June is the month when the Arctic Sea Ice outlook gets going, when the EPA releases its rules on power plant CO2 emissions, and when, hopefully, commenters can get back to actually having constructive and respectful conversations about climate science (and not nuclear energy, impending apocalypsi (pl) or how terrible everyone else is). Thanks.
Thomas (#446),
“Very cheap solar thought experiment: If it is cheap enough, simply overbuild until seasonal variation is no longer an issue. Then you only need day/night storage.”
That is an interesting possibility that I don’t think gets looked at enough in terms of climate remediation. If we are generating more than we use, applying the extra power to cleaning up the atmosphere seems like a pretty good use. Perhaps Klaus Lackner should be looking at reducing the carbon dioxide his machines would capture rather than trying to find places to store it as a gas.
Jim (#442),
“Mission accomplished” connotes the B-17 Bomber and its effectiveness in Europe. Isn’t it rather silly of you to cede it to a strutting buffoon like that?
Try to keep up with things. The US does accomplish what it sets out to do.
@427:
Please show how the existing and proposed EPA regulations will cause U.S. emissions to fall at least 83% from present levels by 2050. Remember to account for not just electricity generation, but also industrial emissions, those from transportation, and those from residential and commercial activities.
Show how this is so. What is the sequestration flux? What are the total current emissions of Annex I countries?
No. It shows active anthropogenic sequestration. As paragraph 17 at p.4 says, “…some of the temperature trajectories (and their associated emissions scenarios) illustrated here…require either abrupt transitions from very high to near-zero emissions, or even prolonged periods of negative emissions for combinations of high climate sensitivity and low temperature targets.” (emphasis added).
No one is cutting emissions at anywhere near the rate required to stabilize GAT.
…and for those who are causing climate damage by continuing emissions greater than their share of the natural sequestration rate…
…drastically.
Fixed. China needs drastically to cut emissions. The U.S. needs drastically to cut emissions. And on through, oh, the top 100 or so emitters. As the paper says:
Sounds like the natural sequestration flux is darned small.
..
@433: As long as the atmosphere is the slightest bit warmer than the ocean’s surface, net heat will move from it into the ocean. And the fact that the oceans absorb shortwave (visible) radiation says nothing about whether they absorb longwave (infrared) radiation. They do: water absorbs very nearly 100% of incident radiation; see http://scienceofdoom.com/2010/12/27/emissivity-of-the-ocean/ for an excellent discussion of the issue. Thus, greenhouse radiation (longwave) net heats the ocean to the extent that the downwelling radiation from the atmosphere exceeds the upwelling radiation from the ocean surface.
453,
“Please show how the existing and proposed EPA regulations will cause U.S. emissions to fall at least 83% from present levels by 2050. Remember to account for not just electricity generation, but also industrial emissions, those from transportation, and those from residential and commercial activities.”
http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/image/president27sclimateactionplan.pdf
“Show how this is so. What is the sequestration flux? What are the total current emissions of Annex I countries?”
We can do that using inequities. As pointed out by the IPCC (though suppressed in the summary) non-Annex I countries are becoming responsible for the majority of cumulative emissions. To do that, their annual emissions must exceed those of Annex I countries. That gives them more than half of annual emissions. Since about half of annual emissions are immediately removed from the atmosphere, the Annex I countries are below the level which does not remain in the atmosphere. And, since they are cutting, they would stay below if other emissions ceased. On the other hand, those who are deliberately increasing emissions could not do the same, they would still be increasing the concentration. Recall that “sequestration flux” is your term.
“No. It shows active anthropogenic sequestration. As paragraph 17 at p.4 says, “…some of the temperature trajectories (and their associated emissions scenarios) illustrated here…require either abrupt transitions from very high to near-zero emissions, or even prolonged periods of negative emissions for combinations of high climate sensitivity and low temperature targets.” (emphasis added).”
Yes. Read that again. It is an artifact of the model. Use Fig. 2 if you want to be on topic.
“No one is cutting emissions at anywhere near the rate required to stabilize GAT.”
