The new open thread on climate science for a new year, and a new decade – perhaps the Soaring Twenties? What precisely will be soaring is yet to be decided though.
Two things will almost certainly go up – CO2 emissions and temperatures:
As 2019 wraps up, what can we look forward to in 2020?
— Gavin Schmidt (@ClimateOfGavin) December 22, 2019
More of the same, plus a little bit more… pic.twitter.com/nmMP6riIjZ
But maybe also ambition, determination, and changes that will lead to reduced emissions in future? Fingers crossed.
Scotland Is on Track to Hit 100 Percent Renewable Energy This Year, Slàinte Mhath!
https://earther.gizmodo.com/scotland-is-on-track-to-hit-100-percent-renewable-energ-1841202818
RE. Victor @438
Victor describes himself well here. You’d think he just might be starting to become self aware.
But no…
Doesn’t he realize that no one attempts to demonstrate he’s an idiot? He does that exceedingly well all by himself. I guess the idiot is too stupid to realize he is an idiot. An arrogant idiot at that.
Self-appointed “experts”
That’s coming from a musicologist who hasn’t a clue about science or statistics nor any formal training in either yet arrogantly lectures on both. So who is really the self-appointed “expert” here?
The time of day is correlated with the position of the sun. Temperatures apparently are not correlated with solar output. What a joke.
KIA 441: Resources are essentially infinite.
BPL: You flunked math, didn’t you?
Re #439 nigelj said Killian @430
“A couple of years ago I was asked to join the team that runs a large award winning climate science website. The offer was private so I cant name it.”
“Why believe a liar? You lie here regularly.”
Rubbish. I’ve contributed to numerous websites over the years, and almost nobody has accused me of lying.
“Almost nobody.” LOL… can’t believe you typed that. Golden.
You are almost the only person making those accusations of lying.
I can’t help they either don’t care or don’t have the knowledge or awareness to call you on it. You are probably confused, as usual, by the fact I don’t differentiate between types of lies, e.g. straw man arguments, and more prosaic forms like, “No, I’m not having an affair.”
You accuse numerous people of lying.
Because they do.
You obviously have some sort of personality problem over it all.
Yes, a hatred of lying and liars.
The people you accuse of lying are mostly not lying.
They always are, or I woudn’t have said so at the time.
You jump to conclusions way too fast.
No, you lie.
“Me? Wrote on the need for distributed energy systems over ten years ago. Still the correct way forward.”
The article you reference is very vague.
LOL… it is anything but.
That sort of local self sufficiency just shrinks economies.
Indeed. But speeds up local economies.
Why do you think we trade? Its to improve things.
Bullshit. It’s to make money. No profit, no trade.
So yeah of course I dont talk about that local self sufficiency thing much, because I dont think its much of an answer to anything.
Tamino wrote this with you in mind, I’d swear it:
I don’t believe, I don’t feel, I don’t think… ugh.
We have already tried it where I live and it just caused inflation.
Then you did something wrong.
” Talked of #permaculture/#regenerative solutions for over a decade. Growing rapidly. ”
I don’t see much hard evidence
See: Tamino.
of substantial growth
As if you’ve looked for any…
and you sure haven’t provided any. A few organic farms maybe at best.
He says without even the slightest attempt to quantify it. <– That's another lie. See? You claimed something you did nothing to confirm, talking out of your ass.
“Me? Said Antarctica would be melting well before 2100… ten years ago, back when the clear consensus was end of the current century, and came to that conclusion without any science papers as reference. How? You don’t even care. ”
And I talked about Antarctica having the potential to cause multi metre sea level rise about 4 years ago on this website when I first started reading this website in earnest. But you conveniently choose to forget.
You really are dense. 1. How does you aping me after arriving at these pages reflect well on you? 2. What am I forgetting, you copying me? 3. The point of my post was that you add nothing, you only copy others, and you try to prove me wrong by… giving an example of doing exactly that? LOL!! 4. “How? You don’t even care,” which is what you are responding to – at least, that’s the only thing that makes sense – refers to the fact that despite me getting so much right, all you care about is anklebiting to try to assuage your ego from the beating it takes.
The difference is you get carried away.
No, I don’t. I have been the most accurate analyst I know of for over ten years.
I posted an article on the greenland ice melt accelerating last year I think, and you started waving your arms about exponential sea level rise and it adding several additional metres by the end of the century
LOL… I’ll let Richard Alley know to stop all that handwaving bc even he has said up to 5M by 2100 can’t be ruled out. but, dipshit, you always try to make everyhing about me, as if I just make all this up. I analyze, you putz. I do not handwave.
when the article was actually talking about the accelerated melt adding few extra centimetres of sea level rise by 2100. So you plainly didn’t read or comprehend it.
I offered other analysis and that means I didn’t understand the article? Wrong. And stupidly so. Zero logic.
So yeah maybe I misunderstand a few things you say, Im an impatient person, but you misunderstand a whole lot as well.
No, I don’t. I’m not a flibertygibbet like you who feels I must post on every tiny little point raised on every little facet of every goddamned topic! If I don’t understand, I don’t run my mouth. Try it sometime.
