The reason that so-called “factory farming” exists — including the continent-wide monocrops of glyphosate-drenched GMO corn and soy discussed above, which are mostly used for animal feed — is because it is the only way to mass produce the vast quantities of cheap meat that Americans demand.
US per capita consumption is around 200 pounds of meat per year, one of the highest rates of meat consumption in the world. To produce that meat requires raising and slaughtering more than 10 billion animals every year. It is impossible to do that using anything remotely resembling “sustainable” let alone “humane” methods.
The methods promoted as “sustainable” actually require MORE land, water and other resources than so-called “factory farming” to produce a given amount of meat. To supply just the US demand would require the resources of several planet Earths. Basically, “sustainable beef” is an expensive, boutique food for the affluent.
Meanwhile, as meat consumption grows in the developing world (bringing with it the epidemics of degenerative “diseases of affluence” caused by meat consumption), US-style “factory farming” methods are being exported around the world, again because traditional methods of livestock production cannot keep up with the growing demand.
Every serious study of the issue has found that greenhouse gas emissions from livestock production are significant — comparable to the transport sector — and that reducing meat consumption is a crucial component of reducing global GHG emissions.
In the USA where high levels of meat consumption are a major public health problem as well as a major environmental problem, drastic reductions in meat consumption are appropriate. The notion that Americans can continue their “business as usual” wolfing down burgers as a staple food and all will be well if the cattle are “grass fed” is nonsense.
#293, Phil–I’m confused; Hank’s search, which you speak of bringing up a Sherwood Idso article, didn’t do that when I tried it. In fact, I couldn’t find such an article on the first page of search results (though perhaps I missed it; I only actually opened the first four links, just scanning the descriptions of the others.)
(BTW, there’s a delicious irony about Idso: his work on CO2 fertilization actually was an important source for the Mann, Bradley & Hughs (1992) ‘hockey stick’ paper, as it allowed the use of some tree-ring proxies by accounting for biases due to the fertilization in the late 20th century. As a long-time denialist, it surely couldn’t have pleased him, even if it probably juiced his citation record a bit.)
Anyway, the other confusing bit is the idea that Idso was trying to ‘overturn the forest science consensus.’ As I say, I couldn’t find the article you saw, but even NIPCC agrees that old-growth forests sequester carbon–that’s part of their ‘bait-and-switch’ routine about CO2 as plant food. (In which they consider the effect of CO2 only in isolation from other relevant factors, like temperature and water availability.)
I thought the current state of play is described by this item from last year:
Trees do not slow in their growth rate as they get older and larger — instead, their growth keeps accelerating, according to a study published today in the journal Nature.
“This finding contradicts the usual assumption that tree growth eventually declines as trees get older and bigger,” says Nate Stephenson, the study’s lead author and a forest ecologist with the U.S. Geological Survey. “It also means that big, old trees are better at absorbing carbon from the atmosphere than has been commonly assumed.”
Dr. Kurtz’s statement that since managed forest tends to be younger, it sequesters ‘far more carbon’ than natural forest seems a bit at odds with that idea, it’s true.
Scottsays
Killian @276,
You said, “You think that’s fast? I’ve posited hereabouts we could get all the way to sub-300 ppm in as little as 20 years.
I still posit it.”
I also used to be pretty confident of that myself. I have run a few calculations and it seems pretty likely between reduced emissions and increased biosphere sequestration we could pull the equivalent of 100 ppm out of the atmosphere and sequester it in the soil. The rates and sink sizes match up and seem to suggest it is possible even without reducing FF emissions to zero.
However, the more I study the complexity of the system as a whole, I am not nearly so confident that sequestering that much CO2 will actually draw down atmospheric CO2 to 300ppm.
There are simply too many likely emergent properties that will very likely kick in. I am no longer confident sequestering that much carbon will actually result in 300ppm at all. Of course we should make those plans and do what we know we must. However, expect the plan to fail. We simply must understand no battle plan survives first contact with the enemy. Something unexpected is going to happen. Maybe sequestering that much carbon increases the O2 % in the atmosphere which increases respiration and wildfires. Or maybe the oceans shift from a net sink to a net emissions source like popping the cap off a warm soda pop causes it to fizz. The biosphere is a self adjusting complex system. Those adjustments the biosphere will make as a result of pulling out 100ppm CO2 in 2 decades is unprecedented thus impossible to predict. it might work. But I don’t think anyone can be confident it will. I am now leaning towards thinking we have to pull at least the equivalent of 200 ppm out of the atmosphere into long term sinks to actually reduce atmospheric CO2 to 300 ppm. Maybe even double that. So 20 years if we started worldwide tomorrow still wouldn’t be long enough. And don’t get me started on all the work needed to actually convince world wide civilization to actually even make the attempt. That alone could easily take 50-100 years.
Digby Scorgiesays
Chris Dudley @298
It would be nice if space-based measurements can replace dubious ground-based calculations of emissions. I suppose we’ll have to wait and see.
Scott Stroughsays
You said, “The reason that so-called “factory farming” exists — including the continent-wide monocrops of glyphosate-drenched GMO corn and soy discussed above, which are mostly used for animal feed — is because it is the only way to mass produce the vast quantities of cheap meat that Americans demand.”
That is absolutely unequivocally false. The reason that so-called “factory farming” exists — including the continent-wide monocrops of glyphosate-drenched GMO corn is a direct result of a change in agricultural policies initiated by Earl Butz Secretary of Agriculture from 1971 to 1976. These changes in agricultural policy were designed to purposely overproduce commodity grains as a “Buffer stock scheme”. (ever-normal granary)
For a while the oversupply of grains was useful in foreign policy (like the grain deals to Russia and China and multiple foreign aide programs. But ultimately there was still far too much grain production. Even as the glut increased, production continued to rise. CAFOs, and the entire industrial system that grew out of that change in policy; including biofuels, high fructose corn syrup, etc.. etc.. is an attempt to get rid of surplus grain any way possible. It has absolutely nothing to do with need for those grains to meet any sort of demand at all. That includes meat production.
Not only does a properly managed integrated farm produce more food per acre, it is more economically/environmentally sound, and even healthier too.
More importantly for the purposes of this website, they can be managed in such a way as to be a net carbon sink.
You ever wonder why the majority of ethanol for biofuels is made from corn instead of switchgrass which is demonstrably 5 times more efficient? Same as above. All these schemes are designed to get rid of a grain glut. They have no basis at all in meeting any kind of demand by consumers.
You take away the subsidies, market manipulation, and regulatory burden designed to drive out all competition for those “factory farms with their high carbon emissions rates and energy use, and just watch the markets flip so fast your head spins. In fact they would likely flip so fast it would cause problems due to infrastructure losses in rural communities over the last 50 years. Might want to go slow at first until the US rural economies recover and rebuild their infrastructure. Might even want to use those subsidies that purposely destroyed that infrastructure, to actually rebuild it.
> Phil … search … Google Bubble
My guess is you mostly search for denial sites and Google is filling your searches with more of what they know you want to see. If you’re seeing ads, notice the kinds of advertising that gets pitched to people who like that sort of information. This can be quite informative. For more on that, see The Long Con (a bit dated but the info about how advertisers select where to advertise is still dead on accurate.
You really, really, have to work hard to get accurate and unbiased information in this commercial world.
