You ask for Antarctic sea ice but we hardly live there.
But at the same time, the meteorologists tell of a Sudden Stratospheric Warming, a SSW on the northpole, that will have dramaticd effects further south all the way in a major weather change.
The temperatures here will become blue next week, they were quite red in february, and the same is predicted for New England.
California I don`t know. Will it stop raining? and Ukraina. Freeze over again or sudden mud and mess?
Mr. Know It Allsays
Californians are wondering when it is going to stop snowing:
There has been a sudden heating of the polar stratosphere that will break up and dissolve the fameous “polar vortex” and make it re- arrange in other new and long, meandering snaky patterns.
Suddenly there is +5 and +8 Celsius in Austerbygd Gardar Igalicu Grønland, Grønlands hottest hole and the old bishop see there. At the same time it suddenly gets rather chill in Jylland, Denmark and vice versa.
This has been noticed by the chronicles on Royal Danish level now for centuries, but modern knowitalls would not believe those priests in Royal danish service by black university Dr. coats and Royal Danish collars.
A lot of recent idiots believe in King Donald Grozny instead. and in Czar Puttler instead.
But that Austerbygd / Jylland contrast is due to the fameous NAO different from NATO- oscillation
by the NAO- index, that is the barometric pressure in Reykjavik divided through the barometric pressure on the Azores.
So when the Rain in Spain stays mainly in the plain , and in Harforgd Herford and Hampshire hurricanes hardly happen….. and even never rains in southern California,……
…. you should not believe in such old and supersticious formulas and rumors.
But rather in more autenic chronicles that were taken down on Royal Order by autentic doctors in black coats with white royal collars,…. else they were not authorized and warranted. and not permitted to lift and to vibratevibtate with their pointing finger over the scriptures onto The People down there, so that even The People down under there could knowitall.
Jim Bullissays
Another 60 feet came yesterday. I commented below about the possible calamity that should be anticipated. This appeared on this thread today, Thanks to moderator.
Agreed, this does not prove much, though it suggests a different weather pattern.
As to climate mitigation, I suggested below that steps could be taken to buttress against future drought by use of the underground capacity of the California aquifer.
John Pollacksays
60 FEET!? Where? And where’s your documentation for this absurd claim?
Your innumeracy is calamitous – getting confused between feet and inches perhaps? Even 60 inches is perhaps the maximum report you could find for the entire state of California? Hard to tell without any documentation. It’s a rather large state.
And yes, there is some danger of flooding, but unsurprisingly CA isn’t going to wash into the sea.
John Pollacksays
Kevin,
There’s a distinction between snowfall and snowpack. The snowfall at Donner Summit is 592 inches. That’s the unconsolidated season total. The snowpack is essentially the snow depth, including consolidation and melting. If you look at the snowpack web page, you’ll see that total seasonal snowfall can be as much as 60 to 70 feet (720-840 inches) but maximum snow depth is seldom as much as 20 feet (240 inches). Current snow water equivalent is 55 inches.
I have really come to like the inch after all, but I preferre Ole Rømers definition of it for the Danish empire
The Danish Skjellands Foot is 12/38 0f the matematical pendulum that swings 1 sec at sea- level on 45 deg north! Which is quite exactly across the St Marcus square in Venetia when flooded..
And not by an incredibly irrational number down there in the muds of the river Thames at Greenwhich just to please the foot of an obscure potentate higher up at Westminster..
It is slightly bigger and better in Norway you see, Ole Rømers fameous foot- definition comes out 31.4…. centimeter, which is easily remembered.
But for rain and snow youn better measure it in millimeters. 10 millimeters of percipitation given on the weather forecast entails 10 centimenters of dry snow. Then you know what you wll have to shuffle next day from your pavements and from your car. 10 cm is practically one handwidth. . Wet snow will be a half or a third of that.
For snow-weight on the roof, take a 10 cm plastic sewage- cylindric tube, with sharp edges, and press it down to the bottom, , take that snow and weigh it. Then you have weight per square area regardless of heavy and light , wet or dry snow.
Then also very easy due to the Paris convension where one kilogram weight is equal to one liter, is equal to one cubic decimeter of water.
By that old Paris convention it all clears up.
Else you get a severe mess of irrational proportions and numbers to be remembered and computed.. Just look above. They confuse feet and inches and cannot discuss the weight at all , which is what really matters. Because it would come in pounds per gallon.
The density of water is simply one. One Kilogram per Liter or cubic decimeter. Dry snow is 10 times fluffier than that. .
They cannot even tell the temperature, that is just as easy. It is quite exactly Zero Celsius in a snowball or inside of a fresh snowman.
The orignal french revolutionary Meter was first suggested as the second pendulum, that is practicaloly one yard. But they decided to define it as 1 / 10 000 000 of the distance from pole to equator.
“A paint” of beer is the only practical pound definition . We call it “a half liter beer”.
I learnt this in public school 3rd class ,allready, it is as easy as that, and shall never forget it.
First, I stand corrected… I did use that expression “hair on fire”, but in a more general application, not referring only to the population issue. I appreciated the reference back to my earlier comment because I thought I did a pretty good job of explaining my position there, and it seems that I am going over the same ground now.
You and others don’t seem willing to address the good population news that I have provided about China and many other societies. The only reason I can imagine, as I’ve said before, is that it is happening “naturally” as the result of socio-economic changes, rather than people being concerned about environmental damage.
If you want to contradict that, feel free to do so.
Second, about the mechanics of commenting:
-When you give a reference or click on a name in Recent Comments list, you may have to then highlight what’s in the address bar and Enter. That’s what works in my Firefox.
-If you click on Reply at the bottom of someone’s comment, that starts a new sub-thread just below, so my reference to your comment appeared above yours in the main listing.
nigeljsays
Zebra “You and others don’t seem willing to address the good population news that I have provided about China and many other societies. The only reason I can imagine, as I’ve said before, is that it is happening “naturally” as the result of socio-economic changes, rather than people being concerned about environmental damage.”
Why should we have to have address slowing population growth when it is well known and not in dispute? What is it zebra expects people to say? : “Its great that population growth is slowing, we are all saved now”?
Slowing population growth and shrinking populations is good news environmentally, but is not going to save us, because it wont ever be fast enough stop dangerous climate change or biodiversity loss so we need to promote other things that will help.
Plenty of polling studies show couples are electing to have small families out of “environmental concerns”. I know several people who had small families out of environmental concerns and this goes way back in time. Of course the demographic transition and its economic self interest has also been a huge factor. I do not understand why Zebra would think there is only one reason for falling population growth. Human motivations tend to be mixed and complicated, in my opinion. A couple of polling studies:
We just crossed the 8 Billion people milestone, therefore, I’d say the population is still growing at a rate that is completely unsustainable, regardless of what’s happening in China or other locations. Our numbers have to go down one way or the other. The Earth has a plan for dealing with overpopulation, and that process will start soon enough.
Conclusion: Humans can bring their own numbers down or the Earth will happily do it for us, no charge!
zebrasays
Chuck, for a long time I’ve been the voice in the wilderness here about the necessity to give as much attention to population as we do to the energy transition. And I’ve explained why the relationship between the two is non-linear in a good way, so that on a realistic time line for both transitions, there will be a significant reduction in harm.
The response has been “but if we don’t stop producing CO2 by 2050, none of that matters!”.
Well, 2050 is not a realistic timeline. I’ve yet to hear any proposal that addresses how that might be achieved in the real world… the denialism on that is no different from what we hear from the other guys.
When Ron says that “we should have a worldwide effort to reduce population” and “we should pay women not to have babies”, this is in the same category. There is no “we”! In fact, governments all over the world are talking about paying women to have babies!
So the point of looking at the conditions where fertility is actually greatly reduced is to understand a mechanism that actually works to achieve the goal. That’s how science and engineering make progress.
The problem is that people engage in a kind of magical thinking… where if only people would follow their instructions, everything would be fine. Well, maybe, but then I ask that terrible question: What’s your plan? How do you get people to follow your instructions??
And the answer is “but my goal is virtuous and moral, don’tcha see, so let’s talk about it, and everything will be fine.” That’s the Kumbaya part.
I’m glad to see that everyone has come around to my way of thinking about the need to reduce population as rapidly a possible. So now, what’s your plan?
Chuck Hughessays
*I’m glad to see that everyone has come around to my way of thinking about the need to reduce population as rapidly a possible. So now, what’s your plan?*
Humanity has never evolved with any sort of plan and even if there were a plan, most people wouldn’t follow it unless they were forced to. Therefore, it will be up to the Earth to deal with the human problem, and I believe it will, eventually. I see a lot of great ideas being floated about, but we’re still continuing business as usual, and Biden just approved more drilling in the Arctic. So, it looks like the plan is to let Climate Change play itself out in real time. The good news is, we can watch it all happening on flat screen TV.
zebrasays
Chuck Hughes,
OK, but females in South Korea and Japan and China and Europe and many places are having many fewer children, and they aren’t being forced to do that. Remarkably enough, even Iran, where they beat and kill women for not covering their hair, has a 1.7 fertility rate, which makes the Ayatollah very unhappy.
So maybe not having a plan to reduce population is a good plan?
Yes, Hr Group, the antarctic sea ice seems to be 3 std below normal now at antarctic summer minimum.
3 std deviations from normal is extreeme according to what I have learnt, entailing that one should lift ones eyebrows and think again.
It entails that it is maybe something new and uncommon happening, that has not been before.
Here in the north, I see that the meteorologist go flikkflakk at the weather forcasts for 6 & 7 Mars on the night minimum temperatures, by that major weather change due to flipflop in the polar jetstream.
That has happened before and is not uncommon.
Met. inst. no being uncertain on such dis- continous events due to CHAOS in the http://www.Jørmungandr, that is normal.
It is a common meandering current – wave- breaker.
“If you want to contradict that, feel free to do so.”
Nigel did that in last month’s, and this months thread. But maybe you missed it.
“You and others don’t seem willing to address the good population news that I have provided about China and many other societies.”
World population’s still shooting up, Zebra, even if the rate is falling. And promising that it will top out at some undefinable later date in the future looks quite like the stalling tactics of CC deniers (not that you’re one). I hope the China phenomenon is real and is world wide, though. But in my opinion it shouldn’t be a haphazard, some countries take it seriously, some don’t, issue, but a concerted worldwide, consciously addressed issue done for the right, environmental, not chiefly for economic reasons, or it could just revert back to as soon as circumstances change. A rough comparison might be the changing of the guard in the US presidency, with the president representing the world’s people in this analogy, Soon as somebody like the last guy gets in all those hard won environmental laws get thrown out the window. I don’t know if that makes sense? Anyway, I’m just not interested in another one of these endless RC debates.
I don’t use Firefox. But maybe you’re right that it’s a browser issue.
Nigelj. Ditto. I saw that on last month’s thread too. Good job.
Ray Ladburysays
Good news everyone, the Titanic is sinking more slowly now that it’s reached the ocean floor!
zebrasays
Ron, I’m really curious. I gave you a suggestion to solve the problem of not being able to access a comment directly. Did you try it?
My other question is, if you don’t want to discuss things, why do you keep commenting with the same point?
Anyway, you’ve confirmed my point… it’s all about control. (And magical thinking, since governments all over the world are trying to “increase” their populations… talk about concerted effort.)
UAH have reported for February with a monthly TLT anomaly of +0.08ºC, the 11th warmest Feb on the UAH TLT record. +0.08ºC is a big increase on the Jan anomaly of -0.04ºC but still a chilly start to the year for the wobbly global TLT record, making Jan-Feb 2023 the 17th warmest start to the year in UAH TLT. Note in the table of Jan-Feb averages below that 2022 now sits below 2023 in 18th spot.
These wobbly TLT anomalies, much affected by ENSO early in the year, are not always a good measure if SAT temperatures. Early indications of Feb’s SAT anomaly (eg the CFSR re-analysis) also suggest an increase in anomaly from Jan a far warmer Jan into Feb.
The two main conclusions are:
1) the peak CO2 concentration will likely be no more than 475ppm
2) there will therefore likely be at most another 0.4C temp rise from now.
To my, very inexpert, eye the first conclusion is plausibly supported by the data and analysis, whereas the second conclusion relies on an, admitted, dubious model of temperature dependence on CO2 concentration i.e ignoring cloud albedo changes.
John Shanty,
The thesis you link-to presented by Dengler & Reid is a bunch of nonsense. They appear to be projecting CO2 emissions as remaining constant at present levels and using some crazy assumptions to suggest this will not see CO2 levels increasing from today’s 420ppm at the present rates of ~2ppm/year. (A 2ppm/y increase would put the 2100AD concentration at 575ppm.)
The usual simplistic relationship between CO2 emissions and global temperature is that presented in IPCC AR6 Fig SPM.10. The 37GtCO2 emissions to 2100 projected by Dengler & Reid would put the cumulative emissions off the end of the chart.
Ray Ladburysays
Took a quick glance at the paper. My first impression is that their model for absorption of CO2 is way too simple and optimistic. It looks to me as if they are mostly extrapolating current absorption into the future, and we know that there are significant negative feedbacks on the abilities of both the oceans and the biosphere to absorb additional CO2. The Amazon, for one is near becoming a net emitter of greenhouse gasses as deforestation takes its toll. These trends are likely to exacerbate as warming forces more people into abject poverty and they take to the hills to make a living any way they can. Indeed, I saw evidence of this on my last trip to Madagascar, where the entire forest is being turned into charcoal. What is more, we know CO2 concentration has been MUCH higher in the past.
Moreover, there are several red flags.
1) The work has not been published or peer-reviewed by a reputable journal of any kind, let alone one that caters to climate science.
2) There is no evidence that either author has ever published a peer-reviewed article on climate science.
3) Neither author has any documented or even evidence in climate science or climate systems.
4) At least one of the authors has several other attempts to publish similar research–all rejected.
The model is completely dependent upon as assumed emissions trajectory as an input variable.
This scenario assumes global emissions remain approximately at the current maximum 357
of 37 Gt/yr = 4.6 ppm, with a slight reduction of 3% per decade.
So, the “peak CO2 concentration” is only 475 ppm IF we follow the IEA “Stated Policies” trajectory. You may well realize that, but you didn’t state it, and I think readers would want to know.
Chuck Hughessays
Both of those predictions sound absurd to me. Especially the one about how much we’re going to heat up.
Geoff Miellsays
John Shanly,
The authors of the non-peer-reviewed article titled Emissions and CO2 Concentration – an Evidence Based Approach you link to are Joachim Dengler & John Reid. Who are they? What are their areas of expertise? Do they have any track record of peer-reviewed scientific papers in the field of climate science? No?
Meanwhile, it seems to me Dr James E Hansen has a long and distinguished track record in the field of climate science, with many heavily cited peer-reviewed papers in the field of climate science – websearch: “scholarly james e hansen”
James Hansen & 14 co-authors submitted a new scientific paper titled Global warming in the pipeline to a broad reaching interdisciplinary journal Oxford Open Climate Change on 8 Dec 2022. With permission of Editor-in-Chief Eelco Rohling, the submitted version is available on arXiv, the website used by physicists for preprints. https://arxiv.org/abs/2212.04474
Figure 6 (in the Hansen et. al. pre-print) indicates to me that the cooling effect of aerosols (primarily human-induced from the burning of fossil fuels) in the atmosphere has kept the global mean surface temperature of the order of 0.7 to 1.0 °C lower than it would have been if there were no aerosols in the atmosphere. By decarbonising, humanity will be exposed to a rapid temperature increase as the cooling effect of aerosols diminishes. This is the ‘Faustian Bargain’ humanity has committed to that Hansen et. al. alludes to in their pre-print paper.
Figure 19 shows expected accelerated warming rate post-2010 (yellow area) if aerosol reductions approximately double the net (GHG + aerosol) climate forcing. Upper and lower edges of the yellow area are 0.36 and 0.27 °C per decade warming rates. Per the temperature anomaly graph, the likely Earth System mean surface temperature trajectory is +1.5 °C by the end of the 2020s and +2.0 °C possibly sometime in the 2040s, unless we act rapidly and drastically.
The Hansen et. al. pre-print also includes this statement:
<blockquote<Eventual global warming due to today’s GHG forcing alone – after slow feedbacks operate – is about 10°C.
In a piece by science communicator David Spratt published on Feb 24 at ClimateCodeRed.org, he included:
In summary, emissions still have not peaked and are unlikely to be significantly lower in 2030 than 2020; warming of 1.5°C is likely this decade; the emissions trend and reduction commitments are currently nowhere near keeping warming to 2°C; and once the full range of feedbacks, non-linearities and cascades are taking into account, warming may well exceed 3°C this century, a level of warming that will likely result in climate-driven collapse of ecological and social systems. The contradiction is stark: the world will sail past 1.5°C, but 1.5°C may be enough to trigger ‘Hothouse Earth’ cascades; indeed, it is evident that some tipping points have already been passed, and some cascading events are occurring already.
The atmosphere in 2021 contained GHGs with CO₂-equivalent of 508 ppm, of which 415 is CO₂ alone. Humanity has now entered climate territory not encountered for millions of years. https://gml.noaa.gov/aggi/
Your self-inflicted obtuseness sets records at times. You are making it about you: Your ego. Your unwillingness to learn for fifteen freaking years. At the end of the day, everything I have said will happen, is happening, and in the time frames *I* said – not you.
We’ve lost fifteen years NOT because of me, but because of you and your ilk. THAT is why I keep pointing out you NEED to listen: So we don’t lose another 15.
Me: Predicted SLR by 2100 of 1M in *2007-2010* Now considered the low end.
You: ***
Me: 2007-2010: Predicted Antarctic melt had to happen well before 2070 due to the teleconnections of the planet absolutely needing to be more tightly connected than thought at that time. Rationale: Change was happening too fast, Choas, non-linear systems.
Confirmed to have started decades past.
You: ***
Me: 2007: Predicted sensitivity HAD to at the high end, if not higher, due to rates of change already seen. Argued with Rutledge, UCLA, because of his irresponsible claims there weren’t enough FF’s to cause devastating climate change largely upon his choice to run his models *only* at 3C and refusing to run the full range of then-bounded sensitivity which clearly indicated bias.
Hansen, et al: Sensitivity is **at least** 4C, and much higher for long-term sensitivity. 10C already in the pipepline.
You: ***
Me: If we hit 2C, there is little chance of not hitting 3, 4, 5, etc. (2007 – 2022). Logic: see above notes AND lack of hysteresis in the system because, unlike the past, ALL ecosystems are being simultaneously destroyed by both climate and, even more so, anthropogenic idiocy.
Science now: If we hit 2C, we’re probably toast.
You: ***
Me: Tech can’t save us. Lack of resources, lack of time, it’s a poor risk, far less risky and far more effective means exist, etc.
Michaux, Mills, et al: The resource don’t exist.
You: ***
Me: Predicted 2016 ASI low 13 months before it happened.
You: ***
Me: 2. Predicted the Pacific/ASI connection in 2015. 2021: Scripps confirms.
You: ***
And there’s more.
Where’s your contribution, Kevin? What novel climate system did you predict, or what current science did you call out and end up being right about? I know of not a single one. And it’s not just you: It’s every one of you that has driven thinkers from this site for 15 fucking years while you plied your middle-of-the-road, milquetoast, we-must-follow-the-IPCC, unthinking nonsense.
Is all that ego, Kevin? What predictions have you made? None. So why are you so upset that I *have*? Where’s the ego *actually* in all this, Kevin?
Do you have ANY idea what it’s like to be screaming into the wind as the rest of you blithely drive us toward the cliff for no more reason than you couldn’t stand being proven wrong by someone who, on paper, would seem to have but a fraction of the knowledge you and others have?
Me? I’m fucking terrified because egotists like you still play stupid fucking games about the end of civilization rather than simply ask to be taught the kind of thinking that would allow you to see what I see. Ego? Check yourself, Kevin. You and your ilk are a lead weight around a sinking civilization.
In ancient times people tried to understand and predict things by examining the entrails of a dead goat, or by asking god, or by consulting religious leaders or so called wise people. Sure the wise men (or women) no doubt correctly predicted a few simple things, and short term things, by a combination of good instincts, pattern detection, and consideration of cause and effect. And they were ok at general predictions that things would happen more quickly or more slowly. Not too hard doing that.
But the so called wise people were fallible, and seldom good at predicting anything with precision regarding time frames and outcomes (from bits and pieces I have read). And they weren’t too good at accurately predicting the very long term trends (unlike Svante Arrhenius did). So eventually people invented science and advanced maths and scientific modelling…..
Killiansays
No, Kevin. You are only proving your ego makes you unteachable. The risk here is EVERYTHING, yet, you respond with churlish nonsense.
I asked you: Where are your predictions?
You have none, so you deflect with a childish attempt at an insult.
Now I ask you, prove any of my claims above wrong.
I await the crickets and infantile retorts.
Killiansays
nigel, that’s a great example of a non sequitur. Also, red herring.
What it wasn’t was a germane response. 1. Prove any claim I made is false. 2. Prove you have made any claim whatsoever that has come true.
As with Kevin, I await the crickets and the bullshit.
nigeljsays
Killian.
My response was an attempt to diplomatically get through to you why nobody here cares about your climate predictions or anyone else’s idiosyncratic predictions. I have made a couple of similar predictions in my head, and they have been accurate, but I have never posted them because I know nobody is going to be interested.
I literally couldn’t care less about your so called predictions. You predicting in 2007 that sea level rise would be one metre in 2100 is nothing revelatory. I remember other people predicting the same around then. Anyone can see the IPCC were too conservative on sea level rise. I’ve long thought the sea level rise worse case would be two metres per century and have mentioned this on this website. However this is not really a prediction as such.
Several of your other predictions are not nearly precise enough quantitatively or on time frames to get my attention. The sort of thing I respect is someone like Arrhenius who predicted, using a model we can examine, that the climate would warm 1 degree c in the 20th century due to industrial emissions. Nothing you have done comes even remotely close to this.
You mentioned Hansens paper on climate sensitivity being high. Hundreds of other papers say climate sensitivity is medium or low. Next week there will probably be a paper finding its low or medium. Its hard to know who is most accurate. This is a good overview below. Please note there are three versions basic, intermediate and advanced, all worth a look.
And Kevin is quite right about the ego thing. You, Victor and Macias Shurley all share one thing in common. You all come across as being very egotistical in an intellectual sense. Its not a good look. And none of you are very convincing.
Killiansays
Nigel, you sad little man, this is exactly why, like God speaking to the church at Laodicea, I spew thee out of my mouth. There is nothing more useless than a milquetoast, can’t-and-won’t commit-to-anything, but slows-everything-because-average-is-safe, can’t-understand-risk, ironically egotistical, certain-their-mediocrity-is-special person like you.
At least we know what to do with the honest denialists. The ones like you? Slippery little devils.
Stop responding to my posts so I can stop slapping you upside the head.
But that is hardly historically correct for copulare, it is rather mis- consceived in an ugly way on your side who harly knows how, then.,
It probably just got so among the bluddy brittes, because they were not allways willing and had to be taken harder in order for them also to behave..
And after that they were misconsceived and got it wrong and called it “frucking!.
Whereas Correct verbum initiv with article is Å Knulle, Pule.
For your “fuckin” We rather say and you better learn to say say Jævla, meaning Devlish, from greek Diabolos,
And Faen from etym. Finn Fein Faen that means invader, alian and stranger.
Satan is simply called Faen or Fanden by christian name. And that name can be utillized frurther gramatically linguistically in several meaningful ways depending on semantics.
But, never say or write fuking this and that, due to the dangers then of veneric diseases and suspicion of perverse or misconsceived behaviours.
“Everyone can be wrong and misconsceived, the hedhehog remarked, he climbed down again from the clothbrush!”
You must also learn how to damn and swear, Killian.
From immigrated Pakistani Urdu, we have ” Internet Shatan!” that ought to be obvious.
They know how to say it better in sheere Urdu. On nhow to damn and swear over the keyeboard. Never fuck the Keyeboard Killian.
Better swap and smash it and throw it to Gehenna,…. and call its owner by christian name.
Then we have Faen i Hælvete, = Satan in Hell.
Hel- viti is further old norse meaning Gehenna, that was the communal junkyard in old Jerusalem.
They simply threw all that they did not understand down there to Gehenna just outside of town, where they had set fire to it also, That made an eternal or permanent fire with ugly smokes down there.
And with ravens and wolves and foxes and other unclean creatures doing teir best also down in Gehenna or in hel- viti or Hell.
“Go to Hell” makes meaning then.
They have been religiously and linguistically clever, you see.
And you should take my good advices and learn the same.
Chuck Hughessays
Why do you think God invented Weed? So we’d be happy when the end of the world came. That’s why!
Hey, it was great while it lasted, but nothing in this life is forever, including humanity. Yeah, we’re going away, but we were all going to go away anyway, it’s just going to happen a lot sooner than we expected, so relax and do what you can to help out. Panic isn’t helpful. Besides, did you watch the Oscar’s last night? That’s where humanity is right now. We’re all focused on what Rihanna was wearing and hoping Will Smith would slap someone else on live television. That’s what you need to be focused on.
Killiansays
Holy crap! A germane response! Good job representing salient rhetoric over egotistical nonsense.
The math says we can still pull out of the nose dive, therefore, I still push the puppies’ noses into the poop they spew.
We may get fed up by the drunken sailors and advice them to the “Spy-gatt”. that is the washout-gates also for spy- spit ………on deck.
On land we have “Fylle- arresten”
That is a special and elementary simple hygienic arrest- cachotte, where they are given the best chanses to recover and get to their civil and human dignities and rights again regardless,
and that is easily washed out again after them and their behaviours.
ms: — Anyone who produces an apparently climate-scientific paper in 2023 without taking into account the developments and changes in radiation conditions in recent decades (e.g. CERES data from 2000 to 2020) is tormenting the paper and the attention of the readers with a stupid, insufficient overview. (This also applies to the 5 above answers from the 5 commentators on your sent link and question. They also ignore or denie the loss of cloud albedo. and evapotranspiration)
The CERES data 2000-2020 clearly show an increasing earth energy imbalance (EEI +0.77W/m²) due to an albedo loss of -1.4W/m² and for higher CO2 concentrations a completely atypical increase in the LW-out-@-TOA of +0.57W/m².
You can see the climate development of the last 2 decades most clearly in a model of the global energy balance, which I have supplemented with the observed and measured CERES data (white digits):
A significant increase in GW or EEI due to a stronger greenhouse gas effect cannot be traced using the CERES data 2000-2020. The global climate has shifted and continues to shift towards a “clear sky atmosphere” and desertification – accompanied by the loss of snow & ice albedo. .I suspect cloud albedo loss to be 1.7% over the 20 years.
macias shurly: – “…is tormenting the paper and the attention of the readers with a stupid, insufficient overview. (This also applies to the 5 above answers from the 5 commentators on your sent link and question. They also ignore or denie the loss of cloud albedo. and evapotranspiration)”
Have you fully read the Hansen et. al. pre-print I referred to in my earlier comment, MS? Perhaps you missed the paper’s discussion on slow, fast and ultrafast feedbacks? Perhaps you also missed in the Hansen et. al. pre-print, for example:
Earth’s albedo (reflectivity) measured by CERES (Clouds and Earth’s Radiant Energy System) satellite-borne instruments⁷⁹ over the 22-years March 2000 to March 2022 reveal a decrease of albedo and thus an increase of absorbed solar energy coinciding with the 2015 change of IMO emission regulations. Global absorbed solar energy is +1.01 W/m² in the period January 2015 through March 2022 relative to the mean for the first 10 years of data (Fig. 17).
MS, I’d suggest your inference of my ignorance or denial of “loss of cloud albedo and evapotranspiration” is baseless.
John Shanlysays
Firstly: thank you all for your considered responses.
Secondly: I apologise for wasting your time by posting the link to that paper. Unfortunately I was partially seduced by the implausible conclusions of a highly simplistic analysis.
For a moment I wanted to believe that the horrible reality apparently lying in wait for us would not really happen and so I succumbed to grasping at the flimsiest straw.
I’m now reading climatecodered.org to try to vaccinate myself against further such intellectual failure.
John Shanly,
There is no need to apologise. Blasting this nonsense from Dengler & Reid with a goodly charge of reality is a worthy endeavour.
Mind, I don’t think that blast has been properly applied as the comment here says nothing more than the analysis presented is flat wrong. Myself, I did scan down to the point of their ridiculous ‘Assumption 1’ which was defended by some crazy mention of C3/C4 plants and CO2 partial pressure and from there I wasn’t looking particularly hard for any more reason to brand it ‘nonsense’.
Perhaps why their ‘Assumption1’ is eye-wateringly bad would be worth an explanation.
The assumption is expressed in their Eq 3
. A = aC
. . where
. . A = drawdown of atmospheric CO2,
. . C = level of atmospheric CO2 and
. .a = constant.
(Note this grand assumption is always going to be wrong as drawdown is more a function of the rate of change of atmospheric CO2.)
This ‘assumption’ is thus saying that if emissions drop to zero (as in pre-industrial times), a percentage a of atmospheric CO2 will still be drawn down each period until there is none left. The analysis fixed this bit of obvious unreality earlier in their Eq 2 by assuming there are ‘natural’ CO2 emission, an invention which would result in a non-zero ‘equilibrium’ level for CO2.
Their analysis quantified CO2 in ‘ppm’ which is equal to 2.13Gt(C) or 7.8Gt(CO2).
Using their a=1.65%/y and ‘natural’ emissions of 4’ppm’, that ‘equilibrium’ CO2 level would be 240ppm.
Then, if you fix our emissions at 10Gt(C)/y = 4.7’ppm’, the new ‘equilibrium’ CO2 level would be 530ppm. They actually are reducing this projected emissions rate by 3%/decade for some reason so the projected 2100AD emissions would be 3.7’ppm’ and ‘equilibrium’ becomes 470ppm. This is not a million miles from their crazy pronouncement that CO2 will not rise above 475ppm.
So whoever Dengler & Reid are, they show a remarkable ability to spout utter crap.
No need for apology. We ought to be able to ask questions here! And yours was clearly sincere, which I for one appreciate.
Geoff Miellsays
John Shanly,
Thank you for demonstrating a willingness to learn.
If you are reading blog posts at climatecodered.org, then you may also be interested in publications by The National Centre for Climate Restoration (Breakthrough), based in Melbourne, Australia. https://www.breakthroughonline.org.au/about-1
” Have you fully read the Hansen et. al. pre-print I referred to in my earlier comment, MS? Perhaps you missed the paper’s discussion on slow, fast and ultrafast feedbacks? ”
ms: — Actually, I reflected on your answer to John’s questions and there is nothing written about “cloud albedo” – the word albedo does not appear in the links you sent either.
This decreasing albedo is only present through the CERES data from 2000 to today.
(and maybe earlier too)
Also present is the fact that the GHE in 2020 has decreased and the atmosphere has become more permeable to long-wave radiation in the last 2 decades, although the concentrations of H2O, CO2, CH4,… have increased.
These very fundamental facts and questions are neither analyzed nor discussed by climate science / IPCC and also by the majority of the audience here in the forum – but outsourced deep into the subconscious of the individual. Climate science asleep. – Why ?
I am not denying climate change, the greenhouse effect or H2O, CO2, CH4 & Co as climate gases – but the IPCC is obviously wrong in solely assigning the CO2 eq. concentrations as the cause of global warming. There is plenty of fact-based evidence for this.
You can find them on my website:
There you will also find a quantification of how humans affected evaporation, clouds, CO2 uptake and (land) temperatures long before industrialization.
But please do NOT tell me that draining wetlands, sealing urban land, degrading soils and losing evaporative landscapes in general is a (slow, fast, or ultrafast) feedback of CO2 concentrations. — I suppose that’s enough for you to go to sleep.
Geoff Miellsays
macias shurly: – “…the word albedo does not appear in the links you sent either.”
If you had been observant enough to look carefully at the arXiv webpage I’d linked to in my earlier comment (posted on 6 MAR 2023 AT 8:00 PM), then you should have noticed a link near the upper right-hand side of the screen for downloading the pdf file of the full Hansen et. al. pre-print paper. But it seems to me from your latest comment, even after my quoted reference to “Earth’s albedo (reflectivity)” from the pre-print in my comment addressed to you (posted on 7 MAR 2023 AT 11:51 PM), you apparently still fail to concede that you were too quick to judge others.
It seems to me you are continuing to make excuses for your baseless inferences about my ignorance or denial of “loss of cloud albedo and evapotranspiration”, and are now attempting to deflect by an apparent ranting about “fundamental facts and questions are neither analyzed nor discussed by climate science / IPCC”, as well as about how good you seem to think you are about understanding the Earth System.
JCMsays
@macias
“please do NOT tell me that draining wetlands, sealing urban land, degrading soils and losing evaporative landscapes in general is a (slow, fast, or ultrafast) feedback of CO2 concentrations..”
Yes it is exhausting to hear about how watershed restoration does not assist to limit trace gas concentration in atmosphere. So that, therefore, it is of less absolute value.
The mathematical and astrophysical geniuses who are now suddenly and simultaneously the most emotionally attached and expert in environmental outcomes. A sort of mockery, or appropriation. Phony environmentalists; completely disconnected.
” If you had been observant enough to look carefully… / It seems to me you are continuing to make excuses for your baseless inferences… / fundamental facts and questions are neither analyzed nor discussed by climate science / IPCC”
ms: — If I had to follow – all the links in the upper right link of a link near the upper right-hand side of the screen for downloading the pdf file – to follow your own non-existent opinion on a climatological problem – I will be 3500 years old.
Why are you hiding behind Hansen?
Neither Hansen nor you attribute the decrease in cloud albedo to the loss of evaporation. According to Hansen, falling aerosol concentrations are the main reason for this.
What makes you think I’m apologizing for something? I am world champion in LED light cooling, I also cool PV and planets with water. I give you a sustainable “no regret” strategy to reduce sea level rise, earth temperature and CO2 concentrations. I have no reason to apologize. –
I criticize your somewhat limited view of water, cloud physics and surface cooling and the far too neurotic perspective on greenhouse gases and GHE. And when I say yours, I mean you, Hansen, the IPCC and all other climate experts who believe here and elsewhere that humans are only causing global warming through CO2 and GHE and that disruptions in the global water cycle are solely feedback from CO2.
You are one of those people whose ancestors drained landscapes, cleared forests and sealed millions of km² of soil for centuries and millennia and now have a problem with dersertification, droughts and record temperatures – but point all 10 index fingers at the greenhouse gases and GHE. This is just too stupid to be true.
@JCM says: –
” Yes it is exhausting to hear about how watershed restoration does not assist to limit trace gas concentration in atmosphere. ”
ms: — The investment costs of the water retention measure described on my website to operate watershed restoration in my home region are estimated (by me) at $ 3.5 – 7.5 million.
My home area is 1250 km², approx. 13.5 million m³ of water/year are retained and approx. 750,000 citizens live there.
Scaled up to 130 million km² of land area with 7.5 billion inhabitants, this means global total costs of an estimated €400-750 billion and $10 to $100 per person on earth for a resilient infrastructure built up over decades. Each m³ of water retained can be sold (here > $ 2/m³), thereby financing the construction and maintenance of the measure.
It`s a win win win + situation, because each m³ of water also cools the region with 680KWh and can absorb 3.7-7.4kg of CO2 through photosynthesis.
The ~12.5 km² roof area in the same region has a similarly high retention potential of ~10.6 million m³ with ~850mm annual precipitation if equipped with rain barrels & overflow on unsealed terrain.
@bpl says: – ” If you have a time series for longwave optical depth, I’d like to see it. The continued increase in temperature implies that it is up, not down. ”
ms: — I’ve pressed the time series on your blind eye three times already:
already extensively debated about CERES data 2000-2020 and their analysis. I don’t have any hope with you anymore because of your massive disability from blindness and Alzheimer’s.
The Ceres data 2000-2020 on which my analysis is based on are 20year trends and you can (maybe ?) find it here:
I’ll quickly explain to you what the three black dots on your yellow blindfold mean – and then it’s over for me.
Dot 1) – Longwave (out) All sky (TOA) = +0.568W/m²/20y
Dot 2) – Longwave surface up flux All sky = +2W/m²/20y
Dot 3) – Longwave surface down flux All sky = +0.54W/m²/20y
EEI = +0.768W/m²/20y
Go to the Beer-Lambert Institute and get your longwave optical depth kit for time series from the blind department.
The GEB linked above clearly shows how the 20-year course of the climate from 2000-2020 was caused.
The evaporative loss of 0.86W/m² causes an increase in LW surface up flux by 0.69W/m² and also increases sensible heat flux by 0.17W/m². The increase of LW surface down flux by 0.54W/m² is far too low to prove a stronger GHE. With the same or higher atmospheric absorbance as 2000 – the value should actually be > 342W/m²
The falling evaporation, together with falling aerosol concentrations ~(-0.2W/m²), also reduces the cloud albedo by -0.8W/m² – which, together with the ice and snow albedo (-0,4W/m²) also falling, explain the total loss of albedo by 1.4W/m².
Now you should be able to explain to me where you can squeeze in a rising GHE in this GEB
JCMsays
@macias
It’s difficult to adequately articulate, but budgets related to environmental stewardship and landuse management regulations are being slashed in practically all jurisdictions.
The leadership class is more keen to announce the technological investment they have attracted with their public expenditure (embezzlement) related to trace gas emission programs.
A relatively simple problem definition and associated solution has been proposed by the astrophysical and computational geniuses in their reductionism.
They plot the increasing temperature as it relates to trace gas and the case is closed on matters of “environment”.
The narrow and shallow propositions from the climate change community are too appealing. The genius of a simple idea that is too good to resist.
Easy enough to understand, and now embraced by practically everyone. A mental shortcut for environmental knowledge and a personal sense of virtue.
Minimize flood, drought, and temperature extremes by purchasing an electric vehicle and installing rooftop solar panels. It’s for the grand kids.
Personally I think it’s is ludicrous, but well intentioned.
After all, it’s the thought that counts, right?
PS
Well meaning people are good people, this I know is true. There is little point in making enemies among ourselves.
ms: bpl says: – ” If you have a time series for longwave optical depth, I’d like to see it. The continued increase in temperature implies that it is up, not down. ”
ms: — I’ve pressed the time series on your blind eye three times already:
already extensively debated about CERES data 2000-2020 and their analysis. I don’t have any hope with you anymore because of your massive disability from blindness and Alzheimer’s.
