Leon Simons: "Aerosol Demasking & Global Heating”
Episode 105
January 17th, 2024
(Conversation recorded on December 13th, 2023)
Show Summary
On this episode, Nate is joined by climate researcher Leon Simons to unpack recent trends in global heating during 2023 and potential explanations and subsequent projections for the coming year. While the connection between human emitted greenhouse gasses and global warming is scientifically agreed upon, the other complexities and feedbacks of our climate system are still just beginning to be understood. Today, Leon theorizes on the intensity of aerosol masking from particulates such as sulfur, based on the connection between recent changes in marine fuel sulfur requirements and corresponding climate data. How will the global trend towards aerosol reductions affect near and long term global heating? What does this catch-22 mean for potential future climate action and policy? How should we be thinking about creating a more simplified global system in response to the unknown unknowns of our potential future climate?
Slides referenced in this episode
About Leon Simons
Leon Simons is a climate researcher and science communicator at the Club of Rome Netherlands and is studying the effects of reduction in sulfur emissions on regional and global radiation changes and its impact on global heating. Most recently he was a co-author of the paper Global Warming in the Pipeline with renowned climate scientist James Hansen. Leon is also the founder of Magic Ventures BV, which works to make clean cooking technologies accessible to people everywhere.
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Show Notes & Links to Learn More
00:00 - Leon Simons Works and Info, Slides used in this episode, Global warming in the pipeline
01:53 - 3 billion people still use biomass for cooking, contributing to deforestation
02:25 - Club of Rome
02:55 - Aerosols, aerosol masking
03:01 - Water vapor interaction with aerosols
03:30 - 2020 IMO policy change reducing sulfur content in marine fuels
03:51 - Sulfurs are the strongest cooling agent in the climate
03:55 - James Hansen
04:15 - Global Warming in the Pipeline
04:45 - Norman Loeb, satellite data
04:58 - Paleoclimatology
05:45 - Understanding past climate through air bubbles, tree rings
06:43 - The anthropogenic greenhouse era began thousands of years ago | Ruddiman et. al
10:17 - Changes in Solar Output and in the Earth’s Atmosphere
10:35 - PETM, mass extinctions caused by volcanic activity
11:44 - Little Ice Age
13:00 - IPCC, most recent report
14:45 - Understanding Earth’s energy balance
15:43 - Slide 3
16:41 - Aerosol lifetime in atmosphere
17:40 - Ocean heat absorption, 90% of global heat uptake is in the oceans
17:55 - Feedback Loops
18:34 - La Nina/El Nino
22:08 - Suez Canal
23:10 - Natural sources of atmospheric sulfur
23:24 - Slide 3
24:30 - Slide 4
25:01 - How aerosols affect cloud formation
27:07 - Clouds make up a very small percentage of the sky by volume
28:50 - Acid rain and dissolving statues
28:52 - Sulfur and acid rain
29:04 - Regulations on sulfur emissions in the US and EU
30:35 - Shipping sulfur makes up 10% of global sulfur emissions (Page 10, Section 1)
30:46 - Slide 5
31:24 - China decreasing sulfur emissions over the past two decades
31:36 - Desulphurization systems, gypsum
32:10 - Faustian Bargain
32:29 - Slide 6
32:42 - Sulfur masking effect is more powerful when emitted over the oceans
36:38 - Slide 7
36:47 - RCP 8.5, Climate Forcing
39:54 - Pacific Decadal Oscillation
39:55 - Slide 7
42:29 - Slide 8
47:10 - Hansen 2003: Can we defuse the global warming time bomb?
50:55 - Slide 10
51:35 - Atlantic meridional overturning circulation, slowing effects
52:05 - Extreme weather 2023
53:59 - Transient climate response (TCR).
54:45 - COP 28
55:57 - Climate tipping points
57:34 - 2023 state of the climate report: Entering uncharted territory | BioScience | Oxford Academic
59:55 - Norman Loeb 2021 paper on a doubling in the rate of Earth’s warming
1:05:10 - Temporary Solar Radiation Management
1:07:42 - India sulfur emissions
1:11:46 - Whale poop carbon sequestration
1:11:50 - James Lovelock