The energy paths confronting the next two generations couldn’t be starker. There is the “business” as usual case that assumes 4 degrees of global warming is inevitable so we should use the cheapest and most plentiful energy sources available regardless of the fact that burning these fuels will raise atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations 40 percent higher than current levels.
Then is there is the off-the-shelf case that uses currently available technologies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions as rapidly as possible along a continuum between the current level and up to 560 parts per million (ppm), twice the preindustrial level, that produces average temperatures between 3 and 4 degrees higher than preindustrial levels depending on how rapidly the greenhouse levels can be brought down.
And finally there is the lowered ocean heat load case that reduces greenhouse gas emissions as rapidly as possible along the 400 to 560 ppm continuum while reducing atmospheric and ocean surface temperatures one degree every decade, all the while producing as much energy as is derived by either the off-the-shelf approach or fossil fuels with the added benefits of reducing thermal ocean expansion and sea level rise, mitigating ocean acidification and producing potable water.
Thomassays
Cape Grim carbon dioxide reading exceeds 400ppm landmark for first time (an apt name yes?)
A significant atmospheric monitoring station in north-west Tasmania has recorded carbon dioxide measurements above 400 parts per million for the first time.
Cape Grim, on the remote north-western tip of Tasmania, is the only station analysing baseline carbon levels in the southern hemisphere.
239 Digby Scorgie I concur with I conclude that it is the suckers that need to be apprised of their suckerdom. :-)
And add in one other aspect – the silent majority who can see and agree with AGW science and yet still fail to vote or act accordingly. Mainly because they are unsure what they can do or too timid to do it.
Repeatedly exposing the fallacies of the Victors of this world can only help both groups over time imo. The 3 Rules of Advertising: Repeat Repeat and Repeat :-)
Andy Pitman, director of the ARC Centre of Excellence for Climate System Science at the University of New South Wales in Australia recently noted in the Guardian:
“The interesting thing is the scale at which we’re breaking records. It’s clearly all heading in the wrong direction. Climate scientists have been warning about this since at least the 1980s. And it’s been bloody obvious since the 2000s.”
According to Pitman:
“The 1.5C target, it’s wishful thinking. I don’t know if you’d get 1.5C if you stopped emissions today. There’s inertia in the system. It’s [now] putting intense pressure on 2C.”
And when mainstream scientists start to say things like that, it’s really time for the rest of us to take notice.
Big thank you to Andy Pitman for speaking bluntly about the situation. Hey, dudes, that’s seven months in a row of record temps.
CO2 at MLO dropped a bit on dailies to 406.97 ppm.
Warm regards,
Mike
Victosays
#249 To answer your question, Scott, I am strongly in favor of the development of renewable energy resources, which will be ultimately essential regardless of whether the skeptics or the “warmists” are right. I am also strongly against subsidizing any part of the fossil fuel industry. Or the nuclear power industry either, for that matter. And I AM in favor of subsidizing research on renewables.
I have in fact looked into the viability of renewables, and as far as I can tell it will be a long time before they will be able to catch up with fossil fuels as a reasonably affordable — and reliable — power source. Realistically, when we consider all the gas powered autos, trucks and aircraft, all the oil, natural gas and even charcoal powered cooking and heating systems, all the electrical power stations currently designed around the use of oil, gas, and coal, I fail to see how the world can segue from that situation to renewables within the very few years deemed necessary by climate activists. I’d love to think it could be done and I would strongly support it if I saw evidence that it could, but realistically I just don’t see it happening any time in the near future.
My greatest fear is that more dangerous alternatives will be encouraged, such as nuclear power and/or some of the very dangerous technologies now being considered as a means of “cleansing” the atmosphere and ocean from already existing CO2. There is a long history of the human race implementing extremely self-destructive measures to achieve short-term ends and I’d rather not see history repeat itself in that respect. If an excess of hubris brought us to the point we are now (assuming the alarmists are correct), then even more hubris could have equally devastating effects in future.
In short, I am very wary of any actions taken in panic mode. Whatever we do has to be done after very careful consideration and planning. Calls for “immediate and drastic action or else” are, for me, an invitation to disaster.
Digby Scorgiesays
220 Andrew Spiteri 237 Thomas
Perhaps, Andrew, you need a flyer with the title: “Climate change — Have you been caught for a sucker?”
Digby Scorgiesays
On second thoughts, a flyer with the title “Climate change — Have you been caught for a sucker?” might not quite work. Suckers would be surprised to discover they’ve been hoodwinked by corporate psychopaths, which is the intention of such a flyer. However, people who already accept the reality of climate change might be irked, thinking this is just another load of denier crap. One wouldn’t want that.
Oh, and that reminds me, scientists are the sceptics. Those who reject the findings of climate science are most definitely not sceptics; they are deniers.
Ray Ladburysays
Weaktor,
Your search for evidence that CO2 is correlated to warming reminds me of the character Otto in A Fish Called Wanda, who, when Wanda calls him an ape, asserts, “Apes do not read philosophy.”
“Yes, they do,” Wanda replies. “They just don’t understand it.”
You’ve been shown evidence repeatedly. You’ve been told about the nearly 200 year history of research into the greenhouse effect. All I can conclude is, to paraphrase Jonathan Swift, that a man cannot be reasoned out of an opinion that he did not arrive at by reason in the first place.
You claim that your main concern is that actions not be taken in panic. Have you considered that as we continue to worsen our predicament and the windows continue to slam shut on our options to rectify our situation, that is precisely how decisions will be made?
MMMsays
“That history is already factored in, but even if you only use years that start with an El Niño you get the same projection but with slightly larger error bars because the number of samples is less. – Gavin”
Ah. Thank you. I should have known you would use a method that was superior to naive extrapolation.
Victor no more understands what a “correlation” is than he understands what a “trend” is. He is simply making up his own definitions for the terms and refusing to acknowledge any other. Consciously or not, he’s a troll. Shut him down. I wish the people running this board would do that.
Following from #243.
That latest GISTEMP data for April 2016 allows me to declare that the slowdown in global surface temperature increase of the last few years is now entirely at an end. That is, as graphed out here (usually 2 clicks to ‘download your attachment’), the 16-year trend (an inter-decadal rate of warming) to April yields a value that exceeds the 31-year trend (a multi-decadal rate of warming) to April. By that measure (by the inter-decadal trend being lower than the multi-decadal trend) the slowdown in global surface temperature increase can be quantified properly. The famous “hiatus” (as denialists call this feature of the global temperature record) lasted 59 months from start to finish and during this time the inter-decadal temperature rise was cumulatively a humongously-massive 0.02ºC below the multi-decadal temperature rise. (A 0.02ºC rise is equivalent to about 13 months of AGW.) At its slowest point, global surface temperature rise dropped to an average rate of 0.091ºC/decade for the 16-year period ending August 2013. This compares with the preceding maximum rate of 0.28ºC/decade for the 16-year period ending September 2007. Through the period of so-called “hiatus”, the average 16-year warming trend was 0.136ºC/decade while the corresponding average 31-year trend averaged 0.174ºC/decade.
NOAA has also posted for April with the global anomaly +1.10ºC, the 4th highest anomaly on record after March 1st, February 2nd & December 3rd. This is pretty-much in line with GISTEMP. A comparison with the anomalies from the 1997/98 El Nino are set out below.
The rise since 1998 in NOAA is a little lower than for GISTEMP, the NOAA 1997/98-2015/16 comparison (last 6 months) yielding an average temperature rise of 0.43ºC over the 18 year period (GISTEMP was +0.5ºC) (which would yield a warming rate of 0.24ºC/decade if it were attributed to AGW).
……….1997/98 … 2015/16
Dec … +0.63ºC … +1.12ºC
Jan … +0.60ºC … +1.03ºC
Feb … +0.86ºC … +1.19ºC
Mar … +0.64ºC … +1.23ºC
Apr … +0.73ºC … +1.10ºC
May … +0.66ºC
Jun … +0.66ºC
Jul … +0.73ºC
Aug … +0.68ºC
“These are now the highest atmospheric CO2 levels seen in the last 23 million years. And an annual rate of CO2 increase approaching 4 parts per million is unheard of for any time period in any geological record — even during the Permian hothouse extinction event which wiped out about 90 percent of life in the oceans and 75 percent of life on land. This very rapid rate of atmospheric CO2 increase is being spurred on by a fossil fuel based carbon emission now in the range of 13 billion tons each year (of which CO2 is the vast majority). That’s a rate of carbon addition more than ten times faster than the carbon spike that set off the Paleocene-Eocene hothouse mass extinction about 55 million years ago. A very dangerous rate of carbon accumulation that will generate increasingly severe and harmful geophysical changes over the coming years, decades and centuries. An event that, if it continues, could well be termed the mother of all carbon spikes.”
