[Intro]
[Driving Bass, Piano Ostinato, Organ Swell]
[Spoken Vocal]
Sometimes the question isn’t whether something is growing.
The question is…
How fast is the grow growing?
(Yet off we go… without knowing….)
[Verse 1]
Back when the signals first emerged
The changes seemed restrained
A little faster every year
But largely unexplained
The curves were slowly bending
The future looked remote
Most assumed the system’s pace
Would somehow stay afloat
[Chorus]
Oh, the magnitude
(Of your attitude)
There’s no latitude
(For being rude… crude)
Dismissing warnings
(From the data dude)
When the evidence grows
(In magnitude)
[Verse 2]
The numbers kept on changing
The curves refused to rest
Each decade brought new records
Surpassing every test
What looked like gentle motion
Began to steepen more
The feedbacks found each other
And opened wider doors
[Refrain]
The growth constant
(Is not)
…is not constant
(Faster and faster)
Riskin’ disaster
[Chorus]
Oh, the magnitude
(Of your attitude)
There’s no latitude
(For being rude… crude)
[Bridge]
[Music Drops to Bass and Piano]
The problem of amplification
(Amplification! Amplification!)
When feedback follows feedback
(Feedback, back, back)
And pathways intertwine
Tomorrow doesn’t add itself
It multiplies through time
[Build]
Faster…
(Than expected)
Stronger…
(Than projected)
Steeper…
(Than before)
Opening another door
[Refrain]
The growth constant
(Is not)
…is not constant
(Faster and faster)
Riskin’ disaster
Feedback master
(Adding pressure)
[Final Chorus]
[Full Band, Choir Harmony]
Oh, the magnitude
(Of your attitude)
There’s no latitude
(For being rude… crude)
Oh, the magnitude
(Of what came true)
The future arrived
(Faster than we knew)
[Outro]
[Organ Sustain, Guitar Harmonics]
The biggest surprise…
May not be the change itself.
But the speed…
Of the change in change.
Change… not only coming
(Change… already here)
Hear?
[Fade Out]
Magnitude…
Magnitude…
Faster and faster…
What does that mean?
The Nonlinear Acceleration framework focuses on the rate of acceleration of climate change.
At the time the hypothesis was first developed in the 1990s, observed acceleration rates were closer to ~2^1-fold per century doubling behavior. More recent analyses across multiple independent datasets suggest much shorter characteristic timescales consistent with stronger feedback amplification of 2^6-fold on a decadal basis.
* a ~60× increase in the effective growth constant
* or about two orders of magnitude faster system amplification
depending on formulation and interpretation.
From the album “Cracked Windshield“