Actually, many are for a target of about 2 C. China and a few other deliberate miscreants are blowing it though.
You run on for a bit under misapprehension and then say:
“Sounds like the natural sequestration flux is darned small.”
And here is part of the source of you misunderstanding. Emissions must go to zero at some point, but they only have to go to about half in the first year and then cut towards zero over about 80 years or so (for 400 ppm stabilization). You think that “sequestration flux” of yours is the same number over time, but it can’t be. It must change. It has been growing as emissions have grown all these years. It must shrink after emissions shrink.
447 Chris Dudley: Ammonia is a better way to store energy than hydrogen because hydrogen leaks out of ANY container. Hydrogen gives up its electron when it contacts a surface, becoming a proton. The proton is much smaller than any atom, so the proton can easily slip through the spaces between atoms.
Ammonia can be used directly as fuel in a combustion engine. Another fuel: hydrazine, or double ammonia. N2H6. But hydrazine is a monopropellant, meaning hydrazine can explode without oxygen. Ammonia is toxic, but ammonia stays put in a pressure tank.
Lynn (#433), I already responded in 448), but I believe I have a better answer, one that uses a simple model world, although I have already touched on some of this answer’s elements.
A Waterworld
When we talk about surface warming we are normally speaking in terms of temperature — which is what I will assume he meant when he was speaking about an enhanced greenhouse effect heating the atmosphere, that is, until the last two paragraphs, where I will consider the heat content of the atmosphere. When we talk about the ocean warming, at least in the context of the diagram you linked to, we are speaking in terms of increasing ocean heat content.
Now imagine you have a water world such that all that exists is simply atmosphere and ocean. The ocean will tend to be warmer at the top, cooler below as warm water rises. Now pipe carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. This will tend to raise the temperature at the surface as an enhanced greenhouse effect will result in a warmer atmosphere and a warmer atmosphere will result in more downwelling longwave radiation that warms the ocean.
Stirring the Ocean
Now add some vertical ocean circulation, with upwelling water in one area, downwelling water in another. How? We can assume there is a wind, or that evaporation in one area leads to greater salinity, causing water in that area to sink, displacing fresher, colder water from below that thereby rises to the surface. Since colder water is rising this will have the tendency to cool the surface whereas warming water that sinks will be carrying heat away from the surface to the ocean depths and will be contributing to the warming of the ocean in the sense of increasing the heat content of the ocean depths.
It would be possible under such circumstances for an enhanced greenhouse effect to continue to warm the ocean in the sense of increasing the heat content of the ocean as a whole while the average temperature at the surface remains constant since warmer water is circulating to greater depths and cooler water is being displaced to the surface. Ocean circulation cools the surface and atmosphere, possibly keeping the atmosphere’s temperature constant even with the enhanced greenhouse effect, but warms the ocean depths.
In fact this sort of ocean circulation is exactly what takes place during La Nina years, and given a Pacific Decadal Oscillation that has been in its cool phase since the beginning of the millenium, La Ninas have been more common and stronger, El Ninos less so.
Regarding the Heat Content of the Atmosphere
Now if instead the skeptic actually means to refer to the atmosphere’s heat content rather than surface temperature, then using the same mechanism, we can point out that the heat content of the atmosphere continues to be added to by an enhanced greenhouse effect, but the heat content of the atmosphere continues to be subtracted from by ocean circulation that increases the heat content of the ocean. The rate that heat is added to the atmosphere by means of an enhanced greenhouse effect may simply be equal to the rate that heat is remove from the atmosphere by means of ocean circulation, with the ocean’s heat content consequently rising even as the heat content of the atmosphere remains constant.
And of course the heat content of the ocean will be greater simply because it has a far greater heat capacity and far greater mass. As an analogy here, you can increase the rate at which water enters a half empty tub like heat enters the ocean, but the amount of water in the faucet itself may remain constant, much like the heat content of the atmosphere during a hypothetical warming hiatus. And the increased rate at which water enters the faucet, in this case, corresponds to the increase in downwelling longwave radiation that results from an enhanced greenhouse effect.