There is no analogue, dudes! What’s the worst that could happen? It’s just 4 ppm. that parts per million, man. You know how many years it will take us to gather even a thousand ppm? There is a lot of uncertainty here as Victor can attest.
Don’t feed the trolls, just enjoy them! You don’t get 3 stooges without Curly or Shemp.
Mike
Theosays
For Mike: Preliminary CO2 reading from my toy:
In Aus @ -29.8 152.7 169m in valley in forest in drought
lowest on sunny day 397
highest early morning 427
When my diesel FWD ( not Mitsubishi :)drives past
Alarm goes off
Reading way over 1000
@ -29.7 152.9 6m small country town (17m) on plain next to big river.
Readings are all over the place.
Mainly in 500 to 650 range
“…this animation of satellite images showing weekly changes from March 30th to May 4th provides an astonishing sight:
Beaufort weekly changes 20160330-20160504
Astonishing, mindblowing, frightening even. May is the month when melt ponds start to form on the ice, pools of water that lower the albedo and cause the ice to melt faster, leading to open water that absorbs solar radiation and warms up. The open water is already there in the Beaufort Sea. Look at all that open water!
No other year comes even close to it, as can be seen on the ASIG comparison of sea ice concentration maps, or on this sea ice extent graph (based on AMSR2 data, provided by Wipneus):”
mike says: thanks to Neven for “astonishing, mindblowing, frightening even.” That seems appropriate and tells so much more than “wow” to the global population that are following the science and trying to understand the magnitude of the problem we have created. Grapes did not arrive today, so hope to be planting grapes tomorrow.
Daily CO2 at MLO
May 16, 2016: 407.23 ppm
May 16, 2015: 404.01 ppm
Theo gets readings from 397 to 427. Very cool to have more folks interested in this critical number. Isn’t there something about diminished cognition in our species at levels of 800 ppm and above? The election cycle might be best understood this year as CO2 delirium.
Cheers
Mike
Theosays
Thanks Mike for the recognition !
Lawrence Colemansays
267 Mike, Yes, I agree with you, I’ve been looking at the arctic melt graphs since I can remember but this is the first time I got a real feeling of impending dread- even since the arctic summer of 2007. I do not like the way this year is panning out at all. Sure the strong El-nino had an effect but that is not the whole story. The speed at which is arctic is warming is the reason for the rapidity if the changes we are now seeing. I’ve been comparing the high latitude jet stream wind from 20 years ago with today’s and there is little semblance. Today the w-e progress of fronts is much slower and far more fractured and convoluted. Due to the fact that whether it is a low or high both cause pretty well as much damage. The slow moving or stagnating highs just smother the arctic with relentless ice melting sun and no little wind for weeks; then the slow intense lows cause wild ice smashing seas and huge swells. Root cause naturally is our historically high levels of CO2 in the atmosphere.
Good luck with your grapes, might give me a few pointers if they are successful. Cheers.
Thomassays
Following on from some other discussions recently and mindful of the need to avoid off-topic and verbose comments I have pulled together a short ‘hypothetical’ article some readers here may be interested in considering in the mix of ‘what to do?’
The only thing you achieve by downplaying the facts Victor, recklessly or otherwise, is to demonstrate that you are intellectually disingenuous. Who should people believe? Someone who is intellectually disingenuous or someone who is intellectually honest?
DPsays
one puzzling thing is that in an El Nino year there is normally rain heavy enough to cause floods and mudslides in California. This time there has been some rain but the state seems in varying degrees of drought. This seems to be the dog that hasn’t barked in the night. Any reasons?
The estimate from Gavin Schmidt (see his tweet cited in article above) shows that 2016 probably will end up 1.3 deg C above preindustrial mean. Which is 0.2 deg above 2015 and also only 0.2 deg below the declared limit from the november Paris “agreement”. Which again shows us that this agreement is completely surpassed by reality already after a few months… Seems that none of our leading political figures care about reality any more. They don’t even bother to make it look like they do. They just go on and on with their socalled “optimism” – just another word for denialism and business as usual. Considering this I think climate scientists need to speak about what is happening in quite another way. Like Rahmstorf does by calling this a global emergency.
Quick question for the pros, because I can’t remember how to do a simple conversion: How do you go from absorber column depth in g/cm^2 to cm-atm? I need to multiply by cm^3 atm / g, but what factors do I need in there? I seem to remember that Loschmidt’s number comes in there somewhere, but I can’t recall the details. Premature senility is a pain.
Thomassays
5-17-16 Massachusetts Supreme Court ordered the Department of Environmental Protection to “promulgate regulations that address multiple sources or categories of sources of greenhouse gas emissions, impose a limit on emissions that may be released . . . and set limits that decline on an annual basis.” http://ourchildrenstrust.org/event/747/breaking-youth-win-climate-case-massachusetts-supreme-court
Victorsays
#271 Sorry, Chris, I was basing my estimate on an outdated source, from 2012. If we take the last three years into account the difference would be greater, yes.
Re #138 Mike said I appreciate Killian’s take on degrowth at 104. Nailed it. Killed it. Well done.
Thanks.
Re: #272: It’s not a guaranteed pattern. Only in the strongest EN’s does So Cal get swamped. It seems the Ridiculously Resilient Ridge phenomenon that may be a feature of the new Meandering Jet Stream is also playing a part in keeping Cali drier than ’98.
Re: #270: Regulating Fossil Fuels and GHG emissions out of existence by 2050″
Your title says it all. If you’re relying on regulation, the problem may not be clear to you. Can you reconcile simplification and localization with structures that engage in regulation?
Ah. Got it:
Thomas O’Reilly
Retired Multi-National Corporate Executive
NSW, Australia
Took a gander and the problem is you do not understand the problem. Your solutions solve nothing because they do not address consumption, they address substitution, and substitution is a silly game only economists play. Problem here is, in a nutshell, without ANY AGW there would still be a very high probability of collapse this century. Addressing AGW only is a waste of time for all involved. To the extent you do address resources, it is not in terms of scarcity and energy per capita, but in terms of economics. Scarcity isn’t on your radar, it seems, let alone Maunder’s Law of the Minimum, and about two dozen other issues one should/must consider.
In an abundant world where ONLY AGW were an issue, you might have written something germane. As it is, and I mean no disrespect, that isn’t even in the ballpark. Ah, well, perhaps fairer to say it might be the top half of the first inning.
Cheers
patricksays
“Wow–climate change requires us to be not only ecological, but logical.”
If you haven’t heard Bertrand Piccard on clean GDP, or don’t get what the flight of the Solar Impulse is about, this 4-minute video from Piccard,
in Tulsa, to the UN Climate Change Conference in Bonn (16-26 May) is good:
It is looking unlikely that the 2015/16 El Nino will be any longer-lived than the 1997/98 El Nino was.
The predictions for NINO3.4 for May show an earlier end to the El Nino than the April predictions did (which themselves were a little earlier than March’s). NINO3.4 for last week was down to 0.6ºC (back in 1998 it was at that point 0.9ºC with 3 weeks to go before turning negative) and the SOI 30-day averages have so far failed to extend out below the 1997/98 values as they rise back into a positive La Nina state. MEI for Mar/Apr did get up above 2 again (2.07) but it remains below the 1998 equivalent (2.685).
Thomassays
278 Killian says: You’re way too kind, overly respectful and too nice a person for this forum.
#273, Karsten–I have to demur, somewhat. First, the ‘limit’ per Paris is still 2 C, not 1.5 C (though if you were to reply that that’s still more ‘unrealistic’, I’d have to be sympathetic to your point.) The 1.5 C is not a ‘limit’ but an aspiration. Second, many Paris participants know full well that agreed INDCs are not sufficient to reach even the 2 C goal, let alone 1.5. That’s why a ratcheting up of ambition is built in–or perhaps I should say, a process for future ratcheting up of ambition is built in. In that sense, I’d disagree that it has been ‘surpassed.’
Remarkably, the Paris agreement achieved what was politically possible, and perhaps even a bit more. We should celebrate that accomplishment.
And yet…the Paris agreement is also grossly inadequate. Scientists, policymakers and UNFCCC diplomats, including Executive Secretary Christiana Figueres, know that the Paris pledges, even if fully implemented, won’t be enough and won’t be in time.
So Paris has to be viewed as a milestone, not a destination. And it’s incumbent on everyone to do what they can to make sure that the agreement is 1) acted upon by signatories, and 2) strengthened in terms of mitigatory ambition via the review process that is built in.
Edward Greischsays
TTIP TPP
The TPP would take away the sovereignty of the US government, creating a world government in its place. The world government would be run by international corporations. In other words, COP21 is a dead letter and Obama’s EPA rule is repealed.
If you want your blog to be worth anything, you have to stop the TPP and the TTIP and you have to get the previous trade deals revoked.
