244 Responses to "Unforced Variations: Sept. 2015"
SecularAnimistsays
Richard Caldwell wrote: “That’s exactly what I’m saying …”
No.
“Exactly” what you have been saying is that “climate realists” are engaged in a conspiracy to suppress the “investigation and exploration” of geoengineering because they are “scared” that it would “cause too many people” to question their “hard-left” policy proposals (ie. ending GHG emissions as rapidly as possible).
jellyfish are edible. I’ve never read anything which claims that the total calories available in an acidic ocean will be lower than today’s.
You’ve got to be trolling. Scholar is so easy to use, it’s hard to read anything about ocean pH change without learning something about food web response.
Personally, I’d compare it to getting an antibiotic-resistant infection in your legs. Is it “OK” to cut off your legs?
Wrong word, the problem is not “getting” but “choosing to cause” the damage — would you choose a resistant infection that would lead to cutting off your legs? For money? How much?
“I’d certainly like to start with limiting greenhouse gas emissions to at least buy time to understand the processes involved a whole helluvalot better.”
Between 1998 and 2012 temperatures increased on a decadal average of .04 degrees.
Why would you not produce zero-emissions energy with a process that replicates events that brought about that slowdown?
It will take decades to replace fossil fuels, whether it be with wind, solar or nuclear.
Every watt of energy produced with OTEC however, is a watt of warming heat converted to fossil fuel replacing energy and 20 more moved to the abyss.
In the build out of the fleet that could replace all fossil fuels there would be plenty of time to learn more about what is going on and to make adjustments accordingly.
In the meantime heat movement to deeper water is the only natural analogy that has been shown to reduce warming in the face of increasing emissions.
Richard Caldwellsays
Mike: I think the scientific community has largely relied on linear change models. This works well on large systems for quite a while, until an abrupt change occurs and the evidence starts to build indication that exponential change is underway.
RC: I’m not convinced. Perhaps chaos is more accurate. Stuff leaps and withdraws and seemingly randomly squiggles. You’re probably right that simplistic linear thinking is wrong, but replacing that with simplistic exponential thinking seems silly.
Richard Caldwellsays
SA: In fact, the “only way to go” is to phase out fossil fuel use as rapidly as possible, replacing it with carbon-free energy sources. Which is no more a “hard-left policy” than replacing horses with cars.
RC: I agree with your plan-of-action, but your definition is flawed and your analogy makes no sense. In the US almost every right-wing leader demands an increase in fossil fuel usage (Drill, Baby, Drill) and almost every left-wing leader demands a reduction. Horses-to-cars wasn’t political at all (Other than a small Luddite component). Pretending that facts don’t apply to labels is silly. (Of course, you might be hard-right in other areas even though you’re hard-left climate-wise)
RC: Only before the curtain was pulled. After he started talking the truth, he made a lot of sense. I kinda doubt your curtain will ever be pulled. Where’s Toto when you need him?
BPL: Well, I’ll give you credit for getting the film right, if not the role. I was referring to the Scarecrow. You know, the straw man? “That’s you all over.”
BPL: Right. We lose the ocean, a billion people lose their primary food source, and eventually, the ocean emits hydrogen sulfide. You think that’s okay?
RC: You forget that jellyfish are edible. I’ve never read anything which claims that the total calories available in an acidic ocean will be lower than today’s.
BPL: You don’t foresee a mass die-off from ocean acidification? You’re unaware that all the major large fish stocks have already been reduced by 90%? You might want to read up on recent marine biology. For a broad overview, check out the work of E.O. Wilson.
RC: Personally, I’d compare it to getting an antibiotic-resistant infection in your legs. Is it “OK” to cut off your legs? It’s certainly NOT OK to pretend that leaving the curtain in place is the best action. Remember, my plan of action is to do EXACTLY AND COMPLETELY everything you would do, PLUS research geoengineering. Got any problem with that? Any improvement? Anything at all? (Here’s where you post links to science about acidic ocean productivity, or let the crickets chirp.)
BPL: See above. It’s not your plan I’m objecting to, it’s your relentless mocking of renewables and predictions that catastrope is imminent, plus your adament refusal to ever admit an error. Which is okay with me. It’s not my business to change you.
Sorry, that should have read “adamant.” It’s late. I’m tired.
Glen Reesesays
#96 RC An ocean full of jellyfish is not my idea of healthy diversity, but that’s just a personal choice.
I’m presently more concerned that desertification and drought will get us before sea level rises much further. After reading BPL’s recent paper about the possibility of short-term agricultural collapse, I found supporting evidence here: http://world.time.com/2012/12/14/what-if-the-worlds-soil-runs-out/
Coming from the standpoint of topsoil loss, Prof.Crawford arrives at a similar conclusion that- in the absence of action- we have about 60 years left in which to grow things.
Which leads me to believe that the most pressing geoengineering problem facing us is regeneration of topsoil. Not only for a pretty good carbon sink, but also because we have to, you know, eat. There is a group working in New England who claim that topsoil regeneration can be done in months and years, by proper farming practices (versus the centuries required by natural processes). http://www.wholesystemsdesign.com/rapid-topsoil-formation/
I don’t know if their claims will hold up, but it seems to me that someone should be damn well looking into it.
Richard Caldwellsays
Jim B,
I understand your attraction to heat pipes. It’s surely a way cool concept. But the temperature differences are small and so the engineering gets large. Plus, storms and critters happen. This is an engineering issue which may or may not be solvable. Neither you nor I have ANY possibility to answer the question, but I support your effort to try to get “us” to do the research to find out. However, this is a science blog. Engineering is off-topic, so this might not be your best choice of a venue in which to promote your passion. In any case, good luck.
I know a team of engineers and a couple of PhDs in physics who are dying to work on the engineering problem. We have no support because the environmental potential of the proposal is not recognized. There are RC readers and contributors, like yourself, with the scientific bona fides and sufficient public trust that your endorsement, at least of the principal, would go a long way towards getting the investigation off the ground.
I apologize if this seems off topic but I have always looked on OTEC from the environmental angle rather than from the engineering prospective.
Edward Greischsays
A good article about communication: “Semantics Matter: How the Phrasing of Climate Science Articles Can Foster Inaction, and What to Do About It”
Ray #79 (Russell and Mike) Here’s a clue, Russell. To some of us, this isn’t a political issue. It’s a matter of getting to the best understanding possible of Earth’s climate with current evidence available. Do join us on planet Reality sometime, won’t you? I can’t disagree with that from some points of view – from others I could argue it for ages. Politics is the issue and yet it is not as well. I believe the elephant in the room is actual psychology and beliefs. That’s the true “hard problem” here. Much harder then the science of the politics to shift.
I agree with Mike’s envelop pushing overall 100%. Why anyone who was concerned about where the world is heading would fight about that is a mystery to me, well kind of – back to psychology again. It’s so obvious what Mike is raising it isn’t worth discussing anymore.
Lastly yes Russell is behaving like a classic troll, but I suspect it’s only personal frustration due to his personal ‘political views’, not a career choice. Of course he is 100% wrong, not that saying it will make any difference.
