I’ve read that global emissions have dipped recently, and yet atmospheric carbon dioxide continues to increase. Why is that? Has there been insufficient time for the decline in emissions to take effect or have people erred in calculating these emissions?
Richard Caldwellsays
BPL: When the droughts get bad enough, plus the coastal storms, even people in the US will starve. The idea that the US is immune from climate change is wrong.
Richard: As if. North America is huge and contains vast fresh water supplies that currently just dump into the Arctic Ocean. We’re good with pipes. Nebraska has the Ogallala’s heart. The Rockies harvest what they do. The San Luis valley will feed the Rio Grande no matter what.
We’ll hurt, for sure, but we’ll choose how badly we’re hurt.
Theosays
Re Lawrence @191: Cannot get SST from nullschool, but there are plenty others. I was mainly inquiring about Cyclone movement for our safety, cause many properties south of the historical cyclone zone would not be cyclone proof. My place would definitely be blown to bits.
But this could also provide an opportunity for a climate change message. If because of higher SST, a cyclone formed or tracked much further south, hit the coast and did some damage, then we would clearly be able to blame climate change for this event.
Vendicar Decariansays
Cruz spoke about local issues in Wyoming, the largest coal-producing state. He discussed the Democratic “attack” on the fossil fuel, saying President Barack Obama has tried to put the coal industry out of business through government regulations targeting air pollution.
“America is the Saudi Arabia of coal, and we are going to develop our industry,” Cruz said.
Theosays
Is anyone going to mourn the loss of the NSIDC Ice Pages? Not until further notice? Could be the most interesting year yet. Don’t know if it affects Greenland melt as well. We should at least thank them for their excellent work to date.
Now watching the Bremen Uni stuff. But earlier this morning, they had a glitch as well. Diving down by the same margin as the NSIDC error. Ha, maybe they assumed they would have a similar glitch and prepared some adjustments. Was corrected later today. The Japanese site died late last year as well. Gonna be pretty hard to run a competition on the 16 minimum.
Mike Hsays
This January to April period in NSW Australia has been extradornary (yet again). I am a qualified but non practising qualified meterologist and former aviator who lives on a farm situated in a mountain range 4000 feet above sea level and mid latitudes. We have recorded daily highs greater than 41C and overnight minumums of 20C. Precipitation total year todate has been 5mm since January. I am seeing a daily deviation of about 7-12C on the available daily data. Soil moisture content is very low and above ground water storage (dams and rivers) have stopped and dried considerably. We are also recording very unusual wind flows and speeds that are quite constant and follow a typical small low circulation pattern. This is in an area which no doubt has lots of localised geographical impacts and factors – but these are signficant and very damaging changes, the impact on agricultural activity is signficantly negative.
Now that is but one isolated observational report which you dont see in aggregate data.
I am curious however as to whether there has been any work on clouds, namely the issue of cloud expansion as the atmosphere heats so it holds more or greater amounts of water vapour and the lack of suitable coalescent or temperature triggers for droplet formation and precipitation. Anectdotally I can say this, I have done a lot of time inside clouds as an aviator and they are dry to the point that it is very difficult to find only very fine small droplets forming on the windscreen and there would be bizare changes in the lapse rate at various altitudes but varying over short geographical distances, in other words the temperature decrease zig zags and is not linear. I guess I am concerned that this is another effect of increasing CO2 and atmospheric temperatures that will not be reversable by reducing emissions?
Scottsays
@ Richard #39,
There is no need for brimstoning the atmosphere for geoengineering to work. There probably isn’t any need for a carbon tax either, although a properly designed carbon tax might help. By far the geoengineering solution with the most potential is ecosystem restoration and a change in agriculture to regenerative models of production. The soil sink is plenty large enough to handle the excess carbon in the atmosphere. That’s a well known fact. Not even up to dispute. The only issue with this sort of geoengineering has always been the rate at which it could be done. That part is under heated debate with by far most the deniers having a vested interest in the current industrial models of agriculture. No doubt the current industrial models can not accomplish the task. I believe them. But change the agricultural models to regenerative systems and the task becomes far easier.
Personally rather than a carbon tax, simply diverting the rather substantial subsidies the current failing industrial ag system currently enjoys towards subsidizing conversion to regenerative models instead. Or for the extremely conservative economists out there, even just dropping the subsidies for the industrial models should be enough to collapse that destructive system and allow the regenerative systems to overtake the industrial systems by market forces alone. It real cost benefit the regenerative systems are far more profitable. The conversion should actually be a big boost to the larger general economies, rather than a drain.
> Theo
Sorry, you’re dooming inappropriately there.
See Tamino for the current data sources, which are still good except for that one satellite that’s failed.
Digby Scorgie @201.
Any talk of ‘dipping’ CO2 emissions is not talk of ‘global’ emissions. The EIA proclaimed a month back that emissions from FF use “stayed flat for the second year in a row.” Their figures give a 0.2% increase in FF emissions 2013-14 and a zero rise for 2014-15. CDIAC Global Carbon Project take a bit longer publishing annual emissions data but that 2013-14 FF increase they give as 0.5%. They also give a 2.4% increase for cement emissions and (more significant) an 18% increase on Land-Use-Change emissions. Their total value for the 2013-14 increase in all our CO2 emissions works out as 2.2%. So the total emissions are not flat 2013-14 (although there could be a level of circular analysis at work here).
How much of the 2014-to-2015 atmospheric CO2 increase is due to higher LUC emissions or due to the mounting El Nino or due to wonky non-flat FF emissions figures, we shall have to wait and see. (Note I do not mention emissions debouching from a melty Arctic as I see no evidence for it.)
RC 202: Richard: As if. North America is huge and contains vast fresh water supplies that currently just dump into the Arctic Ocean. We’re good with pipes. Nebraska has the Ogallala’s heart. The Rockies harvest what they do. The San Luis valley will feed the Rio Grande no matter what. . . . We’ll hurt, for sure, but we’ll choose how badly we’re hurt.
BPL: Right. Nothing will happen to contaminate the aquifers, people will agree politely on who gets the water, and there will always be plenty of good farmland. And everybody will have a pony!
OSI-SAF have migrated to DMSP F-18 apparently successfully. If you want to see some gremlin free Arctic sea ice graphs based on the Japanese data you could start here:
You seem very confused. I’m describing my own actions. It is hardly appropriate for me to fact check them.
Theosays
Re Mike H @206: The climate Jan to Apr this year has been exceptional for the whole world. Yes, climate change, but a major influence has been the strength of the current El Nino. You need to cast your memory back to 1998 and compare with current conditions. A strong El Nino always has a strong (drought) influence on Australia specially at your location. I also live in the mountains in NSW, but closer to the coast. The effects here have been much more cloud, minimal rain, but very high humidity. Slowly turning into an uncomfortable hot-house over the last few years with lots of changes to the local flora and fauna. Made some comments here @ RC about my Greenhouse Effect like @ https://www.realclimate.org/?comments_popup=19014#comment-643779
I’m not so sure that your optimism about water is warranted. I think you may need to consider fluxes versus reservoirs a little more closely. Yes, the reservoirs are considerable. However, changes in fluxes in and out of those reservoirs can make large differences, especially over multi-year time scales.
As example, consider the case of the Rio Grande. It *may* be true that “The San Luis valley will feed the Rio Grande no matter what.” But that doesn’t mean that the ‘feed’ capacity is effectively infinite.
“In the summer of 2001, a 328-foot (100 m)-wide sandbar formed at the mouth of the river, marking the first time in recorded history that the Rio Grande failed to empty into the Gulf of Mexico. The sandbar was subsequently dredged, but it reformed almost immediately. Spring rains the following year flushed the reformed sandbar out to sea, but it returned in the summer of 2002. As of the fall of 2003, the river once again reaches the Gulf.”
Richard Caldwellsays
Vendicar: “America is the Saudi Arabia of coal, and we are going to develop our industry,” Cruz said.
Richard: Yes, I just read an article on the arms race in ever bigger SUVs. Combine the speed benchmark set by Tesla with cheap oil, and we’re fracked.
—-
Theo: The Japanese site died late last year as well. Gonna be pretty hard to run a competition on the 16 minimum.
Richard: LOL. Gotta laugh when Orwell proves right again. I wonder how many guys in jeeps you can blow up for the cost of one satellite?
—
Scott: rather than a carbon tax, simply diverting the rather substantial subsidies the current failing industrial ag system currently enjoys towards subsidizing conversion to regenerative models instead.
Richard: I don’t consider activities that reduce CO2 through natural means “geoengineering”, but that’s just semantics. Your points are valid. It’s an interesting debate, with credits for sequestration or protection being one mainstream thought that tends towards what you’re saying.
Perhaps your idea could work like fee-bates, where polluters pay and CO2 saved is dollars earned!
A decline in emissions (if correct) still sees anthropogenic emissions. Consequently, the atmospheric concentration of those emitted GHGs will continue to rise (though roughly half of anthropogenic emissions are absorbed elsewhere). The only thing that would cause atmospheric concentrations to stop or decline is the cessation of all anthropogenic emissions (though, hypothetically, removing GHGs from the atmosphere at a rate greater than we’re emitting them would also do it). That is a long way off!
Chuck Hughessays
And again, having warfare and suffering going on is not the same as “the end of civilization”, vide WWII.
Comment by zebra — 16 Apr 2016 @
As long as you’re not the one doing the “warring and the suffering” what’s the problem?
I haven’t been following your every word but it sounds to me like you’re omitting a whole bunch of other miserable factors. How badly were you inconvenienced by a few “relatively minor” terrorist attacks on 9/11? I say “relatively minor” because for most of the world it was major but not compared to the kinds of attacks and conflicts we’ll be seeing once people become desperate for food and water. Let a few nukes go off in the Middle East and you might be a little more inconvenienced than you were post 9/11. Add a Syrian scale refugee crisis to North America when folks from South America and Mexico start heading this way and your lifestyle might be inconvenienced even more.
And remember this; the fun is just beginning with diseases like Zika and West Nile etc. Microbes love to feast on humans and animals. They want their world back and a warm moist atmosphere is just the thing.
Unmitigated, wholesale misery is not the same as the end of civilization but before it’s all over with an early death might be preferable to survival once sh*t starts to hit the proverbial fan.
Chuck Hughessays
We’ll hurt, for sure, but we’ll choose how badly we’re hurt.
