I should read more carefully at times, sometimes my eyes scan comments for keywords at first glance before I read in depth, just because I don’t read all comments all the time, so when I see certain keywords like “socialist” and “whatsupwiththat” I skip these comments without looking back. But this time these two keywords triggered me to fire back without a second thought or having a look at Russels beautiful blog^^ Thanks a lot, nigelj.
Nemesissays
@Russel, Unforced Variations, June 2019, #198
Sorry Sir, I confused you with some WUWT bot at first glance, my fault. Yeah these funny socialists like Macron drink the same champagne like all bourgeois do, hehe. It’s the very same in Germany. Money resp the economy rules, it’s as simple as that. Period.
Like I said, I’m an anarchist, I don’t vote for any party. Anyway, the abstract of that article you refered to looks amazing. I’ll see if I can get access to it. The abstract says:
” This article expands upon the notion of ideology as a material phenomenon, usually in the form of institutionalized, taken-for-granted practices. It draws on Herbert Marcuse and related thinkers to conceptualize technological solutions to environmental problems as materialized ideological responses to social-ecological contradictions, which, by concealing these contradictions, reproduce existing social conditions…”
That’s the key point of our predicament. The powers that be try to preserve gigantic injust socio-ecological desaster (the status quo) through funny technology. That’s going on for quite a long time and it will come to an end soon. Let me quote what Guy McPherson, who predicts human extinction by 2030 recently said:
“… Neither hope nor any known combination of actions will slow or stop human extinction. It is long past time we admitted hospice is the appropriate way forward…
Each of us was born into a set of living arrangements over which we have no control. The scorched-Earth policies we have adopted and implemented during the last two centuries have led to the expected outcome: a scorched Earth.
The time for blame has long passed. The time for shaming others has long passed. No blame, no shame: At the edge of extinction, only love remains. Let’s pursue hospice as one expression of our love.”
The time for blame has long past? The time for shaming others has long past? Only funny “love” remains? Are there no people who are responsible, people who make the wrong decisions just to suit their personal, greedy, ignorant needs 24/7 and ongoing? Will the world end in some lala land of love and understanding in the face of extinction?! I seriously doubt that. Where is the love of Mr Trump?! Where’s the love of Merkel, Macron, Putin, Exxon, Monsanto/Bayer, Black Rock, the Deutsche Bank, Heckler & Koch, Haliburton, Volkswagen, the Wall Street, the military-industrial complex et al?! Fuck their “love”.
They try to use funny tech shit and funny psychopath “rational calculations” as a vehicle to the save haven, but they and their descendants will end up in real Hell.
Love,
Nemesis
zebrasays
Can someone give a reference (or answer) relating to this:
How long does a typical air molecule reside in the jet stream?
I’ve read some on the jet stream in the past but I’ve never been able to conjure up a clear visual of the path followed from entrance to exit.
Nemesissays
Guys, the european june temperature record this year is just CRAZY (we had a global june temperature record as well):
Insects exist for roughly 400 million years, until no more.
Killiansays
If these numbers are accurate and widespread, these are cataclysmic numbers.
The ash-referenced measurements, however, showed a remarkable loss of about five percent per year at all the sites.
…But the real upshot of this study is simply how rapidly carbon was being lost. The researchers say there’s a good chance they’re looking at an area going through a phase of rapid change that may not be true everywhere or at all times.
I think this one reflects a “low noisy” day in 2018, so no reason to make too much of it.
June 23 – 29, 2019 413.35 ppm
June 23 – 29, 2018 410.73 ppm
2.62 ppm yoy, slightly less noisy number.
co2.earth
Enjoy the fireworks and tanks if you are yanks, otherwise, keep your head down if you hear things exploding or rumbling by.
Cheers
Mike
Nemesissays
You know, I’m no climate scientist, no scientist at all, no high school, no nothing, hehe. But I got instinct, animal instinct. And I got spirit. Bob Dylan once said:
I don’t need a weatherman, to know wich way the wind blows.
When I was quite a young man around 15, 16, 20 years old, I suffered from the conditions I was born in. Tough conditions I can tell. And I’ve been kicked ass quite often just for asking painful, but too obvious questions, hehe. And I said to myself:
Something is deeply wrong: Lies, smoke and mirrors, corruption, delusion, pipe dreams, fairy tales ect ect. And I looked at the environment, the way Mother Earth is being treated and all the injustice on a global scale. And I digged deeper and deeper, I digged down the rabbit hole, until I ended up at climate heating and the 6th global mass extincion. And finally I realized:
Reality will always win over ignorance, no matter what.
Today , some tens of millions of Americans will conduct the nation’s annual amateur geoengineering experiment by injecting ~2,500 tonnes of aerosol sulfur dioxide into the trophosphere.
As this forcing signal coincides with the annual low in SO2 release from the nation’s major sources, heating and heavy deisel fuels,-nobody much drives bulldozers or heats their home on the 4th of July, wannabe Keelings may wish to harrow the satellite IR data stream in search of publishable results.
I think I’ll observe the latest progress in spectral pyrotechnology- by surpressing sodium D line emission ,increased purification of fireworks grade strontium , barium and potassion salts
has done for the efficiency of colored fireworks what LED’s have done for home lighting.
So great isthe improvement in colored light emission that the weight of display fireworks- and the amount of propellent needed to launch them, has fallen roughly 60% since the turn of the century.
You do realise, don’t you, that the skeptics, looking at the map in first figure, the one that shows Europe and part of Russia, will see all the blue bits (cold anomalies) over Russia and say that these cancel out all the red and orange bits (warm anomalies) over Europe, in particular Spain, France etc?
Also, looking at the temp. plots, they’ll say the trends do not count because we were coming out of the Little Ice Age anyway, so the lines are just continuing along their natural course.
Something like that. (I shall try not to get too depressed about it)
“we estimate that 0.9 billion hectares are found outside cropland and urban regions ”
“More than 50% of the tree restoration potential can be found in only six countries (in million hectares: Russia, +151; United States, +103; Canada, +78.4; Australia, +58; Brazil, +49.7; and China, +40.2)”
“there is likely to be space for at least an additional 0.9 billion ha of canopy cover. If these restored woodlands and forests were allowed to mature to a similar state of existing ecosystems in protected areas, they could store 205 GtC. Of course, the carbon capture associated with global restoration could not be instantaneous because it would take several decades for forests to reach maturity. Nevertheless, under the assumption that most of this additional carbon was sourced from the atmosphere, reaching this maximum restoration potential would reduce a considerable proportion of the global anthropogenic carbon burden (~300 GtC) to date (1). ”
Nemesis @5,
You link to an article on the extreme June temperatures in France at the end of June which features some dramatic bar graphs of June temperature anomalies. The bottom one of these is labelled as being a HadCRUT4 global anomaly, yet this temperature record will only be publishing its June global anomaly at the end of July. And if you plot out the HadCRUT June anomalies for previous years, they bear little relationship to the detail shown in the graph in the link.
I would suggest we await the posting of the June surface temperatures from GISTEMP, NOAA or HadCRUT before we proclaim June 2019 to be smashing previous global records (according to the graph by more than +0.1ºC).
Richardsays
New paper published – No Experimental Evidence for the Significant Anthropogenic Climate Change (https://arxiv.org/pdf/1907.00165.pdf) which suggests that clouds drive the global temperature and that CO2 sensitivity is around 0.24C rather than IPCCs 2-5C.
Does this make any sense?
They show a graph plotting low cloud cover vs temperature variation, and suggest it shows a negative correlation.
And RSS has posted the June global TLT anomaly at +0.81ºC, the warmest anomaly of the year-to-date (May was the coolest anomaly of the year-to-date). All this as per UAH. It is the warmest June in the RSS TLT record. (In UAH it lay 2nd behind 1998.) Previous warm RSS TLT Junes were 2016 (+0.66ºC), 2010 (+0.63ºC), 1998 (+0.60ºC), 2015 (+0.58ºC), this not greatly different to UAH given the low long-term warmng rates seen in UAH.
The RSS Browser tool shows higher June anomalies relative to May in all latitude bands.
June 2019 sits at 8th warmest month in the RSS all-month record. (=17th in UAH.)
With the first half of the year behind us, 2019 sits firmly in second-top spot (4th spot in UAH).
Hi everybody, I’ve been reading some of these posts for quite some time, and figured the start of the month may be the best time to get in here on the conversation.
First thing I’ll mention is that Copernicus released their surface air temperature anomaly for June 2019; both Europe and worldwide experienced record high anomalies. Nemesis @5 noted this too, but this is the full update.
We probably shouldn’t be too surprised that Europe had its highest anomaly with that strong ridge that was in place last week pushing all those high temperatures (with France hitting its all-time high of 45.9C/114.6F).
Globally however, it is kind of surprising mainly because of the magnitude: 0.11C above June 2016. And add in the fact that were in a marginal El Nino, makes this anomaly even more ominous.
@3 – Nemesis
“Like I said, I’m an anarchist, I don’t vote for any party.”
Why not vote for the green party? They’re the most obvious choice, especially in Europe, I mean they’re the ascendant party based on the past EU elections.
Getting people that push for sustainable policies into positions of power will go a lot further in providing a better planet for current and future generations to live on than hoping for the downfall of economic/societal system.
————————————————————————–
I think anyone pushing these early extinction things are just blowhards to be honest, it induces fear and panic which can be paralyzing, and it invites the deniers to claim that it is alarmist. The only thing that will cause near extinction by 2030 would be an asteroid/comet collision or nuclear war. It won’t be due to global warming. We’ll likely be nearing 1.5C though.
But obviously, we’re nowhere near anything substantial in reducing our emissions to a level required for lower warming. Last time I checked the Climate Action Tracker has current climate policies leading to about 3.2C of warming; pledges leading to 2.75C warming, we’re not close to hitting those.
We have most, if not all that we need to fix the problem. The question is thus, will we use what we have to fix the problem? So far, the answer is a resounding no, but that doesn’t mean it cannot change. Just got to de-brainwash the population and get those anti-environment conservatives the hell out of office and we will finally see some significant progress.
Nemesissays
@Nick O., #22
” You do realise, don’t you, that the skeptics…”
Oh well, I realize that the ignorants will stick to ignorance as it’s the nature of ignorants to be ignorant no matter what. Man is capable of choice, some choose ignorance while others choose awareness and responsibility, it’s a matter of dignity and integrity. And yes, we should try not to get too depressed about these ignorants as depression leads to nowhere. Let’s face harsh reality, life is short anyway, in the end the laws of Nature always win over ignorance, no matter what (and I like that). And there’s one beautiful side of climate heating resp the 6th global mass extinction:
It won’t spare ignorants :))
@MA Rodger, #15
” I would suggest we await the posting of the June surface temperatures from GISTEMP, NOAA or HadCRUT…”
Ok, no problem. One thing for sure:
It’s getting hot and hotter over time and it will get hotter and uglier for quite a long time as:
“… there’s a time lag between the emission of greenhouse gases and the total effects they have on the global climate system. Even if humans stopped emitting all carbon today, it would still take decades or even centuries for global temperatures to stabilize, and perhaps between 1,000 and 2,000 years for the climate system as a whole— including the response of the world’s ice sheets, sea levels, ecosystems and so on— to reach a point of equilibrium.
It’s also important to note that today’s conditions aren’t perfectly comparable with those in the past. Even if today’s CO2 concentrations are similar to the levels seen millions of years ago, the rate at which they’re currently climbing probably “outstrips anything we’ve seen in the geological record for at least 65 million years…”
I watched the green party grow since the early 80s, I watched their march through the institutions, they got slick over time, it’s not the green party as in the beginning anymore. I voted for the green party 1998, when they came to power together with the social democratic party in Germany 1998. And I was disillusioned very quickly, the green party just got slick and slickier when they were in power. Why is it? The answer is obvious and I said it a million times:
There is a fatal fact, it’s called “political constraints”, to name it straight:
The constraints of the economy, the constraints of capitalism. We aren’t ruled by political parties, we aren’t ruled by political ideals, we are ruled by the economy, the globe is ruled by funny money and no party will change that. This is our fate until money Empire will collapse. Soon.
alan2102says
#14 sidd 5 Jul 2019: “Trees are the answer? 205 GT carbon potential sequestration.”
Thanks. I was waiting to post this on the new forced responses thread (forced responses supposedly for mitigation/adaptation stuff, and not here, right?), but that thread has not yet been created, apparently.
Here’s the paper and accompanying editorial:
http://sci-hub.tw/10.1126/science.aax0848
Science 365, 76–79 (2019) 5 July 2019
RESTORATION ECOLOGY
The global tree restoration potential
Jean-Francois Bastin et al
editorial:
http://sci-hub.tw/10.1126/science.aax9539
Science 5 JULY 2019 • VOL 365 ISSUE 6448, pg24-5
ECOLOGY
Restoring forests as a means to many ends
An urgent need to replenish tree canopy cover calls for holistic approaches
By Robin Chazdon and Pedro Brancalion
snip
concluding paragraphs:
“Forest restoration is a mechanism to achieve multiple goals, including climate mitigation, biodiversity conservation, socioeconomic benefits, food security, and ecosystem
services. A living tree helps to illustrate the components of a holistic forest restoration
system (see the figure). The above-ground portions of the tree are the trunk (restoration
initiatives), branches (restoration outcomes), and fruits (restoration benefits). Below the
ground are soil (capital stocks) and root structures that assimilate and distribute resources and create enabling conditions.