Just sayin’ anyway.
I little anecdotal evidence of why AGW/CC is a psychological issue is presented in plain view here for those with eyes to see it, (Mike?) http://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2015/sep/12/tony-abbott-defends-peter-dutton-after-joke-about-rising-pacific-island-sea-levels
StevePsays
BING Bites…..
I was prompted by circumstances to search for RealClimate on the “BING” search engine this morning. The first cite returned was for Wikipedia… no real problem there. But the second entry was for wattsupwith that…the third was for Popular Technology…the fifth for Climate Depot…sites that most of us recognize as misleading, junk science propaganda spewers.
I suppose that we can expect, with an election year coming up, that the minions of our petrochem funded and friendly candidates will go out of their way to pay to skew search engine results towards their anti-science, denialist proxy sites. No shock there. Still, at first glance, half awake, on a new computer, I could see no actual link to RealClimate, and had the very unsettling feeling that it had essentially been blocked by BING.
I looked up RealClimate and RealClimate.org on BING this morning. Access to the RealClimate website has been largely but not completely blocked by the likes of WUWT and climatedepot and populartechnolgy.
Does anyone know if this is a long standing problem, or have the fossil fuelists stepped up their denialist propagand in view of upcoming US elections in 2016, or is this something else altogether?
By definition the best locations are equatorial. Tropical storms don’t form within 5 degrees either side of the equator due to the lack of a Coriolis effect. The visual of the global tropical cyclone tracks between 1985 and 2005 shown in Wikipedia demonstrated this.
Heat pipe OTEC also syphons off the heat that produces and drives these storms.
Conventional designs dilute that heat.
The main impact on critters is a consequence of the massive water movements required to overcome the low thermodynamic efficiency you refer to. As Paul Curto points out however, with the heat pipe design, “Little pumping energy is used to circulate the ocean water, simply enough to pump warm surface water to flow over the evaporator end of the heat pipe. If the condensing end of the heat pipe is exposed to a thousand feet or more of near freezing temperatures below the thermocline, no cold water pumping is required.”
US patent 8,484,972 has also been granted to James Lau for a system that requires no water movement due to the distributed nature of the evaporator and condenser. Although the output of his system is relatively low, 10-20 MW, he has demonstrated what is possible.
The fact is the heat pipe design mitigates virtually every concern ever raised about OTEC while it amplifies the environmental benefit.
DrivingBysays
I’m not a resident poster here, so apologies in advance if this is not on topic.
Are the food and second to that the carbon output not self-limiting problems?
If there is a cliff-shaped agricultural collapse (which I don’t understand, plants grow in a wide variety of conditions), would that not lead to a lower birthrate, perhaps even wars and further lowering of human fertility? After about 60 years, the population would begin to drop significantly. If agriculture/oceans continue to become less productive, that drop would continue for some time.
Thus, carbon output drops, and the climate, after a time, stabilizes, then C02 slowly declines (takes centuries, if I understand correctly). Meanwhile humans are moving away from today’s coastline and using longer growing seasons, etc. The worse the climate impacts, the more the human birth rate would decline.
This would not be altogether fun for us humans, but the carbon problem would level out. Even with no climate change, 7 billion of us are starting to bang elbows. Maybe CC is, indirectly, the control feedback the system needs.
Or is there a physical issue I’m not aware of?
Adam R.says
@ Keiyh McKinney 100: “It seems more probable that the loss of late summer sea ice will occur as a ‘wake up’ call first.”
It will surely occur, but it will wake up almost no one who isn’t awake by now. If 70,000 deaths in a European heatwave didn’t rouse the sleepers, should we expect a future 1-minute item on the evening news about ice melting somewhere in summer to do it? No.
The expectation that some collossal climatic event will bring humanity to a sudden awareness of its peril is naive. Regular readers of this blog understand what a stunning milestone an ice-free AO will be for climate change, but most people will dismiss it with a shrug. Indeed, it is difficult to imagine a plausible geological disaster extreme enough and sudden enough to wake up the somnolent human race.
I’m afraid there is nothing for it but the hard slog: more science, more science education, more politics, more innovation. Waiting for a deus ex machina in the form of an “Oh, shit!” moment provided by nature is a waste of time.
Ray Ladburysays
Richard Caldwell: “Horses-to-cars wasn’t political at all (Other than a small Luddite component).”
Actually not true. There was actually a pretty vigorous debate from about 1910 to 1925 about the automobile, much of which centered on the personal benefit to the driver versus the shared cost to society. There was also a great deal of concern about how automobiles would affect town centers and the businesses therein. Winners and losers always makes for interesting politics, so SA’s analogy is spot on, although I think one could argue whether the introduction of the automobile was a net good.
Glen Reesesays
Richard Caldwell- i’m a little alarmed that you make such a distinction between science and engineering. It’s really a continuum, and both sides can contribute to the other. My dissertation was in theoretical physics, and I spent >30 years doing what can only be called engineering. My physics background gave me a point of view more basic than the professional engineers I worked with, but I also learned a lot from them.
If we are going to get out of this place, we will need all hands on deck. Not “that’s not my problem”.
Solar Jimsays
Some comments seem to indicate that there are lingering perceptions (favorable to the current “oiligarchy”) that a rapid transition to sustainability, including clean energy economics, will be at a “cost” to national or global economies. That is a dated and fraudulent belief. In fact, nothing could be further from the truth (see for example reporting at ClimateProgress). Maintaining a fossilized economy based on the production of carbonic acid (gas) is impoverishing the world, including tremendous momentum for much higher future costs even at today’s total CO2 equivalent.
The economic conversion is not at cost, but at profit.
“If there is a cliff-shaped agricultural collapse (which I don’t understand, plants grow in a wide variety of conditions), would that not lead to a lower birthrate, perhaps even wars and further lowering of human fertility? After about 60 years, the population would begin to drop significantly.”
Huh? The birthrate should go down all right, but the death rate would head in just the opposite direction. Depending how just much so, population could decrease very quickly indeed.
Of course. And wasting time is the last thing that we can afford right now. Why did you think I was advocating doing so? I’m the guy who wrote, repeatedly, that we should be on the street, in the classroom, on the Internet, in committee rooms–in short, just about everywhere–educating and organizing for effective climate action now.
Particularly so in the run up to Paris. I think there’s a high probability that the Fossils will try quite the barrage of dirty tricks, if they can. Everything possible should be done to counter them, and everything possible should be done to support any halfway effective agreement.
Jerry Tomansays
@Jim #116
A snippet from your posting reads:
As Paul Curto points out however, with the heat pipe design, “Little pumping energy is used to circulate the ocean water, simply enough to pump warm surface water to flow over the evaporator end of the heat pipe…”
Just saying this isn’t very convincing. Referring just to surface facilities for the moment, give us some basic engineering, including flows, for (say) a 10 MW (of sea-water cooling) installation, including: 1) process conditions for ammonia at inlet and outlet of the evaporator vessel floating on or near the surface, 2) inlet and outlet conditions for the seawater that passes through the evaporator tubes, 3) diameter, length and number of evaporator tubes needed to transfer the required heat duty, and 4), the overall heat transfer coefficients you expect based on these flows, and finally the water pumping duty (MW)which can easily be calculated from the water flow and pressure (loss) data.
