This month’s open thread for climate science discussions. Remember discussion about climate solutions can be found here.
Reader Interactions
206 Responses to "Unforced Variations: June 2019"
mikesays
Going to be a banner year for snowmelt on Greenland. That’s pretty exciting.
Jason Box, an ice climatologist at the Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland, predicted in late May that “2019 will be a big melt year for Greenland.”
Box pointed out that this year had unusually early season melt days in April, and the melt season was “happening about three weeks earlier than average, and earlier than the record-setting melt year of 2012.”
Be sure to check out the skyrocket graph of Greenland Surface Melt Extent. Too bad the graph won’t cut and paste. It is vertical, baby!
Cheers
Mike
Fred Magyarsays
zebra @ 50 says:
So, again, no, the fact that some permafrost melts is not evidence of a tipping point.
That much is correct! I’m not sure that anyone would try to argue otherwise. The only thing the melting of the permafrost at a particular geographic location might be evidence of, is that its temperature has gone above 0 °C.
Such an occurence may or may not constitute a tipping point in a system.
To understand if a tipping point (or shift) can occur, has occurred or will occur in a system, you need to apply the mathematics of Chaos theory.
The nature of nonlinearity
To understand the scientific basis of abrupt climate change we must return to the architect of the butterfly effect: Edward Lorenz. Upon publishing “Deterministic Nonperiodic Flow,” he inadvertently became one of the early pioneers of what is today known as “Complexity Theory;” a theory rooted in understanding nonlinear “complex dynamical systems” such as the Earth’s climate (Lewin 1999). Popularized in public discourse as “Chaos Theory” by James Gleick in 1988, Complexity Theory describes such systems as complex “emergent global structures,” which arise from numerous simple interactions between the systems component parts.
Complex systems will often display “attractors,” which are particular stable states to which they are drawn. If these systems are perturbed sufficiently, they may be knocked into alternate “stable states.” Described by mathematicians as “strange attractors,” these alternate states display internal dynamics that are qualitatively different from those of the previous state (Gleick 1988). The critical threshold at which a system will inescapably fall into one of these strange attractors is called the bifurcation point, or, as it is now often popularly referred to in climate change discourses, the “tipping point”
Not to be confused with feedback loops! Which are part of a separate dissertation but can be initiated when a tipping point is passed.
AB: No. No. No. Passing from 299 to 300ppm was a landmark that didn’t do anything significantly different than passing from 298 to 299ppm. Tell us why “300” matters, why if we had gone to 299 and then dropped we’d have been safer than if we had gone to 300 and then dropped.
Tipping points are like a light switch. You can push on the switch and it will not do anything to the light until you reach a specific, well-defined force. Until you reach that force you can stop pushing and the light will stay off. But if you reach that force the light comes on and then even if you not just stop pushing but push in the opposite direction the light will stay on until you push hard enough to flip the switch again.
Feedbacks are like power steering. You provide all the control. The power steering unit just makes it easier to turn the wheel. So you you+feedback your way all happy and merry until you you+feedback your way into a too-fast turn and a tipping-point occurs. :-)
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mike: Lots of quibbling about tipping points or feedbacks? skyrockets or verticality, acceleration or increase? CO2 or CH4 from permafrost melt? Much ado about nothing.
AB: I dunno. The folks involved in the discussion have been “into” this topic for many years. That many or most couldn’t pass a 9th grade test on tipping points is a serious revelation to me. It reinforces my belief that if you want to get folks’ attention white people must die (you can only get their attention by whacking them over the head). Is this site just entertainment? We’re going to be sitting on the couch watching the Arctic go blue anyway. And once that happens, folks will have been properly whacked so we’ll be able to start working on the problem. Melt, ice, melt. Go Big Blue!!
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mike: How deep is the shit? I don’t know. Kinda deep, I think.
AB: what’s da prob?? Shit, like CO2, is plant food! :-)
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Nigel: Nordhaus is the black sheep who appears to not think beyond numbers and data to the real world.
AB: that makes him perfect. Lets give him the Nobel Prize and ensure that the planet heads down the “proper” path. Oops, already done, eh?
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“A large carbon outgassing event could really whack the climate system if it happened multiple years in a row.”
Killian: Well, what the heck does *that* mean, “whack?”
AB: To hit the climate system suddenly and with enough force to cause a paradigm change…. A TIPPING POINT!! (And I’m amazed that “whack” just showed up twice. Must be a sign.)
Killiansays
Re #92 mike said CO2, you might ask? How are we doing?
June 13, 2019: 414.72 ppm
June 13, 2018: 410.80 ppm
3.92 ppm increase yoy in noisy, daily number. Vertical number, as Popular Science has described the CO2 trajectory.
Not a surprise to me because I’ve been watching the KC and it’s not falling as quickly as usual. The difference in the angle of the curve is noticeable, but so are the numbers. Still in the high 414’s.
One wonders why.
EN’s do serve to “goose” the climate, so is it possible even mild ENs are going to have larger effects? I.e., as the ecosystem fails, does it become more sensitive to forcings? Makes sense it would, intuitively, but not sure if the physics would support that.
Al Bundysays
Nigel: Of course if arctic amplification was to accelerate beyond current trends and predictions then the permafrost would melt sooner than we think, but I’m inclined to think Zebra is right in principle this doesn’t make it worse unless of course its much, much sooner.
AB: Yep, “unless”. Long ago I guestimated that arctic sea ice would hit whatever the measurement is that signifies blue ocean (1 million km2?) in 2025, and more recently (but still a while ago) I was exposed to the idea that sea ice melt is such a hard tipping point (because water vapor is a grand GHG) that it would be difficult to get the ocean to freeze again even in winter. My visualization is that once a blue ocean is reached the next year would freeze weakly. It might take a decade (or more) to complete the transition but my take is that we’ll get 200+ days of blue ocean per year way before 5C. Perhaps the authors’ 5C was based on a blue Arctic Ocean. Were they talking a local 5C?
Note that blue ocean in September is mostly a shiny object. The real deal is spring melt. June and July dominate energy input. Who cares what happens in September? Everybody cuz we’re human and not AI. It’s a flaw in our design. See figure 6i-3 in http://www.physicalgeography.net/fundamentals/6i.html
zebrasays
#93 John Kelly,
A well written, coherent synopsis, but that 50 year figure needs to be examined.
There will not be global “decarbonization” in 50 years, if by that you mean that we will completely eliminate emissions. I’ve offered my projection to Kevin in the past, which is that the best-(realistic)-case scenario is more like 150, to achieve a minimal level of ouput.
This is why I have also suggested that treating the population curve as equally worthy of attention… if the goal is to reduce future harm, bending the curve obviously does that, and it also has a synergistic effect on the energy transition, and on natural mitigation. (If you have a world population even half of the 10 billion predicted, you reduce the incentive to find more oil, for example, and you end up with a lot more trees and grasslands, and so on.)
But as I recently said to Kevin, we have to put aside ideological and “moral” fantasies. Spreading prosperity, as you correctly propose, requires capital investment. So does the energy transition. And that means neoliberal, globalist, free-market capitalism. It means finance people will still get obscenely rich, and there will be CEO’s of solar panel companies (rather than oil companies) who get payed 300 times what the workers get, and so on. The choice is between clean, efficient energy and dirty, profligate energy… but the system, however distasteful, remains the same.
There will not be “simplicity”.
Note: I’m happy to explain what I mean by “neoliberal” and “free market” if anyone wants to object to those concepts. Not interested in a definition debate.
zebrasays
#96 Fred Magyar,
Fred, what Al Bundy said at #55 is correct. If you disagree, please explain why.
Nemesissays
It’s funny how people always talk about population curves, but never about equal global distribution of goods and socio economic justice. It’s as funny as the complete system. So what, the system is rotten anyway. Just walk on, walk on.
Al Bundysays
mike: Going to be a banner year for snowmelt on Greenland. That’s pretty exciting.
AB: Only if you cherish temporary banners. Greenland is a grand example of tipping points. Greenland is a relic. It only exists because it exists. The key is that temps increase as elevation decreases. So once Greenland started to melt it was unlikely that Greenland’s ice would survive because melting lowers the ice surface’s elevation, and so increases the ice surface’s temperature. Oops. (though not if you cherish the changing of goals from helping humanity to accumulating the most zeros in a financial computer’s memory)
zebrasays
#105 Al Bundy,
The problem with your blue arctic argument is that we should be able to create a model that predicts it… “it” meaning rapid loss of winter ice, but I haven’t seen that. If there is one, I would appreciate a reference.
Here’s the exercise:
1. Assume that you can build a “wall” that isolates the arctic from the world oceans and atmosphere, but is transparent to radiation.
2. Now, increase the CO2.
3. Will there be a tipping point, as you described correctly earlier, where insolation causes enough energy to accumulate in the ocean such that the system state changes from yearly freeze/melt cycles to permanent liquid?
I don’t know if/when that would happen; and I leave it to those with the knowledge and big computers to figure it out. But I do know what I can observe about the yearly cycles from the Charctic graph, and the rate at which the winter extent is diminishing, and I see nothing magical about crossing that million sq km line.
And this brings us back to the point I’ve made before… #1 is not the case, so ice-free winter could well result from advection of energy from the (much larger) rest of the planet.
And that brings us back to the “defining ‘tipping point'” issue. If we do it according to my 1,2,3, then it definitely qualifies. But, in the real world, I don’t know whether it would be appropriate to use that label.
Al Bundysays
Nemesis: It’s funny how people always talk about
AB: Stuff that just so happens to enrich themselves.
I’m wondering if even 1% of humanity understands Jesus’, MLK’s, and Gandhi’s teachings.
Al Bundysays
zebra: It means finance people will still get obscenely rich,
AB; You’re right and I hate you for it (but I take solace in that you feel the same)
zebrasays
Incorrect Thread,
That “Unforced Variations vs Forced Responses” title for the guest post was quite clever.
Unfortunately, I for one let myself get confused after clicking on the wrong “recent comments” too many times and have been talking mitigation here on UV.
Apologies, and I hope people will jump over to FR to continue discussing this stuff.
Nemesissays
@Al Bundy, 111
” Nemesis: It’s funny how people always talk about
AB: Stuff that just so happens to enrich themselves.”
Yeah, capitalism is not about reasonable sharing and preserving the planet, it’s all about hoarding funny money and material shit, it’s a complete egoistic economic system. And therefore the climate and eco discussion is not just boring, but completely futile, gnahaha.