452 Chris D said, ” “Mission accomplished” connotes the B-17 Bomber and its effectiveness in Europe. Isn’t it rather silly of you to cede it to a strutting buffoon like that?
Try to keep up with things. The US does accomplish what it sets out to do.”
You try to cover up your little slip with a 10 minute 1943 propaganda film and then tell me to keep up?? Either state that you think the majority of readers didn’t immediately think of Bush, or just admit you Bushed one.
And on doing what we set out to do, well, Vietnam, Korea, Iraq, etc.
You seem to think the US has decided to do something. What happens if Republicans win seats and the presidency?
You say China is right at mid-EU emissions? Great! If only the US were doing as well, then we’d have the moral authority to tell the Chinese, “Enough!”.
Lynn (#433),
The mistake lies here: “without heating the atmosphere itself”
The addition of greenhouse gases to the atmosphere raises the altitude in the atmosphere at which the Earth achieves radiative equilibrium, the level at which outgoing radiation balances incoming radiation. That means that the lapse rate starts from a higher altitude. Having a longer run, the air at the surface ends up warmer. It is indeed the atmosphere that is warmed by the greenhouse effect. Making the air warmer than the ocean leads to heat transfer to the ocean.
German electric power prices are falling owing to renewable energy. http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-06-26/germany-s-new-coal-plants-push-power-glut-to-4-year-high.html
SEA LEVEL RISE
There have been a number of recent articles and blogs focusing on sea level rise due to Greenland and Antarctica ice sheets (e.g., http://robertscribbler.wordpress.com/2014/06/26/temperatures-over-greenland-fast-approaching-400000-year-high-risk-4-6-meters-of-additional-sea-level-rise/). Most of them focus on maximum rise at some indeterminate point in time, or estimated SLR in 2100 or 2300 or 2500.
However, I wonder about the shorter term. What would be the physically-plausible worst case for sea level rise from Greenland and Antarctica in the 2025-2030 time frame?
Chris Dudley #405,
On 23 June (#405), I asked you to “focus on the outputs and impacts, not the inputs. Show the consequences of rapid solar/renewables installation on what it will do to place a lid on climate change, not what it will do to enrich the Windfall proponents and their front men. I have never seen such proof; I don’t believe it exists. Show me the temperature/concentration consequences!” It has been six days since that post, and I have yet to hear your statement on how implementation of renewables will contribute to avoiding ultimate climate disaster. Is that because – gasp – the contribution of renewables implementation will be meager for staying near the 1 C target. This is where the rubber meets the road. What is it exactly that your product will provide for solving the critical problem of concern?
Cryosphere Today are showing that the Antarctic Sea Ice Area anomaly has broken new ground in the last couple of days. No signs yet of the numpties trumpeting on about it (beyond the usual noise they make over the anomaly being big and positive).
377,
You’ve become very confused. You are asking why cutting emissions to zero will mitigate climate change.
A call for a moratorium on tar sand development appeared in Nature recently. http://switchboard.nrdc.org/blogs/ddroitsch/nature_article_tar_sands_pipel.html
Thomas (#446),
It turns out that free energy may be an intrinsic aspect of renewable energy. Digging deeper into the book “Reinventing Fire,” fig. 5-27a, which shows 2050 electricity consumption for each of the four scenarios explored there, has about 700 TWh/y of “Surplus renewables spilled,” meaning unused power generation, for the transform scenario. This seems surprising for someone as interested in efficiency as Lovins, but channeling that surplus into hydrogen production for use in reducing carbon dioxide to methane seems like a loop that could entirely eliminate natural gas use from that scenario. So, that scenario might properly be considered a zero emissions scenario. So energy may be left over from that loop closing to convert some carbon dioxide to long lasting building materials which would sequester the carbon.
