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Ep 105  |  Leon Simons

Leon Simons: “Aerosol Demasking & Global Heating”

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TGS105 Leon Simons The Great Simplification

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. 

In French, we have a motto that says that a simple drawing is often better than a long explanation. Jean-Marc Jancovici Carbone 4 President

That’s very understandable because with left atmosphere thinking, one of the problems is that you see everything as a series of problems that must have solutions. Iain McGilchrist Neuroscientist and Philosopher

We can’t have hundreds and hundreds of real relationships that are healthy because that requires time and effort and full attention and awareness of being in real relationship and conversation with the other human. Nate Hagens Director of ISEOF

This is the crux of the whole problem. Individual parts of nature are more valuable than the biocomplexity of nature. Thomas Crowther Founder Restor

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

22:17 – Impacts on cloud radiative effects induced by coexisting aerosols converted from international shipping and maritime DMS emissions

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

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