But why the hell do you go on and on about this stuff? We both agree the IPCC appear to be underestimating sea level rise. I’m not stealing your thunder.
Non sequitur. Again, the issue I raised, and you have utterly failed to comprehend is that you ADD nothing. No original thought of yours has ever made it onto these pages.
“Me? Suggested a global model for finding solutions over ten years ago based on technologies already available. ”
What does that even mean?
LOL…
“Me? Created a new form of governance… in three hours.”
And I’m still waiting for you to provide a cut and paste describing what the hell it is and how it works.
See, that’s a lie. I have. Repeatedly. It’s not complicated. Its very simplicity completely confuses you.
“Go bite someone else’s ankles.”
Speak your yourself. You are doing most of the ankle biting.
All I did was 1) mention a research paper on warming and soils that might have been of interest to you
LOL… So, you initiated, by your own admission, I responded, by your own admission, but *I’m* the anklebiter?
and 2) that there doesn’t seem a good case to ban discussions of nuclear power.
Another lie. You said I was engaging in the “height of arrogance.” You insulted me, starting all this, but *I’m* the problem.
Lie after damned lie after damned lie.
Your reaction is bizarre, way over the top, and to declare war on me personally. As you can see I don’t turn the other cheek any more.
You’ve got that backwards. *I* turned the other cheek for months before finally realizing what you are.
I don’t provide many novel solutions to the climate problem
You don’t provide ANY.
for the simple reason that I think the IPCC have already identified all the basic solutions
No, they haven’t. If the IPCC were trusted with the future of the planet, there would be no future. If I thought otherwise, I wouldn’t have to bother with correcting their error. That you are unable to understand how deficient what they support is is the problem here. You talk incessantly with nothing to say, hunkering down in your ignorance and Authoritarian thinking accepting what you are told. Because I am and always have been an independent thinker, I cannot delude myself like so many of you can.
Imho your regenerative solutions and simplification
Want to know the height of arrogance? It is claiming to assess and judge something you have exactly zero understanding of. Again I refer you to Tamino’s words.
your regenerative solutions and simplification
There it is again, the propaganda technique of associating concepts with individuals to create a negative effect. I don’t see you saying E-P’s nuclear or Al’s mechanics/engines etc.
could add a bit in a light handed form, as I’ve always said, but you are way more ambitious than that and propose massive changes to our entire civilisation and huge reductions to our use of energy and technology.
And there’s another lie. Ambitious? What the feck has ambitious got to do with anything? After all the times I have said I propose based on *analysis*, not personal preference.
I just dont think they work when taken to that level for multiple reasons.
But you don’t know jack, so how is that relevant?
Maybe I’m being a critic, but criticism is important, and I’m not making any apologies for that.
A critic knows their shit. You just bray.
Im a fair critic.
bullshit. This thread again shows you are anything but objective.
I work in a creative field but I was also a quality assurance manager for a while. So maybe there will be some more biting going on.
Do us all a favor and never respond to anything I post beyond the content itself. Do not ever respond directly to me or about my analysis or thoughts on any topic and you and I will have no reason to tussle.
I dont want to be wasting the websites time with responses like this, but I dont believe in turning the other cheek and ignoring such blatant personal attacks on me.
Ironic given you certainly enjoy making personal attacks.
The more you attack me personally, the harder I will attack your commentary and ideas.
Because you’re a goddamned child who starts fights then runs to mama. I do not chase you around these boards, it is you who does so.
LOL… still getting a chuckle out of the claim you must keep your participation secret. I mean, how embarrassed must they be to have invited you in? LOL… And, if you do help with a website, it damned sure is not in the area of analysis.
Dan H., #445–
You ask:
The “fail” is citing a paper that’s 20+ years behind the current (and rapidly evolving) reality.
As far as agreeing with your assertion, you actually made several. Some seem to me to be correct. The importance of human management practices certainly is one: it appears to be the case that fire suppression in the US has been highly effective over decadal time scales. The enormous and sometimes highly lethal fires of the late 19th century just were not replicated for a very long time.
That doesn’t mean that those practices were all good, of course: we now recognize that such high levels of suppression distorted ecologies (some species, such as the Southeast’s iconic Longleaf Pine, are highly fire-dependent) and led to increasing fuel loads in forests. (That latter fact may be driving the trend, noted in the Doerr paper, toward “fewer but larger” fires.”) And even though US fire suppression is now considerably more selective than it used to be, it’s become more and more expensive in recent years, so much so that the budgets have been completely busted time and again, forcing the Forest Service to shift funds and go, hat in hand, to Congress for help.
Others of your assertions, not so much. Specifically:
I’m not entirely sure what constitutes a “futile correlation”, but I think I would disagree that all correlations between wildfire and increasing temperature are to be so characterized.
Let me direct your attention again to the counterexamples I already cited:
That’s for the western US, and the result was duplicated in the second paper cited. Speaking of that paper, it also had this to say about the relationship of fire and relevant weather variables (the Canadian Forest Fire Weather Index (FWI) System):
FWI description here:
https://cwfis.cfs.nrcan.gc.ca/background/summary/fwi
Not all places will get drier under warming; for some, circulation changes will drive increasing rainfall, which may compensate wholly or partially for increasing temperatures, which always tend to dry soils and other potential fuel reservoirs (all other factors being equal). (The northwestern Canadian boreal forest is expected to get wetter, for instance.)