Jim (#458),
You ask “What happens if Republicans win seats and the presidency?” There are calls to repeal the Clean Air Act. That is what it would take since it is the endangerment finding which is the basis for regulating greenhouse gases and that won’t change. But, repeal would soon be followed by reenactment since repeal would make quite a few republicans vulnerable. It is hard to see the Senate changing enough to support repeal in the next decade, and with climate disasters hitting the federal budget now, it is hard to see denial remaining a big part of the republican mind set for much longer than a decade. It is pretty hard to find young deniers. http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2013/07/poll-young-voters-climate-lcv and as President Obama has shown, republicans can’t win the presidency against a candidate who can motivate young voters.
So, the paths to the US not cutting emissions seem pretty much closed off at this point, your hero worship of the prior administration notwithstanding. So, again: Mission Accomplished.
Edward (#456),
Very low hydrogen permeability is found for some materials: http://www.rebresearch.com/H2perm2.htm
But that is not the main issue. Achieving good volumetric energy density with hydrogen is difficult. Think of the space shuttle external tank. Switching to ammonia as a hydrogen carrier helps with that. But, if combustion is the plan, using hydrocarbons would be better. The link I provided anticipated a fuel cell application where ammonia has the advantage of avoiding coking associated with hydrocarbon carrier fuel cells. Ammonia as a combustion fuel is probably limited to stationary and marine applications and likely not even the latter. Developments in synthetic hydrocarbon fuel probably knock ammonia out of the running there. http://www.voanews.com/content/us-navy-lab-turns-seawater-into-fuel/1919512.html
460 Chris Dudley: That isn’t how I read that article
“Power prices slump or even turn negative when wind and solar energy flowing into Germany’s grid exceeds demand”
A well-known phenomenon: Due to a law requiring that Wind and solar be used in preference to any other power source, the market is disrupted and electric companies have to pay people to take electricity. This law requires that 100% of wind and solar be used, even at a below zero price. The result is economic chaos.
http://newsletters.dailyclimate.org/t/158244/41592/122297/0/
Utility companies are retaliating against wind and solar.
459 Chris Dudley: The ocean absorbs sunshine directly.
464 Chris Dudley: There is no free energy. Renewables will drive the electric companies out of business and then you will have no electricity. Renewables are intermittent and cannot provide the continuous energy we need.
Is climate change destabilizing Iraq?
http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/future_tense/2014/06/isis_water_scarcity_is_climate_change_destabilizing_iraq.html
“Drought is becoming a fixture in the parched landscape, due to a drying trend of the Mediterranean and Middle East region fueled by global warming. ”
“Could there be a connection between climate change and the emerging conflict in Iraq?”
“The emergence of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria around the same time may just be an interesting coincidence, but the implications are important enough for us to consider a broader connection.”
“5 Graphics That Show U.S. Climate Change Costs”
http://www.climatecentral.org/news/5-graphics-us-climate-change-losses-17652
“Temperature has a notable impact on crime, particularly violent crime. Data show that as temperatures rise, so does the incidence of violent crime.”
Yes, I know that GW doesn’t cause a particular war or crime. The implication is being drawn in such a way as to lead people to see a direct link.
Comment by Chris Dudley — 27 Jun 2014 @ 8:23 PM, ~#455
Your statement- “Since about half of annual emissions are immediately removed from the atmosphere, the Annex I countries are below the level which does not remain in the atmosphere”- is, yet again, false. If the entire world stabilized emissions at current levels immediately, the temperature would increase for hundreds of years. Cutting the entire world emissions by 70% would stabilize temperature at nearly 2 degrees C above pre-industrial. Annex I nations provide a large proportion of this excess 70% and are, therefore, in your terms, “miscreants.” Nobody is drastically reducing emissions, instead there is a recession. Political goals for reducing emissions are just bloviations until some cause effect relationship can be demonstrated. Basing your statement on the fact that one half of CO2 is absorbed by the oceans is dishonest creative accounting or, perhaps, demonstrates a lack of understanding of how the partial pressure of CO2 across the air/water interface works.
Steve
This argument’s logical conclusion is that an emissions flux of half the present value is OK. It isn’t.