You may further choose to provide us with (5)the ammonia conditions after the expander used to harvest power, while operating at maximum theoretical efficiency. You could easily estimate the pumping power required to provide the head needed to pump the liquid ammonia up from the 1000 m depth, assuming no friction losses.
These numbers aren’t that difficult to compute (ammonia properties and excel). Suggest you use trial and error to come up with the tube data.
I could be wrong, but I believe you’ll find that water pumping energy is not insignificant for an evaporator of reasonable size.
Richard Simonssays
DrivingBy @117:
Although plants can grow in a wide variety of conditions, most crops have fairly specific requirements. For example, cereals (and other crops) are very vulnerable to high temperature at pollination. This is the main reason wheat is not grown in the tropics. In several places, there are indications that corn yields have already been affected. All crops are vulnerable to drought and/or flooding.
A drop in crop production is unlikely to result in a drop in the birth rate. Rather, it will lead to mass migration (e.g. the movement out of drought-hit Syria) and premature death by starvation and disease. These are likely to lead to wars and the disruption of infrastructure causing a further drop in agricultural productivity. There would need to be about 200,000 extra deaths a day to bring the increase in the human population to a halt.
Once the population started to drop, CO2 output would tend to drop (assuming the deaths are divided proportionately between those with a high and a low carbon footprint). However, atmospheric CO2 would still increase until human CO2 output dropped below the level that can be absorbed by plants, perhaps 1/4 of today’s output. Earth’s temperature would not stabilize until some time after that, when the extra radiation lost because of the rising temperature balances the amount trapped by the extra CO2, so relying on things happening to us rather than us doing things beforehand could take a long time.
Edward Greischsays
Did you see this from the National Academies? “Climate change in the Fertile Crescent and implications of the recent Syrian drought”
“There is evidence that the 2007−2010 drought contributed to the conflict in Syria. It was the worst drought in the instrumental record, causing widespread crop failure and a mass migration of farming families to urban centers. Century-long observed trends in precipitation, temperature, and sea-level pressure, supported by climate model results, strongly suggest that anthropogenic forcing has increased the probability of severe and persistent droughts in this region, and made the occurrence of a 3-year drought as severe as that of 2007−2010 2 to 3 times more likely than by natural variability alone. We conclude that human influences on the climate system are implicated in the current Syrian conflict.
Abstract
Before the Syrian uprising that began in 2011, the greater Fertile Crescent experienced the most severe drought in the instrumental record. For Syria, a country marked by poor governance and unsustainable agricultural and environmental policies, the drought had a catalytic effect, contributing to political unrest. We show that the recent decrease in Syrian precipitation is a combination of natural variability and a long-term drying trend, and the unusual severity of the observed drought is here shown to be highly unlikely without this trend. Precipitation changes in Syria are linked to rising mean sea-level pressure in the Eastern Mediterranean, which also shows a long-term trend. There has been also a long-term warming trend in the Eastern Mediterranean, adding to the drawdown of soil moisture. No natural cause is apparent for these trends, whereas the observed drying and warming are consistent with model studies of the response to increases in greenhouse gases. Furthermore, model studies show an increasingly drier and hotter future mean climate for the Eastern Mediterranean. Analyses of observations and model simulations indicate that a drought of the severity and duration of the recent Syrian drought, which is implicated in the current conflict, has become more than twice as likely as a consequence of human interference in the climate system.”
It is a fact that in the long term we are all dead, an outcome that will not change, AGW or no AGW.
The view that CO2 is subject to a self-adjusting mechanism is not helpful when that mechanism will leave in place 70% of the CO2 forcing that we achieve through fossil-fuel-use for tens of thousands of years.
The other problem with expecting flora & fauna (and mankind) to adapt is that the relative speed of AGW is unprecedented. 55 million years ago, the PETM occurred which was an event in many ways very similar to AGW except that it took 40,000 years to happen. Flora & fauna and their habitats had time to adapt. The speed of AGW, measured in a very few hundreds of years; this is such that there will be mass extinctions, and that on top of the one humanity is already inflicting by the usual human method of destroying habitats.
Specifically concerning humanity, your view that “birth rate” may afford us a mechanism for altering human populations and thus to limit our adverse impacts on the planet. This is perhaps partially correct. That is, given the timescales involved, the human “birth rate” could decline but that would be as a by-product of a step change in human population due to a spike in the human “death rate”
Of course, in the long run, there have been mass extinctions before. In the final analysis all species will come to the end of the road at some point in time, sooner or later. Mind, whatever we do manage to inflict on ourselves, I do not imagine the list of extinct species in this planet’s 6th mass extinction event will include the name “homo sapiens sapiens” as I don’t think we are quite that stupid.
Vendicar Decariansays
Aug 81
Projection 79 < T < 81
Steve Fishsays
Re- Comment by Jim Baird — 12 Sep 2015 @ 9:15 AM, ~#116 and many previous
Jim, the big problem with your version of OTEC is that it just isn’t practical. I am not an expert, so how do I know this? I know because there would be venture capital all over it if the concept were as good as you advertise and there would be several sizeable demonstration plants under construction or running. Show me a serious private or publicly funded project and I will enthusiastically await the results.
Steve
zebrasays
DrivingBy #117,
You are essentially correct; the problem (apart from normal humanitarian concern) is that we have nuclear weapons. Some might not feel inclined to go gently into that good night.
The stresses are going to happen on the world human “system” as it exists now. Think about the current conflicts and how they might go out of control– India/Pakistan and so on. Over water, migration… too easy to reach a “tipping point”.
For the ‘keeping track at home’ department, GISS has updated. The August anomaly was a scorcher, ringing up 0.81 C. It’s the hottest August in the GISTEMP record by a comfortable margin–only twice before has an August reached 0.7, let alone 0.8. (Specifically, 2011 made it to 0.74 C, while 2006 managed 0.71.)
Actually, Solar Jim, it’s more absurd than that: Current economics is completely dependent on growth. Can’t exist without it. Even a resource-based economy doesn’t fix that. Waste will still pile up in the form of greed as wealth. All it means is, sure, stay relatively within limits, but the the skewing can still go on so that a few monopolize what there is.
A need-based economy is where we must end up, so any “costs” are irrelevant. The are 1 and 0, nothing more, and already Dead Men Walking. Besides, you can’t get to sustainability going through today’s debts. Global jubilee is the only way, so, again, those 1’s and 0’s are Dead Men Walking.
DrivingBy,
The current world population could not have been reached without the increased agricultural output of the past half century. Food will always be a limiting factor to growth. Any decrease in agricultural output will be accompanied by a corresponding decreased in population. You are correct that any agricultural collapse will have dire worldwide consequences. That said, I am not one of the pessimistic ones. I believe that the increased agricultural yields of the past several decades will continue into the future. The best solution to the high birth rate is to increase the economic status of those living in the poorest regions, who have the highest birth rates.