BPL: Neither of those is a time series of optical depth, which you apparently don’t understand the definition of. And as for the accusations of blindness Alzheimer’s, well, boy, at least mine aren’t self-induced.
JCM: A relatively simple problem definition and associated solution has been proposed by the astrophysical and computational geniuses in their reductionism.
They plot the increasing temperature as it relates to trace gas and the case is closed on matters of “environment”.
BPL: Right, JCM. Physicists think global warming is due to increasing greenhouse gases, therefore they think nothing should be done to reform land use. Good thinking,
You need to Google “non sequitur,”
JCMsays
@BPL
“therefore they think nothing should be done to reform land use”.
i said no such thing. Rather, minimization of hydrological and temperature extremes appears to fall outside the purview of radiation enthusiasts, synoptic dynamicists, and computational experimentalists.
We cannot blame them. our mistake is to confer upon them a sort of faith.
Experts in a small niche, with an aura of grandeur. Deeply influential concerning well-meaning people. Authorities now on policy recommendation. Congrats to your idols.
The reductionism too good to resist; creating a sense of order among chaos. Do this “thing”, first and foremost, and all will be well for your offspring.
A lot of preaching, and defending a narrow conceptual view. So be it. That is the prerogative here.
It is a place to discuss matters of well mixed non condensing trace gas and global average temperature anomalies. Much less do to with real climates.
“Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler” when it comes to our conceptual understanding, yes?
For the trace gas point of view is but a subdivision of the climatological system. The climatological descriptions a subdivision of the ecology. Somehow this has all been inverted….
We collectively wander completely confused now, but more sure than ever. Talking over ourselves. Knowledge displaced.
Don Williamssays
@JCM
Looking at the glass as half full, “Phony environmentalists;” may be an alternative food source at some point:
For the audience here who might think it’s normal to see mats of leaf litter piled high in the residual ‘nature reserves’. hint: It’s not normal at all.
Caused by humanity in the blink of an eye, reversing the soil development which has been occurring for 400 million years.
The soils now starving to death, biosequestration at a crawl. Soils on life support, rendered to dust. More truckloads of P input, please.
The neo environmentalists really do think the carbon is sequestered in the plants themselves, above the surface. LOL.
If one feel inclined to meddle in agricultural inputs, focus not on prohibition of fertilizer but on development of soil organic matter.
Limiting biocides first and foremost, and minimizing the fallowing is a good start. Dead soils are in fact dead. They consume nothing.
This requires systems thinking, not reductionism.
Do not seek to plant trees, seek rapid biogeochemical cycling.
The ecosystem co-benefits cannot be understated, which includes climate related observables.
This is how you leave wealth to future generations.
It is not an afterthought or something of secondary importance.
JCM
JCMsays
my response is perhaps unclear! so I have composed using MS PAINT a highly technical schematic (sarc) to illustrate the relationship between soil carbon, soil structure, essential minerals, biodigesters, biosequestration, water, erosion, and nutrient retention. The stable soil organics (green zig zags) creating the structure and voids among the minerals with which the biogeochemical process operates. https://www.dropbox.com/s/ae1zswhcloxoi9n/SOILMATRIX.png?dl=0
” If you have a time series for longwave optical depth, I’d like to see it. The continued increase in temperature implies that it is up, not down. // Neither of those is a time series of optical depth, which you apparently don’t understand the definition of. ”
ms: — Transmittance (T) is the fraction of incident light which is transmitted. In other words, it’s the amount of light that “successfully” passes through the substance (/atmosphere)
and comes out the other side.
It is defined as T = I/Io, where I = transmitted light (“output”) and Io = incident light (“input”). %T is merely (I/Io) x 100. For example, if T = 0.25, then %T = 25%.
A %T of 25% would indicate that 25% of the light passed through the sample and emerged on the other side.
Absorbance (A) is the flip-side of transmittance and states how much of the light the atmosphere absorbed. It is also referred to as “optical density.” Absorbance is calculated as a logarithmic function of T: A = log10 (1/T).
supplemented with the 20-year trends of the CERES data shows the following differences in the values below ————————————————-~ 2000 // 2020
Φet —————- radiant power transmitted by atmosphere; — 239,9 // 240,47 (W/m²)
Φeatt ————– radiant power attenuated by atmosphere; — 498,6 // 500,57 ”
Φei —————- radiant power received by atmosphere; —– 398,2 // 400,2
Φee ————— radiant power emitted by atmosphere; —— 340,3 // 340,84
T = Φet/Φei ——- transmittance of that material; ———– 0,602461 // 0,600874
A = Absorbance = 2 – log(%T): ——————————— 0,220071 // 0,221216
τ = optical depht: ——————————————— 0,506732 // 0,509369
ATT = Φeatt/Φei — attenuation of that material; ————— 1,2521 // 1,2508
E = Φee/Φei —— emittance of that material, —————– 0,8546 // 0,851674
Levenson! You are correct that a warmer planet means a higher optical depth. But the warming is mainly due to short-wavelength loss of albedo – and not due to the increase in greenhouse gases – and as a result corresponds to a shift from an all-sky to a clear-sky climate.
Since 2000, declining evaporation, clouds and (relative) humidity have been the main triggers and not the GHE. The cause of the decreasing evaporation is a long term trend from fewer El Nino events (more evaporation and clouds) to more La Nina phases (less evaporation and clouds) but also human land use change. BTW, the loss of sea ice & snow albedo and aerosols has a very similar SW & LW effect to the loss of clouds.
@ JCM says: – ” They plot the increasing temperature as it relates to trace gas and the case is closed on matters of “environment. ”
ms: — Last week I saw a graph in the business newspaper showing the global production and sales of ice cream. It fits like a glove with the global temperature trend curves.
Today I am sure that the more ice cream we eat, the faster global warming will progress.
!!! Please stop sucking ice cream lol…
ms: the warming is mainly due to short-wavelength loss of albedo – and not due to the increase in greenhouse gases
BPL: No, it is not. Warming by greenhouse gases has been observationally confirmed.
Evans, W.F.J., and E. Puckrin 2006. “Measurements of the Radiative Surface Forcing of Climate.” 18th Conference on Climate Variability and Change, P1.7
“The earth’s climate system is warmed by 35 C due to the emission of downward infrared radiation by greenhouse gases in the atmosphere (surface radiative forcing) or by the absorption of upward infrared radiation (radiative trapping). Increases in this emission/absorption are the driving force behind global warming. Climate models predict that the release of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere has altered the radiative energy balance at the earth’s surface by several percent by increasing the greenhouse radiation from the atmosphere. With measurements at high spectral resolution, this increase can be quantitatively attributed to each of several anthropogenic gases. Radiance spectra of the greenhouse radiation from the atmosphere have been measured at ground level from several Canadian sites using FTIR spectroscopy at high resolution. The forcing radiative fluxes from CFC11, CFC12, CCl4, HNO3, O3, N2O, CH4, CO and CO2 have been quantitatively determined over a range of seasons. The contributions from stratospheric ozone and tropospheric ozone are separated by our measurement techniques. A comparison between our measurements of surface forcing emission and measurements of radiative trapping absorption from the IMG satellite instrument shows reasonable agreement. The experimental fluxes are simulated well by the FASCOD3 radiation code. This code has been used to calculate the model predicted increase in surface radiative forcing since 1850 to be 2.55 W/m2. In comparison, an ensemble summary of our measurements indicates that an energy flux imbalance of 3.5 W/m2 has been created by anthropogenic emissions of greenhouse gases since 1850. This experimental data should effectively end the argument by skeptics that no experimental evidence exists for the connection between greenhouse gas increases in the atmosphere and global warming.”
Philipona, R., B. Dürr, C. Marty, A. Ohmura, and M. Wild 2004. “Radiative Forcing–Measured at Earth’s Surface–Corroborate the Increasing Greenhouse Effect.” Geophys. Res. Lett. 31, L03202
“…Here we show that atmospheric longwave downward radiation significantly increased (+5.2(2.2) Wm 2) partly due to increased cloud amount (+1.0(2.8) Wm 2) over eight years of measurements at eight radiation stations distributed over the central Alps. Model calculations show the cloud-free longwave flux increase (+4.2(1.9) Wm 2) to be in due proportion with temperature (+0.82(0.41) C) and absolute humidity (+0.21(0.10) g m 3) increases, but three times larger than expected from anthropogenic greenhouse gases. However, after subtracting for two thirds of temperature and humidity rises, the increase of cloud-free longwave downward radiation (+1.8(0.8) Wm 2) remains statistically significant and demonstrates radiative forcing due to an enhanced greenhouse effect.”
Feldman, D.R.; Collins, W.D.; Gero, P.J.; Torn, M.S.; Mlawer, E.J.; Shippert, T.R. 2015. Observational determination of surface radiative forcing by CO2 from 2000 to 2010. Nature 519, 339-343.
The climatic impact of CO2 and other greenhouse gases is usually quantified in terms of radiative forcing1, calculated as the difference between estimates of the Earth’s radiation field from preindustrial and present day concentrations of these gases. Radiative transfer models calculate that the increase in CO2 since 1750 corresponds to a global annual mean radiative forcing at the tropopause of 1.82 ± 0.19 W m-2 (ref. 2). However, despite widespread scientific discussion and modelling of the climate impacts of well mixed greenhouse gases, there is little direct observational evidence of the radiative impact of increasing atmospheric CO2. Here we present observationally based evidence of clearsky CO2 surface radiative forcing that is directly attributable to the increase, between 2000 and 2010, of 22 parts per million atmospheric CO2. The time series of this forcing at the two locations—the Southern Great Plains and the North Slope of Alaska—are derived from Atmospheric Emitted Radiance Interferometer spectra3together with ancillary measurements and thoroughly corroborated radiative transfer calculations4. The time series both show statistically significant trends of 0.2 W m-2 per decade (with respective uncertainties of ±0.06 W m-2 per decade and ±0.07 W m-2 per decade) and have seasonal ranges of 0.1–0.2 W m-2. This is approximately ten per cent of the trend in downwelling longwave radiation5,6,7. These results confirm theoretical predictions of the atmospheric greenhouse effect due to anthropogenic emissions, and provide empirical evidence of how rising CO2 levels, mediated by temporal variations due to photosynthesis and respiration, are affecting the surface energy balance.
Dia- lectic materialism on etnic raqcial level is incureable.
Keep in mind that not all Germans were frlat- bombed and it may be even worse in the USA for instance, where many of them migrated because they were impossible at home..
Along with Marx & Ljenin who learnt their logics from Prof. Genosse Hegel in Berlin,… east Berlin… …
…… Matter is created…. and can be anihiltated again simply by denial. By Contra- diction or “anti- these”!
I repeat!
Reality and permanence of matter is ridiculous and ailian to that bloodgroup. .
Which is is German and means the phaenomenology of ghosts.
And this state- religion was- and is— central stimulated………. by a remedy that was called “Pervitin” under Adolph. and given out to the soldiers and to the people. Today by more progressive and vulgar and secret, professional, and inaugurated names.
The real problem here to my opinion, is that the role of water in all its forms remain a vector or factor of highest uncertainty to global warming.
“What about the clouds? what about the waters and vapours? and what about the snow and ices?
That all is also some of my highest interest, where I look forward to real improovements. Because I can follow and discuss water and thermics and optics if necessary.
But the accute problem comes then, that we cannot have Schürlers that are most obvious German para- scientific romantics of traditional style, namely the Dia- lectic materialists, , those perpetually unsucessful poets, painters, , politicians, and teachers , fishing and stirring into those foggy waters and horizons, that are not yet too clear,…. and telling us the truth abouit it.
And denying the shown primary role of CO2 all the time, due to that peculiar warrant..
That is sinful, and a quite serious pollution problem.
Humboldt Planc Helmholz Kirchoff Fraunhofer,…even Rahmstorf…. were better.
Levenson! – bad news first – you’ve missed the point again. It is about the global development of the climate from 2000 to today – and not about local observations in the Alps or anywhere else before the year 2000. I am not denying climate change, the greenhouse effect or H2O, CO2, CH4 & Co as climate gases , but it is necessary to subject the individual absorbers to a more up-to-date, more precise analysis.
– You, me and above all our Grandmaster G.A. Schmidt know that the total net effects for water vapor, clouds, CO2 and the other forcings are 50%, 25%, 19% and 7%, respectively.
– Seen in this way, clouds make a 31.5% higher contribution to the GHE than CO2. Together with the aerosols, they belong to the LW absorbers, which cause heating when they are (partially) removed, since their cooling SW effect outweighs the LW effect. So it is quite possible to provoke a higher earth temperature with a less stronger GHE.
– The relationship between CO2 and radiative forcing is logarithmic at concentrations up to around eight times the current value. Constant concentration increases thus have a progressively smaller warming effect. Between 2000 and 2020 the radiative forcing of CO2 = ~ 0.6W/m² for CO2-eq was ~0.71W/m².
CO2-eq. or GHE as the sole driver of the GW should, according to the general definition of the GHE , cause a decrease in LW-out-@TOA of -0.71W/m² and then also increase LW-down-surface accordingly. But in the period under consideration this is not visible and is superimposed as the observed CERES value shows an increase of +0.57W/m².
As an explanation for this invisibility of the climate forcing of CO2-eq. overall an increased LW-up-surface flux of at least +1.28W/m² (0.57 +0.71) is needed.
——
* ~ +0.51W/m² due to lower LW effect(GHE) of -1.7% clouds (albedo)
* ~ +0.08W/m² due to 10% less aerosols and disappearing sea ice.
* ~ +0.69W/m² through !!! less evaporation at the surface !!! as can be seen in the Trenberth & Loeb GEB above.
The generally observed trend towards more heat and drought events is of course visible in the GEB.
Now the good news: Earlier this week my national government announced an action plan to counteract the water shortage.
The media also mentioned cisterns and rain barrels in the cities, about which half a dozen idiots have been making fun of here in the forum for the last 2 years.
@crabonito
With your penchant for acting as an obnoxious, aggressive crab, you should urgently find another club – preferably one for aging white conservative idiots or other racists with hot air in their heads.
ms: With your penchant for acting as an obnoxious, aggressive crab, you should urgently find another club – preferably one for aging white conservative idiots or other racists with hot air in their heads.
BPL: I’m a liberal Democrat who marched for the Wilmington 10–I was the guy who left the sign inside the White House gates–and attended Black Lives Matter rallies. I attend the most racially integrated church in North America, Eastminster Presbyterian in Pittsburgh, whose motto is “Christ-centered and intentionally cross-cultural.” I did voting place security for the Democratic Party as late as last November. That’s after being a Constitutional Syndicalist in my college days. You have much more in common with racists than I do, since you prejudge people without evidence.
As so often with pseudoscientists, you can’t argue the science, so you try to make it about me. In this case, it’s a spectacular fail.
Jim Bullissays
Emergency situation
A 530 ft snow pack in the Sierra mountains could produce a 45 ft wall of water over much of the length of California. An emergency measure could be to open the California aquifer as a reservoir to capture this clean water for positive benefit. An emergency declaration by Governor Newsom is needed to give such a project the needed priority to prevent such a possible disaster. Presently viewed atmospheric river may bring water which could exacerbate a disaster.
Short term, simple ditches can be constructed where the aquifer is shallow, such that access is created, much along the lines of the Santa Clara County system of percolation ponds that have, for many years, functioned as means of refreshing the smaller local aquifer.
Longer term, the California aquifer is known to be difficult to fill. Yet we have clean water from melting snow pack every year that is lost into the salty Pacific. Boring technology is possibly useful in drilling tunnel aqua-ducts into the deep aquifer.
Recharging the California aquifer could recharge California agriculture which would do more for CO2 retention than all the work yet accomplished to limit climate change.
John Pollacksays
There is not a 530 FOOT snow pack in the Sierra Mountains! Granted, snow pack is well above average for this time of year, but as of March 3, the water equivalent was averaging from around 40 to 46 INCHES, as opposed to the 45 FEET that you’re concerned about. https://cdec.water.ca.gov/snowapp/sweq.action
There’s not going to be a wall of water. The emergency situation is for the people who are snowed in at the moment.
The next atmospheric river is aimed more at northern California, where the snowpack is not as anomalous as further south, and also not quite as large a water equivalent.
.
Well, Michael Knowles just said at CPAC that “trans ideology” must be “eradicated from public life.” Many have jumped to the conclusion that that means eliminating trans people physically, but I’m charitable enough to think that most likely Knowles would be satisfied with just making trans folk unspeakable and hence invisible.
“Back in the closet!” Of course, that wouldn’t solve the issue of freelance violence directed their way, or indeed the issue of gender dysphoria itself.
But apparently KIA is a tad more extreme, WRT perhaps to all forms of “wokism.”
sometimes whishful thinking is also quite appropriate.
Think of having Los Angeles and San Franscisco and Sacramento, and Hollywood and Silicon walley and all that washed out into the sea ?.
What about whishing them a big earthquake also?
You will have to resign on a few wares like Heinz Ketchup and California raisins, almonds and canned Prunus Persica. But, all that we can have from Tyrkia. Sicilia also needs a better market without Californian competition. .
Elon Musk has had success enough now.
Andalucia in Spain and Marocco, could n`t they sell it better?
Kryim and Georgia could deliver it as well, and think of Syria and Kurdistan. They need a market. We sell the dried fishes and they sell the fruits. Would n`t that be lovely?
California has only got the Berkeley University. Else they have no argument and deliver nothing. Berkeley can be mooved uphill.
” Yet we have clean water from melting snow pack every year that is lost into the salty Pacific. ”
ms: — You’re right – one of the solutions is water retention from precipitation or river water.
I recommend converting former mines underground into water storage tanks that can double as pump storage and/or compressed air storage as a large battery for renewable energy.
They can also be used to store heat and cold at the same time and are a good protection against drought and floods.
Also, the ‘Boring technology’ refers to tunnel boring machinery used by the Elon Musk company called the Boring Company for building tunnels in Los Angeles and Las Vegas.
Chuck Hughessays
“Also, the ‘Boring technology’ refers to tunnel boring machinery used by the Elon Musk company called The Boring Company, for building tunnels in Los Angeles and Las Vegas.”
Musk is definitely Boring, and he’s no genius. He’s also managed to turn Twitter into a boring company.
Ok, just a last thought about why it matters whether we limit global population for conscious environmental reasons vs for solely economic reasons. Think about it, Zebra. If we just hope that when the rising population levels meets the falling rate at some point in the future, then stays there, the world population might top out at 10 or 12 billion. (or more. Hopfenberg and Pimentel say that “Populations increase as a function of food availability”, so it could continue to rise as long as the resources are there). The results are in either case lots of extinctions of both human and other species, and a wrecked earth.
If we do it for conscious, environmental reasons, we can limit it right now, and even bring it down.to carrying capacity levels again.
That’s the differences between these two approaches.
My other question is, if you don’t want to discuss things …
I just have no desire to argue the obvious endlessly as is done here and thereby waste time and stall action.
“Anyway, you’ve confirmed my point… it’s all about control.”
Are you implying that I just want to control what people can do? That I don’t really care about other species, or am I misinterpreting?
How to solve it? I’ve been honest in saying that I don’t know all the details, but as an added point in my article says, answers that are blurry in foresight, are often obvious in hind.
Phil Glynnsays
Many years ago when I first heard of global warming and being blissfully unaware of the greenhouse effect I assumed that the warming was caused by the heat humanity produced by burning fossil fuel, nuclear power and wood etc. My question is does this heat factor at all in global warming or is it just insignificant in the grand scheme of things?
[Response: It can be locally important (i.e. in urban heat islands), but globally it is very small compared to the impact of CO2 changes. – gavin]
Phil Glynn,
Today’s energy production globally contributes not much more than a single percentage of the warming resulting from the increase in the greenhouse effect. This SkS graphic from 2005 shows it at 2% and about a third the size of the energy flowing through the Earth’s crust. Of course the energy flowing through the crust has always been there so it doesn’t contribute to modern global warming
In terms of fossil fuels, the atmospheric CO2 from burning coal continues to provide warming while the direct warming from burning a pile of coal is a one-off event. The CO2-from-coal warming requires less than a year to provide the global warming energy equivalent to that released by the burning of the coal. CO2 from natural gas (which contains hydrogen) will require a little longer to do likewise but less than two years.
“I’m glad to see that everyone has come around to my way of thinking about the need to reduce population as rapidly a possible.”
Quite inaccurate and unnecessary egoism. Come on, let’s put this childish pettiness behind us, stop pointing fingers and calling names, join together and figure out how to deal with this, shall we, Killian? All it does is turn people off.
Killiansays
I did not say that. Follow the threading more accurately, eh?
What’s the optimum human population for earth? We can start with that question. Then what’s the optimum human population for each country? Then for each city. I don’t mean how many can we cram into one place and thus displace the other 10,000,000 species or so that inhabit this planet. I mean carrying capacity wise. Figure that out. Then promote it, from political leaders on down.
In my opinion we have about 10 times too many people here. But that’s just my opinion.
Now I really want to live up to my vow to stop talking about this!
The problem with the “optimum population” approach is that it will very predictably be approached from a jingoistic perspective, with a great many folks feeling that the world needs more of their sort, and rather fewer of all others.
The question of “whose ox is gored” is always humanly relevant, I fear.
zebrasays
Unlike eliminating the burning of fossil fuels in 30 years, of course. I mean, it’s not like anyone would go to war over the threat of their assets being devalued, right?
Don Williamssays
The question of “who has the nukes” will be even more relevant, I fear.
Copernicus ERA5 SAT reanalysis has posted its February page with a global anomaly of +0.49ºC, up on January’s +0.44ºC. Feb 2023 is the 5th warmest February on record and also the 5th warmest start to the year (ranked below 2020, 2016, 2017 & 2019 in both cases). Although an El Niño is forecast for the end of the year which would boost the full annual anomaly higher, there is quite a jump required for 2023 to climb up the rankings.
Feb 2023 is the 55th highest anomaly in the all-month record.
I think that argument is claptrap for two reasons. One, Carbon in a tree (vice a corn field) is sequestered as much as coal in the ground. Two, NRDC does not consider the enormous carbon emitted in cultivating, harvesting and transporting out food. We don’t step outside the door and pluck cheeseburgers off the cheeseburger bush at lunch time.
To your first point, it’s hardly a binary choice between trees and corn. And the sequestration accomplished by trees is temporary, too–if trees are in equilibrium (they’re not, of course) then so is the carbon flux ‘through’ trees. Plus, whether it’s rice, corn, or something, else, we’ve got to eat. Ultimately, it’s carbon from fossil sources that’s the issue, not carbon already in the system.
To your second point, you’re right that our food supply is incredibly carbon-intensive, and yes, that urgently needs to change. However, that’s not the carbon that we actually exhale–that’s carbon emitted from feedlots, and tractors, and food-processing plants (and their power sources, many times). And all those are already ‘counted.’ No double counts, please!
Don Williamssays
1) A hardwood tree in North America can grow for 100+ years — and even when it dies it will retain carbon for several decays of decay. Useful if we are trying to slow the rise of CO2.
2) Whereas CO2 absorbed by agricultural plants and consumed by humans is released back into the atmosphere within a year or 2. Flows are important in addition to sinks.
Plus there is the methane emission problem if we all turn vegan and have to consume beans for protein. Seems unfair to pin all the blame on the cows.
jgnfldsays
The relevant distinction here for you to internalize is that there are two things going on and you have to keep both in mind at the same time.
First there is an annual carbon cycle as carbon cycles from plants to the atmosphere and back due to the much greater plant biomass of the Northern Hemisphere and other factors. No net carbon is put into or taken away over time.
Then there is the carbon emissions from sinks were long isolated from the atmosphere that humans have decided to mine and put into the atmosphere. While natural sinks are able to soak up some of it (at a cost to shellfish in the ocean among other issues) there is a quite significant release of this mined carbon into the atmosphere annually.
Kevin, you’re right and Zebra is right that it is “jingoistic” and “magical thinking”. I don’t deny it. Never have. Not realistic. But it’s still possible if we’re really serious and thoughtful about it. Think of all the “impossible” things that have become possible once we decided to really try them.
If we know that an action that we need to take will become an inevitable action for us somewhere down the road in the future (and that dealing with it then will likely be much more consequential if we put it off now), that someday we will have to address it one way or the other, then why the heck put it off?
Zebra, you’re fond of asking others what their solution is to over-population, “to reduce population as rapidly as possible” as you put it. I put the question to you now. What is your solution (that doesn’t involve “magical thinking”)? ‘Cause as it is right now, I can’t tell if you really want it reduced or not.
It would be great if the analysis of various methods of direct air capture included energy and materials accounting, as well as economic accounting. I’ve lost track of how many supposedly promising methods I’ve seen touted over the years. I always see the accounting in terms of money, if at all.
The laws of thermodynamics require that it takes more energy to capture and put the carbon back into the ground than you get by digging it out and oxidizing it. You can argue that you can get more energy out of hydrocarbons by oxidizing the hydrogen, too, but it doesn’t generally work in practice.
So, the energy accounting runs a negative balance. If you’re making it up with renewable energy, great. However, then the economics says that it will generally be cheaper to just use that energy for something else you want. It’s always going to cost money to do direct air capture – lots of it. Usually we’d rather do other stuff with most of the money, at least so far. It’s just more fun to spend money on new stuff than on fixing problems that we’ve already made.
Materials accounting also gets interesting. We’re burning an enormous amount of fossil fuel. Finding spaces to capture and return it in the amounts required is extremely difficult. (e.g. What happens if we start dumping multiple gigatons of bicarbonate into the oceans?) And how do we generate the quantities of substrates required to do the capturing?
All the direct air capture methods I’ve seen so far amount to boutique efforts to waylay a little bit of the carbon. They’re suitable for specialized applications, research grants, and general greenwashing purposes. Hardly scalable into something that would actually make a dent in atmospheric CO2 concentrations.
John Pollack,
It is indeed exceedingly frustrating that DAC technologies as well as CCS technologies fail to explain the total solution; the cost of the infrastructure, the scalability, the energy use and also to allow/show comparisons. This baking soda approach is talking of costs “less than $100/tonne” so not a million miles from the Carbon Engineering Ltd claim of “approx US$100 per ton at large scale” although that likely is for the capture and not for the CO2 storage into saline aquifers (which is at least scalable). Because the Carbon Eng method is storing CO2, the energy use is not using energy for chemical conversion of the CO2 but (from memory) I once calculated they still use about half the energy of burning carbon in the capturing.
And given this is an issue of some considerable current significance, why is this still requiring personal number crunching to dig out this important information?
I se that also you referre to “The laws of thermodynamics”…
Which I think is unprecize and wrong.
Thermo- dynamics is rather what it says, steam- engines, diesel otto and turbo and jet- motors . They are all thermo and dynamic. With that principple of Sadi Carnot for more efficient steamengines.
But for most other uses, it would be better to say principles and laws of entrophy, where it does not have to be motoric or dynamic or “thermo” at all.
It is rather about the reversibility of processes and increasing entrophy allways for the wholeness of systems. Further, about the cost of processes in terms of necessary money, expensive materials, or energy.
Or the cost of making time or processes go in opposite direction. That it is often quite impossible. And not because of “thermodynamics”. , Steam engines,…
Rot and decay, even radioactive decay, and bio, as life and time goes on,. “SIC TRANCIT….” in the processes….. avoid having to teach about and to explain that by one and only one theory and model principle that is also falsely chosen..
I believe you all shoulde think over this and dream more autenticly about this first..
RSS have updated their TLT posting for both Jan & Feb (although as I type, not yet (a href=”https://images.remss.com/msu/msu_time_series.html”>their browser tool). The Febuary monthly TLT anomaly comes in at +0.54ºC, the 10th warmest Feb on the RSS TLT record (11th in UAH TLT, 5th in ERA5 SAT re-analysis). The Feb RSS anomaly is up on their Jan anomaly of +0.45ºC which was in turn up on their rather chilly +0.42ºC December 2022 anomaly (this the lowest RSS TLT anomaly since April 2015).
The start of the year in RSS TLT is sitting 14th in the rankings (17th in UAH, 5th in ERA5 SAT) but it will likely rise up the RSS rankings some way as the El Niño predicted for the end of the year will be boosting these TLT anomalies, possibly well into the top ten.
A person exhales an estimated 0.9 kilogram of CO2 per day 328.5 kg per year 8 billion people emit 2.9 Gigatons per year by breathing – CO2 that stays in the atmosphere.
The emissions could increase by a factor of ? If we all discard our automobiles and transition to bicycling (maybe the reason for China’s high emissions?) I need to see if Vaclav Smil has done a calculation on this.
John Pollacksays
The only reason a person can exhale CO2 is that they ate something that contained carbon and metabolized it. The stuff we eat ultimately came from plants that harvested CO2 from the atmosphere. The exhalations of we and all the other animals on the planet are balanced by the inhalations of plants from the atmosphere.
This generalization becomes untrue over geological time scales. Plants might harvest more CO2 from the atmosphere than animals manage to consume, and get buried instead of being eaten (or rotted). Over a great amount of time, buried plant material becomes a fossil fuel deposit. Inorganic processes can also absorb or release excess carbon over geological time.
We’ve now created a short circuit for what has been an extremely slow process by digging up and burning fossil fuels to support various activities – including transportation, agriculture, and maintaining a comfortable temperature in our dwellings. It is this short circuit that results in rapidly rising CO2 levels and rapid climate change.
Don Williamssays
As I noted to Kevin above, if we are worried about near term temperature rises/tipping points then there is a difference between a hardwood tree absorbing CO2 and holding it for 100 years then slowly releasing it via decay vs a 1-2 year cycle in which CO2 is absorbed by agriculture crops and then released back into the atmosphere as human consume the crops. 3 Gton a year is 3 Gton a year whether from coal or human breathing. There is no evidence that plants only absorb human emissions and not coal emissions.
The point being that Zebra’s arguments re human overpopulation are valid –especially when you consider the even greater emissions generated by agriculture to produce our food — as noted in the link I provided to Kevin.
John Pollacksays
Unless you have a rather unusual diet in which much of your carbon is coming from trees (e.g. you’re eating a lot of beavers, termites, and wood fungus) the amount of carbon you and 7.95 billion or whatever others exhale is irrelevant to the global CO2 levels being out of balance. It’s part of a short cycle that lasts a few years or less. You can ignore it in the accounting, because it goes in and out at essentially the same rate. *(a simplified example below.)
I agree that population is highly relevant. The major portion of the world population that is supported by industrial agriculture has a very big carbon footprint because the energy input from fossil fuels into growing the food is quite large. Both industrial and subsistence agriculture can add to that footprint by land clearing – such as cutting down the trees you mentioned. Soil decarbonization is also a factor. Those are all long cycle activities that raise CO2 levels in a way uncompensated by plant uptake, unlike animal exhalations.
*simplified example: You and your spouse are doing a household budget. The two of you are in the habit of swapping a dime back and forth numerous times a day. Your position is that the dime swaps have to be included in the budget. They amount to the transfer of hundreds of dollars per year between the two of you. Your spouse’s position is that you can ignore the dimes as part of the budget, because they don’t accumulate, just move back and forth. You say that the dimes matter, because sometimes you may use one to buy other items, and swap back a different dime later. Your spouse says it doesn’t matter where each individual dime goes, as long as you’re still swapping one dime back and forth. It would make a difference if one of you was stashing dimes in a jar, and the other had to keep coming up with new ones, but that’s not happening.
It makes as much sense to worry about keeping track of all the dimes as it does to worry about exhaling CO2. As long as it’s part of a short cycle and doesn’t accumulate, it will balance overall. It’s the items that don’t balance that you have to be concerned with, not the ones that repeatedly get cycled back and forth in the same amounts over a short period, such as metabolic CO2 between plants and animals. Concerns do include changes in forest and other land cover, among many other items.
Don Williams,
You say with regard to the carbon cycle, “3 Gton a year is 3 Gton a year whether from coal or human breathing. “ It is not true.
Consider the analogy of a swimming pool full of water from which occasionally somebody takes a bucket full then sits the bucket down in the corner. Later this full bucket will be emptied back into the bath. The bucket which concerns you empties and fills a total of 3 Gt(CO2)/y which is small compared to other buckets also being filled and emptied, all the buckets emptying and filling some 600Gt(CO2)/y from the pool which contains 3,300Gt(CO2). Even those hardwood trees breathe.
That use of the 3Gt(CO2)/y bucket is not the same as the coal bucket which some joker fills from the standpipe and pours into the pool at a rate of 40Gt(CO2)/year. This 40Gt(CO2) bucket does result in more water taken from the pool being stored in the buckets, but about half the 40Gt(CO2)/y remains in the pool which is slowly filling higher.
zebrasays
Don, I don’t know what ideas you are referring to. I have said that the relationship of population to environmental degradation is non-linear, but that doesn’t support your argument.
If you have a smaller population, the benefit is in the ability to move away from agricultural practices that produce more CO2 (and methane), and towards more local and regenerative ones.
However, the cycle of individual consumption and exhalation is not likely to be affected that significantly, since other species will replace us in consuming plant matter. Evolution is funny that way; the system is designed as a balance, and niches get filled.
As I noted to Kevin above, if we are worried about near term temperature rises/tipping points then there is a difference between a hardwood tree absorbing CO2 and holding it for 100 years then slowly releasing it via decay vs a 1-2 year cycle in which CO2 is absorbed by agriculture crops and then released back into the atmosphere as human consume the crops.
Don, you seem to be ignoring one side of your own “1-2 year cycle”–that is, if the emissions are accelerated, so is the absorption from the atmosphere. Kind of the opposite of what you did WRT the tree piece, where you ignored the emissions piece in favor of the absorption. Now, there are questions that could be investigated in all of this, but answering them would be matter for empirical, quantitative analysis. If we’re going with simplifications instead, I think much the best one is that only FF use truly *de-sequesters* carbon into the system. (As MAR tried to show in his pool analogy.)
Don Williamssays
@Kevin , MA Rodger, Pollack
1) IPCC AR6 WGIII:, Fig SPM-1: CO2 emissions in 2019: 38 GtCO2 from fossil fuels/industry, 6.6 GtCO2 from LULUCF(land use, land use change, forestry removal )
An additional 3 GtCO2 from human breathing — 7 percent of total — is not a trival “Dime”. Plus land use by 8 billion people is what destroys reforestration — the most practical means of removing CO2 from the atmosphere. Look at what is happening to the Amazon — one of the major tipping points.
2) @Zebra: The population of animal life in forests is far less than human overpopulation .
Vaclav Smil has calculated that humans now make up 1/3 of earth biomass, our domesticated food animals make up 2/3rd and wild animal biomass is now less than 5% of the total.
You’ve misunderstood the example. The “dime” is irrelevant to the logic. It could be a stack of $100 bills. As long as they are swapped back and forth on a short cycle, and the number in the stack doesn’t change, the long-term balance doesn’t change either. You need only to consider what is out of long-term balance. That’s the 38 Gt CO2 from fossil fuel use, and the 6.6 Gt from LULUCF in the IPCC figures. And, yes, those numbers are increased both by the human population, and the activities of that population.
If you’re concerned with accounting for the 3Gt from human respiration, why aren’t you concerned with far larger amounts from bacterial and fungal respiration? What’s so special about human respiration?
nigeljsays
Don Williams. You still don’t seem to accept that breathing is a carbon neutral process, despite several people explaining. Maybe this will help:
1) Plants absorb CO2 from the air without distinguishing between human emitted CO2 or fossil fuel CO2. What basis is there for arguing that all human emitted CO2 is totally absorbed by plants and all fossil fuel CO2 goes into the atmosphere for 100 years?
2) Leaving aside the enormous CO2 emissions associated with agriculture, there is a basic difference between agricultural plants and forests. A tree absorbs CO2 for 100 years, captures it over that 100 year term and only slowly releases it via decay over several decades. subsequent to the tree death. The CO2 absorbed by agriculture plants is only absorbed for roughly 1 year before being released back into the atmosphere –either by decay or human consumption.
I don’t understand why this is hard for you guys to understand — it is well known that the ongoing destruction of the Amazon rain forest is a major tipping point for a global temperature increase. Greatly increasing the size of our forests is one of the more plausible suggestions for lowering atmospheric CO2. It is human population growth — and the need to sustain that mass — that has destroyed huge areas of forest land.
@Pollack
Did you not see my citation to Vaclav Smil’s calculation that human biomass and the biomass of our food cultivation systems makes up over 95% of the world’s biomass?
During a tree’s 100 year lifespan, how much CO2 does it emit compared to rice paddies?
zebrasays
Don Williams
Don, I haven’t followed this closely, and my comment to you was based solely on the question of human food consumption and exhalations, not the net effect due to other human activities.
Going by the numbers you gave:
-Humans exhale a certain amount of CO2.
-If you eliminated all humans tomorrow, there would still be all those cows etc.
-Something would eat them, and exhale CO2, and the population of that something would increase.
-The ecosystem would reach a new balance.
So the numbers you gave don’t really tell us what the new balance would be like. Would the predators, and the cows etc., and the other life forms whose food sources are currently co-opted by humans produce less CO2 than is currently exhaled by humans? I don’t know, but I’m pretty sure the difference would not be that great.
What would be significant is that all the human activities other than eating and exhaling would stop.
John Pollacksays
W: “Did you not see my citation to Vaclav Smil’s calculation that human biomass and the biomass of our food cultivation systems makes up over 95% of the world’s biomass?”
P: I saw it. Get your categories straight if you want anyone to believe you. Smil “has calculated that simply measured by mass, humans now make up a third of land vertebrates, and the animals that we keep to eat – cows, pigs, sheep and so on – make up most of the other two thirds.”
Did you not understand that “land vertebrates” are not the same as “the world’s biomass?” 70% of the world is ocean. Moreover, the biomass of vertebrates is vastly outweighed by the mass of non-vertebrate organisms that respire to produce CO2, including invertebrates, bacteria, fungi, etc.
As you noted, nature doesn’t distinguish where the CO2 comes from. However, your concern for the fate of the CO2 respired specifically by humans is misplaced. The concern belongs with those sources of CO2 which are not balanced overall by uptake from plants. (Plant uptake supports all the metabolism by us and all the other oxygen users.) Unbalanced sources particularly include fossil fuel burning and emissions resulting from habitat destruction. Uncompensated oxidation of organic matter in soils also adds to global CO2 levels.