Incorrect. About half of the remaining emissions flux would remain in the atmosphere for hundreds of years, thus increasing atmospheric concentrations. Thus, the emitters whose total emissions flux is larger than the long-term sequestration rate (which is ~0.1 ppm/yr) are responsible for increasing atmospheric concentrations. That includes not just China, but Annex I, and probably the entire top 100 emitters.
Once again, we’re all in this together.
> “Surplus renewables spilled”
That’s written during the dark ages before ubiquitous cheap 3D microprint fabbing, out of which we are not yet come, of course — but seriously, most “spillable” excess power ought to become useful as we get better at doing useful things with small amounts of power and material.
As the intellectual barometer plunges, we again face the weirdest weather of the year– the Heartland Climate Conference season
Hank,
Demand side management was a part of the RMI modeling so I was surprised by the size of the “spill.” Part of this has to be very limited use of storage. PEVs are used in a V2G scheme and compressed air storage is used to a small degree, which is not terribly efficient, but the larger capacity available in used transportation batteries seems to be ignored. I suspect though that including seasonal level storage like synthesizing methane using that energy would change things around.
Oh dear, I just chanced upon this fairly recent article in The Telegraph: The scandal of fiddled global warming data. Are there no depths that the deniers will not plumb? I used to think that The Telegraph was a serious UK newspaper.
[Sorry, made a mess of the link in my last comment attempt – now corrected]
472,
No, you are still not understanding. If 2015 emissions were half of 2014 emissions, all of the 2015 emissions would be removed from the atmosphere. They would not linger and the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere would not increase. To keep that going in 2016 would require somewhat lower emissions that 2015. That is because, in part, the partial pressure disequilibrium between the atmosphere and oceans that drives the large uptake we are now seeing would have been decreased by the uptake in 2015. After eighty years or so, the disequilibrium would be pretty much gone and emissions would have to be zero, but up until that time, nothing lingers in the atmosphere from new emissions, it is absorbed immediately by the biosphere and oceans.
“Sequestration flux” was your term, but if you are going to use it, you better look at the sequestration as it happens. If it is being sequestered, it is not lingering.
Steve (#471),
Having done the math and presented it here as IDL code, I can say that your numbers are quite far off. After the large initial cut, rather slow cuts are needed to get to zero over eighty or more years. The Annex I countries’ cutting is more than fast enough.
No, it is the growth in non-Annex I county emissions that is blocking mitigation.
Edward (#469)
“economic chaos” for fossil fuel generators, exactly as desired.
“The ocean absorbs sunshine directly.” Yes, they do. And yet is is the greenhouse effect which sets their temperature.
“There is no free energy.” It is rather amusing that you are critiquing the “Transform” scenario in “Reinventing Fire” which has already disposed of your claim long before getting to fig. 5-27a. Fig. 5-19 demonstrates you have completely muffed it.
462,
Your comments are appearing more slowly than mine right now. So, I did not see you comment when in appeared on an old page immediately. But, when I did, I answered you in #464.
You might also be interested, if you were sincere, that the “Reinventing Fire” Transform scenario appears to have the potential to be zero emission based on the “extra” energy shown in fig. 5-27-a.
I know you are not going to read that book and will continue to falsely claim that people have not provided you over and over again with the information you requested. Your determined clinging to ignorance in such a public manner may be the occasion for enlightenment for others. http://www.rmi.org/ReinventingFire Your namesake was such a one.
Russell’s link for Heartland’s weather report doesn’t seem to work, at least for me (leads to a requirement to sign in to Google, which isn’t needed):
Just use: http://vvattsupwiththat.blogspot.com/
For filing under: Counter Cherry-picking. A recent rejoinder to the “warming has stopped” meme:
Denying that warming itself is occurring is getting to be a damned tenuous claim at the moment. The big belch of ’97-’98 disgorged 35 year’s worth of observed warming within 12 months, from the oceans. Three smaller El Ninos since have each tested the thermal extremes achieved by that Mother of All Known El Ninos for warm starts-of-year: in ’02, ’07, & 2010. That is, their Jan.-thru-May anomalies surpassed 1998. This year has not. Yet.