Comment by Richard Caldwell — 16 Apr 2016
Um, no we won’t. The planet will be making those decisions going forward. Expect the unexpected when you least expect it. Take a look at the current “Omega” shaped jet stream for starters. As for water:
The sprawling Ogallala Aquifer is slowly getting depleted, with the water table dropping by as much as two feet per year in some counties. And once they drain, it could take hundreds or thousands of years for those ancient aquifers, which were first formed millions of years ago, to fully recharge with rainfall. A 2013 study forecasted that the High Plains Aquifer would be 69 percent depleted by 2060.
202 Richard Caldwell: We should start building those water pipes immediately. The Colorado river in particular needs to be refilled.
The problem is, Rivers that end in the Arctic ocean, freeze. And the ground is permafrost. So you must have a plan to heat those rivers? I think you won’t get any flow in the winter, or most of the year.
The Mississippi also needs more water. One year recently the river was so low that there was a spot that was impassable to barge traffic.
Robin Johnsonsays
BPL/Chuck/Edward-
The Climate models predict a WETTER Midwest and Eastern USA. And there is no strong reason to disagree with that. Drought is NOT going to affect the majority of US farmland. The Mississippi is going to FLOOD more often – not run low. California could be adversely affected (like now) – but it mostly grows “luxury” food rather than staples like wheat, corn, rice and soybeans. A lot of farmland in the High Plains is irrigated by the perverse incentives of our food system that encourage growing subsidized corn to feed cattle instead of letting them graze on grass. Recently – those incentives were changed but the feedback loop will take time to change. The High Plains could shift to growing grass or varieties of wheat that require less water and no irrigation.
California will have to figure things out for itself. The Deep South could grow TONS more food. BUT… Wetter/humid climates have more depleted soils, noxious weeds, insects and fungal diseases which require strategic crop rotation, pesticides and careful land management practices. SO… Ironically, it is easier and cheaper to grow luxury crops in the desert using pumped water. Until the water runs out…
Dan H.says
Tony,
Yes, removing GHG from the atmosphere at a greater rate would allow for a stabilization of their atmospheric levels without a anthropogenic cessation. This is expected to occur as the equilibrium is being shifted due to emissions. Indeed, plants and oceans have been increasing their uptake such that atmospheric levels continue to lag below that expected from the sum of all emissions. Admittedly, significant reductions would need to occur in order to reach a stabilization point.
> once they drain, … years for those
> ancient aquifers … to fully recharge
Or they won’t. Some are gravel and hold up with air replacing the water.
Some are sand or silt and collapse into the space when waters is removed (Kettleman Hills in California is I think the best described).
Richard Caldwellsays
Kevin: I’m not so sure that your optimism about water is warranted.
Richard: Me either. Note that I said how much we hurt is our own decision. As if we’re known for wise decision-making.
——-
Chuck: The planet will be making those decisions going forward.
Richard: Nope, barring geologic or solar sensationalisms, our ongoing decisions will be in control, though our foreknowledge of the results isn’t perfect. Airplane pilots are taught to keep flying the plane professionally up until the moment of impact. Never give up.
Chuck: The sprawling Ogallala Aquifer is slowly getting depleted,
Richard: Nope. It’s just losing its sprawl. Where it belongs, Nebraska, things are dandy. Look at the map in your link. Only a smidgen of Nebraska is adversely affected. The Ogallala is a renewable resource for NEBRASKA. Competitive advantage is good.
————–
Edward, I don’t think winter water availability is an issue, and permafrost is retreating. I’m not well-versed in Canadian hydrology, but I think a lot of water originates in the south and flows north, so freezing, especially in a warmer world, won’t be an issue. The question is cost. Do you bring it from the Great Lakes? Shut down Niagra? Switch crops and their locations? California’s economy could easily absorb the shedding of most agriculture.Drop it slowly and compassionately to the most profitable 25% irrigation water. Or buy piped-in water. Either works.
patricksays
#224 Dan H. > …levels continue to lag below that expected from the sum of all emissions…
Will you please cite a source for that assertion? Preferably after you fully digest the following:
“But according to reports they [emissions] have dropped, so we might hope CO2 concentration isn’t rising as fast as it was (i.e., that CO2 is decelerating). Let’s find out.” –Tamino
“I do…have a lot of confidence in the conclusion that the rate of CO2 growth has not decreased. There’s been no deceleration. Whatever emissions reductions have happened, haven’t yet slowed down the rise of CO2.” –Tamino, same.
#219 Tony Weddle > …That is a long way off!
You can say that again.
Scottsays
Richard @217,
You said, “I don’t consider activities that reduce CO2 through natural means “geoengineering”, but that’s just semantics. Your points are valid. It’s an interesting debate, with credits for sequestration or protection being one mainstream thought that tends towards what you’re saying.”
Keep in mind no agriculture, not even the most ecologically friendly organic agriculture, is “natural”. Like it or not we are geoengineering the planet now and have been for thousands of years. I simply propose we accept this reality, and move towards a more constructive and organised management, so it can be guided towards a beneficial outcome instead of a chaotic and mostly negative outcome.
Agricultural lands are under management already. We don’t necessarily need to do anything more than guide, improve and organise those efforts.
Earl Butz proved that it can be done. Even gave us the blueprint on how to do it. Unfortunately his plans moved agriculture towards an even more destructive set of production models. But the model of how to change the agricultural sector through a bureaucratic manipulation of markets and subsidies can be harnessed to move agriculture in a new direction just as effectively IMHO.
The real sticking point is rate. The soil sink is plenty large enough. It’s the rate CO2 can be sequestered and how long that is trickier. That’s where some new information about carbon cycles seems to offer the most hope. One key breakthrough was the discovery of glomalin in 1996 by USDA researcher, Dr. Sara Wright. Further research has discovered a whole new much more stable carbon sequestration pathway previously little known called now the Liquid Carbon Pathway (LCP). What this means is that the Roth C model often used by climate scientists to mathematically predict the movement of carbon in and out of soils is insufficient to predict long term sequestration in soils in certain biomes. This LCP explains what has puzzled soil scientists for years, namely why Mollisols (prairie soils) hold many orders of magnitude more soil carbon, at much greater depth than Alfisols (forest soils). It seems counter intuitive since forests hold more biomass. But that biomass is mostly above ground and enters the soil at a relatively slow rate. (well described by the Roth C model and direct measurements of biomass. A properly managed grassland however, by using the LCP, actually sequesters carbon at a much much higher rate and for a longer time than ever previously suspected (as much as 30-40% or more of the total products of photosynthesis)
So knowing this, you can see where and why the policies enacted by Earl Butz were so destructive. But also where flipping it in the direction of purposely geoengineering the climate can be potentially so beneficial.
Apropos cleaning up the coastline ahead of sea level rise: it would be a good idea.
Global Biogeochemical Cycles
Volume 30, Issue 3
March 2016, Pages 447–459
Research Article
Linking nutrient loading and oxygen in the
coastal ocean: A new global scale model
First published: 11 March 2016
DOI: 10.1002/2015GB005303
Abstract
Recent decades have witnessed an exponential spread of low-oxygen regions in the coastal ocean due at least in-part to enhanced terrestrial nutrient inputs….
… we have developed and here describe, evaluate, and apply the Coastal Ocean Oxygen Linked to Benthic Exchange And Nutrient Supply (COOLBEANS) model, a first-of-its-kind, spatially explicit (with 152 coastal segments) model, global model of coastal oxygen and nutrient dynamics….
… The model examines sensitivity of bottom water oxygen to changes in nutrient inputs and vertical exchange between surface and bottom waters, highlighting the importance of this vertical exchange in defining the susceptibility of a system to oxygen depletion. These sensitivities along with estimated maximum hypoxic areas that are supported by present day nutrient loads are consistent with existing hypoxic regions. Sensitivities are put into context by applying historic changes in nitrogen loading observed in the Gulf of Mexico to the global coastal ocean, demonstrating that such loads would drive many systems anoxic or even sulfidic.
It’s not just the crap the rivers deliver to the ocean.
It’s also the crap in the intertidal, and in what’s going to be intertidal in coming decades.
Clean up in advance and have a food source, or …. not.
Thomassays
200 Chris Dudley. Well sure, some people do think it could progress rapidly. Yet logically speaking possible doesn’t equal probable. One needs to consider present time reality and the existing national agreements/treaty and non-enforcement aspects already enshrined in COP21 into the short term future. Those have the equivalent force of being hit in the face with a wet lettuce leaf imo. Your link ignores these realities imo. Their past examples of rapidity seem similar to holding a toothpick in your hand and claiming it’s the amazon rain forest. I’m content with my observations that “it ain’t going to happen.” My mystical fortune telling talent tells me it is unlikely for rational change via serious regulation by national govts to even start talking seriously about the “new reality” until after there’s an ice free summer arctic and greenland has a massive melt 5 times the size of the last big one in the same year. That might get the people’s attention. But there will still be narcissists claiming it’s only natural variation then too. Given #179 this shift in global progress may not begin until after 2030 and take a decade to have any serious effect – it ain’t going to happen in 2016, 2020, or 2025 either. May as well kiss 2C and probably 3C goodbye by ~2040 and embrace any number of positive feedbacks kicking in before that. And get used to it asap. It’s either that or about 6 billion people who care enough to be takin’ it to the streets tomorrow. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i9_e0rRvyz8
Digby Scorgiesays
MA Rodger (#210), Chris Dudley (#218), Tony Weddle (#219)
Thanks for the responses. Please bear with me, fellows, while I try to get my head around this.
Firstly, it seems that it might be premature to talk of a dip in emissions. All right, but let’s put that one aside.
Secondly, I’ve read elsewhere (SkepticalScience) that if our emissions stopped instantaneously, the concentration of atmospheric carbon dioxide would immediately start declining. (The average global temperature would remain roughly constant for some decades, however, because the expected decline in temperature would be roughly matched by delayed warming arising from the inertia of the climate system. But that’s another story.)
Finally then, I get to an alternative way of posing my question. If emissions stop suddenly, CO2 levels start dropping. If emissions continue rising, so do CO2 levels. With intermediate changes in emissions, we should then see one of three possibilities:
(1) If the drop in emissions is small, there’ll be a decline in the rate of increase in CO2 levels — but they still increase.
(2) If the drop in emissions is large, CO2 levels will remain roughly unchanged.