Vendicar Decariansays
Aug T = 0.81
2015 projection J-D 0.78 < T < 0.81
patricksays
Thomas O’Reilly @113: I agree with you about the trollish behavior of the guy you mention. He’s just dropping hooks, each one a distraction.
I applaud your link of the [now-ex-] PM’s hearty laughter at a disdainful, ethnically charged, ignorant joke about rising sea levels. It is typical of what goes on inside an echo chamber of humans with their heads in the sand, and other ex-clusive places.
Higher up in the same chamber as the former PM, it appears that one is not only entitled to one’s own facts, one is entitled to a sense of entitlement about one’s fictions, so to speak. Rupert Murdoch in his own words:
Kevin McKinney @134.
I think I would have called “mucho scorchio!!” for a record August except that there has since been updates or something in the GISTEMP postings (I assume) as the present numbers set August 2015 as the second hottest August on record, a squeak behind August 2014. For all months, August 2015 weighs in at =13th on record. So in the rolling ‘last 12 months’ we exchange one top twenty month for another. That still merits a “scochio!!”
Mind, in the last month, there has been a lot more bullish talk of a large El Nino coming our way. And MEI for Jul/Aug has bounced back up and is now well above 2. So there is every reason to predict “mucho scorchio!!! for the coming months.
Another one for those keeping track–we’re at the annual minimum of Arctic sea ice, more or less. After I prematurely ‘pre-called’ the minimum on the 8th after a couple of days of upticks in ice extent, winds turned to favor compaction of the ice pack, and we’ve now got a ‘double-dip’ minimum for this year. As of this morning, September 14, we have JAXA showing 4,257,003 km2 of ice, which means that by that metric, it’s the third-lowest extent on record, behind the still-exceptional seasons of 2007 and 2012. (We may or may not have reached the lowest extent yet, but the ranking of the seasons will not change in any plausible scenario at this point.)
Some folks had fondly imagined that there was a real sea ice ‘recovery’ in progress, based on the 2013 and 2014 extents; they should be disabused by this year’s outcome (especially since conditions were by no means optimal for ice loss–for example, there wasn’t much export of ice via the main outlet, the Fram Strait, throughout most of the summer.)
It will be quite interesting to see how the probable ‘El Nino winter’ affects next year’s melt season.
Ray Ladburysays
DrivingBy,
Although food and energy are potential limiting factors for human population, population dynamics are complicated, and it is not clear at present what is the tightest limiting factor. Arguably, human population may already be above sustainable levels for the planet, since we are effectively now dining on petroleum converted into corn and soy. UN projections now put the crest at 10-12 billion before the end of the century.
So it is possible that human population may reach levels that degrade the carrying capacity of the planet, and the subsequent crash could bring us to levels even below that. So, yes, population is self-regulating, but the process ain’t pretty.
Thomas O'Reillysays
#136 russell thx for the 1990 article. it doesn’t impress me at all. It’s 2015 now, 25 years later. I never expected your beliefs to shift. not sure why you expect mine to for no good reason.
Thomas O'Reillysays
#129 edward that’s an interesting science study which seems to provide good data on the CC influences of the drought.
Though it was self-evident without such a study, that the long drought and it’s impacts on the people there was a trigger for unrest in Syria from the get go.
To me however it’s still a leap to:- which is implicated in the current conflict ….. is that current as in 2010/11, or current in 2015?
I will wear the former but not the latter. Neither the drought, the 2010/11 unrest nor the last 4.5 years of civil war exist inside a vacuum. Because there are far greater geo-political realities that spurned the original unrest into full scale mayhem that has zero to do with climate change, temps, or drought.
I can say that in a logical, evidence based and rational way without denying the reality of the extreme AGW/CC drivers of that original multi-year drought. For me all are true as opposed to an either/or proposition.
Thomas O'Reillysays
#129 edward that’s an interesting science study which seems to provide good data on the CC influences of the drought.
Though it was self-evident without such a study, that the long drought and it’s impacts on the people there was a trigger for unrest in Syria from the get go.
To me however it’s still a leap to:- which is implicated in the current conflict – I ask is that current as in 2010/11, or current as in 2015? I will wear the former but not the latter.
Neither the drought, the 2010/11 unrest nor the last 4.5 years of civil war exist inside a vacuum. Because there are far greater geo-political realities that spurned the original unrest into the full scale mayhem we see today that has zero to do with climate change, temps, or drought.
I can say that in a logical, evidence based and rational way without denying the reality of the extreme AGW/CC drivers of that original multi-year drought. For me all are true as opposed to an either/or proposition.
Steve 132 “there would be venture capital all over it if the concept were as good as you advertise”
It takes at least a 100MW plant for OTEC to be viable. None anywhere near that size has ever been built because the cost estimates are between a quarter and a billion dollars, depending on the design.
Before anything like that kind of money is invested non-economic prototypes have to be built and tested. No VC is interested in this end of the innovation spectrum let alone putting up a billion on an untested design.
The point here is to try to prove the environmental benefit of the design in order that public and/or private sector investment will be forthcoming.
I am prepared to try and make that case to the experts.
patricksays
Ray Ladbury #79 > This isn’t a political issue.
Thank you for staking out reality in this case, and in others on this thread. It’s a thankless job but somebody has to do it. And thanks for being helpful.
Supported by an MIT thesis, the economic case for OTEC is presented here.
It potentially has the lowest levelized cost of production of all zero emissions sources as well as the highest capacity.
It is beyond me what more can be asked of any technology.
patricksays
#92–Kevin McKinney: That’s a brilliant observation, I think. Re: ohgeeengineering. And that’s a great article. Not to mention the pictures. I remember the shock of that line down the middle of Nogales, seen through the window of the bus I was riding in. I couldn’t figure out what I was seeing. Nigeria is another story. When I see black smoke like that, I can smell it. Because I’ve had my share.
Richard Caldwell wrote: “That’s exactly what I’m saying …”
No.
“Exactly” what you have been saying is that “climate realists” are engaged in a conspiracy to suppress the “investigation and exploration” of geoengineering because they are “scared” that it would “cause too many people” to question their “hard-left” policy proposals (ie. ending GHG emissions as rapidly as possible).
Which is utter nonsense.
You’ve got to be trolling. Scholar is so easy to use, it’s hard to read anything about ocean pH change without learning something about food web response.
Try this: http://static2.egu.eu/media/filer_public/2012/08/09/presentation_bijma_2011.pdf
Wrong word, the problem is not “getting” but “choosing to cause” the damage — would you choose a resistant infection that would lead to cutting off your legs? For money? How much?
http://static-content.springer.com/lookinside/chp%3A10.1007%2F978-3-319-07479-5_15/000.png
http://www.springer.com/cda/content/document/cda_downloaddocument/9783319074788-t1.pdf?SGWID=0-0-45-1487312-p176770319
citing J. Bowen, The Coral Reef Era: From Discovery to Decline.