Adam Leasays
Since bicycling is one of, if not the most energy efficient mode of transportation (even more energy efficient than walking), I see no reason why a transition from automobiles to bicycles would result in anything other than a decrease in CO2 emissions. Even accounting for the inefficiency of food production and human metabolism, the energy required to move a cyclist one mile is massively less than required to move a motor vehicle and driver one mile that there is tons of room to absorb those inefficiencies. Lets not forget that someone driving a car is also emitting CO2 purely as a result of respiration necessary to stay alive.
I see different estimates from different sources. For example, this source says a coal-fired Chevy bolt with 2 people car-pooling would easily beat 2 male bicyclists fueled by beef (not counting CO2 to BUILD the EV, of course.):
A 2010 article on a conservative site disagrees but VO2 estimate seems flaky. However, I would like to see some actual measurements taken of both bicyclists and cars done versus math calculations. I myself would be gasping if I tried to cycle 25 mph to match car’s speed.
The diet that produces the energy is extremely important for emissions. If you’re a human fueling mostly on grains and riding a bike, your emissions are far lower than if you’re fueling on beef raised by industrial agriculture. If your EV is fueling on renewable electricity, its emissions are far lower than on coal-generated electricity.
Humans on bikes aren’t getting much more efficient. EVs are, both due to the improvements in technology, and the rising proportion of generation from renewables. Old comparisons are missing the improvements.
Mass is also an important variable. It is far more efficient to get around on an e-bike than an e-SUV or e-truck. But the latter make far more money for the manufacturers.
Adam Leasays
Ultimately a cyclist will require a lot less energy to get around than a motorist, so much so that the carbon footprint of the claimed extra food consumption will not change the comparison. There is the other issue that if the cyclist is doing short journeys, they may not consume much extra food, I do not consciously eat more just because I do an occasional 15 minute bike ride, and if someone is cycling regularly, they will improve their cardiovascular fitness which may make their respiration more efficient.
I did read somewhere that electric bicycles are more energy efficient than standard bicycles. I don’t unserstand why, as an electric bike has the added weight of a battery and motor, and in an urban environment requiring frequent stopping and starting, or if going up and down hills, extra weight requires more energy to move, and that is before you consider the footprint of manufacture and eventual disposal of the battery.
Adam Leasays
Who deliberately consumes a steak for the purpose of cycling? I don’t, I don’t even eat beef. It is not necessary to consume beef to obtain the calorie intake required for a cycle journey, even the 19 mile round trip to my former workplace. The attempt to claim cycling is worse than driving because the cyclist might have eaten beef produced from cattle reared in recently cleared Amazonian rainforest is extremist cherry picking (lets pick the most carbon intensive food we can think of in a desperate attempt to make driving compare favourably) and just doesn’t stand up to scrutiny. When it comes down to it, moving a bicycle requires a lot less energy than moving a motor vehicle, and the resources need to manufacture a bicycle so much less than the resources needed to manufacture a car, there is no doubt that cycling has a lower carbon footprint than driving.
Personally I’d like to think that the calories used in my cycling journeys are offset by the calories consumed from the vegetables I grow on my allotment (organically and minimal dig). That is analogous to driving an electric car and charging it using solar PV.
Bill Hendersonsays
So I was super impressed by the train commenting on the Dengler and Reid paper and am hoping some of you are interested in critiquing this new ecomodernist approach to climate mitigation:
Analyzing the Most Severe Risks of Climate Change and Climate Alarmism
“Finding a middle ground is the only way to make real progress. That is why I recommend a 2.5 °C target as a reasonable compromise between the risks of climate change and the risks of climate alarm.”
What do you think of his science? Comparison with the Hansen paper?
Geoff Miellsays
Bill Henderson: – “What do you think of his science?”
Who is Schalk Cloete? What’s his area(s) of expertise? Does he have any track record of peer-reviewed scientific papers in the field of climate science? No?
As for Schalk Cloete stating “a 2.5 °C target as a reasonable compromise”, this indicates to me he has no idea of the consequences for humanity and human civilisation at that temperature target.
Per the Discussion Paper titled Faster, Higher, Hotter: What we learned about the climate system in 2022, by science communicator David Spratt, published Mar 7 by Breakthrough, that provides a short overview of the recent climate science and the implications for global disruption, that included on page 6:
Even sharp reductions in emissions will not be enough to avoid crossing the 1.5°C threshold, nor the 2°C threshold, given the record-breaking use of fossil fuels in 2022 and the forecasts.²⁸
Yet it is a big mistake to think we can stabilise or “park” the Earth System at around 2°C and expect it to stay there, says Steffen.²⁹ Earth’s climate history shows 2°C is not a point of system stability, but a signpost on a road to a hotter planet. When projections in late 2021 showed future warming of around 2.7°C, Potsdam Institute Director Johan Rockström responded: “I barely even want to talk about 2.7°C… If we go beyond 2°C, it’s very likely that we have caused so many tipping points that you have probably added another degree just through self-reinforcing changes. And that’s without even talking about extreme events.”³⁰
Similarly Hans Joachim Schellnhuber told an audience: “If the [climate system] tipping elements interact and cascades develop, then the heating could become independent [i.e. self sustaining] at 2°C. Whether that is the case is perhaps the most important question of science right now because it would mean the end of our civilisation.”³¹
There is NO CARBON BUDGET REMAINING now for a safe climate for humanity.
You cannot negotiate with the Laws of Physics.
“If we don’t solve the climate crisis, we can forget about the rest.” – Professor H J Schellnhuber atmospheric physicist, climatologist and founding director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research
See also the YouTube video titled SR Australia – Social and Earth System Tipping Points | Prof. Will Steffen + Dr. Nick Abel, published 3 Apr 2022, duration 1:02:28, that includes Prof. Dr. Will Steffen, Professor of Climate Sciences at the Australian National University and contributing author to the IPCC Special Report on 1.5°C (2018), who summarises the urgent and deteriorating state of the climate and ecological crisis and why we must confront this reality before we lose our ability to adapt. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mn3WQGS9wOI
zebrasays
Bill, a basic rule of propaganda is to always include little bits of truth. But this is not “science”; the blog is a performance designed to offer the opportunity to repeat all the Fox News memes about how bad wind and solar are, and EV, and lots of false equivalence in multiple areas.
I’ve been saying for a long time now that eliminating CO2 emissions by 2050 is just a silly fantasy… because there are all these forces acting against that goal. That’s a bit of truth. But that same truth negates the author’s claim that there will be terrible negative consequences from various actions intended to reduce CO2 as rapidly as possible.
Stuff will happen at some yet to be determined rate; both negative consequences from the changing climate, and negative consequences from various economic transitions. Jiffy Lube will still have customers for the next 30 years; there aren’t woke liberal Storm Troopers coming to take ICE from Noble American Rural Folk tomorrow. And anyway, they have all those guns, right?
nigeljsays
Schalk Cloete appears to design and research renewable energy systems, according to his linkedin profile( hope I have the right man). So its hard to believe he’s spreading anti renewable talking points.
It’s the latest version of soft climate denial. It ignores risk analysis. Using a mid-range risk as your metric in assessing an existential threat is illogical, guaranteeing failure if anything worse than the middle case happens. That’s like loading a Derringer with one bullet and playing Russian Roulette.
Ray Ladburysays
So,, first let me state that I agree with Cloete that climate change is only one of many problems we have to tackle, and I agree that development of poor nations is essential. However, there are a number of shortcomings in his analysis. The first is that he seems to be contending that it is OK to ignore thick tails. That is an especially timely given the recent collapse of Silicon Valley Bank. Arguably, their demise could be at least partially attributed to their failure to anticipate the possibility, let alone the probability that interest rates would be rising significantly just as the tech sector was experiencing serious headwinds. I mean in 2021, everything looked golden!. In finance, ignoring thick-tailed risks has been a time-honored recipe for gaining first-hand experience of how bankruptcy courts work.
Thick tails are generally a pain in the posterior–as well as the Prior if you are a Bayesian. Basically a thick-tailed risk means that either we cannot bound the probability of an adverse outcome, or that we cannot bound the consequences if that outcome is realized–or both. Usually, this is because the event in question is difficult to predict. It’s rare. It corresponds to conditions we haven’t experienced before. Because of this, we cannot estimate probability from our prior experience, and we may not be able to bound the cost we’d incur if it did happen. Unfortunately the unprecedented often becomes realized. If we cannot bound the probability, then we have to find a way to bound the consequences–by analysis of the unmitigated or though mitigation. And that brings us to Cloete’s second shortcoming.
Many of the mitigations he is proposing are untried, and there is no way to know if they’d work, if they’d be scalable to the levels needed or whether they would have side effects worse than the relief they provide. We are in terra incognita here–that’s why we have trouble estimating probability in the first place, and it’s why we have no idea what will work in terms of mitigation.
In my opinion, a third shortcoming is that he assumes that removing the pressure of meeting 1.5 degrees C would make it possible to come together and agree on what needs to be done. This is not consistent with my experience in the climate wars. Our opponents are not reasonable people. Attempting to compromise with them merely means thay’ll retreat even further. Indeed, the only substantive climate legislation passed in the US was passed largely because it was essential if 1.5 degrees were to be even a possibility.
I note an unfortunate similarity to some of the less unreasonable arguments of Bjorn Lomborg. I do not think tha Cloete is similarly disingenuous–merely that we’ve heard this song before, and a lot of us are reluctant to dance to it, cause we know how it ends. The whole argument that we can’t declare a climate emergency because it would force us to move too quickly is both ludicrous and exasperating. I mean, ferchrissake, we’ve wasted 40 years. Forty years ago would have been the time to move gradually. Instead we moved backwards. You’re worried this will cause pain? Well, no shit. We were warning that 40 years ago. Pain is inevitable now. Our inaction has guaranteed that. Now that the added pressure has finally gotten us moving forward with the tiniest of baby steps, I don’t think it is wise to remove it.
Thomas W Fullersays
Mr. Ladbury, I don’t think the past 40 years have been wasted. Certainly more could have been done, but what the world has accomplished has rendered RCP8.5 moot. That at least deserves a pat on the back.
jgnfldsays
To be specific, it renders the ASSUMPTIONS of 8.5 not in line with what is observed.
FWIW, I agree completely with your sentiments–though not WRT the author, as I’ve not read his piece, and hence have not got an opinion on that.
We have (largely) wasted 40 years, and our opportunity to move gradually.
Our opponents are not reasonable (and seem in general to be becoming even less so.)
And there’s no path to a clean ‘win’ any longer; climate pain is as you say inevitable. (Well, it’s actually been happening, so that’s kind of a tautology.) But there is still a choice between kind of bad and really terrible.
Geoff Miellsays
Kevin McKinney: – “But there is still a choice between kind of bad and really terrible.”
Climate change has arrived and it’s going to get worse, and how much worse depends on the decisions that we/humanity make this decade especially, this year and today.
On 11 Mar 2023, John Menadue’s Pearls and Irritations published a piece by Ian Dunlop titled A desperate race to avoid locking in the pathway to human extinction. It included:
When it comes to understanding what needs to be done to avert civilisational collapse driven by an overheated planet, you cannot compromise with the laws of physics. There can be no trade-offs, no deals, no half measures with the vast planetary interactions of physics, chemistry, geology and the biosciences that determine the state of our planet.
Don’t do enough to mitigate human-induced warming, and that warming will drive relentlessly on.
Cleote’s argument is unfortunately one we should expect to hear in some form from oil execs, etc as the climate science clarifies the possibilities of civilization crushing fat tail risks. I think it’s important to work through how ‘doomers’ should answer because effective mitigation (or maybe mitigation that is possible if not all that is required) must now be transformational, disruptive, not just EV SUVs in our very fortunate BAU, and this isn’t allowed.
nigeljsays
My interpretation of Cloete’s essay was that he was arguing that keeping warming under 1.5 degrees would be economically very painful, especially for low income people, and given global warming of the worst case scenario would not cause extinction of the human race, there is no compelling case to try to keep warming under 1.5 degrees.
Yes there are other low possibility but very high impact risks if warming gets above 1.5 degrees but there are huge risks in trying to radically restructure the entire economy and in just 15 years. So perhaps Cloete has a point.
I believe we still have a chance of keeping warming under 2 degrees without causing too much pain for ourselves. It seems like an achievable goal, where 1.5 degrees seems out of our grasp now.
Killiansays
Westinghouse creates a mini-me reactor. Yay? It will serve the electricity needs of @ 6,000 California households. Since we want an *equitable* (right?) transition, then we must assume the whole world gets to live well in the end. (Right?) So, that means we need more than 333k of these for the entire stock of @ 2.3 households.
Bet’cha we don’t see more than 1% of that number over the next 20 ~ 30 years.
Of course, these numbers can be squished this way and that, energy mixes considered, e.g., but the basic point should be clear: No matter what mix one uses, a 1:1 replacement of FFs with electricity is never gonna happen in a timely manner under the constraints we have. The sheer number of units needed is beyond the resource limits if the planet.
Killian: – “Westinghouse creates a mini-me reactor. Yay?”
It seems this type of reactor doesn’t yet physically exist, nor does it even have design approval certification. It’s described in the article you mention as (bold text my emphasis):
That’s the kind of technology far more likely to benefit all of our lives years or even decades before commercial nuclear fusion is even remotely possible. With this in mind, say hello to Westinghouse’s eVinci Microreactor. The small but furious nuclear reactor concept that can be mounted on the back of a truck.
Evidence/data I see indicates so-called small modular reactors (SMRs) are not economically competitive. Per the World Nuclear Industry Status Report 2022, on page 228:
Small modular (nuclear) reactors or SMRs continue to hog the headlines in many countries, even though all the evidence so far shows that they will likely face major economic challenges and not be competitive on the electricity market. Despite this evidence, nuclear advocates argue that these untested reactor designs are the solution to the nuclear industry’s woes. Other labels describing such untested designs are Generation IV reactors or Advanced Reactors or, most recently, microreactors. Hereafter, we update our earlier analyses of SMR programs (WNISR2015, WNISR2017, WNISR2019, WNISR2020, and WNISR2021) in selected countries (in alphabetical order).
The latest UAMPS NuScale SMR estimated electricity price has risen to US$89/MWh, and would be significantly higher if not for subsidies from US taxpayers through a $1.4 billion contribution from the Department of Energy and the estimated $30/MWh subsidy in the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA). https://ieefa.org/resources/eye-popping-new-cost-estimates-released-nuscale-small-modular-reactor
An analysis by physicist and University of British Columbia Professor M.V. Ramana, published in a perspectives paper titled Small Modular and Advanced Nuclear Reactors: A Reality Check, in IEEE Xplore on 9 Mar 2021, that examines some of the claims being made by nuclear technology proponents, with a particular focus on the economic challenges. It briefly discusses the technical challenges confronting advanced reactor designs and the many decades it might take for these to be commercialized, if ever. It concludes with:
All of these problems might just end up reinforcing The Economist magazine’s observation from the turn of the century: “nuclear power, which early advocates thought would be ‘too cheap to meter’, is more likely to be remembered as too costly to matter”
” It seems this type of reactor does n`t yet physically exist..”
Yes, that seems to be an ongoing problem as long as I can remember.
My father once told me of ” a nuclear motor” as small as a toy electromotor but able to drive a whole car. And the popular periodicals told of nuclear fusion tokamaks that were to come now in 20 years. I found that later in original from C.F. von Weizäcker ” Early fifties.
It has remained a Fata Morgana quite constantly 20 years out in the future ever since then.
But, what seems even more sad now is that molten salt thorium fast breeder.
I believe that I have understood what that is all about.
It was the Hiroshima a<nd Nagasaki and the Bikini and the Sakharov transportable hydfrogen bomb that were to be excused and shown to have a moral and civilized purpose also so that the bomb plutonium production- industries could go on and flourish by national subventions.
We had a GURU here for a while, "Engineer poet" There must be limits to both poetry and engineering. He advocated those tiny easy absolutely clean molten salt thorium fast breeder fifth generation reactors.
"But, where are they when we suddenly need them at last? " I asked.
Then he disappeared.
It goes by red hot plutonium in outer space where there is not sunshine enough, where the extension chords will be too long and where there is no air so butane gas and charcoal willo also be impossible. But quite a danger and hush hush when it is sent up. The cassini huyghens sonde to Saturnus and new horizons to Pluto were driven very sucessfully on hot plutonium and thermoelectricity. That is convincing and practical poetic engineering.
But where are those small and absolutely clean and safe, cheap and elegant thorium uranium plutonium molten salt fast and safe and local breeders for sale when we suddenly need them?
Thery seem to be sheere moral propaganda and excuses still going on in the media 70 years after the Bikini heaqvy water and the Sakharov litium deuteride, lightweight transportable thermonuclear bomb.
nigeljsays
Carbo. Not saying you are wrong, but what mystifies me is we have small nuclear reactors in nuclear submarines, but cant seem to design a small land based nuclear reactor.
We must be aware perhaps that in submarines as in Cassini sondes, money hardly means anything.
But what really puzzles me is that both the US and India has had functioning thorium reactors in the sixties allready, and they are said to be more clean. And even as easy to make as u235- reactors. But now they do not know how anymore.
Perhaps be aware that in the beginning, thorium seemed as good as uranium only for one exeption they cannot deliver plutonium and nuclear weapons, so war actually drove on the uranium miles. Plutonium as by product meant later that civil electricity production was strongly subventioned by the military mad- ness. 20 times overkill capacity is not defence, it is mad- ness. ,
Geoff Miellsays
nigelj: – “…what mystifies me is we have small nuclear reactors in nuclear submarines, but cant seem to design a small land based nuclear reactor.”
Nuclear propulsion submarines are for military purposes. I’d suggest endurance, speed and staying hidden beneath the ocean surface for much longer (compared with conventional diesel/battery/electric propulsion submarines) are more important considerations for some navies (e.g. operational for US, Russia, UK, France, China & India + planned developments by Brazil & Australia) than operating cost.
Carbomontanus: – “Perhaps be aware that in the beginning, thorium seemed as good as uranium only for one exeption they cannot deliver plutonium and nuclear weapons, so war actually drove on the uranium miles.”
I’d suggest you might like to read the OECD Nuclear Energy Agency’s 2015 report titled Introduction of Thorium in the Nuclear Fuel Cycle: Short- to long-term considerations, that includes these important facts (see sections 1. Introduction & 9.1 Critical mass):
Thorium lacks any fissionable isotope: it is impossible to start any fission chain reaction purely on mined thorium.
Thorium does, nonetheless, generate the fissile nuclide ²³³U by neutron capture in a nuclear reactor. ²³³U is an excellent fissile nuclide, with advantages over the ²³⁵U or ²³⁹Pu used in current reactors.
The situation with uranium was entirely different; natural uranium, which contains 0.71% fissile ²³⁵U, provided the fuel for heavy water and carbon moderated reactors which did not require any enrichment of ²³⁵U. Enriched uranium fuel led to the use of light water reactors. The plutonium generated in all these uranium-fuelled reactor types provided an obvious route for developing fast breeder reactors, which could use the plutonium as fuel and generate, from fertile ²³⁸U, more plutonium than they consumed.
Fertile thorium, atomically transfigured into fissile ²³³U in a nuclear reactor, can be reprocessed to provide enriched fissile material for nuclear weapons.
The critical mass of ²³³U and plutonium are fairly similar, while that of ²³⁵U is comparatively higher. Depending on the design, it takes between 5 and 15 kg of ²³³U to make an atomic bomb, which is not very different from the required mass of plutonium. See Table 9.1.
Yep, afraid you are exactly right. Nuclear in the short-to-mid-term will be helpful in a minor way, mostly via extant capacity. It won’t be a solution on its own.
Killiansays
You seem to have misthreaded this. It’s not hard. Let me help you:
“Yep, afraid *both* of you are exactly right.”
BJ Chippindalesays
It seems to me (3 major floods in the past 6 months here in NZ) that the frequency & intensity of flooding events has increased over the past 3 years.
Also thinking of Oz, Pakistan.. quite a few noticed now.
Could this have reached statistical significance vs the years before ~ 2019, and where would I start to look?
What he tells you from New Zealand is what I have tried to tell you now many times.
Your basic model climate theory is deeply unsufficient, and cannot be repaired by whishful thinking and your dia- lectic materialism, that is not rooted in empircal physic sciences such as physical geography and hydrology. .
Evapotranjpiration and rain and snow increases steadily worldwide without your help and plans for saving the planet, simply because of big coal and big oil..
Even Al Gore was right on that. Aristoteles and Claussius Clappeyron must be takenn serious first before you can go on. Vapour pressure of water increases with themperature and what goes up must come down somewhere but not necessarily in Las Vegas and Hollywood. Maybe rather in the “rockies” and on New Zealand and in Pakistan.
You behave like a flat earther and desert walker in your own dry and exeptional province and peoples scientific and democratic republic where the earth is quite flat and all has been understood and prooven.
You are fishing in Las Vegas and in southern California and blame your own misconsceptions and errors on the alians.
From my point of wiew, I see the traditional psychopharmacological causes of that more and more shürly and clearly. .
So the desert walker is obviously you – and the trend in evaporation is decreasing by
-0,86W/m² per 20 years.
Instead of taking your psychedelic UFO for sightseeing flights around sauerkraut and mackerel soup, you should urgently study climatology to be up to date. You’re not making much progress with spelling and ABC either.
Nobody needs complete idiots and flying saucers here – but you don’t even care or notice that.
Genosse,
I am expert exerienced and autodidact on flying objects, so I identify them and can hardly report any UFOs.
Whenever I can, I report them.
Resign on your NAZI- style dopes that make you impossible and out of step exept where the earth is flat.
Those traditional and secret “vitamins” of yours are severely psychedelic being intensionally euphoric “central stimulants”. That make you see ” alians” and think in terms of flying saucers all the way.
And shurly of your situation and your mission and case.
“UFO” is a standard comment and remark in the astronomical society. I can bet also in NASA.
“…….You have an UFO there…”
“Look ……. there comes an UFO… Can`t you see? several UFOs. ….. they are coming all the time….”
And everyone looks up to try and find out what it is. UFOs must be rentlessly cleaned out in the astronomical society because we cannot set on them and sell them…
It is mostly what we do all the time.
Ony the Schürlers in the society and climat dispute set on them everywhere and sell them as their deeper and higher spiritual, more professional wisdom and deliveries..
Have you ever heard of http://www.Hessdalen? I do not live there. Schürlers are swarming there.
Why not go to Hessdalen with your mission?.
zebrasays
Gotta love it. Let the culture wars madness begin.
“The first course was a celery root soup lush with whole milk. The last was a spice cake topped with maple cream cheese frosting served with a side of ice cream. And then a latte with its fat cap of glossy foam. In all, a delicious lunch. Maybe a little heavy on the dairy.
Only this dairy was different. It was not the product of a cow or soybean or nut. The main ingredient of this milk was made by microbes in a lab, turned into tasty and recognizable food, and then served to a hungry reporter.
Lab-grown meat is coming. But lab-grown dairy has already arrived.”
It is eqvinox, and springtime is coming in the climate.
You mention celery soup.
Together with white cabbage and wild onions, Thickened celery soup at is an ingredient of the general white nordic or mackerel soup. The british variety is not celery however, it is phoeniculum
But are you aware that Aegopodium podagraria known as ground elder or masterweed or bishops weed tastes rather exactly the same and even better, as if Podagrarium was the wild form of celery?
It is known also as Podagrarium officinalis recommended by Hildegard von Bingen, and cures Podagra quite efficiently thus “Bishops weed. Due to the fact that the old bishops were way too fond of salted and dried and smoked pork and ham, With Portwine, Ale, and Whiskey.
Then Hildegard was asked to cure them of that also..
Podagrarium is extreemly invasine, It probably came by the romans to England and Ireland and that weed tastes exaxtly the same and even better than celery weed.
So it has not invaded for nothing in the climate.
Codfish is known as the best substitute of dairy.
And for vitamin C, Scurvy weed, horseradish, and fermented Sauerkraut was preferred on long voyages at sea. Sauerkraut will also contain B12
Horseradish is contained in any professional remoulade sauce.
Even better than horseradish is another very invasive species, the Alliarium officinalis, that is still another Coclearia. together with horseradish and scurvy weed. You will breathe and smell like a turk.
It turns rotten fish into standard vulgar fast food “Kebab” or Mc Donalds “burger”
Alliarium officinalis can indeed secure your cultural collisions as efficient as Garlic.
With enough Alliarium officinalis in your fastfood and salads, you can forget all you learnt about vegetables..
Zebra, you must wrap yourself together and get conscious here.
Brewers yeast is an old remedy for B- complex with B12 vitamins. Where the better alternatives were allways calf ande swine and goose and flying fish- liver, the faster the fishes more potent their livers.
There was a scandal. The Norwegians had found how to grow artifricial proteins on stainless steel tanks from brackish saltwater, industrial NH3 and Urea, earth gas CH4 compressed, with common air. That could be dried in sacks, pelleted and purchased instead of Soya- meal as swine, chicken, and imprisoned Salmon fish fodder..
The russians did protest and ban it at home. They said, imported Salmon had too much mercury and cadmium and arsenik & cetera. That was Norwegian bacterial synthetic Salmon food.
But it is the situation. Bacterial synthesis of proteins from saltwater , combustibles and ammonium and air in obscure, stainless steel and polyetylene industrial tanks under pressure.
Our traditional culinary substitutes is codfish for milk, cheese, youghurt, salami, and butter,
where you may need Angelicum archangelicum L and Alliarium officinalis and Allium ursinum and perhaps some tomatoes and spanish pepper and some malt vinegar or maybe even some Svartadaudir ( = Icelandic aqva vita) for swallowing it at Thorrablot in the winter.
Proper whale is the very best.
There aint no better beef on land. But where is the fried fat and skin and where are the sausseages and the liver pasten and where is the marrow bone bouillion and the fried and roasted fins and beards? and the salted and hanged and smoked glands and gonades?
All those resources go overboard again or is rotted for soap and fertillizer.
We could have 5 times more whale or shoot 5 times less of them , if only the whole whale could be
cunningly carefully taken care of. and served for human consumption.
Where are the qualified butchers and chefs in the whale industries?
That is the real problem!
And why Soya? Why not Pisum sativa L proper peasoup anymore? and why not the whole variety of common beans with cider vinegar or tomatoe sauce…. or simply fermented with fish and chicken?
As a paralell, Poule a la Ferrari is a French dish announced from uphill Province.
It is chicken driven over by a Ferrari, scraped up from the road again, stewed in french a la cuisine with secret spices, anounced and served to the tourists agaist hard cash..
Why dirts from the stainless steel tanks when better alternatives are allready invented and purchased?
Shall I also have to discuss the “wine” and “cognac” industries?
“the relationship of population to environmental degradation is non-linear
That’s (mostly) true if you consider environmental degradation only in terms of the climate crisis. It’s true that we in the 1st world are putting much more C02 in the atmosphere than the 3rd world (except where slash and burn of land for homes, ranching and crops – usually cattle ranching and growing soybeans – is occurring, such as in the Amazon and Asia ((yet they are also growing industrially, and often there’s no pollution laws))), But “environmental destruction” globally, which involves the other half of the equation, is (mostly) linear now, as I point out in the elephant in the room. It’s growing masses of people replacing the many other species on this planet that we both need and that also deserve to be here. So we are all guilty, but in different ways. Both need to be addressed seriously, not just one while the other is ridiculously overlooked. I don’t know why that’s so hard to understand; it’s so obvious! Just one example:
Let’s be grown up about this, acknowledge it, and not turn it into a political football.
Ray, yes, absolutely. If we know that someday we will have to address these issues one way or another (or face worse consequences), then why the heck not address them now while we still have something worth saving??? Controlling climate change is hard, yet necessary. Figuring out how to control population growth is likewise.
nigeljsays
Ron R.
I largely agree with your comments. Human over population is huge problem, but its not clear that theres a viable way of quickly reducing the size of the population. We cant line people up and shoot them, forced one child policies have gone out of favour due to the problems encountered in China, and it seems unlikely the majority of people would choose to go childless or only have one child. The government would need massive financial incentives and this isnt very viable.
Zebra points out some countries have shrinking populations but they are a small minority and it doesnt mean others will all quickly follow. The UN believe the fertility ratewill likely fall to 1.9 by year 2100, as a natural part of the demographic transition process, which means global population would then shrink but VERY slowly.
I believe its possible the fertility rate could drop to 1.5, being a mixture of small families, and childless couples and a few one child families, as the most optimistic possibility, but even that would take about three centuries before the population would shrink to a couple of billion (for example). And its probably something that will emerge naturally with little input form the government directed at the problem.
Higher rates of per capita consumption are also an issue, but weaning people off that drug won’t be easy, and I tend to believe consumption will fall mainly due to the emerging pressure of resource scarcity.
Sounds a bit pessimistic I guess. But it highlights the fact that human civilisation is complex and like the titanic and is hard to turn around quickly, in respect of some things. Therefore we have to focus mainly on those things that can be done (slightly) more quickly , like renewable energy, recycling, electric cars, stronger environmetal laws and agreements (like the recent global agreement on protecting the oceans). So the boring mundane stuff.
Joseph Tainter has written some interesting related commentary.
Adam Leasays
Found this video on YouTube by a PhD student working in the field of climate change, “Are We Doomed”, which talks about the threats from anthropogenic climate change and the chance it is an existential threat for humanity:
“Q1: Will climate change wipe out humanity?
Anyone who claims this with any certainty is not looking at the science. What does the science say? Climate change is scary, but we’re still well within the realm where our efforts can prevent the worst outcomes. We need to transition to a low-carbon future, the sooner the better.”
Provides references, and appears to be consistent with the mainstream science as far as I can tell.
Bill Hendersonsays
Thanks Adam, super important video
I rarely watch videos much preferring print but Hunter’s video is state of the art climate science, maybe the most accurate, nuanced and reasonable short look at Are we doomed?available. Hope the kids are watching and hope his reasonableness is a sign of things to come.
nigeljsays
Good video thanks Adam.
Geoff Miellsays
Adam Lea: – “Q1: Will climate change wipe out humanity?”
I think the video you’ve linked to glosses over the big existential risks of the climate crisis and that some tipping points are already initiating, or close to initiating, bringing us dangerously closer to a cascade of climate tipping points.
Evidence/data I see indicates we/humanity are currently on a GHG emissions trajectory towards civilisation collapse within this century. I’d suggest that could mean the suffering and deaths of billions of people, but not necessarily human species extinction. But we/humanity are not doing enough to even avoid civilisation collapse.
The Earth System is already at around the +1.2 °C warming level now (relative to the 1880-1920 global mean surface temperature baseline, per GISS analysis). This is already not a safe climate for humanity and human civilisation, and millions of people are already being displaced by weather/climate disasters.
Atmospheric GHG concentrations are already sufficient to force the Earth System warming to inevitably overshoot the +1.5 °C threshold, possibly within this decade (2020s), per Hansen et. al. pre-print Global warming in the pipeline. Even the scholarly reticent IPCC’s AR6 WG1 SPM, Table SPM. 1, on page 14 indicates their best estimate is for reaching +1.5 °C in the near-term (2021-2040), for all scenarios.
Hansen and colleagues at Columbia University suggest:
Thus, 2023 should be notably warmer than 2022 and global temperature in 2024 is likely to reach +1.4-1.5°C, as our first Faustian payment of approximately +0.15°C is due.
So it seems we could experience a first breach of the +1.5 °C warming threshold as early as next year (2024) if a strong El Niño emerges later this year and continues well into 2024.
I’d suggest you should see/hear the YouTube video titled SR Australia – Social and Earth System Tipping Points | Prof. Will Steffen + Dr. Nick Abel, published 3 Apr 2022, duration 1:02:28. Prof Will Steffen said from time interval 0:20:28:
“Let’s take the IPCC assessment and say the best we can do is 2050. Now, that’s not good enough, but let’s just take this because a lot of people, a lot of countries are saying net-zero by 2050. Alright, that’s a reaction time of thirty years. Actually now, it’s twenty… twenty-eight years. Ah, but, what are the intervention times to stop tipping points?
OK, Arctic Sea ice: I think we’re right at it now – I think we’re… I think it’s zero. I think within this decade that’s, that’s going to tip, and I think by 2040 or 2050 you’ll see an ice-free Arctic Sea.
West Antarctic ice sheet – about three metres of sea level rise. I think within ten years, um… that’s going to look over it’s tipping point, and we will be committed to losing it.
On 22 August 2022, at the Cryosphere 2022 Symposium at the Harpa Conference Centre Reykjavik, Iceland, glaciologist Professor Jason Box said from time interval 0:15:27:
“And at this level of CO₂, this rough approximation suggests that we’ve committed already to more than 20 metres of sea level rise. So, obviously it would help to remove a hell-of-a-lot of CO₂ from the atmosphere, and I don’t hear that conversation very much, because we’re still adding 35 gigatonnes
per year.” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iE6QIDJIcUQ
There is NO CARBON BUDGET REMAINING for a safe climate for humanity
Three stages are required to mitigate the climate emergency:
i. Deep and rapid decarbonization of civilisation ASAP – no more new fossil fuel developments AND a rapid phase out of utilization of existing fossil fuel infrastructure;
ii. ‘Negative emissions’ or atmospheric carbon drawdown to safely get CO₂ levels back to well below 350 ppm (CO₂-equivalent); and
iii. Maintain arctic summer sea ice cover.
“What we, humanity, do in the next 4 to 5 years will determine the future of humanity for the next few thousand years.” – Sir David King, Founder and Chair of the Centre for Climate Repair, University of Cambridge https://vimeo.com/527806796
Killiansays
Don’t need a video for that. It’s really obvious. However, it is obvious only if one understands just how quickly we can shift to being a regenerative society. There is the issue of doing so while people still don’t see the true danger, then there’s what happens when an ax murderer is chasing you down the street.
I have argued for years the ax murderer needs to be acknowledge in no uncertain terms by the science community, That hasn’t yet happened except for a few hardy souls.
Tell people society really is in the process of collapse, human extinction is in process. Tell them how to avoid both.
THEN see what happens. This is not a new concept, it’s not new knowledge, it’s not new visioning. You’ve been hearing it here for at least a decade.
Nigelj, you’re absolutely right that figuring out how to control world population is really, really hard. I offer some possible answers in the article and others have as well. No, we can’t just line people up and shoot them (or off them some other way, obviously). But like climate change this has to be addressed politically, and soon. But unlike climate change it isn’t being. That’s why I call it The Elephant in the Room.
Everyone (relatively speaking) is just looking the other way. Hoping that human numbers will just taper off in the future at 10 or 12 billion. Then we’ll be OK they say. No, not everyone will be OK. Or not everything. But we humans (in general) seem to keep not seeing or caring beyond humanity.
I’m saying that if population does level out at ten or twelve billion (and that’s a big IF if there are still resources to grow) it might result in a leveling out of human numbers, but it will spell the extinction of a whole lot of other species that we not only need, but that also deserve to be here as much as do (or as much a anything deserves to be here). Those animals took a whole lot of time to evolve. What a waste! Would w really be OK with a world filled with only people?
But if we believe that CC action is also really hard, but doable if we’re willing to figure it out, then why the **** not population control as well? They’re more or less linked. There’s no logical reason why one is given all this attention (which is right, of course) while the other is ignored (except at the NGO level). No reason why we consider the one as fixable because we have to of we are to survive, or at least be really uncomfortable, but the other is “Sorry” inevitable. No logical reason – except they’re not people.
Most of them are still here. So there’s still time. But like they say, “Extinction is forever”. We’ll, or our children, will be really kicking ourselves in the future if we just let them go without trying everything we could.
nigeljsays
Ron R,
Yes the population problem is definitely not getting the attention the climate change problem does. Perhaps this is because the size of families is quite a personal and sensitive sort of issue and so governments in democracies don’t want to get too involved, out of a fear of a voter backlash and a fear that a lack of young people will reduce the tax take. Its hard to imagine there ever being an international body on population control, analogous to the IPCC.
I agree the biodiversity loss is very serious. Its largely due to huge population pressure converting natural habitat to farming. Half our medical drugs come from plants and animals. There are multiple reasons to stop the loss of biodiversity.
Thomas W Fullersays
Sigh. Mr. R, your assumptions about population are not being born out by real time evidence. Populations are decreasing in places as diverse as Russia and China, the birth rate is cratering in much of the world and it increasingly appears that population will peak at between 9.5 and 10 billion human souls.
This information is really easy to find.
Don Williamssays
As I have noted, this argument– about a vital subject– is akin to a religious faith statement. UN has a range of estimates for 2100 — from 9 to 12 billion. However, if you slap a ruler on the line from 1980 to present and extend it you can get around 14.5 billion.
While some areas have declining growth rates, places like Africa still have very high birth rates , big drops in mortality due to improved health care., and soaring growth in population.
While IPCC does not address population, it should fall under G20’s charter given that G20 is supposed to address sustainability.
nigeljsays
Don Williams. You don’t project / predict the future just by slapping a ruler on a graph and just ASSUMIMG the recent trend will continue indefinitely. You have to account for things that are likely to affect a future trend. For example there are clear reasons to predict that sea level rise will accelerate and equally clear reasons to believe it wont go on forever because water is a finite resource.
There are good reasons to believe the rate of population growth will slow down, as more countries go through the demographic transition and move towards having smaller families. The issue is really about how much population growth will slow down, and the UN thinks the most likely case is about 11 billion by the end of this century. They have researched the issue in depth. Have you? Have you read any of the studies? You have to show line by line where they are wrong. Have you done that? I doubt that you have done any of this.
Don Williamssays
@nigelj
1) I suppose I also need to refute every logical argument in Thomas Aquinas’s “Summa Theologica” in order to disprove his conclusions?
“Hence it must be said that the angels, even according as they are immaterial substances, exist in exceeding great number, far beyond all material magnitude…The reason for this is that because, since it is the perfection of the universe that God chiefly intends in the creation of things, the more perfect things are, in so much greater profusion are they created by God.”
2) My citation is more relevant than yours since Catholicism has 1.3 billion followers, many in areas of high population growth , and is against contraception.
With influence much greater than the UN’s.
3) On the other hand, nuclear war and famine would admittedly bend the curve down a bit.
4) There is also the data provided by John Calhoun’s experiments on the effects of overcrowding:
“In 1972, eight mice were placed in a utopia. Full of food, water, bedding, and space for 3000 mice. Within three years there were no survivors. “
Reason?