Viewing restoration as a system also guides appropriate mechanisms to mobilize
resources in cost-effective ways. One such mechanism is to use the best available spatial
information to identify areas where the most beneficial and feasible restoration outcomes
intersect (10). Bastin et al. clearly show that we have a narrow window of time in which
to restore global tree cover. We need to act quickly, intelligently, holistically, and globally.
Doing so will require planting and sustaining of restoration systems wherever new types of canopy cover are needed.”
……………………..
Brian Wang (nextbigfuture) has an interesting take:
https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2019/07/trees-for-a-complete-solution-to-extra-co2-and-climate-change.html
“The additional trees could be cut down in 20 years and the wood stores the CO2 unless they decay or are burned. Another batch of trees could be grown. If a breed of faster growing trees are used then every 12-15 years a batch of a trillion trees would offset all of the CO2 produced by civilization.
The best (non-drone) tree restoration projects are restoring billions of trees at 30 cents a tree. This means 1 trillion trees would be $300 billion. Drone planting of trees can use 4000 drones, and 2000 people to plant 10 billion trees per year at about $1 billion per year.
It might be triple this amount to cut down the trees and to use the wood. The value of the wood could offset the cost of cutting them down. A very rough estimate would be $450 billion every 12 years to cut plant and cut down some faster-growing trees to offset all human CO2 and greenhouse gas production.
The researchers claim it is not a complete solution. However, if we stabilize the growth of CO2 production which is affordable and then cut down the trees every 12-20 years to sequester a fresh amount of CO2 then it is a complete solution.
The three other solutions that scale are regenerative agriculture to restore top soil, iron fertilization of the ocean and mass production of kelp at 1000 times current levels.”
Yes, Wang is probably too optimistic about this. Wang is too optimistic about everything. But he outlines an area urgently needing good analysis.
Further, in the comments section of that link danielravennest makes these points:
“In a world with 10 billion people (late 21st century) trying to live a modern lifestyle, there will be plenty more consumption. Remember, those trillion extra trees won’t be harvested for decades after you plant them.
There has been work to use heavy wood framing as a replacement for steel and concrete in taller buildings (more than 3 floors). Since steel and concrete emit a lot of CO2 to produce them, that’s another climate strategy.”
and:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_dioxide_removal
“Wooden building construction
In their “roadmap for rapid decarbonization”, Rockström et al. (2017) proposed in the journal Science that “[a]fter 2030, all building construction must be carbon-neutral or carbon-negative. The construction industry must either use emissions-free concrete and steel or replace those materials with zero- or negative-emissions substances such as wood, stone, and carbon fiber.[52] Especially wooden building constructions are a promising way to store emissions, as wood mainly contains carbon, grows faster due to the higher CO2 concentration and is established as a building material for several centuries. Projects like W350 in Tokyo and Mjøstårnet in Brumunddal demonstrate that even skyscrapers could potentially be built from wood and, thus, store large amounts of carbon.[53]”
…………………….
This way of viewing tree-planting and -harvesting as ongoing cycle, and using the wood for building purposes (long-term carbon removal), can be compared to more-artificial carbon capture schemes that result in usable carbonate materials. In the case of trees, the “usable carbon” is in the form of the wood, as incorporated into building stock. But trees offer many other advantages while alive: ecosystem services and etc., as well as biodiversity support if the tree-planting is done right. A useful piece of analysis would be a cost comparison (projected), direct air capture vs. trees.
Richard @16,
The paper you ask about – Kauppinen & Malmi (2019) ‘No Experimental Eevidence for the Significnt Anthropogenic Climate Change’ – isn’t truly “new” as the thesis was first presented within Kauppinen et al (2014) which begs the question ‘Why would we still be asking whether-or-not it makes sense if it first saw the light of day five years ago?’
If that isn’t a satisfactory rebuttal of the paper, the relationship between HadCRUT temperature data and ISCCP cloud cover data (Kauppinen & Malmi use low level ISCCP cloud cover data) is discussed in this 2016 blog which concludes saying “the possibility that temperatures control clouds, and not the other way round, should be considered.” Kauppinen & Malmi don’t give a source for their Relative Humidity data but their grand model (their Equation 1) does show they have no desire to represent climate forcings in anything like a sensible fashion.
DasKleineTeilchensays
@14;sidd:
would reduce a considerable proportion of the global anthropogenic carbon burden (~300 GtC) to date (1)
can please someone explain these 300 GT-figure to me? nearly every mainstream-article about this paper assumes that this is the amount of Co2 mankind released into the atmosphere since 1850, which is obvisouly not the case (would be more like 2000 GT, right?).
Nemesissays
@sidd, #14
” Trees are the answer ?”
Not really:
” If the world’s nations really do intend to contain global warming to within 2°C, there is no alternative to drastic cuts in greenhouse gas emissions, according to a new study.
The tree could be regarded as low-technology carbon removal machinery and, in theory, carefully managed plantations could soak up the carbon released from fossil fuel combustion. But the sheer scale of such plantations would have devastating environmental costs, scientists say…
Trees are not the answer
If the forests were planted on productive land, then humans would lose the soils urgently needed to nourish a population of 9bn. If the trees were planted on less productive terrain, the necessary costs in water and nitrogen-based fertiliser would be devastating. Either way, natural ecosystems would be irreparably damaged…
“ In the climate drama currently unfolding
on that big stage we call Earth, CO2 removal
is not the hero who finally saves the day
after everything else has failed”…”
I don’t disagree with you about how those with wealth, the “elites” hold the majority of policy levers, and that this is a primary driver in effecting meaningful climate action (right-wingers less willing to do something about it). I guess I’m still an optimist in thinking people will finally wake up and realize that “conservatism” is burning the planet, but I won’t lie that this optimism is receding and if Trunp were to be elected in 2020 it’ll be gone, because the crap he has been doing is on another level of evil and stupidity.
There clearly will need to be a complete change in our societal and economic way of thinking if we’re get anywhere near achieving what was set out in the Paris Agreement, but that money influence from especially the fossil fuel lobby (we can blame them for a lot of this stalling, deception) is still making it really difficult. If we keep seeing stronger than normal weather events, people won’t be able to keep their heads in the sand any longer.
———————–
@16
Anytime I have seen a paper with an ECS below 1.5C I just shake my head and then forget it because it makes absolutely no sense. We’re already at ~1.15C above pre-industrial times, there was just a paper out that stated if we use up all of our current fossil fuel capacity we can kiss 1.5C goodbye. There are also a couple papers out there from a couple years back stating that even if we emit 0 emissions from that point on (2018 onward) we’re still committed to 1.3-1.4C. So an ECS of 0.24C is just ludicrous, we’re already at warming that is almost 5x that… it’s a joke.
nigeljsays
Richard @ MAR
“New paper published – No Experimental Evidence for the Significant Anthropogenic Climate Change (https://arxiv.org/pdf/1907.00165.pdf) which suggests that clouds drive the global temperature and that CO2 sensitivity is around 0.24C rather than IPCCs 2-5C. Does this make any sense? They show a graph plotting low cloud cover vs temperature variation, and suggest it shows a negative correlation.”
This article below is interesting and is basically suggesting rather than reductions in low level cloud cover driving warming, anthropogenic warming causes less low level cloud cover:
“But a new study published in the July 24 issue of Science is clearing the haze. A group of researchers from the University of Miami and the Scripps Institute of Oceanography studied cloud data of the northeast Pacific Ocean — both from satellites and from the human eye — over the past 50 years and combined that with climate models. They found that low-level clouds tend to dissipate as the ocean warms — which means a warmer world could well have less cloud cover. “That would create positive feedback, a reinforcing cycle that continues to warm the climate,” says Amy Clement, a climate scientist at the University of Miami and the lead author of the Science study.”
“Getting data on cloud cover isn’t easy. There is reliable information from satellites, but those only go back a few decades — not long enough to provide a reliable forecast for the future. Clement and her colleagues combined recent satellite data with human observations — literally, from sailors scanning the sky — that go back to 1952, and found the two sets were surprisingly in sync. “It’s pretty remarkable,” says Clement. “We were almost shocked by the degree of concordance.”
“The data showed that as the Pacific Ocean has warmed over the past several decades — part of the gradual process of global warming — low-level cloud cover has lessened. That might be due to the fact that as the earth’s surface warms, the atmosphere becomes more unstable and draws up water vapor from low altitudes to form deep clouds high in the sky. (Those types of high-altitude clouds don’t have the same cooling effect.) The Science study also found that as the oceans warmed, the trade winds — the easterly surface winds that blow near the equator — weakened, which further dissipated the low clouds.”
“The question now is whether this process will continue in the future, as the world keeps warming. Scientists create climate models to try to predict how the earth will respond to higher levels of greenhouse-gas emissions, but only one model — created by the Hadley Centre in Britain — includes the possible impact of changing cloud behavior. And the bad news is that the Hadley model contains particularly high temperature increases for the 21st century, in part because it sees dissipating cloud cover as a positive-feedback cycle — meaning the warmer it gets, the less cloud cover there will be, which will further warm the earth. Though it’s just one data set over one part of the earth’s surface, the Science study indicates that the pessimistic Hadley model may be right. “These low clouds are like the mirrors of the climate system,” says Clement. “If they disappear, you might see that positive-feedback cycle.”
In response to YouTube demonetizing our channel, we were forced to remove many climate videos we uploaded over the years, due to their 2019 content reuse policy. Subsequently we created a new video streaming hub for these videos. You find many science talks we shared previously now at https://climatestate.uscreen.io/catalog
We have a good mix of different measures colliding – different units – Gt(C) and Gt(CO2) – different quantities – cumulative emissions and atmospheric increase.
Using Global Carbon Budget fiigures, the anthropogenic emissions of CO2 1850-2017 totals 630Gt(C) which is equal to 2,300Gt(CO2), so a little higher than your 2,000Gt figure.
According to Global Carbon Project numbers, the increase in atmospheric CO2 to 1750-2004 is 206Gt(C) and is today close to 280Gt(C) as atmospheric levels have now risen 130ppm at 2.13Gt(C) per ppm. This quantity is probably the “~300Gt(C)” from Bastin et al (2019) described as “the global anthropogenic carbon burden to date” and quoted @14. (The reference given by Bastin et al is to IPCC SR15 but I don’t see the value given there.)
Bastin et al argue that 205Gt(C) could be stored in woodland over a century through a massive planting campaign (which given the acreage suggested would be 80t(C) per effective acre of woodland) and this would “reduce a considerable proportion of the global anthropogenic carbon burden (~300GtC)”. However the 205Gt(C) would be a reduction in the 630Gt(C) value plus any emissions over the coming century, so probably nearer a 800Gt(C) value which is the value to use as if you lower atmospheric CO2, it will releases sequestered CO2 from the oceans & biosphere. This then leads to the likes of the BBC saying “The study shows that the space available for trees is far greater than previously thought, and would reduce CO2 in the atmosphere by 25%.”
“If the forests were planted on productive land, then humans would lose the soils urgently needed to nourish a population of 9bn.”
There’s plenty of food to go around. Agricultural productivity is excellent and improving all the time with no end in sight. Climate change will cause decay of improvements but it is questionable just how much, and it might be modest or even negligible (there is a large and conflicting literature on this topic), because climate change has both positive and negative impacts on productivity. Food *quality* on the other hand will almost certainly decline, absent soil amendment countermeasures.
“If the trees were planted on less productive terrain, the necessary costs in water and nitrogen-based fertiliser would be devastating.”
Trees improve the water cycle and conserve water by holding on to precipitation. Better to speak of the “costs in water” of NOT planting trees. As for nitrogen: yes it is a limiting nutrient in some areas; forested areas in the North have observed N limitation. It remains to be seen if N supplementation would be required for the success (or to enhance the magnitude of success) of the suggested program, but if it is, we have no basis yet to say that the costs would be “devastating”.
“Either way, natural ecosystems would be irreparably damaged.”
Why?
“And then the trees grown to absorb carbon would have to be stored deep underground, to prevent the carbon returning to the atmosphere.”
False. Store them deep aboveground in the form of buildings.
“In the climate drama currently unfolding on that big stage we call Earth, CO2 removal is not the hero who finally saves the day after everything else has failed”
True. But it might be the co-hero, along with a dozen other initiatives, in mitigating what would otherwise be unmanageable.
……………….
PS: this just in:
https://www.businessinsider.co.za/this-south-african-made-drone-can-help-re-plant-100-million-trees-a-year-from-2023-2019-6
This South African invention allows drones to plant hundreds of trees in minutes
Jul 02, 2019
“- A new device, built in South Africa, allows drones to fire seeds into the ground.
