CO2 eq update June, 2024

 NOAA has released its monthly updates to CO₂, CH₄, and N₂O. See the data section for each gas. 

https://gml.noaa.gov/ccgg/

Here are the previous results.

Here are the updated results; changes are more likely due to month-to-month fluctuations, not long term changes in trends:

Here are recent month to month variations from the moving average and its best fit.

The crossing is now estimated to occur mid-February, 2030, give or take a month.

Here is the combination of historic data, satellite era data, and the most recent updates from NOAA:

When will CO2 ... Part V - When will the AGGI cross the 2x Pre-Industrial limit?

In our previous posts, we have examined NOAA's AGGI data for the major non-condensing greenhouse gases and their cumulative radiative forcings; we then reduced monthly variations by using a twelve month moving average. 

Now we use the moving average to extrapolate those forcings to the point where twice the pre-industrial era ceiling is crossed.

The following figure shows, over the time period 2001 to the present and extrapolated to 2030, the AGGI computed from NOAA's monthly data for mole fractions of CO₂, CH₄, and N₂O, with the quadratic fit to forcings from other species; also shown is the twelve-month moving average, and its quadratic fit. The thick red line at the top is the climate ceiling at twice the pre-industrial level of forcings. It appears that these curves cross somewhere near 2030.

The next figure shows the same data for the period since NOAA's last AGGI update, from 2020 to 2030. As above, it shows the same approximate AGGI, the twelve-month moving average, and its quadratic fit, barely distinguishable from the moving average. The thick red line at the top is the climate ceiling at twice the pre-industrial level of forcings. It is clear that these curves cross somewhere near 2030; numerical calculation shows they cross in late November 2029, give or take a month.

No, crossing the 2x pre-industrial level of forcing will not be immediate disaster, just a slow-moving mess, guaranteed to make millions if not hundreds of millions of lives miserable, getting worse as the world's climate moves from its  transient climate response to its eventual pseudo-equilibrium state.

Discussion

When looking for policy solutions, it is not unreasonable to ask what are the effects of other species on our global cumulative radiative forcings. 

We considered each major greenhouse gas aside from CO₂, removed its forcing, and looked back to see when the atmosphere contained gases with that reduced level of forcing. To estimate future conditions, we added that same time gap to the present; this is equivalent to linearizing the relation between elapsed time and the AGGI, so this is not a sophisticated approach, but it is used here for only qualitative comparisons.

The following table summarizes 

• the current total forcing from all greenhouse gases in W-m^-2, the current AGGI, the current CO₂ in equivalent in ppm, the year at which the atmosphere most recently hit that level of equivalent CO₂, and the year when the earth will cross the 2x pre-industrial threshold with that amount of CO₂, 
• the same, were only CO₂, CH₄, and N₂O present at current mole fractions, 
• the same without N₂O , 
• the same without CH₄

Had we to worry about only CO₂, CH₄, and N₂O, the atmosphere would warm like it did a decade ago, moving the date at which we would cross the 2x pre-industrial era level to 2039; by 2030, a decade's grace period will look pretty inviting, but in the long run, it is less significant.

Having to worry about only CO₂ and CH₄ would get us only less than another six years, placing us with an atmosphere like it was in Obama's first year in office and postponing the crossing to 2044.

Getting rid of methane makes a significant difference; that gets us back to 1986, when the Reagan administration was negotiating the initial The Montreal Protocol on Substances That Deplete the Ozone Layer, a time when the AGGI was less than 1, postponing the crossing to 2068. We should be so lucky. 

Policy makers should make note of this: CH₄ is a major problem, and we should be very concerned with future fugitive emissions of methane from warming tundra and the like.

Now, what about clouds?

The Earthshine data suggests that reductions in albedo are adding another 0.5-0.7 W-m^-2 to warming, a total of about 4.1 W-m^-2

(https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0273117723004660)

Were this the case, then the future looks worse than grim, plunging us into a world warming by 4° C or more.

The recent launch of the EarthCARE satellite and NASA's February launch of PACE are quite timely in this regard.

A thorough understanding of the earth's clouds and aerosols is essential, if we are to make the most prudent and immediate changes in policies to deal with global warming.