(3) If the drop in emissions is very large, CO2 levels will decline, but not as much as they would if emissions stopped altogether.
Have I got this right? Then I suppose I should be asking: By how much should our emissions drop before we see a noticeable change in CO2 levels?
Thomassays
217 Richard Caldwell quoted “America is the Saudi Arabia of coal, and we are going to develop our industry,” Cruz said.
Size isn’t everything Ted.
Carmichael coal mine: Mining leases approved for $21 billion project in Queensland’s Galilee Basin 4 Apr 2016 – it’s going to deliver ~5,000 jobs.
Australia was estimated to have 9.2 per cent of the world’s proven reserves of black coal and ranked fifth in the world behind the United States of America (26.8 per cent), China (15.4 per cent), India (13.9 per cent) and Russia (12.1 per cent).
Total world coal production of black and brown coal reached record levels and Australia was ranked fifth in the world behind China, the United States of America, India and Indonesia in terms of total coal production. Australia produced 421Mt of coal (6.3% of world total) in 2012. Most (90%) of Australia’s coal output is, however, exported, making it the world’s second biggest coal exporter after Indonesia. Australia exported 383Mt of coal in 2012. Noting that Australia is the #1 Exporter of Metallurgical Coal because of having the highest BTU/purity in the world.
Total exports will grow by at least 60Mt per year up to ~440Mt once Australia’s largest coal mine $21.7 billion Adani Carmichael Project comes online. Construction begins in 2017 and will include a 400klm rail line to the port in the middle of the GBR.
All of this 60Mt of thermal coal is going to India, which imported 160Mt of coal in 2012, becoming the world’s third biggest coal importer after China and Japan. About 68% of India’s electricity generation comes from coal.
The most notable feature of the new project is its sheer scale. If constructed, it will become the biggest mine in Australia, and one of the biggest in the world, producing an estimated 60 million tonnes of steaming coal each year over an estimated life of 60 to 90 years.
This dwarfs most existing mines nearby. There are currently almost 50 coal mines operating in the Bowen Basin, most producing between 5 and 10 million tonnes per year, and most with relatively short life spans of 10 to 30 years. The proposed mine is 6 to 12 times bigger than most operating mines, and will operate for AT LEAST TWICE AS LONG @ 60 years to 2080 or possibly 2110.
Progressive thinktank the Australia Institute has sought to illustrate just how big those emissions will be. It says the average annual emissions from burning the coal from Carmichael – 79m tonnes of CO2 – is more than the annual emissions from Sri Lanka, more than Bangladesh with its population of 160 million, about the same as those from Malaysia and Austria and only slightly less than the annual emissions from Vietnam.
Compared to annual emissions from cities, it says Carmichael’s emissions will be three times the average annual emissions from New Delhi, double those from Tokyo, six times those of Amsterdam and 20% more than New York City.
“There’s a disjunct between the agreement that we have to keep global warming below 2 degrees, and 1.5 degrees in the longer term, necessary for the healthy future of the reef, and opening the world’s largest coalmine. Anyone would see that as strange and the government needs to face the fact that expanding our coal and gas exports is not consistent with the imperative of keeping 80% of fossil fuel reserves in the ground. We need to resolve that as a government and as a nation,” he said. “We can’t have it both ways.”
So, back to Ted Cruz: “we are going to develop our industry” Given the USA has more Coal than anyone else on the planet then good for you Ted. Why not build another dozen mines as big as Adani are doing now and get into this lucrative global Coal Export business as well?
There’s thousands of jobs and economic growth in that Ted. Then powers that be can also EXPORT their personal income and wealth to Panama before the tax man gets their dirty grubby evil hands on it. You might even get a cut Teddy. :-)
223 Robin Johnson: We here in Iowa and Illinois already had doses of “wetter.” It was bad every time.
Both planting and harvesting have become problematical because of the extra rain. Some fields are too muddy for a tractor or a combine to navigate.
2008: Seedlings washed away twice so fields have to be planted 3 times to get 1 crop in Mercer County.
2013: Illinois between Moline and Chicago has had way too much rain this year. Fields went unplanted & unplowed into May because of standing water.
Recall that in 2012 there was drought in spring and summer, then at harvest time the fields were too wet to drive a combine on. Farmers waited until the ground was frozen before harvesting. The corn, what there was, was damaged by having been frozen. In Missouri, there was no corn grain harvested, at least in some places. In Iowa and Illinois, some corn was harvested. In Minnesota, a full crop was harvested.
We don’t want wetter. We don’t want dryer.
Somehow my comment at 222 omitted this: Wikipedia: “permafrost underlies about three-quarters of the Mackenzie River watershed, reaching up to 100 m (330 ft) deep in the delta region[2] – and meager to moderate rainfall, amounting to about 410 millimetres (16 in) over the basin as a whole.”
“By far the largest engineering project ever slated for the Mackenzie River was the North American Water and Power Alliance (NAWAPA), a vast series of dams, tunnels and reservoirs designed to move 150 km3 (120,000,000 acre·ft) of Arctic meltwater to southern Canada, the western United States and Mexico. The system would involve building massive dams on the Liard, Mackenzie, Peace, Columbia, and Fraser rivers, then pumping water into a 650 km (400 mi) long reservoir in the Rocky Mountain Trench. The water would then flow by gravity to irrigate more than 220,000 km2 (85,000 sq mi) in the three countries and generate more than 50,000 MW of surplus energy.[49] First proposed in the 1950s, the project’s estimated cost has since risen to over $200 billion. Because of its massive cost and environmental impacts, it is considered unlikely ever to be implemented.”
By treaty, the Great Lakes are off limits for providing water to anywhere else.
226 Richard Caldwell: I have said this before: Somebody commented on RC that China is loosing an area the size of Rhode Island to the Gobi desert annually. China was an exporter of corn. China now imports corn. How long do you think it will take the 1.3 billion people of China + the 1 billion people of India to eat up the US production? There is no longer a surplus anywhere. We are already down to days rather than years, like it was in the 50s, of available food. It won’t take much to push us over the edge.
As Barton Paul Levenson predicted, GW is eating into our harvests. The only question is when will it get so bad that agriculture will collapse.
You can either believe that GW must be stopped immediately or you can be surprised when you go to a grocery store and there is no food.
Edward Greischsays
228 Scott: Biochar won’t undo the droughts that are already happening around the world. Like Syria, South Sudan, Sahel, China, India, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera …….
We can’t jump centuries ahead in the next 10 years. Nobody ever saw the end coming, until this time. Now, few people see the end coming. It is coming, and soon.
patricksays
#229 Dan H.:
So you’re misreading what you’re seeing–or you’re taking it from Anthony Watts (2009)–or both.
Now read Gavin Schmidt:
“The confusion in the denialosphere is based on a misunderstanding between ‘airborne fraction of CO2 emissions’ (not changing very much) and ‘CO2 fraction in the air’ (changing very rapidly)…”
The Climate models predict a WETTER Midwest and Eastern USA. And there is no strong reason to disagree with that. Drought is NOT going to affect the majority of US farmland. The Mississippi is going to FLOOD more often – not run low. California could be adversely affected (like now) – but it mostly grows “luxury” food rather than staples like wheat, corn, rice and soybeans. A lot of farmland in the High Plains is irrigated by the perverse incentives of our food system that encourage growing subsidized corn to feed cattle instead of letting them graze on grass. Recently – those incentives were changed but the feedback loop will take time to change. The High Plains could shift to growing grass or varieties of wheat that require less water and no irrigation.
Comment by Robin Johnson — 18 Apr 2016 @
Glad to see you got it all figured out in advance. Who knew Climate Change could be so pleasant? I’m sure those pesky weather patterns will just fall into line behind your rosy scenario, the oceans will calm and the temperature spikes will moderate to an enjoyable level for all. And when have Climate Models ever been wrong about anything?
That 2012 Drought that threw all those ranchers out of the cattle business and reduced the Mississippi river to a mere trickle was a once in 1000 year event (not counting when it happened in 1988 of course) and we all saw that one coming. Sure… millions of 100+ year old trees are still dying from that drought but they’ll come right back in a few hundred more years provided it never happens again. And I agree, food is a definite luxury as all those Syrian refugees will tell you. Why just the other day I was talking to a farmer in Louisiana who was thrilled to see his corn crops completely under water. In fact, he said, “I hope this happens again real soon.” and look, it’s happening again right now!
Drought/ Flood/ drought/ flood…. what’s not to like? We’ll adjust.
Lawrence Colemansays
203: Theo..well yes..and no. Scientists are loathe to labelling a single or cluster of events directly on climate change. My way of undertstanding the system is that : nothing occurs in isolation, every climatic or even weather system affects everything else to greater or lessor degrees until the measurable effect gets buried in the noise. Sort of like the butterfly effect. So it’s the degree and time reference of sustained and anomalous forcing on a system until it responds..it’s sensitivity. The affects ripple out everywhere. So as you can glean, it’s all about statistics and probability. One scientific group may place greater or lessor value on a particular set of parameters in a data set etc. Then finally once the climate scientists agree to an accord that makes everyone happy they have to convey this information to the public and politicians and they respectively have their own set of values and priorities. Yes I know the system sucks!. So in a nutshell one can’t be 100% scientifically certain that any events directly influence any other entity. so yes…. and no?
zebrasays
@Apocalypse Guys,
Sorry, but you sound very much like those who say “if you reduce FF use we’ll all be freezing in the dark!”.
It just isn’t helpful to make grandiose claims that you can’t back up with some science.
If you think food production is going to be reduced to the point that people in the US will starve, then describe the detailed physical scenario that leads to that reduction.
Yeah, I know, you can’t. That’s because is is just as likely, in any reasonable time-frame, as suffocating because all the oxygen molecules move to the other side of the room.
If you want to convince people to do something, you have to put the problem in terms to which they can relate. For example, if people were convinced that severe local flooding was “caused” by CO2, that would be enough to get them to change, in combination with other arguments.
So, let’s begin with getting the nice climate science guys to go all-in on attribution. Not predicting catastrophe, just being willing to definitively connect local (in space and time) phenomena to human activity. That would make a difference.
Scottsays
Edward @225,
You said, “Biochar won’t undo the droughts that are already happening around the world. Like Syria, South Sudan, Sahel, China, India, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera …….
We can’t jump centuries ahead in the next 10 years. Nobody ever saw the end coming, until this time. Now, few people see the end coming. It is coming, and soon.”