“It was here that the social roles of mice began to break down. Mice born during this period found they lacked space to mark out territories in, and random acts of violence among the mice began to occur. Many males simply gave up on trying to find females. These males retreated into their bedding and rarely ventured out. Simply eating, sleeping, and grooming. Calhoun dubbed these narcissistic loners “The Beautiful Ones”. They also tended to be rather stupid.
Days 600-800: The “Die” phase. The population, which maxed-out at 2,200, began to decline. No surviving births took place after day 600, and the colony ultimately died out. Individuals removed from the colony and placed in similar units continued to demonstrate erratic behavior and also failed to reproduce. The mice were remarkably violent at this time, for little reason.”
I can’t find your citation on catholicism, but it should be regarded with some caution. Its never a great idea to rely on just one research study, for self evident reasons. Even quite compelling studies have been found to be wrong sometimes. This is why the IPCC look at thousands of research studies. Its a commonsense form of quality control.
And although population is still growing in latin america, that RATE of growth has slowed down. Here is Brazil. Other countries are similar.
Yes you are correct the catholic church is against condoms and family planning, but many catholics have been ignoring this (one reason the rate of population growth has slowed) and the Church hierarchy is not making much of a fuss about that.
I have read the mice study some years back. Its a good study that has been replicated.
Your underlying proposition seems to be that human population will continue to grow very strongly until it hits hard resource limits and it will crash in a painful way. I agree to the extent this cant be ruled out. We don’t have a crystal ball and there are so many factors involved its hard to project accurately what will happen.
However I believe we will avoid a food related collapse. I lean towards the UN evaluation that global population will stabilise at about 11 billion then fall very slowly. Once people get a taste for small families, both governments and religion have struggled to reverse this. Zebra has quoted examples. Calculations show the planet is able to feed 11 billion people.
I do think we will come up against painful mineral resource limits with 11 billion people, but this will cause a simplification of lifestyle, rather than institutional collapse and mass starvation.
That said, I really struggle to see how we could shrink population really QUICKLY, as pointed out in another comment. Religious convictions do seem to take time to change, and governments wont love shrinking populations for obvious reasons.
nigeljsays
Don Williams
I forgot to mention that humans adapt to cramped living conditions much better than mice. For example the country of Singapore is a good example. Population density is high, and there are several cultural groups, but its a stable,peaceful country and no huge social problems relatively speaking. Although I’m obviously not advocating we all live like that if we can avoid it.
DW: Catholicism has 1.3 billion followers, many in areas of high population growth , and is against contraception.
With influence much greater than the UN’s.
BPL: In the US, at least, 2/3 of Catholics use contraception, whatever their church says.
Geoff Miellsays
nigelj (at 18 MAR 2023 AT 7:32 PM): – “However I believe we will avoid a food related collapse.”
Based on what evidence/data, or is your belief based only on wishful thinking, nigelj?
I think humanity is facing at least three existential threats to human civilisation if we/humanity continue business-as-usual (BAU). These are:
1. The Climate Crisis;
2. The Energy Crisis, including particularly the emerging Oil Crisis; and
3. The ongoing COVID-19 / SARS-CoV-2 pandemic.
I think these escalating threats will inevitably worsen global food security.
What is the risk of getting ‘Long-COVID’? A graph of the 1%, 5%, 10%, 20%, 30% & 50% risk curves for the cumulative probability of getting ‘Long-COVID’ versus the number of times being infected with SARS-CoV-2, is included with this tweet: https://twitter.com/bagger_blue/status/1636702479219036162
Per the risk curve graph, the US CDC estimate suggests there’s a 20% risk of getting ‘Long-COVID’ for each EPISODE of infection, meaning by the 5th infection there’s about a 65% probability of getting ‘Long-COVID’.
If the risk is 10% (the Nature paper titled Long COVID major findings, mechanisms and recommendations suggests 10-12% of vaccinated cases), then by the 7th infection the probability of having ‘Long-COVID’ exceeds 50%.
The top-10 riskiest occupations for acquiring SARS-CoV-2 infections in Australia (obtained via FOI) are apparently:
#1 School Teachers
#2 Child Carers
#3 Hospitality Workers
#4 Checkout Operators & Office Cashiers
#5 Education, Health & Welfare Services Managers
#6 Education Aides
#7 Defence Force Members, Fire Fighters & Police
#8 Sports & Fitness Workers #9 Food Process Workers
#10 Hairdressers https://twitter.com/bagger_blue/status/1636892543479840768
Get infected with SARS-CoV-2 a few times per year and it seems to me per the risk curve data, the risk of being substantially debilitated by ‘Long-COVID’ is likely very high within a few years.
An increasingly disrupted food production & supply workforce due to recurring SARS-CoV-2 infections means an increasingly disrupted food supply and worsening food security.
Global phosphorus scarcity is likely to threaten the world’s ability to produce food in the future if concerted efforts are not soon taken by policy makers, scientists, industry and the community.
Phosphorus is an essential nutrient for all forms of life. It is a key element in our DNA and all living organisms require daily phosphorus intake to produce energy. It cannot be replaced and there is no synthetic substitute: without phosphorus, there is no life.
When I said “however I believe we will avoid a food related collapse”, this was in the context of a discussion of population growth and the sheer numbers of humans. No mention was made of other factors such as covid, peak oil or climate change. However I’m inclined to agree with you that once we add those factors (and other risks like wars like the Ukraine war) to the sheer weight of numbers of humans we do face a very significant risk of food insecurity.
In fact New Zealand has just had two huge record setting flood events and one of these has destroyed a major fruit and vebetable growing region. We are already seeing this reflected in the price and availability of some food products. Fixing the region has been estimated at 16 billion dollars. Both events have been made worse by climate change according to experts. Essentially 1) higher humidity and thus more intense rainfall and 2) a low pressure centre and an atmospheric river coming against blocking highs. The frequency of blocking highs we are seeing may also be a function of climate change.
And about two minutes after reading your comment the evening news talked about a young lady having caught covid four times. Spooky coincidence.
Regarding “peak phosphorous.” I acknowledge this is a potential problem and forgot about this in my comment on mineral scarcity. Obviously its a finite resource and so there is a limit, however it does not seem to be a short or medium term concern as below.
The mineral scarcity issue is very real but IMO there’s also some media hype at times. I recall an article breathlessly telling me we would run out of lithium or zinc or something in 75 years. Check the fine print buried away and they were referring to known land based reserves at current market prices, totally ignoring potential future discoveries, known lower grade deposits, and reserves dissolved in sea water or at the bottom of the oceans. Mineral scarcity is one of the issues where the truth is nuanced. However we should be recycling what we have and not wasting materials on foolish exploits.
Peak oil might be a more urgent concern. This is a very, very finite resource and my bet is light crude has already peaked. Another good reason to build a zero carbon energy grid and electric transport etcetera.
Geoff Miellsays
nigelj (at 20 MAR 2023 AT 1:20 AM): – “Mineral scarcity is one of the issues where the truth is nuanced.”
Club of Rome member Ugo Bardi produced a report in 2014 titled EXTRACTED: How the Quest for Mineral Wealth is Plundering the Planet. A YouTube video was produced to promote it, duration 0:08:57. There’s a voiceover from time interval 0:03:48 (bold text my emphasis):
“We will never run out of minerals, but we will run out of cheap fossil fuels and high-grade ores.
The limits to mineral extraction are not limits of quantity, but of energy.
Extracting minerals takes energy, and the more dispersed the minerals are, the more energy is needed.
Technology can mitigate the depletion problem, but cannot solve it.
The depletion of fossil fuels is already becoming a serious problem. The peak of conventional oil production may have passed between 2005 and 2008, while all other oil and gas resources could peak within the next ten years. Coal production could increase for several years, but at a tremendous cost to the environment.” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u_Y29DqzWkc
I’d suggest the limits to mineral extraction/processing is one of energy-dependency is a fundamental truth – IMO, there’s nothing nuanced about that.
nigelj: – “…my bet is light crude has already peaked.”
Nope – it’s the heavier crudes containing the longer-chain hydrocarbon molecules that are apparently becoming scarcer. See my Submission referred in my earlier comment, particularly Slides #25 through #41. As a consequence, global gasoil/diesel fuel production reached a peak plateau of around 26 Mb/d during 2015-2018, then subsequently declined to below 23 Mb/d by mid-2021 (see Slide #40). The gasoil/diesel fuel decline began before the COVID pandemic emerged. The Russian invasion of Ukraine exacerbated gasoil/diesel supply shortages.
Diesel is the premier fuel, for road, rail and marine transport, for mining and agricultural machines, and in many manufacturing processes. Diesel is the workhorse of the global economy.
Scarcer diesel fuel supplies leads to higher prices, which increases the prices of everything dependent on diesel.
nigelj: – “Another good reason to build a zero carbon energy grid and electric transport etcetera”
Unfortunately, it seems from the available data, global diesel fuel production has already begun declining. I think a decline in global kerosene/jet fuel production is perhaps next; timing is anybody’s guess. It seems the emerging reality is not quite what ‘peak oilers’ had originally in mind.
I’d suggest we/humanity will be playing catch-up. Even if we/humanity can rapidly increase sales of new vehicles/vessels/aircraft that don’t use petroleum-based fuels, there will still likely remain a huge fleet of legacy vehicles/vessels/aircraft that do beyond this decade – See Slide #45 (that outlines Australia’s ICEV predicament as an example).
Various people have been warning about the consequences of a post- ‘peak oil’ world, and the need for society to prepare for that day, including the IEA’s Fatih Birol (see Slide #46), but few people wanted to know. The party is now over – the era of cheap and abundant crude oil and petroleum fuels has ended forever!
” And a study published by the US-based Center for Applied Research showed that in the period between 1980 and 2012 the number of Catholics in the world had increased by 57% to 1.2 billion, but growth in Europe was just 6%, compared to 283% in Africa. It put the number of Catholics in Africa at almost 200 million.
“I think Africa is where the future is really [for the Catholic Church],” says Nicolette Manglos-Weber, Assistant Professor of Religion and Society at Boston University’s School of Theology. “
nigeljsays
Don Williams,
Yes the numbers of Catholics in Africa could well grow as the religion takes hold, but that is just displacing other tribal religions. Its not population growth per se. Its a bit hard to see why the Catholic religion would lead to higher population growth rates in Africa, because it already has quite high population growth and large family size.
And whats to stop the catholics in Africa opting for small families and ignoring the Popes edicts against contraceptives, , as has happened in both North and South America? Remember Africa will most likely go through a demographic transition process like the western world has,
Even if a significant proportion of Catholics do keep having large families, many people in the world are already opting for small families and they outweigh the number of catholics quite substantially. And its difficult to see the Catholic religion gaining traction in Asia. Provided the net result globally is a fertility rate of about 2.1 on average, world population starts to shrink.
Interesting discussion.
Ray Ladburysays
Don Williams, I’m gonna go out on a limb and take a wild guess that you probably have never set foot on the African continent, and that you have probably spoken to few if any natives of said continent. As such, perhaps you are not the best informed to tell us of their hopes, aspirations and plans for their offspring.
Africa is an entire frigging continent. It is an astoundingly diverse continent as well. Looking up a few stats and thinking you understand it is a colossal error.
DW, what if the growth in Catholics is mainly through conversion, not population growth, especially in Africa and southeast Asia?
Thomas W Fullersays
Last time I visited, Spain, Italy and Portugal were quite Catholic (and quite catholic, come to that) and had fertility per female rates that were low, low, low. The IPCC does not address population, other than to label it the biggest (!) driver of human-caused climate change. Many other organizations do, however, and they pretty much speak as one when it comes to labeling previous fantastikal projections of peak totals as such.
IOW, let’s make figuring out how to control our numbers a part of the climate debate, instead of a separate and unrelated issue. It’s all anthropocene.
Chuck Hughessays
Republicans want everyone to copulate and make more White babies so they don’t die out. The Stupids will keep on being stupid till everything is gone. What needs to happen is the scientific community needs to figure out how to get rid of stupid people before it’s too late. KIA, I’m looking at you for some answers.
Source: Scott, J.M. 2008. Threats to Biological Diversity: Global, Continental, Local. U.S. Geological Survey, Idaho Cooperative Fish and Wildlife, Research Unit, University Of Idaho.
Both GISTEMP and <a href="https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/access/monitoring/monthly-report/global/202302"NOAA have reported for February, both with anomalies significantly up on January. GISTEMP gives February as +0.97ºC up from Jan’s +0.86ºC. In GISTEMP, this is the 4th warmest Feb on record (also 4th in NOAA, 5th in ERA5, & in TLTs RSS 10th & UAH 11th). In both GISTEMP & NOAA Feb 2023 is =28th in the highest all-month anomaly list.
In GISTEMP, the first two months of 2023 sit as the 5th warmest start-to-the-year (=4th in NOAA with 2023 sitting just above 2019 & equalling 2022, 5th in ERA5, 14th in RSS TLT & 17th in the trend-busting UAH).
…….. Jan-Feb Ave … Annual Ave ..Annual ranking
2016 .. +1.27ºC … … … +1.01ºC … … … 2nd
2020 .. +1.21ºC … … … +1.02ºC … … … 1st
2017 .. +1.08ºC … … … +0.92ºC … … … 4th
2019 .. +0.94ºC … … … +0.98ºC … … … 3rd
2023 .. +0.92ºC
2022 .. +0.90ºC … … … +0.89ºC … … … 6th
2015 .. +0.88ºC … … … +0.90ºC … … … 5th
2007 .. +0.86ºC … … … +0.66ºC … … … 13th
2018 .. +0.83ºC … … … +0.85ºC … … … 7th
2010 .. +0.79ºC … … … +0.72ºC … … … 10th
Thinks – we have the Auzzie BoM declaring an El Niño watch with the La Niña ended so the end of the year is going to see the monthly anomalies boosted by ENSO. Are we now looking at the return of ‘scorchio’ with a potential top-three warmest-year for 2023? And that with El Niño-boosted ‘scorchyisimo’ in 2024 to follow?
But I have the impression that there is new development of molten salt and fast breeder reactors that simply cannot escalate the Cernobyl way, that produce way less fissible materials for possible atomic bombs, and way less radioactive waste in the form of long lived isotopes also.
I would try and judge it from that side and try ande see if this is true first, that are rumors,
And then see it further in the perspective of the alternatives that are chemical and biological environmental problems and political pollution and problems related to conventional use of fossile fuels.
I suspect the solar panel and battery and windmill- industies of having rather large enviromental costs and “footprints” that are politically denied and that are hidden in the environmental and climate dispute.. I have tried to judge it theoreticaloly, by planning the easiest and cheapest way of having a house and having a car. Pedals are really sublime, sunshine and rain is sublime, the photosyntesis is devine and sublime, sailing winds can be utilized by knowledge and patience, and the diesel engine is sublime and exellent having all the worlds records, and can run on CH3-O-CH3.
Whether mankind can be enlighted and educated …. that is dubious and a remaining, maybe a greatest environmental problem.
Hi CM. “But I have the impression that there is new development of molten salt and fast breeder reactors that simply cannot escalate the Cernobyl way,”
Sorry, it’s not worth the risk. A accident has a vastly disproportionate chance of contamination compared to the benefit. And there are always accidents no matter how safe they make them.
I believe, and hope, that solar will get smaller and cheaper. I myself have a solar power watering timer (Digg brand) on the outlet of my hose that waters all the trees and plants I planted, and there are a lot of them, with about a 1 inch solar panel. Twice a week for a half hour a time is what I use, though I could increase that to twice a day for longer if I want. Soooo much better than constantly replacing batteries.
diesel engine is sublime. Noooooo, no, no, no. Have you ever sat behind one in traffic?OMG. It’s unfair that they are allowed to pollute like that while those using unleaded fuel are subject to stringent rules. In my view, diesel should be banned from the face of the earth.
By the way, those accidents are just the ones we know, or learned about later. My guess is that there are a lot more accidents (and intentional releases for pressure or accident prevention) that we are never told of.
Let’s have our own comparatively much safer, decentralized power. Power that we don’t have to pay somebody else for.
Huge black worms behind it when the buses take off, and behind the 50 tons Semitrailers in the crab- fields uphill on the Autobahn at 20 Km per hour is …….. engine alarm.
I repeat, and I I am the chief engineer on this.
Black smoke is engine alarm.. Must I repeat?
To see what it is, Look up http://www.Detroyt Diesel on youtube. 2 stroke V6 or V8 turbo- diesel. Also shown as Dragsters on youtube.
That was developed for tanks and for airplanes in WW2 to scare the enemy but it came too late.
With bottom throttle accelerating It burns sheere hydrogen and leaves pure carbon back to where it came from . It harly leaves CO2, not even CO back to Nature.
“GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRmmmm” …. very large black worms behind them in town.
suddenly more fuel than what it breathes in for at that rpm, That will surely smoke.
See also the US Greyhound long distance buses. They go by classic turbo 2 stroke detroyt diesel. “GrrmGrrmGrrmGrrm.. Brmm…” which is themendously simple, strong, and convincing
But, look at V 12 4 stroke Top valved water cooled Adolph tiger tank Diesel…. it hardly smokes.
That is what it is meant to be theoretically, Adolph was desperately short of fuel, wherefore he could not afford anything else.
I am brought up with low compression , carburetor 4 and 2 stroke sparkplug engines , 1, 2, and 4 cyl, side and top valved, inline and boxer. Water and air cooled..
There is no motor saw, Renault or Volswagen so wrong in the cold that I cannot get it to explode.
But my Son recommended rather Diesel in the boat. That was quite a new challenge , but I slowly get it.
Diesel it is RED/ OX as shown in Public school with combustion and mechanisms. Where black smole is engine alarm. Blue smolke is also engine alarm but for other reasons.
The exhaust is supposed to be absolutely clean, as intended by Rudolf Diesel, and it is possible.
Listen to
Dumdumdumdumdumdumdumdum……
or
dbdbdbndbdbdbdbdbdbdbd…….
or
grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr……..
that is diesel in order.. A lovely sound it hardly smokes and drinks anymore.
Iam especially satisfied with my new( re- cycloed) yanmar 2GM20 engine. 2cyl 2×1/3L, top valved 4 stroke high compressen swirl chamber injection. Only that the flywheel is too light so one cannot crank it.
My son has a 4 cyl inline Ford car diesel, it hardly smokes and drinks either with a convincing torc and smooth sound.
Once in the winter, it suddenly did smell of sharp, nitration acid HNO3 +H2SO4 behinde a car.
That is illegal, to drive on tremendously cheap heaviy ship bunkers “solar” oil.
The smell of chemical lab NOx behind todays diesels entails that it is an especially sublime and efficient Diesel. It never smelt that way in the good old days when there were rather black worms behind them.
But, that NOx is easily converted into nitrogen and water with urea NH2-CO-NH2 solution in the exhaust pipe, simply piss in the pipe, that cleans up the NOx…
Or– the way I have taken small motors in the workshop,by an exhaustpipe leading through a can of wet sawdust. The sawdust can be composted afterwards.
I have seen recentry that the large tourist lorries in the fjord, hardly smoke anymore as they did before. They are obviously “shrubing ” the exhaust now for being permitted in the fjords and in town.
“Clean diesel” has been an American political argument together with “Clean coal”.
At sea, clean diesel is important, and there we shrub the flexible pipe with coolwater anyway. With proper diesel, you can gladly afford better fuel also, because it hardly drinks either anymore if you drive catrefully.
Once at Tromsø Airport with especially clean air, namely the special Tromsø atmosphere smelling of sea and mountain heathers combined,……… it suddenly smelt extreemly nostalgic from old Kerosene torchlamp or Primus cooking- device.
So I asked the Aborgineans what is that?
“Oh, it is that Russian over there!”
And there stood Aeroflot.
Their flagship aircrafrt carrier Admiral Kuznetsov went from Murmansk to Syria and back recently, showing russian style. That was oil- heated steam turbine engine. on cheapest dirties possible fuel in case of war. It could hardly moove without togbgoats following and got worlds famous for its huge cloud of very special representative exhaust.
Oil heated steam piston engines tripple expansion doubble action, = practically 12 cyl were rather clean if only the burners were in order and they went at economic speed.
Remember the traditional Thunder and Sabre- jets and the B52 with 8 engines, they had allways stripes of brown exhaust behind them.. But todays low sulphur and low aromate jet fuel and lamp kerosene is odeorless and burns clean as a candle in church.
Speaking of ice, Emerald Bay in Lake Tahoe has completely frozen over for the first time since 1993. They think it’s about 6″ thick. That seems fairly thick for rarely freezing over.
Please tell us what a lack of “melting” at a station nearly 10,000 feet up in a place which AVERAGES -28C in summer and -60C in winter means for global warming?
Please tell us what a single weather event in a single place at a single time (kinda’ the very essence of cherry picking there, obviously) means for global warming?
We await your science with bated breath.
Geoff Miellsays
Mr. Know It All: – “Looks like no melting in the near future at the South Pole…”
So what if the South Pole remains frozen? There are many other locations in Antarctica that are melting, and the rate of melting is accelerating.
On 22 August 2022, at the Cryosphere 2022 Symposium at the Harpa Conference Centre Reykjavik, Iceland, glaciologist Professor Jason Box presented a graph showing accelerating land ice loss from 1971 through to 2019, for the Arctic (including Greenland), Greenland only, Arctic (without Greenland) and Antarctica (1992-2017) from time interval 0:12:47.
Per the displayed graph, the rates of eustatic sea level contributions from land ice loss have been accelerating decade by decade:
* Arctic (including Greenland): 12.3 mm (for period 2009-2019)
* Greenland only: _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ 6.8 mm (for period 2009-2019)
* Arctic (without Greenland): _ _5.5 mm (for period 2009-2019)
* Antarctica: _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ 7.6 mm (for period 1992-2017)
It seems per the displayed graph, the rate of land ice loss from Antarctica is beginning to overtake the Arctic (without Greenland) region as a leading source of eustatic sea level rise (SLR). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iE6QIDJIcUQ
Per the Nature Communications paper titled Mekong delta much lower than previously assumed in sea-level rise impact assessments, published 28 Aug 2019 (bold text my emphasis):
Deltas are low-relief landforms that are extremely vulnerable to sea-level rise. Impact assessments of relative sea-level rise in deltas primarily depend on elevation data accuracy and how well the vertical datum matches local sea level. Unfortunately, many major deltas are located in data-sparse regions, forcing researchers and policy makers to use low-resolution, global elevation data obtained from satellite platforms. Using a new, high-accuracy elevation model of the Vietnamese Mekong delta, we show that quality of global elevation data is insufficient and underscore the cruciality to convert to local tidal datum, which is often neglected. The novel elevation model shows that the Mekong delta has an extremely low mean elevation of ~0.8 m above sea level, dramatically lower than the earlier assumed ~2.6 m. Our results imply major uncertainties in sea-level rise impact assessments for the Mekong delta and deltas worldwide, with errors potentially larger than a century of sea-level rise.
If oceanographer John Englander’s 9-box matrix for SLR is close to the mark, then it’s quite possible that the Mekong Delta could be submerged before 2050 under the high risk sensitivity scenario, and very precarious for the medium risk sensitivity. https://johnenglander.net/british-engineers-use-9-box-matrix-as-flood-design-guide/
I’d suggest compelling evidence/data indicates SLR will inevitably disrupt global food security in the coming decades, whether the South Pole remains frozen or not.
Chuck Hughessays
Your contributions to this site so far have been nil. Zero. If you can’t post useful information, please stop. We’re all tired of your ignorance.
If anyone is interested, I thought I’d post a futuristic short story I wrote in 2017 on how it could all work out in the end – if we actually decide to do it right.
ICC has just issued an arrest warrant for Putin for “crimes against humanity”. Strange — if Dick Cheney, George W Bush , Joe Biden and Hillary Clinton accomplished nothing else I thought they had showed decisively –with the Iraq invasion of 2003 — that there is no such thing as “international law” when it comes to nuclear powers.
Russia is in the G20 — the G20 that is supposed to fix climate change. Kinda hard to do if the major source of fossil fuels can’t show up for the meetings. Of it if decides to open up a 3 foot pipeline of methane and start venting it into the atmosphere.
Piotrsays
Re: Don Williams Mar. 17
I don’t think fixing climate change has been among the priorities of G20. Not surprising, given that the two members of G20 are: Russia and Saudi Arabia. the countries whose regimes, affluence of the elites, economies and geopolitical importance would collapse without the continued world’s dependency on oil and gas, So having one country fewer to sabotage any attempts to fix the global change, may not be as bad as you suggest it is.
And then there is your false equivalency of the invasion of Ukraine by Russia in Ukraine with the invasion of Iraq by the US. The numbers of victims on both sides, and the deliberate targeting the civilians and civilian infrastructure – are the two most obvious differences. And then there are underlying goals – the US did not attempt to annex parts or entire country of Iraq, nor did the US invade Iraq to erase the self-identity, history and culture of the Iraqis. So no, not the same or even similar.
The problem with false equivalencies is that relativizes the evil – whitewashes the crimes of the worse party by implying that they are not worse than those by the others. And if everybody is guilty then nobody is really guilty. Which is a logical and ethical fallacy we know well from climate debates:
see the denier’s classic
“if you use ANY fossil fuels, then you are a hypocrite to criticize those who use much more fossil fuels than you (drive gas-guzzlers, live in urban sprawl, have high-carbon footprint diet, are frequent fliers). And until you give up ALL your uses of fossil fuel energy – you shouldn’t be criticizing the fossil fuel industrial complex – all multinationals and petro-states that rely on continued selling of fossil fuels, or whose business models relies on the prices for fossil fuels that do not reflect their climatic costs.
Climate Change Coordination among the major economic powers of the world is required lest some evade the required sacrifices in order to gain advantages in military and economic competition.
So, on one hand you see yourself as a man who would not have wool pulled over his eyes by the cynical politicians (see you tirade on “Dick Cheney, George W Bush, Joe Biden and Hillary Clinton”), and then in very next post, you ask me to uncritically buy the official …. communique of the meeting of a bunch of politicians? The communique that … your own source criticizes as smoke and mirrors:
“the final communiqué lacked firm pledges and failed to put an end date on the actual use of coal. It did not make any commitments to improve on issues like climate finance.”
And that’s on top of the fact at least TWO members of G-20, Russia and Saudi Arabia, have EVERYTHING riding on … scuttling any attempts to reduce the world’s use of fossil fuels, since such a reduction would have meant the collapse of their economies, destroying their wealthy elites, destabilizing the ruling regime, and the end of their geopolitical importance.
You can equally well expect a design of safe chicken coop from a panel which two members are foxes, and several others – benefit from the foxes raids on the coop.
2) It was Barack Obama’s National Economic Advisor, Larry Summers, who originally drew up the list of who would be in the G20 –and who would not.
3) Last time I checked, the US and UK fossil fuel corporations –Exxon, Chevron, Peabody Coal, BP, etc – have neither gone out of business nor halted political donations nor limited extraction to the US and UK.
4) Re your “false equivalence” , Russia is trying to prevent stealth platforms with nukes from being deployed within 300 miles of Moscow and her ICBM sites. Joe Biden voted for an unnecessary war 6000 miles from the US to seize non-existent nukes from a country with no significant bombers or missiles.
5) Climate Change may drive China to migrate north and seize eastern Russia. Saudi Arabia may become uninhabitable if climate change progresses.
Uh you do know she is a Fox News blogger, right Don? Do you expect any smidgeon of truth?
Piotrsays
Re: Don Williams, Mar. 20
Again – you see yourself as a man who would not have wool pulled over his eyes by the partisan propaganda and then your support your defense of Putins war crimes with a
… FoxNews piece on how Obama was “to usher in New World Order”. Whau.
And then in defense of your whitewashing of Russian invading an independent country and murdering tens of thousands of civilians – you regurgitate the standard Kremlin propaganda how it is the … US that made them do it. You are what Lenin called – “Russia’s useful idiots”. Until 1990 it used to the Western lefties, but now are apparently their stronghold is in FoxNews and among Trumpists.
And no – the fact that there American corporations that make money on fossil fuels does not make your equivalency of Russia and US any more honest – the US economy is NOT dominated by the export and oil, the way Russia’s and Saudi Arabia’s are. Take away fossil fuel exports and their economy collapses, and with that – their totalitarian rulers can no longer be certain of their power, and it goes – even their lives. So no, Don Williams, these are not the same.
DW: Russia is trying to prevent stealth platforms with nukes from being deployed within 300 miles of Moscow and her ICBM sites.
BPL: Nobody is trying to put in said stealth platforms. They exist entirely in the mind of people who, like you, take Russian disinformation seriously. Stop spreading Russian propaganda. It’s not welcome.
Putin has cleverly made himsel to the very one and only authority, the son of God or something, the Czar, where the God is dead and he has taken over that seat.
So where shall he turn himself in?
He can go to Hell, can he.
I am being refused in Hell because I know to much about heat, but Putin may not know enough about heat yet.
The chineese dragon may eat him.
Victorsays
Yes. As we’re continually reminded, weather and climate are two different things. Weather is what is happening now, climate is what has been happening over many years. Yet, according to the alarmists (you know who you are), “climate change” is “happening NOW!” If climate and weather are two different things, how can climate be happening “now”?
Wow. Looks like that Polar Vortex is working overtime.
I’m sorry folks, but if you want to insist “climate change” is HAPPENING NOW, then you must acknowledge that the opposite of what’s being predicted by all that “settled science” is also happening now. While weather and climate are indeed different, weather like this is NOT on the alarmist agenda. Winters were supposed to be getting milder, not more intense. And it’s not just this winter, as similar instances of extreme cold and snowfall have been recorded in the recent past as well: https://www.ibtimes.com/snowfall-2020-already-breaking-records-it-isnt-even-winter-yet-3070076
And if you prefer to fall back on all those heat waves, be my guest. According to evidence that would be difficult to refute, the 21st century has very clearly been warmer than any time in the 19th or 20th. So “unprecedented” heat waves are to be expected. Which tells us NOTHING about what has caused the warming. As I’ve demonstrated, there is NO meaningful correlation between CO2 levels and global temperatures: http://amoleintheground.blogspot.com/2018/10/thoughts-on-climate-change-part-8-tale.html
Here again Victor, you are fighting the necessary principle of what has been shown to be an isolator, as such.
Because you do not understand what you are actually fightingt and denying. You are fighting the principle of electric and thermic conductivity and isolation as such, and all the obvious ways that it can be shown.
If your measurements and your statistics cannot show it, then your measurements and statistics and opinions are wrong
Piotrsays
Vic: “ Weather is what is happening now, climate is what has been happening over many years. Yet, according to the alarmists (you know who you are), “climate change” is “happening NOW!”
Yes, Genius – NOW as: “ in the last few decades“. Decades: ergo climate, not weather.
I haven’t seen any “alarmist” PROVING CLIMATE change solely on the basis of a … a single local weather event. On the other hand I have seen quite a few of “nothing-to-worry-aboutists” and conspiracy theorists trying t dismiss global climate change with a single local weather event. See for instance
your fellow Very Stable Genius – who claimed that that Global Warming was “ created by and for the Chinese in order to make US manufacturing non-competitive” and then disproved it by brilliantly
arguing:
“In the East, it could be the COLDEST New Year’s Eve on record. Perhaps we could use a little bit of that good old Global Warming,” Pres. of the US, Donald J. Trump
So sorry, Mr. Victor, no sane person claims that a single extreme weather event unequivocally proves or disproves climate change. The increased frequency and severity of the extreme events OVER THE SCALE OF DECADES is a different story – this can be one of the symptoms of climate change. Is it possible that in your head you got the two completely different arguments conflated?
Vic: “ In any case, what is happening NOW is a period of unprecedented, record-breaking COLD, accompanied by unprecedented devastating snowfall”
Huh? First you tried to score points by inventing your opponents and making them discredit themselves by supposed proving climate change with a single local weather event, and then .
you turn around and try to … disprove global warming with a … local weather event???
Make up your mind, Genius, you can’ t eat the cake and pontificate how you are above eating cakes.
Victorsays
The world according to Piotr:
Vic: “ Weather is what is happening now, climate is what has been happening over many years. Yet, according to the alarmists (you know who you are), “climate change” is “happening NOW!”
Piotr: Yes, Genius – NOW as: “ in the last few decades“. Decades: ergo climate, not weather.
V: That’s not what’s being said. “Now” means now. Literally. And we’re hearing it everywhere. Take for example the following youtube clip, from an interview by Amy Goodman with Michael Mann: https://youtu.be/smD-fkleQEc?t=78
Note that every single disastrous event she references is literally “happening now,” i.e. autumn 2022, when the interview took place. From the perspective of climate science each is clearly an instance of weather, NOT climate. Note also that the types of events she’s listing, regardless of how disturbing, are the sorts of thing that’s happened a great many times in the past and will no doubt continue to happen in the future regardless of what we do or don’t do. Mann’s response is equally misleading: “With these catastrophic events we see playing out now in real time, we are witnessing the devastating consequences of climate change now.”
He goes on to cite various instances of “devastating” climate change, from heat waves to “flooding events,” “more drought,” “devastating wild fires,” “The physics isn’t that difficult here, you make the planet warmer you get more heat, more heat waves” etc.
Ok, at this point he IS attempting to extrapolate from what is happening “now” to what has happened in the (relatively recent) past (i.e. “climate”), by invoking certain basic principles of physics: a warmer planet can lead to more heat waves, floods, storms, etc.
Does anyone see the problem here? The fact that the world is getting warmer, a fact that hardly anyone would dispute, is provided as evidence of “climate change,” taken for granted to mean anthropogenic climate change, due largely to the burning of fossil fuels. Yet NOTHING he says supports such a theory. It’s simply taken for granted. I’m sorry, but there is something profoundly dishonest in Mann’s presentation, where he has no problem skipping over the essential question regarding cause and effect by simply assuming 1. that a serious long-term warming trend actually exists and 2. that he knows what’s caused it.
“Note that every single disastrous event she references is literally “happening now,” i.e. autumn 2022, when the interview took place. From the perspective of climate science each is clearly an instance of weather, NOT climate. ”
I suspect that what people really mean by saying “climate change is happening now” is we have seen some especially dramatic weather events in the last couple of years and we are seeing the IMPRINT of climate change on some specific weather events. . Scientific attribution studies have evaluated the impact of climate change on specific weather events. Essentially its making some types of events worse in specific ways. For example storms typically have higher rainfall intensity in recent years. There are some relevant links near the end of my post.
“US heatwaves- no long term trend.”
Its plain to see an increasing trend from 1940 – 2020 so I’m not sure what Victor is looking at. However the graph doesn’t show us a GLOBAL trend so Victor is just cherry picking. Trends vary in different countries and only the global tend shows what global climate change is doing. Studies show that globally heatwaves have increased in frequency and intensity:
“Here, using the Berkeley Earth temperature dataset and key heatwave metrics, we systematically examine regional and global observed heatwave trends. In almost all regions, heatwave frequency demonstrates the most rapid and significant change. A measure of cumulative heat shows significant increases almost everywhere since the 1950s, mainly driven by heatwave days. Trends in heatwave frequency, duration and cumulative heat have accelerated since the 1950s”
Ryan Maues data and commentary is his own view and should be viewed with extreme caution. He was appointed to NOAA by the Trump administration and he has a history of climate science denialism.
The following is data on hurricanes: “Number of Category 4 and 5 Hurricanes Has Doubled Over the Past 35 Years, according to the National Science Foundation.” They are a more credible source.
The graph has no title, no location data, no source.
Numerous studies show heavy rainfall events have increased globally. One example. “While there are regional differences, and some places are becoming drier, Met Office data shows that overall, intense rainfall is increasing globally, meaning the rainiest days of the year are getting wetter. Changes to rainfall extremes – the number of very heavy rainfall days – are also a problem. These short, intense periods of rainfall can lead to flash flooding, with devastating impacts on infrastructure and the environment.”
Only looks at one aspect of droughts, the palmer index. Look more widely: “Climate change has further altered the natural pattern of droughts, making them more frequent, longer, and more severe. Since 2000, the western United States is experiencing some of the driest conditions on record.”
Victor cherry picks one single study on drought that suits his narrative. Numerous studies show changes in droughts “Climate change is making droughts more frequent, severe, and pervasive” according to NASA.
“Human-caused global warming has made severe droughts like the ones this summer in Europe, North America and China at least 20 times as likely to occur as they would have been more than a century ago, scientists said Wednesday.”
I could go on. The point is you have to look widely at several studies to be able to see the wood and not be distracted by the trees, as the saying goes. Victor relentlessly cherry picks, so just ends up fooling himself, and demonstrating nothing of value.
Adam Leasays
“The following is data on hurricanes: “Number of Category 4 and 5 Hurricanes Has Doubled Over the Past 35 Years, according to the National Science Foundation.” They are a more credible source.”
Is this referring to a paper released in 2005? If so, there was significant debate regarding the conclusions of that paper:
Victor’s claim was about hurricanes, not specifically category 4/5 hurricanes. To quote from the above link:
“Webster et al. also present plots of the global frequency of tropical storms, hurricanes, and the number of days those storms are present (Figure 3). No trend is apparent in these plots, and the paper states that “against a backdrop of increasing SST, no global trend has yet emerged in the number of tropical storms and hurricanes.” So far, all hurricane scientists are in agreement.”
Victor might be wrong on a lot of things, but in this isolated case I don’t think he is a million miles out.
When it comes to just the cat4/5 storms, you cannot directly compare counts from raw data without first applying some homogenisation to the data to account for the better instrumentation we have available today compared to 50 years ago. Based on fundamental physics, I would expect climate change to increase the frequency/intensity of the strongest storms but it is not clear whether it is possible to detect this now due to the fact that the numbers are small and inhomogenities in the historical data.
I got in 2 remarks on environment, stupidity and on Gods here.
So maybe you are also willing to learn.
Wise people often know how to turn the question and problems around and ask the opposite way if it is difficult. If it cannot be prooven that A causes B, then try whether B is causing A.
I take as an examp0le , if you have metals on you, it will be detected by the metal detector bowl at the airport, and if not, the metal detector is out of order and does not work.
It is as elementary as that, And it is not a matter of statistics and confidence at all. It has another category of cause. It comes because of the electric conductivity of metals different from common flesh and air, thus giving a radio eccho and interference.