Remember: delete the cache. Log out of Google. Delete cookies. Every time you want to search. Or else they’ll show you more of what they think you want (and advertisers want to pay to have you seeing).
Thanks, 40 years from now but it seemed a little definite. Would be great to get an RC post on the new Hansen et al. paper which explores that kind of rise occurring in the range as soon as 50 to as late as 150 years from now. http://www.atmos-chem-phys.net/16/3761/2016/acp-16-3761-2016.pdf
A perspective on their ocean stratification ideas would help I think.
Robin Johnsonsays
@301 – At risk of being contrary, do you have some information to back those claims up? While there is some logic to your claims, that doesn’t make it so. There should be less meat consumption. I agree. On the other hand, your claims don’t seem to hold up. The US consumes only 20% of the beef consumed worldwide. Total meat consumption worldwide exceeds the US output by quite a lot… So, you might be a little hyperbolic there…
Why would pasture raised cattle require more water? Because of subsidies and unsustainable intensive farming, corn and soy were/can be cheaper than grass/forage [pasture or silage]. That is why feedlots use corn/soy instead of silage. Cheap beef is stupid and not sustainable over time (regardless of the carbon footprint issues).
CAFOs (factory farms) require large inputs of BLUE-WATER (treated water) with large outputs of GREY-WATER (nasty). Pasture raised animals simply require GREEN-WATER (rainfall). So are your sources counting just the water required to grow corn vs grass or do they include the water required to run a CAFO? Most forage/silage can be grown without irrigation or runoff. And can be done on marginal land.
Reducing CAFO meat production is a fine idea, particularly meat fed grains raised using heavy CO2 intensive methods.
One more snippet of anecdotal reports from australia fwiw. I realise reports like this pop up in all nations as well, so my recent comments/info was only intended as some examples that have caught my attention. Unless one is interested in the topic and tuned into these, which means few in society generally today, they tend to fly under the radar and get lost in the rest of the media political noise. I don’t see this changing much in the ‘west/oecd’ anytime soon. Even when elections are on such as in the US and Australia this year, Canada recently and the UK before that, agw/cc simply doesn’t capture the middle ground polity or politicians nor the media like it has in the past… at least not for any extended period of time. I’m accepting of this and yet still support any efforts by others to keep pushing the envelope anyway they can. Unlike a decade ago though I sense that the silent majority who already know and accept the issue of agw/cc is really important are at present not that personally motivated to go out on a limb about it. Arguing with deniers at family gatherings, social events or raising the issue with politicians just isn’t their bag, imo. Because it isn’t worth the insults and abuse of the minority denier of the science, the pseudo-skeptic who has never even looked at any of the data/info outside a murdoch paper or wuwt blog site, and then there’s political conspiracy-theory hecklers in every crowd.
Personally I just stay away from all these ‘loonies’ these days and especially from the denier blog sites. But one day this will change and the sensible people in society will step up and so anything the pro-science brigade (like those here and elsewhere) can do to keep the light shining on the hill the better in the long run.
Recently I found this ‘marketing/psychology’ related saying which imo says it all: “You cannot tell people things they do not want to know.”
This last item was included in prior post, but i thought it worthwhile highlighting. It’s only a news report but I’m sure the sharps here can track down the data and scientists if it’s useful. The island state of Tasmania is on the opposite end to the GBR at Lat 41S. Keep going south and the next stop is the Antarctic.
April 20, 2016 CSIRO Scientist Dr Alistair Hobday says the state is also experiencing a marine heatwave, with sea temperatures 4.4 degrees Celsius warmer than average. Text and audio http://www.abc.net.au/worldtoday/content/2016/s4446749.htm
Killiansays
#289 Digby,
We gotta go negative, and a lot faster than eventually. Sub-300 or bust/ Few believe it, but I see no other choice.
#294 Dan,
Don’t much care. The study isn’t much use to me. Anything talking ab0out the future without talking about regenerative systems is rather pointless – particularly when saying we can go all renewables in 20years… by using unsustainable and polluting systems. Just silly.
Talk to me about no more renewables and bringing consumption down to current soar, wind and hydro levels, I’ll listen.
Dan
Killiansays
303 Scott: Yup. All that is a given: Isht absolutely does happen. Chaos, nonlinear… indeed.
However, if we could get down to <300, last year that was modeled and found within a few decades the poles start stabilizing, so… That was something I'd been begging someone to model, and they finally did. The last piece in the puzzle for me.
We can do this.
Richard Caldwellsays
Digby: My take-home message is that there would have to be a marked drop in emissions (10 to 20%?) before we see the Keeling curve start deviating from its current trajectory.
Richard: Yes. Using the 50% absorbed rule of thumb, and assuming that sinks and sources don’t change, since sinks and sources are based on atmospheric concentration, NOT emissions, going down 10% would drop the rate of increase by 20%. That’s a significant bend.
Digby: if we really were on the right path we should see big changes in our way of life.
Richard: Exactly.
Theosays
Re Hank @306: I use StartPage, same Google result, no tracking. A VPN can be handy at times too.
zebrasays
@SecularAnimist 301,
Also, didn’t I just see an article that said USA produces 1 billion pounds of cheese a month?
Talk about “cheeseboorger cheeseboorger”.
But seriously, apocalypse folks– the USA is going to starve ???
That’s a lot of tempeh and tortillas, when you use the crops efficiently.
Richard Caldwellsays
Scott: There are simply too many likely emergent properties that will very likely kick in. I am no longer confident sequestering that much carbon will actually result in 300ppm at all.
Richard: Perhaps things change when the arctic sea ice melts, not by the end of September, but by mid summer. At that point, solar radiation management might be the only way to kick the planet back to a frozen top. That would mean that primary productivity declines, which is yet another way to skew those calculations! :-)
Where OCO-2 should help the most is in understanding natural sources and sinks better. Space based surveillance of coal, oil and gas operation, including rail traffic might clarify some human source emissions. Expect this already occurs as a part of monitoring industrial activity that might indicate hostile intentions.
Richard: I think irrigation is still warranted. Animal husbandry doesn’t like boom/bust cycles.
—————–
This summer is supposed to be hot. Here’s one graph showing June-Aug northern tier USA much hotter than average, southern tier warmer, and coastal Texas cooler. Lots rides on swing states’ weather this summer.
z 315: But seriously, apocalypse folks– the USA is going to starve ???
BPL: Seems impossible in this milieu of restaurants, fast-food places and junk food, doesn’t it? But I’m sure the Mayans weren’t ready for it, either; or Mohenjo-Daro; or the couple of dozen other major civilizations destroyed by agricultural failure. And no one here said it would happen next week, but yes, it will happen, unless steps are taken to prevent it–steps that now seem likely to be too little, too late.
Phil Lsays
Hank #306: Your guess that I mostly search for denial sites is wrong. I seek out climate science at sites like Realclimate, Skeptical Science, Tamino’s Open Mind and ATTP.
I took your Google advice and emptied my cache, and after restarting my browser I got the same result (first hit is an article with the title “Will Forest Carbon Sink Capacity Fade Away as Trees Age?” on Idso’s website). I repeated the Google search on my smartphone with the same result, then I asked two friends to try the search and they got the same result.
Kevin #302: From the article at your link…
“However, the researchers are careful to note that the rapid absorption rate of individual trees does not necessarily translate into a net increase in carbon storage for an entire forest.