“The Trans-Pacific Partnership and the Death of the Republic”
“The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government.” —Article IV, Section 4, US Constitution
A republican form of government is one in which power resides in elected officials representing the citizens, and government leaders exercise power according to the rule of law. In The Federalist Papers, James Madison defined a republic as “a government which derives all its powers directly or indirectly from the great body of the people . . . .”
On April 22, 2015, the Senate Finance Committee approved a bill to fast-track the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), a massive trade agreement that would override our republican form of government and hand judicial and legislative authority to a foreign three-person panel of corporate lawyers.
The secretive TPP is an agreement with Mexico, Canada, Japan, Singapore and seven other countries that affects 40% of global markets. Fast-track authority could now go to the full Senate for a vote as early as next week. Fast-track means Congress will be prohibited from amending the trade deal, which will be put to a simple up or down majority vote. Negotiating the TPP in secret and fast-tracking it through Congress is considered necessary to secure its passage, since if the public had time to review its onerous provisions, opposition would mount and defeat it.
Abdicating the Judicial Function to Corporate Lawyers
James Madison wrote in The Federalist Papers:
The accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive, and judiciary, in the same hands, . . . may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny. . . . “Were the power of judging joined with the legislative, the life and liberty of the subject would be exposed to arbitrary control, for the judge would then be the legislator. . . .”
And that, from what we now know of the TPP’s secret provisions, will be its dire effect.
The most controversial provision of the TPP is the Investor-State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) section, which strengthens existing ISDS procedures. ISDS first appeared in a bilateral trade agreement in 1959. According to The Economist, ISDS gives foreign firms a special right to apply to a secretive tribunal of highly paid corporate lawyers for compensation whenever the government passes a law to do things that hurt corporate profits — such things as discouraging smoking, protecting the environment or preventing a nuclear catastrophe.
Arbitrators are paid $600-700 an hour, giving them little incentive to dismiss cases; and the secretive nature of the arbitration process and the lack of any requirement to consider precedent gives wide scope for creative judgments.
To date, the highest ISDS award has been for $2.3 billion to Occidental Oil Company against the government of Ecuador over its termination of an oil-concession contract, this although the termination was apparently legal. Still in arbitration is a demand by Vattenfall, a Swedish utility that operates two nuclear plants in Germany, for compensation of €3.7 billion ($4.7 billion) under the ISDS clause of a treaty on energy investments, after the German government decided to shut down its nuclear power industry following the Fukushima disaster in Japan in 2011.
Under the TPP, however, even larger judgments can be anticipated, since the sort of “investment” it protects includes not just “the commitment of capital or other resources” but “the expectation of gain or profit.” That means the rights of corporations in other countries extend not just to their factories and other “capital” but to the profits they expect to receive there.
In an article posted by Yves Smith, Joe Firestone poses some interesting hypotheticals:
Under the TPP, could the US government be sued and be held liable if it decided to stop issuing Treasury debt and financed deficit spending in some other way (perhaps by quantitative easing or by issuing trillion dollar coins)? Why not, since some private companies would lose profits as a result?
Under the TPP or the TTIP (the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership under negotiation with the European Union), would the Federal Reserve be sued if it failed to bail out banks that were too big to fail?
Firestone notes that under the Netherlands-Czech trade agreement, the Czech Republic was sued in an investor-state dispute for failing to bail out an insolvent bank in which the complainant had an interest. The investor company was awarded $236 million in the dispute settlement. What might the damages be, asks Firestone, if the Fed decided to let the Bank of America fail, and a Saudi-based investment company decided to sue?
Abdicating the Legislative Function to Multinational Corporations
Just the threat of this sort of massive damage award could be enough to block prospective legislation. But the TPP goes further and takes on the legislative function directly, by forbidding specific forms of regulation.
Public Citizen observes that the TPP would provide big banks with a backdoor means of watering down efforts to re-regulate Wall Street, after deregulation triggered the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression:
The TPP would forbid countries from banning particularly risky financial products, such as the toxic derivatives that led to the $183 billion government bailout of AIG. It would prohibit policies to prevent banks from becoming “too big to fail,” and threaten the use of “firewalls” to prevent banks that keep our savings accounts from taking hedge-fund-style bets.
The TPP would also restrict capital controls, an essential policy tool to counter destabilizing flows of speculative money. . . . And the deal would prohibit taxes on Wall Street speculation, such as the proposed Robin Hood Tax that would generate billions of dollars’ worth of revenue for social, health, or environmental causes.
Clauses on dispute settlement in earlier free trade agreements have been invoked to challenge efforts to regulate big business. The fossil fuel industry is seeking to overturn Quebec’s ban on the ecologically destructive practice of fracking. Veolia, the French behemoth known for building a tram network to serve Israeli settlements in occupied East Jerusalem, is contesting increases in Egypt’s minimum wage. The tobacco maker Philip Morris is suing against anti-smoking initiatives in Uruguay and Australia.
The TPP would empower not just foreign manufacturers but foreign financial firms to attack financial policies in foreign tribunals, demanding taxpayer compensation for regulations that they claim frustrate their expectations and inhibit their profits.
Preempting Government Sovereignty
What is the justification for this encroachment on the sovereign rights of government? Allegedly, ISDS is necessary in order to increase foreign investment. But as noted in The Economist, investors can protect themselves by purchasing political-risk insurance. Moreover, Brazil continues to receive sizable foreign investment despite its long-standing refusal to sign any treaty with an ISDS mechanism. Other countries are beginning to follow Brazil’s lead.
In an April 22nd report from the Center for Economic and Policy Research, gains from multilateral trade liberalization were shown to be very small, equal to only about 0.014% of consumption, or about $.43 per person per month. And that assumes that any benefits are distributed uniformly across the economic spectrum. In fact, transnational corporations get the bulk of the benefits, at the expense of most of the world’s population.
Something else besides attracting investment money and encouraging foreign trade seems to be going on. The TPP would destroy our republican form of government under the rule of law, by elevating the rights of investors – also called the rights of “capital” – above the rights of the citizens.
That means that TPP is blatantly unconstitutional. But as Joe Firestone observes, neo-liberalism and corporate contributions seem to have blinded the deal’s proponents so much that they cannot see they are selling out the sovereignty of the United States to foreign and multinational corporations.
For more information and to get involved, visit:
Flush the TPP [http://www.flushthetpp.org]
The Citizens Trade Campaign [http://www.citizenstrade.org/ctc/]
Public Citizen’s Global Trade Watch [http://www.citizen.org/tradewatch]
Eyes on Trade [http://citizen.typepad.com/eyesontrade/]
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License”
It’s pretty melty up in the Arctic this Spring. The good news for Arctic sea ice is that the JAXA Sea Ice Extent data (unaffected by the loss of the F-17 satellite data since mid-April) has been showing the anomaly (2003-2015) has stopped dropping off the chart and has been holding steady for the last 6 days at roughly -970,000 sq km. Tamino has a post graphing the year-on-year anomalies at that point 6 days ago when the drop was about to end.
As Tamino’s graph shows, this is the time of year when Arctic Sea Ice Extent numbers are usually tightly bunched so the anomaly represents a whopping 4½ standard deviations from the 2003-15 mean.
Interesting times!
Theosays
My CO2 down to 422. Paris ? No, El Nino is fading. Very dry, no rain for weeks, there is 494ha fire 6km North of me. Good they’re predicting La Nina with a negative IOD by September, which were both last seen together in 2010 and flooded Brisbane. Better get busy if I want to catch any. And I had better hurry, cause the Arctic Ice is taking another serious dive and that could . . .
Okay, I think I’ve sussed it. The problem is to go from column density in kg m^-2 to cm-atm.
First we go from the SI to cgs. If you have 1 kg m^-2 of CO2, that is 1000 g m^-2 of CO2 or 0.1 g cm^-2.
Next, go to number of molecules per cm^2. Divide by the molecular weight:
0.1 / 44.0098 => 0.00227222
That gives you the number of moles. Multiply by Avogadro’s number, NA = 6.0221409e+23 in cgs units.
0.00227222 x NA => 1.36836 x 10^21 molecules cm^-2
Now divide by Loschmidt’s number, 2.6867774e^19 cgs:
To find this is 50.9295 cm-atm
So the recipe is
u(cm-atm) = 0.1 u(SI) NA / (μ L0)
Thomassays
279 patrick: Thanks for all the updates and promoting what could be a game changer in people’s minds. Bertrand Piccard is clearly a man who has not lost his marbles. An excellent short video! re: “Wow–climate change requires us to be not only ecological, but logical.” Meanwhile far too many believe solutions will be found by endless insults and arguing about anything and anyone. Using logic and reason will be the primary basis for any solution, eventually.