You are right. If you read closely both links, biochar is just a way to provide habitat for AMF. The Liquid Carbon Pathway is actually where you get the vast majority of carbon sequestration. So by jump starting habitat for AMF, the important link in the LCP, you could boost soil carbon sequestration rates to a level high enough to get this done in timeframe of decades.
Of course keep in mind biochar is just 1 way to boost the LCP. Lots of other people have been doing it in a multitude of ways for everything from rice production to grazing management.
The huge advantage of the LCP is of course that the humus deep in the soil profile simultaneously improves both drought and flood resistance/tolerance.
We actually can do it despite the naysayers. But it will take a worldwide effort. There can be no 1/2 measures.
The common thread that makes all the above work is the LCP. Don’t get me wrong. The O-horizon and the litter layer are certainly important to a functioning soil ecology. But for the purposes of carbon sequestration into the soil, their effects are minimal. Where you get those big bumps in stable soil carbon is root exudates feeding mycorrhizal fungi, and the glomalin they produce which builds soil structure.
“Climate records back to Viking times show the 20th century was unexceptional for rainfall and droughts despite assumptions that global warming would trigger more wet and dry extremes, a study showed on Wednesday.
Stretching back 1,200 years, written accounts of climate and data from tree rings, ice cores and marine sediments in the northern hemisphere indicated that variations in the extremes in the 20th century were less than in some past centuries.
Several other centuries show stronger and more widespread extremes,” lead author Fredrik Ljungqvist of Stockholm University told Reuters of findings published in the journal Nature. “We can’t say it’s more extreme now.” . . .
Stretching back 1,200 years, written accounts of climate and data from tree rings, ice cores and marine sediments in the northern hemisphere indicated that variations in the extremes in the 20th century were less than in some past centuries. . .
Ljungqvist said many existing scientific models of climate change over-estimated assumptions that rising temperatures would make dry areas drier and wet areas wetter, with more extreme heatwaves, droughts, downpours and droughts.
The 10th century, when the Vikings were carrying out raids across Europe and the Song dynasty took power in China, was the wettest in the records ahead of the 20th, according to the researchers in Sweden, Germany, Greece and Switzerland.”
Dan H.says
Patrick,
I think you may be the one that is confused. Both Gavin Schmidt and John Cook contend that approximately 40-50% of the billions of tonnes of carbon dioxide emitted annually remains in the atmosphere. This value has not changed significantly over the past half century of measurements. However, this is based on accelerating emissions. Should the emissions decelerate significantly, there is no gaurantee that the fraction would remain the same. Logic (and Chemistry) suggests that the removal rate be based solely on the atmospheric levels, not the incremental changes.
[Response: Yes – but you would need reductions of 60-70% of emissions to match the current long-term sequestration rate – and that too would need to increase over time. Thus stable emissions, or even 10 or 20 or 40% emissions cuts will not give reduced concentrations on a year by year basis (though obviously they will reduce concentrations compared to what would have occurred). -gavin]
Chuck Hughessays
Chuck: The sprawling Ogallala Aquifer is slowly getting depleted,
Richard: Nope. It’s just losing its sprawl. Where it belongs, Nebraska, things are dandy. Look at the map in your link. Only a smidgen of Nebraska is adversely affected. The Ogallala is a renewable resource for NEBRASKA. Competitive advantage is good.
Comment by Richard Caldwell
Richard, what have you said that I didn’t just say? “losing its sprawl” = Depletion. Do you think that rearranging the wording changes the outcome? Do you think a reduction in volume/area is not the same as depletion?
Gimme a break! “Where it belongs?” What did it do, break out of jail a million years ago, so now via Climate Change we’re just “putting it back where it belongs?”
I’m not even going to attempt to make sense out of the rest of your statements.
Tamino says March was hot. But IEA says emissions have dropped and CO2 levels have retreated from the record 409.3 to 407.45, so why worry. Houston is flooding, but I never liked Houston anyway. Water tastes bad and town smells weird to a kid from the Texas Hill Country.
Yes, it’s been hot, but closer from Tamino:
“It’s not implausible that the latest value is the continuation of the present trend (which for the last 40 years or so has been very near linear) plus random fluctuation — which in this case is from the combination of known (el Niño) and unknown causes.”
It’s not implausible? Excellent, it’s not runaway temperature scenario, just an impressive hot streak. We are on a streak! We are on fire!
Ok, let’s wait and see what the April temp looks like. Let’s keep the El Nino fluctuation in mind and not panic.
I think it’s best not to worry too much about this stuff. I think if we just track what Sarah Palin has to say we could all save ourselves a lot of time. If/when Sarah says: uh-oh, this global warming thing looks like a problem, we should all sit up and take notice.
We worry too much. Wait until the momma grizzlies join us in the battle against global warming. Somebody is going to get mauled.
“This isn’t just an extremely hot value, it’s one of a string we’ve seen recently. In part, that’s because of the strong el Niño we’ve gone through, which raises global surface temperature. We’ve had strong el Niño events before, but they’ve never brought temperatures even close to what we’re seeing now. That’s because of global warming. When the increased trend of global warming combines with the increased fluctuation due to el Niño — when worlds collide — that’s when we set records far above what’s been seen, records like we’re seeing now.”
Ray, can you persuade Tamino that it’s just one month in an El Nino year? You hammered that point home with me on the February temperature record.
here’s another quote from the Tamino on March Madness:
“The problems of global warming are already upon us. Things are going to get worse, but in the long term, it’s crucial to do what we can so that we can limit how much worse. What we’re already locked into is bad enough; if we allow the greenhouse problem to go unchecked, nobody knows how terrible it can be. ”
This website is starting to sound as worried as me and Chuck. What’s up with that?
I have no idea what you’re referring to.
Please consider using quotation marks and citing your sources.
You are mixing together other people’s info, your words, and parodies of deniers.
It’d take needless effort to figure out what you’re trying to say.
Please, be simpler and clearer, or find a standup venue appropriate to the comedy.
z @239: If you think food production is going to be reduced to the point that people in the US will starve, then describe the detailed physical scenario that leads to that reduction.
BPL: Global warming moves the rain. Continental interiors dry out, coastlines get soaked. Neither condition is good for crops.
The fraction of land surface in severe drought or worse (PDSI|PM <= -3.0) was roughly, unevenly steady at about 10% from 1948 to 1970. Since then it has risen to 19% in 2010. My research indicates that fraction is proportionate to the fraction the previous year, and to temperature anomaly.
The fraction of land soaked is also rising, and has similar antecedents. If we define the arable fraction as the fraction neither in severe drought nor drenched (an overestimate, as some well-watered land is otherwise unsuitable), it is simple to show that under global warming, the arable fraction goes to zero with time. How soon it approaches that depends on the rate of CO2 increase. Recent rates have been quite high, though there are signs that emissions are down.
The physical mechanism involves the balance between precipitation and evapotranspiration. Precipitation increases, overall, under global warming, but its distribution changes. Meanwhile, evaporation also increases. Everywhere evaporation dominates over precipitation, the soil must become drier. (I ignore advection here.)
NOAA global temperature anomaly for March is posted and up on the February value by a small amount at +1.22ºC, a rise of 0.03ºC. GISTEMP has already reported with a small drop in temperature anomaly Feb-Mar. The main difference is presumably coverage at the poles with the Arctic anomaly included within the GISTEMP numbers presumably not quite as “scorchyissimo” as the average for rest of the globe (although those Arctic anomalies remain crazy).
Nemesissays
Could the recent CO2 spike come from the oceans? See here:
Digby Scorgie @232.
You have the measure of it. You may also have noticed the Dan H./Patrick exchange in the thread @ 224,227,229,236&242 which began with a reply to your initial post. For once I have to side with Dan H.
The airborne fraction of CO2 is something like 43% and has remained remarkably constant since accurate CO2 measurements were begun by Keeling in 1958. This is purely a product of the acceleration of our emissions. The 57% of our CO2 that is today sequestered by natural processes amounts to some 6Gt(C) annually. If emissions were to match these natural sinks and maintain CO2 ppm in the atmosphere (your (2) possibility), the levelling off of CO2 ppm would quickly impact the natural sequestration which will slow quite quickly as the surface ocean waters reach equilibrium with the atmosphere when the atmospheric CO2 levels are no longer rising. The biosphere will presumably keep lapping the stuff up for a handful of years. After that it’s the deep oceans that become the sole sink of any consequence which will continue to do its stuff but diminishing slowly as less and less waters are left in the deep which haven’t been to the surface since CO2 levels have been constant. This is the 1,000 year part of the cycle. After than the whole thing really slows down.
Putting numbers on how quickly the sink diminishes under constant CO2 ppm would requires serious modelling. To give some idea, the IPCC RCP2.6 gives CO2 emissions peaking in 2020 and tailing off to zero initially at 2.5%(linear) per year for 20 years. Thus emissions would be halved by 2040, yet modelled CO2 levels are still rising (abet more slowly) with these 2040 emissions.
I’ve read that global emissions have dipped recently, and yet atmospheric carbon dioxide continues to increase. Why is that? Has there been insufficient time for the decline in emissions to take effect or have people erred in calculating these emissions?
BPL: When the droughts get bad enough, plus the coastal storms, even people in the US will starve. The idea that the US is immune from climate change is wrong.
Richard: As if. North America is huge and contains vast fresh water supplies that currently just dump into the Arctic Ocean. We’re good with pipes. Nebraska has the Ogallala’s heart. The Rockies harvest what they do. The San Luis valley will feed the Rio Grande no matter what.
We’ll hurt, for sure, but we’ll choose how badly we’re hurt.
Re Lawrence @191: Cannot get SST from nullschool, but there are plenty others. I was mainly inquiring about Cyclone movement for our safety, cause many properties south of the historical cyclone zone would not be cyclone proof. My place would definitely be blown to bits.
But this could also provide an opportunity for a climate change message. If because of higher SST, a cyclone formed or tracked much further south, hit the coast and did some damage, then we would clearly be able to blame climate change for this event.
Cruz spoke about local issues in Wyoming, the largest coal-producing state. He discussed the Democratic “attack” on the fossil fuel, saying President Barack Obama has tried to put the coal industry out of business through government regulations targeting air pollution.
“America is the Saudi Arabia of coal, and we are going to develop our industry,” Cruz said.