…”laying back, enjoying the final show of capitalist Empire”
Fred Magyarsays
zebra @ 107 says:
Fred, what Al Bundy said at #55 is correct. If you disagree, please explain why.
I do disagree. It has to do with mathematical definitions and concepts such as stable states, unstable states, attractors and bifurcation points. To explain precisely why, I would need to be able to post graphs and write differential equations, neither of which I know how to do on this site.
The best I can do is refer you back to the link I posted to that introductory level paper on Chaos: The Mathematics Behind the Butterfly Effect. I think anyone who has taken basic college level calculus should be easily able to follow it.
I’m afraid I will have to leave it at that for now.
Nemesissays
@nigelj, #98
” Interesting about Arrhenius …”
Well, it’s one of the most interesting facts I found during more than 30 years of climate- and geoengineering research, haha. And it’s not the only fact I found. In fact, the global climate crisis and geo- resp climate engineering always went hand in hand, hahaha. Arrhenius book title “Worlds in the making” were meant LITERALLY. Here’s a brief historic overview of that shit:
” In fact I read a study that suggested humanity will cancel the next ice age on CO2 levels consistent with 2 degrees of warming or less!”
Yes, I know that study.
” Regarding paleo evidence saying there was 5 degrees of warming for CO2 concentrations at today’s levels. If we stopped emissions tomorrow more warming would happen but at a slow pace and will terminate. If we go on adding CO2 it wont be too slow. But MAR says this paleo evidence conflicts with climate sensitivity so perhaps something else caused high temperatures in the past at those levels of CO2, but what would that be?”
The CO2 increase in the Mid-Miocene Climate Optimum (MMCO) was caused by vulcanic eruptions:
” The CO2 that triggered the MMCO was emitted by the spectacular eruptions of the Columbia River Basalts across a large area of western America. These eruptions were of a scale that dwarfs any in recorded history, and any in the last 16 million years. In the most intense phase, more than 150,000 cubic kilometers (36,000 cubic miles) of lava gushed over a large part of western America in roughly 300,000 years (some have suggested as little as 10,000 years, a timescale that is in the ballpark of that suggested by Ann Holbourn). In many of the hundreds of individual eruptions, lava vomited from the bowels of the earth in mile-high (1.5km) fountains before deluging 500km (300 miles) of landscape in months, to a depth of 100 meters (300 feet), while ash and fumes mushroomed as high as the stratosphere. ”
In case we’re lulled into complacency by the relatively benign effects of the MMCO, we should remember:
Because greenhouse forcing is a log function of CO2 concentration, the Miocene increase in radiative forcing was much smaller than the increase since the industrial era to today, let alone levels projected by the end of the century. The Miocene increase from 400 to 500 ppm is a radiative forcing increase of about 1.2Wm-2, which is much less than the modern jump from 280ppm to 400ppm today, already a radiative forcing increase of 1.9Wm-2 (it’s really 2.9Wm-2 including other greenhouse gasses) let alone 6.0 Wm-2 for the IPCC’s RCP6.0 scenario (CO2 670 ppm), and 8.5 Wm-2 for the IPCC’s RCP8.5 business-as-usual scenario (CO2 936 ppm) by the year 2100 (figures from IPCC AR5).
Animals of the Miocene had no cities, no agriculture, no power stations, factories, roads or rail networks. They could migrate and spread as their environment altered on a pace very slow compared to their reproduction rate.
The Miocene saw reforestation of arid lands which may have mitigated some of the CO2 rise and warming, whereas we have been deforesting the planet for millennia, removing an important carbon sink that was available to the Miocene but not to us.
Our oceans are currently acidifying much faster than in the Miocene or any time in the last 60 million years – a sign of how much more rapid and how far out of equilibrium with short term carbon sinks our modern climate system is.
The MMCO global warming took place over many millennia, giving life time to adapt and migrate. Our warming is at least a thousand times faster, a rate that, if left unchecked, could well result in a climate that more resembles the end-Cretaceous or end-Permian disasters, rather than the relatively gentle MMCO.”
About sensitivity in the Mid-Miocene Climate Optimum compared to nowadays:
” With modern climate change we already see significant Miocene-like amplifying of warming in the Arctic (see the figure above). Miocene sensitivity to CO2 may not have been exactly the same as the sensitivity today because the Isthmus of Panama was not yet closed, currents between the Pacific and the Indian Oceans were different, there was substantially less ice, and land cover had no buildings or agriculture (to mention a few differences). Moreover, as as outlined above, models suggest even the cloud distribution was different. For these reasons some have suggested that the steady-state cooling late Miocene was 0.5-0.8°C more sensitive to CO2 than today. Even allowing for that, the fact that models need a sensitivity of 4°C per CO2 doubling to recreate Mid-Miocene warmth suggests that the modern value is more likely towards the upper end of the IPCC range of 1.5-4.5°C than the lower end…
But those sensitivity values are for a climate in equilibrium, whereas the MMCO onset, like today, was not in equilibrium…”
After all, the scenario in the MMCO fits quite well to the scenario of today, except we are at least a thousand times faster than during the MMCO :)
Nemesissays
@nigelj
About climate sensitivity in relation to the palaoclimate, the press conference from 2011 AGU Fall Meeting includes some quite valuable informations about that.
Participants: James Hansen, Ken Caldera and Eelco Rohling:
zebra: I see nothing magical about crossing that million sq km line.
AB: Neither do I. That ‘crossing” is a landmark, not a tipping point. To a certain extent tipping points can be invisible. Perhaps we’ve crossed a point of hard-to-return or two already. How would we know?
Al Bundysays
zebra: Spreading prosperity, as you correctly propose, requires capital investment. So does the energy transition. And that means neoliberal, globalist, free-market capitalism.
AB: That’s the dumbest thing you’ve ever posted. Laborism will destroy capitalism. Your assumption that the second-worst economic system is the be-all and end-all (or at least “the winner”)… well, it shows “giving upism”.
nigeljsays
Al Bundy @105, the 5 degree tipping point was not for the arctic, it was for permafrost. I did say permafrost.
The tipping point for the arctic is anywhere from 1-3 degrees, according to the study. So your guesstimate of 2025 for a blue arctic is at least well in this ballpark. I would say we are still seeing a lot of weather related stuff in the arctic right now, due itself to climate change, but still weather so dont read a climate trend into it, so I would say an ice free arctic is still about 20 years away along the lines of what the IPCC think, but that doesn’t make it better.
I’m also not sure a blue arctic will convince the denialistia. They will go so what? More minerals to mine. What might get their attention is another really hot year like 2015, or a jump in the rate of sea level rise, and more forest fires. These seem harder to rationalise away, and can have very direct consequences on communities.
I think you are right a tipping point is fundamentally a paradigm change.
nigeljsays
“Spreading prosperity, as you correctly propose, requires capital investment. So does the energy transition. And that means neoliberal, globalist, free-market capitalism. It means finance people will still get obscenely rich, and there will be CEO’s of solar panel companies (rather than oil companies) who get payed 300 times what the workers get, and so on.”
Fair comments to the extent that some sort of globalist free market capitalism makes sense, but there are many alternative possibilities within a general free market paradigm. Economic ideologies come and go although I hope things dont swing back to protectionist nationalism.
nigeljsays
Nemesis @116, thanks for the link on the history of attempts at geoengineering weather and climate, a pretty interesting things. Your concern appears to be we are trying to play god, and it will go horribly wrong, and that capitalism’s avaricious nature pushes us to do all this.
Weather is not climate. I don’t see a problem with efforts to seed clouds and fix droughts, and is fairly localised in impact, so it’s hard for me to see evil intent in this, its just people trying to save people. Its really hard for humans not to have a significant footprint on the natural world, unless we all become hunter gatherers again. And yes attempts have been made to weaponise the weather sadly to say, but that is due to international rivalries, not capitalism as such. People have been fighting for a long time, before capitalism was invented.
Once we try to geoengineering climate we are obviously entering a new level of ambition, something much more risky because of the scale of effects, the risky side effects and possible difficulty reversing what we do. And I concede capitalism plays a part in motivating this. Humans are playing god. Whats scary is one single country could do it just by launching sulphate particles into the stratosphere with aircraft, and what do we do then if we didn’t like what they do? Anyway the bottom line is I don’t want to see things come to using geoengineering.
Yes the MMCO was caused by massive volcanic eruptions. I think the point MAR is making is that its hard to reconcile the claim made of 5 degrees of warming in the distant past at ‘todays’ CO2 levels with the current science which tells us this can’t happen. So either the science is wrong, the evidence on past warming is wrong, or something additional to CO2 contributed to the past warming. Does anyone know?
Nemesissays
@zebra
” Spreading prosperity, as you correctly propose, requires capital investment. So does the energy transition. And that means neoliberal, globalist, free-market capitalism.”
Thanks for showing your real face. It’s all in these three neat little sentences, the complete bible of doom, reps AND dems beautifully hand in hand :)) And good luck with “prosperity”, the “energy transition” and all, harr harr 38=> Don’t forget to tell Greta Thunberg et al, tell that mantra the children of the world, they’ll love it (I’m fuckin happy to have seen through that game very early and therefore decided NOT to procreate). As I said repeatedly:
The discussion is futile as the proponents of money and funny “power” made their decision a long time ago, alea lacta est.
zebrasays
Al Bundy,
“how would we know?”
By doing the math, Al, exactly as I suggested.
That’s the point I’ve been trying to make all along. Either you can observe a new system state physically, or you can observe/predict it in a model.
What you don’t do in real physics is say “maybe we passed… oooh, a Tipping Point!”, or “we could pass… oooh, a Tipping Point!”, just because it fits the OMG rhetorical paradigm.
Nemesissays
@nigelj, #124
” Your concern appears to be we are trying to play god, and it will go horribly wrong, and that capitalism’s avaricious nature pushes us to do all this.”
Who do you mean by “we”? I don’t even try to play funny gawd, most people on planet earth don’t even try to play gawd, most people just can not afford to play funny gawd. You know, I give a fuck about gawd and gawdlike powers altogether, I follow the harsh laws of Mother Nature from the cradle to the boneyard right down here on earth and folks who like to play gawd will follow sooner or later I bet.
” Weather is not climate.”