‘Old trees, after all, can die and lose carbon back into the atmosphere as they decompose,’ says Adrian Das, a USGS coauthor. ‘But our findings do suggest that while they are alive, large old trees play a disproportionately important role within a forest’s carbon dynamics.'”
The distinction between individual trees versus stands is important. A stand with a few large trees per hectare is unlikely to be sequestering as much carbon as a well stocked middle-aged stand with a few thousand trees per hectare.
Re consensus: I think that IPCC Working Group 3 does a pretty good job of representing the consensus on forestry. I like the fact that they point out that deforestation is permanent loss of forest, unlike logging within a sustainable forestry context. AGW is a serious problem, and I believe that sustainable forest management can be part of the solution.
“Accurate predictions month over month are currently beyond anyone’s capabilities. But if the atmospheric conditions resemble those of 2012 we can expect similar low sea ice extent in the Arctic or even a new record minimum,” Hendricks says.
Killiansays
Re: 320
Regenerative systems don’t let the water run off. How many ecosystems import water? None. Only human systems do. Capture and store it, drought can be mitigated significantly, even essentially avoided.
For Earth Day, you can watch Inhabitat free. Don’t know how much time is left, if any, but it gives a good sense of the range of things people dop with the knowledge.
Thomas @233 is right about the size of the Adani Galilee Basin project and the fact that state and federal governments are continuing to issues approvals for it but the project is looking less and less viable. Adani hasn’t got the finance, banks are backing away from coal and the coal price is still falling. Overview (Dec 2015) here – http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-12-18/galilee-basin-projects-unlikely-to-go-ahead/7042526
Richard Caldwellsays
Scott S: It has absolutely nothing to do with need for those grains to meet any sort of demand at all.
Richard: Ever had a grain-fed steak? How about a steak from a cow that had to eke out a life on marginal land? Which cow spent a higher percentage of input energy on living? Which grew faster? Which has the texture of a shoe? Which melts like butter?
Mark Csays
Question for any stats gurus out there…
Saw this blurb:
“The heavy rain on Sunday night into early Monday in the Houston area was at least the fourth 1 in 500-year rainfall event in the past six months in TX and LA based on the NOAA Hydrometeorological Design Studies Center Annual Exceedence Probability (AEP) data.”
What are the odds of having four 500-year rain events in a six month period? I think the chance of one event is 0.1%, but I’m not sure how to adjust for 5 events. Thanks.
Victorsays
Sorry to keep raining on everyone’s parade. But . . .
Gore in 2006: “Of course when the oceans get warmer, that causes stronger storms. We have seen in the last couple of years, a lot of big hurricanes. Hurricanes Jean, Francis and Ivan were among them. In the same year we had that string of big hurricanes; we also set an all time record for tornadoes in the United States.”
In fact: As of 2014: “There is no strong evidence to support severe weather becoming stronger, more frequent or more widespread during the past 50 years in the United States. One of the reasons that the change in severe weather is hard to track is the fact that the reporting systems have changed so much over time.” http://www.accuweather.com/en/weather-news/severe-weather-and-climate-change/62715
Al Gore in 2006: “This is Lake Chad, once one of the largest lakes in the world. It has dried up over the last few decades to almost nothing.”
In fact: “The European Space Agency has recently presented data showing an actual increase in lake extent of Lake Chad between the years of 1985 to 2011.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Chad
Al Gore in 2006: “This is the largest ice shelf in the Arctic, the Ward Hunt Ice Shelf. It just cracked in half a year ago. The scientists were astonished.”
Victor (@330): It’s not a damned parade. It’s more like a wake in advance. And if anything you ever regurgitated onto this or any other climate web site actually suggested the prognosis was better than what it is, people would rejoice. But somehow I doubt you’re gonna be the one to overturn more than a century of science.
Yes, Victor, the point is — science is not like religion or politics, a mighty oak grown from a single root — which can fail and then whole thing dies.
Science grows like ivy or kudzu, its origin can fail, dry up, and blow away — and the growing edge continues finding fertile ground to spread.
Science isn’t about being right the first time.
Science is about being interesting enough to inspire others who follow up.
Darwin got evolution wrong.
Millikan got the electron charge wrong.
Franklin got the shape for lightning rods wrong.
Need I continue? I’m sure you will.
Steve Fishsays
Re- Comment by Phil L — 22 Apr 2016 @ 9:20 PM, ~#322
Larger trees accumulate and store more carbon than smaller ones: http://andrewsforest.oregonstate.edu/pubs/pdf/pub4835.pdf
This means that forests that are managed for timber production reduce the total amount of stored carbon: http://www.slideshare.net/dougoh/forest-carbon-climate-myths-presentation
For maximum carbon storage, forests should be allowed to mature because climax forests store the maximum amount of carbon. The best way to remove atmospheric carbon with forestry is to just leave the forest alone to do its job. It is true that when an old tree dies, much of the carbon is released, but there is no way to remove these trees that doesn’t cause the release of much more carbon than is contained in the dying tree and this would also remove the soil enrichment provided by natural decay. Further, trees that die of old age are not economically valuable.
> It is true that when an old tree dies, much of the carbon is released
Only if it’s burned.
Rot keeps the carbon captured — fungi, various microorganisms, and insects turn the dead wood rapidly into other kinds of mostly living material.
kymsays
@333
Ok, about “being inspired to follow”.
I dug out Cullen et al “A century of ice retreat on Kilimanjaro” and ran some simple models.
The basic concrete data they have are 8 years of snow/ice cover from c1912 (e.g. table 2 or for the energetic the maps on subsequent pages can be pixel counted; I haven’t been that energetic yet).
To get a rock bottom lwb on the r2 comparing LOTI temps against changes in area, I used the data from the 3 zones mentioned and another model fitting the same ARMA to all datapoints at the same time (to minimize R2 we hope :).
Based on a best and worst fit for each zone + the “whole enchalada” model I estimate the band of R2 vals from .57 to .99.
Taking the lwb it still seems global temps “explain” a good chunk of area data over the 100+ years.
Gore may have been misquoting something and Victor may be quoting a judge, but it seems Al may have been right after all.
zebrasays
@BPL et al 321,
“The Mayans, Mohenjodaro,…”
Pre-industrial, and even pre-energy-glut modern cases, are not a legitimate comparison.
With non-mechanical agriculture, there is an obvious positive feedback– food is scarce, so the available labor– humans, or plow-animals– suffers a decline, leading to less production.
Production of staples in the US is amazingly non-labor-intensive. We eat fossil fuels, as everyone here knows. Modern cases of famine come from government policies and a lack of infrastructure (mechanization) and the energy sources to operate it.
And BPL, certainly some here have predicted catastrophe in an unreasonably short time-frame; I forget if you are one of them. But the numbers just don’t add up to have famine in 150 years, much less 50, barring Hollywood bad sci-fi narratives. We may further damage the environment by increasing FF use, but we will not starve while doing it.
James McDonaldsays
Does anyone know what is going on with the data displayed at Cryosphere Today? There were some peculiar up-and-down spikes about a week ago for both Arctic and Antarctic sea ice, and now the Arctic sea ice area just shot up to actually rise above the 79-08 mean by a considerable amount, for the first time in a dozen years.
Are the measurements on the fritz, or is something real and very unusual happening?