I’m with Christiana Figueres” “Impossible is not a fact, it is an attitude.”
283 Edward Greisch: the TPP TTIP – Yes! You just summarized the nature of the beast … vested interests. One day the “consent of the governed”, all 7 billion on Earth, will wake up and realize that the Atmosphere, the Arctic and Antarctic, and the Oceans are a “Common-Wealth” asset owned by all in perpetuity that comes with Legal Rights that override every trade deal, every corporation, and every government of the day.
eg page 7
2) Industry Disruption will drive Mergers, Acquisitions, Diversification and Innovation
The imposition of this kind of Regulation would drive a period of disruption in the Industry. It would demand significant Mergers and Acquisitions similar to what has occurred previously in the Media and Newspaper and IT industries. This is not necessarily a bad thing long term. The initial effect of this kind of Regulation would be to force predominant Fossil Fuel Electricity Producers to diversify their supply portfolios.
In the short term it would affect smaller mid-sized fossil fuel based companies in Electricity Production the greatest. Take a company that only operated Gas Fired Power Plants. It would mean their annual Electricity Production Mix was starting at 100%. Such companies would be forced to either exit the industry by selling out or to merge with other Electricity Production Companies so that the total output from their gas-fired plants were under the 40% maximum limit for the new company entity.
Similar to the AEP example, they could merge with an existing Nuclear Power plant company, a hydro-electricity company, a renewable energy company or an already diverse Corporation like AEP whose gas-fired output was only 22% at the start of the new Regulation. The alternatives are of course quite broad and it is important to realize that it is the Companies who will decide what their response will be without any coercion or interference.
There are no specific directions coming from Government on how Business chooses to diversify nor any requirement that they remain in the industry over the long term. There are no ‘price controls’, no imposition of special taxes, no attempt by the Govt or public service to choose ‘winners’, nor any manipulation of market forces by these regulations either. This in itself is a good thing because it opens up a range multiple solutions and options for all existing companies within the market, as well as potentially encouraging new Corporate entrants with solid financial backing and resources into the Industry.
Nemesissays
Did you know, that the ff fools resp. the industrial-military complex used fossil fuels willingly, knowingly to control the global climate, to warm up the planet, while at the same time financing denier campagnes, politicians, scientists ect, to spread doubt and denial about anthropogenic climate change? And they did everything, to prevent any alternatives. Internal documents and scientific papers prove it:
THIS is a nightmare. If I had descendants, I would rage. They made 7 billion people part of a global climate experiment, willingly, knowingly.
Nemesissays
Addendum to my last comment:
” 19.5.2016 – 100+ New Documents Highlight How Oil Industry Studied Climate and Delayed Solutions
Washington, DC – Today, the Center for International Environmental Law (CIEL) launched a searchable database of more than 100 documents that brings to light new information on how the oil industry responded – and failed to respond – in the face of climate change.
“We now know that the oil industry was engaged in climate science by the 1950s and on notice of climate risks by the 1960s. The question arises: What did they do with that information?” said CIEL President Carroll Muffett. “Our research suggests the oil companies invested more in explaining away climate risks than in confronting them.”
Key Findings
Even as its understanding of climate risks increased, the oil industry funded research into: other pollutants that would offset warming; potential carbon sinks that would reduce the need to control emissions; and alternate theories of climate change that continue to be used by climate deniers.
Patent filings demonstrate that the industry had the technology to reduce carbon dioxide emissions as early as the 1970s. Exxon held patents for fuel cells and other clean transport technologies even as they opposed government research funding for electric cars. Exxon and other oil companies patented technologies to cut CO2 emissions from gas streams in half, but decided they were too expensive.
At the same time, oil companies invested in taller oil rigs that could withstand rising sea levels caused by climate change. And they patented offshore drilling rigs and ice-breaking tankers designed for oil-rich and rapidly changing Arctic environments.
Beyond simply understanding climate, Exxon and other oil companies sought ways to control it. Industry-promoted studies argued that petroleum products could help control the climate: burning oil on the ground to clear away fog or blow away smog; coating large areas of the earth in asphalt to change rainfall patterns; or using oil slicks on the sea surface or carbon dust sprayed from aircraft to shift or weaken hurricanes.
Critical Questions
During the 1960s, proponents of weather modification actively discussed the prospect of using carbon dust, ice clouds, or other methods to permanently melt the Arctic sea ice. In light of its Arctic interests and its investment in weather modification, did the oil industry’s research include such an agenda?
After opposing early government research funding for electric vehicles, what steps did the industry take to develop and commercialize its own patents?
Increasing linkages in research
Together with the new findings, CIEL is launching an interactive database that makes the documents more accessible to researchers, allowing users to quickly identify critical connections between companies, research institutes, and key individuals.
“This database puts documents into the hands of scholars, legal advocates, and the public,” said. “We expect this access to spur broader inquiry that will result in additional findings and connections.”
Today’s release is the second in a continuing series of releases based on active and ongoing research. CIEL plans to make additional documents them available to the public and other researchers in the weeks ahead.”
I was basing my estimate on an outdated source, from 2012.
This of course demonstrates the shortcoming with saying:
the relatively small amount of warming we’ve seen so far
which glosses over the fact that global warming is ongoing and even if you think the warming we’ve had so far is “relatively small” then sooner or later it’s going to be “relatively big” and you are completely ignoring that issue.
Andrew Clarksays
Considering it is now looking very strongly like climate change is going to be a disaster(to sane people) I was wondering if anyone had any ideas as to what they thought were some winning strategies….
David B. Bensonsays
Andrew Clark @293 — Here is a proposal to be taken seriously:
@293 – I was thinking that electing Donald Trump would be a good solution. (8-/)
Vendicar Decariansays
#277 – Victor
Looks like the world just passed a “tipping point” and the rise since 1880 is now 1.2’C or 2.2’F
Killiansays
Thomas, that you think you were insulted is the problem. Since you don’t understand the problems clearly and, thus, logically, cannot understand the solutions, you prefer to hypocritically insult.
Problem? You weren’t insulted. You were corrected. FYI, I apparently have an INTP personality. We don’t bother with insults. They bore us. We like facts and logic. You’re looking at the wrong ones, coming to the wrong conclusions.
Unfortunate your feeling were hurt. Listen or don’t. Up to you. For the record, though, if you can look back through these fora to 1995 or so and find anything I’ve been materially off-base about, well, good luck to you. Consider that before whining about an honest, straightforward, dispassionate response in the future.
After all, I may well have called new record low ASI…. back in August (fascinated to see if La Nina/weather patterns, e.g., low ice transport via Fram can overcome allthe heat in the system). Just sharing info, dude. Not out to get you. Don’t know you. Wouldn’t care if I did. Truth matters more than your ego or anyone else’s, including mine.
You come from business. That colors your “logic.” You need to understand that.
Alfsays
@ 294 Benson
please consider the very first post above:
1. Strongly increasing heat extremes in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) in the 21st century
Climatic Change, 23 April 2016; doi:10.1007/s10584-016-1665-6
Its surface area of 9,400,000 square kilometres
is comparable to the respective land areas of China or the United States, and considerably larger than Brazil or the continent of Australia
Most of the Sahara consists of rocky hamada; ergs (large areas covered with sand dunes) form only a minor part.
That proportion is about 80% to 20%, so there are less than 2m square kilometres to irrigate.
How big are the chances of that irrigated 20% area to withstand or overcome the local climate trend supposed to be?
(p.s.: I`ve read the abstract, but didn`t watch the movies.)
Alfsays
forgot to mention:
Just cover the inarable 80% of the Sahara with white asphalt. =:)
Thomassays
297 Killian says: Since you don’t understand the problems clearly and, thus, logically, cannot understand the solutions and We like facts and logic and you can look back through these fora to 1995 or so and find anything I’ve been materially off-base about, well, good luck to you. Consider that before whining about an honest, straightforward, dispassionate response in the future.” and “You come from business. That colors your “logic.” You need to understand that.”
Climate Change: The Choices Couldn’t Be Starker
The energy paths confronting the next two generations couldn’t be starker. There is the “business” as usual case that assumes 4 degrees of global warming is inevitable so we should use the cheapest and most plentiful energy sources available regardless of the fact that burning these fuels will raise atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations 40 percent higher than current levels.
Then is there is the off-the-shelf case that uses currently available technologies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions as rapidly as possible along a continuum between the current level and up to 560 parts per million (ppm), twice the preindustrial level, that produces average temperatures between 3 and 4 degrees higher than preindustrial levels depending on how rapidly the greenhouse levels can be brought down.
And finally there is the lowered ocean heat load case that reduces greenhouse gas emissions as rapidly as possible along the 400 to 560 ppm continuum while reducing atmospheric and ocean surface temperatures one degree every decade, all the while producing as much energy as is derived by either the off-the-shelf approach or fossil fuels with the added benefits of reducing thermal ocean expansion and sea level rise, mitigating ocean acidification and producing potable water.