Oh, thanks a lot for the information. Remember, Svante Arrhenius was talking about CO2 resp the climate when he said in his sweet, gawdlike book “Worlds in the making”:
” We may find a kind of consolation in the consideration that here, as in every other case, there is good mixed with the evil. By the influence of the increasing percentage of carbonic acid in the atmosphere, we may hope to enjoy ages with more equable and better climates, especially as regards the colder regions of the earth, ages when the earth will bring forth much more abundant crops than at present, for the benefit of rapidly propagating mankind.”
– Svante Arrhenius, Worlds in the making
” I don’t see a problem with efforts to seed clouds and fix droughts, and is fairly localised in impact, so it’s hard for me to see evil intent in this, its just people trying to save people. Its really hard for humans not to have a significant footprint on the natural world, unless we all become hunter gatherers again. And yes attempts have been made to weaponise the weather sadly to say, but that is due to international rivalries, not capitalism as such. People have been fighting for a long time, before capitalism was invented.”
Wonderful. I seldomly heard about the ambitions of the socalled elite in such a clear and outright way 8) Thank you for speaking openly and straight, sums it all up, I like that, it spares me a lot of time. And sure: That’s not just capitalism, but it’s the socalled “elite”, a global minority who is playing gawd for real, as the vast majority on planet earth does not have such ambitions. JUST DO IT and enjoy the consequences. End of story for my part as a complete nobody (I won’t be asked if I like it or not anyway, hehe).
” Humans are playing god.”
The socalled “ELITE” is playing funny gawd, not the average Joe is playing funny gawd. I am not playing funny gawd.
” Whats scary is one single country could do it just by launching sulphate particles into the stratosphere with aircraft, and what do we do then if we didn’t like what they do?”
Hahaha, yeah, that’s exactly the way TPTB argue all the time:
“What if others act in evil ways? We just can’t let that happen, so we have to act in evil ways first.”
That’s the way TPTB act all the time. Hahaha, btw, it’s already happening, Solar Radiation Management aka Stratospheric Aerosol Injection is already happening for years. TPTB are playing with Fire and they will get burnt once and for all 38=>
” Yes the MMCO was caused by massive volcanic eruptions. I think the point MAR is making is that its hard to reconcile the claim made of 5 degrees of warming in the distant past at ‘todays’ CO2 levels with the current science which tells us this can’t happen.”
Oh, that’s fine^^ It can’t happen. So beautiful. It just can’t happen. And if something goes wrong, just follow plan B: ” How tech’s richest plan to save themselves after the apocalypse…” https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/jul/23/tech-industry-wealth-futurism-transhumanism-singularity Or maybe great funny gawd will come from the sky, take away everything and make everybody feel high? Harr harr. Well then after all:
I lay back and watch the funny rest of the show as I did my whole life. You can’t imagine how much I enjoy to be a complete nobody with no gawdlike powers, just a complete nobody having no wealth -> no power -> no responsibility for that shit. You trust in your Karma, they trust in their Karma while I surely trust in my Karma.
Thank you so much for the enlightening conversation, it’s all in it.
Lynnsays
In case no one has posted this yet, here is info on the most dangerous threat to life on planet earth:
Nemesis @127, maybe ‘we’ was a poor choice of words. Clearly some people like to play god you can call them the elite if you want, and they can be misguided.
The trouble is all societies have leaders, so what do you suggest we do about that? What is your workable alternative? I think there will always be an elite, and in an ideal world we have to somehow ensure the elite behaves better.
I think you are misinterpreting the rest, or just not reading it. I never said geoengineering the climate is a good idea, just that seeding the clouds to cause rain seems reasonable enough.
I did not say we should just let countries geoengineer the climate and copy them. But if one country does this its going to be hard to stop them. What would international bodies be able to do? In other words, we really need to mitigate climate change with renewable energy, and not let it get to that. I thought that was obvious…
You say ” Yes the MMCO was caused by massive volcanic eruptions. I think the point MAR is making is that its hard to reconcile the claim made of 5 degrees of warming in the distant past at ‘todays’ CO2 levels with the current science which tells us this can’t happen.”
You are quoting me out of context, andleft out the rest of what I said, distort what I said, and you have not answered my question….so you are just trolling….
You need to read what people say a lot more carefully and not jump to conclusions…A common problem with all of us me included sometimes.
Nemesissays
Did you know? Greta Thunberg is descendant of Svante Arrhenius. What would Svante Arrhenius, the Nobel price winner say, if he could see little Greta fighting for her future in a world where…:
” We often hear lamentations that the coal stored up in the earth is wasted by the present generation without any thought of the future, and we are terrified by the awful destruction of life and property which has followed the volcanic eruptions of our days. We may find a kind of consolation in the consideration that here, as in every other case, there is good mixed with the evil. By the influence of the increasing percentage of carbonic acid in the atmosphere, we may hope to enjoy ages with more equable and better climates, especially as regards the colder regions of the earth, ages when the earth will bring forth much more abundant crops than at present, for the benefit of rapidly propagating mankind.”
– Svante Arrhenius, Worlds in the making
Sure, “good mixed with the evil”… I just can’t see the “good” so far, except the “good” for the fossil fool industry.
Al Bundysays
Nigel: What might get their attention is another really hot year like 2015, or a jump in the rate of sea level rise, and more forest fires. These seem harder to rationalise away, and can have very direct consequences on communities.
AB: My guess is that a blue arctic ocean will cause all kinds of weather-related mischief, which hopefully will drive home the point that things are getting real.
Zebra, I wasn’t feeling OMGesque when I wrote that. My sole point was describing the difference between tipping points and feedbacks. Perhaps the arctic sea ice can be saved, but 415 ppm isn’t an ice-friendly number. Depending on how one treats the ocean’s future draw down vs humanity’s future emissions (with whatever nature adds to the mix), a tipping point has been passed (is being passed?) or maybe not. Regardless, I don’t see it as simple as “do the math” yet. But hey, once we fry this planet we’ll know how everything works for planet B.
And of course it’s academic, eh? Whether my old guess was “right” or it takes another quarter century, the ASI will die without geoengineering. And when the ASI goes not only do temps rise but precipitation increases, and rain is great at melting ice (just ask Greenland, which is another tipping point, one based on elevation).
Al Bundysays
zebra,
I think most scientists feel that the arctic sea ice is resilient, that it isn’t so much a tipping point as it is a feedback (so far). Maybe sea ice + Greenland + permafrost is a meta tipping point and we’ve whacked the system hard enough so the switch is tipping but “instant” in geological terms is a tad longer than a news cycle. Perhaps it should be called a “tipping period”.
Of course, there are ever so many tipping points to consider. Various species appear to be somewhere around a tipping point with extinction on the other side. “Functionally extinct”. And just because a tipping point has tipped doesn’t mean calamity. Heck, as every GOPper knows, if the arctic melts Business will save money on shipping and Russia will get to mine/drill to their hearts’ content.
jgnfldsays
@131
“What would Svante Arrhenius, the Nobel price [sic] winner say, if he could see little Greta fighting for her future in a world”
Given Arrhenius’ penchant of following the data wherever it led to–including nearly being flunked on his dissertation for proposing that theretofore impossible soluble ions explained his data–I suspect he’d see the consequences of warming just fine.
Not everyone is able to follow the data wherever it leads so deeply.
N 131: By the influence of the increasing percentage of carbonic acid in the atmosphere, we may hope to enjoy ages with more equable and better climates, especially as regards the colder regions of the earth, ages when the earth will bring forth much more abundant crops than at present, for the benefit of rapidly propagating mankind.”
– Svante Arrhenius, Worlds in the making
BPL: What Svante Arrhenius said in 1908 is hardly relevant. He was a physical chemist, not a climate scientist. He also thought doubling CO2 would take 3,000 years, and you’re not quoting that.
zebrasays
#132 Al Bundy,
What I try to do here is educate the hypothetical lurker… not about climate science specifically, but about scientific reasoning/communication, for people who aren’t scientists.
From my experience in more formal education, I think there is a “middle way”, between jargon-filled run-on paragraphs like abstracts, and the kind of dramatic rhetorical vagueness where you can never be held accountable for what you say, but people get to keep using up bandwidth talking past each other.
You can be precise in language/principles without endless details, and you can be quantitative without being numerically precise.
So, when you… who actually has a clue about this stuff… says things like “when asi dies” and “when asi goes temps rise”, it is for my purposes counterproductive.
I was trying to communicate clearly by talking about the two states: Freeze/Thaw and Year-Round Liquid. No idea what your statements mean, so the conversation dies, and nothing is learned.
I was also offering the modelling exercise as a way for people to “get” (conceptually) the dynamics of the question we are trying to answer. Doing the math on that is not that hard at all for the people with expertise and computers.
I may follow up on this but I have some real-world work to do right now.
Nemesissays
@nigelj, #130
“so you are just trolling…”
So our conversation is simple that:
Futile.
Nemesissays
Every now and then the question comes up:
WHAT should we do in the face of climate heating and eco-destruction?
I can’t tell what others should do as my Karma isn’t their Karma. I can only tell what I do:
I realized very early that I can’t change others, I can’t change the system, I can’t change the world. But I can change myself, I can take care of my very own Karma, my very own way and that’s just wonderful. I don’t need to change others, the system nor the world, all I have too do is to take care of my very own way. That’s the necessary thing everyone is responsible for:
His very own deeds, his very own Karma.
Therefore I stay way from greed, I stay away from hoarding funny money and material shit. I don’t drive a car, I don’t fly, I eat vegan, I don’t participate in the animal slaughter industry ect ect. The less I need, the more I am free. I found peace and freedom this way, whatever may come, I’m at peace.
That’s my solution as an insignificant individual. End of story for my part.
Just let me add:
I don’t expect TPTB (nor the majority in the rich countries of the northern hemisphere) to follow my way, but that’s not my Karma, it’s their Karma, they gotta follow their very own way and they (and their descendants) will have to live and die with the consequences, just like I have to live and die with the consequences of my very own deeds.
GISTEMP has posted the global anomaly for May at +0.87ºC, to coolest anomaly of the year-to-date which up-to-April ran +0.93ºC, +0.94ºC, +1.17ºC, +1.01ºC.
(Curiously, May was also coolest month for the year-so-far for 2016, 2017 & 2018 but previously to 2016 in GISTEMP was never such a coolest-month in consecutive years, although May was usually a below-average month for start-of-year – 24-times below the Jan-Apr over last 30 years.)
It is the 3rd warmest May in the GISTEMP record behind 2016 (+0.95ºC) and 2017 (+0.89ºC), while ahead of 4th placed 2014 (+0.85ºC), 5th 2018 (+0.82ºC) and 6th 2015 (+0.78ºC).