Humanity and the Sea.
http://www.springer.com/us/book/9783319074788
DOI: 10.1007/978-3-319-07479-5
Springer 2015
Ray Ladbury 81
“I’d certainly like to start with limiting greenhouse gas emissions to at least buy time to understand the processes involved a whole helluvalot better.”
Between 1998 and 2012 temperatures increased on a decadal average of .04 degrees.
Why would you not produce zero-emissions energy with a process that replicates events that brought about that slowdown?
It will take decades to replace fossil fuels, whether it be with wind, solar or nuclear.
Every watt of energy produced with OTEC however, is a watt of warming heat converted to fossil fuel replacing energy and 20 more moved to the abyss.
In the build out of the fleet that could replace all fossil fuels there would be plenty of time to learn more about what is going on and to make adjustments accordingly.
In the meantime heat movement to deeper water is the only natural analogy that has been shown to reduce warming in the face of increasing emissions.
Mike: I think the scientific community has largely relied on linear change models. This works well on large systems for quite a while, until an abrupt change occurs and the evidence starts to build indication that exponential change is underway.
RC: I’m not convinced. Perhaps chaos is more accurate. Stuff leaps and withdraws and seemingly randomly squiggles. You’re probably right that simplistic linear thinking is wrong, but replacing that with simplistic exponential thinking seems silly.
SA: In fact, the “only way to go” is to phase out fossil fuel use as rapidly as possible, replacing it with carbon-free energy sources. Which is no more a “hard-left policy” than replacing horses with cars.
RC: I agree with your plan-of-action, but your definition is flawed and your analogy makes no sense. In the US almost every right-wing leader demands an increase in fossil fuel usage (Drill, Baby, Drill) and almost every left-wing leader demands a reduction. Horses-to-cars wasn’t political at all (Other than a small Luddite component). Pretending that facts don’t apply to labels is silly. (Of course, you might be hard-right in other areas even though you’re hard-left climate-wise)
BPL: Why do you hate Ray Bolger?
RC: Only before the curtain was pulled. After he started talking the truth, he made a lot of sense. I kinda doubt your curtain will ever be pulled. Where’s Toto when you need him?
BPL: Well, I’ll give you credit for getting the film right, if not the role. I was referring to the Scarecrow. You know, the straw man? “That’s you all over.”
BPL: Right. We lose the ocean, a billion people lose their primary food source, and eventually, the ocean emits hydrogen sulfide. You think that’s okay?
RC: You forget that jellyfish are edible. I’ve never read anything which claims that the total calories available in an acidic ocean will be lower than today’s.
BPL: You don’t foresee a mass die-off from ocean acidification? You’re unaware that all the major large fish stocks have already been reduced by 90%? You might want to read up on recent marine biology. For a broad overview, check out the work of E.O. Wilson.
RC: Personally, I’d compare it to getting an antibiotic-resistant infection in your legs. Is it “OK” to cut off your legs? It’s certainly NOT OK to pretend that leaving the curtain in place is the best action. Remember, my plan of action is to do EXACTLY AND COMPLETELY everything you would do, PLUS research geoengineering. Got any problem with that? Any improvement? Anything at all? (Here’s where you post links to science about acidic ocean productivity, or let the crickets chirp.)
BPL: See above. It’s not your plan I’m objecting to, it’s your relentless mocking of renewables and predictions that catastrope is imminent, plus your adament refusal to ever admit an error. Which is okay with me. It’s not my business to change you.
Sorry, that should have read “adamant.” It’s late. I’m tired.
#96 RC An ocean full of jellyfish is not my idea of healthy diversity, but that’s just a personal choice.
I’m presently more concerned that desertification and drought will get us before sea level rises much further. After reading BPL’s recent paper about the possibility of short-term agricultural collapse, I found supporting evidence here:
http://world.time.com/2012/12/14/what-if-the-worlds-soil-runs-out/
Coming from the standpoint of topsoil loss, Prof.Crawford arrives at a similar conclusion that- in the absence of action- we have about 60 years left in which to grow things.
Which leads me to believe that the most pressing geoengineering problem facing us is regeneration of topsoil. Not only for a pretty good carbon sink, but also because we have to, you know, eat. There is a group working in New England who claim that topsoil regeneration can be done in months and years, by proper farming practices (versus the centuries required by natural processes).
http://www.wholesystemsdesign.com/rapid-topsoil-formation/
I don’t know if their claims will hold up, but it seems to me that someone should be damn well looking into it.
Jim B,
I understand your attraction to heat pipes. It’s surely a way cool concept. But the temperature differences are small and so the engineering gets large. Plus, storms and critters happen. This is an engineering issue which may or may not be solvable. Neither you nor I have ANY possibility to answer the question, but I support your effort to try to get “us” to do the research to find out. However, this is a science blog. Engineering is off-topic, so this might not be your best choice of a venue in which to promote your passion. In any case, good luck.
Richard Caldwell
I know a team of engineers and a couple of PhDs in physics who are dying to work on the engineering problem. We have no support because the environmental potential of the proposal is not recognized. There are RC readers and contributors, like yourself, with the scientific bona fides and sufficient public trust that your endorsement, at least of the principal, would go a long way towards getting the investigation off the ground.
I apologize if this seems off topic but I have always looked on OTEC from the environmental angle rather than from the engineering prospective.
A good article about communication: “Semantics Matter: How the Phrasing of Climate Science Articles Can Foster Inaction, and What to Do About It”
http://www.theenergycollective.com/mlichtash/2269288/semantics-matter-how-phrasing-climate-science-articles-can-foster-inaction-and-wha#comment-213497
Ray #79 (Russell and Mike) Here’s a clue, Russell. To some of us, this isn’t a political issue. It’s a matter of getting to the best understanding possible of Earth’s climate with current evidence available. Do join us on planet Reality sometime, won’t you? I can’t disagree with that from some points of view – from others I could argue it for ages. Politics is the issue and yet it is not as well. I believe the elephant in the room is actual psychology and beliefs. That’s the true “hard problem” here. Much harder then the science of the politics to shift.
I agree with Mike’s envelop pushing overall 100%. Why anyone who was concerned about where the world is heading would fight about that is a mystery to me, well kind of – back to psychology again. It’s so obvious what Mike is raising it isn’t worth discussing anymore.
Lastly yes Russell is behaving like a classic troll, but I suspect it’s only personal frustration due to his personal ‘political views’, not a career choice. Of course he is 100% wrong, not that saying it will make any difference.
Just sayin’ anyway.
I little anecdotal evidence of why AGW/CC is a psychological issue is presented in plain view here for those with eyes to see it, (Mike?)
http://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2015/sep/12/tony-abbott-defends-peter-dutton-after-joke-about-rising-pacific-island-sea-levels
BING Bites…..
I was prompted by circumstances to search for RealClimate on the “BING” search engine this morning. The first cite returned was for Wikipedia… no real problem there. But the second entry was for wattsupwith that…the third was for Popular Technology…the fifth for Climate Depot…sites that most of us recognize as misleading, junk science propaganda spewers.