Cape Grim carbon dioxide reading exceeds 400ppm landmark for first time (an apt name yes?)
A significant atmospheric monitoring station in north-west Tasmania has recorded carbon dioxide measurements above 400 parts per million for the first time.
Cape Grim, on the remote north-western tip of Tasmania, is the only station analysing baseline carbon levels in the southern hemisphere.
Scientists warned last week that the world’s cleanest air was nearing the 400ppm milestone.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-05-16/cape-grim-co2-reading-reaches-400ppm-for-the-first-time/7417434
239 Digby Scorgie I concur with I conclude that it is the suckers that need to be apprised of their suckerdom. :-)
And add in one other aspect – the silent majority who can see and agree with AGW science and yet still fail to vote or act accordingly. Mainly because they are unsure what they can do or too timid to do it.
Repeatedly exposing the fallacies of the Victors of this world can only help both groups over time imo. The 3 Rules of Advertising: Repeat Repeat and Repeat :-)
from Robert Scribbler
Andy Pitman, director of the ARC Centre of Excellence for Climate System Science at the University of New South Wales in Australia recently noted in the Guardian:
“The interesting thing is the scale at which we’re breaking records. It’s clearly all heading in the wrong direction. Climate scientists have been warning about this since at least the 1980s. And it’s been bloody obvious since the 2000s.”
According to Pitman:
“The 1.5C target, it’s wishful thinking. I don’t know if you’d get 1.5C if you stopped emissions today. There’s inertia in the system. It’s [now] putting intense pressure on 2C.”
And when mainstream scientists start to say things like that, it’s really time for the rest of us to take notice.
Big thank you to Andy Pitman for speaking bluntly about the situation. Hey, dudes, that’s seven months in a row of record temps.
CO2 at MLO dropped a bit on dailies to 406.97 ppm.
Warm regards,
Mike
#249 To answer your question, Scott, I am strongly in favor of the development of renewable energy resources, which will be ultimately essential regardless of whether the skeptics or the “warmists” are right. I am also strongly against subsidizing any part of the fossil fuel industry. Or the nuclear power industry either, for that matter. And I AM in favor of subsidizing research on renewables.
I have in fact looked into the viability of renewables, and as far as I can tell it will be a long time before they will be able to catch up with fossil fuels as a reasonably affordable — and reliable — power source. Realistically, when we consider all the gas powered autos, trucks and aircraft, all the oil, natural gas and even charcoal powered cooking and heating systems, all the electrical power stations currently designed around the use of oil, gas, and coal, I fail to see how the world can segue from that situation to renewables within the very few years deemed necessary by climate activists. I’d love to think it could be done and I would strongly support it if I saw evidence that it could, but realistically I just don’t see it happening any time in the near future.
My greatest fear is that more dangerous alternatives will be encouraged, such as nuclear power and/or some of the very dangerous technologies now being considered as a means of “cleansing” the atmosphere and ocean from already existing CO2. There is a long history of the human race implementing extremely self-destructive measures to achieve short-term ends and I’d rather not see history repeat itself in that respect. If an excess of hubris brought us to the point we are now (assuming the alarmists are correct), then even more hubris could have equally devastating effects in future.
In short, I am very wary of any actions taken in panic mode. Whatever we do has to be done after very careful consideration and planning. Calls for “immediate and drastic action or else” are, for me, an invitation to disaster.
220 Andrew Spiteri 237 Thomas
Perhaps, Andrew, you need a flyer with the title: “Climate change — Have you been caught for a sucker?”
On second thoughts, a flyer with the title “Climate change — Have you been caught for a sucker?” might not quite work. Suckers would be surprised to discover they’ve been hoodwinked by corporate psychopaths, which is the intention of such a flyer. However, people who already accept the reality of climate change might be irked, thinking this is just another load of denier crap. One wouldn’t want that.
Oh, and that reminds me, scientists are the sceptics. Those who reject the findings of climate science are most definitely not sceptics; they are deniers.
Weaktor,
Your search for evidence that CO2 is correlated to warming reminds me of the character Otto in A Fish Called Wanda, who, when Wanda calls him an ape, asserts, “Apes do not read philosophy.”
“Yes, they do,” Wanda replies. “They just don’t understand it.”
You’ve been shown evidence repeatedly. You’ve been told about the nearly 200 year history of research into the greenhouse effect. All I can conclude is, to paraphrase Jonathan Swift, that a man cannot be reasoned out of an opinion that he did not arrive at by reason in the first place.
You claim that your main concern is that actions not be taken in panic. Have you considered that as we continue to worsen our predicament and the windows continue to slam shut on our options to rectify our situation, that is precisely how decisions will be made?
“That history is already factored in, but even if you only use years that start with an El Niño you get the same projection but with slightly larger error bars because the number of samples is less. – Gavin”
Ah. Thank you. I should have known you would use a method that was superior to naive extrapolation.
RL 258,
Victor no more understands what a “correlation” is than he understands what a “trend” is. He is simply making up his own definitions for the terms and refusing to acknowledge any other. Consciously or not, he’s a troll. Shut him down. I wish the people running this board would do that.
Following from #243.
That latest GISTEMP data for April 2016 allows me to declare that the slowdown in global surface temperature increase of the last few years is now entirely at an end. That is, as graphed out here (usually 2 clicks to ‘download your attachment’), the 16-year trend (an inter-decadal rate of warming) to April yields a value that exceeds the 31-year trend (a multi-decadal rate of warming) to April. By that measure (by the inter-decadal trend being lower than the multi-decadal trend) the slowdown in global surface temperature increase can be quantified properly. The famous “hiatus” (as denialists call this feature of the global temperature record) lasted 59 months from start to finish and during this time the inter-decadal temperature rise was cumulatively a humongously-massive 0.02ºC below the multi-decadal temperature rise. (A 0.02ºC rise is equivalent to about 13 months of AGW.) At its slowest point, global surface temperature rise dropped to an average rate of 0.091ºC/decade for the 16-year period ending August 2013. This compares with the preceding maximum rate of 0.28ºC/decade for the 16-year period ending September 2007. Through the period of so-called “hiatus”, the average 16-year warming trend was 0.136ºC/decade while the corresponding average 31-year trend averaged 0.174ºC/decade.
Given the uncertain direction of the UK government on energy and climate, this is a rather nice milestone, even if somewhat symbolic:
http://cleantechnica.com/2016/05/17/wind-outperforms-coal-uk-first-time-ever/
255 Victo is off topic.
NOAA has also posted for April with the global anomaly +1.10ºC, the 4th highest anomaly on record after March 1st, February 2nd & December 3rd. This is pretty-much in line with GISTEMP. A comparison with the anomalies from the 1997/98 El Nino are set out below.
The rise since 1998 in NOAA is a little lower than for GISTEMP, the NOAA 1997/98-2015/16 comparison (last 6 months) yielding an average temperature rise of 0.43ºC over the 18 year period (GISTEMP was +0.5ºC) (which would yield a warming rate of 0.24ºC/decade if it were attributed to AGW).
……….1997/98 … 2015/16
Dec … +0.63ºC … +1.12ºC
Jan … +0.60ºC … +1.03ºC
Feb … +0.86ºC … +1.19ºC
Mar … +0.64ºC … +1.23ºC
Apr … +0.73ºC … +1.10ºC
May … +0.66ºC
Jun … +0.66ºC
Jul … +0.73ºC
Aug … +0.68ºC
from: https://robertscribbler.com/
“These are now the highest atmospheric CO2 levels seen in the last 23 million years. And an annual rate of CO2 increase approaching 4 parts per million is unheard of for any time period in any geological record — even during the Permian hothouse extinction event which wiped out about 90 percent of life in the oceans and 75 percent of life on land. This very rapid rate of atmospheric CO2 increase is being spurred on by a fossil fuel based carbon emission now in the range of 13 billion tons each year (of which CO2 is the vast majority). That’s a rate of carbon addition more than ten times faster than the carbon spike that set off the Paleocene-Eocene hothouse mass extinction about 55 million years ago. A very dangerous rate of carbon accumulation that will generate increasingly severe and harmful geophysical changes over the coming years, decades and centuries. An event that, if it continues, could well be termed the mother of all carbon spikes.”
There is no analogue, dudes! What’s the worst that could happen? It’s just 4 ppm. that parts per million, man. You know how many years it will take us to gather even a thousand ppm? There is a lot of uncertainty here as Victor can attest.
Don’t feed the trolls, just enjoy them! You don’t get 3 stooges without Curly or Shemp.