May 2019 sits at =87th warmest month in the GISTEMP all-month record.
With five months behind us, it is perhaps become meaningful to set out the warmest start-of-years & annual rankings table. 2019 currently sits firmly in the top-three warmest start-of-years and, with the weak El Niño projected to influence the rest of 2019,it is worth noting how close the 2019-so-far average is to the 2016 annual value.
Zebra says “that’s the point I’ve been trying to make all along. Either you can observe a new system state physically, or you can observe/predict it in a model. What you don’t do in real physics is say “maybe we passed… oooh, a Tipping Point!”
Firstly I like the rigour of these ideas, but even the science is vague on quantifying the arctic tipping point by saying its somewhere from plus 1-3 degrees C, so we “may” have already passed it such that a blue arctic is locked in. It does leave things open for speculation.
I think its ok to speculate and discuss what may be happening, etcetera. Some of us here are educated amateurs not mathematicians and modelling experts and are still entitled to our say. However we need to please back up the speculation with some explanatory mechanism, as opposed to telling people it all looks bad, we know best, are more informed, and all the usual BS we see occasionally from a few people.
nigeljsays
Nemesis @137, no our discussion wasn’t futile for me anyway. I quite like your posts. I’m just trying to point out you are not listening to and understanding the particular point being made on past warming at current CO2 levels and are twisting it away from my intent. Maybe read it all again.
The rest is fine, even I can see capitalism exacerbates some of our problems, but my problem is what exactly is a better alternative to capitalism? Its not so easy. However we can at least change aspects of capitalism and make it work better in environmental terms. If humanity wants, big if I know.
Nemesissays
@nigelj, #141
” no our discussion wasn’t futile for me anyway. I quite like your posts. I’m just trying to point out you are not listening to and understanding the particular point being made on past warming at current CO2 levels and are twisting it away from my intent. Maybe read it all again.
Com on, when you say I am trolling, as you said earlier, then the discussion must be futile as it makes no sense to talk to a troll, does it?
About post warming during the palaeoclimate: We just got a different view on how fast and harsh things can change in the global climate and the global eco system, that’s all. There are different views in the climate science community about rapid climate change, tipping points, feedbacks, “hothouse states” ect. The change in the global CO2 rate is unprecedented since at least 15 million years, that’s a fact ;) And the mighty consequences will be unprecedented (compared to human time scales) as well. That’s enough for now and there’s more to come, we agree on that.
” even I can see capitalism exacerbates some of our problems, but my problem is what exactly is a better alternative to capitalism?”
Capitalism is all about competition in the first place. It’s you against me, them against us ect. But that leads to total desaster when spread on a global scale as there is no exit from planet earth, we can’t expand that competition game any further, so that competition game leads to cannibalism literally, to extinction.
We as a species can only survive by cooperation, teamwork, sharing, not competition, not hoarding funny money, but working together as a species. That’s the only way and you know it.
Nemesissays
@BPL, #135
” What Svante Arrhenius said in 1908 is hardly relevant. He was a physical chemist, not a climate scientist.”
Uhm, what Svante Arrhenius expected from global warming has influenced climate politics during the entire 20th century and even beyond (look at the fossil fool companies STIIL gazing an eye on arctic ressources^^). The fossil fool industry resp the military-industrial complex loved the idea that the rich northern hemisphere could see a Quote: ” more equable and better climates, especially as regards the colder regions of the earth” (Svante Arrhenius, Worlds in the making). They are DELIBERATELY gambling with Mother Nature and they will definetely being kicked ass by Mother Nature.
” He also thought doubling CO2 would take 3,000 years, and you’re not quoting that.”
Hehe, yeah, that calculated optimistic view was wrong obviously (my guess: If they go on with BAU we will see a doubling compared to pre-industrial levels around mid-century). Bad for his descendant Greta Thunberg.
nigeljsays
Nemesis @142, I only said you were trolling in relation to the paleo climate issue :) Regarding that issue: It’s a mystery to me why we have evidence that in the past the climate warmed a full 5 degrees at todays CO2 levels at one point. The current science particularly climate sensitivity calculations says it shouldn’t have (according to MAR)! This is ominous, as it could mean climate sensitivity is a LOT higher than we think, very bad news for us. Or it might be that the warming in the past was a combination of C02 and some sort of solar influence, or the paleo data might be a bit off.
My bet is its a combination of these things, and that climate sensitivity is towards the higher side which is bad news for us.
“We as a species can only survive by cooperation, teamwork, sharing, not competition, not hoarding funny money, but working together as a species. ”
Yes we need a lot more of that. We do cooperate a lot already within firms, and as families etc, but once we remove some element of free market competition ‘between’ firms, the economy may stagnate. We can probably say goodbye to more progress with medicine, technology, etcetera.
Al Bundysays
Zebra: What I try to do here is educate the hypothetical lurker
AB: And I’m trying to gather a team. Both are valid purposes.
_______________
NigelJ: but my problem is what exactly is a better alternative to capitalism?
AB: I’ve given a stripped down version of a superior system. Once discussion settled down I don’t remember anybody providing a killer point. So, rather than “woe be we” why not analyze the data right in front of your face? Dude, I exist.
Killiansays
Hobbes was right… about the wrong people. Life was nasty, brutish and short… for urban agricultural societies. Thus sayeth the scientists.
wrt the rise of methane: “Coincident with the 2014 acceleration, Nisbet et al. find a source shift to the southern tropics, where wetlands are concentrated (2). They hypothesize that record high temperatures in 2014 and the following years spiked wetland CH4 production. Such a wetland climate feedback challenges the commonly held view that wetland area rather than temperature is the main control of wetland CH4 emissions (although some wetland CH4 models are more temperature driven) (10). If natural wetlands, or changes in atmospheric chemistry, indeed accelerated the CH4 rise, it may be a climate feedback that humans have little hope of slowing. Although studies have demonstrated the potential for substantial CH4-climate feedbacks, they were expected to occur gradually, not reaching the magnitude observed by Nisbet et al. for decades (12).”
Methane is interesting because watching the atmospheric mix of C13 and C12 isotopes of methane may tell us something about the source. A fall in C13 suggests progress with release of methane from fossil fuel extraction sources, but that is not certain.
The Greenland melting is producing opportunities for astonishing, beautiful photographs. Check this one:
Took a 200 mile drive on Sunday to catch one of our favorite Portland bands. I know I should stop doing that, but it’s really hard to give up. Stopped and visited with friends along the way who were packing up to take their daughter on a vacation to Spain, then a cruise around the Mediterranean. They say they are only going to do this once, the footprint is a concern for them.
Seems like we have a handle on CO2 at last. Here are the current numbers:
June 9 – 15, 2019 413.98 ppm
June 9 – 15, 2018 411.22 ppm
It’s noisy, but 2.76 ppm is better than we have been seeing this year.
If you look around for good news, it’s there. No worries. I think a photoshoot vacation to Greenland or the Arctic might be a once in a lifetime opportunity. Put that one on your bucket list.
Cheers,
Mike
Nemesissays
@nigelj, #144
About the MMCO:
” My bet is its a combination of these things, and that climate sensitivity is towards the higher side which is bad news for us.”
So we are on the very same page more or less ;) After all, it happened and it can happen again, just a “little bit” faster this time.
” We do cooperate a lot already within firms, and as families etc, but once we remove some element of free market competition ‘between’ firms, the economy may stagnate. We can probably say goodbye to more progress with medicine, technology, etcetera.”
“Free market competition” will be worth nothing anyway when the fight over food and water begins on a global scale. And we don’t live in a “free” market as lobbyism and corruption is just everywhere spreading like cancer. You just can’t call this a “free” market. In fact, it’s a slave market, at least, when you look at it from bottom to top. About medicine: I live in a socalled 1st world country (Germany) and I see more and more people who just don’t get appropiate medical care anymore as the medical system is PRIVATIZED more and ever more. And look at the 1st world country USA, the medical system is a complete desaster in the US. It’s an ongoing privatization process on a global scale.
Anyway, capitalists who profite from capitalism will fight to the bitter end, they will never ever give up their privileges, it’s all about the status quo of the rich and powerful. So the system will have to collapse and it will collapse sooner than later I bet, we just have to lay back and wait a little while :))
Al Bundysays
NigelJ: but even the science is vague on quantifying the arctic tipping point by saying its somewhere from plus 1-3 degrees C, so we “may” have already passed it such that a blue arctic is locked in.
AB: The semantics and timing are complicated. Just because something is locked in does not mean that it has “tipped”. While I’m confident that 500+ ppm CO2e is enough to mostly or entirely strip the planet of ice, there is no tipping point until and unless said ice melt becomes difficult to reverse. For example, Greenland’s ice’s surface will lower. Once lowered enough that it would take a glaciation to begin rebuilding it a tipping point has definitely been passed. That’s why I brought up the idea of a “tipping period”.
_______________
Nemesis: Com on, when you say I am trolling, as you said earlier, then the discussion must be futile as it makes no sense to talk to a troll, does it?
AB: Tone is more important than words and subsequent comments can inform about the tone of a previous comment. Apparently Nigel considers you a friend. When a friend says that you’re trolling it doesn’t mean that he considers you a troll, just that one itsy-bitsy (or bigger) part of what you said was imperfect in his mind. Yeah, he coulda made it clearer with an apology for using the wrong word (or the right one without adequate initial caveat?), but that’s quibbling.
Nemesis: Capitalism is… … you against me, them against us ect… …We as a species can only survive by cooperation, teamwork, sharing, not competition, not hoarding funny money, but working together as a species.
AB: Yeah. Competition is not a zero-sum game but a negative-addition game. If your “team” loses but their “team” loses even more that’s winning. If burning $999,999 worth of stuff gives you a $1,000,000 tax break then burn it all to the ground.
You made a dollar! Who cares that you just cost Others a million bucks? (You, because Others are now poorer so your relative position has improved)
Competition is effective when it is subordinated to collaboration. Otherwise it leads to fighting and disaster. “I’m ecstatic that I cut my hand because I broke his jaw.”
nigeljsays
Al Bundy @145, could you summarise your alternative to capitalism, but over on FR which is the more appropriate thread? I do recall something about non for profit companies but not a lot more.
Going to be a banner year for snowmelt on Greenland. That’s pretty exciting.
Jason Box, an ice climatologist at the Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland, predicted in late May that “2019 will be a big melt year for Greenland.”