– Two seeds per second are fired at velocities of between 150 to 300 metres per second.
– Its inventors hope that drones can be used to plant a million trees a year.
snip
The module…can attach to the bottom of popular drone models. Louw and Walker estimate that a team of two, flying 2 drones, can plant up to 40,000 seeds into into the ground in a day.”
The theory I thought I’d gotten straight–and maybe I did, as far as it goes–is that low cloud tends to cool via straightforward reflection, whereas high cloud tends to warm because its altitude puts the cloud top at a cool temperature where radiative efficacy is lowered, hence “Those types of high-altitude clouds don’t have the same cooling effect.”
But apparently cloud composition makes a big difference:
…clouds cool the Earth on average by −17.1 watts over every square meter (W/m2). Warm liquid clouds have a net cooling effect of –11.8 W/m2, whereas ice clouds have a warming effect of 3.5 W/m2. For the first time, the study found that clouds consisting entirely of liquid or ice account for nearly half of the total cooling effect of clouds on the climate. Clouds containing a mixture of ice crystals and water droplets (mixed-phase clouds) cool the globe by −3.4 W/m2, and clouds consisting of multiple distinct ice and liquid layers cause an additional cooling of −5.4 W/m2.
With regard to the Kauppinen & Malmi paper mentioned at the top of this subthread, I have 5 comments:
1) Posting on Archiv isn’t really “publication” in the normative sense; there’s no peer-review involved.
2) The bibliography of the paper is severely deficient; it consists only of 2 items if you discount 4 self-citations. That sounds like a carp, but what it really does is to call into question whether the authors have done their homework in the field. The fact that they didn’t cite the 2009 paper Nigel mentioned (as discussed in a Time piece) suggests that they didn’t, because their argument seems to assume that low clouds cause warming, whereas the 2009 result, already in the peer-reviewed literature, says the opposite. That is a possibility that they should have addressed.
3) Kauppinen & Malmi doesn’t say that the climate sensitivity to CO2 is low because of the negative correlation. It claims low sensitivity based on previous work by the same two authors. Of the 3 citations, one is another Archiv e-print, one appeared in the rather dubious journal Energy and Environment, while the third appeared in 2011 in the International Review of Phyics. Don’t know anything about that journal, but it’s clearly not a climate science title. So the citations are not in the formal climate science literature. That doesn’t mean they are wrong, but it does suggest further that the authors do not have any demonstrated expertise in the topic area.
4) There are some language issues that ought to give pause to anyone who has a passing familiarity with scholarship. First is the repeated use of the word “prove”. “In this paper we will prove… We have proven…” That’s not a normal formulation. It’s at odds with the prevailing Popperian falsification paradigm, for one thing. It’s at odds with the adage that “extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence,” for another: the claim is that ” the GCM-models used in IPCC report AR5 cannot computecorrectly the natural component included in the observed global temperature,” but their supposed “proof” takes less than six pages including figures and uses just one equation–which equation brings up the second language issue.
That equation, derived apparently in the self-cited papers I mentioned, is the sole support in the paper for the claim that CO2 sensitivity is low. Yet the authors say “We do not consider computational results as experimental evidence.” So, they are dismissing the computational results of multiple climate models in favor of the computational result of a single equation derived from their own (probably non-peer-reviewed) work. So what they really seem to do is privilege their own “computational result” over everyone else’s.
5) A final troubling piece in the paper comes on page 3, where Kauppinen & Malmi say:
If the clouds and CO2 were taken into account correctly in the climate models both the blue [‘natural forcings temperature response’] and red [‘all forcings temperature response’] envelopes should overlap the observed black curve.
It’s confusingly written, making it tough for the reader to figure out which bits refer to which of the 3 figures they mean at which point; in fact, I had to rewrite this a couple of times based on successive attempts to figure out what they really meant. The “envelopes” in Figure 1, which is what I *think* they’re referring to, are lavender and pink, not blue and red. But the blue and red curves in Figures 2 & 3 are not “envelopes”.
Anyway, the bottom line here is that I don’t see any basis for the statement quoted. They simply make the assertion, without explanation. Isn’t that simply assuming what they purport to “prove”? Sure looks like it to this humble musician. It’s one thing to critique the logic of the IPCC that in climate models natural forcings can’t simulate observed warming, by claiming a larger influence of low-level cloud; it’s another to assume, apparently completely a priori, that any ‘proper’ handling of natural forcings in climate models “should” obviate that possibility.
(And before leaving the topic, how can their blue curve in Figure 3, which purports to be based on observations of cloudiness (which however, they do not specify in this paper, though they may in one of the self-cites!) possibly be equivalent to a calculated “all natural forcings” temperature resultant in climate models, anyway?)
My amateur impression of the K & M paper is that it is not only unpublished but unpublishable. The argument, far from being a “proof”, is so poorly developed as barely to be comprehensible, let alone convincing.
Nemesissays
@alan2102, #28
” Agricultural productivity is excellent and improving all the time with no end in sight. Climate change will cause decay of improvements but it is questionable just how much, and it might be modest or even negligible (there is a large and conflicting literature on this topic), because climate change has both positive and negative impacts on productivity…”
Oh, wonderful, “climate change has both positive and negative impacts on agricultural productivity”, I heard that meme a million times :)) So, just plant trees and hope that you get the “positive” impacts of climate heating.
I for my part lay back, relax and wait until CO2 emissions drop and have lots of fun with “positive” impacts and geoengineering plans like planting trees, carbon sequestration, BECCS, direct air capture, Solar Radiation Management (real fun^^) ect ect ect.
… oh and please , don’t forget to tell european farmers about these “positive” impacts on agricultural productivity :))
Killiansays
Re #23 Nemesis said ” Trees are the answer ?”
Not really:
”The tree could be regarded as low-technology carbon removal machinery and, in theory, carefully managed plantations could soak up the carbon released from fossil fuel combustion. But the sheer scale of such plantations would have devastating environmental costs, scientists say…
Trees are not the answer
Why would you choose an old article from *journalists*? Why would you, if you’re going to cite *journalists* instead of scientists or professionals in appropriate fields, cherry-pick that old article vs this one from the same site and same journalist, but four days ago?
If the forests were planted on productive land, then humans would lose the soils urgently needed to nourish a population of 9bn.
Yeah, cause agroforestry, food forests, etc., don’t exist. Ridiculous.
If the trees were planted on less productive terrain, the necessary costs in water and nitrogen-based fertiliser would be devastating.
1. Don’t plant trees, plant forests, or at least polycultures. 2. Among those polycultures are legumes that increase nitrogen in the soil. 3. Little water needed bc we’re not idiots and plant trees matched to the location. 4. Don’t listen to people not clear on a concept.
Etc.
Wishing for death will generally get you what you desire. If that’s going to be your mode, please do it in private. You’ve no right to try to drag others into your maladaptive life choices.
Killiansays
Re #20 alan2102 said #14 sidd 5 Jul 2019: “Trees are the answer? 205 GT carbon potential sequestration.”
Thanks. I was waiting to post this on the new forced responses thread
Restoring forests as a means to many ends
An urgent need to replenish tree canopy cover calls for holistic approaches
By Robin Chazdon and Pedro Brancalion
So, take a permaculture course.
“Forest restoration is a mechanism to achieve multiple goals, including climate mitigation, biodiversity conservation, socioeconomic benefits, food security, and ecosystem
services. A living tree helps to illustrate the components of a holistic forest restoration
system…
Viewing restoration as a system also guides appropriate mechanisms to mobilize resources
Quite. But that should not be done top-down, but locally.
in cost-effective ways.
Voodoo. Ignore this.
One such mechanism is to use the best available spatial information to identify areas where the most beneficial and feasible restoration outcomes intersect
That can help, but far better is to provide that information to locals and let them develop their spaces as is appropriate for them.
Bastin et al. clearly show that we have a narrow window of time in which
to restore global tree cover. We need to act quickly, intelligently, holistically, and globally.
You don’t say? Shocking!
Goodness…
Doing so will require planting and sustaining of restoration systems wherever new types of canopy cover are needed.”
Hmmm… Do they mention anything about water cycle? Add a forest, change the water cycle there and downwind. If big enough, globally. So, some systems can be solely locally managed. Others may need input from the local to the bio-regional and possibly inter-bio-regional.
Brian Wang (nextbigfuture) has an interesting take:
Meh… Coppicing, bio-char, hugelkulture, et al., are all old news. This would need to be primarily local decisions, but could extend to all levels, as noted above. iron fertilization of the ocean and mass production of kelp at 1000 times current levels.”
Wang is a dilettante, I fear, taking a kitchen sink approach with no guiding principles or plan.
Yes, Wang is probably too optimistic about this.
No, he is not. I’ve told you all for years we can do all sequestration naturally: Reforestation, Aforestation, Regenerative Ag, Holistic Grazing, Bio-Char/Tera Preta, Hugelkulture.
Couple these with simplification and we can get to 260ppm in decades.
Or are you all going to throw out this study merely because it supports my stance of all these long years?
Remember, those trillion extra trees won’t be harvested for decades after you plant them.
Only partially true. Some trees grow incredibly fast. These types can be used for pollarding and rapid sequestration as bio-char, hugelkulture, building, etc.
This way of viewing tree-planting and -harvesting as ongoing cycle
What other way is there???
and using the wood for building purposes (long-term carbon removal)
You mean like planting overstory in your food forest to be used as building materials for original building or repairs?
I’d have never thought of that…
can be compared to more-artificial carbon capture schemes that result in usable carbonate materials.
NOAA’s updated their dataset – without Lamar Smith to threaten supeenys on the scientists for publishing updates, this news isn’t something I’d heard of. Other than the press info, has anyone heard details? Here’s some text from a June 18 announcement – at the end it notes the paper is forthcoming.
“NOAA Advances Temperature Analysis
Update to NOAA Global Temperature dataset improves data coverage of Earth https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/news/NOAA-Global-Temp-Dataset
The latest version of NOAA Merged Land-Ocean Global Surface Temperature Analysis Dataset, commonly known as NOAAGlobalTemp, builds on recent improvements to two existing NCEI datasets. Updates of the Global Historical Climatology Network–Monthly (GHCNm) and Extended Reconstructed Sea Surface Temperature (ERSST) datasets preceded the release of the newest NOAAGlobalTemp. GHCNm version 4 and ERSST version 5 merge to form NOAAGlobalTemp version 5.”
Reference: Zhang, Huai-Min, Jay H. Lawrimore, Boyin Huang, Matthew J. Menne, Xungang Yin, Ahira Sanchez-Lugo, Byron E. Gleason, Russell Vose, Derek Arndt, J. Jared Rennie, and Claude N. Williams. “The NOAA Global Surface Temperature Dataset Version 5: Employing Improved Data Coverage and Historical Homogenization.” Eos (forthcoming).
Nemesissays
Addendum to my recent comment:
@Killian, #31
” Wishing for death will generally get you what you desire. If that’s going to be your mode, please do it in private. You’ve no right to try to drag others into your maladaptive life choices.”
Smile, thank you very much for the roses, you know, DEATH is for everyone, you can not exclude yourself from DEATH I bet, no one can. Just wait for some decades at most and you will realize 100% what I’m talking about 8) Here’s my final message about planting trees:
Do as you please, plant as many trees as you can and let’s see what happens. I don’t stop anyone from planting trees, I don’t have the power to stop anyone from planting trees and I got absolutely no reason to stop anyone from any futile pipe dreams. The most efficient killer of capitalism is capitalism itself, so I strongly support capitalism and all its pipe dreams:
Walk on, walk on, we’re almost there.
mikesays
Tree planting? Should that be Forced Responses thread?
S Rahmstorff says: “Tree planting is fine but look at the numbers. Once all these trillion trees are planted, they take up 200 Gt of carbon in 50-100 years, on average 2-4 Gt/yr. We currently emit 11 Gt/yr and rising. It helps, but at best a fraction – and little at first.”
Can/should we move the plant tree discussion to FR?
CO2 having a good day:
Daily CO2
July 8, 2019: 410.76 ppm
July 8, 2018: 409.53 ppm
I would love to see monthly increase numbers under 2.0 ppm in my lifetime.
Warm regards
Mike
Nemesissays
@Killian
About using geongineering resp trees to clean up the mess capitalist empire created, just let me remind you of the study above:
“… the notion of ideology as a material phenomenon, usually in the form of institutionalized, taken-for-granted practices… technological solutions to environmental problems as materialized ideological responses to social-ecological contradictions, which, by concealing these contradictions, reproduce existing social conditions…
… in each case, these technological solutions conceal social-ecological contradictions and support the current economic system and those benefiting from it, while precluding other alternatives…”
And don’t dare to ask me about these other alternatives as I’m sick and tired of repeating the most obvious shit over and over again, think for yourself.
Killiansays
Re #36 Nemesis said @Killian #31
” Why would you choose an old article…”
You want recent science?
No. I want the cutting edge. You repeat the FAILed cherry pick, another old article. The most recent, most comprehensive, with a specific metric, is days old. An article from Jan cannot address the issues raised in the new article.