Mike
For Mike: Preliminary CO2 reading from my toy:
In Aus @ -29.8 152.7 169m in valley in forest in drought
lowest on sunny day 397
highest early morning 427
When my diesel FWD ( not Mitsubishi :)drives past
Alarm goes off
Reading way over 1000
@ -29.7 152.9 6m small country town (17m) on plain next to big river.
Readings are all over the place.
Mainly in 500 to 650 range
Will be logging and evaluating any trend.
from Neven on May 6: http://neven1.typepad.com/blog/2016/05/beaufort-under-relentless-high-pressure.html
“…this animation of satellite images showing weekly changes from March 30th to May 4th provides an astonishing sight:
Beaufort weekly changes 20160330-20160504
Astonishing, mindblowing, frightening even. May is the month when melt ponds start to form on the ice, pools of water that lower the albedo and cause the ice to melt faster, leading to open water that absorbs solar radiation and warms up. The open water is already there in the Beaufort Sea. Look at all that open water!
No other year comes even close to it, as can be seen on the ASIG comparison of sea ice concentration maps, or on this sea ice extent graph (based on AMSR2 data, provided by Wipneus):”
mike says: thanks to Neven for “astonishing, mindblowing, frightening even.” That seems appropriate and tells so much more than “wow” to the global population that are following the science and trying to understand the magnitude of the problem we have created. Grapes did not arrive today, so hope to be planting grapes tomorrow.
Daily CO2 at MLO
May 16, 2016: 407.23 ppm
May 16, 2015: 404.01 ppm
Theo gets readings from 397 to 427. Very cool to have more folks interested in this critical number. Isn’t there something about diminished cognition in our species at levels of 800 ppm and above? The election cycle might be best understood this year as CO2 delirium.
Cheers
Mike
Thanks Mike for the recognition !
267 Mike, Yes, I agree with you, I’ve been looking at the arctic melt graphs since I can remember but this is the first time I got a real feeling of impending dread- even since the arctic summer of 2007. I do not like the way this year is panning out at all. Sure the strong El-nino had an effect but that is not the whole story. The speed at which is arctic is warming is the reason for the rapidity if the changes we are now seeing. I’ve been comparing the high latitude jet stream wind from 20 years ago with today’s and there is little semblance. Today the w-e progress of fronts is much slower and far more fractured and convoluted. Due to the fact that whether it is a low or high both cause pretty well as much damage. The slow moving or stagnating highs just smother the arctic with relentless ice melting sun and no little wind for weeks; then the slow intense lows cause wild ice smashing seas and huge swells. Root cause naturally is our historically high levels of CO2 in the atmosphere.
Good luck with your grapes, might give me a few pointers if they are successful. Cheers.
Following on from some other discussions recently and mindful of the need to avoid off-topic and verbose comments I have pulled together a short ‘hypothetical’ article some readers here may be interested in considering in the mix of ‘what to do?’
Regulating Fossil Fuels and GHG emissions out of existence by 2050
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B-M0yAR0UPhPdlpES3NpVTVZS1E
Your feedback, questions and thoughts are welcome. Hearty LOL’s included, but do try to be at least a little kind. :-) Thx
Victor:
Going by long term trends it’s actually just over 1.0 degrees C or 1.8 degrees F.
The only thing you achieve by downplaying the facts Victor, recklessly or otherwise, is to demonstrate that you are intellectually disingenuous. Who should people believe? Someone who is intellectually disingenuous or someone who is intellectually honest?
one puzzling thing is that in an El Nino year there is normally rain heavy enough to cause floods and mudslides in California. This time there has been some rain but the state seems in varying degrees of drought. This seems to be the dog that hasn’t barked in the night. Any reasons?
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/may/16/april-third-month-in-row-to-break-global-temperature-records
The estimate from Gavin Schmidt (see his tweet cited in article above) shows that 2016 probably will end up 1.3 deg C above preindustrial mean. Which is 0.2 deg above 2015 and also only 0.2 deg below the declared limit from the november Paris “agreement”. Which again shows us that this agreement is completely surpassed by reality already after a few months… Seems that none of our leading political figures care about reality any more. They don’t even bother to make it look like they do. They just go on and on with their socalled “optimism” – just another word for denialism and business as usual. Considering this I think climate scientists need to speak about what is happening in quite another way. Like Rahmstorf does by calling this a global emergency.
People should point out and acknowledge predictions that turned out wrong, right?
Quick question for the pros, because I can’t remember how to do a simple conversion: How do you go from absorber column depth in g/cm^2 to cm-atm? I need to multiply by cm^3 atm / g, but what factors do I need in there? I seem to remember that Loschmidt’s number comes in there somewhere, but I can’t recall the details. Premature senility is a pain.
5-17-16 Massachusetts Supreme Court ordered the Department of Environmental Protection to “promulgate regulations that address multiple sources or categories of sources of greenhouse gas emissions, impose a limit on emissions that may be released . . . and set limits that decline on an annual basis.”
http://ourchildrenstrust.org/event/747/breaking-youth-win-climate-case-massachusetts-supreme-court
#271 Sorry, Chris, I was basing my estimate on an outdated source, from 2012. If we take the last three years into account the difference would be greater, yes.
“Averaged over all land and ocean surfaces, temperatures warmed roughly 1.53 degrees Fahrenheit (0.85 degrees Celsius) from 1880 to 2012, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (see page 3 of the 2013 summary report).” (https://www2.ucar.edu/climate/faq/how-much-has-global-temperature-risen-last-100-years)
Re #138 Mike said I appreciate Killian’s take on degrowth at 104. Nailed it. Killed it. Well done.
Thanks.
Re: #272: It’s not a guaranteed pattern. Only in the strongest EN’s does So Cal get swamped. It seems the Ridiculously Resilient Ridge phenomenon that may be a feature of the new Meandering Jet Stream is also playing a part in keeping Cali drier than ’98.
Re: #270: Regulating Fossil Fuels and GHG emissions out of existence by 2050″
Your title says it all. If you’re relying on regulation, the problem may not be clear to you. Can you reconcile simplification and localization with structures that engage in regulation?
Ah. Got it:
Thomas O’Reilly
Retired Multi-National Corporate Executive
NSW, Australia
Took a gander and the problem is you do not understand the problem. Your solutions solve nothing because they do not address consumption, they address substitution, and substitution is a silly game only economists play. Problem here is, in a nutshell, without ANY AGW there would still be a very high probability of collapse this century. Addressing AGW only is a waste of time for all involved. To the extent you do address resources, it is not in terms of scarcity and energy per capita, but in terms of economics. Scarcity isn’t on your radar, it seems, let alone Maunder’s Law of the Minimum, and about two dozen other issues one should/must consider.
In an abundant world where ONLY AGW were an issue, you might have written something germane. As it is, and I mean no disrespect, that isn’t even in the ballpark. Ah, well, perhaps fairer to say it might be the top half of the first inning.
Cheers
“Wow–climate change requires us to be not only ecological, but logical.”
If you haven’t heard Bertrand Piccard on clean GDP, or don’t get what the flight of the Solar Impulse is about, this 4-minute video from Piccard,
in Tulsa, to the UN Climate Change Conference in Bonn (16-26 May) is good:
http://blog.solarimpulse.com/post/144603716435/bertrand-piccard-bonn-unfccc-climate-change-conference2
(Or if you just want to sniff the no-fuel smell.)
It is looking unlikely that the 2015/16 El Nino will be any longer-lived than the 1997/98 El Nino was.
The predictions for NINO3.4 for May show an earlier end to the El Nino than the April predictions did (which themselves were a little earlier than March’s). NINO3.4 for last week was down to 0.6ºC (back in 1998 it was at that point 0.9ºC with 3 weeks to go before turning negative) and the SOI 30-day averages have so far failed to extend out below the 1997/98 values as they rise back into a positive La Nina state. MEI for Mar/Apr did get up above 2 again (2.07) but it remains below the 1998 equivalent (2.685).
278 Killian says: You’re way too kind, overly respectful and too nice a person for this forum.
#273, Karsten–I have to demur, somewhat. First, the ‘limit’ per Paris is still 2 C, not 1.5 C (though if you were to reply that that’s still more ‘unrealistic’, I’d have to be sympathetic to your point.) The 1.5 C is not a ‘limit’ but an aspiration. Second, many Paris participants know full well that agreed INDCs are not sufficient to reach even the 2 C goal, let alone 1.5. That’s why a ratcheting up of ambition is built in–or perhaps I should say, a process for future ratcheting up of ambition is built in. In that sense, I’d disagree that it has been ‘surpassed.’
https://www.climateinteractive.org/blog/paris-and-the-art-of-the-possible/
So Paris has to be viewed as a milestone, not a destination. And it’s incumbent on everyone to do what they can to make sure that the agreement is 1) acted upon by signatories, and 2) strengthened in terms of mitigatory ambition via the review process that is built in.