CO2 giving global warming is not decided on or prooven by confidence and statistics the way you are trying to0 teaqch us in order to rule it out. If not shown by measurement statistics and confidence, then your measurements statistics and confidence is out of order and you better find your own error first..
Further, if iron metal does not hang on a magnet, there must be an error because iron is magnetic
Your error may then be that it is not an iron or that is not a magnet, or both . That way is rather the scientific way by which we analyze and conclude, given that we are not just cheaters or dilettants.
CO2 more or less causing global warming was first shown in the lab by John Tyndall, and further taken for real and not disputed.
Because wise men do not deny and dispute the physical experimental premises, such as heat radiation from boiling water temperature, the mirror galvanometer, the fine silver parabolic mirrors, and the recently invented termopile enabling a doubble beam experimental method of sample and reference..
Moral: You must understand how nature and how cruxive lab experiments work first, in order to understand what you are up to and will have to fighting against and to deny. Else you will but fight and deny and ruin your own credibility..
That fameous diffuse back radiation of radiated heat, that is giving us an efficient optically cleann IR isolator by timeless univeral necessity, is not what we decide on by confridence or political or personal opinion on the desktop.
I even have in my Jøtul 507 stove where I have to steadily restore the inner porous terracotta fireproof isolation to keep the combustion temperatures under control and in order. The stove is actually also at the same time heating back and heating up the burning and heating wood and coal inside of it. A fact that was fiercefully fought for a while by the contrarian industies.
Knowing a few such elementary things, I am rather able to follow the Paris convention quite well, because I understand better then what they are talking about.
I even read it by eye measure out of the glow colour temperatures in my stove and the cleanness of my chimney and then further in my own portemonnaise..
It is not for dilettants you see, it takes a bit learning and wisdom and responsibility also.
By steadily teaching and propagating the way you do, people who take your propaganda for true may become hardened stupid. And loose more and more control of their vital methods and understanding of their own lives, behaviours, and points of wiew..
They are being taught and guided and trained and drilled away from understanding common reality out from elementary and reliable quite common , physics, chemistery and bio.
You are performingb a civil war against easier cheaper and better understanding as such.
So that then alternatives, quackery and thyranny can take over.
You are fighting peoples and societys elementary defence and consumer protection.against trolls and whitchcraft, disaster plague and disease.
Exactly that fameous mission and propaganda may be a really worst and most accute on short term, political economic, and environmental pollution problem.
Piotrsays
Vic: “from an interview by Amy Goodman with Michael Mann”
I didn’t ask you what you THINK they said, I asked
for a QUOTE in a climate scientist proves the climate change based solely ON A SINGLE local weather event.
No, Mann’s words: “The physics isn’t that difficult here, you make the planet warmer you get more heat, more heat waves” IS NOT that. Hint look for a quote analogous the words of your fellow very Stable Genius:
“ In the East, it could be the COLDEST New Year’s Eve on record. Perhaps we could use a little bit of that good old Global Warming”
Pres. Donald J. Trump
See – you have a single, local (“in the East”) weather (one day) event – that the author uses to question the reality of Global Warming.
So where is the quote, Vic?
Chuck Hughessays
Can you guys not just ignore the trolls? They’re obviously not going away, and they’re not going to learn anything no matter how hard you try. Just call it bullshit and move on.
JCMsays
The Russians on evaporation, condensation, and the atmospheric circulation
“The Biotic Pump Theory, as set forward by Drs. Makarieva and Gorshkov, states that the primary force driving surface winds, certainly in the tropics, is induced by the negative changes in atmospheric pressure caused by condensation of water vapour when clouds form. A high rate of condensation is necessary and therefore the theory requires that a sufficiently high rate of evapotranspiration from large areas of forest provides the ‘fuel’ for the process.”
“The theory therefore runs contrary to the traditional view, as introduced in climate models, that surface winds are the sole products of differences in surface heating as well as of latent heat release during the process of condensation. Indeed, Makarieva and her colleagues claim that transitions in the phases of water play a far more important role in driving atmospheric dynamics than is currently recognised (Makarieva, Gorshkov, Sheil, Nobre, & Li, 2013).”
“The challenge is to find empirical data which indicates whether significant correlations exist between surface airflows and cloud condensation. That is not an easy task given the spatial distance between the ground and those atmospheric events which lead to clouds appearing and vanishing. Temperature and humidity undoubtedly play critical roles in generating the right conditions as indeed do the cloud condensation nuclei which are emitted from the surface, not least from vegetation, and which act to prevent super-saturation with water vapour and thereby enable it to condense at dew point temperatures.”
“Nevertheless, more work needs to be done, more evidence brought to bear before the climatological community will accept the biotic pump theory and its implications for modelling climate change”
[Response: This was all shown to be nonsense in the epic series of comments on a submitted (but never accepted) paper. An error in their theoretical derivation was ‘recast’ as a new parameterization but one that has no actual basis in reality. The rejection of this ‘theory’ has absolutely nothing to do with it’s supposed consequences. – gavin]
“Gavin Schmidt, a climate modeler at Columbia University, says, “It’s simply nonsense.” The authors’ responses to criticisms were “really just mathematics that gave no one any confidence that there was any point in continuing the dialogue.””
on land clearing and soil desiccation, irrespective of the direct 10 hPa/km “evaporative/condensation force” conjecture:
“Incomplete understanding of vegetation-water feedbacks as related to temperature have implications for models and resulting global climate projections. Recent studies demonstrate that the warming that results from reduced transpiration more than compensates for the cooling that results from increased albedo”
After thinking it more over, I come to that Gavin Schmidt may have a point due to quite common things that urbanized people and people far from nature, farming, responsible ownership of own homes and gardens by economic and oecologicalo traditional order maybe never saw.,
Together with Matthias Schürle, You are discussibng it by one and only one seemingly popular, qvasi- scientific, conscept, Global Cooling by “Evapo-transpiration”
Hardly consceiving its whole- ness, namely its parametric connections and naturally balanced reversibility..
Keyeword, The fameous warming by condensing of water from vapour.
You are apparently proceding by no conscepts of both processes taking place at the same spot at the same time, thermo molecular processes going both ways at the same time and the macro- scopic result will be a balance of both.
I am more aquainted to that from chemistery you see, where we have that everywhere, so we learn about it and must respect it. Else, bad results.
Surrealism did fight “backradiation” fiercely ideologically , until Roy Spencer knocked down his own folks on that political point.
In any case, green forests and lawns and bushes cooling the average world situation and landscape is not obvious at all to me, because, here where I live the situation is rather obviously opposite. Green forests and lawns and tight bush vegetation quite obviously rather warm us and the situation and the landscape, houses gardens and ackers and flowers and fruits for ripening here where I live, and that situation is well known and traditionally true for the very tempered and sub- arctic and sub alpine and glacial zone on earth!.
I repeat…..!
We even arrange it cunningly artificiallye traditionally to make “microclimate” for houses and gardens and ackers…. thus expand the area of sensitive thermophile crops and animals fruits and flowers way out of the original quite warm climatic zones where they did origine naturally.
Again I repeat….!
Because we do not live in Las Vegas, Hollywood and Southern California and on Cicilia and the Holy Land and in Tyrkia only. where the monocausal evapotranspiration political doctrine may be most valid and vital.
Personally, I am able to save maybe 2 deg of warmth and winter fuel and 5-6 weeks of summer season length by protecting the natural tempered and taiga forest vegetation right here on the spot, and even save higly industrially purified drinkwater for my lawns and my flowers, and rather harvest tomatoes cherries apples and wines northslope in the old Taiga, where wild oaks and apples are coming over the hill to us in quite recent years .
Those big trees obviously warm us and need no artificial evapotranspiration.for thriving.
There is birdbath and birbath-festival under it now, with bare ground, as the neighbours only have snow and ice on their pavements and lawns. This is obvious and traditional kinowledge in Scandinavia and in old England and in Holland. .
The “Jungle” obviously stabilizes and protects against the extreeme temperatures and weathers, alltogether rather by a bit warming, not chilling effect. As Life and Bio obviously knows how to ajust the environment to its own advantage due to an obviously very long history of evolution or maybe even intelligent creation.
As for the last, Bio and life has the ability in itself to create and to evolve intelligently at least.
JCMsays
@carbomontanus
thank you.
however
I am not discussing the trees and the multiple reflections of solar beams important in northern high latitudes. neat stuff tho.
nor do I have much interest in the sub arctic periglacial shallow sandy till and bedrock regions. Such geographies are pretty stable from a hydrological standpoint. There really isn’t much to erode.
Importantly, I am not talking about “monocauses”, I find such reductionism to be the domain of intellectually lazy and phony environmentalists.
A lot of people fall into this trap – especially well intentioned ones. Everyone does it, I think.
I am most interested in the regions with active and ongoing soil erosion, drainage, and desiccation. This is my niche.
De-vegetation is a related sub-domain. But I’m not hung up on “tree planting”. The hydrological stability is always paramount.
In some cases the trees make things worse.
The good europeans did enough damage with introducing their Scotch Pine in the colonies during the 19th century. What a total disaster ecologically and hydrologically speaking. Today we’re pulling them out. They’re absolutely everywhere!
The preachers are free to go on about their energy transitions, technophilia, emergency declarations, and trace gas emission cutting programs. Good for them.
However, in their reductionism they are causing net harm. This I know for sure. In all the excitement the do-gooders really do show a kind of willful blindness.
In 1997 we could have predicted with reasonable precision using the crude products from UNEP where the hydrological emergencies would be observed over the coming decades.
I do not buy that evapotransoiration theory or folklore propaganda and suggestion for countering global warming, neither that folklore of earth being a water cooled planet.
especially not on behalf of wholeness and holism contra all that IPCC has forgotten or ignored.
When the same actiivists here wear blinkers against the whole truth and serve my only less than a half of it.
Water is also what is warming the earth, and the evaporation entrophy of water does also warm the situation as well as it cools.
And as I told and showed by obvious examples from the very Eurasia, , trees bushes and jungles do also warm the planet over maybe most of the planets jungle and bush and forest areas.
The holists in their hurry seem not to be aware of this at all.
You have suggested that there is hardly anything to erode in the rocky mineral sandy north, subglacial and subalpine areas, thus Amazonas is in charge..
False. That is where it erodes for the most. In the tropics, is has allready eroded and is not much more there to erode exept by human help.
The rather very high erosion of sub-boreal landscapes follow from the fact that it is especially young landscapes and young soils hardly more than 10-20 000 years old.
large meandering river systems and especially kaolinized soils like in the tropical rainforests tell us the opposite. Namely that it is allready edoded and can hardly erode anymore. It is allready eroded and flattened and washed out to sea, and all plant nutricians frogs and birds snails mosses and spiders are thus living up in the treetops.. When that falls down it rots rapidly in the warmth and all minerals are re- cycled up there again, whereas the ground is fully eroded and has become sheere, poor Kaolin.
Chop down and sell aqnd burn all that biomass, and possible fertility rushes out the river in a few years, and you can pay for and carry on it waggons of NPK & Dolomite and ammoniumm nitrate fertillizer to have any crop yield at all.
That is the problem. Not evapotranspiration and rainbarrels.
Whether trees and palms will cool Sahara Arizona and Las Vegas and Southern California and the plains in spain,…and give rain in the plains,…. I really doubt it.
There is also night, namely bright light moonshines night in Sahara and in Spain in the Plain where hurricanes hardly happen. With nightfrost! becaus that cools especially fast half of the time.
Holism you see.
Moral and summa summarum is then easy to see and to agree on.
Water neither cools nor warms the planet. quite on the contrary it anti- warms and anti- cools. It stabilizes the situation and protects planetary lifre against extreme chill and heat.
And so does also the wild natural vegetation and jungle as far as I can judge it.
Water and jungles ar not heaters or coolers, they are thermo- stats that damp and even break the swingings. .
Psevdo- holism and quasi- science must be shown back behind the ropes and the bars here to the aspirand and tourist visiror class…….
where they should rather be given the chanse to rather pay and to obey and to pray, in order to qualify first……
because they fight politically against the wholeness and the global environment and even against humanity, flowers birds trees and wildlife., rivers, mountains and glaciers and waters.
Water vapour, an invisible greenhouse gas way more potent than CO2, will warm the situation in southern California and Las Vegas, in Sahara and in Spain, in the plain, if there has been enough evapotranspitration there.
And due to IR- backradiation it will not cool down enough again in Spain, and in the plain in the nights,……… that is more or less half of the time in Spain in the plain
But in Hereford Hardford and Hampshire where hurricane hardly happen there may be grey and foggy dews and rain……. with no proper summer warmth……. but rather nasty bathing weather.
Evapotranspirations from the sea that falls down again as warm rain in the plain and further on the glaciers is what eats glaciers more than anything else.
Thus again,….,!
All this is Real Climate, you see. Not just in Amazonas.
They are fearing it now in southern and northern California, that all that evapotranspiration with rain in the terrain in the plain, but quite especially in the mountains when it rains,….
…..it will wash them out from the plain.
Because, what really eats snow is warm rain in the plain. ,
much more than sunshine in southern California and in Hollywood.
Because, Holism tells us that the Earth is a water- warmed planet, not a water- cooled one. Contra veteres.
All this is Real Climate and timeless wisdom.
JCMsays
@carbomontanus,
a lot of effort there,
but less trying.
an amateurish interpretation of landscape.
has no idea what is the meaning of erosion in reality.
an audacious lecture, directed to those who live by the nature of the watersheds.
the glamour of chemistry, and physical mathematics notwithstanding.
A disappointing space created, here, by climatology.
What I am correcting here is “evapotranspiration” being the holistric understanding of global warming and progressive scientific political solution to it.
“Evapotranspiratiuon” is an invasive pagan (vulgar moslem), dia- lectic materialistic progressive DDR scientific, southern so- vi ett union mission doctrine formula, from the special desert walkers, flat earthers, and blind believers in Las Vegas, Hollywood, Southern California (where it rains again), in , Arizona, and in Death walley where the earth is severely dry and flat. .
Blind believers, flat earthers and desert walkers on their way to Mecca in order to find and to kiss Allah are not to be our experts and teachers, especially not in Las Vegas, Hollywood and southern California and quite especially not in Amazonas.
In Kasakhstan and in Donbas you see, where the Earth is also flat and where all blind believers and desertb walkers have settled and instructed, they need other medicines now.
The Aral sea is an environmental ruin due to monopoly capitalism and politicians, much worse than even Las Vegas, Lake Mead, Hollywood, Salton Sea, and Death Valley.
Antarktis is an important reference. (The Norwegians are claiming Queen Mauds land there due to Roald Amundsen.)
There are death valleys there due to evapo- transpiration so severe that even the snow and ices have evapo- transpirated
I repeat….
and there is only sheere apparently sterile desert rocks remaining, as JCM suggests and understans from the inferiour unimportant north where they have not yet understood what erosion is about..
. Some seals have immigrated and have simply died, and remain there in Antarktis>`death valleys as evapotranspirated http://www.Stoccavisso mummies. at zero Fahrenheit exactly.
A sublime situation, that is due to sublimation.
So evapotranspiration does not do it and is no good medicine regardless, not even the upper hand and most important principle and explaination and medicine against global warming and climate.
There are typical http://www.Stoccafisso see also www,Stokkafisk mummies of humans found in the sands on the plains in the Spains where it hardlyb rains and where hurricanes hardly happen… all along the silk- roads in central Eurasia. You do not have to go to Las Vegas, Hollywood, Southern California and to Death valley for it.
In fact, one finds proof of desert walkers as dried out mummies and skeletons in the sands, with a hat, and a frying pan in their right fore- paw, only 4-5 steps ahead of a poisoned well of water thrieving for “evapotranspiration”.
it is not called “Death Valley” for nothing with so extreeme evapotranspiration.
“Blow boys blow
to Californai oh
Theres plenty of gold
so I am told
on the banks of Sacramento”
SANN
Because,
Fanatism, Reductionism Holism Capitalism Dia- lectic materialism and Evapotranspiration youn see,… is not automatically successful and sustainable.
It may end up as I pointed at, as a dried out Stoccafisso skeleton 4 steps ahead of a poisened water hole in Death Walley with hat still on and a frying pan forward to it in the right hand.
Just think of it.
Your Amazonas is where they try again. “There`s plenty of gold so I am told…”
Our host Dr. GA Schmidt (2010) is the man who ascribes a warming GHE of ~75% (+116.25W/m²) to water (vapour) and clouds (total GHE = ~ +155W/m²). But water(vapour) & clouds warm AND cool the earth system. However, the cooling effect of clouds and evaporation according to Prof. M. Wild et al (2018) is ~ 129W/m² (evaporation = 82W/m² + cloud radiation effect = 47W/m²)
Makarieva and Gorshkov’s Biotic Pump Theory would further reinforce the perception that the hydrological function of rainforests is far more important than their ability to act as a sink for atmospheric carbon dioxide. In fact, ET is a cooling process and thereby helps to reduce global warming and climate change due to cloud generation.
The historically fatal and very likely deadly mistake for creation of presenting CO2 concentrations as the sole driver of global warming stems from the stupidity of climate scientists and the IPCC. In their attribution research on climate change, they actually forgot to price in their own stupidity.
I would love to see your continued support to break down the blind glass windows of their ivory towers. And if we fail, don’t despair. The SUN stands by our side and will help us to dry out the last stupid brains until the lukewarm pee is in their underpants. I vouch for this with my name and my word of honour…
JCMsays
@macias,
thank you and I appreciate your ongoing virtual companionship.
I offer further notes below –
A compiled listing from the New York times of the observed hydrological and temperature extremes attributed solely to trace gas emission last summer:
1) In the U.S., a heat wave on the West Coast has sent temperatures soaring above 110 degrees Fahrenheit in the past few days. About 100 million Americans across the country suffered another heat wave earlier this summer. And floods have ravaged parts of the U.S., including Kentucky and Missouri.
2) The earlier heat wave that hit Pakistan reached India, too. A severe drought also struck parts of India this summer, reducing the country’s food exports. And floods in Bengaluru, India’s tech capital, forced workers to ride boats and tractors to get to the office.
3) A heat wave and drought in China dried up rivers, disabling hydroelectric dams and cutting off ships carrying supplies.
4) Another heat wave in Europe sent temperatures in Britain to a record 104 degrees Fahrenheit. Droughts across the continent dried up rivers, exposing sunken ships from World War II and disrupting the river cruise industry. And wildfires in Europe have burned nearly three times as much land so far this year as the 2006-2021 average.
5) In April, heavy rainfall caused floods and mudslides in South Africa that killed at least 45 people.
Conspicuously absent in the reporting and from scientific authorities are aspects of catchment hydrology and soil desiccation acting in addition to trace gas effects.
The imprints of desertification cannot be denied. So we evidently have a total failure in our institutional systems of communication.
My new thinking is that the fundamental aspects of landscape are so simple to understand in reality that discussion of the mechanism beggars belief and results in outright rejection.
The scope of human alteration to biophysical catchment characteristics is vast. I think there might be a psychosocial technical term for when something becomes so omnipresent that we come to filter it out of our conscious awareness. It may be related somehow to the phenomenon ‘inattentional blindness’.
Sabine Hossefielder has discussed some aspects of our inattention and systematic bias on her wildly popular youtube channel, in the segment labelled “Collective Stupidity – How Can We Avoid It?” https://youtu.be/25kqobiv4ng
“The academic system needs to burn to the ground and be built from scratch. It’s elitist and based on “prestige” rather than access, following centuries of racist/sexist/classist policies. It’s mostly a place where rich boys talk and act superior and that’s why the public hates us”
This is an extremist view, but it is a symptom of something very real.
It some respects I think we are still capable of thinking and discussing instead of regurgitating reductionist concepts from superiorists. However, this ability is waning as we descend further into collectivist camps. On one hand the ‘denialists’ who scoff at any notion of human alteration to earth system process, and on the other hand the blind ‘believers’ with myopic visions of trace gas. A reasoned milieu is absent.
I couldn’t help but notice the myopia on another youtube channel “Texas Methane Hunters” in their segment “Uncovering the Permian Climate Bomb”. We see the activists filming in great detail the emission of trace gas exhausting from the fossil fuel facility. However, the omnipresent total ecosystem desiccation in the background surrounding the facility extending across countless millions of hectares goes unnoticed. A useful metaphor. It’s all captured on film plain for all to see. if you cannot see consider yourself part of the collectivists stupidification. https://youtu.be/dMT2ESXlZ14?t=178
Makarieva, Nefidov, and Nobre remain defiant in their ongoing efforts to learn, discuss, and to communicate the role of ecosystems in atmospheric phenomena and how it relates to our experiences and measurement of climates. “The role of ecosystem transpiration in creating alternate moisture regimes by influencing atmospheric moisture convergence” https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/gcb.16644
The reductionist superiorists may completely reject notions of landscape because it does not explain all things climate But the ideas are meant to offer a bridge for multi-disciplinary and across-class and non academic practitioner engagement.
” Green forests and lawns and tight bush vegetation quite obviously rather warm us…”
ms: —
Then take a chainsaw and saw off all the trees and bushes in Norway – you complete idiot,
to finally save us from global warming.
When you’re done with that in Norway, you can go to the Amazon – there’s still a lot of work waiting for you there.
But be careful! Some natives still live there behind the bushes, and they can also use chainsaws. Out of sheer gratitude, they will saw you and your stupidity into small slices to feed their pigs. — Well done – I think.
I let it come up as free as possible and chop it as little as possible by a very basic principle of carpentry, do it with as low number of chops and cuts as possible and avoid grinding and milling it or sawing it if possible. Thy and make least possible number of material particles out of it. That means, cut whole trees and whole branches or nothing
Es ist besser das Wekzeug zu schleiffen als das Holz zu schleiffen.
Thus, We save you from global warming.
It rather falls down from itself by the storm ready dried and seasoned for barbeque, and we avoid using tropical charcoal and blue butane gas boxes for the same. and have a much finer barbecue.
But flat earthers, desert walkers and blind believers are unable to get any geopgysical idea of any global situation and the role of water and bio in the universe, not even on earth.
Here we see, it, They just smash around with cycles and chainsaw sales promotion arguments.
Der Wald wuchert in Deutschland aber man nennt ihn Unkraut. Was da los ist, das ist kein Waldsterben sondern grassate, direkte Tortur von alles lebendige was man nicht kennt und erkennenn kann,
Auf Armlänge Abstand.
Und jene fanatische Pöbel wollen uns was beibringen.
They are envious to us who reallize that we have maximum cash prophit allready from not being at war with the green values and do not go across the creek for water Think globally and act locally.
Oline came from the Rudolf Steiner- school with a very fine portrait drawing of herself and the cat.
I showed her my own technical drawings and told her to get us some ” common reed” and some bark of older, Alnus incana and glutinosa L for ink calligraphy..
By good techniques , it looks as if you could draw, I said her. Take it out of empty air and quite localm resources. Not from Amazonas. Our own nature and environment must be defended first
Tell also Killian about that. Who told us to heat for the crows and burn and make “Terrapreta” here out of our best materials and resources and kill all we have of mushroms and microbes in it..
Another way of examining it is to compare annual mean temperature in a set of tro0pical jungles and rainforests with annual mean temperatures in known deserts north and south in the high pressure and representative desert areas.
We will hardly find night frost in the tropical rainforests and why not? because water and vegetation has got a consequent warming effect there when the sun is away, and a cooling effect only at day and bright sunshine.
Then compare to the desert data of annual mean temperatures, and compare also the amplitude of annual and of diurnal temperature swing and extreemes. Burning sun and hot during day, and with nightfrost and even snow during night and in winter.
T heese are things that were not guessed and not conscidered by our evapotranspirationists, who at the same time also seem also to play down the fameous role of CO2 as hard as they dare to.
Instead of simply guessing and grasping that the earth is not a water- cooloed planet but rathere a water- and vegetation- damped planet, because it is also q1uite obviously a water and vegetation and evapotranspirational warmed planed.
My car is standing with windows at the roadside next to my garden with thick bush and tree and jungle- vegetation on the right side and open sky at the left side.
Guess on which side I have to scrape frost from in the winter mornings at sunrise, and on which side it is rather allways all clear without frost?
Dew and frost settles on the coldest side you see, and that side both of the car and of the earth radiates against the starry heavens at night.
No ice and frost on the jungle and bushy evapotranspirational side of course, because that warms my car at night in the winters by radiation half of the year and half of the time on earth when sun and daylight is away and with no burning fossile fuel inside.
And frost that I have to scrape on the side against open sky is due to the fameous BIG BANG, that is what cools the situation on earth,
IUndeed, Nothing else can possibly cool us. The Earth is a Big-Bang cooled planet, you see. by the chill of outer space, not by any chill of water and evapotranspiration of the same. .
Not the water, . and not the jungle, and not the Bio , the mosses, and the vegetation because all that rather warms us actually all the time. .
Bio jungle and vegetation and water clealy warms the situation half of the time when the sun is away. which is half of the time also in Amazonas.
Thus declared holists here are exelling and forgetting and hiding and denying and fighting half of the truth at least As they also damn and swear for stating proof of their illusions.
When one tries to explain by best knowledge and will, they get large arrogant wild and brutal and smash around with chainsaws when they reallize only faintly that they may be unright and misconsceived.
That seems to be the core and the bottoms of mafia mobsters syndicalism and denialism, dia- lectic materialism when they begin to feel that they may be loosing in the wars and in the disputes. It was so fine as it was only peaceful rainbarrels.
But to all and everyone including Gavin Schmidt, who may be responsible here,
They reallize only halfway and half of the truth and half of it all and “further” and sell that as the wholeness, that the alians and “the west” and IPCC has forgotten or hidden in a cheating way.
They hide the decline. It takes one to know one, namely.
They forget and they hide half of the time, they hide the whole night and the whole winters when water and all the vegetation rather warms as well and even more than thyat, without even have to burn.
They fight and they ridicule autentic nature and elementary physics and possible whole understanding of it
It shows and documents and it betrays backgrounds and upbringings in the artificial and halved and flattened and sterilized prisons and peoples republøics on the factory floor where the earth is flat behind barbed wires, and where they were lacking elementary clean waters and were served only the substitute pure Vodka in the baby bottles to strengten and to cool them and referesh them.
I saw it again this morning, the obvious and natural. At the most neutral situation of vernal equinox where day and night are equally long and can be compared at windstill and clear sky high pressure.
Frost on the car roofs and clear surfaces and windeows onwards to the jungle and earthly and thick vegetational side and evapotranspirational side of the cars and of the earth, the warmer side of the cars and of the globe half of the time.
The evapotranspirational believers forget the frosty desert nights due to no vegetation and no warming “evapotranspirational” water.
And smash around with motorsaws against both people andv vegetation as you can see, when they begin to reallize in their core and at their bottoms that they are fanatically wrong and misconsceived.
Killiansays
Carbo, this is pretty incompetent stuff. Terra preta kills microbes? LOL….
I would correct this in detail, but it’s pretty much impossible to make this mistake if one has even the slightest understanding of what terra preta is, so I’m confident nobody else will repeat this gobsmackingly obvious error.
JCMsays
“frosty desert nights due to no vegetation”
yes exactly. during the night the net turbulent flux in the boundary layer is directed downwards, always opposing the direction of net radiation.
That residual water vapor circulating in the boundary layer, which has not sufficiently released in condensation at altitude, is returned to the surface condensing as ground frost and dew.
This is most common in times of calm weather and high pressure systems.
Overall the reality is that condensation occurring aloft far exceeds the condensation occurring at surface.
With net transport aloft, the condensed matter surfaces act as broadband IR radiators at height where the atmosphere is more transparent.
The effective radiating surface observed from space includes this condensed matter.
from a local perspective, to reduce extreme heat accumulation the goal must always be to maximize net heat transport aloft, up and out of the boundary layer.
This can be accomplished by reducing optical depth to radiation, and by a restoration of the net latent flux and dynamical transport process.
The night is dominated by longwave radiative cooling, during which time net radiation is directed upwards.
The day is dominated by cooling latent heat transport aloft, during which time net radiation is directed downwards.
A sufficiently high rate of net latent transport by surface water availability + condensation aloft during the day also corresponds with lower optical depth in the evening.
The air is cleansed of the heat trapping humid haze with the aid of a functional ecosystem process.
Importantly, the specific heat and radiation regime of naturally dry sandy deserts is far different than unnaturally exposed loam subsoils in more humid regions.
Sensible heat is very poor at penetrating up and out of the boundary layer. The best bet is by latent and radiative flux.
The symbiotic vegetation, fungi, and microbes are intimately involved with the latent heat transport and cloud condensation mechanisms, in addition to ensuring the windows are left sufficiently ajar to longer wave radiative flux.
Perhaps it can be argued these processes on the continents play a role in larger scale dynamical process. There appears to be an increasing budget of SW down penetrating into ocean where this energy is not immediately reradiated to space.
Indeed, there is no dispute IR actives gases act in harmony with the dynamic equilibrium process.
There is no need to minimize the multiple co-benefits of ecological restoration out of some fear that this might undermine the reductionist trace gas policy communication efforts.
“”nobodey else will repeat this gobsmackingly obvious error”
“Terrapreta kills mictobes? LOL”
Your hair is long, genosse, but your thoughts seem quite much shorter.
As if fire and heat does not kill microbes and sterilizes, de-naturates the materials, which is exactly what is done artificially in order for the substrate not to rot and be eaten away quickly by microbes in that climate..
But may be a necessary technique when the tropical soil is hardly more than sheere kaolin and biological decay goes especially fast.
Where it is burnt, all life is killeds, and it takes years for it to grow back again if ever. But there are typical pioneering plants also after bushfires and where houses have burnt down. Rubus idea L for instance, and young birches. And quite interestingly Leguminosae.
Plants and life show high diversity. Tomatoes I have learnt, can be grown on sterile glasswool with sheere lifeless mineral fertillizer. But with potatoes,… you hardly have success without fresh… bullshit… or Man-shit… They seem special in their ability of taking up ammonium before it is oxidized to nitric acid buffered with limwestone. and very fond of phosphate.
Carrots and cabbage shall rather have it thorroughly decayed odeourless without any smell of “manure”.
Ribes negrum rubrum and album and uva crispi like well drained stony ground like we have, Morrhaines. But with ferilliser, leavefall and piss. I have had very fine results simply with sawdust morraine sand rough grinded dolomite and NPK fertillizer. When the mushroms blossom atop of that after 3-4 years it is ready , and you get record yield for many years. .
Potatoes were phaenomenal in fresh sawdust. Hardly in freshly grinded charcoal.
Mushroms do it you see, they take the sawdust and the needlefall of pinaceae make mykorrhiza, and re- cycle the minerals..
But the premises for all this is burnt by Terrapreta. That is not to be recommended , rather to be dis- qualified and warned against,… for agricultre and gardenintg in tempered and northern areas.
It grows most phaenomenal in basaltic volcanic aqshes by the way, on Island, on Hawai, on Vesuv , and in Vulkaneiffel Germania.
Not because of the char and the coal and the “brand” but because of the plutonic original mineral content that is weathered from it rather fast.
The vertical currents that fully explain the climate, is another rumor, meme , and folklore in the denialist state religion.
If that “parcel of air ” mooves downwardes , it will heat up adiabatically, and fogs will dissolve. Cfr extreemly dry and hot föhn- winds.
Dew and frost on the ground happens when the air for some reason contains enough invisible H2O- gas, its partialm pressure or molar pro9portion being high enough, and then, thew whole temperature falls in steady air hardly with winde, and that seems only possible by …. radiation.
Rather the surfaces, the car roofs and windows radiate and have low enough heat capacity to cool down (thin car roof metal isolated inside) below the condensing and freezing point of H2O that is allready there in the air. And the temperature at the ground falls low enough tho the very fameous Dew- point” because of radiation upwards. in trhe night.
Fogs in the air near the ground at night and at windstill comes because of the same, but by aerosols enough in the air for drop nuclei in the air. .
There is morning dew and frost in the grass for the same reason and I have seen it extreemly at the shore in Pisa in summer. With burning sun and hot during day but clear nights, and strong morning dew everywhere on the tents and on the willow tree- leaves.
A German who knew said that “Theese trees have no other water in summer than this morning dew. “!.
The land is heated by the sun during day, the air rises leaving a vacuum. . The sea is more cool, there water evaporates from the sea, and blows in over land.
Homer has written about it allready. “It smells pristine sea in town during day and smells sinful town at sea during night.” The Odysse.
Moist air going up may give Cumulus and cumulonimbus. But moist air being forcede down will give fönwind and deserts. Eventual clouds and fogs will disasolve.
The watering and greening of mediterraneann coasts such as southern California and Holluwood is mainly horizontal.
That effect may be quite important for arid areas and desert vegetation. But that water has evaporated at sea and blown in from the sea during day. Not fallen down from above. in vapour form
Wherefore you also see green stripes of vegetation at the sea shores everywhere in arid and desert mediterranean climate…. worldwide.
Italian mountains and californian mountains are green. There, the moist sea- winds are forcede up against mountains and water condenses by lapsrate and adiabatic expansion to hit the claussius clappeyron dewpoint- curve in empty air.
JCMsays
@Carbomontanus
“The vertical currents that fully explain the climate”
I said no such thing! I detect an obsession with the “monocause”. My cause, or your cause. A false choice. Denialists suffer the same defect.
The principles of turbulent flux are discussed in great detail by TR Oke 2nd ed 1987. it is probably still being used to support undergraduate lecture.
The turbulent fluxes of H and LE, he labels it, if I recall. A solid foundation without which further discussion will be fruitless!
“If that “parcel of air ” mooves downwardes , it will heat up adiabatically”
yes it must be so! the H transforming to and fro the kinetic and potential energy reservoirs. The latter representing a storage term.
This is happening everywhere always, not only in the extreme case of the Foehn winds. The sunlit side charging of the potential energy reservoirs.
In the evening the air relatively warmer than it otherwise might have been.
The LE operating by different physical mechanism, the energy stored in vapor phase. That heat stored until condensation, being on the ground or at altitude. That is a turbulent flux too.
The H has no mechanism to transport heat to space. It simply rises and cools, decreasing the kinetic energy and increasing the potential.
The LE, on another hand, delivers heat effectively in condensation aloft. In the night it can be delivered to the surface too, if the radiative conditions permit.
Along with the LE, the surface radiative transmission are of primary interest from a cooling perspective.
The warmist perspective may want to study the H in some more detail, and its relation to the LE. Shifting flux more to the H will evidently reduce the ability for the system to cool.
So we must understand in great detail the surface energy budget. That is my viewpoint.
the net radiation = the H + LE. Now which terms are in charge?
Or is there a dynamic radiative-convective type equilibrium situation occurring here. a codependency across domains like a bad marriage.
I nave not come to any bconclusion about that Biotic pump of Makarieva yet, others than it being more rain where it is green may have the opposite cause. Where it rains there will be more green. But, I would guess that it is a phaenomenon that works both ways. A causes B , while B also causes A..
I consequently go for the green values, being our only serious carbon sink, so protection of natural and sustainable vegetation has highest priority in any case. But then it is important not to contaminate or ridicule the propaganda for it by para- sciences and quackery. It can be advocated for many enough reasons without having to fight the IPCC. or serving that rumor of the earth being a water cooled planet, for personal career- reasons.
One does not have to disqualify and to showel away climate research and meteorology for having audience and room and money for it. On the contrary, It can very well go together,.
Sahara and Central Asia were clearly more green at Max holocene, and the worlds major Loess- areas settled sub- glacial by enormeous and frequent dust- bowls during the ice- ages. That together entails clearly that the higher the earth temperature, the more it rains, also inland.
Google Earth clearly shows fossile lakes and river systems everywhere in todays deserts. Oase- culture remains everywhere in relict old water systems from max holocene.
The southern California and Las Vegas and Hollywood- and lake-mead arguments are wrong and misconsceived in other words, or rather quite provincial, not appliciable worldwide. .
The Congo- bassin and Amazonas seem to have been rather Savannas in Max holocene and grown over with jungle as the world has cooled. The worlde is ratherv turning back to that situation in our days. Desertification today is rather antropogene sheere local human error. and not the main tendency. anymore.
We must take it next month, it will soon be closed here.
“The turbulent fluxes of H and LE…”
and futher down
“the net radiation = the H + LE..”
Seems not defined. I cannot understand it.
Turbulent and laminar fluxes, I simply cannot see what turbulent fluxes means here. Turbulence in the fluxes will soon dissapear because of gaseous viscosity if not steadily and fiercefully forced. Hope that is not part of your argument..
Also be aware of the fameous http://www.Hans/Jelbring & al argument of lapserate and global warming having its simple “physical scientific” explaination of weighty air falling down in the gravitational field along with E = mgh, Energy = mass times graitation times heigth of falling.
A theory that shall fully explain the ground temperatures on Venus and all further planets..
That fameous folklore constitutes a Perpetuum mobile, that was Ruined by Roy Spencer
See Roy Spencer, “Thibute to Willis Eschenbach for setting the Zeller Nicolov silliness straight”
If you pump up a gas tank of air, it gets hot. Next day it has cooled down, and you can tap off the conndense water by a cock at the bottom next day. It did hardly condense before next day.
Venus would have cooled fully down during the last 4 billion years also.
That fameous Hans Jelbring- argument is not the way to disqualify James Hansens explaination of the russian Venera sonde data.
And turbulence is irrelevant to it. It heats and cools in a hurry by adiabatic compression expansion, not by turbulence friction. either.
JCMsays
“Sahara and Central Asia were clearly more green at Max holocene”
as the theory goes the descending air masses of the so-called Hadley cells shall dictate the location of the major natural deserts.
so there has been an exception at Max holocene which defies theory. Even today, many locations defy theoretical desert effect by global circulation.
what has occurred there in Central asia and Sahara (or elsewhere by teleconnection) during holocene to cause such a change?
what causes such exceptions – how do such exceptions influence our views about global circulation, trade winds, and forced response?
certainly the currently observed aridification there in Afghanistan and associated social unrest is not caused by trace gas emission. In earlier times the area was indeed quite affluent by anecdotal records. Moreso like Switzerland.
It is evidently a human caused phenomenon. Certainly at a much smaller scale than today, but equally impactful for the residents there.
JCMsays
PS looks like they’re still at it with some fancy visuals. I suspect the principles apply across all continents and ecological communities, not only Amazonia.
Very interesting indeed, (Probably of high value. I must read it all more carefully.)
I really go for the same.
But I see that they are activists, and then why do they have to talk down the role and importance of CO2 at all? That ony makes them dubious and contaminates their healthy good mission .