So statistical study of drought and wildfire has to be granular, not global.
Short version: it’s just not true that “other factors [are] overwhelming any temperature effect…” In some places, ‘other factors’ dominate the temperature effect; but elsewhere–notably the Western US–that is not the case.
Victor:
Feel free to go early and have a few drinks at the bar before dinner.
Is the “Green New Deal” a viable solution to tackling Climate Change? It’s a hot topic for discussion in the Joe Biden campaign. Apparently Biden is claiming it won’t work as proposed.
https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/01/29/57-climate-scientists-object-after-biden-falsely-claims-not-single-solitary?utm_campaign=shareaholic&utm_medium=referral&utm_source=facebook
Engineering & Technology Magazine have an interesting story ‘UK climate change sceptics group is stronger than ever’ examining the duplicity of those climate change denialists, the Gentlemen Who Perfer Fantasy. Good to see such write-ups in places other than the usual climatology forums.
Perhaps the most annoying thing with these swivel-eyed ‘gentlemen’ is that the gobshite they spout is subsidised by the UK government, they being a registered UK “educational” charity. When the Charity Commission are challenged over this abomination of truthfulness they reply:-
I’d be interested to hear if any of the collection of fellow swivel-eyed denialists recruited by the ‘gentlemen’ onto their ‘Academic Advisory Council’ ever actually gives advice on the gobshite published by the ‘gentlemen’. Consider this particular offering, their latest Briefing Paper, apparently the work of “one of Europe’s most eminent climate scientists,” it being “a paper published today [Dec 2019] by the Global Warming Policy Foundation Professor Ray Bates of University College Dublin [who] explains the main reasons for the significant controversy about the latest IPCC report within the international community.” The full Briefing Paper has been ciritcised (amongst many other crimes against science) for not being peer-reviewed and thus not a “paper” resulting in its author responding that it doesn’t have to be peer-reviewed to be called a “paper.”
I note this Ray Bates doesn’t object to the use of a “backed up toilet” analogy to describe his lack of climatology credentials while his gentlemen chums describe him as “one of Europe’s most eminent climate scientists.” Bates’s non-understanding of climatology is probably why the hair-briained analysis of swivel-eyed Bates ignores the existence of the IPCC AR5 Synthesis Report and reaches the conclusion:-
In their account of the Bates-Bullshit Briefing Paper, the Gentemen Who Prefer Fantasy tell the world “The IPCC’s Special Report on a Global Warming of 1.5°C (SR1.5) … was not adopted by the meeting [COP24] due to objections by a number of governments” and in so saying suggest that this “significant controversy … within the international community” is an argument set out within their Bates-Bulshite Briefing Paper but Bates makes no mention. Of course, the controversy at COP24 was no more than Prezidents T Rump and PooTin along with Saudi Arabia & Kuwait objecting to COP24 “welcoming” the report itself but instead they were happy “welcoming “ its “timely completion.”
Mr. KIA: ” Resources are essentially infinite.”
OK, I’m done. Not gonna find anything stupider on the Intertubes this year.
zebra: So, Tamino, I don’t think it is fair to call on the moderators to deal with it (and others like him). Absent a clear set of policies that can be uniformly enforced, it’s way too complicated a decision-making process for people with day jobs
AB: Given that the moderators designed and have updated the system I don’t even remotely agree with you. That they designed a STUPID system is the friggin’ point.
______
Ray Ladbury: Weaktor, Weaktor, Weaktor,
Still looking far an answer about whether your apparent inability to learn is caused by head trauma or inate stupidity.
‘Til then, I’ll feel free to laugh.
AB: And so forms a stable ecosystem that few feel adds diddly squat.
_______
V 398: There is in fact NO evidence supporting a long-term correlation between CO2 levels and global temperatures.
BPL: You can say this a million times, and you’ll still be wrong.
AB: Come on, BPL, “long term” means “terms that support Victor’s claims”. That excludes geological time frames, of course. And any other “long term” time frames that erroneously contradict the godly Victor.
zebra: Attention? Living a fantasy? I know it isn’t PC to say it, but several of the people who comment here clearly have “issues” of one sort or the other.
AB: Take a full swing, dude. As if anybody without issues would wade through this site’s comment section.
________
nigelj: We aren’t going to start running out of metal based minerals for several centuries, however oil will almost certainly run out before then.
AB: Irrelevant. We’ll bake before oil scarcity becomes an issue.
Because this is the forum for discussions on mitigation:
Regarding Killian @454, can this guy be boreholed? He adds nothing but wild unsubstantiated claims, and personal attacks. Not that anyone probably reads his stuff anyway.
Dan H. @450
“Not so, unless you are referring solely to very rare minerals. Resources like water and iron are essentially infinite, as they are recycled back into the ecosystem. Organic materials, including oil and natural gas, are definitely not finite, as they are being produced continuously. This latter area appears to be where the conversation was occurring. Mankind is using up forests and the like, but they can regenerate.”