TTIP TPP
The TPP would take away the sovereignty of the US government, creating a world government in its place. The world government would be run by international corporations. In other words, COP21 is a dead letter and Obama’s EPA rule is repealed.
If you want your blog to be worth anything, you have to stop the TPP and the TTIP and you have to get the previous trade deals revoked.
“The Trans-Pacific Partnership and the Death of the Republic”
http://www.commondreams.org/views/2015/04/24/trans-pacific-partnership-and-death-republic
“The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government.” —Article IV, Section 4, US Constitution
A republican form of government is one in which power resides in elected officials representing the citizens, and government leaders exercise power according to the rule of law. In The Federalist Papers, James Madison defined a republic as “a government which derives all its powers directly or indirectly from the great body of the people . . . .”
On April 22, 2015, the Senate Finance Committee approved a bill to fast-track the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), a massive trade agreement that would override our republican form of government and hand judicial and legislative authority to a foreign three-person panel of corporate lawyers.
The secretive TPP is an agreement with Mexico, Canada, Japan, Singapore and seven other countries that affects 40% of global markets. Fast-track authority could now go to the full Senate for a vote as early as next week. Fast-track means Congress will be prohibited from amending the trade deal, which will be put to a simple up or down majority vote. Negotiating the TPP in secret and fast-tracking it through Congress is considered necessary to secure its passage, since if the public had time to review its onerous provisions, opposition would mount and defeat it.
Abdicating the Judicial Function to Corporate Lawyers
James Madison wrote in The Federalist Papers:
The accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive, and judiciary, in the same hands, . . . may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny. . . . “Were the power of judging joined with the legislative, the life and liberty of the subject would be exposed to arbitrary control, for the judge would then be the legislator. . . .”
And that, from what we now know of the TPP’s secret provisions, will be its dire effect.
The most controversial provision of the TPP is the Investor-State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) section, which strengthens existing ISDS procedures. ISDS first appeared in a bilateral trade agreement in 1959. According to The Economist, ISDS gives foreign firms a special right to apply to a secretive tribunal of highly paid corporate lawyers for compensation whenever the government passes a law to do things that hurt corporate profits — such things as discouraging smoking, protecting the environment or preventing a nuclear catastrophe.
Arbitrators are paid $600-700 an hour, giving them little incentive to dismiss cases; and the secretive nature of the arbitration process and the lack of any requirement to consider precedent gives wide scope for creative judgments.
To date, the highest ISDS award has been for $2.3 billion to Occidental Oil Company against the government of Ecuador over its termination of an oil-concession contract, this although the termination was apparently legal. Still in arbitration is a demand by Vattenfall, a Swedish utility that operates two nuclear plants in Germany, for compensation of €3.7 billion ($4.7 billion) under the ISDS clause of a treaty on energy investments, after the German government decided to shut down its nuclear power industry following the Fukushima disaster in Japan in 2011.
Under the TPP, however, even larger judgments can be anticipated, since the sort of “investment” it protects includes not just “the commitment of capital or other resources” but “the expectation of gain or profit.” That means the rights of corporations in other countries extend not just to their factories and other “capital” but to the profits they expect to receive there.
In an article posted by Yves Smith, Joe Firestone poses some interesting hypotheticals:
Under the TPP, could the US government be sued and be held liable if it decided to stop issuing Treasury debt and financed deficit spending in some other way (perhaps by quantitative easing or by issuing trillion dollar coins)? Why not, since some private companies would lose profits as a result?
Under the TPP or the TTIP (the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership under negotiation with the European Union), would the Federal Reserve be sued if it failed to bail out banks that were too big to fail?
Firestone notes that under the Netherlands-Czech trade agreement, the Czech Republic was sued in an investor-state dispute for failing to bail out an insolvent bank in which the complainant had an interest. The investor company was awarded $236 million in the dispute settlement. What might the damages be, asks Firestone, if the Fed decided to let the Bank of America fail, and a Saudi-based investment company decided to sue?
Abdicating the Legislative Function to Multinational Corporations
Just the threat of this sort of massive damage award could be enough to block prospective legislation. But the TPP goes further and takes on the legislative function directly, by forbidding specific forms of regulation.
Public Citizen observes that the TPP would provide big banks with a backdoor means of watering down efforts to re-regulate Wall Street, after deregulation triggered the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression:
The TPP would forbid countries from banning particularly risky financial products, such as the toxic derivatives that led to the $183 billion government bailout of AIG. It would prohibit policies to prevent banks from becoming “too big to fail,” and threaten the use of “firewalls” to prevent banks that keep our savings accounts from taking hedge-fund-style bets.
The TPP would also restrict capital controls, an essential policy tool to counter destabilizing flows of speculative money. . . . And the deal would prohibit taxes on Wall Street speculation, such as the proposed Robin Hood Tax that would generate billions of dollars’ worth of revenue for social, health, or environmental causes.
Clauses on dispute settlement in earlier free trade agreements have been invoked to challenge efforts to regulate big business. The fossil fuel industry is seeking to overturn Quebec’s ban on the ecologically destructive practice of fracking. Veolia, the French behemoth known for building a tram network to serve Israeli settlements in occupied East Jerusalem, is contesting increases in Egypt’s minimum wage. The tobacco maker Philip Morris is suing against anti-smoking initiatives in Uruguay and Australia.
The TPP would empower not just foreign manufacturers but foreign financial firms to attack financial policies in foreign tribunals, demanding taxpayer compensation for regulations that they claim frustrate their expectations and inhibit their profits.
Preempting Government Sovereignty
What is the justification for this encroachment on the sovereign rights of government? Allegedly, ISDS is necessary in order to increase foreign investment. But as noted in The Economist, investors can protect themselves by purchasing political-risk insurance. Moreover, Brazil continues to receive sizable foreign investment despite its long-standing refusal to sign any treaty with an ISDS mechanism. Other countries are beginning to follow Brazil’s lead.
In an April 22nd report from the Center for Economic and Policy Research, gains from multilateral trade liberalization were shown to be very small, equal to only about 0.014% of consumption, or about $.43 per person per month. And that assumes that any benefits are distributed uniformly across the economic spectrum. In fact, transnational corporations get the bulk of the benefits, at the expense of most of the world’s population.
Something else besides attracting investment money and encouraging foreign trade seems to be going on. The TPP would destroy our republican form of government under the rule of law, by elevating the rights of investors – also called the rights of “capital” – above the rights of the citizens.
That means that TPP is blatantly unconstitutional. But as Joe Firestone observes, neo-liberalism and corporate contributions seem to have blinded the deal’s proponents so much that they cannot see they are selling out the sovereignty of the United States to foreign and multinational corporations.
For more information and to get involved, visit:
Flush the TPP [http://www.flushthetpp.org]
The Citizens Trade Campaign [http://www.citizenstrade.org/ctc/]
Public Citizen’s Global Trade Watch [http://www.citizen.org/tradewatch]
Eyes on Trade [http://citizen.typepad.com/eyesontrade/]
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License”
> Killian … Maunder’s Law of the Minimum
That’s the one about economists experiencing great depression during times when there are no sunspots, right?
It’s pretty melty up in the Arctic this Spring. The good news for Arctic sea ice is that the JAXA Sea Ice Extent data (unaffected by the loss of the F-17 satellite data since mid-April) has been showing the anomaly (2003-2015) has stopped dropping off the chart and has been holding steady for the last 6 days at roughly -970,000 sq km. Tamino has a post graphing the year-on-year anomalies at that point 6 days ago when the drop was about to end.
As Tamino’s graph shows, this is the time of year when Arctic Sea Ice Extent numbers are usually tightly bunched so the anomaly represents a whopping 4½ standard deviations from the 2003-15 mean.
Interesting times!
My CO2 down to 422. Paris ? No, El Nino is fading. Very dry, no rain for weeks, there is 494ha fire 6km North of me. Good they’re predicting La Nina with a negative IOD by September, which were both last seen together in 2010 and flooded Brisbane. Better get busy if I want to catch any. And I had better hurry, cause the Arctic Ice is taking another serious dive and that could . . .
Okay, I think I’ve sussed it. The problem is to go from column density in kg m^-2 to cm-atm.
First we go from the SI to cgs. If you have 1 kg m^-2 of CO2, that is 1000 g m^-2 of CO2 or 0.1 g cm^-2.
Next, go to number of molecules per cm^2. Divide by the molecular weight:
0.1 / 44.0098 => 0.00227222
That gives you the number of moles. Multiply by Avogadro’s number, NA = 6.0221409e+23 in cgs units.