Box pointed out that this year had unusually early season melt days in April, and the melt season was “happening about three weeks earlier than average, and earlier than the record-setting melt year of 2012.”
https://www.cnn.com/2019/06/14/us/greenland-sudden-ice-melt-wxc/index.html
Be sure to check out the skyrocket graph of Greenland Surface Melt Extent. Too bad the graph won’t cut and paste. It is vertical, baby!
Cheers
Mike
zebra @ 50 says:
That much is correct! I’m not sure that anyone would try to argue otherwise. The only thing the melting of the permafrost at a particular geographic location might be evidence of, is that its temperature has gone above 0 °C.
Such an occurence may or may not constitute a tipping point in a system.
To understand if a tipping point (or shift) can occur, has occurred or will occur in a system, you need to apply the mathematics of Chaos theory.
https://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/full/10.1175/2011WCAS1081.1
Not to be confused with feedback loops! Which are part of a separate dissertation but can be initiated when a tipping point is passed.
See also:
http://www.colby.edu/mathstats/wp-content/uploads/sites/81/2017/08/2017-Manning-Thesis.pdf
Chaos: The Mathematics
Behind the Butterfly E↵ect
Killian: Passing 300ppm was a tipping point.
AB: No. No. No. Passing from 299 to 300ppm was a landmark that didn’t do anything significantly different than passing from 298 to 299ppm. Tell us why “300” matters, why if we had gone to 299 and then dropped we’d have been safer than if we had gone to 300 and then dropped.
Tipping points are like a light switch. You can push on the switch and it will not do anything to the light until you reach a specific, well-defined force. Until you reach that force you can stop pushing and the light will stay off. But if you reach that force the light comes on and then even if you not just stop pushing but push in the opposite direction the light will stay on until you push hard enough to flip the switch again.
Feedbacks are like power steering. You provide all the control. The power steering unit just makes it easier to turn the wheel. So you you+feedback your way all happy and merry until you you+feedback your way into a too-fast turn and a tipping-point occurs. :-)
_________________
mike: Lots of quibbling about tipping points or feedbacks? skyrockets or verticality, acceleration or increase? CO2 or CH4 from permafrost melt? Much ado about nothing.
AB: I dunno. The folks involved in the discussion have been “into” this topic for many years. That many or most couldn’t pass a 9th grade test on tipping points is a serious revelation to me. It reinforces my belief that if you want to get folks’ attention white people must die (you can only get their attention by whacking them over the head). Is this site just entertainment? We’re going to be sitting on the couch watching the Arctic go blue anyway. And once that happens, folks will have been properly whacked so we’ll be able to start working on the problem. Melt, ice, melt. Go Big Blue!!
____________
mike: How deep is the shit? I don’t know. Kinda deep, I think.
AB: what’s da prob?? Shit, like CO2, is plant food! :-)
________________
Nigel: Nordhaus is the black sheep who appears to not think beyond numbers and data to the real world.
AB: that makes him perfect. Lets give him the Nobel Prize and ensure that the planet heads down the “proper” path. Oops, already done, eh?
____________
“A large carbon outgassing event could really whack the climate system if it happened multiple years in a row.”
Killian: Well, what the heck does *that* mean, “whack?”
AB: To hit the climate system suddenly and with enough force to cause a paradigm change…. A TIPPING POINT!! (And I’m amazed that “whack” just showed up twice. Must be a sign.)
Re #92 mike said CO2, you might ask? How are we doing?
June 13, 2019: 414.72 ppm
June 13, 2018: 410.80 ppm
3.92 ppm increase yoy in noisy, daily number. Vertical number, as Popular Science has described the CO2 trajectory.
Not a surprise to me because I’ve been watching the KC and it’s not falling as quickly as usual. The difference in the angle of the curve is noticeable, but so are the numbers. Still in the high 414’s.
One wonders why.
EN’s do serve to “goose” the climate, so is it possible even mild ENs are going to have larger effects? I.e., as the ecosystem fails, does it become more sensitive to forcings? Makes sense it would, intuitively, but not sure if the physics would support that.
Nigel: Of course if arctic amplification was to accelerate beyond current trends and predictions then the permafrost would melt sooner than we think, but I’m inclined to think Zebra is right in principle this doesn’t make it worse unless of course its much, much sooner.
AB: Yep, “unless”. Long ago I guestimated that arctic sea ice would hit whatever the measurement is that signifies blue ocean (1 million km2?) in 2025, and more recently (but still a while ago) I was exposed to the idea that sea ice melt is such a hard tipping point (because water vapor is a grand GHG) that it would be difficult to get the ocean to freeze again even in winter. My visualization is that once a blue ocean is reached the next year would freeze weakly. It might take a decade (or more) to complete the transition but my take is that we’ll get 200+ days of blue ocean per year way before 5C. Perhaps the authors’ 5C was based on a blue Arctic Ocean. Were they talking a local 5C?
Note that blue ocean in September is mostly a shiny object. The real deal is spring melt. June and July dominate energy input. Who cares what happens in September? Everybody cuz we’re human and not AI. It’s a flaw in our design. See figure 6i-3 in http://www.physicalgeography.net/fundamentals/6i.html
#93 John Kelly,
A well written, coherent synopsis, but that 50 year figure needs to be examined.
There will not be global “decarbonization” in 50 years, if by that you mean that we will completely eliminate emissions. I’ve offered my projection to Kevin in the past, which is that the best-(realistic)-case scenario is more like 150, to achieve a minimal level of ouput.
This is why I have also suggested that treating the population curve as equally worthy of attention… if the goal is to reduce future harm, bending the curve obviously does that, and it also has a synergistic effect on the energy transition, and on natural mitigation. (If you have a world population even half of the 10 billion predicted, you reduce the incentive to find more oil, for example, and you end up with a lot more trees and grasslands, and so on.)
But as I recently said to Kevin, we have to put aside ideological and “moral” fantasies. Spreading prosperity, as you correctly propose, requires capital investment. So does the energy transition. And that means neoliberal, globalist, free-market capitalism. It means finance people will still get obscenely rich, and there will be CEO’s of solar panel companies (rather than oil companies) who get payed 300 times what the workers get, and so on. The choice is between clean, efficient energy and dirty, profligate energy… but the system, however distasteful, remains the same.
There will not be “simplicity”.
Note: I’m happy to explain what I mean by “neoliberal” and “free market” if anyone wants to object to those concepts. Not interested in a definition debate.
#96 Fred Magyar,
Fred, what Al Bundy said at #55 is correct. If you disagree, please explain why.
It’s funny how people always talk about population curves, but never about equal global distribution of goods and socio economic justice. It’s as funny as the complete system. So what, the system is rotten anyway. Just walk on, walk on.
mike: Going to be a banner year for snowmelt on Greenland. That’s pretty exciting.
AB: Only if you cherish temporary banners. Greenland is a grand example of tipping points. Greenland is a relic. It only exists because it exists. The key is that temps increase as elevation decreases. So once Greenland started to melt it was unlikely that Greenland’s ice would survive because melting lowers the ice surface’s elevation, and so increases the ice surface’s temperature. Oops. (though not if you cherish the changing of goals from helping humanity to accumulating the most zeros in a financial computer’s memory)
#105 Al Bundy,
The problem with your blue arctic argument is that we should be able to create a model that predicts it… “it” meaning rapid loss of winter ice, but I haven’t seen that. If there is one, I would appreciate a reference.
Here’s the exercise:
1. Assume that you can build a “wall” that isolates the arctic from the world oceans and atmosphere, but is transparent to radiation.
2. Now, increase the CO2.
3. Will there be a tipping point, as you described correctly earlier, where insolation causes enough energy to accumulate in the ocean such that the system state changes from yearly freeze/melt cycles to permanent liquid?
I don’t know if/when that would happen; and I leave it to those with the knowledge and big computers to figure it out. But I do know what I can observe about the yearly cycles from the Charctic graph, and the rate at which the winter extent is diminishing, and I see nothing magical about crossing that million sq km line.
And this brings us back to the point I’ve made before… #1 is not the case, so ice-free winter could well result from advection of energy from the (much larger) rest of the planet.
And that brings us back to the “defining ‘tipping point'” issue. If we do it according to my 1,2,3, then it definitely qualifies. But, in the real world, I don’t know whether it would be appropriate to use that label.
Nemesis: It’s funny how people always talk about
AB: Stuff that just so happens to enrich themselves.
I’m wondering if even 1% of humanity understands Jesus’, MLK’s, and Gandhi’s teachings.
zebra: It means finance people will still get obscenely rich,
AB; You’re right and I hate you for it (but I take solace in that you feel the same)
Incorrect Thread,
That “Unforced Variations vs Forced Responses” title for the guest post was quite clever.
Unfortunately, I for one let myself get confused after clicking on the wrong “recent comments” too many times and have been talking mitigation here on UV.
Apologies, and I hope people will jump over to FR to continue discussing this stuff.
@Al Bundy, 111
” Nemesis: It’s funny how people always talk about
AB: Stuff that just so happens to enrich themselves.”
Yeah, capitalism is not about reasonable sharing and preserving the planet, it’s all about hoarding funny money and material shit, it’s a complete egoistic economic system. And therefore the climate and eco discussion is not just boring, but completely futile, gnahaha.
…”laying back, enjoying the final show of capitalist Empire”
zebra @ 107 says:
I do disagree. It has to do with mathematical definitions and concepts such as stable states, unstable states, attractors and bifurcation points. To explain precisely why, I would need to be able to post graphs and write differential equations, neither of which I know how to do on this site.
The best I can do is refer you back to the link I posted to that introductory level paper on Chaos: The Mathematics Behind the Butterfly Effect. I think anyone who has taken basic college level calculus should be easily able to follow it.
I’m afraid I will have to leave it at that for now.
@nigelj, #98
” Interesting about Arrhenius …”
Well, it’s one of the most interesting facts I found during more than 30 years of climate- and geoengineering research, haha. And it’s not the only fact I found. In fact, the global climate crisis and geo- resp climate engineering always went hand in hand, hahaha. Arrhenius book title “Worlds in the making” were meant LITERALLY. Here’s a brief historic overview of that shit:
https://foreignpolicy.com/2013/09/03/geoengineering-a-short-history/
More detailed:
https://weathermodificationhistory.com/
” In fact I read a study that suggested humanity will cancel the next ice age on CO2 levels consistent with 2 degrees of warming or less!”
Yes, I know that study.