Here is a press announcement of the launch: 

 Falcon 9 launches ESA’s EarthCARE mission

  https://spacenews.com/falcon-9-launches-esas-earthcare-mission/ 

 A Falcon 9 successfully launched an Earth science mission for Europe and Japan May 28 as part of the European Space Agency’s ongoing, if temporary, reliance on SpaceX for space access. The Falcon 9 lifted off from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California at 6:20 p.m. Eastern. The payload, the Earth Cloud Aerosol and Radiation Explorer (EarthCARE) spacecraft, separated from the upper stage about 10 minutes after liftoff... 

Spacecraft controllers will spend the weeks and months ahead checking out the spacecraft’s instruments and calibrating them, she said. That will allow the first release of science data from EarthCARE around the end of this year or early next year. EarthCARE is an 800-million-euro ($870 million) ESA-led mission to study clouds and aerosols in the atmosphere. The spacecraft carries four instruments, including a cloud profiling radar provided by the Japanese space agency JAXA at a cost of 8.3 billion yen ($53 million). JAXA dubbed the spacecraft Hakuryu or “White Dragon” because of the spacecraft’s appearance... 

“EarthCARE is there to study the effect of clouds and aerosols on the thermal balance of the Earth,” said Dirk Bernaerts, ESA’s EarthCARE project manager, at a pre-launch briefing May 21. “It’s very important to observe them all together at the same location at the same time. That is what is unique about this spacecraft...”

These satellite missions could not be more vital nor more timely.

Concluding thoughts

Even without the reduction in albedo, our current climate policies are not working. We are adding about 3.5 W-m^-2 to the 240 W-m^-2 we get at the surface from the sun through our atmosphere, an increase of about 1.46% in the earth's energy budget; this increase goes on day after day, and gets worse as greenhouse gas mole fractions in the atmosphere increase.

Suppose an adult - let's call him Gordo - on a 2000 kcal/day diet increases his calorie consumption by 1.46% every day, just 30 kcal a day more, a little less than that in a teaspoon of butter. What would be the consequences? 

That's an extra 29.2 kcal each and every day. At that rate,  poor Gordo will gain more than 3 pounds a year, 2 stone 3 every decade. How many decades of weight gain will it take for Gordo to realize that he has become obese? Three decades of over eating will have made Gordo gain over 90 pounds.

Just like Gordo, we need to implement drastic measures.

Postscript - the relation between the AGGI and CO₂ equivalent

We digitized the CO₂ eq and AGGI data in Figure 4, NOAA, AGGI using the online tool using Plot Digitizer. These historic data were combined with the satellite era data to create this last figure.

This figure shows, in green, the relation beween CO₂ eq in ppm (on the ordinate) and the AGGI (abscissa). Historic data are labeled with the year at which the estimate was made. Satellite era data points are also labeled. The solid blue curve is CO₂ eq = 350 ppm, which was crossed in the early Kennedy administration, in1961 - remember those days? The solid red curve is the CO₂ equivalent at twice the pre-industrial level of radiative forcings, 554.3 ppm. The black spot [OG:Remember Treasure Island?] represents current conditions.

 

One final note: The radiative forcing for CO₂ is a function of the mole fraction of both CO₂ and N₂O. To calculate CO₂ eq for a given amount of forcing, we also use the pre-industrial mole fraction of N₂O, 273.87 ppb.

For more information 

Note: All calculations were performed within Mathematica Home Edition 13.2.1.0. on a MacBook Pro with macOS Sonoma 14.5. A PDF of the original Mathematica output is available upon request to Jim Diamond, jimd at Linfield dot edu.

When will CO2 ... Part IV - The AGGI with an improved fit to monthly data

In our previous posts, we have examined NOAA's AGGI data for the major non-condensing greenhouse gases and their cumulative radiative forcings. 

In this post, we first reduce monthly variations by using a twelve month moving average, and second, use the moving average to extrapolate those forcings to the point where twice the pre-industrial era ceiling is crossed.

The following figure compares the monthly data with that of the moving average over twelve months.

Note that the time series for the twelve-month moving average is shorter than that for the original data by half an year at each end,

It is clear that the twelve-month moving average is nearly linear, and is well-approximated by a quadratic fit.