0.00227222 x NA => 1.36836 x 10^21 molecules cm^-2
Now divide by Loschmidt’s number, 2.6867774e^19 cgs:
To find this is 50.9295 cm-atm
So the recipe is
u(cm-atm) = 0.1 u(SI) NA / (μ L0)
279 patrick: Thanks for all the updates and promoting what could be a game changer in people’s minds. Bertrand Piccard is clearly a man who has not lost his marbles. An excellent short video! re: “Wow–climate change requires us to be not only ecological, but logical.” Meanwhile far too many believe solutions will be found by endless insults and arguing about anything and anyone. Using logic and reason will be the primary basis for any solution, eventually.
I’m with Christiana Figueres” “Impossible is not a fact, it is an attitude.”
283 Edward Greisch: the TPP TTIP – Yes! You just summarized the nature of the beast … vested interests. One day the “consent of the governed”, all 7 billion on Earth, will wake up and realize that the Atmosphere, the Arctic and Antarctic, and the Oceans are a “Common-Wealth” asset owned by all in perpetuity that comes with Legal Rights that override every trade deal, every corporation, and every government of the day.
Updated: Regulating Fossil Fuels and GHG emissions out of existence https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B-M0yAR0UPhPdlpES3NpVTVZS1E
eg page 7
2) Industry Disruption will drive Mergers, Acquisitions, Diversification and Innovation
The imposition of this kind of Regulation would drive a period of disruption in the Industry. It would demand significant Mergers and Acquisitions similar to what has occurred previously in the Media and Newspaper and IT industries. This is not necessarily a bad thing long term. The initial effect of this kind of Regulation would be to force predominant Fossil Fuel Electricity Producers to diversify their supply portfolios.
In the short term it would affect smaller mid-sized fossil fuel based companies in Electricity Production the greatest. Take a company that only operated Gas Fired Power Plants. It would mean their annual Electricity Production Mix was starting at 100%. Such companies would be forced to either exit the industry by selling out or to merge with other Electricity Production Companies so that the total output from their gas-fired plants were under the 40% maximum limit for the new company entity.
Similar to the AEP example, they could merge with an existing Nuclear Power plant company, a hydro-electricity company, a renewable energy company or an already diverse Corporation like AEP whose gas-fired output was only 22% at the start of the new Regulation. The alternatives are of course quite broad and it is important to realize that it is the Companies who will decide what their response will be without any coercion or interference.
There are no specific directions coming from Government on how Business chooses to diversify nor any requirement that they remain in the industry over the long term. There are no ‘price controls’, no imposition of special taxes, no attempt by the Govt or public service to choose ‘winners’, nor any manipulation of market forces by these regulations either. This in itself is a good thing because it opens up a range multiple solutions and options for all existing companies within the market, as well as potentially encouraging new Corporate entrants with solid financial backing and resources into the Industry.
Did you know, that the ff fools resp. the industrial-military complex used fossil fuels willingly, knowingly to control the global climate, to warm up the planet, while at the same time financing denier campagnes, politicians, scientists ect, to spread doubt and denial about anthropogenic climate change? And they did everything, to prevent any alternatives. Internal documents and scientific papers prove it:
https://www.smokeandfumes.org/
THIS is a nightmare. If I had descendants, I would rage. They made 7 billion people part of a global climate experiment, willingly, knowingly.
Addendum to my last comment:
” 19.5.2016 – 100+ New Documents Highlight How Oil Industry Studied Climate and Delayed Solutions
Washington, DC – Today, the Center for International Environmental Law (CIEL) launched a searchable database of more than 100 documents that brings to light new information on how the oil industry responded – and failed to respond – in the face of climate change.
“We now know that the oil industry was engaged in climate science by the 1950s and on notice of climate risks by the 1960s. The question arises: What did they do with that information?” said CIEL President Carroll Muffett. “Our research suggests the oil companies invested more in explaining away climate risks than in confronting them.”
Key Findings
Even as its understanding of climate risks increased, the oil industry funded research into: other pollutants that would offset warming; potential carbon sinks that would reduce the need to control emissions; and alternate theories of climate change that continue to be used by climate deniers.
Patent filings demonstrate that the industry had the technology to reduce carbon dioxide emissions as early as the 1970s. Exxon held patents for fuel cells and other clean transport technologies even as they opposed government research funding for electric cars. Exxon and other oil companies patented technologies to cut CO2 emissions from gas streams in half, but decided they were too expensive.
At the same time, oil companies invested in taller oil rigs that could withstand rising sea levels caused by climate change. And they patented offshore drilling rigs and ice-breaking tankers designed for oil-rich and rapidly changing Arctic environments.
Beyond simply understanding climate, Exxon and other oil companies sought ways to control it. Industry-promoted studies argued that petroleum products could help control the climate: burning oil on the ground to clear away fog or blow away smog; coating large areas of the earth in asphalt to change rainfall patterns; or using oil slicks on the sea surface or carbon dust sprayed from aircraft to shift or weaken hurricanes.
Critical Questions
During the 1960s, proponents of weather modification actively discussed the prospect of using carbon dust, ice clouds, or other methods to permanently melt the Arctic sea ice. In light of its Arctic interests and its investment in weather modification, did the oil industry’s research include such an agenda?
After opposing early government research funding for electric vehicles, what steps did the industry take to develop and commercialize its own patents?
Increasing linkages in research
Together with the new findings, CIEL is launching an interactive database that makes the documents more accessible to researchers, allowing users to quickly identify critical connections between companies, research institutes, and key individuals.
“This database puts documents into the hands of scholars, legal advocates, and the public,” said. “We expect this access to spur broader inquiry that will result in additional findings and connections.”
Today’s release is the second in a continuing series of releases based on active and ongoing research. CIEL plans to make additional documents them available to the public and other researchers in the weeks ahead.”
To view our research and document excerpts visit: http://www.SmokeAndFumes.org
Victor:
This of course demonstrates the shortcoming with saying:
which glosses over the fact that global warming is ongoing and even if you think the warming we’ve had so far is “relatively small” then sooner or later it’s going to be “relatively big” and you are completely ignoring that issue.
Considering it is now looking very strongly like climate change is going to be a disaster(to sane people) I was wondering if anyone had any ideas as to what they thought were some winning strategies….
Andrew Clark @293 — Here is a proposal to be taken seriously:
Irrigated afforestation of the Sahara and Australian Outback to end global warming
http://www.springerlink.com/content/55436u2122u77525/
where a large eucalyptus is suggested. When mature, convert to biochar
http://www.biochar-international.org/biochar
@293 – I was thinking that electing Donald Trump would be a good solution. (8-/)
#277 – Victor
Looks like the world just passed a “tipping point” and the rise since 1880 is now 1.2’C or 2.2’F
Thomas, that you think you were insulted is the problem. Since you don’t understand the problems clearly and, thus, logically, cannot understand the solutions, you prefer to hypocritically insult.
Problem? You weren’t insulted. You were corrected. FYI, I apparently have an INTP personality. We don’t bother with insults. They bore us. We like facts and logic. You’re looking at the wrong ones, coming to the wrong conclusions.
Unfortunate your feeling were hurt. Listen or don’t. Up to you. For the record, though, if you can look back through these fora to 1995 or so and find anything I’ve been materially off-base about, well, good luck to you. Consider that before whining about an honest, straightforward, dispassionate response in the future.
After all, I may well have called new record low ASI…. back in August (fascinated to see if La Nina/weather patterns, e.g., low ice transport via Fram can overcome allthe heat in the system). Just sharing info, dude. Not out to get you. Don’t know you. Wouldn’t care if I did. Truth matters more than your ego or anyone else’s, including mine.
You come from business. That colors your “logic.” You need to understand that.
@ 294 Benson
please consider the very first post above:
and about the Sahara
Its surface area of 9,400,000 square kilometres
is comparable to the respective land areas of China or the United States, and considerably larger than Brazil or the continent of Australia
Most of the Sahara consists of rocky hamada; ergs (large areas covered with sand dunes) form only a minor part.
That proportion is about 80% to 20%, so there are less than 2m square kilometres to irrigate.
How big are the chances of that irrigated 20% area to withstand or overcome the local climate trend supposed to be?
(p.s.: I`ve read the abstract, but didn`t watch the movies.)
forgot to mention:
Just cover the inarable 80% of the Sahara with white asphalt. =:)
297 Killian says: Since you don’t understand the problems clearly and, thus, logically, cannot understand the solutions and We like facts and logic and you can look back through these fora to 1995 or so and find anything I’ve been materially off-base about, well, good luck to you. Consider that before whining about an honest, straightforward, dispassionate response in the future.” and “You come from business. That colors your “logic.” You need to understand that.”
Oh really? How nice. I still hold to the fact that one cannot tell another things they do not want to know. And so it is.
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/hubris
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/crossexamined/2015/02/the-dunning-kruger-effect-are-the-stupid-too-stupid-to-realize-theyre-stupid/