Worse, you continue to lie by repeating the Straw Man. I know of nobody who has been calling for trees as **the only solution.** Even the new one says it only buys us time.
I hate lies, I hate liars. This has not been an issue with you. It now is. I suggest you return to the clear-eyed, if bound by weak-minded suicidal ideations, tone of the past.
They used a computer model of global vegetation to determine how extensive biomass plantations would have to be in order to hold the increase in global average temperature below 2° C under different emissions scenarios.
The results aren’t comforting. The sheer scale of biomass plantations that would be required to meaningfully mitigate our carbon dioxide emissions is mind-boggling
You have been around here long enough that there is zero intent or desire to simply rely on rewilding, and certainly not to *only* rely on rewilding. The authors of that study are ignorant of what is possible, clearly, so rely on the only thing they know: Growing more of what already exists. Yet, when we use bio-mimicry to engineer ecosystems, even those made to look and act like naturally occurring systems, we create them to enhance and speed up natural processes. That study is deeply deficient because it does not include the multiple time more carbon we can sequester when we assist nature. It’s called speeding up succession in terms of processes over time.
I realize you are suicidal, or rather sui-genocidal, but it is immoral and unethical to spread such ideations publicly. Find your tribe, do it there, by all means. Do your deathwish thing. But you cross a line when you step into public and start encouraging others to join your death cult.
Converting large areas of natural landscape to biomass plantations threatens these already stressed ecosystems.
Really? Gosh… who’d’a thunk it? That’s why absolutely nobody with a songle active brain cell would suggest it. Thus, why even bring it up?
Millions of newly planted trees simply died of drought during the recent years
Because only those ignorant of natural systems and principles would plant trees solo. How do you think you’re making a strong argument against natural regenerative sequestration techniques by citing stupidity as something to be against?
You’ve been better than this. Return to that.
nigeljsays
The trouble with planting trees is for every tree planted you have clowns like Brazil’s president Bolsonaro authorizing more deforestation of the Amazon. Not saying planting trees is futile, but the heavy lifting clearly has to be done with renewable energy, like the IPCC and most agencies suggest. At least wind and solar power is now cost effective, which means it has some realistic chance.
DasKleineTeilchensays
@27,MA Rodger:
thank you for the detailed explanation. most appreciated =)
ozajhsays
Mike@34,
I pay a lot more attention to the monthly numbers. As you say, there’s too much noise in the weekly ones.
That said, I find the LACK of MSM interest in the current 3ppmpy C02 rise truly amazing. To my layman’s mind, it’s genuinely terrifying that the RATE of increase is itself increasing when we are starting to see real effects from current CO2 levels.
b fagan @35,
The NOAA Global Climate Report does have a comparison page comparing v4 and v5. Diving into the data directories, the difference between v4 & v5 yields a pretty flat wobbly line with just a few notable non-flat features along the way, perhaps most of note being a recent step-rise in the otherwise flat wobbly line of something like +0.03ºC in 2016. This ‘step change’ is not enough to change the top ten annual rankings tabulated in the v4/v5 comparison page linked above.
alan2102says
#30 Nemesis 8 Jul 2019 — “Oh, wonderful, “climate change has both positive and negative impacts on agricultural productivity”, I heard that meme a million times :)) So, just plant trees and hope that you get the “positive” impacts of climate heating.”
No, not “just” anything. As I’m sure we all know, it must be a comprehensive, multi-front effort, and also must be continually monitored, criticized, and course-corrected as needed. Nothing “just” (simple, set-and-forget) about it.
As for the impacts of climate change on agricultural and general productivity (net primary production), some of them positive: this is well-documented in the literature, though you would not know it from the “overshoot! global famine! billions must die!” hysteria of the Malthusian doomers.
I’ve been following this literature for years, and there’s a lot. I don’t have time or expertise to read and understand all of it, but I read good bit.
Atmospheric conditions, including temperature, moisture, CO2, and so forth, are among the many factors that influence plant growth and agricultural productivity both negatively and positively. Generally, climate change will have a negative impact, but it is complex and not unopposed by changes in agricultural techniques, land use policies, etc., plus which aspects of “climate change” we are talking about. Projected impacts for later in this century depend crucially on actual climate conditions and CO2 at those times; often, an article will give a series of projections using different scenarios.
Here’s one, for example:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30798223
Sci Total Environ. 2019 May 20;666:126-138. doi: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2019.01.415
Climate-associated rice yield change in the Northeast China Plain: A simulation analysis based on CMIP5 multi-model ensemble projection.
snip
“we used a biophysical process-oriented CERES-Rice crop model driven by downscaled future climate data from 28 Global Climate Models (GCMs) under two emissions scenarios: representative concentration pathway (RCP) 4.5 and RCP8.5, for phase five of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP5) to project the effects of climate change on rice yields in three future time periods in the Northeast China Plain (NECP). The results showed that without consideration of CO2 effects, rice yield would increase by 1.3%, 1.3%, and 0.4% in the 2030s, 2060s, and 2090s, respectively, under the RCP4.5 scenario. Rice yield would change by +1.1%, -2.3%, and -10.7% in the 2030s, 2060s, and 2090s, respectively, under the RCP8.5 scenario. With consideration of CO2 effects, rice yield during the 2030s, 2060s, and 2090s would increase by 5.4%, 10.0%, and 11.6% under RCP4.5, and by 6.4%, 12.9%, and 15.6% under RCP8.5, respectively. The rice-growing season would be shortened by 2 to 5 weeks in the future. Overall, the future climate would have positive effects on rice yields in the NECP.” END QUOTE
That’s rice in NE China. The rest of China, and the rest of the world, and other crop species, probably will be different. And of course these guys might be wrong.
Also, that’s rice YIELD, which says nothing about quality (I’ve posted comments on that subject here, before).
The scientific literature on agriculture and climate is large and conflicting, with many angles that you would never think of before reading it. It is highly instructive. I am still having forehead-slapping, “oh wow!” moments. Lots of smart people are working on these problems, and their writing is full of interesting data and surprises and provocative opinions, and sometimes fiery arguments just like here on RC, except much more dignified and intelligent. Fun to read.
The scientific literature is an under-utilized source of information AND entertainment, both.
One more. Might I suggest you read the introduction section of this paper, which gives nice context (agriculture and climate):
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6032878/
Glob Chang Biol. 2018 Jul;24(7):2791-2809. doi: 10.1111/gcb.14110
Adaptation of global land use and management intensity to changes in climate and atmospheric carbon dioxide.
…. feel free to click on the links at right or in the references section. Go deeper. Don’t be satisfied with any one point of view.
alan2102says
#32 Killian 8 Jul 2019:
alan: “This way of viewing tree-planting and -harvesting as ongoing cycle”
killian: “What other way is there?”
That was in reply to the numerous posts and comments, regarding this latest study, which seemed to NOT view it as a cycle, but as a one-off event — which is half-understandable given: 1) general ignorance and thoughtlessness on this and related subjects, and 2) the way the study was reported, which had a “one-off” flavor to it; all about growing trees as an event, not a process. None of the pop articles situated the thing properly in context.
alan: “using the wood for building purposes (long-term carbon removal)”
killian: “You mean like planting overstory in your food forest to be used as building materials for original building or repairs?”
alan: “can be compared to more-artificial carbon capture schemes that result in usable carbonate materials.”
killian: “Really? What a surprise! Who’d’a thunk it?”
People who think about this stuff, who are outnumbered by people who don’t think about this stuff by a zillion to one.
“The influence of social dominance orientation and right-wing authoritarianism on environmentalism: A five-year cross-lagged analysis” (full text available free). Explains why people like KIA are climate sceptics and rigid in their viewpoint.
Russellsays
The White House just axed the Red Team:
Trump Transition Team climagogue Myron Ebell, has attributed its demise to:
“the forces of darkness within the administration”
” “overshoot! global famine! billions must die!” hysteria of the Malthusian doomers.”
Uhm, I’m not one of those. Mother Earth can easily feed 10 – 12 billion people, but she can’t feed the greed of the few. It all depends on the economic system, just let capitalism walk on and you will see billions die very soon.
Your first study about the “positive” effects of climate change on rice production is highly speculative, the data in the real world has a different message:
” Climate projections show that droughts will become more common in much of the U.S., especially the southwest. In other parts of the world, drought and water shortages are expected to affect the production of rice, which is a staple food for more than half of the people on Earth. During severe drought years, rainfed rice yields have decreased 17 to 40 percent. In South and Southeast Asia, 23 million hectares of rainfed rice production areas are already subject to water scarcity, and recurring drought affects almost 80 percent of the rainfed rice growing areas of Africa.
Your second study is also highly speculative as its projected “positive” effects of climate change on food production depends on quote:
“… substantial shifts in the global and local patterns of production.”
That would require the global economic system to change radically (as I stressed over and over again). I don’t see anything like that. Just take the global massive insect (especially pollinators) decline, soil erosion (and soil degradation), biodiversity loss, ever more meat and diary consumption ect into account and you’ll realize where we are heading to:
” 22.2.2019 – UN: Growing threat to food from decline in biodiversity”
After all, your “positive” effects on global food production sounds almost like that all too well known “co2 is good for plants” meme, it sounds exactly like what has been claimed for more than a century, beginning with Svante Arrhenius, quote:
” 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…”
Good mixed with evil resp positive and negatve effects (as you claim)? Oh well, very cool, so let’s put even more co2 into the system, I can’t wait to see the final “positive” outcome^^
Nemesissays
@Russel, #48
” “the forces of darkness within the administration”
O at 43 says: “I find the LACK of MSM interest in the current 3ppmpy C02 rise truly amazing. To my layman’s mind, it’s genuinely terrifying that the RATE of increase is itself increasing when we are starting to see real effects from current CO2 levels.”
I agree that it is truly amazing that so few people are alarmed about the trend in CO2 accumulation in atmosphere and oceans. MAR and Nigel do a pretty good job of presenting the “nothing to see here” memes that are floated when folks express shock and trepidation about CO2 and CO2e numbers, so they are helpful at dispelling terror about CO2 accumulation.
In the long run, we are all dead, but I would like to think my grandkids have a good chance of avoiding climate-related societal collapse. Human extinction is hard for me to imagine, but the sixth great extinction is taking place right before our eyes. I assume societal collapse would precede human extinction, but who knows? Neither one sounds like a good time.
June CO2 numbers?
June 2019: 413.92 ppm
June 2018: 410.79 ppm
3.13 ppm, could be worse. Where is all this CO2 coming from? one might ask. Changed/warmed planet I would say. Plus, of course our species 10 gigaton annual emissions (or whatever that number is)
Could RC’s Potsdam cohort please report on Parkinson’s new PNAS paper on the recent acceleration of Antactic sea ice and albedo loss?</a
https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1906556116
It deserves comment before the usual contrarians turn their gobes upside down to avoid looking.
@nigelj, Unforced Variations, June 2019, #204
I should read more carefully at times, sometimes my eyes scan comments for keywords at first glance before I read in depth, just because I don’t read all comments all the time, so when I see certain keywords like “socialist” and “whatsupwiththat” I skip these comments without looking back. But this time these two keywords triggered me to fire back without a second thought or having a look at Russels beautiful blog^^ Thanks a lot, nigelj.
@Russel, Unforced Variations, June 2019, #198
Sorry Sir, I confused you with some WUWT bot at first glance, my fault. Yeah these funny socialists like Macron drink the same champagne like all bourgeois do, hehe. It’s the very same in Germany. Money resp the economy rules, it’s as simple as that. Period.
Like I said, I’m an anarchist, I don’t vote for any party. Anyway, the abstract of that article you refered to looks amazing. I’ll see if I can get access to it. The abstract says:
” This article expands upon the notion of ideology as a material phenomenon, usually in the form of institutionalized, taken-for-granted practices. It draws on Herbert Marcuse and related thinkers to conceptualize technological solutions to environmental problems as materialized ideological responses to social-ecological contradictions, which, by concealing these contradictions, reproduce existing social conditions…”
That’s the key point of our predicament. The powers that be try to preserve gigantic injust socio-ecological desaster (the status quo) through funny technology. That’s going on for quite a long time and it will come to an end soon. Let me quote what Guy McPherson, who predicts human extinction by 2030 recently said:
“… Neither hope nor any known combination of actions will slow or stop human extinction. It is long past time we admitted hospice is the appropriate way forward…
Each of us was born into a set of living arrangements over which we have no control. The scorched-Earth policies we have adopted and implemented during the last two centuries have led to the expected outcome: a scorched Earth.
The time for blame has long passed. The time for shaming others has long passed. No blame, no shame: At the edge of extinction, only love remains. Let’s pursue hospice as one expression of our love.”
https://arctic-news.blogspot.com/2019/06/its-time-to-pursue-hospice-by-guy-mcpherson.html
The time for blame has long past? The time for shaming others has long past? Only funny “love” remains? Are there no people who are responsible, people who make the wrong decisions just to suit their personal, greedy, ignorant needs 24/7 and ongoing? Will the world end in some lala land of love and understanding in the face of extinction?! I seriously doubt that. Where is the love of Mr Trump?! Where’s the love of Merkel, Macron, Putin, Exxon, Monsanto/Bayer, Black Rock, the Deutsche Bank, Heckler & Koch, Haliburton, Volkswagen, the Wall Street, the military-industrial complex et al?! Fuck their “love”.