But, this May the Earth was warmer than any May in history. And, compared with PEAK + TREND, from 1998, the past ninety days have racked up 70% of the GAIN expected from the historic trend, when measured from the similar ninety days in the Spring of the great 1998 El Nino.
The tropical Pacific is still warm. What we have in the Pacific to date is a Kelvin wave, not yet an El Nino. Whether an El Nino develops or not is still up to the Gods, but the basis for claiming that planetary warming has stopped, is currently seen to be quickly melting thin ice.
“How weak is the foundation…we are standing upon.” Precious Angle, B. Dylan.
As the intellectual barometer plunges, we again face the weirdest weather of the year– the Heartland Climate Conference season
Hank, I keep hearing about used vehicle batteries, but I think they aren’t going to be available in significant numbers for over a decade. Nissan just announced Leaf replacement batteries for $5500 (probably sold at a loss), and an eight year warranty. So if vehicle batteries last roughly a decade and EVs are just beginning their exponential market penetration, it will be quite a while before they are available in decent volume (millions per year).
Steve Fish #471,
“Cutting the entire world emissions by 70% would stabilize temperature at nearly 2 degrees C above pre-industrial.”
Any serious statement relating emissions to temperature ceiling contains a likelihood estimate. Without that estimate, a wide range of carbon budgets is possible. For a 90% chance of staying within 2 C, the carbon budget vanishes, as Raupach as shown.
Fred (#126),
I did not see your comment until now. Sorry not to answer. I think that after a little consideration, you will agree that the use of GATT Article XX tariffs will help to reduce emissions directly even if you don’t like that my intent is also to influence Chinese policy on emissions.
364,
Me: “The monthly anomaly data are not all relative to the same temperature baseline, but rather internally to each month. You can’t say which is the warmest month just by looking at the anomaly data, only the warmest June or October, for example.”
You: “Where is this documented? Everything I found on the GISTEMP site refers to “base period 1951-1980″ without saying that each month’s base period is separately tabulated.”
That is a good question. It is documented it the note: “Best estimate for absolute global mean for 1951-1980 is 14.0 deg-C or 57.2 deg-F,
so add that to the temperature change if you want to use an absolute scale
(this note applies to global annual means only, J-D and D-N !)”
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/tabledata_v3/GLB.Ts+dSST.txt
“(this note applies to global annual means only, J-D and D-N !)” means don’t add 14.0 C to a monthly number/100. And, it is a little wrong as well because the base period is a set of J-D’s not D-N’s so there should be a separate offset. To this precision, however, it would be identical.
In my digging around I think I recall seeing a figure of the change in average monthly global temperature over a year during a base period in a (possibly) GISS publication but it has been a few years at least. If memory serves, my expectation that northern hemisphere summer would be warmer than southern hemisphere summer was confirmed but I don’t recall the amplitude. With more ocean, the southern hemisphere should have a smaller winter to summer temperature difference allowing the northern hemisphere pattern to show up more in the mean. I think I remember seeing that.
But it seems to be hard to find from links at the web site. There is software there that could probably generate it. A link to a table would be the most helpful for figuring out which month is the warmest ever recorded. Most likely it is a June, July or August if I am remembering correctly.
Spot checking, the 1951 to 1980 January anomalies do sum to zero as would be expected.
Sorry I did not notice your question earlier.
Thomas in June said:
“Nissan just announced Leaf replacement batteries for $5500 (probably sold at a loss), and an eight year warranty.” – See more at: https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2014/06/unforced-variations-june-2014/comment-page-10/#comment-569468
Let’s think about that warranty. Likely it says the battery will still perform at 90% of original capacity for 8 years or some figure like that. Gently treated as a used battery we might expect 81% after 16 years and 73% after 24 years. Perhaps some will make it to 65% after 32 years.
It is this aspect of the used battery market that could end up giving very large amounts of storage. We don’t really care if the battery is only half as good as new in a stationary application.
As for the timing of availability, solar and wind penetration may be well matched. We can probably go to 60% penetration without needing much storage if the two sources are well balanced.