of the oceans is not visible in the Arctic

The most important newspaper of Finland, Helsingin Sanomat, took a stance in its editorial on Minister Kaj Mykkänen's (National Coalition Party) comment, according to which the key climate action in Finland is to plug factory chimneys. A couple of days ago, I also commented on this matter in Finnish, pointing out that human progress is based on science and technology – and reminding that insect infestations threaten forest carbon sinks in a warming climate.

Climate change has also been commented on by Petteri Taalas, Secretory General of the World Meteorological Organization, who says that the problems predicted by climate researchers in the Greek archipelago back in the 1980s are now becoming a reality. This led me to once again look at the development of northern sea ice extent. One might imagine it melting rapidly right now, given that the surface water of the North Atlantic is warmer than ever in recorded history.

My surprise was significant when I observed that the extent of northern sea ice on July 24th, relative to this time of year, was the tenth smallest in the statistics. The years 2007, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2016, 2017, 2019, 2020, and 2021 were surpassed.

However, it is true that the last time I wrote about the subject in English, sea ice was 12th smallest, so its relative extent compared to recent years has decreased. On the other hand, compared to the record year 2012, the extent of northern sea ice is over five percent larger – when I wrote about it in Finnish, the difference was just under five percent – so in that respect, it has expanded rather than contracted. This could, of course, be due to the exceptional anomaly of the year 2012.

So, we'll see if the warm water from the North Atlantic finally flows to the Arctic region and begins to melt the northern sea ice. And thus, would bring closer the day – which climate researchers say is inevitably ahead – when the Arctic ice completely disappears.

Aiempia ajatuksia samasta aihepiiristä:
HS katkeroituneen naisen työkaluna

Helsingin sanomat jatkoi valheellista uutisointiaan
Nostaako El Niño maapallon keskilämpötilan uuteen ennätykseen?

World oceans are filled with previously unknown viruses

COVID-19 pandemic has been ongoing for ca. 1,5 years now. It started when a new RNA virus SARS-CoV-2 learned to reproduce in humans, and to efficiently transmit between different people. Furthermore, the pandemic has had several waves due to rapid evolution of the virus from the original form to ever increasing variants with more and more efficient transmission between people.

The pandemic underlined the dangers of new viruses. The human immune systems are not prepared for their attacks and neither has evolution prepared our genes to resist their effects. As a result, such a virus may be life threatening and kill millions and millions of people.

Therefore it was interesting to read about new research showing, that oceans of the world are full of unknown RNA viruses. And not only new versions of the kinds of virus types previously known, but completely unknown virus groups rooting in the earliest history of the life itself.

These new viruses are not causing diseases of humans, but mostly multiply in lower eukaryotes, bacteria and archaea. In doing that, these viruses affect evolution of their host organisms, affect marine community dynamics, speed up the cycles of matter in the biosphere and evolve themselves.

It remains to be seen, how the research described above affects practical human life. It is, however, clear that this piece of curiously driven science affects considerably the worldview of virologists and microbiologists and adds to their creativity towards new research projects. 

History has shown that such a cumulative increase of understanding is the basic value of the scientific inquiry. Any piece of new knowledge may ultimately lead to useful practical applications. And that has raised the western part of the world developmentally above rest of the human cultures.  

Previous thoughts on the same topic:
Soil subsides under cities, but every cloud has a silver lining
American black population more vulnerable to the Omicron variant of SARS-CoV-2

Soil subsides under cities, but every cloud has a silver lining

In a recent scientific publication it was noticed that in most of the coastal cities around the world part of the land is subsiding even more quickly than a sea level is rising. Therefore it can be expected that these cities will be challenged by flooding much sooner than the current sea level rise models predict. 

The problem is most serious in South, Southeast, and East Asia, but the phenomenon is also observed in North America, Europe, Africa, and Australia. The main driving force for this subsidence is groundwater extraction.

I live in Finland, and here the soil - including that under the coastal towns - is rising due to a return from a subsidence that occurred during the last ice age. The problem, however, will also affect our life, as the Baltic sea is connected to other seas via Danish straits, and the land there is subsidizing even without human contribution. 

The outcome of this development will be higher rate of water change between the Baltic sea and Oceans. It will have the following two consequences. 

First. The sea water will become more salty than today, which probably affects also the fauna and flora of the unique brackish water ecosystem along our coasts. And as the level of the Baltic sea uniqueness - i.e. exceptional salinity - will be reduced, it will become even more receiving for all kinds of alien species dispersed by human actions, especially via ballast waters from ships sailing between different geographical areas.

This will worsen the biodiversity problem, which already now is considerable. According to this report, around 140 non-indigenous species or new species with unknown origin have been recorded in the Baltic Sea. And as easily understood, the situation cannot be fixed as eradication of non-indigenous species is not a viable management option for a whole sea.  

Second. The deep waters of Baltic sea are largely suffering of hypoxia, i.e. lack of oxygen. Its ultimate cause is an excess nutrient loading from human activities and in summertime its effects are visible as algal blooms. These blooms sink to the bottom and overuse the available oxygen, which leads to mortality of bottom-living organisms, and ultimately creates dead zones.

The situation is partially regenerative, as in some years more salty water from Oceans enter to the Baltic sea, and due to its heaviness compared to the brackish water, sink down to the bottoms. There it pushes the oxygen-free bottom water upwards and reoxidizes the deep sea basins. 

Now, if water change via the Danish straits increases due to the climatic change and land subsidence, also the area of deep basins suffering from hypoxia will reduce. That will ultimately lead to decrease in algal blooms, which currently considerably reduce the recreational value of the marine nature along the coasts of Finland and other Baltic sea countries. 

Taken together, the sea level rise expected due to the predicted climate change and land subsidence, as well as other human actions, can be expected to have negative effects to the nature of the Baltic sea, but  probably increase the recreational value of the sea to humans. 

For such a situation, we have a proverb in Finnish: "ei niin pahaa, ettei jotain hyvääkin". That means "not so bad, that there would not be something good", or to express that with an English proverb: "every cloud has a silver lining".

Previous thoughts on the same topic:
Measurements of arctic temperatures and sea ice area agree with each other
World Resources Institute had an arrogant demand