I’m referring to the less common minerals being scarce like cobalt, lead copper perhaps. because they are relatively speaking. Read a geology text.
Obviously iron is very abundant, but its not infinite either. Metals can be recycled virtually indefinitely, but there will always be some losses in the process and we wont recover all the resource. So bear that in mind.
The rate new oil is being created is so slow as to be insignificant. Why do you think America has had to resort to fracking, which is scraping the bottom of the barrel?
Yeah forests regenerate, but a whole lot faster than oil is created.
I’m not suggesting doom and gloom is upon us and that we should adopt the simple living peoples crazy views. As you say things can at least be recycled. But we should be looking to conserve things a bit, and get the size of population down. If we don’t things will be much tougher than needs be for future generations.
Killian says “Why do you think we trade? Its to improve things.”
“Bullshit. It’s to make money. No profit, no trade.’
Jesus wept. What can you say to this sort of drivel? Makes Victor look like a genius.
Better correct the typo.
Regarding Killian @454
Nigelj: “Why do you think we trade? Its to improve things.”
Killian “Bullshit. It’s to make money. No profit, no trade.’
Nigelj: Jesus wept. What can you say to this sort of drivel? Makes Victor look like a genius.
Re #453 Barton Paul Levenson says:
29 Jan 2020 at 7:41 AM
KIA 441: Resources are essentially infinite.
BPL: You flunked math, didn’t you?
Frighteningly, this is the most common theme on climate solutions. It’s stated in various ways, but it all boils down to limits not really existing. Economists cite susbtitution, markets, etc., and claim there can and will always be ways to expand the economy. Since homogenous (classical, neo-classical) economics dominates socio-political-economic thought, this is also seen on the supposedly progressive side, too, where 1. limits are far down the line and/or 2. recycling and/or 3. innovation and/or efficiency.
It’s *all* magical thinking, pervasive, suicidal. Everybody on these fora, with maybe three exceptions including myself, fall into at least one of, and typically more, these belief patterns.
Re #457 Chuck said Is the “Green New Deal” a viable solution to tackling Climate Change?
No. Full stop. Rephrase as “…part of a suite of responses to climate as bridge and/or niche solutions, but is currently not sustainable, so should be implemented at the bare minimum magnitude possible…” and the answer flips to yes.
tamino #447
I added more detail in my response to Kevin in #437, which I wrote before your post appeared, but it was held up in moderation limbo, so you couldn’t have read it. Anyway, I said “there is no long-term precipitation trend in Australia”, so I guess we agree.
But what of the evaporation pan data? http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/change/index.shtml#tabs=Tracker&tracker=timeseries&tQ=graph%3Devap%26area%3Daus%26season%3D0112%26ave_yr%3D0
It’s falling worldwide, and is also falling or flat in Australia overall, including for summer fire season in SE Australia. This leads me to believe that my guess (also expanded in comment 437) is correct: “though temperature by itself certainly tends to increase dryness, that effect is (I’m guessing) likely pretty small compared to other factors (i.e. precipitation, wind, and sunshine).”
As you can see, I am not saying VPD effect is “small”, just relatively small compared to precipitation, wind, and sunshine.
And according to a transcript in another RC post, I may be correct:
” But Roderick and Farquhar did some calculations and worked out that temperature was not the most important factor in pan evaporation.
MICHAEL RODERICK: Well, it turns out, in fact, that the key things for pan evaporation are the sunlight, the humidity and the wind. But really, the sunlight is a really dominant term there.”
So, it doesn’t appear that Australia is in a drying trend … even with increased VPD.
BPL and Ray rightly react to the extremely inane KIA comment that “resources are essentially infinite,” and nigel and Dan H. discuss resource limitations–which is also, of course, a frequent theme for Killian.
A couple of addenda:
1) Poor old KIA’s idiocy isn’t original; it used to be mainstream economic orthodoxy. Resources were considered to be “essentially” infinite because it was assumed that there was infinite substitutability. “Running out of coal? No problem, we’ll just switch to oil. Iron getting scarce? These aluminum alloys are even better!” Even land itself was quite often treated so, despite the evident lack of alternatives. I don’t think that economists still think this, at least not at the ‘overt’ level, but I suspect from some snippets of reading I’ve done that it’s still a deeply embedded implicit assumption in some areas of economic theory.
2) Nigel quotes Dan H. @ #450–I confess I didn’t go back to the original–as saying:
These are true in principle, but in practice the rate of regeneration has to be considered.
To cite oil and gas as “not finite” is particularly remarkable; clearly, they do not regenerate on any humanly meaningful timescale, since the “production” process requires tens or hundreds of millions of years, and human existence as a species so far spans a mere quarter or half million at best. (Perhaps it’s also worth noting that coal, oil and gas were “products” of a hothouse Earth state that no longer exists–and also that should climate change sufficiently deplete biodiversity, it could be millions of years before primary productivity recovers even to current levels–that is, I think, an unlikely outcome but not one that can be rigorously excluded as a possibility at present.)
And while “forests can regenerate”, that’s not a blanket truth. They can, if you allow them the space and the resources, and if the species involved still exist. These are not givens in an anthropically-driven world. And of course if you are talking about a fully-mature ‘climax forest,’ you are talking about regeneration times of several centuries, even if the prerequisites are there.