I suppose that we can expect, with an election year coming up, that the minions of our petrochem funded and friendly candidates will go out of their way to pay to skew search engine results towards their anti-science, denialist proxy sites. No shock there. Still, at first glance, half awake, on a new computer, I could see no actual link to RealClimate, and had the very unsettling feeling that it had essentially been blocked by BING.
I wonder how long this has been going on?
I looked up RealClimate and RealClimate.org on BING this morning. Access to the RealClimate website has been largely but not completely blocked by the likes of WUWT and climatedepot and populartechnolgy.
Does anyone know if this is a long standing problem, or have the fossil fuelists stepped up their denialist propagand in view of upcoming US elections in 2016, or is this something else altogether?
Richard C,
Engineering, storms and critters
Heat pipes reduce the engineering, thus the cost of OTEC, by at least 30 percent according to Paul Curto, former chief technologist with NASA.
By definition the best locations are equatorial. Tropical storms don’t form within 5 degrees either side of the equator due to the lack of a Coriolis effect. The visual of the global tropical cyclone tracks between 1985 and 2005 shown in Wikipedia demonstrated this.
Heat pipe OTEC also syphons off the heat that produces and drives these storms.
Conventional designs dilute that heat.
The main impact on critters is a consequence of the massive water movements required to overcome the low thermodynamic efficiency you refer to. As Paul Curto points out however, with the heat pipe design, “Little pumping energy is used to circulate the ocean water, simply enough to pump warm surface water to flow over the evaporator end of the heat pipe. If the condensing end of the heat pipe is exposed to a thousand feet or more of near freezing temperatures below the thermocline, no cold water pumping is required.”
US patent 8,484,972 has also been granted to James Lau for a system that requires no water movement due to the distributed nature of the evaporator and condenser. Although the output of his system is relatively low, 10-20 MW, he has demonstrated what is possible.
The fact is the heat pipe design mitigates virtually every concern ever raised about OTEC while it amplifies the environmental benefit.
I’m not a resident poster here, so apologies in advance if this is not on topic.
Are the food and second to that the carbon output not self-limiting problems?
If there is a cliff-shaped agricultural collapse (which I don’t understand, plants grow in a wide variety of conditions), would that not lead to a lower birthrate, perhaps even wars and further lowering of human fertility? After about 60 years, the population would begin to drop significantly. If agriculture/oceans continue to become less productive, that drop would continue for some time.
Thus, carbon output drops, and the climate, after a time, stabilizes, then C02 slowly declines (takes centuries, if I understand correctly). Meanwhile humans are moving away from today’s coastline and using longer growing seasons, etc. The worse the climate impacts, the more the human birth rate would decline.
This would not be altogether fun for us humans, but the carbon problem would level out. Even with no climate change, 7 billion of us are starting to bang elbows. Maybe CC is, indirectly, the control feedback the system needs.
Or is there a physical issue I’m not aware of?
@ Keiyh McKinney 100: “It seems more probable that the loss of late summer sea ice will occur as a ‘wake up’ call first.”
It will surely occur, but it will wake up almost no one who isn’t awake by now. If 70,000 deaths in a European heatwave didn’t rouse the sleepers, should we expect a future 1-minute item on the evening news about ice melting somewhere in summer to do it? No.
The expectation that some collossal climatic event will bring humanity to a sudden awareness of its peril is naive. Regular readers of this blog understand what a stunning milestone an ice-free AO will be for climate change, but most people will dismiss it with a shrug. Indeed, it is difficult to imagine a plausible geological disaster extreme enough and sudden enough to wake up the somnolent human race.
I’m afraid there is nothing for it but the hard slog: more science, more science education, more politics, more innovation. Waiting for a deus ex machina in the form of an “Oh, shit!” moment provided by nature is a waste of time.
Richard Caldwell: “Horses-to-cars wasn’t political at all (Other than a small Luddite component).”
Actually not true. There was actually a pretty vigorous debate from about 1910 to 1925 about the automobile, much of which centered on the personal benefit to the driver versus the shared cost to society. There was also a great deal of concern about how automobiles would affect town centers and the businesses therein. Winners and losers always makes for interesting politics, so SA’s analogy is spot on, although I think one could argue whether the introduction of the automobile was a net good.
Richard Caldwell- i’m a little alarmed that you make such a distinction between science and engineering. It’s really a continuum, and both sides can contribute to the other. My dissertation was in theoretical physics, and I spent >30 years doing what can only be called engineering. My physics background gave me a point of view more basic than the professional engineers I worked with, but I also learned a lot from them.
If we are going to get out of this place, we will need all hands on deck. Not “that’s not my problem”.
Some comments seem to indicate that there are lingering perceptions (favorable to the current “oiligarchy”) that a rapid transition to sustainability, including clean energy economics, will be at a “cost” to national or global economies. That is a dated and fraudulent belief. In fact, nothing could be further from the truth (see for example reporting at ClimateProgress). Maintaining a fossilized economy based on the production of carbonic acid (gas) is impoverishing the world, including tremendous momentum for much higher future costs even at today’s total CO2 equivalent.
The economic conversion is not at cost, but at profit.
Db: Are the food and second to that the carbon output not self-limiting problems?
BPL: Sure, in the long run. In the short run, do you volunteer to be one of the people who starves to death?
#115, have noticed this on firefox as well and had to use history to find RC
#115 i have noticed this on firefox as well, frustrating and had to use history to find
“If there is a cliff-shaped agricultural collapse (which I don’t understand, plants grow in a wide variety of conditions), would that not lead to a lower birthrate, perhaps even wars and further lowering of human fertility? After about 60 years, the population would begin to drop significantly.”
– See more at: https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2015/09/unforced-variations-sept-2015/comment-page-3/#comment-635877
Huh? The birthrate should go down all right, but the death rate would head in just the opposite direction. Depending how just much so, population could decrease very quickly indeed.
And no, that would not be “altogether fun.”
“Waiting for a deus ex machina in the form of an “Oh, shit!” moment provided by nature is a waste of time.”
– See more at: https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2015/09/unforced-variations-sept-2015/comment-page-3/#comment-635899
Of course. And wasting time is the last thing that we can afford right now. Why did you think I was advocating doing so? I’m the guy who wrote, repeatedly, that we should be on the street, in the classroom, on the Internet, in committee rooms–in short, just about everywhere–educating and organizing for effective climate action now.
Particularly so in the run up to Paris. I think there’s a high probability that the Fossils will try quite the barrage of dirty tricks, if they can. Everything possible should be done to counter them, and everything possible should be done to support any halfway effective agreement.