They try to use funny tech shit and funny psychopath “rational calculations” as a vehicle to the save haven, but they and their descendants will end up in real Hell.
Love,
Nemesis
Can someone give a reference (or answer) relating to this:
How long does a typical air molecule reside in the jet stream?
I’ve read some on the jet stream in the past but I’ve never been able to conjure up a clear visual of the path followed from entrance to exit.
Guys, the european june temperature record this year is just CRAZY (we had a global june temperature record as well):
https://climate.copernicus.eu/record-breaking-temperatures-june
Look at that graph:
https://climate.copernicus.eu/sites/default/files/inline-images/era_hadcrut4_monthly_and_30-year_temperatures_v1_from_1880.png
CRAZY.
Nemesis gives me too much credit.
While one should not judge a dog by its fleas, or a URL by its VV ‘s, the onine flea circuses Messrs Watts & Morano host are another matter.
” 1.7.2019 – Unless we change our ways of producing food, insects as a whole will go down the path of extinction in a few decades.”
https://phys.org/news/2019-07-insect-apocalypse-german-bug-watchers.html
Insects exist for roughly 400 million years, until no more.
If these numbers are accurate and widespread, these are cataclysmic numbers.
https://arstechnica.com/science/2019/07/permafrost-experiment-shows-surprising-amount-of-co%E2%82%82-release/
Noisy number:
Daily CO2
July 3, 2019: 413.43 ppm
July 3, 2018: 408.71 ppm
4.72 ppm yoy increase
I think this one reflects a “low noisy” day in 2018, so no reason to make too much of it.
June 23 – 29, 2019 413.35 ppm
June 23 – 29, 2018 410.73 ppm
2.62 ppm yoy, slightly less noisy number.
co2.earth
Enjoy the fireworks and tanks if you are yanks, otherwise, keep your head down if you hear things exploding or rumbling by.
Cheers
Mike
You know, I’m no climate scientist, no scientist at all, no high school, no nothing, hehe. But I got instinct, animal instinct. And I got spirit. Bob Dylan once said:
I don’t need a weatherman, to know wich way the wind blows.
When I was quite a young man around 15, 16, 20 years old, I suffered from the conditions I was born in. Tough conditions I can tell. And I’ve been kicked ass quite often just for asking painful, but too obvious questions, hehe. And I said to myself:
Something is deeply wrong: Lies, smoke and mirrors, corruption, delusion, pipe dreams, fairy tales ect ect. And I looked at the environment, the way Mother Earth is being treated and all the injustice on a global scale. And I digged deeper and deeper, I digged down the rabbit hole, until I ended up at climate heating and the 6th global mass extincion. And finally I realized:
Reality will always win over ignorance, no matter what.
Today , some tens of millions of Americans will conduct the nation’s annual amateur geoengineering experiment by injecting ~2,500 tonnes of aerosol sulfur dioxide into the trophosphere.
As this forcing signal coincides with the annual low in SO2 release from the nation’s major sources, heating and heavy deisel fuels,-nobody much drives bulldozers or heats their home on the 4th of July, wannabe Keelings may wish to harrow the satellite IR data stream in search of publishable results.
I think I’ll observe the latest progress in spectral pyrotechnology- by surpressing sodium D line emission ,increased purification of fireworks grade strontium , barium and potassion salts
has done for the efficiency of colored fireworks what LED’s have done for home lighting.
So great isthe improvement in colored light emission that the weight of display fireworks- and the amount of propellent needed to launch them, has fallen roughly 60% since the turn of the century.
Somebody should give these guys the Copley medal.
https://vvattsupwiththat.blogspot.com/2019/07/the-gloriously-energy-efficient-4th.html
#5 – Nemesis
You do realise, don’t you, that the skeptics, looking at the map in first figure, the one that shows Europe and part of Russia, will see all the blue bits (cold anomalies) over Russia and say that these cancel out all the red and orange bits (warm anomalies) over Europe, in particular Spain, France etc?
Also, looking at the temp. plots, they’ll say the trends do not count because we were coming out of the Little Ice Age anyway, so the lines are just continuing along their natural course.
Something like that. (I shall try not to get too depressed about it)
Hmm is this A Positive Iris Feedback: Insights from Climate Simulations with Temperature Sensitive Cloud-Rain Conversion a new zombie incarnation of L&C 2009 and 2011? (Y-S Choi is one of the authors) or is there something new?
Trees are the answer ?
205 GT carbon potential sequestration.
“we estimate that 0.9 billion hectares are found outside cropland and urban regions ”
“More than 50% of the tree restoration potential can be found in only six countries (in million hectares: Russia, +151; United States, +103; Canada, +78.4; Australia, +58; Brazil, +49.7; and China, +40.2)”
“there is likely to be space for at least an additional 0.9 billion ha of canopy cover. If these restored woodlands and forests were allowed to mature to a similar state of existing ecosystems in protected areas, they could store 205 GtC. Of course, the carbon capture associated with global restoration could not be instantaneous because it would take several decades for forests to reach maturity. Nevertheless, under the assumption that most of this additional carbon was sourced from the atmosphere, reaching this maximum restoration potential would reduce a considerable proportion of the global anthropogenic carbon burden (~300 GtC) to date (1). ”
doi: 10.1126/science.aax0848
coverage at
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/jul/04/planting-billions-trees-best-tackle-climate-crisis-scientists-canopy-emissions
sidd
Nemesis @5,
You link to an article on the extreme June temperatures in France at the end of June which features some dramatic bar graphs of June temperature anomalies. The bottom one of these is labelled as being a HadCRUT4 global anomaly, yet this temperature record will only be publishing its June global anomaly at the end of July. And if you plot out the HadCRUT June anomalies for previous years, they bear little relationship to the detail shown in the graph in the link.
I would suggest we await the posting of the June surface temperatures from GISTEMP, NOAA or HadCRUT before we proclaim June 2019 to be smashing previous global records (according to the graph by more than +0.1ºC).
New paper published – No Experimental Evidence for the Significant Anthropogenic Climate Change (https://arxiv.org/pdf/1907.00165.pdf) which suggests that clouds drive the global temperature and that CO2 sensitivity is around 0.24C rather than IPCCs 2-5C.
Does this make any sense?
They show a graph plotting low cloud cover vs temperature variation, and suggest it shows a negative correlation.
Cheers
Richard
And RSS has posted the June global TLT anomaly at +0.81ºC, the warmest anomaly of the year-to-date (May was the coolest anomaly of the year-to-date). All this as per UAH. It is the warmest June in the RSS TLT record. (In UAH it lay 2nd behind 1998.) Previous warm RSS TLT Junes were 2016 (+0.66ºC), 2010 (+0.63ºC), 1998 (+0.60ºC), 2015 (+0.58ºC), this not greatly different to UAH given the low long-term warmng rates seen in UAH.
The RSS Browser tool shows higher June anomalies relative to May in all latitude bands.
June 2019 sits at 8th warmest month in the RSS all-month record. (=17th in UAH.)
With the first half of the year behind us, 2019 sits firmly in second-top spot (4th spot in UAH).
…….. Jan-June Ave … Annual Ave ..Annual ranking
2016 .. +0.92ºC … … … +0.78ºC … … … 1st
2019 .. +0.71ºC
1998 .. +0.69ºC … … … +0.58ºC … … … 5th
2010 .. +0.68ºC … … … +0.61ºC … … … 3rd
2017 .. +0.61ºC … … … +0.66ºC … … … 2nd
2015 .. +0.52ºC … … … +0.59ºC … … … 4th
2018 .. +0.50ºC … … … +0.52ºC … … … 6th
2005 .. +0.47ºC … … … +0.46ºC … … … 8th
2007 .. +0.46ºC … … … +0.41ºC … … … 10th
2014 .. +0.45ºC … … … +0.46ºC … … … 7th
2013 .. +0.43ºC … … … +0.41ºC … … … 9th
Hi everybody, I’ve been reading some of these posts for quite some time, and figured the start of the month may be the best time to get in here on the conversation.
First thing I’ll mention is that Copernicus released their surface air temperature anomaly for June 2019; both Europe and worldwide experienced record high anomalies. Nemesis @5 noted this too, but this is the full update.
https://climate.copernicus.eu/surface-air-temperature-june-2019
We probably shouldn’t be too surprised that Europe had its highest anomaly with that strong ridge that was in place last week pushing all those high temperatures (with France hitting its all-time high of 45.9C/114.6F).
Globally however, it is kind of surprising mainly because of the magnitude: 0.11C above June 2016. And add in the fact that were in a marginal El Nino, makes this anomaly even more ominous.
@3 – Nemesis
“Like I said, I’m an anarchist, I don’t vote for any party.”
Why not vote for the green party? They’re the most obvious choice, especially in Europe, I mean they’re the ascendant party based on the past EU elections.
Getting people that push for sustainable policies into positions of power will go a lot further in providing a better planet for current and future generations to live on than hoping for the downfall of economic/societal system.
————————————————————————–
I think anyone pushing these early extinction things are just blowhards to be honest, it induces fear and panic which can be paralyzing, and it invites the deniers to claim that it is alarmist. The only thing that will cause near extinction by 2030 would be an asteroid/comet collision or nuclear war. It won’t be due to global warming. We’ll likely be nearing 1.5C though.
But obviously, we’re nowhere near anything substantial in reducing our emissions to a level required for lower warming. Last time I checked the Climate Action Tracker has current climate policies leading to about 3.2C of warming; pledges leading to 2.75C warming, we’re not close to hitting those.
We have most, if not all that we need to fix the problem. The question is thus, will we use what we have to fix the problem? So far, the answer is a resounding no, but that doesn’t mean it cannot change. Just got to de-brainwash the population and get those anti-environment conservatives the hell out of office and we will finally see some significant progress.
@Nick O., #22
” You do realise, don’t you, that the skeptics…”
Oh well, I realize that the ignorants will stick to ignorance as it’s the nature of ignorants to be ignorant no matter what. Man is capable of choice, some choose ignorance while others choose awareness and responsibility, it’s a matter of dignity and integrity. And yes, we should try not to get too depressed about these ignorants as depression leads to nowhere. Let’s face harsh reality, life is short anyway, in the end the laws of Nature always win over ignorance, no matter what (and I like that). And there’s one beautiful side of climate heating resp the 6th global mass extinction:
It won’t spare ignorants :))
@MA Rodger, #15
” I would suggest we await the posting of the June surface temperatures from GISTEMP, NOAA or HadCRUT…”
Ok, no problem. One thing for sure:
It’s getting hot and hotter over time and it will get hotter and uglier for quite a long time as:
“… there’s a time lag between the emission of greenhouse gases and the total effects they have on the global climate system. Even if humans stopped emitting all carbon today, it would still take decades or even centuries for global temperatures to stabilize, and perhaps between 1,000 and 2,000 years for the climate system as a whole— including the response of the world’s ice sheets, sea levels, ecosystems and so on— to reach a point of equilibrium.
It’s also important to note that today’s conditions aren’t perfectly comparable with those in the past. Even if today’s CO2 concentrations are similar to the levels seen millions of years ago, the rate at which they’re currently climbing probably “outstrips anything we’ve seen in the geological record for at least 65 million years…”
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/co2-levels-just-hit-another-record-heres-why-it-matters/
@jdubs, #18
” Why not vote for the green party?”
I watched the green party grow since the early 80s, I watched their march through the institutions, they got slick over time, it’s not the green party as in the beginning anymore. I voted for the green party 1998, when they came to power together with the social democratic party in Germany 1998. And I was disillusioned very quickly, the green party just got slick and slickier when they were in power. Why is it? The answer is obvious and I said it a million times:
There is a fatal fact, it’s called “political constraints”, to name it straight:
The constraints of the economy, the constraints of capitalism. We aren’t ruled by political parties, we aren’t ruled by political ideals, we are ruled by the economy, the globe is ruled by funny money and no party will change that. This is our fate until money Empire will collapse. Soon.
#14 sidd 5 Jul 2019: “Trees are the answer? 205 GT carbon potential sequestration.”
Thanks. I was waiting to post this on the new forced responses thread (forced responses supposedly for mitigation/adaptation stuff, and not here, right?), but that thread has not yet been created, apparently.