The error in the quadratic fit to the twelve-month moving average AGGI ranges from -0.0045711 to 0.00380524 with an rms error 0.00203621. 

The following figure shows the original monthly AGGI data for total radiative forcings computed from mole fractions of CO₂, CH₄, and N₂O plus the quadratic estimate for forcings from the other species in the atmosphere, its moving average over twelve months, and the quadratic fit to the twelve-month moving average AGGI. There is not much difference between the latter pair.

So the question remains: When will the AGGI reach the equivalent of 2x pre-industrial levels?

Note: All calculations were performed within Mathematica Home Edition 13.2.1.0. on a MacBook Pro with macOS Sonoma 14.5. A PDF of the original Mathematica output is available upon request to Jim Diamond, jimd at Linfield dot edu.

When will CO2 ...Part III - NOAA's monthly updates to the big 3 greenhouse gases.

NOAA's Earth System Research Laboratories (ERSL) operates the Global Monitoring Laboratory (GML):

ESRL's Global Monitoring Laboratory (GML) of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) conducts research that addresses three major challenges; greenhouse gas and carbon cycle feedbacks, changes in clouds, aerosols, and surface radiation, and recovery of stratospheric ozone.

You can see that this source is essential for addressing the big questions about the atmosphere.

The GML includes the Carbon Cycle Greenhouse Gases (CCGG) research area, whose data products include trends in carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, and other gases.

The Carbon Cycle Greenhouse Gases (CCGG) research area operates the Global Greenhouse Gas Reference Network, measuring the atmospheric distribution and trends of the three main long-term drivers of climate change, carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4), and nitrous oxide (N2O), as well as carbon monoxide (CO) which is an important indicator of air pollution.

Here is the web page for recent trends.

Each tab under "Trends in CO₂, CH₄, N₂O, SF₆" contains somewhere within it a data section with links to the complete globally averaged records, including globally averaged marine surface monthly mean data (text) or (CSV) files.

These were used to examine monthly trends over the last few decades. In addition, we assumed that forcings due to ALL OTHER species, ozone, other oxides of nitrogen or sulfur, halogenated species, and the rest DID NOT DECREASE. 

The observed trend over the satellite ear in the amounts of forcings from all these species is shown in the next figure. The thick red line at the top is the AGGI corresponding to forcings as if they were due to only CO₂ with a mole fraction twice that of the pre-industrial era.   

Despite notable decreases in CFCs, there has been sufficient addition of species other than CO₂, CH₄, and N₂O so that the radiative forcing from these other species has been approximately constant over the lst decade. The full AGGI update in the next year or two will ceretainly contain precise data, but this assumption will allow us to estimate the full forcings in the atmosphere.

These data, in the years 2001 to 2022, are well approximated by a quadratic fit, as shown in the following figure.

The error in the quadratic fit to the observed data for all other contributions to AGGI ranges from -0.000423613 to 0.000691483 with an rms error 0.000340728.

We will use monthly AGGI data for amounts of warming from CO₂, CH₄, and N₂O plus this quadratic estimate for forcings from the other species in the atmosphere.

The next figure shows the results: monthly forcings from CO₂, CH₄, and N₂O plus the quadratic estimate for forcings from the other species in the atmosphere, and in a thick red line, the level of radiative forcings from twice the pre-industrial mole fraction of  CO₂, 3.74613 W-m^-2

Two features really stand out: first, there is a significant month-to-month variation in the forcings for CO₂ and CH₄, and less so for N₂O; second, the total radiative forcing is quickly approaching the level of radiative forcings from twice the pre-industrial mole fraction of  CO₂, but it is obscured by the month-to-month variations.

We can solve both problems: first reduce monthly variations by using a twelve month moving average, and second, use the moving average to extrapolate those forcings to the point where twice the pre-industrial era ceiling is crossed. 

Note: All calculations were performed within Mathematica Home Edition 13.2.1.0. on a MacBook Pro with macOS Sonoma 14.5. A PDF of the original Mathematica output is available upon request to Jim Diamond, jimd at Linfield dot edu.

When will CO2 ... Part II - NOAA's AGGI

NOAA maintains and updates an inventory of global levels of greenhouse gases, the Annual Greenhouse Gas index (AGGI).