@Jim #116
A snippet from your posting reads:
As Paul Curto points out however, with the heat pipe design, “Little pumping energy is used to circulate the ocean water, simply enough to pump warm surface water to flow over the evaporator end of the heat pipe…”
Just saying this isn’t very convincing. Referring just to surface facilities for the moment, give us some basic engineering, including flows, for (say) a 10 MW (of sea-water cooling) installation, including: 1) process conditions for ammonia at inlet and outlet of the evaporator vessel floating on or near the surface, 2) inlet and outlet conditions for the seawater that passes through the evaporator tubes, 3) diameter, length and number of evaporator tubes needed to transfer the required heat duty, and 4), the overall heat transfer coefficients you expect based on these flows, and finally the water pumping duty (MW)which can easily be calculated from the water flow and pressure (loss) data.
You may further choose to provide us with (5)the ammonia conditions after the expander used to harvest power, while operating at maximum theoretical efficiency. You could easily estimate the pumping power required to provide the head needed to pump the liquid ammonia up from the 1000 m depth, assuming no friction losses.
These numbers aren’t that difficult to compute (ammonia properties and excel). Suggest you use trial and error to come up with the tube data.
I could be wrong, but I believe you’ll find that water pumping energy is not insignificant for an evaporator of reasonable size.
DrivingBy @117:
Although plants can grow in a wide variety of conditions, most crops have fairly specific requirements. For example, cereals (and other crops) are very vulnerable to high temperature at pollination. This is the main reason wheat is not grown in the tropics. In several places, there are indications that corn yields have already been affected. All crops are vulnerable to drought and/or flooding.
A drop in crop production is unlikely to result in a drop in the birth rate. Rather, it will lead to mass migration (e.g. the movement out of drought-hit Syria) and premature death by starvation and disease. These are likely to lead to wars and the disruption of infrastructure causing a further drop in agricultural productivity. There would need to be about 200,000 extra deaths a day to bring the increase in the human population to a halt.
Once the population started to drop, CO2 output would tend to drop (assuming the deaths are divided proportionately between those with a high and a low carbon footprint). However, atmospheric CO2 would still increase until human CO2 output dropped below the level that can be absorbed by plants, perhaps 1/4 of today’s output. Earth’s temperature would not stabilize until some time after that, when the extra radiation lost because of the rising temperature balances the amount trapped by the extra CO2, so relying on things happening to us rather than us doing things beforehand could take a long time.
Did you see this from the National Academies? “Climate change in the Fertile Crescent and implications of the recent Syrian drought”
http://www.pnas.org/content/112/11/3241.abstract
“There is evidence that the 2007−2010 drought contributed to the conflict in Syria. It was the worst drought in the instrumental record, causing widespread crop failure and a mass migration of farming families to urban centers. Century-long observed trends in precipitation, temperature, and sea-level pressure, supported by climate model results, strongly suggest that anthropogenic forcing has increased the probability of severe and persistent droughts in this region, and made the occurrence of a 3-year drought as severe as that of 2007−2010 2 to 3 times more likely than by natural variability alone. We conclude that human influences on the climate system are implicated in the current Syrian conflict.
Abstract
Before the Syrian uprising that began in 2011, the greater Fertile Crescent experienced the most severe drought in the instrumental record. For Syria, a country marked by poor governance and unsustainable agricultural and environmental policies, the drought had a catalytic effect, contributing to political unrest. We show that the recent decrease in Syrian precipitation is a combination of natural variability and a long-term drying trend, and the unusual severity of the observed drought is here shown to be highly unlikely without this trend. Precipitation changes in Syria are linked to rising mean sea-level pressure in the Eastern Mediterranean, which also shows a long-term trend. There has been also a long-term warming trend in the Eastern Mediterranean, adding to the drawdown of soil moisture. No natural cause is apparent for these trends, whereas the observed drying and warming are consistent with model studies of the response to increases in greenhouse gases. Furthermore, model studies show an increasingly drier and hotter future mean climate for the Eastern Mediterranean. Analyses of observations and model simulations indicate that a drought of the severity and duration of the recent Syrian drought, which is implicated in the current conflict, has become more than twice as likely as a consequence of human interference in the climate system.”
Paywall.
DrivingBy @117.
It is a fact that in the long term we are all dead, an outcome that will not change, AGW or no AGW.
The view that CO2 is subject to a self-adjusting mechanism is not helpful when that mechanism will leave in place 70% of the CO2 forcing that we achieve through fossil-fuel-use for tens of thousands of years.
The other problem with expecting flora & fauna (and mankind) to adapt is that the relative speed of AGW is unprecedented. 55 million years ago, the PETM occurred which was an event in many ways very similar to AGW except that it took 40,000 years to happen. Flora & fauna and their habitats had time to adapt. The speed of AGW, measured in a very few hundreds of years; this is such that there will be mass extinctions, and that on top of the one humanity is already inflicting by the usual human method of destroying habitats.
Specifically concerning humanity, your view that “birth rate” may afford us a mechanism for altering human populations and thus to limit our adverse impacts on the planet. This is perhaps partially correct. That is, given the timescales involved, the human “birth rate” could decline but that would be as a by-product of a step change in human population due to a spike in the human “death rate”
Of course, in the long run, there have been mass extinctions before. In the final analysis all species will come to the end of the road at some point in time, sooner or later. Mind, whatever we do manage to inflict on ourselves, I do not imagine the list of extinct species in this planet’s 6th mass extinction event will include the name “homo sapiens sapiens” as I don’t think we are quite that stupid.
Aug 81
Projection 79 < T < 81
Re- Comment by Jim Baird — 12 Sep 2015 @ 9:15 AM, ~#116 and many previous
Jim, the big problem with your version of OTEC is that it just isn’t practical. I am not an expert, so how do I know this? I know because there would be venture capital all over it if the concept were as good as you advertise and there would be several sizeable demonstration plants under construction or running. Show me a serious private or publicly funded project and I will enthusiastically await the results.
Steve
DrivingBy #117,
You are essentially correct; the problem (apart from normal humanitarian concern) is that we have nuclear weapons. Some might not feel inclined to go gently into that good night.
The stresses are going to happen on the world human “system” as it exists now. Think about the current conflicts and how they might go out of control– India/Pakistan and so on. Over water, migration… too easy to reach a “tipping point”.
For the ‘keeping track at home’ department, GISS has updated. The August anomaly was a scorcher, ringing up 0.81 C. It’s the hottest August in the GISTEMP record by a comfortable margin–only twice before has an August reached 0.7, let alone 0.8. (Specifically, 2011 made it to 0.74 C, while 2006 managed 0.71.)
As MAR has been putting it lately, “scorchio!’
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/tabledata_v3/GLB.Ts+dSST.txt
Actually, Solar Jim, it’s more absurd than that: Current economics is completely dependent on growth. Can’t exist without it. Even a resource-based economy doesn’t fix that. Waste will still pile up in the form of greed as wealth. All it means is, sure, stay relatively within limits, but the the skewing can still go on so that a few monopolize what there is.
A need-based economy is where we must end up, so any “costs” are irrelevant. The are 1 and 0, nothing more, and already Dead Men Walking. Besides, you can’t get to sustainability going through today’s debts. Global jubilee is the only way, so, again, those 1’s and 0’s are Dead Men Walking.