Here’s the paper and accompanying editorial:
http://sci-hub.tw/10.1126/science.aax0848
Science 365, 76–79 (2019) 5 July 2019
RESTORATION ECOLOGY
The global tree restoration potential
Jean-Francois Bastin et al
editorial:
http://sci-hub.tw/10.1126/science.aax9539
Science 5 JULY 2019 • VOL 365 ISSUE 6448, pg24-5
ECOLOGY
Restoring forests as a means to many ends
An urgent need to replenish tree canopy cover calls for holistic approaches
By Robin Chazdon and Pedro Brancalion
snip
concluding paragraphs:
“Forest restoration is a mechanism to achieve multiple goals, including climate mitigation, biodiversity conservation, socioeconomic benefits, food security, and ecosystem
services. A living tree helps to illustrate the components of a holistic forest restoration
system (see the figure). The above-ground portions of the tree are the trunk (restoration
initiatives), branches (restoration outcomes), and fruits (restoration benefits). Below the
ground are soil (capital stocks) and root structures that assimilate and distribute resources and create enabling conditions.
Viewing restoration as a system also guides appropriate mechanisms to mobilize
resources in cost-effective ways. One such mechanism is to use the best available spatial
information to identify areas where the most beneficial and feasible restoration outcomes
intersect (10). Bastin et al. clearly show that we have a narrow window of time in which
to restore global tree cover. We need to act quickly, intelligently, holistically, and globally.
Doing so will require planting and sustaining of restoration systems wherever new types of canopy cover are needed.”
……………………..
Brian Wang (nextbigfuture) has an interesting take:
https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2019/07/trees-for-a-complete-solution-to-extra-co2-and-climate-change.html
“The additional trees could be cut down in 20 years and the wood stores the CO2 unless they decay or are burned. Another batch of trees could be grown. If a breed of faster growing trees are used then every 12-15 years a batch of a trillion trees would offset all of the CO2 produced by civilization.
The best (non-drone) tree restoration projects are restoring billions of trees at 30 cents a tree. This means 1 trillion trees would be $300 billion. Drone planting of trees can use 4000 drones, and 2000 people to plant 10 billion trees per year at about $1 billion per year.
It might be triple this amount to cut down the trees and to use the wood. The value of the wood could offset the cost of cutting them down. A very rough estimate would be $450 billion every 12 years to cut plant and cut down some faster-growing trees to offset all human CO2 and greenhouse gas production.
The researchers claim it is not a complete solution. However, if we stabilize the growth of CO2 production which is affordable and then cut down the trees every 12-20 years to sequester a fresh amount of CO2 then it is a complete solution.
The three other solutions that scale are regenerative agriculture to restore top soil, iron fertilization of the ocean and mass production of kelp at 1000 times current levels.”
Yes, Wang is probably too optimistic about this. Wang is too optimistic about everything. But he outlines an area urgently needing good analysis.
Further, in the comments section of that link danielravennest makes these points:
“In a world with 10 billion people (late 21st century) trying to live a modern lifestyle, there will be plenty more consumption. Remember, those trillion extra trees won’t be harvested for decades after you plant them.
There has been work to use heavy wood framing as a replacement for steel and concrete in taller buildings (more than 3 floors). Since steel and concrete emit a lot of CO2 to produce them, that’s another climate strategy.”
and:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_dioxide_removal
“Wooden building construction
In their “roadmap for rapid decarbonization”, Rockström et al. (2017) proposed in the journal Science that “[a]fter 2030, all building construction must be carbon-neutral or carbon-negative. The construction industry must either use emissions-free concrete and steel or replace those materials with zero- or negative-emissions substances such as wood, stone, and carbon fiber.[52] Especially wooden building constructions are a promising way to store emissions, as wood mainly contains carbon, grows faster due to the higher CO2 concentration and is established as a building material for several centuries. Projects like W350 in Tokyo and Mjøstårnet in Brumunddal demonstrate that even skyscrapers could potentially be built from wood and, thus, store large amounts of carbon.[53]”
…………………….
This way of viewing tree-planting and -harvesting as ongoing cycle, and using the wood for building purposes (long-term carbon removal), can be compared to more-artificial carbon capture schemes that result in usable carbonate materials. In the case of trees, the “usable carbon” is in the form of the wood, as incorporated into building stock. But trees offer many other advantages while alive: ecosystem services and etc., as well as biodiversity support if the tree-planting is done right. A useful piece of analysis would be a cost comparison (projected), direct air capture vs. trees.
Richard @16,
The paper you ask about – Kauppinen & Malmi (2019) ‘No Experimental Eevidence for the Significnt Anthropogenic Climate Change’ – isn’t truly “new” as the thesis was first presented within Kauppinen et al (2014) which begs the question ‘Why would we still be asking whether-or-not it makes sense if it first saw the light of day five years ago?’
If that isn’t a satisfactory rebuttal of the paper, the relationship between HadCRUT temperature data and ISCCP cloud cover data (Kauppinen & Malmi use low level ISCCP cloud cover data) is discussed in this 2016 blog which concludes saying “the possibility that temperatures control clouds, and not the other way round, should be considered.” Kauppinen & Malmi don’t give a source for their Relative Humidity data but their grand model (their Equation 1) does show they have no desire to represent climate forcings in anything like a sensible fashion.
@14;sidd:
can please someone explain these 300 GT-figure to me? nearly every mainstream-article about this paper assumes that this is the amount of Co2 mankind released into the atmosphere since 1850, which is obvisouly not the case (would be more like 2000 GT, right?).
@sidd, #14
” Trees are the answer ?”
Not really:
” If the world’s nations really do intend to contain global warming to within 2°C, there is no alternative to drastic cuts in greenhouse gas emissions, according to a new study.
The tree could be regarded as low-technology carbon removal machinery and, in theory, carefully managed plantations could soak up the carbon released from fossil fuel combustion. But the sheer scale of such plantations would have devastating environmental costs, scientists say…
Trees are not the answer
If the forests were planted on productive land, then humans would lose the soils urgently needed to nourish a population of 9bn. If the trees were planted on less productive terrain, the necessary costs in water and nitrogen-based fertiliser would be devastating. Either way, natural ecosystems would be irreparably damaged…
“ In the climate drama currently unfolding
on that big stage we call Earth, CO2 removal
is not the hero who finally saves the day
after everything else has failed”…”
https://climatenewsnetwork.net/planting-trees-not-slow-global-warming/
@19 – Nemesis
I don’t disagree with you about how those with wealth, the “elites” hold the majority of policy levers, and that this is a primary driver in effecting meaningful climate action (right-wingers less willing to do something about it). I guess I’m still an optimist in thinking people will finally wake up and realize that “conservatism” is burning the planet, but I won’t lie that this optimism is receding and if Trunp were to be elected in 2020 it’ll be gone, because the crap he has been doing is on another level of evil and stupidity.
There clearly will need to be a complete change in our societal and economic way of thinking if we’re get anywhere near achieving what was set out in the Paris Agreement, but that money influence from especially the fossil fuel lobby (we can blame them for a lot of this stalling, deception) is still making it really difficult. If we keep seeing stronger than normal weather events, people won’t be able to keep their heads in the sand any longer.
———————–
@16
Anytime I have seen a paper with an ECS below 1.5C I just shake my head and then forget it because it makes absolutely no sense. We’re already at ~1.15C above pre-industrial times, there was just a paper out that stated if we use up all of our current fossil fuel capacity we can kiss 1.5C goodbye. There are also a couple papers out there from a couple years back stating that even if we emit 0 emissions from that point on (2018 onward) we’re still committed to 1.3-1.4C. So an ECS of 0.24C is just ludicrous, we’re already at warming that is almost 5x that… it’s a joke.
Richard @ MAR
“New paper published – No Experimental Evidence for the Significant Anthropogenic Climate Change (https://arxiv.org/pdf/1907.00165.pdf) which suggests that clouds drive the global temperature and that CO2 sensitivity is around 0.24C rather than IPCCs 2-5C. Does this make any sense? They show a graph plotting low cloud cover vs temperature variation, and suggest it shows a negative correlation.”
This article below is interesting and is basically suggesting rather than reductions in low level cloud cover driving warming, anthropogenic warming causes less low level cloud cover:
http://content.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1912448,00.html
“But a new study published in the July 24 issue of Science is clearing the haze. A group of researchers from the University of Miami and the Scripps Institute of Oceanography studied cloud data of the northeast Pacific Ocean — both from satellites and from the human eye — over the past 50 years and combined that with climate models. They found that low-level clouds tend to dissipate as the ocean warms — which means a warmer world could well have less cloud cover. “That would create positive feedback, a reinforcing cycle that continues to warm the climate,” says Amy Clement, a climate scientist at the University of Miami and the lead author of the Science study.”
“Getting data on cloud cover isn’t easy. There is reliable information from satellites, but those only go back a few decades — not long enough to provide a reliable forecast for the future. Clement and her colleagues combined recent satellite data with human observations — literally, from sailors scanning the sky — that go back to 1952, and found the two sets were surprisingly in sync. “It’s pretty remarkable,” says Clement. “We were almost shocked by the degree of concordance.”
“The data showed that as the Pacific Ocean has warmed over the past several decades — part of the gradual process of global warming — low-level cloud cover has lessened. That might be due to the fact that as the earth’s surface warms, the atmosphere becomes more unstable and draws up water vapor from low altitudes to form deep clouds high in the sky. (Those types of high-altitude clouds don’t have the same cooling effect.) The Science study also found that as the oceans warmed, the trade winds — the easterly surface winds that blow near the equator — weakened, which further dissipated the low clouds.”
“The question now is whether this process will continue in the future, as the world keeps warming. Scientists create climate models to try to predict how the earth will respond to higher levels of greenhouse-gas emissions, but only one model — created by the Hadley Centre in Britain — includes the possible impact of changing cloud behavior. And the bad news is that the Hadley model contains particularly high temperature increases for the 21st century, in part because it sees dissipating cloud cover as a positive-feedback cycle — meaning the warmer it gets, the less cloud cover there will be, which will further warm the earth. Though it’s just one data set over one part of the earth’s surface, the Science study indicates that the pessimistic Hadley model may be right. “These low clouds are like the mirrors of the climate system,” says Clement. “If they disappear, you might see that positive-feedback cycle.”
In response to YouTube demonetizing our channel, we were forced to remove many climate videos we uploaded over the years, due to their 2019 content reuse policy. Subsequently we created a new video streaming hub for these videos. You find many science talks we shared previously now at https://climatestate.uscreen.io/catalog
DasKleineTeilchen @22,
We have a good mix of different measures colliding – different units – Gt(C) and Gt(CO2) – different quantities – cumulative emissions and atmospheric increase.
Using Global Carbon Budget fiigures, the anthropogenic emissions of CO2 1850-2017 totals 630Gt(C) which is equal to 2,300Gt(CO2), so a little higher than your 2,000Gt figure.
According to Global Carbon Project numbers, the increase in atmospheric CO2 to 1750-2004 is 206Gt(C) and is today close to 280Gt(C) as atmospheric levels have now risen 130ppm at 2.13Gt(C) per ppm. This quantity is probably the “~300Gt(C)” from Bastin et al (2019) described as “the global anthropogenic carbon burden to date” and quoted @14. (The reference given by Bastin et al is to IPCC SR15 but I don’t see the value given there.)
Bastin et al argue that 205Gt(C) could be stored in woodland over a century through a massive planting campaign (which given the acreage suggested would be 80t(C) per effective acre of woodland) and this would “reduce a considerable proportion of the global anthropogenic carbon burden (~300GtC)”. However the 205Gt(C) would be a reduction in the 630Gt(C) value plus any emissions over the coming century, so probably nearer a 800Gt(C) value which is the value to use as if you lower atmospheric CO2, it will releases sequestered CO2 from the oceans & biosphere. This then leads to the likes of the BBC saying “The study shows that the space available for trees is far greater than previously thought, and would reduce CO2 in the atmosphere by 25%.”
#23 Nemesis 7 Jul 2019:
quoting:
https://climatenewsnetwork.net/planting-trees-not-slow-global-warming/
“If the forests were planted on productive land, then humans would lose the soils urgently needed to nourish a population of 9bn.”
There’s plenty of food to go around. Agricultural productivity is excellent and improving all the time with no end in sight. Climate change will cause decay of improvements but it is questionable just how much, and it might be modest or even negligible (there is a large and conflicting literature on this topic), because climate change has both positive and negative impacts on productivity. Food *quality* on the other hand will almost certainly decline, absent soil amendment countermeasures.
“If the trees were planted on less productive terrain, the necessary costs in water and nitrogen-based fertiliser would be devastating.”
Trees improve the water cycle and conserve water by holding on to precipitation. Better to speak of the “costs in water” of NOT planting trees. As for nitrogen: yes it is a limiting nutrient in some areas; forested areas in the North have observed N limitation. It remains to be seen if N supplementation would be required for the success (or to enhance the magnitude of success) of the suggested program, but if it is, we have no basis yet to say that the costs would be “devastating”.
“Either way, natural ecosystems would be irreparably damaged.”
Why?
“And then the trees grown to absorb carbon would have to be stored deep underground, to prevent the carbon returning to the atmosphere.”
False. Store them deep aboveground in the form of buildings.
“In the climate drama currently unfolding on that big stage we call Earth, CO2 removal is not the hero who finally saves the day after everything else has failed”
True. But it might be the co-hero, along with a dozen other initiatives, in mitigating what would otherwise be unmanageable.