Nemesissays
@All
What do you think, when you compare these two data sets:
The point about individual level versus stand level carbon sequestration appears to be crucial. The paper showing larger trees grow faster- Stephenson et al., 2014–is aimed in considerable part at resolving the paradox that according to metabolic modeling, growth should increase, while at stand level there is a decrease that is well-established in the literature. Stephenson et al cites in support of that last this underlying review paper:
Didn’t read the whole thing, but as I say, the distinction seems crucial. I’d speculate that part of the picture is that there is almost no understory to a true climax forest; the canopy takes so much light that photosynthesis at ground level is drastically reduced.
And Steve, thanks for finding the open-access version of the Stephenson et al.
#330–Why apologize, Victor? Text-book examples of denialism in action are always useful.
And yours are pretty good. For example, what you don’t say about the Ward-Hunt shelf story–included in your very own source–is this:
It began to shrink again almost 100 years ago and is getting smaller every year.
Dermot Antoniadesa said: ‘At this point, it doesn’t appear that the shelf ice around Ellesmere Island is any smaller now than it was during the previous period of warming, but because it’s still shrinking, it’s possible it could become, an ‘unprecedented’ event.’
Much less of a ‘nothing to see here’ story when you include that little tidbit.
Victor’s tiresome and stupid Gore-bashing belongs in the deepest pit of the Bore Hole.
Steve Fishsays
Re: Comment by Hank Roberts — 23 Apr 2016 @ 11:05 PM, ~#335
Sorry Hank, “Only if it’s burned” is incorrect. The difference between burning and decomposition is in the speed that CO2 is released. Soil organisms break carbon bonds to provide energy for their life processes and release CO2 just like we do. Most of the carbon in a forest is in living trees and climax forests contain the greatest amount of wood. Climax forests are carbon neutral in that they take up as much carbon as is released. Look up soil+carbon+respiration. Steve
Here’s the thinking: Unlike fossil fuels, trees are already part of Earth’s carbon cycle. So when you burn a tree, you’re only releasing the carbon that the tree had stored up, carbon that would have been released anyway when the tree died and decomposed. That’s why the new energy bill that just passed in the Senate—with bipartisan support, no less—includes an amendment saying that biomass should be classified as a carbon neutral energy source.
So does this mean that the Senate has actually made a positive environmental policy decision? No, you crazy optimist. The Senate is just buying into the carbon-accounting loophole that the European Union has been exploiting: Burning wood pellets doesn’t actually give you a carbon footprint of zero, it’s just a sneaky way to have your cake and eat it too.
Basically, this is just the latest update from the “ketchup is a vegetable” school of science that politicians seem to love. The interest here, though, is the way the science almost works out….
Kevin McKinney @342,
Victor’s comment @330 is not the most egregious of nonsense Victor has trolled out here over the years. Mind, as “Weaktor!” is happy to tell us @172, he is also a feature of the Bore Hole as well as of the regular RealClimate comment threads. So it may be we have been protected from the worst of it.
It isn’t clear to me what Victor’s motives are for now providing his take on Al Gore’s ‘Inconvenient Truth’ (which is now ten years old). I hope he hasn’t been a whole decade at it as the results of his efforts are less than useful.
Of the four points he makes, the Kilimanjaro ice is perhaps the easiest target. The SkS link Victor presents @330 describes the loss of ice being attributed to de-forestation which it already had been prior to Gore’s film. So Gore was wrong attributing it all to AGW. Yet even with that understanding of the role of de-forestation, the comment was still made back then by, for instance, geologist Lonnie Thompson who said “The peak will be bare rock by 2020 if the ice continues to disappear at this rate” a comment that Gore was simply repeating. And even as late as 2007, the data showed the ice area declining at a rate that would achieve the disappearance by 2020.
And we should not forget the poor reporting of our Victor. He negates to tell us that, even with re-forestation now coming to the rescue to delay the final melt-out, his source ends by describing Kilimanjaro’s ice cap thus – “not since the birth of the glaciers almost 12 millennia ago have the glaciers been in danger of disappearing — until the 21 century.”
His other three “I could continue” points are less satisfactory. Gore was correct to say Lake Chad had dried up to almost nothing although when the rains return (as they do in wet years) the “almost” is less dramatic in terms of area, although “almost” probably still applies in terms of volume.
Victor’s rebuttal of severe weather events is a bit lame. Gore is discussing tropical storms with just a final line that US cyclones are at an all-time high, something the records appear to support. Victor’s case rests solely on the view that the records are not long enough to provide adequate support.
And finally the Ward Hunt ice shelf. Here Gore is entirely correct. The scientists were indeed ‘astonished’, reportedly thinking “Wow!” Even the Daily Rail article Victor links to ends by telling us that “Ice shelves in the Arctic lost more than 90 per cent of their total surface area during the 20th century and are continuing to disintegrate rapidly,” The Ward Hunt Ice Shelf is no exception in suffering continuing dramatic loss. I don’t know if Victor is truly expecting it to “in fact” re-freeze back together again, as it seems to have done in the past (although it took 800 years). As some of these 2011 pictures show, it will take more that all the king’s horses and all the king’s men to accomplish such a putting-together-again task.
All in all, I’d rate Gore’s 10-year-old thesis that AGW is dangerous a lot higher than Victor’s ten-years-later attempt at a rebuttal (assuming that is what Victor was intending to do with his little rain dance).
> trees
Oh, agreed, respiration is oxidation is ‘slow burning’ but decomposition leaves far more bound carbon in living material in the soil, compared to logging and hauling.
I recall reading decades ago (pre-online) that the soil in the NW California coast is more than half annelid poop, which itself is largely bacteria. And anybody who’s kicked apart a crumbling dry-rotted fallen log sees the process at work. So long as it doesn’t burn, much of that carbon is going into compounds other than CO2. And a moderate forest fire on prepared ground, one that returns often enough to burn out brush and fire ladders without burning the topsoil and killing the trees, isn’t a disaster compared to logging.
The Leap Manifesto itself. Brainchild of activists Naomi Klein and Avi Lewis, it’s a rather breathtaking document calling for a complete retooling of the Canadian economy. You can see the text below. It’s quite breathtaking in the way it call for a complete do-over. Though when you look at it closely and get past the “demands” and manifestoiness of it all, its basically a fairly modest program for just doing what needs to be done to save the planet.
Vendicar Decariansays
“Does anyone know what is going on with the data displayed at Cryosphere Today?” – James McDonald
z 337: And BPL, certainly some here have predicted catastrophe in an unreasonably short time-frame; I forget if you are one of them. But the numbers just don’t add up to have famine in 150 years, much less 50,
BPL: WHAT numbers? Are you familiar with the numbers? I am, and I say you’re wrong; we’re headed for catastrophe in this century.
The reason that so-called “factory farming” exists — including the continent-wide monocrops of glyphosate-drenched GMO corn and soy discussed above, which are mostly used for animal feed — is because it is the only way to mass produce the vast quantities of cheap meat that Americans demand.
US per capita consumption is around 200 pounds of meat per year, one of the highest rates of meat consumption in the world. To produce that meat requires raising and slaughtering more than 10 billion animals every year. It is impossible to do that using anything remotely resembling “sustainable” let alone “humane” methods.
The methods promoted as “sustainable” actually require MORE land, water and other resources than so-called “factory farming” to produce a given amount of meat. To supply just the US demand would require the resources of several planet Earths. Basically, “sustainable beef” is an expensive, boutique food for the affluent.