Is anyone going to mourn the loss of the NSIDC Ice Pages? Not until further notice? Could be the most interesting year yet. Don’t know if it affects Greenland melt as well. We should at least thank them for their excellent work to date.
Now watching the Bremen Uni stuff. But earlier this morning, they had a glitch as well. Diving down by the same margin as the NSIDC error. Ha, maybe they assumed they would have a similar glitch and prepared some adjustments. Was corrected later today. The Japanese site died late last year as well. Gonna be pretty hard to run a competition on the 16 minimum.
This January to April period in NSW Australia has been extradornary (yet again). I am a qualified but non practising qualified meterologist and former aviator who lives on a farm situated in a mountain range 4000 feet above sea level and mid latitudes. We have recorded daily highs greater than 41C and overnight minumums of 20C. Precipitation total year todate has been 5mm since January. I am seeing a daily deviation of about 7-12C on the available daily data. Soil moisture content is very low and above ground water storage (dams and rivers) have stopped and dried considerably. We are also recording very unusual wind flows and speeds that are quite constant and follow a typical small low circulation pattern. This is in an area which no doubt has lots of localised geographical impacts and factors – but these are signficant and very damaging changes, the impact on agricultural activity is signficantly negative.
Now that is but one isolated observational report which you dont see in aggregate data.
I am curious however as to whether there has been any work on clouds, namely the issue of cloud expansion as the atmosphere heats so it holds more or greater amounts of water vapour and the lack of suitable coalescent or temperature triggers for droplet formation and precipitation. Anectdotally I can say this, I have done a lot of time inside clouds as an aviator and they are dry to the point that it is very difficult to find only very fine small droplets forming on the windscreen and there would be bizare changes in the lapse rate at various altitudes but varying over short geographical distances, in other words the temperature decrease zig zags and is not linear. I guess I am concerned that this is another effect of increasing CO2 and atmospheric temperatures that will not be reversable by reducing emissions?
@ Richard #39,
There is no need for brimstoning the atmosphere for geoengineering to work. There probably isn’t any need for a carbon tax either, although a properly designed carbon tax might help. By far the geoengineering solution with the most potential is ecosystem restoration and a change in agriculture to regenerative models of production. The soil sink is plenty large enough to handle the excess carbon in the atmosphere. That’s a well known fact. Not even up to dispute. The only issue with this sort of geoengineering has always been the rate at which it could be done. That part is under heated debate with by far most the deniers having a vested interest in the current industrial models of agriculture. No doubt the current industrial models can not accomplish the task. I believe them. But change the agricultural models to regenerative systems and the task becomes far easier.
Personally rather than a carbon tax, simply diverting the rather substantial subsidies the current failing industrial ag system currently enjoys towards subsidizing conversion to regenerative models instead. Or for the extremely conservative economists out there, even just dropping the subsidies for the industrial models should be enough to collapse that destructive system and allow the regenerative systems to overtake the industrial systems by market forces alone. It real cost benefit the regenerative systems are far more profitable. The conversion should actually be a big boost to the larger general economies, rather than a drain.
> Theo
Sorry, you’re dooming inappropriately there.
See Tamino for the current data sources, which are still good except for that one satellite that’s failed.
Question for the NASA folks — is there more info somewhere about this?
AGAGE (Advanced Global Atmospheric Gases Experiment)
Mentioned here:
JGR Atmospheres Early View
Atmospheric histories and global emissions of halons H-1211 (CBrClF2), H-1301 (CBrF3), and H-2402 (CBrF2CBrF2)
Authors
First published: 14 April 2016
DOI: 10.1002/2015JD024488
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/2015JD024488/full
Digby Scorgie @201.
Any talk of ‘dipping’ CO2 emissions is not talk of ‘global’ emissions. The EIA proclaimed a month back that emissions from FF use “stayed flat for the second year in a row.” Their figures give a 0.2% increase in FF emissions 2013-14 and a zero rise for 2014-15.
CDIAC Global Carbon Project take a bit longer publishing annual emissions data but that 2013-14 FF increase they give as 0.5%. They also give a 2.4% increase for cement emissions and (more significant) an 18% increase on Land-Use-Change emissions. Their total value for the 2013-14 increase in all our CO2 emissions works out as 2.2%. So the total emissions are not flat 2013-14 (although there could be a level of circular analysis at work here).
How much of the 2014-to-2015 atmospheric CO2 increase is due to higher LUC emissions or due to the mounting El Nino or due to wonky non-flat FF emissions figures, we shall have to wait and see. (Note I do not mention emissions debouching from a melty Arctic as I see no evidence for it.)
z 197: under what scenario are people in the US going to “starve”?
BPL: When agricultural production collapses due to rapidly spreading drought and storm events.
z: And under what scenario is the technology going away? Or some form of ordered society?
BPL: When the agriculture collapses. No form of society survives not having enough food.
RC 202: Richard: As if. North America is huge and contains vast fresh water supplies that currently just dump into the Arctic Ocean. We’re good with pipes. Nebraska has the Ogallala’s heart. The Rockies harvest what they do. The San Luis valley will feed the Rio Grande no matter what. . . . We’ll hurt, for sure, but we’ll choose how badly we’re hurt.
BPL: Right. Nothing will happen to contaminate the aquifers, people will agree politely on who gets the water, and there will always be plenty of good farmland. And everybody will have a pony!
@Theo #205 – The Japanese sea ice data didn’t die late last year. It just moved to a different URL:
https://ads.nipr.ac.jp/vishop/vishop-monitor.html?N
OSI-SAF have migrated to DMSP F-18 apparently successfully. If you want to see some gremlin free Arctic sea ice graphs based on the Japanese data you could start here:
The Beaufort Gyre Goes Into Overdrive
Things are warming up in the Arctic, literally and metaphorically!
Edward #199,
You seem very confused. I’m describing my own actions. It is hardly appropriate for me to fact check them.
Re Mike H @206: The climate Jan to Apr this year has been exceptional for the whole world. Yes, climate change, but a major influence has been the strength of the current El Nino. You need to cast your memory back to 1998 and compare with current conditions. A strong El Nino always has a strong (drought) influence on Australia specially at your location. I also live in the mountains in NSW, but closer to the coast. The effects here have been much more cloud, minimal rain, but very high humidity. Slowly turning into an uncomfortable hot-house over the last few years with lots of changes to the local flora and fauna. Made some comments here @ RC about my Greenhouse Effect like @ https://www.realclimate.org/?comments_popup=19014#comment-643779
#202, Richard:
I’m not so sure that your optimism about water is warranted. I think you may need to consider fluxes versus reservoirs a little more closely. Yes, the reservoirs are considerable. However, changes in fluxes in and out of those reservoirs can make large differences, especially over multi-year time scales.
As example, consider the case of the Rio Grande. It *may* be true that “The San Luis valley will feed the Rio Grande no matter what.” But that doesn’t mean that the ‘feed’ capacity is effectively infinite.
https://riogrande.texastribune.org/2015/02/10/why-follow-rio-grande/
“In the summer of 2001, a 328-foot (100 m)-wide sandbar formed at the mouth of the river, marking the first time in recorded history that the Rio Grande failed to empty into the Gulf of Mexico. The sandbar was subsequently dredged, but it reformed almost immediately. Spring rains the following year flushed the reformed sandbar out to sea, but it returned in the summer of 2002. As of the fall of 2003, the river once again reaches the Gulf.”
Vendicar: “America is the Saudi Arabia of coal, and we are going to develop our industry,” Cruz said.
Richard: Yes, I just read an article on the arms race in ever bigger SUVs. Combine the speed benchmark set by Tesla with cheap oil, and we’re fracked.
—-
Theo: The Japanese site died late last year as well. Gonna be pretty hard to run a competition on the 16 minimum.
Richard: LOL. Gotta laugh when Orwell proves right again. I wonder how many guys in jeeps you can blow up for the cost of one satellite?
—
Scott: rather than a carbon tax, simply diverting the rather substantial subsidies the current failing industrial ag system currently enjoys towards subsidizing conversion to regenerative models instead.
Richard: I don’t consider activities that reduce CO2 through natural means “geoengineering”, but that’s just semantics. Your points are valid. It’s an interesting debate, with credits for sequestration or protection being one mainstream thought that tends towards what you’re saying.
Perhaps your idea could work like fee-bates, where polluters pay and CO2 saved is dollars earned!
Digby #201,
If you we filling a tub with water and you turned the faucet down but not off, the tub would continue to fill.
Digby,
A decline in emissions (if correct) still sees anthropogenic emissions. Consequently, the atmospheric concentration of those emitted GHGs will continue to rise (though roughly half of anthropogenic emissions are absorbed elsewhere). The only thing that would cause atmospheric concentrations to stop or decline is the cessation of all anthropogenic emissions (though, hypothetically, removing GHGs from the atmosphere at a rate greater than we’re emitting them would also do it). That is a long way off!
And again, having warfare and suffering going on is not the same as “the end of civilization”, vide WWII.
Comment by zebra — 16 Apr 2016 @
As long as you’re not the one doing the “warring and the suffering” what’s the problem?
I haven’t been following your every word but it sounds to me like you’re omitting a whole bunch of other miserable factors. How badly were you inconvenienced by a few “relatively minor” terrorist attacks on 9/11? I say “relatively minor” because for most of the world it was major but not compared to the kinds of attacks and conflicts we’ll be seeing once people become desperate for food and water. Let a few nukes go off in the Middle East and you might be a little more inconvenienced than you were post 9/11. Add a Syrian scale refugee crisis to North America when folks from South America and Mexico start heading this way and your lifestyle might be inconvenienced even more.
And remember this; the fun is just beginning with diseases like Zika and West Nile etc. Microbes love to feast on humans and animals. They want their world back and a warm moist atmosphere is just the thing.
Unmitigated, wholesale misery is not the same as the end of civilization but before it’s all over with an early death might be preferable to survival once sh*t starts to hit the proverbial fan.
We’ll hurt, for sure, but we’ll choose how badly we’re hurt.