……………….
PS: this just in:
https://www.businessinsider.co.za/this-south-african-made-drone-can-help-re-plant-100-million-trees-a-year-from-2023-2019-6
This South African invention allows drones to plant hundreds of trees in minutes
Jul 02, 2019
“- A new device, built in South Africa, allows drones to fire seeds into the ground.
– Two seeds per second are fired at velocities of between 150 to 300 metres per second.
– Its inventors hope that drones can be used to plant a million trees a year.
snip
The module…can attach to the bottom of popular drone models. Louw and Walker estimate that a team of two, flying 2 drones, can plant up to 40,000 seeds into into the ground in a day.”
nigel, #25–
Clouds are notoriously complicated.
The theory I thought I’d gotten straight–and maybe I did, as far as it goes–is that low cloud tends to cool via straightforward reflection, whereas high cloud tends to warm because its altitude puts the cloud top at a cool temperature where radiative efficacy is lowered, hence “Those types of high-altitude clouds don’t have the same cooling effect.”
But apparently cloud composition makes a big difference:
https://eos.org/research-spotlights/better-estimates-of-clouds-climate-effects-are-on-the-horizon
I imagine some of the contributors here might have insight or updates on that research (Matus & l’Ecuyer, 2017). That paper is here:
https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/2016JD025951
With regard to the Kauppinen & Malmi paper mentioned at the top of this subthread, I have 5 comments:
1) Posting on Archiv isn’t really “publication” in the normative sense; there’s no peer-review involved.
2) The bibliography of the paper is severely deficient; it consists only of 2 items if you discount 4 self-citations. That sounds like a carp, but what it really does is to call into question whether the authors have done their homework in the field. The fact that they didn’t cite the 2009 paper Nigel mentioned (as discussed in a Time piece) suggests that they didn’t, because their argument seems to assume that low clouds cause warming, whereas the 2009 result, already in the peer-reviewed literature, says the opposite. That is a possibility that they should have addressed.
3) Kauppinen & Malmi doesn’t say that the climate sensitivity to CO2 is low because of the negative correlation. It claims low sensitivity based on previous work by the same two authors. Of the 3 citations, one is another Archiv e-print, one appeared in the rather dubious journal Energy and Environment, while the third appeared in 2011 in the International Review of Phyics. Don’t know anything about that journal, but it’s clearly not a climate science title. So the citations are not in the formal climate science literature. That doesn’t mean they are wrong, but it does suggest further that the authors do not have any demonstrated expertise in the topic area.
4) There are some language issues that ought to give pause to anyone who has a passing familiarity with scholarship. First is the repeated use of the word “prove”. “In this paper we will prove… We have proven…” That’s not a normal formulation. It’s at odds with the prevailing Popperian falsification paradigm, for one thing. It’s at odds with the adage that “extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence,” for another: the claim is that ” the GCM-models used in IPCC report AR5 cannot computecorrectly the natural component included in the observed global temperature,” but their supposed “proof” takes less than six pages including figures and uses just one equation–which equation brings up the second language issue.
That equation, derived apparently in the self-cited papers I mentioned, is the sole support in the paper for the claim that CO2 sensitivity is low. Yet the authors say “We do not consider computational results as experimental evidence.” So, they are dismissing the computational results of multiple climate models in favor of the computational result of a single equation derived from their own (probably non-peer-reviewed) work. So what they really seem to do is privilege their own “computational result” over everyone else’s.
5) A final troubling piece in the paper comes on page 3, where Kauppinen & Malmi say:
It’s confusingly written, making it tough for the reader to figure out which bits refer to which of the 3 figures they mean at which point; in fact, I had to rewrite this a couple of times based on successive attempts to figure out what they really meant. The “envelopes” in Figure 1, which is what I *think* they’re referring to, are lavender and pink, not blue and red. But the blue and red curves in Figures 2 & 3 are not “envelopes”.
Anyway, the bottom line here is that I don’t see any basis for the statement quoted. They simply make the assertion, without explanation. Isn’t that simply assuming what they purport to “prove”? Sure looks like it to this humble musician. It’s one thing to critique the logic of the IPCC that in climate models natural forcings can’t simulate observed warming, by claiming a larger influence of low-level cloud; it’s another to assume, apparently completely a priori, that any ‘proper’ handling of natural forcings in climate models “should” obviate that possibility.
(And before leaving the topic, how can their blue curve in Figure 3, which purports to be based on observations of cloudiness (which however, they do not specify in this paper, though they may in one of the self-cites!) possibly be equivalent to a calculated “all natural forcings” temperature resultant in climate models, anyway?)
My amateur impression of the K & M paper is that it is not only unpublished but unpublishable. The argument, far from being a “proof”, is so poorly developed as barely to be comprehensible, let alone convincing.
@alan2102, #28
” Agricultural productivity is excellent and improving all the time with no end in sight. Climate change will cause decay of improvements but it is questionable just how much, and it might be modest or even negligible (there is a large and conflicting literature on this topic), because climate change has both positive and negative impacts on productivity…”
Oh, wonderful, “climate change has both positive and negative impacts on agricultural productivity”, I heard that meme a million times :)) So, just plant trees and hope that you get the “positive” impacts of climate heating.
I for my part lay back, relax and wait until CO2 emissions drop and have lots of fun with “positive” impacts and geoengineering plans like planting trees, carbon sequestration, BECCS, direct air capture, Solar Radiation Management (real fun^^) ect ect ect.
… oh and please , don’t forget to tell european farmers about these “positive” impacts on agricultural productivity :))
Re #23 Nemesis said ” Trees are the answer ?”
Not really:
”The tree could be regarded as low-technology carbon removal machinery and, in theory, carefully managed plantations could soak up the carbon released from fossil fuel combustion. But the sheer scale of such plantations would have devastating environmental costs, scientists say…
Trees are not the answer
Why would you choose an old article from *journalists*? Why would you, if you’re going to cite *journalists* instead of scientists or professionals in appropriate fields, cherry-pick that old article vs this one from the same site and same journalist, but four days ago?
https://climatenewsnetwork.net/planting-more-trees-could-cut-carbon-by-25/
Shame on you.
But I’ll bite on a few of your cherries.
If the forests were planted on productive land, then humans would lose the soils urgently needed to nourish a population of 9bn.
Yeah, cause agroforestry, food forests, etc., don’t exist. Ridiculous.
If the trees were planted on less productive terrain, the necessary costs in water and nitrogen-based fertiliser would be devastating.
1. Don’t plant trees, plant forests, or at least polycultures. 2. Among those polycultures are legumes that increase nitrogen in the soil. 3. Little water needed bc we’re not idiots and plant trees matched to the location. 4. Don’t listen to people not clear on a concept.
Etc.
Wishing for death will generally get you what you desire. If that’s going to be your mode, please do it in private. You’ve no right to try to drag others into your maladaptive life choices.
Re #20 alan2102 said #14 sidd 5 Jul 2019: “Trees are the answer? 205 GT carbon potential sequestration.”
Thanks. I was waiting to post this on the new forced responses thread
Restoring forests as a means to many ends
An urgent need to replenish tree canopy cover calls for holistic approaches
By Robin Chazdon and Pedro Brancalion
So, take a permaculture course.
“Forest restoration is a mechanism to achieve multiple goals, including climate mitigation, biodiversity conservation, socioeconomic benefits, food security, and ecosystem
services. A living tree helps to illustrate the components of a holistic forest restoration
system…
Viewing restoration as a system also guides appropriate mechanisms to mobilize resources
Quite. But that should not be done top-down, but locally.
in cost-effective ways.
Voodoo. Ignore this.
One such mechanism is to use the best available spatial information to identify areas where the most beneficial and feasible restoration outcomes intersect
That can help, but far better is to provide that information to locals and let them develop their spaces as is appropriate for them.
Bastin et al. clearly show that we have a narrow window of time in which
to restore global tree cover. We need to act quickly, intelligently, holistically, and globally.
You don’t say? Shocking!
Goodness…
Doing so will require planting and sustaining of restoration systems wherever new types of canopy cover are needed.”
Hmmm… Do they mention anything about water cycle? Add a forest, change the water cycle there and downwind. If big enough, globally. So, some systems can be solely locally managed. Others may need input from the local to the bio-regional and possibly inter-bio-regional.
Brian Wang (nextbigfuture) has an interesting take:
Meh… Coppicing, bio-char, hugelkulture, et al., are all old news. This would need to be primarily local decisions, but could extend to all levels, as noted above.
iron fertilization of the ocean and mass production of kelp at 1000 times current levels.”
Wang is a dilettante, I fear, taking a kitchen sink approach with no guiding principles or plan.
Yes, Wang is probably too optimistic about this.
No, he is not. I’ve told you all for years we can do all sequestration naturally: Reforestation, Aforestation, Regenerative Ag, Holistic Grazing, Bio-Char/Tera Preta, Hugelkulture.
Couple these with simplification and we can get to 260ppm in decades.
Or are you all going to throw out this study merely because it supports my stance of all these long years?
Remember, those trillion extra trees won’t be harvested for decades after you plant them.
Only partially true. Some trees grow incredibly fast. These types can be used for pollarding and rapid sequestration as bio-char, hugelkulture, building, etc.
This way of viewing tree-planting and -harvesting as ongoing cycle
What other way is there???
and using the wood for building purposes (long-term carbon removal)
You mean like planting overstory in your food forest to be used as building materials for original building or repairs?
I’d have never thought of that…
can be compared to more-artificial carbon capture schemes that result in usable carbonate materials.
Really? What a surprise! Who’d’a thunk it?
;-)
Ready to listen yet, ’cause, ahem, right again.
Just sayin’…
Re Parkinson
Made this video http://climatestate.com/2019/07/08/the-mystery-of-the-antarctic-sea-ice-puzzle/ on recent Parkinson et al. PNAS paper, feedback is welcome. Though the more extended version posted here https://climatestate.uscreen.io/programs/the-mystery-of-the-antarctic-sea-ice-puzzle goes into more details with the ozone hole, and includes a brief segment from this 2018 talk https://climatestate.uscreen.io/programs/the-circulation-of-the-antarctic-margins-in-a-changing-climate by NASA’s Andy Thompson, who elaborates on grounding line – slope vortexes, eddies, models, and SAM.
The main take-away from Parkinson et al, for me is, that the Amundsen current feeds into the WAIS region, while also most extensively in decline.
June 30 – July 6, 2019 413.38 ppm
June 30 – July 6, 2018 409.57 ppm
CO2 increases in yoy staying well under 5 ppm. This past week in at 3.81 ppm. It’s noisy, of course. No worries.
Great time of year to go on vacation to Alaska! https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/alaska-weather-heatwave-record-anchorage-airport-global-warming-climate-change-a8991096.html
Pack your swim trunks.
Cheers,
Mike
NOAA’s updated their dataset – without Lamar Smith to threaten supeenys on the scientists for publishing updates, this news isn’t something I’d heard of. Other than the press info, has anyone heard details? Here’s some text from a June 18 announcement – at the end it notes the paper is forthcoming.
“NOAA Advances Temperature Analysis
Update to NOAA Global Temperature dataset improves data coverage of Earth
https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/news/NOAA-Global-Temp-Dataset
The latest version of NOAA Merged Land-Ocean Global Surface Temperature Analysis Dataset, commonly known as NOAAGlobalTemp, builds on recent improvements to two existing NCEI datasets. Updates of the Global Historical Climatology Network–Monthly (GHCNm) and Extended Reconstructed Sea Surface Temperature (ERSST) datasets preceded the release of the newest NOAAGlobalTemp. GHCNm version 4 and ERSST version 5 merge to form NOAAGlobalTemp version 5.”
Reference: Zhang, Huai-Min, Jay H. Lawrimore, Boyin Huang, Matthew J. Menne, Xungang Yin, Ahira Sanchez-Lugo, Byron E. Gleason, Russell Vose, Derek Arndt, J. Jared Rennie, and Claude N. Williams. “The NOAA Global Surface Temperature Dataset Version 5: Employing Improved Data Coverage and Historical Homogenization.” Eos (forthcoming).
Addendum to my recent comment:
@Killian, #31
” Wishing for death will generally get you what you desire. If that’s going to be your mode, please do it in private. You’ve no right to try to drag others into your maladaptive life choices.”
Smile, thank you very much for the roses, you know, DEATH is for everyone, you can not exclude yourself from DEATH I bet, no one can. Just wait for some decades at most and you will realize 100% what I’m talking about 8) Here’s my final message about planting trees:
Do as you please, plant as many trees as you can and let’s see what happens. I don’t stop anyone from planting trees, I don’t have the power to stop anyone from planting trees and I got absolutely no reason to stop anyone from any futile pipe dreams. The most efficient killer of capitalism is capitalism itself, so I strongly support capitalism and all its pipe dreams:
Walk on, walk on, we’re almost there.
Tree planting? Should that be Forced Responses thread?