Meanwhile, as meat consumption grows in the developing world (bringing with it the epidemics of degenerative “diseases of affluence” caused by meat consumption), US-style “factory farming” methods are being exported around the world, again because traditional methods of livestock production cannot keep up with the growing demand.
Every serious study of the issue has found that greenhouse gas emissions from livestock production are significant — comparable to the transport sector — and that reducing meat consumption is a crucial component of reducing global GHG emissions.
In the USA where high levels of meat consumption are a major public health problem as well as a major environmental problem, drastic reductions in meat consumption are appropriate. The notion that Americans can continue their “business as usual” wolfing down burgers as a staple food and all will be well if the cattle are “grass fed” is nonsense.
#293, Phil–I’m confused; Hank’s search, which you speak of bringing up a Sherwood Idso article, didn’t do that when I tried it. In fact, I couldn’t find such an article on the first page of search results (though perhaps I missed it; I only actually opened the first four links, just scanning the descriptions of the others.)
(BTW, there’s a delicious irony about Idso: his work on CO2 fertilization actually was an important source for the Mann, Bradley & Hughs (1992) ‘hockey stick’ paper, as it allowed the use of some tree-ring proxies by accounting for biases due to the fertilization in the late 20th century. As a long-time denialist, it surely couldn’t have pleased him, even if it probably juiced his citation record a bit.)
Anyway, the other confusing bit is the idea that Idso was trying to ‘overturn the forest science consensus.’ As I say, I couldn’t find the article you saw, but even NIPCC agrees that old-growth forests sequester carbon–that’s part of their ‘bait-and-switch’ routine about CO2 as plant food. (In which they consider the effect of CO2 only in isolation from other relevant factors, like temperature and water availability.)
I thought the current state of play is described by this item from last year:
http://www.usgs.gov/newsroom/article.asp?ID=3781#.VxkfUnDsdK4
Dr. Kurtz’s statement that since managed forest tends to be younger, it sequesters ‘far more carbon’ than natural forest seems a bit at odds with that idea, it’s true.
Killian @276,
You said, “You think that’s fast? I’ve posited hereabouts we could get all the way to sub-300 ppm in as little as 20 years.
I still posit it.”
I also used to be pretty confident of that myself. I have run a few calculations and it seems pretty likely between reduced emissions and increased biosphere sequestration we could pull the equivalent of 100 ppm out of the atmosphere and sequester it in the soil. The rates and sink sizes match up and seem to suggest it is possible even without reducing FF emissions to zero.
However, the more I study the complexity of the system as a whole, I am not nearly so confident that sequestering that much CO2 will actually draw down atmospheric CO2 to 300ppm.
There are simply too many likely emergent properties that will very likely kick in. I am no longer confident sequestering that much carbon will actually result in 300ppm at all. Of course we should make those plans and do what we know we must. However, expect the plan to fail. We simply must understand no battle plan survives first contact with the enemy. Something unexpected is going to happen. Maybe sequestering that much carbon increases the O2 % in the atmosphere which increases respiration and wildfires. Or maybe the oceans shift from a net sink to a net emissions source like popping the cap off a warm soda pop causes it to fizz. The biosphere is a self adjusting complex system. Those adjustments the biosphere will make as a result of pulling out 100ppm CO2 in 2 decades is unprecedented thus impossible to predict. it might work. But I don’t think anyone can be confident it will. I am now leaning towards thinking we have to pull at least the equivalent of 200 ppm out of the atmosphere into long term sinks to actually reduce atmospheric CO2 to 300 ppm. Maybe even double that. So 20 years if we started worldwide tomorrow still wouldn’t be long enough. And don’t get me started on all the work needed to actually convince world wide civilization to actually even make the attempt. That alone could easily take 50-100 years.
Chris Dudley @298
It would be nice if space-based measurements can replace dubious ground-based calculations of emissions. I suppose we’ll have to wait and see.
You said, “The reason that so-called “factory farming” exists — including the continent-wide monocrops of glyphosate-drenched GMO corn and soy discussed above, which are mostly used for animal feed — is because it is the only way to mass produce the vast quantities of cheap meat that Americans demand.”
That is absolutely unequivocally false. The reason that so-called “factory farming” exists — including the continent-wide monocrops of glyphosate-drenched GMO corn is a direct result of a change in agricultural policies initiated by Earl Butz Secretary of Agriculture from 1971 to 1976. These changes in agricultural policy were designed to purposely overproduce commodity grains as a “Buffer stock scheme”. (ever-normal granary)
For a while the oversupply of grains was useful in foreign policy (like the grain deals to Russia and China and multiple foreign aide programs. But ultimately there was still far too much grain production. Even as the glut increased, production continued to rise. CAFOs, and the entire industrial system that grew out of that change in policy; including biofuels, high fructose corn syrup, etc.. etc.. is an attempt to get rid of surplus grain any way possible. It has absolutely nothing to do with need for those grains to meet any sort of demand at all. That includes meat production.
Not only does a properly managed integrated farm produce more food per acre, it is more economically/environmentally sound, and even healthier too.
More importantly for the purposes of this website, they can be managed in such a way as to be a net carbon sink.
You ever wonder why the majority of ethanol for biofuels is made from corn instead of switchgrass which is demonstrably 5 times more efficient? Same as above. All these schemes are designed to get rid of a grain glut. They have no basis at all in meeting any kind of demand by consumers.
You take away the subsidies, market manipulation, and regulatory burden designed to drive out all competition for those “factory farms with their high carbon emissions rates and energy use, and just watch the markets flip so fast your head spins. In fact they would likely flip so fast it would cause problems due to infrastructure losses in rural communities over the last 50 years. Might want to go slow at first until the US rural economies recover and rebuild their infrastructure. Might even want to use those subsidies that purposely destroyed that infrastructure, to actually rebuild it.
> Phil … search … Google Bubble
My guess is you mostly search for denial sites and Google is filling your searches with more of what they know you want to see. If you’re seeing ads, notice the kinds of advertising that gets pitched to people who like that sort of information. This can be quite informative. For more on that, see The Long Con (a bit dated but the info about how advertisers select where to advertise is still dead on accurate.
You really, really, have to work hard to get accurate and unbiased information in this commercial world.
Apropos Dr. Idso, he’s called out in this discussion
Climate Feedback
More for the annals of climate misinformation
(though not by name, you have to click through to find the CO2Science organization’s Chairman page
Remember: delete the cache. Log out of Google. Delete cookies. Every time you want to search. Or else they’ll show you more of what they think you want (and advertisers want to pay to have you seeing).
Gavin @296,
Thanks, 40 years from now but it seemed a little definite. Would be great to get an RC post on the new Hansen et al. paper which explores that kind of rise occurring in the range as soon as 50 to as late as 150 years from now. http://www.atmos-chem-phys.net/16/3761/2016/acp-16-3761-2016.pdf
A perspective on their ocean stratification ideas would help I think.
@301 – At risk of being contrary, do you have some information to back those claims up? While there is some logic to your claims, that doesn’t make it so. There should be less meat consumption. I agree. On the other hand, your claims don’t seem to hold up. The US consumes only 20% of the beef consumed worldwide. Total meat consumption worldwide exceeds the US output by quite a lot… So, you might be a little hyperbolic there…
http://beef2live.com/story-world-beef-consumption-per-capita-ranking-countries-0-111634
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_meat_consumption
Why would pasture raised cattle require more water? Because of subsidies and unsustainable intensive farming, corn and soy were/can be cheaper than grass/forage [pasture or silage]. That is why feedlots use corn/soy instead of silage. Cheap beef is stupid and not sustainable over time (regardless of the carbon footprint issues).