3) More fundamentally, we’ve been talking about ‘positive resources’–sources of materials or energy–in all the examples discussed. IMO, even more important as limits are ‘negative resources.’ Negative resources are the processes by which the biosphere/Earth system can act as sinks for one sort of waste or another. These processes are intimately linked with ‘positive resources’ in the ultimately circular systems–the Earth acted as a ‘sink’ for massive deposits of dead plants and animals by subducting them, which provided the heat, pressure and time to transform them into fossil fuels.
But it’s sometimes the ‘sink’ side of the process that is the limiting factor. Two examples are plastic waste and carbon pollution. In both cases, the rate at which the planet naturally ‘sinks’ these substances is too slow to keep up with human flows of them into the atmosphere (carbon) or waters (plastic). That means it’s up to humans to manage the flows in some fashion such that we don’t impose a toxic–in some sense!–buildup of either. Unfortunately, this has not so far proved to be an easy task. In a great many cases–water purification for a potable supply is one–it has proven much, much more expensive to deploy an artificial process than to restore the natural ‘ecosystem service’ in question.
https://www.dec.ny.gov/lands/25599.html
To keep the flows of potable water into the system balanced with the demands for it, it has been necessary to protect biological resources over a wide watershed area upstream. It’s not free to do that, but it’s a lot cheaper than the artificial substitute–and that’s before accounting for collateral benefits.
Fred, #437–
I would say that your assumption of ‘total haphazard’ is highly questionable. You mention discarded cigarettes, and areas which happen to burn, but is there any reason to think that the variability is as high as you seem to think? (And for that matter, if cigarettes are taken to be a crucial variable, shouldn’t we see a significant decline in fires, correlated with the decline in smoking?) There is a lot of variability, obviously, in acres burned, and in the number of fires. But there are identifiable drivers, such as those identified in the Canadian fire danger index I mentioned above–basically, the dryness of the three fuel levels at and in the forest floor, combined with the relevant meteorological variables obtaining at a particular time. So the place to look for trends would be in measures of those first three variables. They were extremely high for the recent outbreaks in NSW/Victoria.
And they are linked to heat and dryness, fundamentally and inescapably–just as you said yourself:
But you go on to say:
“I’m guessing?” Really?
I note you’ve already argued elsewhere that there is no Australian trend in precipitation, and you question the existence of one for wind–barring a bit of handwaving about a possible decrease in general principle–so those should pretty much both be out of the equation, right? Now, do you have any reason to think there’s significant difference in the amount of sunshine?
More water *vapor*–clouds aren’t water vapor (which is not visible), they are fine droplets of liquid water. Warm the atmosphere and those droplets tend to evaporate, and the cloud ‘burns off’, as people say. But it is true that the question of cloud response to warming (whether anthropogenic or not) remains AFAIK somewhat uncertain.
*Sometimes* it does. And it’s more complicated than that, because CO2 appears to affect evapotranspiration as well–here’s an old but reasonably well-cited article on that. If you’re interested, you could follow the “chain of scholarship” by reading the 62 papers that cited it.
And let’s not forget that evapotranspiration is also a significant flux in the overall energy budget–probably a very significant one in some locations, which means local warming will be affected. Less evapotranspiration, more warming, all else being equal.
I’m not even going to venture an opinion on any of this, except to say that I suspect the net outcome is apt to be quite granular with respect to both time and space.
However, I would refer back to maladapted’s cites on warming and fire in Australia, which involve rather less “guessing.”
Fred, #468–
One, as mentioned elsewhere, you’ve pointed out a no-trend for precip, so you can’t coherently claim it’s more significant than VPD; and there’s no basis for a trend in wind or sunshine either, AFAIK.
Two, you say:
But relative humidity is what he is talking about, and it’s absolutely *not* independent of temperature. While RH is more or less constant on a global scale–absolute humidity is increasing, but RH not so much–it’s absolutely a factor in drought situations, such as those leading up to the recent fire outbreaks in Australia.
Kevin said 1) Poor old KIA’s idiocy isn’t original; it used to be mainstream economic orthodoxy. Resources were considered to be “essentially” infinite because it was assumed that there was infinite substitutability… Even land itself was quite often treated so, despite the evident lack of alternatives. I don’t think that economists still think this, at least not at the ‘overt’ level
They most assuredly still do. Did you miss the whole Nordhaus kerfuffle? I suggest you seek out Steve Keen’s smackdown of Nordhaus’ nigel immitation.
#472, Killian–
Keen on Nordhaus is here, for those wishing to follow-up:
https://www.patreon.com/posts/climate-change-26594935
(Still waiting on Installment 3, 9 months later, apparently.)
I actually think that this is pretty close to what I meant: I don’t think Nordhaus would say that there are no relevant physical limits which need to concern humans–and I could be wrong about that!–yet his modeling does not embody this in any obvious way, which I take to be Killian’s essential point here.
Keen’s criticism of the scholarly support for the Nordhaus “Damage Function” is quite devastating: citing a paper in support of ‘no tipping points’ when the entire point of the paper cited was investigating and characterizing possible tipping points is a goof worth of, well, Victor, or KIA.
