Earth Viability Dashboard


The Dashboard
Why a Dashboard?
The System Units
Essential Variables
Collapse Indicators
The Indicators
Research
Variables
Climate Variables
Resources
Earth Observation Dashboard
World Situation Room
State of Governance
Web-Based Tools/Services
User Access

Earth's Dashboard

A Planetary Emergency

We are in the middle of a planetary emergency. This is increasingly acknowledged by scientific and non-governmental organizations. The Planetary Emergency Partnership (PEP) has developed a Planetary Emergency Plan 2.0 to address the complex across-cutting emergency.

However, awareness of the planetary emergency remains low. Therefore, the Earth Viability Center is engaged in the drafting of a Declaration of Planetary Emergency. The goal is to have this declaration made available in all languages and signed by as many citizens of planet Earth as possible. The draft is developed on Place4Us, the virtual collaboration platform where all people can collaborate to ensure that Earth remains a place for us.

If you want to contribute to the development of the declaration, join us at Drafting PED.

Others have also declared a planetary emergency. For example, the Club of Rome in collaboration declared a Planetary Emergency in September 2022. They published a roadmap out of the emergency "Planetary Emergency 2.0 already in September 2020 (see local copy).

Humanity's Ecological Footprint

Earth Overshoot Day in 2023 was August 2, 2023!

Earth Overshoot Day: The day in the year when humanity has used all the resources the planet produces in one year and starts tapping into the stock of nature is coming earlier every year. From Earth Overshoot Days.

Overhoot Day by Country: The overuse of natural resources is distributed very unequally between countries. From Earth Overshoot Day.

For more information on humanity's ecological footprint, see https://www.overshootday.org/ ...


The Earth Energy Imbalance

The ocean heat content is rapidly increasing. This is the result of the Earth Energy Imbalance (EEI) being today roughly 10 million times larger than on the long-term average over the last 200 million years. This very large EEI is caused by the high CO2 content in the atmosphere caused by humanity's excessive use of fossil fuels. More than 90% of the energy the planet currently stores goes into the ocean. For more information, see NOAA web page ...

The Earth Energy Imbalance (EEI) went from roughly 250 TW in 2000 to 720 TW in 2023. It doubled in roughly 13 years (from 2007 to 2020). That is most likely the most important aspect of the Climate Emergency: the planetary heating is rapidly increasing!

A doubling time of 13 years for EEI means that the increase in heating is now decoupled from the increase in excess #greenhouse gases. Most likely, the change in surface albedo (potentially caused by the rapid loss of sea ice) allows for more heat storage particularly in the ocean. As a consequence, global warming is accelerating.

A key question with a potentially devastating answer is: "Has the climate entered a runaway phase?" If so, there is no climate action left that could change this.

Understanding that the Climate Crisis is at the core of the Planetary Emergency, a runaway climate would be devastating for the Earth's ability to support life at its current diversity on the planet.

The diagram was prepared by Leon Simons, who tweeted the diagram on July 28, 2023, see https://twitter.com/LeonSimons8/status/1684966795826929666. The diagram uses NASA CERES EBAF-TOA All-sky Ed4.2 Net Flux data from March 2000 to May 2023.


NOAA's Global Climate Dashboard

NOAA has a Global Climate Dashboard that tracks climate change and natural variability in a number of climate variables.

2023 Sea-Surface Temperature (SST) Anomaly

Leon Simons tweeted two diagrams of the extreme SST globally and for the North Atlantic (see tweet. These diagrams show the steady increase of SST over time and the exceptional increase in 2023 compared to previous years:

Your Comments and Questions

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