S Rahmstorff says: “Tree planting is fine but look at the numbers. Once all these trillion trees are planted, they take up 200 Gt of carbon in 50-100 years, on average 2-4 Gt/yr. We currently emit 11 Gt/yr and rising. It helps, but at best a fraction – and little at first.”
Can/should we move the plant tree discussion to FR?
CO2 having a good day:
Daily CO2
July 8, 2019: 410.76 ppm
July 8, 2018: 409.53 ppm
I would love to see monthly increase numbers under 2.0 ppm in my lifetime.
Warm regards
Mike
@Killian
About using geongineering resp trees to clean up the mess capitalist empire created, just let me remind you of the study above:
“… the notion of ideology as a material phenomenon, usually in the form of institutionalized, taken-for-granted practices… technological solutions to environmental problems as materialized ideological responses to social-ecological contradictions, which, by concealing these contradictions, reproduce existing social conditions…
… in each case, these technological solutions conceal social-ecological contradictions and support the current economic system and those benefiting from it, while precluding other alternatives…”
https://vvattsupwiththat.blogspot.com/2019/06/is-agw-masked-by-cigar-aerosols-of-late.html
And don’t dare to ask me about these other alternatives as I’m sick and tired of repeating the most obvious shit over and over again, think for yourself.
Re #36 Nemesis said @Killian #31
” Why would you choose an old article…”
You want recent science?
No. I want the cutting edge. You repeat the FAILed cherry pick, another old article. The most recent, most comprehensive, with a specific metric, is days old. An article from Jan cannot address the issues raised in the new article.
Worse, you continue to lie by repeating the Straw Man. I know of nobody who has been calling for trees as **the only solution.** Even the new one says it only buys us time.
I hate lies, I hate liars. This has not been an issue with you. It now is. I suggest you return to the clear-eyed, if bound by weak-minded suicidal ideations, tone of the past.
They used a computer model of global vegetation to determine how extensive biomass plantations would have to be in order to hold the increase in global average temperature below 2° C under different emissions scenarios.
The results aren’t comforting. The sheer scale of biomass plantations that would be required to meaningfully mitigate our carbon dioxide emissions is mind-boggling
You have been around here long enough that there is zero intent or desire to simply rely on rewilding, and certainly not to *only* rely on rewilding. The authors of that study are ignorant of what is possible, clearly, so rely on the only thing they know: Growing more of what already exists. Yet, when we use bio-mimicry to engineer ecosystems, even those made to look and act like naturally occurring systems, we create them to enhance and speed up natural processes. That study is deeply deficient because it does not include the multiple time more carbon we can sequester when we assist nature. It’s called speeding up succession in terms of processes over time.
I realize you are suicidal, or rather sui-genocidal, but it is immoral and unethical to spread such ideations publicly. Find your tribe, do it there, by all means. Do your deathwish thing. But you cross a line when you step into public and start encouraging others to join your death cult.
Converting large areas of natural landscape to biomass plantations threatens these already stressed ecosystems.
Really? Gosh… who’d’a thunk it? That’s why absolutely nobody with a songle active brain cell would suggest it. Thus, why even bring it up?
Millions of newly planted trees simply died of drought during the recent years
Because only those ignorant of natural systems and principles would plant trees solo. How do you think you’re making a strong argument against natural regenerative sequestration techniques by citing stupidity as something to be against?
You’ve been better than this. Return to that.
The trouble with planting trees is for every tree planted you have clowns like Brazil’s president Bolsonaro authorizing more deforestation of the Amazon. Not saying planting trees is futile, but the heavy lifting clearly has to be done with renewable energy, like the IPCC and most agencies suggest. At least wind and solar power is now cost effective, which means it has some realistic chance.
@27,MA Rodger:
thank you for the detailed explanation. most appreciated =)
Mike@34,
I pay a lot more attention to the monthly numbers. As you say, there’s too much noise in the weekly ones.
That said, I find the LACK of MSM interest in the current 3ppmpy C02 rise truly amazing. To my layman’s mind, it’s genuinely terrifying that the RATE of increase is itself increasing when we are starting to see real effects from current CO2 levels.
b fagan @35,
The NOAA Global Climate Report does have a comparison page comparing v4 and v5. Diving into the data directories, the difference between v4 & v5 yields a pretty flat wobbly line with just a few notable non-flat features along the way, perhaps most of note being a recent step-rise in the otherwise flat wobbly line of something like +0.03ºC in 2016. This ‘step change’ is not enough to change the top ten annual rankings tabulated in the v4/v5 comparison page linked above.
#30 Nemesis 8 Jul 2019 — “Oh, wonderful, “climate change has both positive and negative impacts on agricultural productivity”, I heard that meme a million times :)) So, just plant trees and hope that you get the “positive” impacts of climate heating.”
No, not “just” anything. As I’m sure we all know, it must be a comprehensive, multi-front effort, and also must be continually monitored, criticized, and course-corrected as needed. Nothing “just” (simple, set-and-forget) about it.
As for the impacts of climate change on agricultural and general productivity (net primary production), some of them positive: this is well-documented in the literature, though you would not know it from the “overshoot! global famine! billions must die!” hysteria of the Malthusian doomers.
I’ve been following this literature for years, and there’s a lot. I don’t have time or expertise to read and understand all of it, but I read good bit.
Atmospheric conditions, including temperature, moisture, CO2, and so forth, are among the many factors that influence plant growth and agricultural productivity both negatively and positively. Generally, climate change will have a negative impact, but it is complex and not unopposed by changes in agricultural techniques, land use policies, etc., plus which aspects of “climate change” we are talking about. Projected impacts for later in this century depend crucially on actual climate conditions and CO2 at those times; often, an article will give a series of projections using different scenarios.
Here’s one, for example:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30798223
Sci Total Environ. 2019 May 20;666:126-138. doi: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2019.01.415
Climate-associated rice yield change in the Northeast China Plain: A simulation analysis based on CMIP5 multi-model ensemble projection.
snip
“we used a biophysical process-oriented CERES-Rice crop model driven by downscaled future climate data from 28 Global Climate Models (GCMs) under two emissions scenarios: representative concentration pathway (RCP) 4.5 and RCP8.5, for phase five of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP5) to project the effects of climate change on rice yields in three future time periods in the Northeast China Plain (NECP). The results showed that without consideration of CO2 effects, rice yield would increase by 1.3%, 1.3%, and 0.4% in the 2030s, 2060s, and 2090s, respectively, under the RCP4.5 scenario. Rice yield would change by +1.1%, -2.3%, and -10.7% in the 2030s, 2060s, and 2090s, respectively, under the RCP8.5 scenario. With consideration of CO2 effects, rice yield during the 2030s, 2060s, and 2090s would increase by 5.4%, 10.0%, and 11.6% under RCP4.5, and by 6.4%, 12.9%, and 15.6% under RCP8.5, respectively. The rice-growing season would be shortened by 2 to 5 weeks in the future. Overall, the future climate would have positive effects on rice yields in the NECP.” END QUOTE
That’s rice in NE China. The rest of China, and the rest of the world, and other crop species, probably will be different. And of course these guys might be wrong.
Also, that’s rice YIELD, which says nothing about quality (I’ve posted comments on that subject here, before).
The scientific literature on agriculture and climate is large and conflicting, with many angles that you would never think of before reading it. It is highly instructive. I am still having forehead-slapping, “oh wow!” moments. Lots of smart people are working on these problems, and their writing is full of interesting data and surprises and provocative opinions, and sometimes fiery arguments just like here on RC, except much more dignified and intelligent. Fun to read.
The scientific literature is an under-utilized source of information AND entertainment, both.
One more. Might I suggest you read the introduction section of this paper, which gives nice context (agriculture and climate):
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6032878/
Glob Chang Biol. 2018 Jul;24(7):2791-2809. doi: 10.1111/gcb.14110
Adaptation of global land use and management intensity to changes in climate and atmospheric carbon dioxide.
…. feel free to click on the links at right or in the references section. Go deeper. Don’t be satisfied with any one point of view.
#32 Killian 8 Jul 2019:
alan: “This way of viewing tree-planting and -harvesting as ongoing cycle”
killian: “What other way is there?”
That was in reply to the numerous posts and comments, regarding this latest study, which seemed to NOT view it as a cycle, but as a one-off event — which is half-understandable given: 1) general ignorance and thoughtlessness on this and related subjects, and 2) the way the study was reported, which had a “one-off” flavor to it; all about growing trees as an event, not a process. None of the pop articles situated the thing properly in context.
alan: “using the wood for building purposes (long-term carbon removal)”
killian: “You mean like planting overstory in your food forest to be used as building materials for original building or repairs?”
That, and also for building skyscrapers:
https://theweek.com/articles/816653/how-build-skyscraper-wood
https://futurism.com/three-reasons-skyscraper-wood
https://www.cnn.com/style/article/wooden-skyscrapers-timber-trend-catching-fire-duplicate-2/index.html
alan: “can be compared to more-artificial carbon capture schemes that result in usable carbonate materials.”
killian: “Really? What a surprise! Who’d’a thunk it?”
People who think about this stuff, who are outnumbered by people who don’t think about this stuff by a zillion to one.
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0219067
“The influence of social dominance orientation and right-wing authoritarianism on environmentalism: A five-year cross-lagged analysis” (full text available free). Explains why people like KIA are climate sceptics and rigid in their viewpoint.
The White House just axed the Red Team:
Trump Transition Team climagogue Myron Ebell, has attributed its demise to:
“the forces of darkness within the administration”
https://vvattsupwiththat.blogspot.com/2019/07/red-and-dead-white-house-axes-climate.html
@alan2102, #39
” “overshoot! global famine! billions must die!” hysteria of the Malthusian doomers.”
Uhm, I’m not one of those. Mother Earth can easily feed 10 – 12 billion people, but she can’t feed the greed of the few. It all depends on the economic system, just let capitalism walk on and you will see billions die very soon.
Your first study about the “positive” effects of climate change on rice production is highly speculative, the data in the real world has a different message:
” Climate projections show that droughts will become more common in much of the U.S., especially the southwest. In other parts of the world, drought and water shortages are expected to affect the production of rice, which is a staple food for more than half of the people on Earth. During severe drought years, rainfed rice yields have decreased 17 to 40 percent. In South and Southeast Asia, 23 million hectares of rainfed rice production areas are already subject to water scarcity, and recurring drought affects almost 80 percent of the rainfed rice growing areas of Africa.
https://blogs.ei.columbia.edu/2018/07/25/climate-change-food-agriculture/
Your second study is also highly speculative as its projected “positive” effects of climate change on food production depends on quote:
“… substantial shifts in the global and local patterns of production.”
That would require the global economic system to change radically (as I stressed over and over again). I don’t see anything like that. Just take the global massive insect (especially pollinators) decline, soil erosion (and soil degradation), biodiversity loss, ever more meat and diary consumption ect into account and you’ll realize where we are heading to:
” 22.2.2019 – UN: Growing threat to food from decline in biodiversity”
https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-47308235
See also:
http://www.fao.org/state-of-biodiversity-for-food-agriculture/en/
https://blogs.ei.columbia.edu/2018/07/25/climate-change-food-agriculture/
After all, your “positive” effects on global food production sounds almost like that all too well known “co2 is good for plants” meme, it sounds exactly like what has been claimed for more than a century, beginning with Svante Arrhenius, quote:
” 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…”
Good mixed with evil resp positive and negatve effects (as you claim)? Oh well, very cool, so let’s put even more co2 into the system, I can’t wait to see the final “positive” outcome^^
@Russel, #48
” “the forces of darkness within the administration”
https://vvattsupwiththat.blogspot.com/2019/07/red-and-dead-white-house-axes-climate.html ”
Any problem with that? Here’s the solution:
Plant more trees, plaster the planet with trees and flowers.
Unprecedented Arctic megafires are releasing a huge amount of CO2
https://www.newscientist.com/article/2208610-unprecedented-arctic-megafires-are-releasing-a-huge-amount-of-co2/
O at 43 says: “I find the LACK of MSM interest in the current 3ppmpy C02 rise truly amazing. To my layman’s mind, it’s genuinely terrifying that the RATE of increase is itself increasing when we are starting to see real effects from current CO2 levels.”
I agree that it is truly amazing that so few people are alarmed about the trend in CO2 accumulation in atmosphere and oceans. MAR and Nigel do a pretty good job of presenting the “nothing to see here” memes that are floated when folks express shock and trepidation about CO2 and CO2e numbers, so they are helpful at dispelling terror about CO2 accumulation.
In the long run, we are all dead, but I would like to think my grandkids have a good chance of avoiding climate-related societal collapse. Human extinction is hard for me to imagine, but the sixth great extinction is taking place right before our eyes. I assume societal collapse would precede human extinction, but who knows? Neither one sounds like a good time.
June CO2 numbers?
June 2019: 413.92 ppm
June 2018: 410.79 ppm
3.13 ppm, could be worse. Where is all this CO2 coming from? one might ask. Changed/warmed planet I would say. Plus, of course our species 10 gigaton annual emissions (or whatever that number is)
Warm regards,
Mike