CAFOs (factory farms) require large inputs of BLUE-WATER (treated water) with large outputs of GREY-WATER (nasty). Pasture raised animals simply require GREEN-WATER (rainfall). So are your sources counting just the water required to grow corn vs grass or do they include the water required to run a CAFO? Most forage/silage can be grown without irrigation or runoff. And can be done on marginal land.
Reducing CAFO meat production is a fine idea, particularly meat fed grains raised using heavy CO2 intensive methods.
Scientists resort to advertising to get Great Barrier Reef crisis in Queensland newspaper — Climate Council pays for full-page advert as expert says the Courier Mail, Queensland’s biggest newspaper (Murdoch News Ltd), is not covering coral bleaching properly http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/apr/21/scientists-resort-to-advertising-to-get-great-barrier-reef-crisis-in-queensland-paper
One more snippet of anecdotal reports from australia fwiw. I realise reports like this pop up in all nations as well, so my recent comments/info was only intended as some examples that have caught my attention. Unless one is interested in the topic and tuned into these, which means few in society generally today, they tend to fly under the radar and get lost in the rest of the media political noise. I don’t see this changing much in the ‘west/oecd’ anytime soon. Even when elections are on such as in the US and Australia this year, Canada recently and the UK before that, agw/cc simply doesn’t capture the middle ground polity or politicians nor the media like it has in the past… at least not for any extended period of time. I’m accepting of this and yet still support any efforts by others to keep pushing the envelope anyway they can. Unlike a decade ago though I sense that the silent majority who already know and accept the issue of agw/cc is really important are at present not that personally motivated to go out on a limb about it. Arguing with deniers at family gatherings, social events or raising the issue with politicians just isn’t their bag, imo. Because it isn’t worth the insults and abuse of the minority denier of the science, the pseudo-skeptic who has never even looked at any of the data/info outside a murdoch paper or wuwt blog site, and then there’s political conspiracy-theory hecklers in every crowd.
Personally I just stay away from all these ‘loonies’ these days and especially from the denier blog sites. But one day this will change and the sensible people in society will step up and so anything the pro-science brigade (like those here and elsewhere) can do to keep the light shining on the hill the better in the long run.
Recently I found this ‘marketing/psychology’ related saying which imo says it all: “You cannot tell people things they do not want to know.”
This last item was included in prior post, but i thought it worthwhile highlighting. It’s only a news report but I’m sure the sharps here can track down the data and scientists if it’s useful. The island state of Tasmania is on the opposite end to the GBR at Lat 41S. Keep going south and the next stop is the Antarctic.
April 20, 2016 CSIRO Scientist Dr Alistair Hobday says the state is also experiencing a marine heatwave, with sea temperatures 4.4 degrees Celsius warmer than average. Text and audio
http://www.abc.net.au/worldtoday/content/2016/s4446749.htm
#289 Digby,
We gotta go negative, and a lot faster than eventually. Sub-300 or bust/ Few believe it, but I see no other choice.
#294 Dan,
Don’t much care. The study isn’t much use to me. Anything talking ab0out the future without talking about regenerative systems is rather pointless – particularly when saying we can go all renewables in 20years… by using unsustainable and polluting systems. Just silly.
Talk to me about no more renewables and bringing consumption down to current soar, wind and hydro levels, I’ll listen.
Dan
303 Scott: Yup. All that is a given: Isht absolutely does happen. Chaos, nonlinear… indeed.
However, if we could get down to <300, last year that was modeled and found within a few decades the poles start stabilizing, so… That was something I'd been begging someone to model, and they finally did. The last piece in the puzzle for me.
We can do this.
Digby: My take-home message is that there would have to be a marked drop in emissions (10 to 20%?) before we see the Keeling curve start deviating from its current trajectory.
Richard: Yes. Using the 50% absorbed rule of thumb, and assuming that sinks and sources don’t change, since sinks and sources are based on atmospheric concentration, NOT emissions, going down 10% would drop the rate of increase by 20%. That’s a significant bend.
Digby: if we really were on the right path we should see big changes in our way of life.
Richard: Exactly.
Re Hank @306: I use StartPage, same Google result, no tracking. A VPN can be handy at times too.
@SecularAnimist 301,
Also, didn’t I just see an article that said USA produces 1 billion pounds of cheese a month?
Talk about “cheeseboorger cheeseboorger”.
But seriously, apocalypse folks– the USA is going to starve ???
That’s a lot of tempeh and tortillas, when you use the crops efficiently.
Scott: There are simply too many likely emergent properties that will very likely kick in. I am no longer confident sequestering that much carbon will actually result in 300ppm at all.
Richard: Perhaps things change when the arctic sea ice melts, not by the end of September, but by mid summer. At that point, solar radiation management might be the only way to kick the planet back to a frozen top. That would mean that primary productivity declines, which is yet another way to skew those calculations! :-)
Digby #304,
Where OCO-2 should help the most is in understanding natural sources and sinks better. Space based surveillance of coal, oil and gas operation, including rail traffic might clarify some human source emissions. Expect this already occurs as a part of monitoring industrial activity that might indicate hostile intentions.
Beware of the man with just one Climate Playbook.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/opinions/wp/2016/04/22/climate-politics-is-like-playing-ping-pong-with-a-soap-bubble/
Robin: Pasture raised animals simply require GREEN-WATER (rainfall).
Richard: I think irrigation is still warranted. Animal husbandry doesn’t like boom/bust cycles.
—————–
This summer is supposed to be hot. Here’s one graph showing June-Aug northern tier USA much hotter than average, southern tier warmer, and coastal Texas cooler. Lots rides on swing states’ weather this summer.
https://weather.com/forecast/national/news/june-august-summer-2016-temperature-outlook
z 315: But seriously, apocalypse folks– the USA is going to starve ???
BPL: Seems impossible in this milieu of restaurants, fast-food places and junk food, doesn’t it? But I’m sure the Mayans weren’t ready for it, either; or Mohenjo-Daro; or the couple of dozen other major civilizations destroyed by agricultural failure. And no one here said it would happen next week, but yes, it will happen, unless steps are taken to prevent it–steps that now seem likely to be too little, too late.
Hank #306: Your guess that I mostly search for denial sites is wrong. I seek out climate science at sites like Realclimate, Skeptical Science, Tamino’s Open Mind and ATTP.
I took your Google advice and emptied my cache, and after restarting my browser I got the same result (first hit is an article with the title “Will Forest Carbon Sink Capacity Fade Away as Trees Age?” on Idso’s website). I repeated the Google search on my smartphone with the same result, then I asked two friends to try the search and they got the same result.
Kevin #302: From the article at your link…
“However, the researchers are careful to note that the rapid absorption rate of individual trees does not necessarily translate into a net increase in carbon storage for an entire forest.
‘Old trees, after all, can die and lose carbon back into the atmosphere as they decompose,’ says Adrian Das, a USGS coauthor. ‘But our findings do suggest that while they are alive, large old trees play a disproportionately important role within a forest’s carbon dynamics.'”