From NOAA:Annual Greenhouse Gas Index (AGGI)

The AGGI is a measure of the direct climate-warming influence of long-lived trace gases in the atmosphere and how that influence has changed since the onset of the industrial revolution. The index was designed to enhance the connection between scientists and society by providing a normalized standard that can be easily understood and followed. The direct warming influence of long-lived greenhouse gases is well understood by scientists and has been reported by NOAA through a range of national and international assessments. Nevertheless, the language of scientists often eludes policy makers, educators, and the general public. This index is designed to help bridge that gap. The AGGI provides a way for this warming influence to be presented as a simple index.

The AGGI is more precisely a measure of the radiative forcings of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. For simplicity, the 1990 AGGI was set to 1 (2.285 W/m²).

The NOAA Annual Greenhouse Gas Index (AGGI) tracks the increasing amount of heat being added to the atmosphere by human-related greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. It is based on the highest quality measurements of GHGs in the atmosphere from sites around the world. Its uncertainty is very low.

In a nutshell:

• The AGGI in 2022 was 1.49, which means that we’ve turned up the warming influence from greenhouse gases by 49% since 1990.
• It took ~240 years for the AGGI to go from 0 to 1, i.e., to reach 100%, and 32 years for it to increase by another 49%.
• In terms of CO₂ equivalents, the atmosphere in 2022 contained 523 ppm, of which 417 is CO₂ alone. The rest comes from other gases.
• CO₂ is by far the largest contributor to the AGGI in terms of both amount and rate of increase.
• Note: The IPCC suggests that a constant concentration of CO₂ alone at 550 ppm would lead to an average increase in Earth’s temperature of ~3°C (5.4°F).

Here is how radiative forcings are calculated from atmospheric mole fractions, usually expressed as ppm or ppb. From NOAA: Radiative Forcing Calculations

More precisely, the usual carbon dioxide ceiling used within the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is twice the pre-industrial amounts of greenhouse gases expressed as the equivalent amount of CO₂ in ppm.

Forcings equivalent to that due to doubling of CO₂ over pre-industrial levels total 3.74613 W-m^-2, or an index of 1.63945 relative to 1990. The following figure shows the forcings, expressed as components of the AGGI relative to 1990, of CO₂,  CH₄, N₂O,  and that due to the rest of greenhouse gases, with the climate ceiling shown in red.

The amount of long-term warming after doubling of CO₂ over pre-industrial levels is referred to as equilibrium climate sensitivy (ECS).The amount of warming in the short term is referred to as transient climate response (TCR). These terms should not be confused with each other. It may take a century or more for climate response to reach something close to equilibrium.

It should be noted that the earth is not a closed system thermodynamically. It is open, driven by the sun, so a relatively stable climate should more properly be called a stationary state or pseudo-equilibrium. We will continue to differentiate between transient climate response and the very long term pseudo-equilibrium achieved after many centuries with no other changes.

Here is a recent article from Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) about new research on estimates of ECS. Scientists combine climate models for more accurate projections

Researchers from institutions including the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory have created a new methstically analyzing climate models that projects future conditions with more fidelity.

The method provides a way to adjust for models with high temperature sensitivities — a known problem in the community. By assigning different weights to models and combining them, the researchers estimate that the global temperature will increase between 2 and 5 degrees Celsius by the end of the century.

NOAA's Climate Program Office reports Increasing Certainty Of Climate Sensitivity In Models

The response of Earth’s climate to projected increases in the concentrations of energy-trapping atmospheric greenhouse gases (GHGs) is immediately evident in global temperature increases. Because the amount of future warming, or climate sensitivity, is a critical factor affecting climate projections (e.g. precipitation, extremes, sea level, sea ice, etc.) around the world, scientists need to reduce uncertainty in climate model sensitivity estimates.

These model uncertainties largely arise from how clouds, interactions with aerosols, and other processes which may amplify or diminish the impact of increasing GHGs will change in response to warmer conditions and, combined with ocean heat uptake processes and feedbacks, will contribute to climate sensitivity.

The figure is useful.

Climate sensitivity in the latest climate models, measured by examining the output of the sixth Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP6), is quite high compared to previous multi-model experiments.

Now we can see that the underlying question is this: when will total atmospheric radiative forcings reach 3.74613 W-m^-2, or an AGGI of 1.63945 relative to 1990.