Comment by Richard Caldwell — 16 Apr 2016
Um, no we won’t. The planet will be making those decisions going forward. Expect the unexpected when you least expect it. Take a look at the current “Omega” shaped jet stream for starters. As for water:
The sprawling Ogallala Aquifer is slowly getting depleted, with the water table dropping by as much as two feet per year in some counties. And once they drain, it could take hundreds or thousands of years for those ancient aquifers, which were first formed millions of years ago, to fully recharge with rainfall. A 2013 study forecasted that the High Plains Aquifer would be 69 percent depleted by 2060.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2013/09/12/how-long-before-the-midwest-runs-out-of-water/
200 Chris Dudley: Thanks for http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2214629615300827
202 Richard Caldwell: We should start building those water pipes immediately. The Colorado river in particular needs to be refilled.
The problem is, Rivers that end in the Arctic ocean, freeze. And the ground is permafrost. So you must have a plan to heat those rivers? I think you won’t get any flow in the winter, or most of the year.
The Mississippi also needs more water. One year recently the river was so low that there was a spot that was impassable to barge traffic.
BPL/Chuck/Edward-
The Climate models predict a WETTER Midwest and Eastern USA. And there is no strong reason to disagree with that. Drought is NOT going to affect the majority of US farmland. The Mississippi is going to FLOOD more often – not run low. California could be adversely affected (like now) – but it mostly grows “luxury” food rather than staples like wheat, corn, rice and soybeans. A lot of farmland in the High Plains is irrigated by the perverse incentives of our food system that encourage growing subsidized corn to feed cattle instead of letting them graze on grass. Recently – those incentives were changed but the feedback loop will take time to change. The High Plains could shift to growing grass or varieties of wheat that require less water and no irrigation.
California will have to figure things out for itself. The Deep South could grow TONS more food. BUT… Wetter/humid climates have more depleted soils, noxious weeds, insects and fungal diseases which require strategic crop rotation, pesticides and careful land management practices. SO… Ironically, it is easier and cheaper to grow luxury crops in the desert using pumped water. Until the water runs out…
Tony,
Yes, removing GHG from the atmosphere at a greater rate would allow for a stabilization of their atmospheric levels without a anthropogenic cessation. This is expected to occur as the equilibrium is being shifted due to emissions. Indeed, plants and oceans have been increasing their uptake such that atmospheric levels continue to lag below that expected from the sum of all emissions. Admittedly, significant reductions would need to occur in order to reach a stabilization point.
> once they drain, … years for those
> ancient aquifers … to fully recharge
Or they won’t. Some are gravel and hold up with air replacing the water.
Some are sand or silt and collapse into the space when waters is removed (Kettleman Hills in California is I think the best described).
Kevin: I’m not so sure that your optimism about water is warranted.
Richard: Me either. Note that I said how much we hurt is our own decision. As if we’re known for wise decision-making.
——-
Chuck: The planet will be making those decisions going forward.
Richard: Nope, barring geologic or solar sensationalisms, our ongoing decisions will be in control, though our foreknowledge of the results isn’t perfect. Airplane pilots are taught to keep flying the plane professionally up until the moment of impact. Never give up.
Chuck: The sprawling Ogallala Aquifer is slowly getting depleted,
Richard: Nope. It’s just losing its sprawl. Where it belongs, Nebraska, things are dandy. Look at the map in your link. Only a smidgen of Nebraska is adversely affected. The Ogallala is a renewable resource for NEBRASKA. Competitive advantage is good.
————–
Edward, I don’t think winter water availability is an issue, and permafrost is retreating. I’m not well-versed in Canadian hydrology, but I think a lot of water originates in the south and flows north, so freezing, especially in a warmer world, won’t be an issue. The question is cost. Do you bring it from the Great Lakes? Shut down Niagra? Switch crops and their locations? California’s economy could easily absorb the shedding of most agriculture.Drop it slowly and compassionately to the most profitable 25% irrigation water. Or buy piped-in water. Either works.
#224 Dan H. > …levels continue to lag below that expected from the sum of all emissions…
Will you please cite a source for that assertion? Preferably after you fully digest the following:
“But according to reports they [emissions] have dropped, so we might hope CO2 concentration isn’t rising as fast as it was (i.e., that CO2 is decelerating). Let’s find out.” –Tamino
https://tamino.wordpress.com/2016/04/17/co2-status-report/#more-8436
“I do…have a lot of confidence in the conclusion that the rate of CO2 growth has not decreased. There’s been no deceleration. Whatever emissions reductions have happened, haven’t yet slowed down the rise of CO2.” –Tamino, same.
#219 Tony Weddle > …That is a long way off!
You can say that again.
Richard @217,
You said, “I don’t consider activities that reduce CO2 through natural means “geoengineering”, but that’s just semantics. Your points are valid. It’s an interesting debate, with credits for sequestration or protection being one mainstream thought that tends towards what you’re saying.”
Keep in mind no agriculture, not even the most ecologically friendly organic agriculture, is “natural”. Like it or not we are geoengineering the planet now and have been for thousands of years. I simply propose we accept this reality, and move towards a more constructive and organised management, so it can be guided towards a beneficial outcome instead of a chaotic and mostly negative outcome.
Agricultural lands are under management already. We don’t necessarily need to do anything more than guide, improve and organise those efforts.
Earl Butz proved that it can be done. Even gave us the blueprint on how to do it. Unfortunately his plans moved agriculture towards an even more destructive set of production models. But the model of how to change the agricultural sector through a bureaucratic manipulation of markets and subsidies can be harnessed to move agriculture in a new direction just as effectively IMHO.
The real sticking point is rate. The soil sink is plenty large enough. It’s the rate CO2 can be sequestered and how long that is trickier. That’s where some new information about carbon cycles seems to offer the most hope. One key breakthrough was the discovery of glomalin in 1996 by USDA researcher, Dr. Sara Wright. Further research has discovered a whole new much more stable carbon sequestration pathway previously little known called now the Liquid Carbon Pathway (LCP). What this means is that the Roth C model often used by climate scientists to mathematically predict the movement of carbon in and out of soils is insufficient to predict long term sequestration in soils in certain biomes. This LCP explains what has puzzled soil scientists for years, namely why Mollisols (prairie soils) hold many orders of magnitude more soil carbon, at much greater depth than Alfisols (forest soils). It seems counter intuitive since forests hold more biomass. But that biomass is mostly above ground and enters the soil at a relatively slow rate. (well described by the Roth C model and direct measurements of biomass. A properly managed grassland however, by using the LCP, actually sequesters carbon at a much much higher rate and for a longer time than ever previously suspected (as much as 30-40% or more of the total products of photosynthesis)
So knowing this, you can see where and why the policies enacted by Earl Butz were so destructive. But also where flipping it in the direction of purposely geoengineering the climate can be potentially so beneficial.
http://www.cdsbiochar.com/liquid-carbon-pathway.html
http://amazingcarbon.com/PDF/JONES-LiquidCarbonPathway(AFJ-July08).pdf
Patrick,
You may be interested in this graphic from the IPCC
https://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/figure-ts-3.html
or this one from skeptical science:
http://www.skepticalscience.com/images/CO2_Emissions_Levels_Knorr.gif
or possibly this one from NASA:
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/images/blog/20141208/co2_graph-16.jpg
Tamino does not appear to address this at all.
Apropos cleaning up the coastline ahead of sea level rise: it would be a good idea.
It’s not just the crap the rivers deliver to the ocean.
It’s also the crap in the intertidal, and in what’s going to be intertidal in coming decades.
Clean up in advance and have a food source, or …. not.
200 Chris Dudley. Well sure, some people do think it could progress rapidly. Yet logically speaking possible doesn’t equal probable. One needs to consider present time reality and the existing national agreements/treaty and non-enforcement aspects already enshrined in COP21 into the short term future. Those have the equivalent force of being hit in the face with a wet lettuce leaf imo. Your link ignores these realities imo. Their past examples of rapidity seem similar to holding a toothpick in your hand and claiming it’s the amazon rain forest. I’m content with my observations that “it ain’t going to happen.” My mystical fortune telling talent tells me it is unlikely for rational change via serious regulation by national govts to even start talking seriously about the “new reality” until after there’s an ice free summer arctic and greenland has a massive melt 5 times the size of the last big one in the same year. That might get the people’s attention. But there will still be narcissists claiming it’s only natural variation then too. Given #179 this shift in global progress may not begin until after 2030 and take a decade to have any serious effect – it ain’t going to happen in 2016, 2020, or 2025 either. May as well kiss 2C and probably 3C goodbye by ~2040 and embrace any number of positive feedbacks kicking in before that. And get used to it asap. It’s either that or about 6 billion people who care enough to be takin’ it to the streets tomorrow. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i9_e0rRvyz8
MA Rodger (#210), Chris Dudley (#218), Tony Weddle (#219)
Thanks for the responses. Please bear with me, fellows, while I try to get my head around this.
Firstly, it seems that it might be premature to talk of a dip in emissions. All right, but let’s put that one aside.
Secondly, I’ve read elsewhere (SkepticalScience) that if our emissions stopped instantaneously, the concentration of atmospheric carbon dioxide would immediately start declining. (The average global temperature would remain roughly constant for some decades, however, because the expected decline in temperature would be roughly matched by delayed warming arising from the inertia of the climate system. But that’s another story.)
Finally then, I get to an alternative way of posing my question. If emissions stop suddenly, CO2 levels start dropping. If emissions continue rising, so do CO2 levels. With intermediate changes in emissions, we should then see one of three possibilities:
(1) If the drop in emissions is small, there’ll be a decline in the rate of increase in CO2 levels — but they still increase.
(2) If the drop in emissions is large, CO2 levels will remain roughly unchanged.
(3) If the drop in emissions is very large, CO2 levels will decline, but not as much as they would if emissions stopped altogether.
Have I got this right? Then I suppose I should be asking: By how much should our emissions drop before we see a noticeable change in CO2 levels?
217 Richard Caldwell quoted “America is the Saudi Arabia of coal, and we are going to develop our industry,” Cruz said.
Size isn’t everything Ted.
Carmichael coal mine: Mining leases approved for $21 billion project in Queensland’s Galilee Basin 4 Apr 2016 – it’s going to deliver ~5,000 jobs.
Australia was estimated to have 9.2 per cent of the world’s proven reserves of black coal and ranked fifth in the world behind the United States of America (26.8 per cent), China (15.4 per cent), India (13.9 per cent) and Russia (12.1 per cent).