The distinction between individual trees versus stands is important. A stand with a few large trees per hectare is unlikely to be sequestering as much carbon as a well stocked middle-aged stand with a few thousand trees per hectare.
Re consensus: I think that IPCC Working Group 3 does a pretty good job of representing the consensus on forestry. I like the fact that they point out that deforestation is permanent loss of forest, unlike logging within a sustainable forestry context. AGW is a serious problem, and I believe that sustainable forest management can be part of the solution.
Lindzen up to no good.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OwqIy8Ikv-c
Somebodies is gettin’ worried my El Nino-correlated prediction of new ASI lows this summer and/or next just might come true.
ASI: Ruh-roh!
“Accurate predictions month over month are currently beyond anyone’s capabilities. But if the atmospheric conditions resemble those of 2012 we can expect similar low sea ice extent in the Arctic or even a new record minimum,” Hendricks says.
Re: 320
Regenerative systems don’t let the water run off. How many ecosystems import water? None. Only human systems do. Capture and store it, drought can be mitigated significantly, even essentially avoided.
For Earth Day, you can watch Inhabitat free. Don’t know how much time is left, if any, but it gives a good sense of the range of things people dop with the knowledge.
Green Gold is also excellent.
Hank Roberts > Phil re Google search results: You’re right but there is another solution – use DuckDuckGo, “the search engine that doesn’t track you”.
Thomas @233 is right about the size of the Adani Galilee Basin project and the fact that state and federal governments are continuing to issues approvals for it but the project is looking less and less viable. Adani hasn’t got the finance, banks are backing away from coal and the coal price is still falling. Overview (Dec 2015) here – http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-12-18/galilee-basin-projects-unlikely-to-go-ahead/7042526
Scott S: It has absolutely nothing to do with need for those grains to meet any sort of demand at all.
Richard: Ever had a grain-fed steak? How about a steak from a cow that had to eke out a life on marginal land? Which cow spent a higher percentage of input energy on living? Which grew faster? Which has the texture of a shoe? Which melts like butter?
Question for any stats gurus out there…
Saw this blurb:
“The heavy rain on Sunday night into early Monday in the Houston area was at least the fourth 1 in 500-year rainfall event in the past six months in TX and LA based on the NOAA Hydrometeorological Design Studies Center Annual Exceedence Probability (AEP) data.”
What are the odds of having four 500-year rain events in a six month period? I think the chance of one event is 0.1%, but I’m not sure how to adjust for 5 events. Thanks.
Sorry to keep raining on everyone’s parade. But . . .
Al Gore, in “An Inconventient Truth,” 2006: “Within the decade there will be no more snows of Kilimanjaro.” http://www.global-warming-truth.com/environmental-tv-movies/unofficial-transcription-of-an-inconvenient-truth-1.html
In fact: “Mount Kilimanjaro glaciers nowhere near extinction.” http://www.eturbonews.com/44420/mount-kilimanjaro-glaciers-nowhere-near-extinction — as of 2014.
“Indeed deforestation seems to be causing Mount Kilimanjaro’s shrinking glacier so Gore got this wrong.” Skeptical Science — https://www.skepticalscience.com/mount-kilimanjaro-snow.htm
Gore in 2006: “Of course when the oceans get warmer, that causes stronger storms. We have seen in the last couple of years, a lot of big hurricanes. Hurricanes Jean, Francis and Ivan were among them. In the same year we had that string of big hurricanes; we also set an all time record for tornadoes in the United States.”
In fact: As of 2014: “There is no strong evidence to support severe weather becoming stronger, more frequent or more widespread during the past 50 years in the United States. One of the reasons that the change in severe weather is hard to track is the fact that the reporting systems have changed so much over time.” http://www.accuweather.com/en/weather-news/severe-weather-and-climate-change/62715
Al Gore in 2006: “This is Lake Chad, once one of the largest lakes in the world. It has dried up over the last few decades to almost nothing.”
In fact: “The European Space Agency has recently presented data showing an actual increase in lake extent of Lake Chad between the years of 1985 to 2011.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Chad
Al Gore in 2006: “This is the largest ice shelf in the Arctic, the Ward Hunt Ice Shelf. It just cracked in half a year ago. The scientists were astonished.”
In fact: “Scientists believe the Ward Hunt ice shelf north of Ellesmere Island, Nunavut, Canada, broke up and then re-froze 800 years ago” http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2053423/The-Arctic-ice-shelf-broke-froze-new-research-suggests.html
I could contuinue, but you get the point. Or do you?
Yes, Victor. The point is that you cherry-pick statements by a non-scientist to show that scientists are wrong.
Victor (@330): It’s not a damned parade. It’s more like a wake in advance. And if anything you ever regurgitated onto this or any other climate web site actually suggested the prognosis was better than what it is, people would rejoice. But somehow I doubt you’re gonna be the one to overturn more than a century of science.
Yes, Victor, the point is — science is not like religion or politics, a mighty oak grown from a single root — which can fail and then whole thing dies.
Science grows like ivy or kudzu, its origin can fail, dry up, and blow away — and the growing edge continues finding fertile ground to spread.
Science isn’t about being right the first time.
Science is about being interesting enough to inspire others who follow up.
Darwin got evolution wrong.
Millikan got the electron charge wrong.
Franklin got the shape for lightning rods wrong.
Need I continue? I’m sure you will.
Re- Comment by Phil L — 22 Apr 2016 @ 9:20 PM, ~#322
Larger trees accumulate and store more carbon than smaller ones: http://andrewsforest.oregonstate.edu/pubs/pdf/pub4835.pdf
This means that forests that are managed for timber production reduce the total amount of stored carbon: http://www.slideshare.net/dougoh/forest-carbon-climate-myths-presentation
For maximum carbon storage, forests should be allowed to mature because climax forests store the maximum amount of carbon. The best way to remove atmospheric carbon with forestry is to just leave the forest alone to do its job. It is true that when an old tree dies, much of the carbon is released, but there is no way to remove these trees that doesn’t cause the release of much more carbon than is contained in the dying tree and this would also remove the soil enrichment provided by natural decay. Further, trees that die of old age are not economically valuable.
Steve
> It is true that when an old tree dies, much of the carbon is released
Only if it’s burned.
Rot keeps the carbon captured — fungi, various microorganisms, and insects turn the dead wood rapidly into other kinds of mostly living material.
@333
Ok, about “being inspired to follow”.
I dug out Cullen et al “A century of ice retreat on Kilimanjaro” and ran some simple models.
The basic concrete data they have are 8 years of snow/ice cover from c1912 (e.g. table 2 or for the energetic the maps on subsequent pages can be pixel counted; I haven’t been that energetic yet).
To get a rock bottom lwb on the r2 comparing LOTI temps against changes in area, I used the data from the 3 zones mentioned and another model fitting the same ARMA to all datapoints at the same time (to minimize R2 we hope :).
Based on a best and worst fit for each zone + the “whole enchalada” model I estimate the band of R2 vals from .57 to .99.
Taking the lwb it still seems global temps “explain” a good chunk of area data over the 100+ years.
Gore may have been misquoting something and Victor may be quoting a judge, but it seems Al may have been right after all.
@BPL et al 321,
“The Mayans, Mohenjodaro,…”
Pre-industrial, and even pre-energy-glut modern cases, are not a legitimate comparison.