In fact, I think I came to that basic objection to the IPCC political campaign way before them as the climate problem was first launched to the public at the university square festival.
“But,… what about the clouds? ”
was my very first critical remark. To which I mostly have just foggy answers. Simply because people know less about the clouds and the foggy dews. http://www.Nephelai in greek.
Having been a bathing beauty in the fameous bathing town in all those ugly chill summers with clouds coming and going fror the sun, Mostly coming, I know what I am talking about. , It was only evapotranpiration and chill windy percipitation with no warmth from the sun. “We have no weather here, just climate!” they said, where it is was even worse. Long flat steady gray and horizontal with no summer. ( seeing ho blue sky for 6 weeks, you get depressed.)
So I have consceived a much better idea of how to fight and ruin the IPCC.
Simply immagine an effect that increases slowly and steadily over a centry, and globally. A certain global “bias and tendency” to what causes the fameous greenhouse effect. By which it slowly, allmost imperceptibly clods over a bit more and more during day,…. and clears up a bit more and more during night. And in addition to that, clouding over more and more during the summers and clearing up steadily a bit more and more during the winters,
Local observers and public opinions can be disqualified, That hypothetic bias and tendency in the “global warming” must also be global and on an average, only remarkable thus exclusivly under contol only by “peers” and anonymeous global statisticians..
That will do it, That will ruin the very NASA- GISS and the Hansen Brundtland Gore Thunberg- project.
Q1: Am I really that ingenious?
Q2: Why have only I, and no one among the surrealists come up with that conspiration hypothesis?
To Q 1&2 I have very good answers:
They, the Surrealists never were bathing beauties in the summers on 60 deg north in the fameous summer bathing town. , and 2, they never studied meteorology and geophysics, not even as amateurs. Because They never took weather and climate for serious until quite recently.
Quite on the contrary, they were for years of the sort that goes on vacation to Costa for warmth, by Turbofan engines that consumes 5 barrels of fossile fuel per passenger each way, and feel that sinful lifestyle threatened now.
And just see how people fight for Donbas and Krim also now, the fameous soviet russian communal Costa paradise..
This is one of my best essays here ever, . that should be peer rewiewed
Those Russians on the http://www.Nephelai =Clouds in the Amazonas are calling upon our artistic interests.
See also Richard Lindzens iris- theory , that can be re- cycled, slaughtered, welded over and restored, changed to the better, and launched on the free market again.
ms: — Definitely – how you – and only you – with 3 neurons and an enlarged mouth part can produce so much whisked shit is extremely admirable. Trump even considers you a universal genius.
“
“Human-induced changes in the global meridional overturning circulation are emerging from the Southern Ocean finds changes happening for a variety of reasons but substantially including “us.” Concerningly, Antarctic meltwater seems to be playing a large role: “These changes are driven by the increasing Southern Hemisphere (SH) Ferrel cell and associated increases in the westerlies and the surface buoyancy loss over its sinking branch, and the increasing Antarctic meltwater discharge, in response to ozone depletion in the SH stratosphere and increasing atmospheric CO2. A large-scale readjustment of the GMOC seems to be underway in the South Atlantic and Indo-Pacific Oceans since the mid-2000s in response to the Southern Ocean changes.”
Read it once but not slowly, but I am wondering – is the shifted flow ratios of the of Upper vs. Lower Circumpolar Deep Water part of what might be driving the melting at the base of the Western Antarctic ice shelves?
Wondering, too, if this shifting of water movements in the deep Southern Ocean might lead to any change in temperature trends of what flows towards the Indian Ocean.
Killiansays
I don’t know much about the GMOC in terms of detailed understanding of specific currents and interactions, but this strikes me as one of those things few realize is as big a signal as it actually is, but is likely to be a huge issue in the long run. That is. a wobble before a bifurcation, aka tipping point.
I.e., this is likely signaling the long-term shift of the oceans to gobs of goo is much further along than has been understood. I don’t get this kind of thing wrong; it’s a pattern awareness thing, but I really hope I am on this: As go the oceans, so goes the planet.
On settled science being not settled, Victor has mentioned it
Richard Lindzen was here on show in DOMVS ACADEMICA @ the Royal Frederiks.
I did not go because I knew it would come on youtube and I meet the surrealists better downtown.
It came on youtube as predicted, I turned it on and went to sleep. But then I suddenly woke up hearing Lindzen saying quite clearly:
“Where there is science , there is not consensus, and where there is consensus, there is not Science….PERIOD!”
Having heard that I went safely o sleep again and lost nothing!
On next surrealist “Klimapizza” downtown I took with me Otto Øgrims small Catechism on
“Magnituds, units and definitions in Physics”.
that gives the Paris convention on the MKSA system, plancs constant lightspeed mass force and acceleration heat , temperature decibels and so on. what that is and what that is not, In only 50 pages.
Ant gave it out at the table. “Here you have the Consensus- book ….. From Universitas Osloensis as you can see”. .
It was not opened.
But everywhere I have been and there is science, The CRC Handbook of Chemistery and Physics Rubber Bible is seen on the writing desk, and lies further open in the library!
I repeat…..!
because that is the consensus- book.
And when the large CRC- rubber bible is not there,…. there is not science either, that is for sure.
There they rather commit “scientific socialism” and “dia lectic materialism”.
I cannot use “National semiconductor IC components without a multimeter, ohyhms law and kirchoffs rule, Ørsteds galvanic electromagnetism that is settled science now, with voltage ampere seconds ohms and microfarads, and NASA could not get to the moon and safely back again either without the same consensus where everything and everyone had to work together.
There were a near cathastrophic miss by the Cassini-Huyghens expedition where ESAs Huyghens was to depart from Cassini and land safely on Titan. And send data all the way via Cassini asw Radio relay station… and back to earth.
Science, both NASA and ESA had forgotten old Consensus in all the hurry namely Ole Rømers ” Lysets tøven” in all the details.
(translated as as “the hesitation of light” by Google Translate,)
and the consequence of that after Huyghens had separated from Cassini. both going further in different orbits with different relative speeds. They would then not be exactly in radio- tune by minute quarz frequencies. They suddenly came to think of it only weeks before, that there would be no Consensus anymore between Cassini and Huyghens at Titan an thus no possible science either.
So they had to go back to0 Newton Gauss and Lagrange again in space and re- design the separation and further orbits so that the 2 sondes would go in step and in tune at near zero relative speed to each other duringt the very critical Huyghens landing on Titan.
I repeat….!
and this is very tricky science by consensus. and no settled science without it .
REALIA we call it, On which science must be founded settled first and taken for serious. Else you get only Dia- lectic materialism and Eristische Dialektik.
That has been how to science and how not to science even way out at Saturnus and Titan, and even at Pluto and Charon. later on .
I could really make up my opinion and judgement of Richard Lindzen after his fameous performance in the great festivalo hall in DOMVS ACADEMICA @ Royal Frederics University lane 47 UiO.no
Chuck Hughessays
I would love to hear some comments on the latest IPCC report that’s coming out. It seems this is our final warning from this body about what’s coming our way. and it looks as if we’ve turned a corner, and not in a good way. Twitter is awash with gloomy projections and dire warnings, so I’m waiting to hear something from the experts here at realclimate.
Victorsays
nigelj says:
“US heatwaves- no long term trend.”
nigel: Its plain to see an increasing trend from 1940 – 2020 so I’m not sure what Victor is looking at.
In the same paper that displays this graph. we find the following highly misleading assertion:
“Heat waves are occurring more often than they used to in major cities across the United States. Their frequency has increased steadily, from an average of two heat waves per year during the 1960s to six per year during the 2010s and 2020s”
Talk about cherry picking. They choose the 1960s as their reference point, the start of a period beginning in 1960 and continuing through 1980, where, according to the graph, there were hardly any heat waves at all. If you consider the entire graph, however, representing data from 1895 through 2020, it becomes clear that there is no long-term trend.
nigel: However the graph doesn’t show us a GLOBAL trend so Victor is just cherry picking. Trends vary in different countries and only the global tend shows what global climate change is doing. Studies show that globally heatwaves have increased in frequency and intensity:
Very strange indeed! Note the complete lack of any long-term upward trend — in fact we see a distinct downward trend from 1940 to just prior to 2000. From 2000 through 2010 (a period of only 10 years) we see a sudden leap where the whole thing seems to go haywire. Pardon me for finding this very odd leap highly suspicious. In any case it’s not at all clear what this study is supposed to be telling us.
nigel: “Here, using the Berkeley Earth temperature dataset and key heatwave metrics, we systematically examine regional and global observed heatwave trends. In almost all regions, heatwave frequency demonstrates the most rapid and significant change. A measure of cumulative heat shows significant increases almost everywhere since the 1950s, mainly driven by heatwave days. Trends in heatwave frequency, duration and cumulative heat have accelerated since the 1950s”
V: Interesting. I can’t help noting the complete difference between the data displayed in this paper and the graph I alluded to above. Looks like results will vary depending on the methodology employed.
“Hurricanes. No long term trend”
nigel: Ryan Maues data and commentary is his own view and should be viewed with extreme caution. He was appointed to NOAA by the Trump administration and he has a history of climate science denialism.
V: So you’re suggesting he faked his data? Wow. That would be quite a scandal wouldn’t it? Another climategate, perhaps?
nigel: The following is data on hurricanes: “Number of Category 4 and 5 Hurricanes Has Doubled Over the Past 35 Years, according to the National Science Foundation.” They are a more credible source.
“Since 2005 . . . we’ve experienced no major U.S. landfalls until Harvey this year. . . Before Hurricane Harvey, the continental United States had not been hit by a Category 3 or higher “major hurricane” for 12 years — dating all the way back to 2005’s Hurricane Wilma.”
“. . . the question of whether storms are measurably stronger at present remains contested, with NOAA’s Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory asserting that “it is premature to conclude that human activities — and particularly greenhouse gas emissions that cause global warming — have already had a detectable impact on Atlantic hurricane or global tropical cyclone activity.” The effect could be there, NOAA said, but not yet clearly detectable in the statistics.”
nigel: “Precipitation. No long-term trend”
The graph has no title, no location data, no source.
Victor cherry picks one single study on drought that suits his narrative. Numerous studies show changes in droughts “Climate change is making droughts more frequent, severe, and pervasive” according to NASA.
V: This article references relatively recent satellite observations, which tell us nothing about long-term trends.
nigel: “Human-caused global warming has made severe droughts like the ones this summer in Europe, North America and China at least 20 times as likely to occur as they would have been more than a century ago, scientists said Wednesday.”
V: That’s a newspaper article, not a scientific study. In any case it’s behind a paywall so I can’t (won’t) review it, sorry.
“The intensity of extreme drought and rainfall has “sharply” increased over the past 20 years, according to a study published Monday in the journal Nature Water. ”
V: Once again, this report references satellite data, telling us nothing about any possible long-term trend. The report I referenced covered a much longer period and revealed no such trend.
nigel: I could go on. The point is you have to look widely at several studies to be able to see the wood and not be distracted by the trees, as the saying goes. Victor relentlessly cherry picks, so just ends up fooling himself, and demonstrating nothing of value.
V: Reporting on perfectly legitimate, peer reviewed science published in reputable journals is NOT cherry picking. That’s an all too easy out for those who, like you, refuse to accept that different methods can produce contradictory results — in other words, the science is NOT settled.
Regardless. What’s much more important is the tendency I’ve seen over and over again in the alarmist screeds, both from the media and the climate scientists themselves. Those long lists of all the awful things that are supposedly happening due to global warming (aka “climate change”) do NOT constitute evidence that the warming in question is being caused by CO2 emissions. Yet that’s consistently been implied. This is both unscientific and dishonest. And as far as those “attribution studies” are concerned, they are all based on the prior assumption that CO2 and other greenhouse gases are heating the atmosphere and the oceans to a significant degree — which was to be demonstrated. Clearly an example of circular reasoning.
nigeljsays
Victor:
“Talk about cherry picking. They choose the 1960s as their reference point, the start of a period beginning in 1960 and continuing through 1980, where, according to the graph, there were hardly any heat waves at all. If you consider the entire graph, however, representing data from 1895 through 2020, it becomes clear that there is no long-term trend.”
This is the graph you originally posted on heatwaves in the USA:
We are most interested in the period 1960 – 2020 in the graph you posted, because this is when anthopogenic emissions became most significant. This is a useful long term trend. We do not have to go back further or hundreds of years. You have mentioned yourself that CO2 was insignificant in the 1930s. The period 1960 – 2020 clearly shows increasing heatwaves. The spike in heatwave activity around 1930 -1935 was due to an extreme natural event where both the Pacific and Atalantic oceans were simultaneously in a warming phase. It is more of a weather event than a climate trend.
“Ah yes, always with the “cherry picking.” Just about every reference I could find was to heatwaves in the contiguous 48 states. ”
Yes it can be hard finding data. That doesnt mean ity doesnt exist. Thats why I gave you some references to published studies, (and media articles discussing published studies) that looked at the global picture. You have not given any evidence they are wrong.
“Very strange indeed! Note the complete lack of any long-term upward trend — in fact we see a distinct downward trend from 1940 to just prior to 2000. From 2000 through 2010 (a period of only 10 years) we see a sudden leap where the whole thing seems to go haywire. ”
The graph you posted is not germane because it is on the area of heatwaves, not frequency or intensity.
“Interesting. I can’t help noting the complete difference between the data displayed in this paper and the graph I alluded to above. Looks like results will vary depending on the methodology employed.”
Its because the research paper I posted is looking at the global situation – not the USA!
“So you’re suggesting he faked his data? Wow. That would be quite a scandal wouldn’t it? Another climategate, perhaps?”
I’m suggesting dont take anything he says too seriously. The data is unlikely to be faked but it it may not be relevant or the full picture. I gave you sources that don’t come from a climate science denialist, for balance.
“The following is data on hurricanes…..Published in 2005. Isn’t that a bit out of date?
Since when did the date of publication make science valid or invalid,Victor? Plenty of science has stood the test of time despite recent attempts to debunk it.
“the question of whether storms are measurably stronger at present remains contested, with NOAA’s Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory asserting”
Yes correct, however there is good evidence that storms now have heavier rainfall and are tracking more slowly making that rainfall process even more impactful. Some of the links I previously posted documented this. The point is look widely not just at one metric.
The link has a graph of the period 1980 – 2010 which is a very short time period that isnt much use. It doesn’t show any particular trend. However a longer term graph from 1901 – 2020 shows increasing precipitation more clearly particularly from mid last century to 2020.
However we are not just simplistically interested in precipitation. Several of the studies I linked were about rainfall INTENSITY. I repeat we need to look widely at a range is issues related to precipitation.
“This article references relatively recent satellite observations, which tell us nothing about long-term trends.”
Why is that somehow irrelevant? I say this because he links YOU have posted on the issues all have very different time periods from 30 years to 100 years! Talk about a double standard! Victor.
“That’s a newspaper article, not a scientific study. In any case it’s behind a paywall so I can’t (won’t) review it, sorry.”
It’s a newspaper article that references and discusses scientic studies! So you cant dismiss it quite so easily as that.
“Reporting on perfectly legitimate, peer reviewed science published in reputable journals is NOT cherry picking. That’s an all too easy out for those who, like you, refuse to accept that different methods can produce contradictory results — in other words, the science is NOT settled.”
Selecting just one paper to demonstrate your case is cherrypicking. There are dozens of papers on issues like precipitation, often finding different results. The IPCC reviews these to determine which have the most credibility, and what it all means, something you are not qualified to do and clearly haven’t done, and probably don’t have the time to do. (with all due respect) And thats the same for most of us. However its why I gave you a RANGE of papers, and sources, to provide at least some balance.
Papers producing contradictory results does not necessarily mean the science isn’t settled. It means some of those papers may be flawed. The science community has its ways of determining which studies are valid and that has been explained to you before many times by various people.
“Regardless. What’s much more important is the tendency I’ve seen over and over again in the alarmist screeds, both from the media and the climate scientists themselves. Those long lists of all the awful things that are supposedly happening due to global warming (aka “climate change”) do NOT constitute evidence that the warming in question is being caused by CO2 emissions. Yet that’s consistently been implied. This is both unscientific and dishonest”
The media releases don’t “imply” warming is due to CO2. They implicitly accept that the warming is due to CO2, because thats what the IPCC has determined, and the greenhouse effect was demonstrated in numerous laboratory experiments going back about 160 years!
I don’t agree with your views, but at least you are civil.
Ray Ladburysays
Weaktor, Thank you for your admission that you have no idea what a trend is. In that graph, the 1930s are clearly an outlier–and an outlier for 7% of Earth’s surface, the US mainland. Please do drop by if you ever what to stop being an innumerate moron.
Adam Leasays
“Those long lists of all the awful things that are supposedly happening due to global warming (aka “climate change”) do NOT constitute evidence that the warming in question is being caused by CO2 emissions. ***Yet that’s consistently been implied.***”
No it is not. The link between climate change and rising CO2 levels from anthropogenic sources comes from fundamental physics combined with the fact there is no other possible source of external forcing that could cause the observed rise in global temperature over the last century. At its most fundamental level, the Earth’s mean temperature is determined by the magnitude of the energy going in and the energy going out. If one of those changes, the temperature changes in response. It is like the level of my thermal comfort is dependant on the heat generated by my body, the heat transferred from the surroundings to my body, and the heat lost from my body through conduction, convection and evaporation. If I reduce the heat lost by putting on another layer of clothing, I will feel warmer, and may start to feel sweaty through being too warm.
John Pollacksays
Heat waves
V: I can’t help noting the complete difference between the data displayed in this paper and the graph I alluded to above. Looks like results will vary depending on the methodology employed.
J: You’re right about methodology. Since a heat wave is too much heat for too long for a given area, there are a very large number of ways of defining them. There isn’t one agreed-upon criterion, so you have to be careful when comparing studies and methods.
V: …we find the following highly misleading assertion:
“Heat waves are occurring more often than they used to in major cities across the United States. Their frequency has increased steadily, from an average of two heat waves per year during the 1960s to six per year during the 2010s and 2020s”
J: You’re the one making the highly misleading assertion. You gave us the first key point of the publication. However, that refers to figures 1 and 2. These do show an increasing trend in frequency, duration, and season length, starting from non-zero incidence in the 1960s. As explained in the publication,
“The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) calculated apparent temperature for this indicator based on temperature and humidity measurements from long-term weather stations, which are generally located at airports. Figures 1 and 2 focus on the 50 most populous U.S. metropolitan areas that have recorded weather data from a consistent location without many missing days over the time period examined. The year 1961 was chosen as the starting point because most major cities have collected consistent data since at least that time.”
This indicator utilizes minimum temperatures, humidity, in major U.S. cities, since 1961. It’s not cherry-picked. That’s when the good data started.
By the way, there was a major heat wave in the central and eastern US in 1966. The spike in heat mortality in St. Louis is one of the public health events that brought attention to heat stress in urban areas. The EPA is properly concerned with an increase heat for areas in which lots of people live.
V: …according to the graph, there were hardly any heat waves at all…
J: Yours was a different graph, figure 3! It’s from different study, looking at maximum temperatures across the U.S. from the cooperative observer network. That is preferentially located away from cities. The standout event in fig. 3 was the Dust Bowl period. That had its most extreme temperature anomalies in the central and northern Plains region. There is very little overlap, with the larger cities on the fringe of the big anomaly, or outside the region. Although the data are harder to find, I can tell you that the 1930s drought was generally associated with high temperatures but low humidity. The apparent temperatures would have been close to the actual temperatures, unlike the humid heat commonly experienced in the major cities in the eastern and central U.S.
Hurricanes: The studies I’ve seen generally agree that there will be little change soon in overall hurricane frequency as a consequence of global warming. There is clearly an expected increase in the potential intensity of the strongest ones as oceans warm. This increase is based on the physics of a tropical cyclone as a heat engine. Warm ocean water is the source of the energy. The observed increase generally falls below statistical significance so far, due to the rarity of major tropical cyclones and a short data set due to changes in sampling. However, there are at least two areas of concern that haven’t been considered here.
Warm ocean water allows rapid intensification of hurricanes (and other tropical cyclones) when conditions are otherwise favorable. For example, take the National Hurricane Center archives about Hurricane Ian – which struck the west Florida coast as a high category 4 last September: https://www.nhc.noaa.gov/archive/2022/IAN.shtml? In their 11pm Sep. 24 discussion, the NHC noted conditions favorable for rapid intensification, including warm ocean water and low shear. At that time, peak winds were 45 knots (23 m/sec.) By Sep. 28, peak sustained winds reached 155 kt. Nobody wants to be evacuated unless necessary. It may take up to two days to thoroughly accomplish in a heavily populated coastal area. However, if more hurricanes intensify rapidly, it cuts down on the warning time, or increases the number unneeded evacuations.
The other concern is the increasing danger of even minimal hurricanes as they reach higher latitudes and become extratropical. The warmer the oceans, the higher the latitudes at which this occurs. Warmer systems also contain more moisture, which leads to more flooding in landfalling systems – even those no longer officially “tropical” in character. Often it is the flooding that is the major disaster, not the winds.
“Alarmist Screeds”
I suppose that this is one. An alarm is something that is supposed to alert you to impending danger, and jolt you from unconcerned complacency into protective action. As a forecaster, that was part of my job in dangerous weather situations. The same is true for climate, albeit on a longer time scale. Some aspects of climate change do manifest in short term events such as severe heat waves. Others play out over years (droughts) or centuries (polar ice caps.) The evidence of CO2 and other greenhouse gases being a direct cause of global warming and climate change on various time scales is abundantly documented – e.g.. IPCC reports. The alarm is triggered by more than doubling the natural range of CO2 variability in the last several million years (about 100 ppm) in the course of a lifetime. You can pooh-pooh the alarm, pick statistics that don’t show the danger yet, or feign deafness. Not everyone responds to weather alarms by taking life-saving action, either. But there is no more obligation to explain global warming to you now than there is to explain that water can cause drowning to somebody driving around a barrier to traverse a water-covered road during a flood warning.
nigeljsays
John Pollack.
“The other concern is the increasing danger of even minimal hurricanes as they reach higher latitudes and become extratropical. The warmer the oceans, the higher the latitudes at which this occurs. Warmer systems also contain more moisture, which leads to more flooding in landfalling systems – even those no longer officially “tropical” in character. Often it is the flooding that is the major disaster, not the winds.”
A good recent example in the southern hemisphere is Cyclone Gabrielle fyi: “The role of climate change in extreme rainfall associated with Cyclone Gabrielle over Aotearoa New Zealand’s East Coast.”
Cyclone Gabrielle started out as a powerful tropical cyclone near Australia and became an ex tropical cyclone as it impacted NZ , but it was still a massive event in terms of wind strengths and particularly rainfall. The worst in 60 years and it did immense damage.
The cyclone also came up against a blocking high causing it to slow down and deliver even more rainfall than these events usually do. I was on the periphery of this event but the rainfall was intense and prolonged and wind speeds as high as Ive ever experienced. Is there evidence that blocking highs themselves are becoming more prevalent due to climate change (anyone?).
John Pollacksays
Nigel,
Thanks for your interesting example and reference. I was unaware of the extent of the disaster from Gabrielle.
I would guess that the SH is having the same pattern as the NH, with subtropical high pressure ridges aloft extending poleward and lingering more often, allowing more frequent interactions with tropical cyclones at higher latitudes. I’m not up on the research, however.
Adam Leasays
“Is there evidence that blocking highs themselves are becoming more prevalent due to climate change (anyone?).”
I think Jennifer Francis did some work on this related to Arctic amplification and weakening of the jet stream. I would be interested to know if blocking events in the northern hemisphere have become more common. The UK’s climate seems to have swapped some of its traditional high frequency variability for more frequent locked in weather patterns. Last year was an extreme case, but even recently, we’ve just had a very dry February which has flipped to a wet March. Over the last few years I have been struggling to get much from my allotment as my crops struggle in prolonged dry or wet periods, and in the latter case the slugs come out and decimate the leafy crops.
Adam Leasays
“For example, take the National Hurricane Center archives about Hurricane Ian – which struck the west Florida coast as a high category 4 last September: https://www.nhc.noaa.gov/archive/2022/IAN.shtml? In their 11pm Sep. 24 discussion, the NHC noted conditions favorable for rapid intensification, including warm ocean water and low shear. At that time, peak winds were 45 knots (23 m/sec.) By Sep. 28, peak sustained winds reached 155 kt. ”
Minor correction, I think you mean 155mph which was Ian’s peak intensity. Ian didn’t quite get to cat 5, but that was little consolation for the residents in and around Punta Gorda.
John Pollacksays
Thanks for the correction, Adam. I mis-read the Sep. 28 morning advisories. As you said, the maximum reported sustained winds were around 155 mph, 250 km/hr.
jgnfldsays
If only others here would accept professional advice/correction/editing.
Adam Leasays
Regarding the link about heatwave trends since the 1960’s, the article suggests that some of the trend might be due to increased urbanisation (which is still an anthropogenic contribution):
“Urban growth since 1961 may have contributed to part of the increase in heat waves that Figures 1 and 2 show for certain cities.”
I doubt that would explain all the trend and it is logical to think climate change is contributing something to this upward trend.
Your depiction of the events surrounding Climategate make a nice work of fiction. There is no relationship between your account and the truth. But as Cli-Fi it’s entertaining.
Thomas W Fullersays
No, BPL I was too hasty. Your description of ‘hide the decline’ is accurate. It was taken out of context by popular media and exploited by many skeptics. I apologize for my quick dismissal. But everything above that is pure fiction.
nigeljsays
T W Fuller. I don’t find your claims credible. You provide no details, no evidence, no sources, nothing. BPLs comments are detailed, he gives some sources such as formal investigations, and his comments are consistent with other material I have read.
Victor is hardly valid and interesting in that respect, in the way you see and treat him and try and teach him.
If you have a blind or a deaf or a one eyed man or someone obviously with some mental or sensual defect, ……
( who simply cannot mind and see or hear and reallize, which is really quite common, such as the one legged who simply cannot walk,…) ..
…..so simply let it be!
Make the patient or the observand aware of it, but Try not to correct it if they do not ask for that..
Try rather and see and study how that man with his obvious major handicaps and deformities also can moove around in person on the free markert, and by what means , crutches and supporters… maybe even advantages, along with todays privileges for all the veterans and invalids.
That they will better understand. That will also be more autentic and valuable science namely social sciences humaniora, . with possible, scientific findings and results that can be peer rewiewed and published. to the advantage of humanity.
“Antarctic sea ice anyone?”
We hit the Spring equinox with the Antarctic ice now growing after 2023 set that record annual daily minimum. 2023 has set 62 daily minimum records (out of 80 days) and has otherwise been 2nd lowest or =2nd lowest so no surprise that 2023 has the lowest average SIE of the year-so-far.
The records have not been massively below as they threatened through December last year and there is always the chance of the year seeing another big wobble kick-in although as the table below shows the ranking of average SIE levels for the full year can be remarkably similar to the ranking for the first 80 days.
Graphs of daily Antarctic SIE anomaly (with the annual cycle removed) here – Graphs 3 & 3a
Antarctic SIE average 1st Jan to 21st Mar. (& present ranking for full year average)
Top of the rankings & also lower placed recent years.
1st … 2023 … … … 2.72 M sq km
2nd … 2017 … … … 2.89 M sq km … … … (1st)
3rd … 2022 … … … 3.09 M sq km … … … (2nd)
4th … 2019 … … … 3.14 M sq km … … … (3rd)
5th … 2006 … … … 3.16 M sq km … … … (8th)
6th … 2018 … … … 3.28 M sq km … … … (4th)
17th … 2020 … … … 3.69 M sq km … … … (17th)
20th … 2016 … … … 3.74 M sq km … … … (6th)
29th … 2021 … … … 3.99 M sq km … … … (18th)
42nd … 2013 … … … 4.67 M sq km … … … (42nd)
43rd … 2014 … … … 4.90 M sq km … … … (43rd)
45th … 2015 … … … 5.18 M sq km … … … (41st)
45 years of data, (44 full calendar years)
Killiansays
Multidisciplinary conversation getting to the heart of solving our problems. Join us Saturday.
Could use a climate scientist at the Round table….
If one does not understand resources and the flaws of neoclassical economics, one does not understand adaptation and mitigation to the suite of issues we face.
The silence in this thread is deafening.
Victorsays
I want to thank nigelj and John Pollack for their very thoughtful, thorough and respectful responses to my earlier posts. While I continue to disagree, I see no point in continuing my attempts to engage their assertions on a point-by-point basis, as this sort of back and forth could go on indefinitely. Bottom line: even if they are correct in their attempts to demonstrate that disasters such as hurricanes, droughts, heatwaves, floods, etc. are getting progressively more extreme and dangerous, such assertions tell us nothing about what is causing the rising temperatures supposedly responsible for such events. As I asserted in a recent post,
“Those long lists of all the awful things that are supposedly happening due to global warming (aka “climate change”) do NOT constitute evidence that the warming in question is being caused by CO2 emissions. Yet that’s consistently been implied.” In literally every case, the “disasters” have been attributed, very simply, to a warming climate. If CO2 were not available as a scapegoat, the alarmists would be forced to attribute such events to mother nature, along with earthquakes and volcanic eruptions — and we’d be forced to hope for the best and live with the consequences.
Not so, contends Adam Lea:
“The link between climate change and rising CO2 levels from anthropogenic sources comes from fundamental physics combined with the fact there is no other possible source of external forcing that could cause the observed rise in global temperature over the last century.”
V: Sorry Adam, but it’s not that simple. If the “fundamental physics” of the laboratory could be extended with certainty to the physics controlling the vast extent of the atmosphere and the oceans, then you’d have a point. But that won’t work. How do I know? Well, for one thing I must once again link to the post in which I demonstrate very clearly the lack of any meaningful long=term correlation between CO2 levels and global temperatures, noting that the “correlation” so often claimed is based solely on the events of a 20 year period: http://amoleintheground.blogspot.com/2018/10/thoughts-on-climate-change-part-8-tale.html
If that analysis fails to convince you, then consider the following:
The runup in temperature from ca. 1910 through ca. 1940 could not have been caused by CO2 emissions, according to climate scientist Spencer Weart, who wrote in his influential essay, The Discovery of Global Warming, “[Research] has shown that the temperature rise up to 1940 was . . . mainly caused by some kind of natural cyclical effect, not by the still relatively low CO2 emissions.” https://history.aip.org/climate/co2.htm Since Weart is widely regarded as an authority on the climate and strong supporter of the “climate change” paradigm, he could hardly be described as a “denier” or skeptic, most climatologists take his conclusions very seriously indeed.
After 1940, as we all know, global temperature first took a nose dive and then, until the late 1970’s, levelled off — a period of 30 to 40 years during which CO2 levels rose considerably with no apparent effect on the climate. Thus: during the first 80 years or so of the previous century we see NO evidence that the burning of fossil fuels had any significant effect on planetary temperatures.
Furthermore: after the following 20 year period in which temperatures and CO2 levels both rose rather dramatically, we have the notorious “hiatus,” which lasted anywhere from 15 to 18 years, in which global temperatures rose only very slightly, while CO2 levels continued to soar. While the “hiatus” has more recently been “debunked” by hard line advocates, some of the world’s leading climatologists have supported it, based on a thoroughly conducted research project: “Making sense of the early-2000s warming slowdown,” a paper by
John C. Fyfe, Gerald A. Meehl, Matthew H. England, Michael E. Mann, Benjamin D. Santer, Gregory M. Flato, Ed Hawkins, Nathan P. Gillett, Shang-Ping Xie, Yu Kosaka & Neil C. Swart. From the abstract:
“It has been claimed that the early-2000s global warming slowdown or hiatus, characterized by a reduced rate of global surface warming, has been overstated, lacks sound scientific basis, or is
unsupported by observations. The evidence presented here contradicts these claims.” https://courses.eas.ualberta.ca/eas570/warming_slowdown.pdf
Considering that all contributors to this project are well known climate change advocates and widely known as respected scholars, it would be difficult to dismiss their conclusions.
In sum: NO evidence of global warming driven by CO2 emissions over the first 80 years of the 20th century; little to no evidence of anything similar during the first 15 or so years of the 21st. While temperatures have indeed climbed higher in recent years, the absence of any significant CO2 forcing over such a long period leads one to seriously doubt that such an effect could suddenly have kicked in only a few years ago.
Adam: “. . . combined with the fact there is no other possible source of external forcing that could cause the observed rise in global temperature over the last century.”
V: If Spencer Weart is correct, we are still in the dark regarding the cause of the temperature runup during the first 40 years of the 20th century. The notion that “there is no other possible source of external forcing” is a well known fallacy: the argument from ignorance.
David B. Bensonsays
Victor, earlier temperature measurements of surface temperature in the oceans changed dramatically in the 1950s. So one has to account for the different temperatures so obtained. Modern reconstructions do so and the temperature rise has no dips from 1880 onwards.
zebrasays
David, and the others, who, beyond my comprehension, are still going on with this silliness: I’m objecting because, however correct your statistics, you are giving credence to the idea that this is about statistics. It’s a common Denialist ploy to ignore the underlying physics and fundamental principles of science.
-We know that increasing CO2 increases the energy in the climate system because it absorbs outbound radiant energy and converts it to thermal energy.
-We know that energy can neither be created nor destroyed.
-Therefore, the proposition that changes in the climate are independent of the increase of CO2 violates Ockham’s Razor. It requires multiple new entities that have not been provided… the energy must undergo some other transformation to become inactive, or be transferred/transported out of the system, and there must be a different source of the increased energy which manifests in whatever changes we might be observing.
If you really want to educate the public on this, that’s the place to begin. It’s very much like dealing with the nonsensical arguments on the Theory of Evolution… you have to make clear the difference between a Theory and a hypothesis. You can’t refute a Theory; you have to replace it.
(And this applies to the other silly sub-threads about water vapor as well.)
jgnfldsays
Re. ” It’s a common Denialist ploy to ignore the underlying physics and fundamental principles of science.”
I pretty much agree. But as a former stats guy I’d rephrase slightly. What is probably the most common ploy amongst deniers is to intentionally misuse stats for propaganda purposes. This is an Agitprop 101 technique we see most every day here and elsewhere.
For example, Vic’s oh-so-beloved “hiatus” simply disappears as a significant statistical finding if you actually do your stats in any sort of professional manner. There are two basic errors/intentional lies occurring here statistically:
–ANY series of observations on a phenomenon where the trend is on the order of 10x the annual variation will likely show periods of “hiatus” somewhere in a century long series over periods of 15-18 years simply by chance. It’s simply a subset of the multiple comparison problem..* This is easily modeled, easily proven, and has been known since the dawn of probability though in stats it was often simply ignored by doing only a very few comparisons per study until the 1950s. with the contributions of Tukey and Scheffe who put things on a better mathematical footing.
–With any time series one simply CANNOT make the statement that there is no significant trend using basic regression on the sequence of values as the denier “hiatus” crowd ALWAYS does and as Vic does here too, of course, due to the autoregressive nature of the values which breaks the fundamental regression assumption of independence of values.. This fact has been known for about a century and analytic techniques which correct for this autoregression in the underlying data date back about a century to Yule and Walker in the 1920s.
Anyway, Vic missed the last century or so of stats as is obvious to all here with even a basic stats education.
Fyfe et. al. examined the physics…being physicists that’s hardly surprising–to see if they could describe the energy flows during that time. They most specifically do NOT state, imply, infer, or guess that CO2 did not continue to trap heat. They conclude:
“Research into the nature and causes of the slowdown has triggered improved
understanding of observational biases, radiative forcing, and internal variability
This has led to widespread recognition that modulation by internal variability is
large enough to produce a significantly reduced rate of surface temperature
increase for a decade or even more – particularly if internal variability is
augmented by the externally driven cooling caused by a succession of volcanic
eruptions.”
Fyfe et. al. are not deniers. They do not present any data or theory that undercuts CO2 warming. They simply note there are additional processes going on that _modulate_ the flows for up to a decade or more, and they try to put some numbers on those additional modulation processes.. In this regard other such modulations are well known such as el Nino/la Nina so this shouldn’t be terribly earth-shaking. Nor do they subscribe to any notion that the fundamental warming process somehow stopped as vic tries to say they do. That is either a simple misapprehension (as in his “knowledge” of correlations or an utter lie. Fyfe et. al. are physicists trying to follow the energy flows. It’s what physicists do.
_____
*What is the multiple comparison problem? Essentially if you flip a coin three times you are far more likely to find at least one head–7/8s of the time to be exact–than if you only get to flip once where heads will turn up only 1/2 the time, of course. . A fact which all of our propagandists and deniers flogging said “hiatus” either use maliciously, ignore completely. or are utterly unaware of. Some of our resident deniers here probably are a combination of all three. (Note I am ignoring the autoregression issue here, but it is entwined as well given the number of overlapping and non-overlapping sequences available in the various temp series.)
zebrasays
jgnfld, obviously statistics is essential to doing this work. And the Fyfe stuff seems to be a useful contribution.
My issue is with not requiring that there be explicit agreement on the underlying fundamentals, before engaging with the Denialist on anything else.
If someone doesn’t accept quantum physics and empirical outcomes on CO2 molecules, or feels free to ignore conservation of energy, then that’s what the “debate” should be about… they are then obliged to offer their alternative understandings (Theory) of physics.
If they do accept those fundamentals, then they are obliged to present their own Theory/model explaining why that increased energy has no effect on the climate system.
If someone says there should be an exact correlation between CO2 and GMST, the correct response to me is not to give a statistics lesson, but to require them to explain why??, using physics.
In my experience with Denialists, and very likely with Victor at some time in the past, is that they run away from any explicit physical question. They cite statistics because your correction of their fallacious usage makes most people tune out, and then they can continue to cast doubt on what is actually happening. Propaganda is not about being right.
jgnfldsays
True enough in any respects. Except they NEVER do discuss underlying fundamentals and will NEVER accept that as an underlying requirement even as they act to influence climate policies and attempt to subvert the science using their propaganda. (Remember the push in the US Congress to not launch any more weather satellites a decade back?)
They just keep spouting the same old same old over and over. Standard Agitprop 101 as we are seeing in many additional places beyond science these days as well. FUD is the goal not any alternative physics. So we do need some portion of the populace to be aware of how Agitprop 101 techniques work.