” Regarding paleo evidence saying there was 5 degrees of warming for CO2 concentrations at today’s levels. If we stopped emissions tomorrow more warming would happen but at a slow pace and will terminate. If we go on adding CO2 it wont be too slow. But MAR says this paleo evidence conflicts with climate sensitivity so perhaps something else caused high temperatures in the past at those levels of CO2, but what would that be?”
The CO2 increase in the Mid-Miocene Climate Optimum (MMCO) was caused by vulcanic eruptions:
” The CO2 that triggered the MMCO was emitted by the spectacular eruptions of the Columbia River Basalts across a large area of western America. These eruptions were of a scale that dwarfs any in recorded history, and any in the last 16 million years. In the most intense phase, more than 150,000 cubic kilometers (36,000 cubic miles) of lava gushed over a large part of western America in roughly 300,000 years (some have suggested as little as 10,000 years, a timescale that is in the ballpark of that suggested by Ann Holbourn). In many of the hundreds of individual eruptions, lava vomited from the bowels of the earth in mile-high (1.5km) fountains before deluging 500km (300 miles) of landscape in months, to a depth of 100 meters (300 feet), while ash and fumes mushroomed as high as the stratosphere. ”
https://skepticalscience.com/print.php?n=2845
We have to keep in mind:
” …but more benign than today
In case we’re lulled into complacency by the relatively benign effects of the MMCO, we should remember:
Because greenhouse forcing is a log function of CO2 concentration, the Miocene increase in radiative forcing was much smaller than the increase since the industrial era to today, let alone levels projected by the end of the century. The Miocene increase from 400 to 500 ppm is a radiative forcing increase of about 1.2Wm-2, which is much less than the modern jump from 280ppm to 400ppm today, already a radiative forcing increase of 1.9Wm-2 (it’s really 2.9Wm-2 including other greenhouse gasses) let alone 6.0 Wm-2 for the IPCC’s RCP6.0 scenario (CO2 670 ppm), and 8.5 Wm-2 for the IPCC’s RCP8.5 business-as-usual scenario (CO2 936 ppm) by the year 2100 (figures from IPCC AR5).
Animals of the Miocene had no cities, no agriculture, no power stations, factories, roads or rail networks. They could migrate and spread as their environment altered on a pace very slow compared to their reproduction rate.
The Miocene saw reforestation of arid lands which may have mitigated some of the CO2 rise and warming, whereas we have been deforesting the planet for millennia, removing an important carbon sink that was available to the Miocene but not to us.
Our oceans are currently acidifying much faster than in the Miocene or any time in the last 60 million years – a sign of how much more rapid and how far out of equilibrium with short term carbon sinks our modern climate system is.
The MMCO global warming took place over many millennia, giving life time to adapt and migrate. Our warming is at least a thousand times faster, a rate that, if left unchecked, could well result in a climate that more resembles the end-Cretaceous or end-Permian disasters, rather than the relatively gentle MMCO.”
https://skepticalscience.com/print.php?n=2845
@mike
Sorry, I confused you with nigelj at #95.
@nigelj, #98
About sensitivity in the Mid-Miocene Climate Optimum compared to nowadays:
” With modern climate change we already see significant Miocene-like amplifying of warming in the Arctic (see the figure above). Miocene sensitivity to CO2 may not have been exactly the same as the sensitivity today because the Isthmus of Panama was not yet closed, currents between the Pacific and the Indian Oceans were different, there was substantially less ice, and land cover had no buildings or agriculture (to mention a few differences). Moreover, as as outlined above, models suggest even the cloud distribution was different. For these reasons some have suggested that the steady-state cooling late Miocene was 0.5-0.8°C more sensitive to CO2 than today. Even allowing for that, the fact that models need a sensitivity of 4°C per CO2 doubling to recreate Mid-Miocene warmth suggests that the modern value is more likely towards the upper end of the IPCC range of 1.5-4.5°C than the lower end…
But those sensitivity values are for a climate in equilibrium, whereas the MMCO onset, like today, was not in equilibrium…”
https://skepticalscience.com/print.php?n=2845
After all, the scenario in the MMCO fits quite well to the scenario of today, except we are at least a thousand times faster than during the MMCO :)
@nigelj
About climate sensitivity in relation to the palaoclimate, the press conference from 2011 AGU Fall Meeting includes some quite valuable informations about that.
Participants: James Hansen, Ken Caldera and Eelco Rohling:
” AGU FM11 – Paleoclimate record points toward potential rapid climate changes”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KTTlAAiwgwM
zebra: I see nothing magical about crossing that million sq km line.
AB: Neither do I. That ‘crossing” is a landmark, not a tipping point. To a certain extent tipping points can be invisible. Perhaps we’ve crossed a point of hard-to-return or two already. How would we know?
zebra: Spreading prosperity, as you correctly propose, requires capital investment. So does the energy transition. And that means neoliberal, globalist, free-market capitalism.
AB: That’s the dumbest thing you’ve ever posted. Laborism will destroy capitalism. Your assumption that the second-worst economic system is the be-all and end-all (or at least “the winner”)… well, it shows “giving upism”.
Al Bundy @105, the 5 degree tipping point was not for the arctic, it was for permafrost. I did say permafrost.
The tipping point for the arctic is anywhere from 1-3 degrees, according to the study. So your guesstimate of 2025 for a blue arctic is at least well in this ballpark. I would say we are still seeing a lot of weather related stuff in the arctic right now, due itself to climate change, but still weather so dont read a climate trend into it, so I would say an ice free arctic is still about 20 years away along the lines of what the IPCC think, but that doesn’t make it better.
I’m also not sure a blue arctic will convince the denialistia. They will go so what? More minerals to mine. What might get their attention is another really hot year like 2015, or a jump in the rate of sea level rise, and more forest fires. These seem harder to rationalise away, and can have very direct consequences on communities.
I think you are right a tipping point is fundamentally a paradigm change.
“Spreading prosperity, as you correctly propose, requires capital investment. So does the energy transition. And that means neoliberal, globalist, free-market capitalism. It means finance people will still get obscenely rich, and there will be CEO’s of solar panel companies (rather than oil companies) who get payed 300 times what the workers get, and so on.”
Fair comments to the extent that some sort of globalist free market capitalism makes sense, but there are many alternative possibilities within a general free market paradigm. Economic ideologies come and go although I hope things dont swing back to protectionist nationalism.
Nemesis @116, thanks for the link on the history of attempts at geoengineering weather and climate, a pretty interesting things. Your concern appears to be we are trying to play god, and it will go horribly wrong, and that capitalism’s avaricious nature pushes us to do all this.
Weather is not climate. I don’t see a problem with efforts to seed clouds and fix droughts, and is fairly localised in impact, so it’s hard for me to see evil intent in this, its just people trying to save people. Its really hard for humans not to have a significant footprint on the natural world, unless we all become hunter gatherers again. And yes attempts have been made to weaponise the weather sadly to say, but that is due to international rivalries, not capitalism as such. People have been fighting for a long time, before capitalism was invented.
Once we try to geoengineering climate we are obviously entering a new level of ambition, something much more risky because of the scale of effects, the risky side effects and possible difficulty reversing what we do. And I concede capitalism plays a part in motivating this. Humans are playing god. Whats scary is one single country could do it just by launching sulphate particles into the stratosphere with aircraft, and what do we do then if we didn’t like what they do? Anyway the bottom line is I don’t want to see things come to using geoengineering.
Yes the MMCO was caused by massive volcanic eruptions. I think the point MAR is making is that its hard to reconcile the claim made of 5 degrees of warming in the distant past at ‘todays’ CO2 levels with the current science which tells us this can’t happen. So either the science is wrong, the evidence on past warming is wrong, or something additional to CO2 contributed to the past warming. Does anyone know?
@zebra
” Spreading prosperity, as you correctly propose, requires capital investment. So does the energy transition. And that means neoliberal, globalist, free-market capitalism.”
Thanks for showing your real face. It’s all in these three neat little sentences, the complete bible of doom, reps AND dems beautifully hand in hand :)) And good luck with “prosperity”, the “energy transition” and all, harr harr 38=> Don’t forget to tell Greta Thunberg et al, tell that mantra the children of the world, they’ll love it (I’m fuckin happy to have seen through that game very early and therefore decided NOT to procreate). As I said repeatedly:
The discussion is futile as the proponents of money and funny “power” made their decision a long time ago, alea lacta est.
Al Bundy,
“how would we know?”
By doing the math, Al, exactly as I suggested.
That’s the point I’ve been trying to make all along. Either you can observe a new system state physically, or you can observe/predict it in a model.
What you don’t do in real physics is say “maybe we passed… oooh, a Tipping Point!”, or “we could pass… oooh, a Tipping Point!”, just because it fits the OMG rhetorical paradigm.
@nigelj, #124
” Your concern appears to be we are trying to play god, and it will go horribly wrong, and that capitalism’s avaricious nature pushes us to do all this.”
Who do you mean by “we”? I don’t even try to play funny gawd, most people on planet earth don’t even try to play gawd, most people just can not afford to play funny gawd. You know, I give a fuck about gawd and gawdlike powers altogether, I follow the harsh laws of Mother Nature from the cradle to the boneyard right down here on earth and folks who like to play gawd will follow sooner or later I bet.
” Weather is not climate.”
Oh, thanks a lot for the information. Remember, Svante Arrhenius was talking about CO2 resp the climate when he said in his sweet, gawdlike book “Worlds in the making”:
” We may find a kind of consolation in the consideration that here, as in every other case, there is good mixed with the evil. By the influence of the increasing percentage of carbonic acid in the atmosphere, we may hope to enjoy ages with more equable and better climates, especially as regards the colder regions of the earth, ages when the earth will bring forth much more abundant crops than at present, for the benefit of rapidly propagating mankind.”
– Svante Arrhenius, Worlds in the making
” I don’t see a problem with efforts to seed clouds and fix droughts, and is fairly localised in impact, so it’s hard for me to see evil intent in this, its just people trying to save people. Its really hard for humans not to have a significant footprint on the natural world, unless we all become hunter gatherers again. And yes attempts have been made to weaponise the weather sadly to say, but that is due to international rivalries, not capitalism as such. People have been fighting for a long time, before capitalism was invented.”
Wonderful. I seldomly heard about the ambitions of the socalled elite in such a clear and outright way 8) Thank you for speaking openly and straight, sums it all up, I like that, it spares me a lot of time. And sure: That’s not just capitalism, but it’s the socalled “elite”, a global minority who is playing gawd for real, as the vast majority on planet earth does not have such ambitions. JUST DO IT and enjoy the consequences. End of story for my part as a complete nobody (I won’t be asked if I like it or not anyway, hehe).