Note: All calculations were performed within Mathematica Home Edition 13.2.1.0. on a MacBook Pro with macOS Sonoma 14.5. A PDF of the original Mathematica output is available upon request to Jim Diamond, jimd at Linfield dot edu.

When will CO2 ... Part I - background

Here are the leading components of the atmosphere: 

N_2, O_2, Ar, and then greenhouse gases H₂O, CO₂, and trace greenhouse gases CH₄, N₂O, O₃ and SO₂, and then smaller amounts of CFCs, HFCs, HCFCs, and the like, and then even smaller amounts of species such as SF₆. If we want to understand global warming, we really need to understand the role of these gases in our atmosphere and how they can affect climate.

Global warming has one underlying cause: man-made emissions of greenhouse gases. Yes, there are some natural processes, such as forest fires and volcanic eruptions that can influence warming, but not to the same extent as anthropogenic sources of greenhouse gases.

Don't let your crazy uncle convince you otherwise.

The greenhouse gases in the atmosphere are those that are transparent to visible light - letting sunlight through to hit the earth's surface - but which absorb infrared (IR) emissions from the earth's surface.

Most of the atmosphere is transparent to IR. Dry air is composed of 99.96% non-greenhouse gases. The leading greenhouse gas in the atmosphere is water vapor, but water vapor in the air has a temperature-dependent upper limit - its equilibrium vapor pressure; increasing water vapor above its equilibrium vapor pressure leads to precipitation of either liquid or solid water, that is, rain or snow, depending on the temperature. 

Consider these aspects of water. Suppose that you took all of the H₂ on the planet and burnt it. The only significant product of H₂ combustion is water vapor, so the vapor pressure of water would increase, and increase, and increase - until it hit the equilibrium vapor pressure, at which point it would rain or snow - a phenomenon very well known in the Pacific Northwest.

If you didn't want to burn H₂, how would you increase the amount of water vapor in the air? Easy - warm up some water. The oceans are a convenient source. Warming the globe's surface waters is a sure-fire [OG - forgive the pun] way to get more H₂O into the atmosphere.

For these reasons, H₂O(g) is regarded as a response to global warming, not a driver. One could argue that condensing water vapor into clouds will increase the albedo of the earth, reducing solar insolation at the earth's surface, and lead to global cooling. While the scientific jury is still out on this question, there is increasing evidence that warming waters lead to reduced cloud cover, not an increase. We will discuss this in the last post in this series.

The leading non-condensing greenhouse gas in the atmosphere is CO₂. It is not a minor species; it is the most significant non-condensing greenhouse gas in our atmosphere. Don't let your crazy uncle convince you otherwise.

Here's NASA:

This absorption and radiation of heat by the atmosphere—the natural greenhouse effect—is beneficial for life on Earth. If there were no greenhouse effect, the Earth’s average surface temperature would be a very chilly -18°C (0°F) instead of the comfortable 15°C (59°F) that it is today.

Some minor species!

From Wikipedia:

As of 2023, by mole fraction (i.e., by number of molecules), dry air contains 78.08% nitrogen, 20.95% oxygen, 0.93% argon, 0.04% carbon dioxide, and small amounts of other gases. Air also contains a variable amount of water vapor, on average around 1% at sea level, and 0.4% over the entire atmosphere.

What happens when we have too much carbon dioxide?

From climate.gov:

Scientists say that doubling pre-industrial carbon dioxide levels will likely cause global average surface temperature to rise between 1.5° and 4.5° Celsius (2.7° to 8.1° Fahrenheit) compared to pre-industrial temperatures. (Current concentrations are about 1.4 times pre-industrial levels.) The full process could take hundreds of years—perhaps more than a thousand—to play out. Climate scientists call the full temperature rise from doubled carbon dioxide concentrations the equilibrium climate sensitivity.

To understand how sensitive the climate is to carbon dioxide on time frames of a century or less, scientists also study the transient climate sensitivity. They imagine that carbon dioxide will continue to increase at roughly the rate it has been, and then ask how much warming would be realized around the time when the concentration has doubled the preindustrial value. On this shorter time scale, it’s likely the planet will warm between 1° and 2.5°C (2°-4.5°F).