Thomas O’Reiily
A message from Planet Realty awaits you at :
http://vvattsupwiththat.blogspot.com/2015/04/a-war-against-fire.html
DrivingBy,
The current world population could not have been reached without the increased agricultural output of the past half century. Food will always be a limiting factor to growth. Any decrease in agricultural output will be accompanied by a corresponding decreased in population. You are correct that any agricultural collapse will have dire worldwide consequences. That said, I am not one of the pessimistic ones. I believe that the increased agricultural yields of the past several decades will continue into the future. The best solution to the high birth rate is to increase the economic status of those living in the poorest regions, who have the highest birth rates.
Aug T = 0.81
2015 projection J-D 0.78 < T < 0.81
Thomas O’Reilly @113: I agree with you about the trollish behavior of the guy you mention. He’s just dropping hooks, each one a distraction.
I applaud your link of the [now-ex-] PM’s hearty laughter at a disdainful, ethnically charged, ignorant joke about rising sea levels. It is typical of what goes on inside an echo chamber of humans with their heads in the sand, and other ex-clusive places.
Higher up in the same chamber as the former PM, it appears that one is not only entitled to one’s own facts, one is entitled to a sense of entitlement about one’s fictions, so to speak. Rupert Murdoch in his own words:
http://boingboing.net/2015/09/09/rupert-murdoch-just-bought-nat.html
Kevin McKinney @134.
I think I would have called “mucho scorchio!!” for a record August except that there has since been updates or something in the GISTEMP postings (I assume) as the present numbers set August 2015 as the second hottest August on record, a squeak behind August 2014. For all months, August 2015 weighs in at =13th on record. So in the rolling ‘last 12 months’ we exchange one top twenty month for another. That still merits a “scochio!!”
Mind, in the last month, there has been a lot more bullish talk of a large El Nino coming our way. And MEI for Jul/Aug has bounced back up and is now well above 2. So there is every reason to predict “mucho scorchio!!! for the coming months.
5th … 2014 9 .. +0.90ºC
9th … 2014 10 . +0.86ºC
65th .. 2014 11 . +0.69ºC
18th .. 2014 12 . +0.79ºC
11th .. 2015 1 .. +0.82ºC
7th … 2015 2 .. +0.88ºC
3rd … 2015 3 .. +0.91ºC
33th .. 2015 4 .. +0.75ºC
18th .. 2015 5 .. +0.79ºC
23rd .. 2015 6 .. +0.78ºC
33rd .. 2015 7 .. +0.75ºC
13th .. 2015 8 .. +0.81ºC
Another one for those keeping track–we’re at the annual minimum of Arctic sea ice, more or less. After I prematurely ‘pre-called’ the minimum on the 8th after a couple of days of upticks in ice extent, winds turned to favor compaction of the ice pack, and we’ve now got a ‘double-dip’ minimum for this year. As of this morning, September 14, we have JAXA showing 4,257,003 km2 of ice, which means that by that metric, it’s the third-lowest extent on record, behind the still-exceptional seasons of 2007 and 2012. (We may or may not have reached the lowest extent yet, but the ranking of the seasons will not change in any plausible scenario at this point.)
Some folks had fondly imagined that there was a real sea ice ‘recovery’ in progress, based on the 2013 and 2014 extents; they should be disabused by this year’s outcome (especially since conditions were by no means optimal for ice loss–for example, there wasn’t much export of ice via the main outlet, the Fram Strait, throughout most of the summer.)
It will be quite interesting to see how the probable ‘El Nino winter’ affects next year’s melt season.
DrivingBy,
Although food and energy are potential limiting factors for human population, population dynamics are complicated, and it is not clear at present what is the tightest limiting factor. Arguably, human population may already be above sustainable levels for the planet, since we are effectively now dining on petroleum converted into corn and soy. UN projections now put the crest at 10-12 billion before the end of the century.
So it is possible that human population may reach levels that degrade the carrying capacity of the planet, and the subsequent crash could bring us to levels even below that. So, yes, population is self-regulating, but the process ain’t pretty.
#136 russell thx for the 1990 article. it doesn’t impress me at all. It’s 2015 now, 25 years later. I never expected your beliefs to shift. not sure why you expect mine to for no good reason.
#129 edward that’s an interesting science study which seems to provide good data on the CC influences of the drought.
Though it was self-evident without such a study, that the long drought and it’s impacts on the people there was a trigger for unrest in Syria from the get go.
To me however it’s still a leap to:- which is implicated in the current conflict ….. is that current as in 2010/11, or current in 2015?
I will wear the former but not the latter. Neither the drought, the 2010/11 unrest nor the last 4.5 years of civil war exist inside a vacuum. Because there are far greater geo-political realities that spurned the original unrest into full scale mayhem that has zero to do with climate change, temps, or drought.
I can say that in a logical, evidence based and rational way without denying the reality of the extreme AGW/CC drivers of that original multi-year drought. For me all are true as opposed to an either/or proposition.
#129 edward that’s an interesting science study which seems to provide good data on the CC influences of the drought.
Though it was self-evident without such a study, that the long drought and it’s impacts on the people there was a trigger for unrest in Syria from the get go.
To me however it’s still a leap to:- which is implicated in the current conflict – I ask is that current as in 2010/11, or current as in 2015? I will wear the former but not the latter.
Neither the drought, the 2010/11 unrest nor the last 4.5 years of civil war exist inside a vacuum. Because there are far greater geo-political realities that spurned the original unrest into the full scale mayhem we see today that has zero to do with climate change, temps, or drought.
I can say that in a logical, evidence based and rational way without denying the reality of the extreme AGW/CC drivers of that original multi-year drought. For me all are true as opposed to an either/or proposition.
Steve 132 “there would be venture capital all over it if the concept were as good as you advertise”
It takes at least a 100MW plant for OTEC to be viable. None anywhere near that size has ever been built because the cost estimates are between a quarter and a billion dollars, depending on the design.
Before anything like that kind of money is invested non-economic prototypes have to be built and tested. No VC is interested in this end of the innovation spectrum let alone putting up a billion on an untested design.
The point here is to try to prove the environmental benefit of the design in order that public and/or private sector investment will be forthcoming.
I am prepared to try and make that case to the experts.
Ray Ladbury #79 > This isn’t a political issue.
Thank you for staking out reality in this case, and in others on this thread. It’s a thankless job but somebody has to do it. And thanks for being helpful.
Supported by an MIT thesis, the economic case for OTEC is presented here.
It potentially has the lowest levelized cost of production of all zero emissions sources as well as the highest capacity.
It is beyond me what more can be asked of any technology.
#92–Kevin McKinney: That’s a brilliant observation, I think. Re: ohgeeengineering. And that’s a great article. Not to mention the pictures. I remember the shock of that line down the middle of Nogales, seen through the window of the bus I was riding in. I couldn’t figure out what I was seeing. Nigeria is another story. When I see black smoke like that, I can smell it. Because I’ve had my share.
#147–Thanks, patrick. I can take credit for the article, but of course I cribbed the observation itself from Dyer.
Btw, sounds like you have some interesting stories to tell yourself.