Yet apparently that is exactly what Nordhaus did, in the construction of a crucial part of his model. I generally pay more attention than that to my sources just in these random blog comments!
And Nordhaus is a Nobel laureate!
Wow. Just wow.
A Quick Introduction to CMIP6
How to easily access the next generation of climate models with Python.
https://towardsdatascience.com/a-quick-introduction-to-cmip6-e017127a49d3
You can find a good critical appraisal of Nordhaus work below. His main problem is that he is over optimistic about future economic growth rates (and thus ability to adapt) and the mortality rates caused by climate change. I’ve posted it before. Twice.
https://liu.se/en/news-item/liu-forskare-riktar-skarp-kritik-mot-ekonomipristagare
Thanks for the CMPI6/python link
sidd
Hehe, up to +19°C on monday in Germany:
https://wetter.tagesschau.de/deutschland/aussichten.html#aussichten
Climate heating is getting really funny this “winter”, at least for my part :’D
Go on, go on, nothing to see here :’D…
Re #473 Kevin McKinney said And Nordhaus is a Nobel laureate!
Wow. Just wow.
No, he absolutely is not. There is no Nobel for Economics, for a reason. He won an award that is “in honor of” Nobel, an intentionally deceptive title for the award, which is in no way connected to the Nobel Prize committee.
And he got his “in honor of” for basically saying climate would not affect GPD.
This is the Keen video on Nordhaus that one should watch:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TCyjsZ9FseU&t=67s
And here’s a podcast:
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/event-horizon-a-climate-in-crisis-with-steve-keen/id1453085489?i=1000462989017
Kevin #471
“you’ve pointed out a no-trend for precip, so you can’t coherently claim it’s more significant than VPD”
I was wondering which factor might have the greatest effect on causing dry conditions IN GENERAL. It’s pretty clear if you read the sentence:
“though temperature by itself certainly tends to increase dryness, that effect is (I’m guessing) likely pretty small compared to other factors (i.e. precipitation, wind, and sunshine)”
With that in mind, it should make sense why I would say rainfall is a more important factor than VPD in creating drought conditions. I then attempted to substantiate my suspicions that sunlight was also a more important factor, with the quote from the BBC documentary. But, in your response, you edited out the most important part, where he said, “But really, the sunlight is a really dominant term there.” (referring to pan evaporation)
Another month’s-worth of daily MLO CO2 readings to add to the table. I’ve also added the Met Office annual preditions mentioned up-thread @414 both to the table and the graphic here (usually 2 clicks to ‘download your attachment’).
Predicted & Recorded increases in MLO CO2 (ppm/year)
… … … … … Met Office… … … .Modelled… … … … ..Actual… … … .. ..Actual
… … … . forecast [Smothd]. .[Original,Smoothed]… .[Unsmoothed]… .[Smoothed]
Jan19 … … … 2.64 … … … … … 2.74 … … … … … … 2.87 … … … … 2.85
Feb19 … … … 2.64 … … … … … 2.92 … … … … … … 3.43 … … … … 2.95
Mar19 … … … 3.04 … … … … … 3.13 … … … … … … 2.56 … … … … 3.02
Apr19 … … … 3.24 … … … … … 3.10 … … … … … … 3.08 … … … … 3.02
May19 … … … 3.38 … … … … … 3.16 … … … … … … 3.42 … … … … 3.21
Jun19 … … … 3.22 … … … … … 3.24 … … … … … … 3.13 … … … … 3.20
Jul19 … … … 3.00 … … … … … 3.07 … … … … … … 3.06 … … … … 3.05
Aug19 … … … 2.86 … … … … … 2.94 … … … … … … 2.96 … … … … 3.02
Sep19 … … … 2.63 … … … … … 2.78 … … … … … … 3.03 … … … … 2.84
Oct19 … … … 2.42 … … … … … 2.66 … … … … … … 2.53 … … … … 2.60
Nov19 … … … 2.44 … … … … … 2.44 … … … … … … 2.25 … … … … 2.49
Dec19 … … … 2.46 … … … … … 2.13 … … … … … … 2.69 … … … … 2.47
Jan20 … … … 2.48 … … … … … 2.07 … … … … … … 2.44
Feb20 … … … 2.58 … … … … … 2.06
Mar20 … … … 2.89 … … … … … 1.87
Ray Ladbury at #459,
I believe that Jan. 29 is the earliest date on record to achieve the annual high. Another ominous sign.
Mr. KIA: ” Resources are essentially infinite.”
Ray L: OK, I’m done. Not gonna find anything stupider on the Intertubes this year.
AB: Resources aren’t essentially infinite, but hope springs eternal. Personally, I’m sure Trump can’t do anything more reprehensible than caging kids this year.
449 – nigelj,
“Only in galactic terms. All resources on planet earth are very finite. Do a calculation of the volume of the earth. That’s all we have.”
453 – BPL
“BPL: You flunked math, didn’t you?”
459 – Ray L
“OK, I’m done. Not gonna find anything stupider on the Intertubes this year.”