In the same vein, I well remember–and sometimes even still hear–the old tobacco propaganda line about gramps smoking till the day he died at age 102 “therefore” tobacco cannot actually cause cancer. With enough people of course you’ll pretty much always find an outlier which requires much additional work to make sense of. The only way to attack that propaganda lie is to hammer home the propagandistic nature of the lies, not to spend fortunes chasing why a few specific gramps survive longer than most smoking gramps.
This is why I am equivocal about Fyfe et. al. Essentially they are chasing why gramps lived to 102 which really isn’t the point of the fundamental underlying issue even if it might be nice to know. Or as Tamino used to put it they are basically chasing noise.
[“Woke” is another example of the same thing. It is impossible to pin the term down to agreed fundamentals as we see when people using the term are asked to define it. Yet the propagandists just LUV to use it as it is a truly great FUD generator.]
Lastly, my expertise is far more stats than pure physics, and I try to limit comment to where my actual expertise is. Unlike some few others here!
Victor the Troll,
This would be the same Spencer Weart who writes:-
“If you compared the irregularly climbing curve of temperatures since the 1860s with the curves produced by computer models that calculated the effects of the rise of greenhouse gases with adjustments for volcanic eruptions and other aerosol pollution, variations in solar activity, and ocean cycles, the match was remarkably close within the known margin of observational error.”
If my understanding of history is correct, “first 40 years of the 20th century” occurred within the period “since the 1860s” but on that I may be wrong and be presenting “argument from ignorance.”
But, we are trying to find out and know better to set on that, and on what we have found out in a rather critical and sceptical way by never believing in the experts.
Victor
It looks to me that you have not learnt how to design an analysis build a scientific argument and to deliver reliable results and proof.
Seemingly, you expect it to be done by one and only one method or one and only one faculty or factory wityh its methods and production secrets.
And you will not be able to understand it befor you learn by full examples how it is rather done and in many different ways. You are struggling teaching and fighting in vain by your methods because youn never learnt that.
You seemingly only learnt how to be immune to your opponents and not do deliver truth about nature where facitb is not written and the experts are helpless and even wrong.
V: “Those long lists of all the awful things that are supposedly happening due to global warming (aka “climate change”) do NOT constitute evidence that the warming in question is being caused by CO2 emissions. Yet that’s consistently been implied.” In literally every case, the “disasters” have been attributed, very simply, to a warming climate. If CO2 were not available as a scapegoat, the alarmists would be forced to attribute such events to mother nature, along with earthquakes and volcanic eruptions — and we’d be forced to hope for the best and live with the consequences.
BPL: Except that we know the warming is from greenhouse gases, because we’ve measured it. Here are three field studies which say so:
Evans, W.F.J., and E. Puckrin 2006. Measurements of the Radiative Surface Forcing of Climate. 18th Conference on Climate Variability and Change, P1.7
The earth’s climate system is warmed by 35 C due to the emission of downward infrared radiation by greenhouse gases in the atmosphere (surface radiative forcing) or by the absorption of upward infrared radiation (radiative trapping). Increases in this emission/absorption are the driving force behind global warming. Climate models predict that the release of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere has altered the radiative energy balance at the earth’s surface by several percent by increasing the greenhouse radiation from the atmosphere. With measurements at high spectral resolution, this increase can be quantitatively attributed to each of several anthropogenic gases. Radiance spectra of the greenhouse radiation from the atmosphere have been measured at ground level from several Canadian sites using FTIR spectroscopy at high resolution. The forcing radiative fluxes from CFC11, CFC12, CCl4, HNO3, O3, N2O, CH4, CO and CO2 have been quantitatively determined over a range of seasons. The contributions from stratospheric ozone and tropospheric ozone are separated by our measurement techniques. A comparison between our measurements of surface forcing emission and measurements of radiative trapping absorption from the IMG satellite instrument shows reasonable agreement. The experimental fluxes are simulated well by the FASCOD3 radiation code. This code has been used to calculate the model predicted increase in surface radiative forcing since 1850 to be 2.55 W/m2. In comparison, an ensemble summary of our measurements indicates that an energy flux imbalance of 3.5 W/m2 has been created by anthropogenic emissions of greenhouse gases since 1850. This experimental data should effectively end the argument by skeptics that no experimental evidence exists for the connection between greenhouse gas increases in the atmosphere and global warming.
Philipona, R., B. Dürr, C. Marty, A. Ohmura, and M. Wild 2004. Radiative Forcing–Measured at Earth’s Surface–Corroborate the Increasing Greenhouse Effect. Geophys. Res. Lett. 31, L03202
Here we show that atmospheric longwave downward radiation significantly increased (+5.2(2.2) Wm 2) partly due to increased cloud amount (+1.0(2.8) Wm 2) over eight years of measurements at eight radiation stations distributed over the central Alps. Model calculations show the cloud-free longwave flux increase (+4.2(1.9) Wm 2) to be in due proportion with temperature (+0.82(0.41) C) and absolute humidity (+0.21(0.10) g m 3) increases, but three times larger than expected from anthropogenic greenhouse gases. However, after subtracting for two thirds of temperature and humidity rises, the increase of cloud-free longwave downward radiation (+1.8(0.8) Wm 2) remains statistically significant and demonstrates radiative forcing due to an enhanced greenhouse effect.
Feldman, D.R.; Collins, W.D.; Gero, P.J.; Torn, M.S.; Mlawer, E.J.; Shippert, T.R. 2015. Observational determination of surface radiative forcing by CO2 from 2000 to 2010. Nature 519, 339-343.
The climatic impact of CO2 and other greenhouse gases is usually quantified in terms of radiative forcing1, calculated as the difference between estimates of the Earth’s radiation field from preindustrial and present day concentrations of these gases. Radiative transfer models calculate that the increase in CO2 since 1750 corresponds to a global annualmean radiative forcing at the tropopause of 1.82 ± 0.19 W m-2 (ref. 2). However, despite widespread scientific discussion and modelling of the climate impacts of wellmixed greenhouse gases, there is little direct observational evidence of the radiative impact of increasing atmospheric CO2. Here we present observationally based evidence of clearsky CO2 surface radiative forcing that is directly attributable to the increase, between 2000 and 2010, of 22 parts per million atmospheric CO2. The time series of this forcing at the two locations, the Southern Great Plains and the North Slope of Alaska, are derived from Atmospheric Emitted Radiance Interferometer spectra3together with ancillary measurements and thoroughly corroborated radiative transfer calculations4. The time series both show statistically significant trends of 0.2 W m-2 per decade (with respective uncertainties of ±0.06 W m-2 per decade and ±0.07 W m-2 per decade) and have seasonal ranges of 0.1-0.2 W m-2. This is approximately ten per cent of the trend in downwelling longwave radiation5,6,7. These results confirm theoretical predictions of the atmospheric greenhouse effect due to anthropogenic emissions, and provide empirical evidence of how rising CO2 levels, mediated by temporal variations due to photosynthesis and respiration, are affecting the surface energy balance.
zebrasays
BPL, perfect example of what I am talking about in my reply to David B above. I’ve gone through this with various Denialist trolls… perhaps even with Victor at some point.
Has Victor actually claimed, in plain language, that CO2 doesn’t absorb outward-bound radiant energy and convert it to thermal energy? I haven’t bothered reading him in a long time, but I suspect the language has been consistent in avoiding that question.
But here you are, giving great evidence to contradict what he hasn’t said. Basically you are arguing with yourself, as are most of the people being “owned” by the troll, who wants to create the illusion of an actual scientific debate.
People sometimes complain that I am stating the obvious, but what I’m interested in is educating the public about how science actually works, so they can see the obvious fallacies for themselves.
Would any of you engage with an actual physics student like this, at any level??
Victorsays
Yes. Thanks so much, Bart, for these very interesting, and relevant, references. That’s the sort of thing I have no problem with: hypotheses derived from evidence-based research are always welcome. But that wasn’t my point. What bothers me are the continual allusions we find not only in the media but all too often in statements by scientists who should know better, to extreme weather events that supposedly constitute evidence that “climate change is happening now.” Yet when we listen carefully to such alarming reports one gets the impression that the “climate change” responsible for such events constitutes little more than a rise in global temperatures, which might well be due largely to natural variation.
Any possible link with CO2 emissions is simply assumed, Which wouldn’t be so bad if they at least mentioned the sort of research you’ve presented here, but they go on about all this as though it really didn’t matter, as though scientific research weren’t really necessary. As I see it, there’s a kind of lynch mob mentality at work in so many of these reports — “we know he did it so there’s no need to investigate.” And I must hold the IPCC responsible for this attitude when they keep insisting that the science is settled, when it most definitely is not.
Now as far as the research you’ve referenced, I admit it does sound impressive, and as someone with only the most elementary understanding of physics I’m not in a position to engage it on its own terms. Nevertheless, when I look for corroborating evidence in the far more simple and straightforward data pertaining to temperature, sea-level rise and CO2 emissions, I’ve been, as you know, unable to find a meaningful connection. While, according to “the physics,” as analyzed by so many experts, there ought to be clear evidence that both global temperatures and sea levels are driven to some significant degree by greenhouse gas emissions, that evidence does not seem to be there. And given the extreme importance to all of humanity of the issue at hand, I feel a responsibility to communicate my reservations despite the unlikelihood that they will make any difference at all.
By the way, I recently came across the following youtube lecture centering on “radiative forcing,” by a physicist who seems extremely knowledgeable, challenging certain basic premises of the “climate change” paradigm. As I’m totally unqualified to evaluate his analysis I’m hoping that you or someone else reading here would be willing to do so. Here’s the link: https://youtu.be/P5HyDp_Jgd8 A transcript of this talk is provided beneath the video.
jgnfldsays
Re. “Yet when we listen carefully to such alarming reports one gets the impression that the “climate change” responsible for such events constitutes little more than a rise in global temperatures, which might well be due largely to natural variation.
Any possible link with CO2 emissions is simply assumed, ”
No, there are many studies which clearly show that natural variation alone cannot explain the observed warming. AR6 SPM has as its primary finding:
A.1 It is unequivocal that human influence has warmed the atmosphere, ocean and land. Widespread and rapid changes in the atmosphere, ocean, cryosphere and biosphere have occurred. Expand Figures SPM.1, SPM.2Links to chapters
A.1.1 Observed increases in well-mixed greenhouse gas (GHG) concentrations since around 1750 are unequivocally caused by human activities. Since 2011 (measurements reported in AR5), concentrations have continued to increase in the atmosphere, reaching annual averages of 410 parts per million (ppm) for carbon dioxide (CO2), 1866 parts per billion (ppb) for methane (CH4), and 332 ppb for nitrous oxide (N2O) in 2019. 6Land and ocean have taken up a near-constant proportion (globally about 56% per year) of CO2 emissions from human activities over the past six decades, with regional differences (high confidence).
They provide extensive backup from the peer-reviewed literature from around the world, so it’s not a “liberal conspiracy”. As well, it is not “assumed”. YOU are the one doing the assuming. Typical projection yet again.
! Levenson ! – the blindest sheep in the stable should not act as a teacher to the other sheep. Unfortunately, your skills are limited to copy & paste. You do not have an independent understanding of weather and climate and their physics because you are unable to classify the simplest observations.
The Earth’s energy system can be largely changed only by 2 major climate forcings (Albedo & GHE) if we assume solar irradiance and volcanic activity remain unchanged.
The last 2 decades the trend of the Earth energy imbalance EEI @TOA is characterized by a loss of the Bond albedo of -1.4W/m² from 2000-2020. The climate forcing due to CO2 is only ~0.6W/m² in the same period.
However, the loss through cloud, ice & snow and aerosol albedo observed by (CERES, MODIS, VIIRs) also has an impact on the GHE.
It increases the long-wave radiation emanating from the earth’s surface, so that the GHE, which was increased by higher CO2 concentrations, was overcompensated by the overall albedo loss in the observed period. Otherwise, CERES would not have been able to measure an increase in outgoing LW-out-@TOA of +0.57W/m² between 2000 and 2020.
You don’t understand any of this and probably never will, since your dependent and incomplete view of global warming is copy and paste of peer-reviewed papers.
Not all papers are useless – but quite a lot of peer-reviewed papers consist of “one idiot certifying another idiot as a genius”.
It will be very tricky and difficult for you to explain why the EEI and the global energy uptake always drop to near zero when H2O, the strongest of all GHGs in the atmosphere, reaches its highest concentration.
But since I don’t trust you to understand these connections, you (and many others) will probably end up as a sheep skeleton in the desert – the only funny thing is that you will be found wearing yellow underpants with 3 black dots.
Even Victor (…do NOT constitute evidence that the warming in question is being caused by CO2 emissions.) is closer to the truth if he were to replace CO2 emissions with GHE in his contribution.
Brilliant, M. Barton provides 3 studies very specifically documenting support for his point; you provide 3 general references, make some assertions of dubious relevance and veracity, and then pillory him for allegedly “not understanding” the topic–throwing in a gratuitous insult or two just to show that… well, OK, I don’t actually know why you bother.
Or why I do, for that matter.
Ron R.says
Just looked at your site, Kevin. Really impressive! I like your style. :)
ms: — Levenson – I asked you or invited you to discuss the CERES data 2000-2020, albedo and GHE. You are obviously overwhelmed intellectually or you prefer to behave like a stubborn sheep.
I didn’t make up the CERES data, Albedo or GHE – they are results from organizations like NASA & NOAA. If you think all of this is flying shit or (@KmcK: “some assertions of dubious relevance and veracity) then go to these institutions with confidence and complain to them.
By the way, RC (defined by basic science) means Real Climate here in the forum – and NOT
Royal Club (defined by blind sheep).
If you don’t get it quickly, then I’ll burn down your sheepfold full of stupid, old, gray men right here. — All I have to do is keep my legs still and grin silently.
ms: I asked you or invited you to discuss the CERES data 2000-2020, albedo and GHE.
BPL: You don’t know how to calculate a trend, do you? Or what error bars mean.
It’s an old denier trope that “It’s not carbon dioxide, it’s albedo!” Sometimes they cite CERES. Sometimes they cite Pallé. The one thing they will not do is do the math. Usually because they can’t.
BPL: Not sure what this refers to. But in case you didn’t know, transmitting threats by electronic media is a violation of the Telecommunications Act of 1983 (the Helms Act). Violations are punishable by up to five (5) years in jail and fines up to $20,000.00.
Ron R.says
Leaving the science aside, MS, calling names and being ***** rude and insulting is not the best way to win friends and influence people. And not the best way to get people to take you seriously and reply. Capishe?
Dear Group
You ask for Antarctic sea ice but we hardly live there.
But at the same time, the meteorologists tell of a Sudden Stratospheric Warming, a SSW on the northpole, that will have dramaticd effects further south all the way in a major weather change.
The temperatures here will become blue next week, they were quite red in february, and the same is predicted for New England.
California I don`t know. Will it stop raining? and Ukraina. Freeze over again or sudden mud and mess?
Californians are wondering when it is going to stop snowing:
https://www.msn.com/en-us/weather/topstories/over-50-feet-of-snow-dumped-on-california-even-disneyland-experienced-snow/ar-AA1898W5
https://www.usatoday.com/story/graphics/2023/03/01/snowfall-totals-california/11366374002/
https://www.seattlepi.com/news/article/to-the-rooftops-staggering-snowfall-in-17812864.php
https://www.capradio.org/articles/2023/03/02/emergency-declared-in-the-sierra-as-heavy-snow-forces-evacuations-road-closures-shutters-yosemite/
https://www.msn.com/en-us/weather/topstories/california-declares-emergency-in-counties-buried-by-snow-as-latest-storm-moves-east/ar-AA188O2H
Of course it’s only one year, so it does not mean much for overall climate trends, but hopefully will give some relief for their drought conditions.
Hr Knowitall
It will stop snowing now.
There has been a sudden heating of the polar stratosphere that will break up and dissolve the fameous “polar vortex” and make it re- arrange in other new and long, meandering snaky patterns.
Suddenly there is +5 and +8 Celsius in Austerbygd Gardar Igalicu Grønland, Grønlands hottest hole and the old bishop see there. At the same time it suddenly gets rather chill in Jylland, Denmark and vice versa.
This has been noticed by the chronicles on Royal Danish level now for centuries, but modern knowitalls would not believe those priests in Royal danish service by black university Dr. coats and Royal Danish collars.
A lot of recent idiots believe in King Donald Grozny instead. and in Czar Puttler instead.
But that Austerbygd / Jylland contrast is due to the fameous NAO different from NATO- oscillation
by the NAO- index, that is the barometric pressure in Reykjavik divided through the barometric pressure on the Azores.
So when the Rain in Spain stays mainly in the plain , and in Harforgd Herford and Hampshire hurricanes hardly happen….. and even never rains in southern California,……
…. you should not believe in such old and supersticious formulas and rumors.
But rather in more autenic chronicles that were taken down on Royal Order by autentic doctors in black coats with white royal collars,…. else they were not authorized and warranted. and not permitted to lift and to vibratevibtate with their pointing finger over the scriptures onto The People down there, so that even The People down under there could knowitall.
Another 60 feet came yesterday. I commented below about the possible calamity that should be anticipated. This appeared on this thread today, Thanks to moderator.
Agreed, this does not prove much, though it suggests a different weather pattern.
As to climate mitigation, I suggested below that steps could be taken to buttress against future drought by use of the underground capacity of the California aquifer.
60 FEET!? Where? And where’s your documentation for this absurd claim?
Your innumeracy is calamitous – getting confused between feet and inches perhaps? Even 60 inches is perhaps the maximum report you could find for the entire state of California? Hard to tell without any documentation. It’s a rather large state.
Yes, it seems there was a confusion of units–the UC Berkeley snow lab shows snowpack at ~592 *inches* as of writing.
For those interested, the snow lab site is here:
https://cssl.berkeley.edu/
And yes, there is some danger of flooding, but unsurprisingly CA isn’t going to wash into the sea.
Kevin,
There’s a distinction between snowfall and snowpack. The snowfall at Donner Summit is 592 inches. That’s the unconsolidated season total. The snowpack is essentially the snow depth, including consolidation and melting. If you look at the snowpack web page, you’ll see that total seasonal snowfall can be as much as 60 to 70 feet (720-840 inches) but maximum snow depth is seldom as much as 20 feet (240 inches). Current snow water equivalent is 55 inches.
John Pollack, yes, thanks. I thought I’d misused the term “snowpack,” and sure enough. Good clarification.
Ladies and Gentlemen
On snowpacks and inches and how to measure.
I have really come to like the inch after all, but I preferre Ole Rømers definition of it for the Danish empire
The Danish Skjellands Foot is 12/38 0f the matematical pendulum that swings 1 sec at sea- level on 45 deg north! Which is quite exactly across the St Marcus square in Venetia when flooded..
And not by an incredibly irrational number down there in the muds of the river Thames at Greenwhich just to please the foot of an obscure potentate higher up at Westminster..
It is slightly bigger and better in Norway you see, Ole Rømers fameous foot- definition comes out 31.4…. centimeter, which is easily remembered.
But for rain and snow youn better measure it in millimeters. 10 millimeters of percipitation given on the weather forecast entails 10 centimenters of dry snow. Then you know what you wll have to shuffle next day from your pavements and from your car. 10 cm is practically one handwidth. . Wet snow will be a half or a third of that.
For snow-weight on the roof, take a 10 cm plastic sewage- cylindric tube, with sharp edges, and press it down to the bottom, , take that snow and weigh it. Then you have weight per square area regardless of heavy and light , wet or dry snow.
Then also very easy due to the Paris convension where one kilogram weight is equal to one liter, is equal to one cubic decimeter of water.
By that old Paris convention it all clears up.
Else you get a severe mess of irrational proportions and numbers to be remembered and computed.. Just look above. They confuse feet and inches and cannot discuss the weight at all , which is what really matters. Because it would come in pounds per gallon.
The density of water is simply one. One Kilogram per Liter or cubic decimeter. Dry snow is 10 times fluffier than that. .
They cannot even tell the temperature, that is just as easy. It is quite exactly Zero Celsius in a snowball or inside of a fresh snowman.
The orignal french revolutionary Meter was first suggested as the second pendulum, that is practicaloly one yard. But they decided to define it as 1 / 10 000 000 of the distance from pole to equator.
“A paint” of beer is the only practical pound definition . We call it “a half liter beer”.
I learnt this in public school 3rd class ,allready, it is as easy as that, and shall never forget it.
Yes, we certainly hope so.
Ron R. from last month,
First, I stand corrected… I did use that expression “hair on fire”, but in a more general application, not referring only to the population issue. I appreciated the reference back to my earlier comment because I thought I did a pretty good job of explaining my position there, and it seems that I am going over the same ground now.
You and others don’t seem willing to address the good population news that I have provided about China and many other societies. The only reason I can imagine, as I’ve said before, is that it is happening “naturally” as the result of socio-economic changes, rather than people being concerned about environmental damage.
If you want to contradict that, feel free to do so.
Second, about the mechanics of commenting:
-When you give a reference or click on a name in Recent Comments list, you may have to then highlight what’s in the address bar and Enter. That’s what works in my Firefox.
-If you click on Reply at the bottom of someone’s comment, that starts a new sub-thread just below, so my reference to your comment appeared above yours in the main listing.
Zebra “You and others don’t seem willing to address the good population news that I have provided about China and many other societies. The only reason I can imagine, as I’ve said before, is that it is happening “naturally” as the result of socio-economic changes, rather than people being concerned about environmental damage.”
Why should we have to have address slowing population growth when it is well known and not in dispute? What is it zebra expects people to say? : “Its great that population growth is slowing, we are all saved now”?
Slowing population growth and shrinking populations is good news environmentally, but is not going to save us, because it wont ever be fast enough stop dangerous climate change or biodiversity loss so we need to promote other things that will help.
Plenty of polling studies show couples are electing to have small families out of “environmental concerns”. I know several people who had small families out of environmental concerns and this goes way back in time. Of course the demographic transition and its economic self interest has also been a huge factor. I do not understand why Zebra would think there is only one reason for falling population growth. Human motivations tend to be mixed and complicated, in my opinion. A couple of polling studies:
https://populationmatters.org/news/2021/05/three-in-ten-young-people-want-a-small-family-for-environmental-reasons/
https://www.cnbc.com/2021/08/12/climate-change-is-making-people-think-twice-about-having-children.html
https://docs.iza.org/dp15620.pdf
+1
We just crossed the 8 Billion people milestone, therefore, I’d say the population is still growing at a rate that is completely unsustainable, regardless of what’s happening in China or other locations. Our numbers have to go down one way or the other. The Earth has a plan for dealing with overpopulation, and that process will start soon enough.
Conclusion: Humans can bring their own numbers down or the Earth will happily do it for us, no charge!
Chuck, for a long time I’ve been the voice in the wilderness here about the necessity to give as much attention to population as we do to the energy transition. And I’ve explained why the relationship between the two is non-linear in a good way, so that on a realistic time line for both transitions, there will be a significant reduction in harm.
The response has been “but if we don’t stop producing CO2 by 2050, none of that matters!”.
Well, 2050 is not a realistic timeline. I’ve yet to hear any proposal that addresses how that might be achieved in the real world… the denialism on that is no different from what we hear from the other guys.
When Ron says that “we should have a worldwide effort to reduce population” and “we should pay women not to have babies”, this is in the same category. There is no “we”! In fact, governments all over the world are talking about paying women to have babies!
So the point of looking at the conditions where fertility is actually greatly reduced is to understand a mechanism that actually works to achieve the goal. That’s how science and engineering make progress.
The problem is that people engage in a kind of magical thinking… where if only people would follow their instructions, everything would be fine. Well, maybe, but then I ask that terrible question: What’s your plan? How do you get people to follow your instructions??
And the answer is “but my goal is virtuous and moral, don’tcha see, so let’s talk about it, and everything will be fine.” That’s the Kumbaya part.
I’m glad to see that everyone has come around to my way of thinking about the need to reduce population as rapidly a possible. So now, what’s your plan?
*I’m glad to see that everyone has come around to my way of thinking about the need to reduce population as rapidly a possible. So now, what’s your plan?*
Humanity has never evolved with any sort of plan and even if there were a plan, most people wouldn’t follow it unless they were forced to. Therefore, it will be up to the Earth to deal with the human problem, and I believe it will, eventually. I see a lot of great ideas being floated about, but we’re still continuing business as usual, and Biden just approved more drilling in the Arctic. So, it looks like the plan is to let Climate Change play itself out in real time. The good news is, we can watch it all happening on flat screen TV.
Chuck Hughes,
OK, but females in South Korea and Japan and China and Europe and many places are having many fewer children, and they aren’t being forced to do that. Remarkably enough, even Iran, where they beat and kill women for not covering their hair, has a 1.7 fertility rate, which makes the Ayatollah very unhappy.
So maybe not having a plan to reduce population is a good plan?
Yes, Hr Group, the antarctic sea ice seems to be 3 std below normal now at antarctic summer minimum.
3 std deviations from normal is extreeme according to what I have learnt, entailing that one should lift ones eyebrows and think again.
It entails that it is maybe something new and uncommon happening, that has not been before.
Here in the north, I see that the meteorologist go flikkflakk at the weather forcasts for 6 & 7 Mars on the night minimum temperatures, by that major weather change due to flipflop in the polar jetstream.
That has happened before and is not uncommon.
Met. inst. no being uncertain on such dis- continous events due to CHAOS in the http://www.Jørmungandr, that is normal.
It is a common meandering current – wave- breaker.
And it is hardly http://www.fimbulvinter and http://www.Ragnarøk yet, when http://www.Midgardsormen will go mad first.
Benestad can explain it to you.
Goethe has also commented on it, Faust 1 Pro9log im Himmel
Raphael:
Die Sonne tönt nach alter Weisse
in Brüdersphären Wettgesang
und ihre vorgeschriebne Weisse
vollendet sie mit Donnergang!
SANN!
Ramst0rf must correct us on that. It is another discussion of coherent harmonic vs turbulent chaotic behaviours.
Zebra
“If you want to contradict that, feel free to do so.”
Nigel did that in last month’s, and this months thread. But maybe you missed it.
“You and others don’t seem willing to address the good population news that I have provided about China and many other societies.”
World population’s still shooting up, Zebra, even if the rate is falling. And promising that it will top out at some undefinable later date in the future looks quite like the stalling tactics of CC deniers (not that you’re one). I hope the China phenomenon is real and is world wide, though. But in my opinion it shouldn’t be a haphazard, some countries take it seriously, some don’t, issue, but a concerted worldwide, consciously addressed issue done for the right, environmental, not chiefly for economic reasons, or it could just revert back to as soon as circumstances change. A rough comparison might be the changing of the guard in the US presidency, with the president representing the world’s people in this analogy, Soon as somebody like the last guy gets in all those hard won environmental laws get thrown out the window. I don’t know if that makes sense? Anyway, I’m just not interested in another one of these endless RC debates.
I don’t use Firefox. But maybe you’re right that it’s a browser issue.
Nigelj. Ditto. I saw that on last month’s thread too. Good job.
Good news everyone, the Titanic is sinking more slowly now that it’s reached the ocean floor!
Ron, I’m really curious. I gave you a suggestion to solve the problem of not being able to access a comment directly. Did you try it?
My other question is, if you don’t want to discuss things, why do you keep commenting with the same point?
Anyway, you’ve confirmed my point… it’s all about control. (And magical thinking, since governments all over the world are trying to “increase” their populations… talk about concerted effort.)
UAH have reported for February with a monthly TLT anomaly of +0.08ºC, the 11th warmest Feb on the UAH TLT record. +0.08ºC is a big increase on the Jan anomaly of -0.04ºC but still a chilly start to the year for the wobbly global TLT record, making Jan-Feb 2023 the 17th warmest start to the year in UAH TLT. Note in the table of Jan-Feb averages below that 2022 now sits below 2023 in 18th spot.
…….. Jan-Feb Ave … Annual Ave ..Annual ranking
2016 .. +0.56 ºC … … … +0.39ºC … … … 1st
2020 .. +0.51 ºC … … … +0.36ºC … … … 2nd
1998 .. +0.42 ºC … … … +0.35ºC … … … 3rd
2010 .. +0.33 ºC … … … +0.19ºC … … … 6th
2017 .. +0.28 ºC … … … +0.26ºC … … … 5th
2019 .. +0.23 ºC … … … +0.30ºC … … … 4th
2021 .. +0.16 ºC … … … +0.13ºC … … … 9th
2007 .. +0.16 ºC … … … +0.02ºC … … … 15th
2003 .. +0.15 ºC … … … +0.05ºC … … … 13th
2013 .. +0.14 ºC … … … +0.00ºC … … … 16th
2018 .. +0.12 ºC … … … +0.09ºC … … … 10th
2002 .. +0.12 ºC … … … +0.08ºC … … … 11th
2015 .. +0.10 ºC … … … +0.14ºC … … … 8th
2005 .. +0.09 ºC … … … +0.06ºC … … … 12th
2004 .. +0.08 ºC … … … -0.05ºC … … … 20th
2014 .. +0.02 ºC … … … +0.04ºC … … … 14th
2023 .. +0.02 ºC
2022 .. +0.02 ºC … … … +0.17ºC … … … 7th
2006 .. +0.01 ºC … … … -0.02ºC … … … 18th
2009 .. -0.04 ºC … … … -0.04ºC … … … 19th
1999 .. -0.04 ºC … … … -0.15ºC … … … 30th
These wobbly TLT anomalies, much affected by ENSO early in the year, are not always a good measure if SAT temperatures. Early indications of Feb’s SAT anomaly (eg the CFSR re-analysis) also suggest an increase in anomaly from Jan a far warmer Jan into Feb.
I’ve just read:
https://www.preprints.org/manuscript/202302.0393/v1/download
The two main conclusions are:
1) the peak CO2 concentration will likely be no more than 475ppm
2) there will therefore likely be at most another 0.4C temp rise from now.
To my, very inexpert, eye the first conclusion is plausibly supported by the data and analysis, whereas the second conclusion relies on an, admitted, dubious model of temperature dependence on CO2 concentration i.e ignoring cloud albedo changes.
Thoughts?
John Shanty,
The thesis you link-to presented by Dengler & Reid is a bunch of nonsense. They appear to be projecting CO2 emissions as remaining constant at present levels and using some crazy assumptions to suggest this will not see CO2 levels increasing from today’s 420ppm at the present rates of ~2ppm/year. (A 2ppm/y increase would put the 2100AD concentration at 575ppm.)
The usual simplistic relationship between CO2 emissions and global temperature is that presented in IPCC AR6 Fig SPM.10. The 37GtCO2 emissions to 2100 projected by Dengler & Reid would put the cumulative emissions off the end of the chart.
Took a quick glance at the paper. My first impression is that their model for absorption of CO2 is way too simple and optimistic. It looks to me as if they are mostly extrapolating current absorption into the future, and we know that there are significant negative feedbacks on the abilities of both the oceans and the biosphere to absorb additional CO2. The Amazon, for one is near becoming a net emitter of greenhouse gasses as deforestation takes its toll. These trends are likely to exacerbate as warming forces more people into abject poverty and they take to the hills to make a living any way they can. Indeed, I saw evidence of this on my last trip to Madagascar, where the entire forest is being turned into charcoal. What is more, we know CO2 concentration has been MUCH higher in the past.
Moreover, there are several red flags.
1) The work has not been published or peer-reviewed by a reputable journal of any kind, let alone one that caters to climate science.
2) There is no evidence that either author has ever published a peer-reviewed article on climate science.
3) Neither author has any documented or even evidence in climate science or climate systems.
4) At least one of the authors has several other attempts to publish similar research–all rejected.
Not much to see here.
The model is completely dependent upon as assumed emissions trajectory as an input variable.
So, the “peak CO2 concentration” is only 475 ppm IF we follow the IEA “Stated Policies” trajectory. You may well realize that, but you didn’t state it, and I think readers would want to know.
Both of those predictions sound absurd to me. Especially the one about how much we’re going to heat up.
John Shanly,
The authors of the non-peer-reviewed article titled Emissions and CO2 Concentration – an Evidence Based Approach you link to are Joachim Dengler & John Reid. Who are they? What are their areas of expertise? Do they have any track record of peer-reviewed scientific papers in the field of climate science? No?
Meanwhile, it seems to me Dr James E Hansen has a long and distinguished track record in the field of climate science, with many heavily cited peer-reviewed papers in the field of climate science – websearch: “scholarly james e hansen”
James Hansen & 14 co-authors submitted a new scientific paper titled Global warming in the pipeline to a broad reaching interdisciplinary journal Oxford Open Climate Change on 8 Dec 2022. With permission of Editor-in-Chief Eelco Rohling, the submitted version is available on arXiv, the website used by physicists for preprints.
https://arxiv.org/abs/2212.04474
Figure 6 (in the Hansen et. al. pre-print) indicates to me that the cooling effect of aerosols (primarily human-induced from the burning of fossil fuels) in the atmosphere has kept the global mean surface temperature of the order of 0.7 to 1.0 °C lower than it would have been if there were no aerosols in the atmosphere. By decarbonising, humanity will be exposed to a rapid temperature increase as the cooling effect of aerosols diminishes. This is the ‘Faustian Bargain’ humanity has committed to that Hansen et. al. alludes to in their pre-print paper.
Figure 19 shows expected accelerated warming rate post-2010 (yellow area) if aerosol reductions approximately double the net (GHG + aerosol) climate forcing. Upper and lower edges of the yellow area are 0.36 and 0.27 °C per decade warming rates. Per the temperature anomaly graph, the likely Earth System mean surface temperature trajectory is +1.5 °C by the end of the 2020s and +2.0 °C possibly sometime in the 2040s, unless we act rapidly and drastically.
The Hansen et. al. pre-print also includes this statement:
<blockquote<Eventual global warming due to today’s GHG forcing alone – after slow feedbacks operate – is about 10°C.
In a piece by science communicator David Spratt published on Feb 24 at ClimateCodeRed.org, he included:
http://www.climatecodered.org/2023/02/faster-higher-hotter-what-we-learned_24.html
The atmosphere in 2021 contained GHGs with CO₂-equivalent of 508 ppm, of which 415 is CO₂ alone. Humanity has now entered climate territory not encountered for millions of years.
https://gml.noaa.gov/aggi/
On our current GHG emissions trajectory, large regions of the world (where the mean annual temperature exceeds 29 °C) could become unlivable in less than 50 years. See Fig 1 in the PNAS peer-reviewed paper titled Climate Endgame: Exploring catastrophic climate change scenarios, published 1 Aug 2022:
https://www.pnas.org/cms/10.1073/pnas.2108146119/asset/6fb2b07d-d899-441e-8c1c-1795d738c124/assets/images/large/pnas.2108146119fig01.jpg
I think it would be foolish to bet that Hansen & colleagues are significantly wrong on this issue.
“the world will sail past 1.5°C, but 1.5°C may be enough to trigger ‘Hothouse Earth’ cascades”
As I have said. Many. Many. Times. And been blown off, if not outright ridiculed by pretty much every commenter on this board.
As ever, I get the last laugh. Er… cry.
It’s all about you.
Noted.
Your self-inflicted obtuseness sets records at times. You are making it about you: Your ego. Your unwillingness to learn for fifteen freaking years. At the end of the day, everything I have said will happen, is happening, and in the time frames *I* said – not you.
We’ve lost fifteen years NOT because of me, but because of you and your ilk. THAT is why I keep pointing out you NEED to listen: So we don’t lose another 15.
Me: Predicted SLR by 2100 of 1M in *2007-2010* Now considered the low end.
You: ***
Me: 2007-2010: Predicted Antarctic melt had to happen well before 2070 due to the teleconnections of the planet absolutely needing to be more tightly connected than thought at that time. Rationale: Change was happening too fast, Choas, non-linear systems.
Confirmed to have started decades past.
You: ***
Me: 2007: Predicted sensitivity HAD to at the high end, if not higher, due to rates of change already seen. Argued with Rutledge, UCLA, because of his irresponsible claims there weren’t enough FF’s to cause devastating climate change largely upon his choice to run his models *only* at 3C and refusing to run the full range of then-bounded sensitivity which clearly indicated bias.
Hansen, et al: Sensitivity is **at least** 4C, and much higher for long-term sensitivity. 10C already in the pipepline.
You: ***
Me: If we hit 2C, there is little chance of not hitting 3, 4, 5, etc. (2007 – 2022). Logic: see above notes AND lack of hysteresis in the system because, unlike the past, ALL ecosystems are being simultaneously destroyed by both climate and, even more so, anthropogenic idiocy.
Science now: If we hit 2C, we’re probably toast.
You: ***
Me: Tech can’t save us. Lack of resources, lack of time, it’s a poor risk, far less risky and far more effective means exist, etc.
Michaux, Mills, et al: The resource don’t exist.
You: ***
Me: Predicted 2016 ASI low 13 months before it happened.
You: ***
Me: 2. Predicted the Pacific/ASI connection in 2015. 2021: Scripps confirms.
You: ***
And there’s more.
Where’s your contribution, Kevin? What novel climate system did you predict, or what current science did you call out and end up being right about? I know of not a single one. And it’s not just you: It’s every one of you that has driven thinkers from this site for 15 fucking years while you plied your middle-of-the-road, milquetoast, we-must-follow-the-IPCC, unthinking nonsense.
Is all that ego, Kevin? What predictions have you made? None. So why are you so upset that I *have*? Where’s the ego *actually* in all this, Kevin?
Do you have ANY idea what it’s like to be screaming into the wind as the rest of you blithely drive us toward the cliff for no more reason than you couldn’t stand being proven wrong by someone who, on paper, would seem to have but a fraction of the knowledge you and others have?
Me? I’m fucking terrified because egotists like you still play stupid fucking games about the end of civilization rather than simply ask to be taught the kind of thinking that would allow you to see what I see. Ego? Check yourself, Kevin. You and your ilk are a lead weight around a sinking civilization.
Noted again.
In ancient times people tried to understand and predict things by examining the entrails of a dead goat, or by asking god, or by consulting religious leaders or so called wise people. Sure the wise men (or women) no doubt correctly predicted a few simple things, and short term things, by a combination of good instincts, pattern detection, and consideration of cause and effect. And they were ok at general predictions that things would happen more quickly or more slowly. Not too hard doing that.
But the so called wise people were fallible, and seldom good at predicting anything with precision regarding time frames and outcomes (from bits and pieces I have read). And they weren’t too good at accurately predicting the very long term trends (unlike Svante Arrhenius did). So eventually people invented science and advanced maths and scientific modelling…..