” Humans are playing god.”
The socalled “ELITE” is playing funny gawd, not the average Joe is playing funny gawd. I am not playing funny gawd.
” Whats scary is one single country could do it just by launching sulphate particles into the stratosphere with aircraft, and what do we do then if we didn’t like what they do?”
Hahaha, yeah, that’s exactly the way TPTB argue all the time:
“What if others act in evil ways? We just can’t let that happen, so we have to act in evil ways first.”
That’s the way TPTB act all the time. Hahaha, btw, it’s already happening, Solar Radiation Management aka Stratospheric Aerosol Injection is already happening for years. TPTB are playing with Fire and they will get burnt once and for all 38=>
” Yes the MMCO was caused by massive volcanic eruptions. I think the point MAR is making is that its hard to reconcile the claim made of 5 degrees of warming in the distant past at ‘todays’ CO2 levels with the current science which tells us this can’t happen.”
Oh, that’s fine^^ It can’t happen. So beautiful. It just can’t happen. And if something goes wrong, just follow plan B: ” How tech’s richest plan to save themselves after the apocalypse…” https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/jul/23/tech-industry-wealth-futurism-transhumanism-singularity Or maybe great funny gawd will come from the sky, take away everything and make everybody feel high? Harr harr. Well then after all:
I lay back and watch the funny rest of the show as I did my whole life. You can’t imagine how much I enjoy to be a complete nobody with no gawdlike powers, just a complete nobody having no wealth -> no power -> no responsibility for that shit. You trust in your Karma, they trust in their Karma while I surely trust in my Karma.
Thank you so much for the enlightening conversation, it’s all in it.
In case no one has posted this yet, here is info on the most dangerous threat to life on planet earth:
“Scientists: Earth Endangered by New Strain of Fact-Resistant Humans” at https://www.newyorker.com/humor/borowitz-report/scientists-earth-endangered-by-new-strain-of-fact-resistant-humans?fbclid=IwAR0gdoo4nT_ZA_U7ODQYX7jJ02-tI_tu8QhDW0xpSvoFU8m3LMj8z4fBWmM
Global sea ice still in record decline:
https://tinyurl.com/y5nzftsj
Nemesis @127, maybe ‘we’ was a poor choice of words. Clearly some people like to play god you can call them the elite if you want, and they can be misguided.
The trouble is all societies have leaders, so what do you suggest we do about that? What is your workable alternative? I think there will always be an elite, and in an ideal world we have to somehow ensure the elite behaves better.
I think you are misinterpreting the rest, or just not reading it. I never said geoengineering the climate is a good idea, just that seeding the clouds to cause rain seems reasonable enough.
I did not say we should just let countries geoengineer the climate and copy them. But if one country does this its going to be hard to stop them. What would international bodies be able to do? In other words, we really need to mitigate climate change with renewable energy, and not let it get to that. I thought that was obvious…
You say ” Yes the MMCO was caused by massive volcanic eruptions. I think the point MAR is making is that its hard to reconcile the claim made of 5 degrees of warming in the distant past at ‘todays’ CO2 levels with the current science which tells us this can’t happen.”
You are quoting me out of context, andleft out the rest of what I said, distort what I said, and you have not answered my question….so you are just trolling….
You need to read what people say a lot more carefully and not jump to conclusions…A common problem with all of us me included sometimes.
Did you know? Greta Thunberg is descendant of Svante Arrhenius. What would Svante Arrhenius, the Nobel price winner say, if he could see little Greta fighting for her future in a world where…:
” We often hear lamentations that the coal stored up in the earth is wasted by the present generation without any thought of the future, and we are terrified by the awful destruction of life and property which has followed the volcanic eruptions of our days. We may find a kind of consolation in the consideration that here, as in every other case, there is good mixed with the evil. By the influence of the increasing percentage of carbonic acid in the atmosphere, we may hope to enjoy ages with more equable and better climates, especially as regards the colder regions of the earth, ages when the earth will bring forth much more abundant crops than at present, for the benefit of rapidly propagating mankind.”
– Svante Arrhenius, Worlds in the making
Sure, “good mixed with the evil”… I just can’t see the “good” so far, except the “good” for the fossil fool industry.
Nigel: What might get their attention is another really hot year like 2015, or a jump in the rate of sea level rise, and more forest fires. These seem harder to rationalise away, and can have very direct consequences on communities.
AB: My guess is that a blue arctic ocean will cause all kinds of weather-related mischief, which hopefully will drive home the point that things are getting real.
Zebra, I wasn’t feeling OMGesque when I wrote that. My sole point was describing the difference between tipping points and feedbacks. Perhaps the arctic sea ice can be saved, but 415 ppm isn’t an ice-friendly number. Depending on how one treats the ocean’s future draw down vs humanity’s future emissions (with whatever nature adds to the mix), a tipping point has been passed (is being passed?) or maybe not. Regardless, I don’t see it as simple as “do the math” yet. But hey, once we fry this planet we’ll know how everything works for planet B.
And of course it’s academic, eh? Whether my old guess was “right” or it takes another quarter century, the ASI will die without geoengineering. And when the ASI goes not only do temps rise but precipitation increases, and rain is great at melting ice (just ask Greenland, which is another tipping point, one based on elevation).
zebra,
I think most scientists feel that the arctic sea ice is resilient, that it isn’t so much a tipping point as it is a feedback (so far). Maybe sea ice + Greenland + permafrost is a meta tipping point and we’ve whacked the system hard enough so the switch is tipping but “instant” in geological terms is a tad longer than a news cycle. Perhaps it should be called a “tipping period”.
Of course, there are ever so many tipping points to consider. Various species appear to be somewhere around a tipping point with extinction on the other side. “Functionally extinct”. And just because a tipping point has tipped doesn’t mean calamity. Heck, as every GOPper knows, if the arctic melts Business will save money on shipping and Russia will get to mine/drill to their hearts’ content.
@131
“What would Svante Arrhenius, the Nobel price [sic] winner say, if he could see little Greta fighting for her future in a world”
Given Arrhenius’ penchant of following the data wherever it led to–including nearly being flunked on his dissertation for proposing that theretofore impossible soluble ions explained his data–I suspect he’d see the consequences of warming just fine.
Not everyone is able to follow the data wherever it leads so deeply.
N 131: By the influence of the increasing percentage of carbonic acid in the atmosphere, we may hope to enjoy ages with more equable and better climates, especially as regards the colder regions of the earth, ages when the earth will bring forth much more abundant crops than at present, for the benefit of rapidly propagating mankind.”
– Svante Arrhenius, Worlds in the making
BPL: What Svante Arrhenius said in 1908 is hardly relevant. He was a physical chemist, not a climate scientist. He also thought doubling CO2 would take 3,000 years, and you’re not quoting that.
#132 Al Bundy,
What I try to do here is educate the hypothetical lurker… not about climate science specifically, but about scientific reasoning/communication, for people who aren’t scientists.
From my experience in more formal education, I think there is a “middle way”, between jargon-filled run-on paragraphs like abstracts, and the kind of dramatic rhetorical vagueness where you can never be held accountable for what you say, but people get to keep using up bandwidth talking past each other.
You can be precise in language/principles without endless details, and you can be quantitative without being numerically precise.
So, when you… who actually has a clue about this stuff… says things like “when asi dies” and “when asi goes temps rise”, it is for my purposes counterproductive.
I was trying to communicate clearly by talking about the two states: Freeze/Thaw and Year-Round Liquid. No idea what your statements mean, so the conversation dies, and nothing is learned.
I was also offering the modelling exercise as a way for people to “get” (conceptually) the dynamics of the question we are trying to answer. Doing the math on that is not that hard at all for the people with expertise and computers.
I may follow up on this but I have some real-world work to do right now.
@nigelj, #130
“so you are just trolling…”
So our conversation is simple that:
Futile.
Every now and then the question comes up:
WHAT should we do in the face of climate heating and eco-destruction?
I can’t tell what others should do as my Karma isn’t their Karma. I can only tell what I do:
I realized very early that I can’t change others, I can’t change the system, I can’t change the world. But I can change myself, I can take care of my very own Karma, my very own way and that’s just wonderful. I don’t need to change others, the system nor the world, all I have too do is to take care of my very own way. That’s the necessary thing everyone is responsible for:
His very own deeds, his very own Karma.
Therefore I stay way from greed, I stay away from hoarding funny money and material shit. I don’t drive a car, I don’t fly, I eat vegan, I don’t participate in the animal slaughter industry ect ect. The less I need, the more I am free. I found peace and freedom this way, whatever may come, I’m at peace.
That’s my solution as an insignificant individual. End of story for my part.
Just let me add:
I don’t expect TPTB (nor the majority in the rich countries of the northern hemisphere) to follow my way, but that’s not my Karma, it’s their Karma, they gotta follow their very own way and they (and their descendants) will have to live and die with the consequences, just like I have to live and die with the consequences of my very own deeds.
Good luck everyone.
GISTEMP has posted the global anomaly for May at +0.87ºC, to coolest anomaly of the year-to-date which up-to-April ran +0.93ºC, +0.94ºC, +1.17ºC, +1.01ºC.
(Curiously, May was also coolest month for the year-so-far for 2016, 2017 & 2018 but previously to 2016 in GISTEMP was never such a coolest-month in consecutive years, although May was usually a below-average month for start-of-year – 24-times below the Jan-Apr over last 30 years.)
It is the 3rd warmest May in the GISTEMP record behind 2016 (+0.95ºC) and 2017 (+0.89ºC), while ahead of 4th placed 2014 (+0.85ºC), 5th 2018 (+0.82ºC) and 6th 2015 (+0.78ºC).
May 2019 sits at =87th warmest month in the GISTEMP all-month record.
With five months behind us, it is perhaps become meaningful to set out the warmest start-of-years & annual rankings table. 2019 currently sits firmly in the top-three warmest start-of-years and, with the weak El Niño projected to influence the rest of 2019,it is worth noting how close the 2019-so-far average is to the 2016 annual value.