MKIA responds:
nigelj, I’m too lazy to do that calc – so I looked one up instead. In this article they do that calc for very rare Tellurium, which exists in the earth’s crust at 1 part per billion. We have enough at current use rates to last 1 million years. ;)
The article explains why we will not run out of metals:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/2011/10/15/when-are-we-going-to-run-out-of-metals/#1c1295a0527d
And there’s more:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jlulw8U4Ynk
:)
:)
:)
jb,
Given that it is an election year and the orange toddler is running, I’m sure Mr. KIA will continue to vomit up talkingpoints from Faux News, Breitbart and other rightwing nutjob fever swamps.
I expect a hurricane of stupidity, and this time the fricking sharpie is going to encompass the entire planet.
Fred, #480–
“I was wondering which factor might have the greatest effect on causing dry conditions IN GENERAL.”
And here I was thinking we were talking about ‘in reality.’
RE. Mr Know Nothing @484
An opinion piece that uses an obscure metal as its basis.
So what does the peer reviewed science have to say about it?
This example paints a much different picture:
Assessing the Long-Term Global Sustainability of the Production and Supply for Stainless Steel
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s41247-019-0056-9
The integrated systems dynamics model WORLD6 was used to assess long-term supply of stainless steel to society with consideration of the available extractable amount of raw materials. This was done handling four metals simultaneously (iron, chromium, manganese, nickel). We assessed amounts of stainless steel that can be produced in response to demand and for how long, considering the supply of the alloying metals manganese, chromium and nickel. The extractable amounts of nickel are modest, and this puts a limit on how much stainless steel of different qualities can be produced. The simulations indicate that nickel is the key element for stainless steel production, and the issue of scarcity or not depends on how well the nickel supply and recycling systems are managed. The study shows that there is a significant risk that the stainless steel production will reach its maximum capacity around 2055 and slowly decline after that. The model indicates that stainless steel of the type containing Mn–Cr–Ni will have a production peak in about 2040, and the production will decline after 2045 because of nickel supply limitations. Production rates of metals like cobalt, molybdenum, tantalum or vanadium are too small to be viable substitutes for the missing nickel. These metals are limiting on their own as important ingredients for super-alloys and specialty steels and other technological applications. With increased stainless steel price because of scarcity, we may expect recycling to go up and soften the decline somewhat. At recycling degrees above 80%, the supply of nickel, chromium and manganese will be sufficient for several centuries.
Mr. Know It All @484, thanks for the article on metals. I was really just pointing out the planet is finite so metals are finite resource. Maybe I’m just obsessive about accuracy. And recycling doesn’t make the resource infinite because you always loose a bit of the resource.
The article says there’s plenty of metals deep in the crust, but many of those metals deep in the crust are so deep and dispersed we will never be able to extract them. I mean the writer is in fantasy land. I would add there are trillions of toms of metals in sea water, however its expensive to extract many of these.
So what does it all mean? Shortages of metals are not imminent by a long way, but if current consumption patterns continue it could become very expensive for future generations. Therefore it make some sense for our generation to aim to get population growth right down to zero and not waste what we have. Im about half way between the optimists and pessimists on the issue.
Mr. KIA doubles down on stupid: “I’m too lazy to do that calc – so I looked one up instead.”
Too lazy to read the article, as well, evidently. Even Worstall is not arguing that we have a million years of Te before we run out, because he, evidently unlike you, understands that it has to be worth mining the stuff. We’re never going to go after Te at a level of on atom per billion.
What is more, Te is probably not a good example. It is certainly rare–hell, it’s a Rare Earth, but Rare Earth’s tend to be concentrated in the crust (they like rock rather than iron). A better example would be the platinum group metals (PGM)–palladium is currently through the roof in terms of price because 1) it’s needed for catalytic converters; and 2) most of the palladium followed the iron to the core. The only PGM mines are located on tiny, little islands of kratonic crust that floated on the molten Earth and didn’t follow the iron.
And even there, it’s not a great example. After all, if we could land the asteroid Psyche, we’d have $15 quadrillion in PGM…at least until the price collapsed.
No, a better example is phosphorus. It’s not a tremendously rare element. There’s more P than K, and it’s only slightly depleted in the crust vs. the cosmic abundance. The thing is that we need it to grow food, and we’re likely to run out within a few hundred years.
And you can’t just find more, because it’s also a pollutant, causing algal blooms when it washes into water bodies.
Can your wife maybe read these articles to you since you don’t seem to have the patience to do so?
Killian: No, he absolutely is not. There is no Nobel for Economics, for a reason. He won an award that is “in honor of” Nobel, an intentionally deceptive title for the award, which is in no way connected to the Nobel Prize committee.
AB: Whether “The Committee” rubber-stamped or chose directly or whatever, the association between Nordy and Nobel is solid and the statement, “Nordhaus won a Nobel Prize” is closer to “Absolute Truth” than some might conclude based on your words. This came off of NobelPrize.org, so the award WAS from the Nobel Prize organization:
“William D. Nordhaus The Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel 2018”
And now, please give a cite for your claim that the Nobel Prize committee was in no way involved or even associated with Nordy’s prize. I’m thinking those guys would be interested in various Nobel “associated” prizes. You’re saying they don’t give a rat’s *** or are constrained by some higher authority from getting involved or giving opinions?