That is the essence of the problem: How soon will the increase in greenhouse gases make the planet too hot?

Note: All calculations were performed within Mathematica Home Edition 13.2.1.0. on a MacBook Pro with macOS Sonoma 14.5. A PDF of the original Mathematica output is available upon request to Jim Diamond, jimd at Linfield dot edu.

Changes in Earth's Albedo

 It appears that our cloud cover is becoming less reflective. Here's the abstract of a recent study of earthshine. From the abstract: 'Similarly, earthshine data show a steady decline during two decades of about 0.7 W/m2 (OG: my emphasis) which is in line with the decline of 0.5 W/m2 that would be observed from the Moon.'

Jie Wu, Enric Pallé, Huadong Guo, Yixing Ding,

Long-term trends in albedo as seen from a lunar observatory,

Advances in Space Research,

Volume 72, Issue 6,

2023,

Pages 2109-2117,

ISSN 0273-1177,

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.asr.2023.06.028.

(https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0273117723004660)

Abstract: The Earth’s albedo is the fraction of short-wave solar radiation that is reflected back to space, and is key to understand the observed trends in climate change. Although there have been many observational approaches to estimate the Earth’s albedo, different methods have their own drawbacks, for example, artificial satellites have a finite life time, and are operating in a hard environment that could quickly degrade the detectors. The Moon, the only natural satellite of Earth, offers an additional platform for monitoring the Earth’s albedo. In this paper, we calculate the global TOA (top-of-atmosphere) albedo that would be observed by a theoretical observatory on the Moon, and compare it with long-term trends derived from CERES (Clouds and the Earth’s Radiant Energy System, 2000–2020) and earthshine data (1999–2017). We find that the global hourly mean albedo observed in the direction of the Moon is more variable because of the orbital movement of the Moon. However, the regional and long-term global mean albedo anomalies that would be observed by CERES and has a good general agreement by a lunar observer over 20 years the data spans. Similarly, earthshine data show a steady decline during two decades of about 0.7 W/m2 which is in line with the decline of 0.5 W/m2 that would be observed from the Moon. Besides, to compare the regional changes of albedo with CERES, the spatially-resolved decadal anomalies in the albedo are also calculated for analysis. We find that a lunar-based observatory would be capable of detecting similar changes seen from CERES. Thus, it is a a practical option to monitor the long-term trends in albedo from the point of view of capturing the variability in the TOA fluxes of the Earth’s atmosphere.

Keywords: Albedo; Lunar observatory; CERES; Earthshine

Jim sees the aurora

 Our friend Jim in New Hampshire has seen the aurora from his home near Mount Chocorua

three times in the last fifteen months. Here's one of his photos.

Jim added details:

November 13, 2023 at 02:57 UTC. 

ISO 4000, 28mm, f/1.8, 8”

Canon EOS 5D Mark III, Canon EF28mm USM lens

Jim likes sunsets

Mount Chocorua from Page Hill, 20:07 4 Aug '21

Here in the great northern wilderness of New Hampshire, we have had several nights of spectacular sunsets. This is one of the images. It is unadjusted, apart from lens corrections!

Camera equipment
Canon Mark III EOS 5d
Canon EF28mm f/1.8 USM
Photo details
1/60", 28mm, f/4.0, ISO 100

I call this image "Wild nights", after the poem by Emily Dickinson. 

Wild nights - Wild nights!

Were I with thee

Wild nights should be

Our luxury!

Futile - the winds -

To a Heart in port -

Done with the Compass -

Done with the Chart!

Rowing in Eden -

Ah - the Sea!

Might I but moor - tonight -

In thee!

This poem has great significance to me, in large part because of its musical context.  In 1991 we moved from a small town in Maine to a small town in Oregon. The previous two years had not been kind to us both personally and professionally. We had moved rather suddenly from one coast to the other, hearts breaking in all four of us as we said goodbye to friends and drove ourselves and all of our belongings to a new home thousands of miles away. Everything precious to Maureen and me was on that truck.

I was in the second year of an appointment as an associate professor of theoretical chemistry in a small college in Oregon, in wine country, southwest of Portland. My research was off to a good start. I enjoyed my classes, and my new colleagues encouraged me to pursue my interests outside of the sciences. Maureen had just found a position as a dietician at Oregon Health Sciences University. as it was then known. We were emerging from the darkness into new schools and friendships.