With non-mechanical agriculture, there is an obvious positive feedback– food is scarce, so the available labor– humans, or plow-animals– suffers a decline, leading to less production.
Production of staples in the US is amazingly non-labor-intensive. We eat fossil fuels, as everyone here knows. Modern cases of famine come from government policies and a lack of infrastructure (mechanization) and the energy sources to operate it.
And BPL, certainly some here have predicted catastrophe in an unreasonably short time-frame; I forget if you are one of them. But the numbers just don’t add up to have famine in 150 years, much less 50, barring Hollywood bad sci-fi narratives. We may further damage the environment by increasing FF use, but we will not starve while doing it.
Does anyone know what is going on with the data displayed at Cryosphere Today? There were some peculiar up-and-down spikes about a week ago for both Arctic and Antarctic sea ice, and now the Arctic sea ice area just shot up to actually rise above the 79-08 mean by a considerable amount, for the first time in a dozen years.
Are the measurements on the fritz, or is something real and very unusual happening?
@All
What do you think, when you compare these two data sets:
http://cires1.colorado.edu/~aslater/ARCTIC_TAIR/IDX/index_925hpa_ao_2012.html
http://cires1.colorado.edu/~aslater/ARCTIC_TAIR/IDX/index_925hpa_ao_2016.html
#322, Phil, & #334, Steve–
The point about individual level versus stand level carbon sequestration appears to be crucial. The paper showing larger trees grow faster- Stephenson et al., 2014–is aimed in considerable part at resolving the paradox that according to metabolic modeling, growth should increase, while at stand level there is a decrease that is well-established in the literature. Stephenson et al cites in support of that last this underlying review paper:
http://tinyurl.com/ForestCO2Review
Didn’t read the whole thing, but as I say, the distinction seems crucial. I’d speculate that part of the picture is that there is almost no understory to a true climax forest; the canopy takes so much light that photosynthesis at ground level is drastically reduced.
And Steve, thanks for finding the open-access version of the Stephenson et al.
#330–Why apologize, Victor? Text-book examples of denialism in action are always useful.
And yours are pretty good. For example, what you don’t say about the Ward-Hunt shelf story–included in your very own source–is this:
Much less of a ‘nothing to see here’ story when you include that little tidbit.
for James McDonald:
http://moregrumbinescience.blogspot.com/2016/04/2016-tough-on-sea-ice-satellites.html
Victor’s tiresome and stupid Gore-bashing belongs in the deepest pit of the Bore Hole.
Re: Comment by Hank Roberts — 23 Apr 2016 @ 11:05 PM, ~#335
Sorry Hank, “Only if it’s burned” is incorrect. The difference between burning and decomposition is in the speed that CO2 is released. Soil organisms break carbon bonds to provide energy for their life processes and release CO2 just like we do. Most of the carbon in a forest is in living trees and climax forests contain the greatest amount of wood. Climax forests are carbon neutral in that they take up as much carbon as is released. Look up soil+carbon+respiration. Steve
In other news, pi is again going to equal three …
http://www.wired.com/2016/04/senate-says-burning-trees-carbon-neutral-oh-really-now/
Kevin McKinney @342,
Victor’s comment @330 is not the most egregious of nonsense Victor has trolled out here over the years. Mind, as “Weaktor!” is happy to tell us @172, he is also a feature of the Bore Hole as well as of the regular RealClimate comment threads. So it may be we have been protected from the worst of it.
It isn’t clear to me what Victor’s motives are for now providing his take on Al Gore’s ‘Inconvenient Truth’ (which is now ten years old). I hope he hasn’t been a whole decade at it as the results of his efforts are less than useful.
Of the four points he makes, the Kilimanjaro ice is perhaps the easiest target. The SkS link Victor presents @330 describes the loss of ice being attributed to de-forestation which it already had been prior to Gore’s film. So Gore was wrong attributing it all to AGW. Yet even with that understanding of the role of de-forestation, the comment was still made back then by, for instance, geologist Lonnie Thompson who said “The peak will be bare rock by 2020 if the ice continues to disappear at this rate” a comment that Gore was simply repeating. And even as late as 2007, the data showed the ice area declining at a rate that would achieve the disappearance by 2020.
And we should not forget the poor reporting of our Victor. He negates to tell us that, even with re-forestation now coming to the rescue to delay the final melt-out, his source ends by describing Kilimanjaro’s ice cap thus – “not since the birth of the glaciers almost 12 millennia ago have the glaciers been in danger of disappearing — until the 21 century.”
His other three “I could continue” points are less satisfactory. Gore was correct to say Lake Chad had dried up to almost nothing although when the rains return (as they do in wet years) the “almost” is less dramatic in terms of area, although “almost” probably still applies in terms of volume.
Victor’s rebuttal of severe weather events is a bit lame. Gore is discussing tropical storms with just a final line that US cyclones are at an all-time high, something the records appear to support. Victor’s case rests solely on the view that the records are not long enough to provide adequate support.
And finally the Ward Hunt ice shelf. Here Gore is entirely correct. The scientists were indeed ‘astonished’, reportedly thinking “Wow!” Even the Daily Rail article Victor links to ends by telling us that “Ice shelves in the Arctic lost more than 90 per cent of their total surface area during the 20th century and are continuing to disintegrate rapidly,” The Ward Hunt Ice Shelf is no exception in suffering continuing dramatic loss. I don’t know if Victor is truly expecting it to “in fact” re-freeze back together again, as it seems to have done in the past (although it took 800 years). As some of these 2011 pictures show, it will take more that all the king’s horses and all the king’s men to accomplish such a putting-together-again task.
All in all, I’d rate Gore’s 10-year-old thesis that AGW is dangerous a lot higher than Victor’s ten-years-later attempt at a rebuttal (assuming that is what Victor was intending to do with his little rain dance).
> trees
Oh, agreed, respiration is oxidation is ‘slow burning’ but decomposition leaves far more bound carbon in living material in the soil, compared to logging and hauling.
I recall reading decades ago (pre-online) that the soil in the NW California coast is more than half annelid poop, which itself is largely bacteria. And anybody who’s kicked apart a crumbling dry-rotted fallen log sees the process at work. So long as it doesn’t burn, much of that carbon is going into compounds other than CO2. And a moderate forest fire on prepared ground, one that returns often enough to burn out brush and fire ladders without burning the topsoil and killing the trees, isn’t a disaster compared to logging.
——
In other news:
http://scienceblogs.com/confessions/2016/04/16/the-leap-manifesto-blows-up-canadian-politics-the-story-so-far/?utm_source=widgets
“Does anyone know what is going on with the data displayed at Cryosphere Today?” – James McDonald
Satellite Sensor failure.
z 337: And BPL, certainly some here have predicted catastrophe in an unreasonably short time-frame; I forget if you are one of them. But the numbers just don’t add up to have famine in 150 years, much less 50,
BPL: WHAT numbers? Are you familiar with the numbers? I am, and I say you’re wrong; we’re headed for catastrophe in this century.
#346, MAR–Yes, just so.
That’s why I called his points ‘pretty good examples of denialism in action.’ Lots of omitted context, to say the least.
On Lake Chad:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p03rw09f
Hmm. Wonder if there’s any connection with this:
http://leadership.ng/news/520770/us-warns-nigeria-growing-terror-threat-lake-chad-basin