_______
Nigelj: “Why do you think we trade? Its to improve things.”
Killian “Bullshit. It’s to make money. No profit, no trade.’
Nigelj: Jesus wept. What can you say to this sort of drivel? Makes Victor look like a genius.
AB: Depends on who is doing the reasoning. A farmer could trade with a potter so both are better off. A corporation can buy soybeans here and pots there all based on making money. Whether the folks in said corporation are trying to improve things or not makes a huge difference but “not being an evil waste of skin” isn’t a prerequisite for playing the game, supporting Killian. But most folks in most corporations are [hopefully still] trying to do good. “Being an evil waste of skin” isn’t a prerequisite for playing the game, supporting Nigel.
But Killian’s plan requires folks to fit Nigel’s model (that I’m imposing on him). Killian, how does a “Greed is good and compassion is for suckers” society morph into something a bit more Nigelian?
Kevin #486
You said, “And here I was thinking we were talking about ‘in reality.’”
If you can’t understand the difference between ranking drought-causing factors in general, and investigating whether or not these factors were present in a specific drought, then there is no point in me interacting with you. Have a good one.
Substantial sea level rise now certain:
http://bravenewclimate.proboards.com/thread/159/climate-change-emergency?page=4#post-6227
I suppose that this will take over a century or several.
488 – nigelj
“…Shortages of metals are not imminent by a long way,…”
Agree, and that’s why I said they are “essentially” infinite. I did not say they were infinite. The crust of the earth has essentially not even been touched by mining – the earth is huge – humans are just fuzz on the surface.
Take a trip to the North Pole on nuclear powered Russian ice breaker:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BRRy6t5K3R4
Round trip Germany to the North Pole on an airliner. A 3 year old comment said the cost was 2,000 Euros. Very beautiful:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SlS_FLwcAN8
Fred, #491–
Trying to make a graceful exit? Or at least a stinging one?
I understand the difference just fine. The question is, which were we talking about? As the context was the disastrous fire season Australia has been experiencing, I think a reasonable person would proceed from that context–as in fact I did.
So, you’re welcome to talk about either, if you want to come down off your high horse long enough to do so.
KIA, #493–
The entire biosphere is ‘fuzz on the surface.’ But that’s the component of the planet that is of the most immediate interest to us, and it’s the one we are imperiling through our failure to match our activities to the systems that support them. This is the component of the Earth that is anything *but* ‘untouched.’ It’s been seriously damaged by us and the damage is, on balance still accelerating. We really need to start doing better, for our own good.
A good start would be considering what is crucially important first–and it ain’t metals, useful though they undoubtedly are. You can’t eat them…
On a live TV broadcast in Australia https://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-australia-51369140/climate-change-australian-tv-audience-boos-sceptical-senator a Senator is booed by the audience when he says he questions in climate change is “human caused” He says “my mind is open” based on “I’m not relying on evidence”.
Michael Man responds “you should keep open mind but not so open your brain falls out” (2:00, the very end).
Three cheers for Michael Mann!!! On live TV!!
mrkia: The crust of the earth has essentially not even been touched by mining – the earth is huge – humans are just fuzz on the surface.
AB: “We are just the fuzz on the surface BUT IF WE WERE NOT…” ain’t the opening of an intellectual argument unless it were followed with a plan to expand humanity beyond fuzziness. Everyone who has tried has given up the attempt to drill deep into the crust. And that’s just drilling, not mining!
The year seems to have kicked-off to a toasty start.
First off the blocks, the Copernicus reanalysis gives a global anomaly of +0.77ºC, the warmest January on record, even ahead of the El-Niño-boosted Jan 2016 (+0.74ºC). There is a bit of a gap down to the next set of January anomalies – 2017 (+0.59ºC), 2007 (+0.55ºC), 2019 (+0.48ºC), 2018 (+0.43ºC), 2010 (+0.38ºC), 2015 (+0.38ºC), and 2005 (+0.34ºC).
Jan 2020 sits as third-highhest anomaly in the Copernicus all-month global record, behind Feb & March 2016, the height of the 2016 El-Niño. Indeed, the top seven months in the all-month record are the peak of the 2016 El-Niño (Dec2015 to Apr2016) interspersed with last month (Jan20) sitting in third and with the month before that (Dec19) in fifth.
For the start of 2020, things are looking ‘scorchyissimo!!!
Mr. KIA, do you really not understand that it is not feasible to simply extract minerals from a random bit of crust? Do you not wonder that mining companies deal with “ores” and not “dirt”?
Really? Oh.
Wanna buy a goldmine?
Mr. Know It All @493 “The crust of the earth has essentially not even been touched by mining – the earth is huge – humans are just fuzz on the surface.”
Doesn’t matter. Minerals tend to occur in concentrated lodes, so are not evenly dispersed, and oil in certain specific basins and both these reflect in certain geological surface features. Virtually every square metre of the earth has been prospected to try to find geological surface formations consistent with significant mineral deposits. We know where most of the minerals are likely to be and most potentially oil rich areas are already drilled.
There will be some new discoveries, just not that many. New discoveries have already declined over time.