…….. Jan-May Ave … Annual Ave ..Annual ranking
2016 .. +1.25ºC … … … +1.02ºC … … … 1st
2017 .. +1.06ºC … … … +0.92ºC … … … 2nd
2019 .. +1.01ºC
2018 .. +0.87ºC … … … +0.85ºC … … … 4th
2015 .. +0.86ºC … … … +0.90ºC … … … 3rd
2010 .. +0.83ºC … … … +0.72ºC … … … 6th
2007 .. +0.79ºC … … … +0.66ºC … … … 9th
2002 .. +0.75ºC … … … +0.62ºC … … … 13th
2014 .. +0.73ºC … … … +0.74ºC … … … 5th
2005 .. +0.69ºC … … … +0.68ºC … … … 8th
1998 .. +0.68ºC … … … +0.61ºC … … … 15th
Zebra says “that’s the point I’ve been trying to make all along. Either you can observe a new system state physically, or you can observe/predict it in a model. What you don’t do in real physics is say “maybe we passed… oooh, a Tipping Point!”
Firstly I like the rigour of these ideas, but even the science is vague on quantifying the arctic tipping point by saying its somewhere from plus 1-3 degrees C, so we “may” have already passed it such that a blue arctic is locked in. It does leave things open for speculation.
I think its ok to speculate and discuss what may be happening, etcetera. Some of us here are educated amateurs not mathematicians and modelling experts and are still entitled to our say. However we need to please back up the speculation with some explanatory mechanism, as opposed to telling people it all looks bad, we know best, are more informed, and all the usual BS we see occasionally from a few people.
Nemesis @137, no our discussion wasn’t futile for me anyway. I quite like your posts. I’m just trying to point out you are not listening to and understanding the particular point being made on past warming at current CO2 levels and are twisting it away from my intent. Maybe read it all again.
The rest is fine, even I can see capitalism exacerbates some of our problems, but my problem is what exactly is a better alternative to capitalism? Its not so easy. However we can at least change aspects of capitalism and make it work better in environmental terms. If humanity wants, big if I know.
@nigelj, #141
” no our discussion wasn’t futile for me anyway. I quite like your posts. I’m just trying to point out you are not listening to and understanding the particular point being made on past warming at current CO2 levels and are twisting it away from my intent. Maybe read it all again.
Com on, when you say I am trolling, as you said earlier, then the discussion must be futile as it makes no sense to talk to a troll, does it?
About post warming during the palaeoclimate: We just got a different view on how fast and harsh things can change in the global climate and the global eco system, that’s all. There are different views in the climate science community about rapid climate change, tipping points, feedbacks, “hothouse states” ect. The change in the global CO2 rate is unprecedented since at least 15 million years, that’s a fact ;) And the mighty consequences will be unprecedented (compared to human time scales) as well. That’s enough for now and there’s more to come, we agree on that.
” even I can see capitalism exacerbates some of our problems, but my problem is what exactly is a better alternative to capitalism?”
Capitalism is all about competition in the first place. It’s you against me, them against us ect. But that leads to total desaster when spread on a global scale as there is no exit from planet earth, we can’t expand that competition game any further, so that competition game leads to cannibalism literally, to extinction.
We as a species can only survive by cooperation, teamwork, sharing, not competition, not hoarding funny money, but working together as a species. That’s the only way and you know it.
@BPL, #135
” What Svante Arrhenius said in 1908 is hardly relevant. He was a physical chemist, not a climate scientist.”
Uhm, what Svante Arrhenius expected from global warming has influenced climate politics during the entire 20th century and even beyond (look at the fossil fool companies STIIL gazing an eye on arctic ressources^^). The fossil fool industry resp the military-industrial complex loved the idea that the rich northern hemisphere could see a Quote: ” more equable and better climates, especially as regards the colder regions of the earth” (Svante Arrhenius, Worlds in the making). They are DELIBERATELY gambling with Mother Nature and they will definetely being kicked ass by Mother Nature.
” He also thought doubling CO2 would take 3,000 years, and you’re not quoting that.”
Hehe, yeah, that calculated optimistic view was wrong obviously (my guess: If they go on with BAU we will see a doubling compared to pre-industrial levels around mid-century). Bad for his descendant Greta Thunberg.
Nemesis @142, I only said you were trolling in relation to the paleo climate issue :) Regarding that issue: It’s a mystery to me why we have evidence that in the past the climate warmed a full 5 degrees at todays CO2 levels at one point. The current science particularly climate sensitivity calculations says it shouldn’t have (according to MAR)! This is ominous, as it could mean climate sensitivity is a LOT higher than we think, very bad news for us. Or it might be that the warming in the past was a combination of C02 and some sort of solar influence, or the paleo data might be a bit off.
My bet is its a combination of these things, and that climate sensitivity is towards the higher side which is bad news for us.
“We as a species can only survive by cooperation, teamwork, sharing, not competition, not hoarding funny money, but working together as a species. ”
Yes we need a lot more of that. We do cooperate a lot already within firms, and as families etc, but once we remove some element of free market competition ‘between’ firms, the economy may stagnate. We can probably say goodbye to more progress with medicine, technology, etcetera.
Zebra: What I try to do here is educate the hypothetical lurker
AB: And I’m trying to gather a team. Both are valid purposes.
_______________
NigelJ: but my problem is what exactly is a better alternative to capitalism?
AB: I’ve given a stripped down version of a superior system. Once discussion settled down I don’t remember anybody providing a killer point. So, rather than “woe be we” why not analyze the data right in front of your face? Dude, I exist.
Hobbes was right… about the wrong people. Life was nasty, brutish and short… for urban agricultural societies. Thus sayeth the scientists.
https://www.insidescience.org/news/late-stone-age-settlement-reveals-stresses-early-urban-living
wrt the rise of methane: “Coincident with the 2014 acceleration, Nisbet et al. find a source shift to the southern tropics, where wetlands are concentrated (2). They hypothesize that record high temperatures in 2014 and the following years spiked wetland CH4 production. Such a wetland climate feedback challenges the commonly held view that wetland area rather than temperature is the main control of wetland CH4 emissions (although some wetland CH4 models are more temperature driven) (10). If natural wetlands, or changes in atmospheric chemistry, indeed accelerated the CH4 rise, it may be a climate feedback that humans have little hope of slowing. Although studies have demonstrated the potential for substantial CH4-climate feedbacks, they were expected to occur gradually, not reaching the magnitude observed by Nisbet et al. for decades (12).”
https://science.sciencemag.org/content/364/6444/932
Methane is interesting because watching the atmospheric mix of C13 and C12 isotopes of methane may tell us something about the source. A fall in C13 suggests progress with release of methane from fossil fuel extraction sources, but that is not certain.
The Greenland melting is producing opportunities for astonishing, beautiful photographs. Check this one:
https://images.haarets.co.il/image/upload/v1560663869/1.7372026.2737274333.jpg
Took a 200 mile drive on Sunday to catch one of our favorite Portland bands. I know I should stop doing that, but it’s really hard to give up. Stopped and visited with friends along the way who were packing up to take their daughter on a vacation to Spain, then a cruise around the Mediterranean. They say they are only going to do this once, the footprint is a concern for them.
Seems like we have a handle on CO2 at last. Here are the current numbers:
June 9 – 15, 2019 413.98 ppm
June 9 – 15, 2018 411.22 ppm
It’s noisy, but 2.76 ppm is better than we have been seeing this year.
If you look around for good news, it’s there. No worries. I think a photoshoot vacation to Greenland or the Arctic might be a once in a lifetime opportunity. Put that one on your bucket list.
Cheers,
Mike
@nigelj, #144
About the MMCO:
” My bet is its a combination of these things, and that climate sensitivity is towards the higher side which is bad news for us.”
So we are on the very same page more or less ;) After all, it happened and it can happen again, just a “little bit” faster this time.
” We do cooperate a lot already within firms, and as families etc, but once we remove some element of free market competition ‘between’ firms, the economy may stagnate. We can probably say goodbye to more progress with medicine, technology, etcetera.”
“Free market competition” will be worth nothing anyway when the fight over food and water begins on a global scale. And we don’t live in a “free” market as lobbyism and corruption is just everywhere spreading like cancer. You just can’t call this a “free” market. In fact, it’s a slave market, at least, when you look at it from bottom to top. About medicine: I live in a socalled 1st world country (Germany) and I see more and more people who just don’t get appropiate medical care anymore as the medical system is PRIVATIZED more and ever more. And look at the 1st world country USA, the medical system is a complete desaster in the US. It’s an ongoing privatization process on a global scale.
Anyway, capitalists who profite from capitalism will fight to the bitter end, they will never ever give up their privileges, it’s all about the status quo of the rich and powerful. So the system will have to collapse and it will collapse sooner than later I bet, we just have to lay back and wait a little while :))
NigelJ: but even the science is vague on quantifying the arctic tipping point by saying its somewhere from plus 1-3 degrees C, so we “may” have already passed it such that a blue arctic is locked in.
AB: The semantics and timing are complicated. Just because something is locked in does not mean that it has “tipped”. While I’m confident that 500+ ppm CO2e is enough to mostly or entirely strip the planet of ice, there is no tipping point until and unless said ice melt becomes difficult to reverse. For example, Greenland’s ice’s surface will lower. Once lowered enough that it would take a glaciation to begin rebuilding it a tipping point has definitely been passed. That’s why I brought up the idea of a “tipping period”.
_______________
Nemesis: Com on, when you say I am trolling, as you said earlier, then the discussion must be futile as it makes no sense to talk to a troll, does it?
AB: Tone is more important than words and subsequent comments can inform about the tone of a previous comment. Apparently Nigel considers you a friend. When a friend says that you’re trolling it doesn’t mean that he considers you a troll, just that one itsy-bitsy (or bigger) part of what you said was imperfect in his mind. Yeah, he coulda made it clearer with an apology for using the wrong word (or the right one without adequate initial caveat?), but that’s quibbling.
Nemesis: Capitalism is… … you against me, them against us ect… …We as a species can only survive by cooperation, teamwork, sharing, not competition, not hoarding funny money, but working together as a species.
AB: Yeah. Competition is not a zero-sum game but a negative-addition game. If your “team” loses but their “team” loses even more that’s winning. If burning $999,999 worth of stuff gives you a $1,000,000 tax break then burn it all to the ground.
You made a dollar! Who cares that you just cost Others a million bucks? (You, because Others are now poorer so your relative position has improved)
Competition is effective when it is subordinated to collaboration. Otherwise it leads to fighting and disaster. “I’m ecstatic that I cut my hand because I broke his jaw.”
Al Bundy @145, could you summarise your alternative to capitalism, but over on FR which is the more appropriate thread? I do recall something about non for profit companies but not a lot more.