Total world coal production of black and brown coal reached record levels and Australia was ranked fifth in the world behind China, the United States of America, India and Indonesia in terms of total coal production. Australia produced 421Mt of coal (6.3% of world total) in 2012. Most (90%) of Australia’s coal output is, however, exported, making it the world’s second biggest coal exporter after Indonesia. Australia exported 383Mt of coal in 2012. Noting that Australia is the #1 Exporter of Metallurgical Coal because of having the highest BTU/purity in the world.
Total exports will grow by at least 60Mt per year up to ~440Mt once Australia’s largest coal mine $21.7 billion Adani Carmichael Project comes online. Construction begins in 2017 and will include a 400klm rail line to the port in the middle of the GBR.
All of this 60Mt of thermal coal is going to India, which imported 160Mt of coal in 2012, becoming the world’s third biggest coal importer after China and Japan. About 68% of India’s electricity generation comes from coal.
The most notable feature of the new project is its sheer scale. If constructed, it will become the biggest mine in Australia, and one of the biggest in the world, producing an estimated 60 million tonnes of steaming coal each year over an estimated life of 60 to 90 years.
This dwarfs most existing mines nearby. There are currently almost 50 coal mines operating in the Bowen Basin, most producing between 5 and 10 million tonnes per year, and most with relatively short life spans of 10 to 30 years. The proposed mine is 6 to 12 times bigger than most operating mines, and will operate for AT LEAST TWICE AS LONG @ 60 years to 2080 or possibly 2110.
Progressive thinktank the Australia Institute has sought to illustrate just how big those emissions will be. It says the average annual emissions from burning the coal from Carmichael – 79m tonnes of CO2 – is more than the annual emissions from Sri Lanka, more than Bangladesh with its population of 160 million, about the same as those from Malaysia and Austria and only slightly less than the annual emissions from Vietnam.
Compared to annual emissions from cities, it says Carmichael’s emissions will be three times the average annual emissions from New Delhi, double those from Tokyo, six times those of Amsterdam and 20% more than New York City.
“There’s a disjunct between the agreement that we have to keep global warming below 2 degrees, and 1.5 degrees in the longer term, necessary for the healthy future of the reef, and opening the world’s largest coalmine. Anyone would see that as strange and the government needs to face the fact that expanding our coal and gas exports is not consistent with the imperative of keeping 80% of fossil fuel reserves in the ground. We need to resolve that as a government and as a nation,” he said. “We can’t have it both ways.”
So, back to Ted Cruz: “we are going to develop our industry” Given the USA has more Coal than anyone else on the planet then good for you Ted. Why not build another dozen mines as big as Adani are doing now and get into this lucrative global Coal Export business as well?
There’s thousands of jobs and economic growth in that Ted. Then powers that be can also EXPORT their personal income and wealth to Panama before the tax man gets their dirty grubby evil hands on it. You might even get a cut Teddy. :-)
Refs:
http://www.mining-technology.com/features/feature-the-worlds-biggest-coal-reserves-by-country/
http://www.australianminesatlas.gov.au/aimr/commodity/black_coal.html
http://www.mining-technology.com/features/feature-the-10-biggest-coal-mines-in-the-world/
https://theconversation.com/carmichael-mine-is-a-game-changer-for-australian-coal-29839
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/nov/12/coal-from-carmichael-mine-will-create-more-annual-emissions-than-new-york
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/nov/12/coal-from-carmichael-mine-will-create-more-annual-emissions-than-new-york
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/dec/10/australia-on-spot-over-adani-mine-funding-attenborough-reef-series
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-12-10/carmichael-timeline-planning-australias-biggest-mining-project/7014416
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-04-03/mning-leases-approved-carmichael-mine-qld-galilee-basin-adani/7295188
223 Robin Johnson: We here in Iowa and Illinois already had doses of “wetter.” It was bad every time.
Both planting and harvesting have become problematical because of the extra rain. Some fields are too muddy for a tractor or a combine to navigate.
2008: Seedlings washed away twice so fields have to be planted 3 times to get 1 crop in Mercer County.
2013: Illinois between Moline and Chicago has had way too much rain this year. Fields went unplanted & unplowed into May because of standing water.
Recall that in 2012 there was drought in spring and summer, then at harvest time the fields were too wet to drive a combine on. Farmers waited until the ground was frozen before harvesting. The corn, what there was, was damaged by having been frozen. In Missouri, there was no corn grain harvested, at least in some places. In Iowa and Illinois, some corn was harvested. In Minnesota, a full crop was harvested.
We don’t want wetter. We don’t want dryer.
Somehow my comment at 222 omitted this: Wikipedia: “permafrost underlies about three-quarters of the Mackenzie River watershed, reaching up to 100 m (330 ft) deep in the delta region[2] – and meager to moderate rainfall, amounting to about 410 millimetres (16 in) over the basin as a whole.”
“By far the largest engineering project ever slated for the Mackenzie River was the North American Water and Power Alliance (NAWAPA), a vast series of dams, tunnels and reservoirs designed to move 150 km3 (120,000,000 acre·ft) of Arctic meltwater to southern Canada, the western United States and Mexico. The system would involve building massive dams on the Liard, Mackenzie, Peace, Columbia, and Fraser rivers, then pumping water into a 650 km (400 mi) long reservoir in the Rocky Mountain Trench. The water would then flow by gravity to irrigate more than 220,000 km2 (85,000 sq mi) in the three countries and generate more than 50,000 MW of surplus energy.[49] First proposed in the 1950s, the project’s estimated cost has since risen to over $200 billion. Because of its massive cost and environmental impacts, it is considered unlikely ever to be implemented.”
By treaty, the Great Lakes are off limits for providing water to anywhere else.
226 Richard Caldwell: I have said this before: Somebody commented on RC that China is loosing an area the size of Rhode Island to the Gobi desert annually. China was an exporter of corn. China now imports corn. How long do you think it will take the 1.3 billion people of China + the 1 billion people of India to eat up the US production? There is no longer a surplus anywhere. We are already down to days rather than years, like it was in the 50s, of available food. It won’t take much to push us over the edge.
As Barton Paul Levenson predicted, GW is eating into our harvests. The only question is when will it get so bad that agriculture will collapse.
You can either believe that GW must be stopped immediately or you can be surprised when you go to a grocery store and there is no food.
228 Scott: Biochar won’t undo the droughts that are already happening around the world. Like Syria, South Sudan, Sahel, China, India, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera …….
We can’t jump centuries ahead in the next 10 years. Nobody ever saw the end coming, until this time. Now, few people see the end coming. It is coming, and soon.
#229 Dan H.:
So you’re misreading what you’re seeing–or you’re taking it from Anthony Watts (2009)–or both.
Now read Gavin Schmidt:
“The confusion in the denialosphere is based on a misunderstanding between ‘airborne fraction of CO2 emissions’ (not changing very much) and ‘CO2 fraction in the air’ (changing very rapidly)…”
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2010/01/unforced-variations-2/
Also read the SkS article (which Gavin recommended) which contains the graphic that you link.
The same article is cross-referenced at SkS as “Climate Myth: CO2 is not increasing”:
http://www.skepticalscience.com/co2-levels-airborne-fraction-increasing.htm
This version of the article adds a July 2015 Update with several short teaching videos, great stuff:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kQ9hPl9dl98
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iEDnjIeBRk8&feature=youtu.be
The Climate models predict a WETTER Midwest and Eastern USA. And there is no strong reason to disagree with that. Drought is NOT going to affect the majority of US farmland. The Mississippi is going to FLOOD more often – not run low. California could be adversely affected (like now) – but it mostly grows “luxury” food rather than staples like wheat, corn, rice and soybeans. A lot of farmland in the High Plains is irrigated by the perverse incentives of our food system that encourage growing subsidized corn to feed cattle instead of letting them graze on grass. Recently – those incentives were changed but the feedback loop will take time to change. The High Plains could shift to growing grass or varieties of wheat that require less water and no irrigation.
Comment by Robin Johnson — 18 Apr 2016 @
Glad to see you got it all figured out in advance. Who knew Climate Change could be so pleasant? I’m sure those pesky weather patterns will just fall into line behind your rosy scenario, the oceans will calm and the temperature spikes will moderate to an enjoyable level for all. And when have Climate Models ever been wrong about anything?
That 2012 Drought that threw all those ranchers out of the cattle business and reduced the Mississippi river to a mere trickle was a once in 1000 year event (not counting when it happened in 1988 of course) and we all saw that one coming. Sure… millions of 100+ year old trees are still dying from that drought but they’ll come right back in a few hundred more years provided it never happens again. And I agree, food is a definite luxury as all those Syrian refugees will tell you. Why just the other day I was talking to a farmer in Louisiana who was thrilled to see his corn crops completely under water. In fact, he said, “I hope this happens again real soon.” and look, it’s happening again right now!
Drought/ Flood/ drought/ flood…. what’s not to like? We’ll adjust.
203: Theo..well yes..and no. Scientists are loathe to labelling a single or cluster of events directly on climate change. My way of undertstanding the system is that : nothing occurs in isolation, every climatic or even weather system affects everything else to greater or lessor degrees until the measurable effect gets buried in the noise. Sort of like the butterfly effect. So it’s the degree and time reference of sustained and anomalous forcing on a system until it responds..it’s sensitivity. The affects ripple out everywhere. So as you can glean, it’s all about statistics and probability. One scientific group may place greater or lessor value on a particular set of parameters in a data set etc. Then finally once the climate scientists agree to an accord that makes everyone happy they have to convey this information to the public and politicians and they respectively have their own set of values and priorities. Yes I know the system sucks!. So in a nutshell one can’t be 100% scientifically certain that any events directly influence any other entity. so yes…. and no?
@Apocalypse Guys,
Sorry, but you sound very much like those who say “if you reduce FF use we’ll all be freezing in the dark!”.
It just isn’t helpful to make grandiose claims that you can’t back up with some science.
If you think food production is going to be reduced to the point that people in the US will starve, then describe the detailed physical scenario that leads to that reduction.
Yeah, I know, you can’t. That’s because is is just as likely, in any reasonable time-frame, as suffocating because all the oxygen molecules move to the other side of the room.
If you want to convince people to do something, you have to put the problem in terms to which they can relate. For example, if people were convinced that severe local flooding was “caused” by CO2, that would be enough to get them to change, in combination with other arguments.
So, let’s begin with getting the nice climate science guys to go all-in on attribution. Not predicting catastrophe, just being willing to definitively connect local (in space and time) phenomena to human activity. That would make a difference.