I was quite fortunate to join the Portland Symphonic Choir in its 1992-1993 season; Maureen joined the following year. The choir performed regularly with the Oregon Symphony, at the time conducted by James DePreist, nephew of the contralto Marion Anderson. In the usual inexplicable resonance of the cosmos, the maestro and Maureen shared birthdays. Singing with the symphony added a level of richness, achievement,  and personal satisfaction that was a welcome balm on the rough edges of our souls, and the prospect of happiness that had seemed distant only two short years earlier.

The maestro always pointed Marion Anderson out to us. "Aunt Marion" was a presence dressed in white, high in the upper balcony where the sound was best. Jimmie, as he was known to all, relayed her criticisms after each rehearsal.

The first work performed by the choir that season was Beethoven's "Choral Fantasy", with Garrick Ohlsson at the keyboard, the season opener and gala concert. Garrick was a huge man, towering over all of us, kind to all and a delight on stage. The Beethoven is an early musical sketch of what became the fourth movement of the 9th symphony, with its choral setting of Schiller's "Ode to Joy".

The second major work as John Adams' setting of three poems by John Donne and Emily Dickinson, "Harmonium"

"Negative Love" (by Donne)
"Because I could not stop for Death" (by Dickinson)
"Wild Nights" (by Dickinson)

On 15 April 1981, the work was premiered by the San Francisco Symphony and Symphony Chorus, Edo de Waart at the baton. The work requires large forces. This 1992 production was the first performance of the work on the West Coast after the premiere. The composer would be in attendance. Maestro James DePreist would be conducting the orchestra, and only three rehearsals with the orchestra.

There was no segue between the two Dickinson poems; the music leaped from one to another, with several intense orchestral passages. The tempi were fast, the tessitura were very high and fortissimo, and the orchestra was blasting away. And the music itself was challenging. The maestro had a strategy to help keep the chorus anchored to the music: he would raise his left hand and hold it for a full measure; there were three points in the last movement where he did this. 

Each choral rehearsal - there were many - I left work, inhaled dinner, drove to Portland, rehearsed for two and a half hours or more, then drove home, then finished grading and class preparation for the following day, working sometimes till dawn. I was sustained by the beauty of the music and the poetry.

The performances were thrilling. Audiences thundered their approval. The maestro beamed and praised the entire ensemble. The composer was pleased. The maestro said Aunt Marion was satisfied but our diction could be better. Maureen and Greg and Kate came to one performance. 

I would hear again and again in my mind the closing lines,  followed by the soft weeping voice of the brass and the French horns:

Rowing in Eden - | Ah - the Sea!

Might I but moor - tonight - | In thee!

Here is a link to an excerpt from the San Francisco Symphony's recording of the last movement, with commentary by the British conductor Sir Simon Rattle.

Ah - the Sea!

Climate shite hitting the climate fan

 The Guardian reports

Here's the story:

Climate crisis: Scientists spot warning signs of Gulf Stream collapse

A shutdown would have devastating global impacts and must not be allowed to happen, researchers say

"Climate scientists have detected warning signs of the collapse of the Gulf Stream, one of the planet’s main potential tipping points.

The research found “an almost complete loss of stability over the last century” of the currents that researchers call the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation (AMOC). The currents are already at their slowest point in at least 1,600 years, but the new analysis shows they may be nearing a shutdown.

Such an event would have catastrophic consequences around the world, severely disrupting the rains that billions of people depend on for food in India, South America and West Africa; increasing storms and lowering temperatures in Europe; and pushing up the sea level off eastern North America. It would also further endanger the Amazon rainforest and Antarctic ice sheets."

Read on, Macduff.*

*The actual quote from the Scottish play is "Lay on, Macduff", Act 5, Scene 7.

Macbeth I will not yield To kiss the ground before young Malcolm's feet, And to be baited with the rabble's curse. Though Birnam wood be come to Dunsinane, And thou, opposed, being of no woman born, Yet I will try the last. Before my body I throw my warlike shield. Lay on, Macduff, And damned be him that first cries, 'Hold, enough.'