Edward @225,
You said, “Biochar won’t undo the droughts that are already happening around the world. Like Syria, South Sudan, Sahel, China, India, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera …….
We can’t jump centuries ahead in the next 10 years. Nobody ever saw the end coming, until this time. Now, few people see the end coming. It is coming, and soon.”
You are right. If you read closely both links, biochar is just a way to provide habitat for AMF. The Liquid Carbon Pathway is actually where you get the vast majority of carbon sequestration. So by jump starting habitat for AMF, the important link in the LCP, you could boost soil carbon sequestration rates to a level high enough to get this done in timeframe of decades.
Of course keep in mind biochar is just 1 way to boost the LCP. Lots of other people have been doing it in a multitude of ways for everything from rice production to grazing management.
The huge advantage of the LCP is of course that the humus deep in the soil profile simultaneously improves both drought and flood resistance/tolerance.
We actually can do it despite the naysayers. But it will take a worldwide effort. There can be no 1/2 measures.
http://www.thesolutionsjournal.com/node/1261
http://sri.cals.cornell.edu/conferences/IRC2014/booth/SRI_climate_smart_rice_production_%20handout_2014.pdf
http://giscenter.isu.edu/research/projects/jae_soilmoisture.pdf
http://www.nrcs.usda.gov/Internet/FSE_PLANTMATERIALS/publications/nypmssy11419.pdf
The common thread that makes all the above work is the LCP. Don’t get me wrong. The O-horizon and the litter layer are certainly important to a functioning soil ecology. But for the purposes of carbon sequestration into the soil, their effects are minimal. Where you get those big bumps in stable soil carbon is root exudates feeding mycorrhizal fungi, and the glomalin they produce which builds soil structure.
From Reuters, Apr. 6, 2016 (http://www.reuters.com/article/us-climatechange-extremes-idUSKCN0X325Y):
“Climate records back to Viking times show the 20th century was unexceptional for rainfall and droughts despite assumptions that global warming would trigger more wet and dry extremes, a study showed on Wednesday.
Stretching back 1,200 years, written accounts of climate and data from tree rings, ice cores and marine sediments in the northern hemisphere indicated that variations in the extremes in the 20th century were less than in some past centuries.
Several other centuries show stronger and more widespread extremes,” lead author Fredrik Ljungqvist of Stockholm University told Reuters of findings published in the journal Nature. “We can’t say it’s more extreme now.” . . .
Stretching back 1,200 years, written accounts of climate and data from tree rings, ice cores and marine sediments in the northern hemisphere indicated that variations in the extremes in the 20th century were less than in some past centuries. . .
Ljungqvist said many existing scientific models of climate change over-estimated assumptions that rising temperatures would make dry areas drier and wet areas wetter, with more extreme heatwaves, droughts, downpours and droughts.
The 10th century, when the Vikings were carrying out raids across Europe and the Song dynasty took power in China, was the wettest in the records ahead of the 20th, according to the researchers in Sweden, Germany, Greece and Switzerland.”
Patrick,
I think you may be the one that is confused. Both Gavin Schmidt and John Cook contend that approximately 40-50% of the billions of tonnes of carbon dioxide emitted annually remains in the atmosphere. This value has not changed significantly over the past half century of measurements. However, this is based on accelerating emissions. Should the emissions decelerate significantly, there is no gaurantee that the fraction would remain the same. Logic (and Chemistry) suggests that the removal rate be based solely on the atmospheric levels, not the incremental changes.
[Response: Yes – but you would need reductions of 60-70% of emissions to match the current long-term sequestration rate – and that too would need to increase over time. Thus stable emissions, or even 10 or 20 or 40% emissions cuts will not give reduced concentrations on a year by year basis (though obviously they will reduce concentrations compared to what would have occurred). -gavin]
Chuck: The sprawling Ogallala Aquifer is slowly getting depleted,
Richard: Nope. It’s just losing its sprawl. Where it belongs, Nebraska, things are dandy. Look at the map in your link. Only a smidgen of Nebraska is adversely affected. The Ogallala is a renewable resource for NEBRASKA. Competitive advantage is good.
Comment by Richard Caldwell
Richard, what have you said that I didn’t just say? “losing its sprawl” = Depletion. Do you think that rearranging the wording changes the outcome? Do you think a reduction in volume/area is not the same as depletion?
Gimme a break! “Where it belongs?” What did it do, break out of jail a million years ago, so now via Climate Change we’re just “putting it back where it belongs?”
I’m not even going to attempt to make sense out of the rest of your statements.
https://tamino.wordpress.com/2016/04/19/noaa-hottest/#more-8449
Tamino says March was hot. But IEA says emissions have dropped and CO2 levels have retreated from the record 409.3 to 407.45, so why worry. Houston is flooding, but I never liked Houston anyway. Water tastes bad and town smells weird to a kid from the Texas Hill Country.
Yes, it’s been hot, but closer from Tamino:
“It’s not implausible that the latest value is the continuation of the present trend (which for the last 40 years or so has been very near linear) plus random fluctuation — which in this case is from the combination of known (el Niño) and unknown causes.”
It’s not implausible? Excellent, it’s not runaway temperature scenario, just an impressive hot streak. We are on a streak! We are on fire!
Ok, let’s wait and see what the April temp looks like. Let’s keep the El Nino fluctuation in mind and not panic.
I think it’s best not to worry too much about this stuff. I think if we just track what Sarah Palin has to say we could all save ourselves a lot of time. If/when Sarah says: uh-oh, this global warming thing looks like a problem, we should all sit up and take notice.
We worry too much. Wait until the momma grizzlies join us in the battle against global warming. Somebody is going to get mauled.
Warm regards all,
Mike
hey, Hank/Ray. Did you read this on Tamino?
“This isn’t just an extremely hot value, it’s one of a string we’ve seen recently. In part, that’s because of the strong el Niño we’ve gone through, which raises global surface temperature. We’ve had strong el Niño events before, but they’ve never brought temperatures even close to what we’re seeing now. That’s because of global warming. When the increased trend of global warming combines with the increased fluctuation due to el Niño — when worlds collide — that’s when we set records far above what’s been seen, records like we’re seeing now.”
Ray, can you persuade Tamino that it’s just one month in an El Nino year? You hammered that point home with me on the February temperature record.
here’s another quote from the Tamino on March Madness:
“The problems of global warming are already upon us. Things are going to get worse, but in the long term, it’s crucial to do what we can so that we can limit how much worse. What we’re already locked into is bad enough; if we allow the greenhouse problem to go unchecked, nobody knows how terrible it can be. ”
This website is starting to sound as worried as me and Chuck. What’s up with that?
https://tamino.wordpress.com/2016/04/15/march-madness-2/
Stay cool,
Mike
> Mike … hey, Hank/Ray
Hey.
I have no idea what you’re referring to.
Please consider using quotation marks and citing your sources.
You are mixing together other people’s info, your words, and parodies of deniers.
It’d take needless effort to figure out what you’re trying to say.
Please, be simpler and clearer, or find a standup venue appropriate to the comedy.
Why yes, I am grouchy today….
z @239: If you think food production is going to be reduced to the point that people in the US will starve, then describe the detailed physical scenario that leads to that reduction.
BPL: Global warming moves the rain. Continental interiors dry out, coastlines get soaked. Neither condition is good for crops.
The fraction of land surface in severe drought or worse (PDSI|PM <= -3.0) was roughly, unevenly steady at about 10% from 1948 to 1970. Since then it has risen to 19% in 2010. My research indicates that fraction is proportionate to the fraction the previous year, and to temperature anomaly.
The fraction of land soaked is also rising, and has similar antecedents. If we define the arable fraction as the fraction neither in severe drought nor drenched (an overestimate, as some well-watered land is otherwise unsuitable), it is simple to show that under global warming, the arable fraction goes to zero with time. How soon it approaches that depends on the rate of CO2 increase. Recent rates have been quite high, though there are signs that emissions are down.
The physical mechanism involves the balance between precipitation and evapotranspiration. Precipitation increases, overall, under global warming, but its distribution changes. Meanwhile, evaporation also increases. Everywhere evaporation dominates over precipitation, the soil must become drier. (I ignore advection here.)
NOAA global temperature anomaly for March is posted and up on the February value by a small amount at +1.22ºC, a rise of 0.03ºC. GISTEMP has already reported with a small drop in temperature anomaly Feb-Mar. The main difference is presumably coverage at the poles with the Arctic anomaly included within the GISTEMP numbers presumably not quite as “scorchyissimo” as the average for rest of the globe (although those Arctic anomalies remain crazy).
Could the recent CO2 spike come from the oceans? See here:
https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn20413-warmer-oceans-release-co2-faster-than-thought/
See also:
http://www.nature.com/news/indian-ocean-may-be-key-to-global-warming-hiatus-1.17505
And look at the recent dire temperature anomalies in the Indian Ocean, the Pacific and the Atlantic:
http://tinyurl.com/z67hxev
Digby Scorgie @232.
You have the measure of it. You may also have noticed the Dan H./Patrick exchange in the thread @ 224,227,229,236&242 which began with a reply to your initial post. For once I have to side with Dan H.
The airborne fraction of CO2 is something like 43% and has remained remarkably constant since accurate CO2 measurements were begun by Keeling in 1958. This is purely a product of the acceleration of our emissions. The 57% of our CO2 that is today sequestered by natural processes amounts to some 6Gt(C) annually. If emissions were to match these natural sinks and maintain CO2 ppm in the atmosphere (your (2) possibility), the levelling off of CO2 ppm would quickly impact the natural sequestration which will slow quite quickly as the surface ocean waters reach equilibrium with the atmosphere when the atmospheric CO2 levels are no longer rising. The biosphere will presumably keep lapping the stuff up for a handful of years. After that it’s the deep oceans that become the sole sink of any consequence which will continue to do its stuff but diminishing slowly as less and less waters are left in the deep which haven’t been to the surface since CO2 levels have been constant. This is the 1,000 year part of the cycle. After than the whole thing really slows down.
Putting numbers on how quickly the sink diminishes under constant CO2 ppm would requires serious modelling. To give some idea, the IPCC RCP2.6 gives CO2 emissions peaking in 2020 and tailing off to zero initially at 2.5%(linear) per year for 20 years. Thus emissions would be halved by 2040, yet modelled CO2 levels are still rising (abet more slowly) with these 2040 emissions.