No, Kevin. You are only proving your ego makes you unteachable. The risk here is EVERYTHING, yet, you respond with churlish nonsense.
I asked you: Where are your predictions?
You have none, so you deflect with a childish attempt at an insult.
Now I ask you, prove any of my claims above wrong.
I await the crickets and infantile retorts.
nigel, that’s a great example of a non sequitur. Also, red herring.
What it wasn’t was a germane response. 1. Prove any claim I made is false. 2. Prove you have made any claim whatsoever that has come true.
As with Kevin, I await the crickets and the bullshit.
Killian.
My response was an attempt to diplomatically get through to you why nobody here cares about your climate predictions or anyone else’s idiosyncratic predictions. I have made a couple of similar predictions in my head, and they have been accurate, but I have never posted them because I know nobody is going to be interested.
I literally couldn’t care less about your so called predictions. You predicting in 2007 that sea level rise would be one metre in 2100 is nothing revelatory. I remember other people predicting the same around then. Anyone can see the IPCC were too conservative on sea level rise. I’ve long thought the sea level rise worse case would be two metres per century and have mentioned this on this website. However this is not really a prediction as such.
Several of your other predictions are not nearly precise enough quantitatively or on time frames to get my attention. The sort of thing I respect is someone like Arrhenius who predicted, using a model we can examine, that the climate would warm 1 degree c in the 20th century due to industrial emissions. Nothing you have done comes even remotely close to this.
You mentioned Hansens paper on climate sensitivity being high. Hundreds of other papers say climate sensitivity is medium or low. Next week there will probably be a paper finding its low or medium. Its hard to know who is most accurate. This is a good overview below. Please note there are three versions basic, intermediate and advanced, all worth a look.
https://skepticalscience.com/climate-sensitivity-advanced.htm
And Kevin is quite right about the ego thing. You, Victor and Macias Shurley all share one thing in common. You all come across as being very egotistical in an intellectual sense. Its not a good look. And none of you are very convincing.
Nigel, you sad little man, this is exactly why, like God speaking to the church at Laodicea, I spew thee out of my mouth. There is nothing more useless than a milquetoast, can’t-and-won’t commit-to-anything, but slows-everything-because-average-is-safe, can’t-understand-risk, ironically egotistical, certain-their-mediocrity-is-special person like you.
At least we know what to do with the honest denialists. The ones like you? Slippery little devils.
Stop responding to my posts so I can stop slapping you upside the head.
K: like God speaking to the church at Laodicea, I spew thee out of my mouth.
BPL: Killian is convinced he’s like God.
@ killian
You must learn to be more precise in your linguistics, else your teacings will be mis- leading.
They mis- lead your-self first of all.
“Fucking” this and that comes from old norse Verbum infinitiv å fike, = to smash or to swap.
Fick fuck is an http://www.onomatopoeticon.
But that is hardly historically correct for copulare, it is rather mis- consceived in an ugly way on your side who harly knows how, then.,
It probably just got so among the bluddy brittes, because they were not allways willing and had to be taken harder in order for them also to behave..
And after that they were misconsceived and got it wrong and called it “frucking!.
Whereas Correct verbum initiv with article is Å Knulle, Pule.
For your “fuckin” We rather say and you better learn to say say Jævla, meaning Devlish, from greek Diabolos,
And Faen from etym. Finn Fein Faen that means invader, alian and stranger.
Satan is simply called Faen or Fanden by christian name. And that name can be utillized frurther gramatically linguistically in several meaningful ways depending on semantics.
But, never say or write fuking this and that, due to the dangers then of veneric diseases and suspicion of perverse or misconsceived behaviours.
“Everyone can be wrong and misconsceived, the hedhehog remarked, he climbed down again from the clothbrush!”
You must also learn how to damn and swear, Killian.
From immigrated Pakistani Urdu, we have ” Internet Shatan!” that ought to be obvious.
They know how to say it better in sheere Urdu. On nhow to damn and swear over the keyeboard. Never fuck the Keyeboard Killian.
Better swap and smash it and throw it to Gehenna,…. and call its owner by christian name.
Then we have Faen i Hælvete, = Satan in Hell.
Hel- viti is further old norse meaning Gehenna, that was the communal junkyard in old Jerusalem.
They simply threw all that they did not understand down there to Gehenna just outside of town, where they had set fire to it also, That made an eternal or permanent fire with ugly smokes down there.
And with ravens and wolves and foxes and other unclean creatures doing teir best also down in Gehenna or in hel- viti or Hell.
“Go to Hell” makes meaning then.
They have been religiously and linguistically clever, you see.
And you should take my good advices and learn the same.
Why do you think God invented Weed? So we’d be happy when the end of the world came. That’s why!
Hey, it was great while it lasted, but nothing in this life is forever, including humanity. Yeah, we’re going away, but we were all going to go away anyway, it’s just going to happen a lot sooner than we expected, so relax and do what you can to help out. Panic isn’t helpful. Besides, did you watch the Oscar’s last night? That’s where humanity is right now. We’re all focused on what Rihanna was wearing and hoping Will Smith would slap someone else on live television. That’s what you need to be focused on.
Holy crap! A germane response! Good job representing salient rhetoric over egotistical nonsense.
The math says we can still pull out of the nose dive, therefore, I still push the puppies’ noses into the poop they spew.
@ Killian
We may get fed up by the drunken sailors and advice them to the “Spy-gatt”. that is the washout-gates also for spy- spit ………on deck.
On land we have “Fylle- arresten”
That is a special and elementary simple hygienic arrest- cachotte, where they are given the best chanses to recover and get to their civil and human dignities and rights again regardless,
and that is easily washed out again after them and their behaviours.
@John Shanly says: – ” … i.e ignoring cloud albedo changes. – Thoughts? ”
ms: — Anyone who produces an apparently climate-scientific paper in 2023 without taking into account the developments and changes in radiation conditions in recent decades (e.g. CERES data from 2000 to 2020) is tormenting the paper and the attention of the readers with a stupid, insufficient overview. (This also applies to the 5 above answers from the 5 commentators on your sent link and question. They also ignore or denie the loss of cloud albedo. and evapotranspiration)
The CERES data 2000-2020 clearly show an increasing earth energy imbalance (EEI +0.77W/m²) due to an albedo loss of -1.4W/m² and for higher CO2 concentrations a completely atypical increase in the LW-out-@-TOA of +0.57W/m².
You can see the climate development of the last 2 decades most clearly in a model of the global energy balance, which I have supplemented with the observed and measured CERES data (white digits):
https://02adf5ae1c.cbaul-cdnwnd.com/da475a79e4bc41c3b64b8d393a44d235/200000073-f38bff38c3/GEB_2000-2020finish.webp?ph=02adf5ae1c
A significant increase in GW or EEI due to a stronger greenhouse gas effect cannot be traced using the CERES data 2000-2020. The global climate has shifted and continues to shift towards a “clear sky atmosphere” and desertification – accompanied by the loss of snow & ice albedo. .I suspect cloud albedo loss to be 1.7% over the 20 years.
https://media.springernature.com/full/springer-static/image/art%3A10.1007%2Fs00382-018-4413-y/MediaObjects/382_2018_4413_Fig15_HTML.gif?as=webp
macias shurly: – “…is tormenting the paper and the attention of the readers with a stupid, insufficient overview. (This also applies to the 5 above answers from the 5 commentators on your sent link and question. They also ignore or denie the loss of cloud albedo. and evapotranspiration)”
Have you fully read the Hansen et. al. pre-print I referred to in my earlier comment, MS? Perhaps you missed the paper’s discussion on slow, fast and ultrafast feedbacks? Perhaps you also missed in the Hansen et. al. pre-print, for example:
MS, I’d suggest your inference of my ignorance or denial of “loss of cloud albedo and evapotranspiration” is baseless.
Firstly: thank you all for your considered responses.
Secondly: I apologise for wasting your time by posting the link to that paper. Unfortunately I was partially seduced by the implausible conclusions of a highly simplistic analysis.
For a moment I wanted to believe that the horrible reality apparently lying in wait for us would not really happen and so I succumbed to grasping at the flimsiest straw.
I’m now reading climatecodered.org to try to vaccinate myself against further such intellectual failure.
-John
John Shanly,
There is no need to apologise. Blasting this nonsense from Dengler & Reid with a goodly charge of reality is a worthy endeavour.
Mind, I don’t think that blast has been properly applied as the comment here says nothing more than the analysis presented is flat wrong. Myself, I did scan down to the point of their ridiculous ‘Assumption 1’ which was defended by some crazy mention of C3/C4 plants and CO2 partial pressure and from there I wasn’t looking particularly hard for any more reason to brand it ‘nonsense’.
Perhaps why their ‘Assumption1’ is eye-wateringly bad would be worth an explanation.
The assumption is expressed in their Eq 3
. A = aC
. . where
. . A = drawdown of atmospheric CO2,
. . C = level of atmospheric CO2 and
. .a = constant.
(Note this grand assumption is always going to be wrong as drawdown is more a function of the rate of change of atmospheric CO2.)
This ‘assumption’ is thus saying that if emissions drop to zero (as in pre-industrial times), a percentage a of atmospheric CO2 will still be drawn down each period until there is none left. The analysis fixed this bit of obvious unreality earlier in their Eq 2 by assuming there are ‘natural’ CO2 emission, an invention which would result in a non-zero ‘equilibrium’ level for CO2.
Their analysis quantified CO2 in ‘ppm’ which is equal to 2.13Gt(C) or 7.8Gt(CO2).
Using their a=1.65%/y and ‘natural’ emissions of 4’ppm’, that ‘equilibrium’ CO2 level would be 240ppm.
Then, if you fix our emissions at 10Gt(C)/y = 4.7’ppm’, the new ‘equilibrium’ CO2 level would be 530ppm. They actually are reducing this projected emissions rate by 3%/decade for some reason so the projected 2100AD emissions would be 3.7’ppm’ and ‘equilibrium’ becomes 470ppm. This is not a million miles from their crazy pronouncement that CO2 will not rise above 475ppm.
So whoever Dengler & Reid are, they show a remarkable ability to spout utter crap.
No need for apology. We ought to be able to ask questions here! And yours was clearly sincere, which I for one appreciate.
John Shanly,
Thank you for demonstrating a willingness to learn.
If you are reading blog posts at climatecodered.org, then you may also be interested in publications by The National Centre for Climate Restoration (Breakthrough), based in Melbourne, Australia.
https://www.breakthroughonline.org.au/about-1
Contributors to Breakthrough are listed at: https://www.breakthroughonline.org.au/contributors
See also Breakthrough’s Climate Reality Check 2021 at: https://www.climaterealitycheck.net/
Geoff, no matter how gifted an instructor you may be, you can’t teach those who believe they already know it all.
@Geoff M. says: –
” Have you fully read the Hansen et. al. pre-print I referred to in my earlier comment, MS? Perhaps you missed the paper’s discussion on slow, fast and ultrafast feedbacks? ”
ms: — Actually, I reflected on your answer to John’s questions and there is nothing written about “cloud albedo” – the word albedo does not appear in the links you sent either.
This decreasing albedo is only present through the CERES data from 2000 to today.
(and maybe earlier too)
Also present is the fact that the GHE in 2020 has decreased and the atmosphere has become more permeable to long-wave radiation in the last 2 decades, although the concentrations of H2O, CO2, CH4,… have increased.
These very fundamental facts and questions are neither analyzed nor discussed by climate science / IPCC and also by the majority of the audience here in the forum – but outsourced deep into the subconscious of the individual. Climate science asleep. – Why ?
I am not denying climate change, the greenhouse effect or H2O, CO2, CH4 & Co as climate gases – but the IPCC is obviously wrong in solely assigning the CO2 eq. concentrations as the cause of global warming. There is plenty of fact-based evidence for this.
You can find them on my website:
https://climateprotectionhardware.wordpress.com/
There you will also find a quantification of how humans affected evaporation, clouds, CO2 uptake and (land) temperatures long before industrialization.
But please do NOT tell me that draining wetlands, sealing urban land, degrading soils and losing evaporative landscapes in general is a (slow, fast, or ultrafast) feedback of CO2 concentrations. — I suppose that’s enough for you to go to sleep.
macias shurly: – “…the word albedo does not appear in the links you sent either.”
If you had been observant enough to look carefully at the arXiv webpage I’d linked to in my earlier comment (posted on 6 MAR 2023 AT 8:00 PM), then you should have noticed a link near the upper right-hand side of the screen for downloading the pdf file of the full Hansen et. al. pre-print paper. But it seems to me from your latest comment, even after my quoted reference to “Earth’s albedo (reflectivity)” from the pre-print in my comment addressed to you (posted on 7 MAR 2023 AT 11:51 PM), you apparently still fail to concede that you were too quick to judge others.
It seems to me you are continuing to make excuses for your baseless inferences about my ignorance or denial of “loss of cloud albedo and evapotranspiration”, and are now attempting to deflect by an apparent ranting about “fundamental facts and questions are neither analyzed nor discussed by climate science / IPCC”, as well as about how good you seem to think you are about understanding the Earth System.
@macias
“please do NOT tell me that draining wetlands, sealing urban land, degrading soils and losing evaporative landscapes in general is a (slow, fast, or ultrafast) feedback of CO2 concentrations..”
Yes it is exhausting to hear about how watershed restoration does not assist to limit trace gas concentration in atmosphere. So that, therefore, it is of less absolute value.
The mathematical and astrophysical geniuses who are now suddenly and simultaneously the most emotionally attached and expert in environmental outcomes. A sort of mockery, or appropriation. Phony environmentalists; completely disconnected.
ms: the GHE in 2020 has decreased and the atmosphere has become more permeable to long-wave radiation in the last 2 decades
BPL: None of that is true. Where do you get this stuff?
If you have a time series for longwave optical depth, I’d like to see it. The continued increase in temperature implies that it is up, not down.
@ Geoff M. says: –
” If you had been observant enough to look carefully… / It seems to me you are continuing to make excuses for your baseless inferences… / fundamental facts and questions are neither analyzed nor discussed by climate science / IPCC”
ms: — If I had to follow – all the links in the upper right link of a link near the upper right-hand side of the screen for downloading the pdf file – to follow your own non-existent opinion on a climatological problem – I will be 3500 years old.
Why are you hiding behind Hansen?
Neither Hansen nor you attribute the decrease in cloud albedo to the loss of evaporation. According to Hansen, falling aerosol concentrations are the main reason for this.
What makes you think I’m apologizing for something? I am world champion in LED light cooling, I also cool PV and planets with water. I give you a sustainable “no regret” strategy to reduce sea level rise, earth temperature and CO2 concentrations. I have no reason to apologize. –
I criticize your somewhat limited view of water, cloud physics and surface cooling and the far too neurotic perspective on greenhouse gases and GHE. And when I say yours, I mean you, Hansen, the IPCC and all other climate experts who believe here and elsewhere that humans are only causing global warming through CO2 and GHE and that disruptions in the global water cycle are solely feedback from CO2.
You are one of those people whose ancestors drained landscapes, cleared forests and sealed millions of km² of soil for centuries and millennia and now have a problem with dersertification, droughts and record temperatures – but point all 10 index fingers at the greenhouse gases and GHE. This is just too stupid to be true.
@JCM says: –
” Yes it is exhausting to hear about how watershed restoration does not assist to limit trace gas concentration in atmosphere. ”
ms: — The investment costs of the water retention measure described on my website to operate watershed restoration in my home region are estimated (by me) at $ 3.5 – 7.5 million.
My home area is 1250 km², approx. 13.5 million m³ of water/year are retained and approx. 750,000 citizens live there.
Scaled up to 130 million km² of land area with 7.5 billion inhabitants, this means global total costs of an estimated €400-750 billion and $10 to $100 per person on earth for a resilient infrastructure built up over decades. Each m³ of water retained can be sold (here > $ 2/m³), thereby financing the construction and maintenance of the measure.
It`s a win win win + situation, because each m³ of water also cools the region with 680KWh and can absorb 3.7-7.4kg of CO2 through photosynthesis.
The ~12.5 km² roof area in the same region has a similarly high retention potential of ~10.6 million m³ with ~850mm annual precipitation if equipped with rain barrels & overflow on unsealed terrain.
@bpl says: – ” If you have a time series for longwave optical depth, I’d like to see it. The continued increase in temperature implies that it is up, not down. ”
ms: — I’ve pressed the time series on your blind eye three times already:
https://02adf5ae1c.cbaul-cdnwnd.com/da475a79e4bc41c3b64b8d393a44d235/200000073-f38bff38c3/GEB_2000-2020finish.webp?ph=02adf5ae1c
and 6 months ago we have here:
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2022/09/a-ceres-of-fortunate-events/
already extensively debated about CERES data 2000-2020 and their analysis. I don’t have any hope with you anymore because of your massive disability from blindness and Alzheimer’s.
The Ceres data 2000-2020 on which my analysis is based on are 20year trends and you can (maybe ?) find it here:
https://www.mdpi.com/2073-4433/12/10/1297# —> Browse Figures
or here:
https://journals.ametsoc.org/view/journals/clim/31/2/jcli-d-17-0208.1.xml
I’ll quickly explain to you what the three black dots on your yellow blindfold mean – and then it’s over for me.
Dot 1) – Longwave (out) All sky (TOA) = +0.568W/m²/20y
Dot 2) – Longwave surface up flux All sky = +2W/m²/20y
Dot 3) – Longwave surface down flux All sky = +0.54W/m²/20y
EEI = +0.768W/m²/20y
Go to the Beer-Lambert Institute and get your longwave optical depth kit for time series from the blind department.
The GEB linked above clearly shows how the 20-year course of the climate from 2000-2020 was caused.
The evaporative loss of 0.86W/m² causes an increase in LW surface up flux by 0.69W/m² and also increases sensible heat flux by 0.17W/m². The increase of LW surface down flux by 0.54W/m² is far too low to prove a stronger GHE. With the same or higher atmospheric absorbance as 2000 – the value should actually be > 342W/m²
The falling evaporation, together with falling aerosol concentrations ~(-0.2W/m²), also reduces the cloud albedo by -0.8W/m² – which, together with the ice and snow albedo (-0,4W/m²) also falling, explain the total loss of albedo by 1.4W/m².
Now you should be able to explain to me where you can squeeze in a rising GHE in this GEB
@macias
It’s difficult to adequately articulate, but budgets related to environmental stewardship and landuse management regulations are being slashed in practically all jurisdictions.
The leadership class is more keen to announce the technological investment they have attracted with their public expenditure (embezzlement) related to trace gas emission programs.
A relatively simple problem definition and associated solution has been proposed by the astrophysical and computational geniuses in their reductionism.
They plot the increasing temperature as it relates to trace gas and the case is closed on matters of “environment”.
The narrow and shallow propositions from the climate change community are too appealing. The genius of a simple idea that is too good to resist.
Easy enough to understand, and now embraced by practically everyone. A mental shortcut for environmental knowledge and a personal sense of virtue.
Minimize flood, drought, and temperature extremes by purchasing an electric vehicle and installing rooftop solar panels. It’s for the grand kids.
Personally I think it’s is ludicrous, but well intentioned.
After all, it’s the thought that counts, right?
PS
Well meaning people are good people, this I know is true. There is little point in making enemies among ourselves.
ms: bpl says: – ” If you have a time series for longwave optical depth, I’d like to see it. The continued increase in temperature implies that it is up, not down. ”
ms: — I’ve pressed the time series on your blind eye three times already:
https://02adf5ae1c.cbaul-cdnwnd.com/da475a79e4bc41c3b64b8d393a44d235/200000073-f38bff38c3/GEB_2000-2020finish.webp?ph=02adf5ae1c
and 6 months ago we have here:
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2022/09/a-ceres-of-fortunate-events/
already extensively debated about CERES data 2000-2020 and their analysis. I don’t have any hope with you anymore because of your massive disability from blindness and Alzheimer’s.
BPL: Neither of those is a time series of optical depth, which you apparently don’t understand the definition of. And as for the accusations of blindness Alzheimer’s, well, boy, at least mine aren’t self-induced.
JCM: A relatively simple problem definition and associated solution has been proposed by the astrophysical and computational geniuses in their reductionism.
They plot the increasing temperature as it relates to trace gas and the case is closed on matters of “environment”.
BPL: Right, JCM. Physicists think global warming is due to increasing greenhouse gases, therefore they think nothing should be done to reform land use. Good thinking,
You need to Google “non sequitur,”
@BPL
“therefore they think nothing should be done to reform land use”.
i said no such thing. Rather, minimization of hydrological and temperature extremes appears to fall outside the purview of radiation enthusiasts, synoptic dynamicists, and computational experimentalists.
We cannot blame them. our mistake is to confer upon them a sort of faith.
Experts in a small niche, with an aura of grandeur. Deeply influential concerning well-meaning people. Authorities now on policy recommendation. Congrats to your idols.
The reductionism too good to resist; creating a sense of order among chaos. Do this “thing”, first and foremost, and all will be well for your offspring.
A lot of preaching, and defending a narrow conceptual view. So be it. That is the prerogative here.
It is a place to discuss matters of well mixed non condensing trace gas and global average temperature anomalies. Much less do to with real climates.
“Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler” when it comes to our conceptual understanding, yes?
For the trace gas point of view is but a subdivision of the climatological system. The climatological descriptions a subdivision of the ecology. Somehow this has all been inverted….
We collectively wander completely confused now, but more sure than ever. Talking over ourselves. Knowledge displaced.
@JCM
Looking at the glass as half full, “Phony environmentalists;” may be an alternative food source at some point:
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/mar/12/scientists-warn-of-phosphogeddon-fertiliser-shortages-loom
@Don Williams
tackle non point P loading and minimize agricultural inputs by re-assessing the role of soil genesis.
For a few hundred years now the soil oxidation is overwhelmingly exceeding the biosequestration.
Biosequestration = the soils eating the plants.
Once upon a time the food web below our feet in the mid-latitudes was vastly more productive than any conceivable above ground mono plantation today.
Rapid cycling – the litter and deadfall devoured before next season into stable soil carbon.
Unimaginable today. 100 billion tons C/year pedogenesis missing.
For the audience here who might think it’s normal to see mats of leaf litter piled high in the residual ‘nature reserves’. hint: It’s not normal at all.
Caused by humanity in the blink of an eye, reversing the soil development which has been occurring for 400 million years.
The soils now starving to death, biosequestration at a crawl. Soils on life support, rendered to dust. More truckloads of P input, please.
The neo environmentalists really do think the carbon is sequestered in the plants themselves, above the surface. LOL.
If one feel inclined to meddle in agricultural inputs, focus not on prohibition of fertilizer but on development of soil organic matter.
Limiting biocides first and foremost, and minimizing the fallowing is a good start. Dead soils are in fact dead. They consume nothing.
This requires systems thinking, not reductionism.
Do not seek to plant trees, seek rapid biogeochemical cycling.
The ecosystem co-benefits cannot be understated, which includes climate related observables.
This is how you leave wealth to future generations.
It is not an afterthought or something of secondary importance.
JCM
my response is perhaps unclear! so I have composed using MS PAINT a highly technical schematic (sarc) to illustrate the relationship between soil carbon, soil structure, essential minerals, biodigesters, biosequestration, water, erosion, and nutrient retention. The stable soil organics (green zig zags) creating the structure and voids among the minerals with which the biogeochemical process operates. https://www.dropbox.com/s/ae1zswhcloxoi9n/SOILMATRIX.png?dl=0
@bpl says: –
” If you have a time series for longwave optical depth, I’d like to see it. The continued increase in temperature implies that it is up, not down. // Neither of those is a time series of optical depth, which you apparently don’t understand the definition of. ”
ms: — Transmittance (T) is the fraction of incident light which is transmitted. In other words, it’s the amount of light that “successfully” passes through the substance (/atmosphere)
and comes out the other side.
It is defined as T = I/Io, where I = transmitted light (“output”) and Io = incident light (“input”). %T is merely (I/Io) x 100. For example, if T = 0.25, then %T = 25%.
A %T of 25% would indicate that 25% of the light passed through the sample and emerged on the other side.
Absorbance (A) is the flip-side of transmittance and states how much of the light the atmosphere absorbed. It is also referred to as “optical density.” Absorbance is calculated as a logarithmic function of T: A = log10 (1/T).
The GEB from Trenberth & Loeb –
https://02adf5ae1c.cbaul-cdnwnd.com/da475a79e4bc41c3b64b8d393a44d235/200000073-f38bff38c3/GEB_2000-2020finish.webp?ph=02adf5ae1c
supplemented with the 20-year trends of the CERES data shows the following differences in the values below ————————————————-~ 2000 // 2020
Φet —————- radiant power transmitted by atmosphere; — 239,9 // 240,47 (W/m²)
Φeatt ————– radiant power attenuated by atmosphere; — 498,6 // 500,57 ”
Φei —————- radiant power received by atmosphere; —– 398,2 // 400,2
Φee ————— radiant power emitted by atmosphere; —— 340,3 // 340,84
T = Φet/Φei ——- transmittance of that material; ———– 0,602461 // 0,600874
A = Absorbance = 2 – log(%T): ——————————— 0,220071 // 0,221216
τ = optical depht: ——————————————— 0,506732 // 0,509369
ATT = Φeatt/Φei — attenuation of that material; ————— 1,2521 // 1,2508
E = Φee/Φei —— emittance of that material, —————– 0,8546 // 0,851674
Levenson! You are correct that a warmer planet means a higher optical depth. But the warming is mainly due to short-wavelength loss of albedo – and not due to the increase in greenhouse gases – and as a result corresponds to a shift from an all-sky to a clear-sky climate.
Since 2000, declining evaporation, clouds and (relative) humidity have been the main triggers and not the GHE. The cause of the decreasing evaporation is a long term trend from fewer El Nino events (more evaporation and clouds) to more La Nina phases (less evaporation and clouds) but also human land use change. BTW, the loss of sea ice & snow albedo and aerosols has a very similar SW & LW effect to the loss of clouds.
@ JCM says: – ” They plot the increasing temperature as it relates to trace gas and the case is closed on matters of “environment. ”
ms: — Last week I saw a graph in the business newspaper showing the global production and sales of ice cream. It fits like a glove with the global temperature trend curves.
Today I am sure that the more ice cream we eat, the faster global warming will progress.
!!! Please stop sucking ice cream lol…
ms: the warming is mainly due to short-wavelength loss of albedo – and not due to the increase in greenhouse gases
BPL: No, it is not. Warming by greenhouse gases has been observationally confirmed.
Evans, W.F.J., and E. Puckrin 2006. “Measurements of the Radiative Surface Forcing of Climate.” 18th Conference on Climate Variability and Change, P1.7
“The earth’s climate system is warmed by 35 C due to the emission of downward infrared radiation by greenhouse gases in the atmosphere (surface radiative forcing) or by the absorption of upward infrared radiation (radiative trapping). Increases in this emission/absorption are the driving force behind global warming. Climate models predict that the release of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere has altered the radiative energy balance at the earth’s surface by several percent by increasing the greenhouse radiation from the atmosphere. With measurements at high spectral resolution, this increase can be quantitatively attributed to each of several anthropogenic gases. Radiance spectra of the greenhouse radiation from the atmosphere have been measured at ground level from several Canadian sites using FTIR spectroscopy at high resolution. The forcing radiative fluxes from CFC11, CFC12, CCl4, HNO3, O3, N2O, CH4, CO and CO2 have been quantitatively determined over a range of seasons. The contributions from stratospheric ozone and tropospheric ozone are separated by our measurement techniques. A comparison between our measurements of surface forcing emission and measurements of radiative trapping absorption from the IMG satellite instrument shows reasonable agreement. The experimental fluxes are simulated well by the FASCOD3 radiation code. This code has been used to calculate the model predicted increase in surface radiative forcing since 1850 to be 2.55 W/m2. In comparison, an ensemble summary of our measurements indicates that an energy flux imbalance of 3.5 W/m2 has been created by anthropogenic emissions of greenhouse gases since 1850. This experimental data should effectively end the argument by skeptics that no experimental evidence exists for the connection between greenhouse gas increases in the atmosphere and global warming.”
Philipona, R., B. Dürr, C. Marty, A. Ohmura, and M. Wild 2004. “Radiative Forcing–Measured at Earth’s Surface–Corroborate the Increasing Greenhouse Effect.” Geophys. Res. Lett. 31, L03202
“…Here we show that atmospheric longwave downward radiation significantly increased (+5.2(2.2) Wm 2) partly due to increased cloud amount (+1.0(2.8) Wm 2) over eight years of measurements at eight radiation stations distributed over the central Alps. Model calculations show the cloud-free longwave flux increase (+4.2(1.9) Wm 2) to be in due proportion with temperature (+0.82(0.41) C) and absolute humidity (+0.21(0.10) g m 3) increases, but three times larger than expected from anthropogenic greenhouse gases. However, after subtracting for two thirds of temperature and humidity rises, the increase of cloud-free longwave downward radiation (+1.8(0.8) Wm 2) remains statistically significant and demonstrates radiative forcing due to an enhanced greenhouse effect.”
Feldman, D.R.; Collins, W.D.; Gero, P.J.; Torn, M.S.; Mlawer, E.J.; Shippert, T.R. 2015. Observational determination of surface radiative forcing by CO2 from 2000 to 2010. Nature 519, 339-343.
The climatic impact of CO2 and other greenhouse gases is usually quantified in terms of radiative forcing1, calculated as the difference between estimates of the Earth’s radiation field from preindustrial and present day concentrations of these gases. Radiative transfer models calculate that the increase in CO2 since 1750 corresponds to a global annual mean radiative forcing at the tropopause of 1.82 ± 0.19 W m-2 (ref. 2). However, despite widespread scientific discussion and modelling of the climate impacts of well mixed greenhouse gases, there is little direct observational evidence of the radiative impact of increasing atmospheric CO2. Here we present observationally based evidence of clearsky CO2 surface radiative forcing that is directly attributable to the increase, between 2000 and 2010, of 22 parts per million atmospheric CO2. The time series of this forcing at the two locations—the Southern Great Plains and the North Slope of Alaska—are derived from Atmospheric Emitted Radiance Interferometer spectra3together with ancillary measurements and thoroughly corroborated radiative transfer calculations4. The time series both show statistically significant trends of 0.2 W m-2 per decade (with respective uncertainties of ±0.06 W m-2 per decade and ±0.07 W m-2 per decade) and have seasonal ranges of 0.1–0.2 W m-2. This is approximately ten per cent of the trend in downwelling longwave radiation5,6,7. These results confirm theoretical predictions of the atmospheric greenhouse effect due to anthropogenic emissions, and provide empirical evidence of how rising CO2 levels, mediated by temporal variations due to photosynthesis and respiration, are affecting the surface energy balance.
@ levenson
About Matthias Schürle:
Dia- lectic materialism on etnic raqcial level is incureable.
Keep in mind that not all Germans were frlat- bombed and it may be even worse in the USA for instance, where many of them migrated because they were impossible at home..
Along with Marx & Ljenin who learnt their logics from Prof. Genosse Hegel in Berlin,… east Berlin… …
…… Matter is created…. and can be anihiltated again simply by denial. By Contra- diction or “anti- these”!
I repeat!
Reality and permanence of matter is ridiculous and ailian to that bloodgroup. .
proof:
http://www.Die/Phaenomenologie/des/Geistes.
Which is is German and means the phaenomenology of ghosts.
And this state- religion was- and is— central stimulated………. by a remedy that was called “Pervitin” under Adolph. and given out to the soldiers and to the people. Today by more progressive and vulgar and secret, professional, and inaugurated names.
@ Levenson
The real problem here to my opinion, is that the role of water in all its forms remain a vector or factor of highest uncertainty to global warming.
“What about the clouds? what about the waters and vapours? and what about the snow and ices?
That all is also some of my highest interest, where I look forward to real improovements. Because I can follow and discuss water and thermics and optics if necessary.
But the accute problem comes then, that we cannot have Schürlers that are most obvious German para- scientific romantics of traditional style, namely the Dia- lectic materialists, , those perpetually unsucessful poets, painters, , politicians, and teachers , fishing and stirring into those foggy waters and horizons, that are not yet too clear,…. and telling us the truth abouit it.
And denying the shown primary role of CO2 all the time, due to that peculiar warrant..
That is sinful, and a quite serious pollution problem.
Humboldt Planc Helmholz Kirchoff Fraunhofer,…even Rahmstorf…. were better.
@bpl
Levenson! – bad news first – you’ve missed the point again. It is about the global development of the climate from 2000 to today – and not about local observations in the Alps or anywhere else before the year 2000. I am not denying climate change, the greenhouse effect or H2O, CO2, CH4 & Co as climate gases , but it is necessary to subject the individual absorbers to a more up-to-date, more precise analysis.
– You, me and above all our Grandmaster G.A. Schmidt know that the total net effects for water vapor, clouds, CO2 and the other forcings are 50%, 25%, 19% and 7%, respectively.
https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2010JD014287
– Seen in this way, clouds make a 31.5% higher contribution to the GHE than CO2. Together with the aerosols, they belong to the LW absorbers, which cause heating when they are (partially) removed, since their cooling SW effect outweighs the LW effect. So it is quite possible to provoke a higher earth temperature with a less stronger GHE.
– The relationship between CO2 and radiative forcing is logarithmic at concentrations up to around eight times the current value. Constant concentration increases thus have a progressively smaller warming effect. Between 2000 and 2020 the radiative forcing of CO2 = ~ 0.6W/m² for CO2-eq was ~0.71W/m².
CO2-eq. or GHE as the sole driver of the GW should, according to the general definition of the GHE , cause a decrease in LW-out-@TOA of -0.71W/m² and then also increase LW-down-surface accordingly. But in the period under consideration this is not visible and is superimposed as the observed CERES value shows an increase of +0.57W/m².
As an explanation for this invisibility of the climate forcing of CO2-eq. overall an increased LW-up-surface flux of at least +1.28W/m² (0.57 +0.71) is needed.
——
* ~ +0.51W/m² due to lower LW effect(GHE) of -1.7% clouds (albedo)
* ~ +0.08W/m² due to 10% less aerosols and disappearing sea ice.
* ~ +0.69W/m² through !!! less evaporation at the surface !!! as can be seen in the Trenberth & Loeb GEB above.
The generally observed trend towards more heat and drought events is of course visible in the GEB.
Now the good news: Earlier this week my national government announced an action plan to counteract the water shortage.
The media also mentioned cisterns and rain barrels in the cities, about which half a dozen idiots have been making fun of here in the forum for the last 2 years.
@crabonito
With your penchant for acting as an obnoxious, aggressive crab, you should urgently find another club – preferably one for aging white conservative idiots or other racists with hot air in their heads.
PS
You must learn better dialectics, Genosse Schürle. Walter Ulbricht to Eric Honecker were not good at that.
Puttler also shares that background with you. DS.
.
ms: With your penchant for acting as an obnoxious, aggressive crab, you should urgently find another club – preferably one for aging white conservative idiots or other racists with hot air in their heads.
BPL: I’m a liberal Democrat who marched for the Wilmington 10–I was the guy who left the sign inside the White House gates–and attended Black Lives Matter rallies. I attend the most racially integrated church in North America, Eastminster Presbyterian in Pittsburgh, whose motto is “Christ-centered and intentionally cross-cultural.” I did voting place security for the Democratic Party as late as last November. That’s after being a Constitutional Syndicalist in my college days. You have much more in common with racists than I do, since you prejudge people without evidence.
As so often with pseudoscientists, you can’t argue the science, so you try to make it about me. In this case, it’s a spectacular fail.
Emergency situation
A 530 ft snow pack in the Sierra mountains could produce a 45 ft wall of water over much of the length of California. An emergency measure could be to open the California aquifer as a reservoir to capture this clean water for positive benefit. An emergency declaration by Governor Newsom is needed to give such a project the needed priority to prevent such a possible disaster. Presently viewed atmospheric river may bring water which could exacerbate a disaster.
Short term, simple ditches can be constructed where the aquifer is shallow, such that access is created, much along the lines of the Santa Clara County system of percolation ponds that have, for many years, functioned as means of refreshing the smaller local aquifer.
Longer term, the California aquifer is known to be difficult to fill. Yet we have clean water from melting snow pack every year that is lost into the salty Pacific. Boring technology is possibly useful in drilling tunnel aqua-ducts into the deep aquifer.
Recharging the California aquifer could recharge California agriculture which would do more for CO2 retention than all the work yet accomplished to limit climate change.
There is not a 530 FOOT snow pack in the Sierra Mountains! Granted, snow pack is well above average for this time of year, but as of March 3, the water equivalent was averaging from around 40 to 46 INCHES, as opposed to the 45 FEET that you’re concerned about.
https://cdec.water.ca.gov/snowapp/sweq.action
There’s not going to be a wall of water. The emergency situation is for the people who are snowed in at the moment.
The next atmospheric river is aimed more at northern California, where the snowpack is not as anomalous as further south, and also not quite as large a water equivalent.
.
Hr Pollack
I think they should scream Hallelujah for all that snow in California.
On snow on the temple hill in Jerusalem they do that. There is big feast also whenever there is snow in Sahara.
Our magpies have assembled and discussed it now for weeks, and today they took the annual bathing ceremony in the hidden melting pool in the garden,.
California will be washed into the ocean? Except for the pollution, what’s wrong with that? Win-win for America! :)
KIA: California will be washed into the ocean? Except for the pollution, what’s wrong with that? Win-win for America! :)
BPL: Your desire to commit genocide does you no credit.
Well, Michael Knowles just said at CPAC that “trans ideology” must be “eradicated from public life.” Many have jumped to the conclusion that that means eliminating trans people physically, but I’m charitable enough to think that most likely Knowles would be satisfied with just making trans folk unspeakable and hence invisible.
“Back in the closet!” Of course, that wouldn’t solve the issue of freelance violence directed their way, or indeed the issue of gender dysphoria itself.
But apparently KIA is a tad more extreme, WRT perhaps to all forms of “wokism.”
Levenson
sometimes whishful thinking is also quite appropriate.
Think of having Los Angeles and San Franscisco and Sacramento, and Hollywood and Silicon walley and all that washed out into the sea ?.
What about whishing them a big earthquake also?
You will have to resign on a few wares like Heinz Ketchup and California raisins, almonds and canned Prunus Persica. But, all that we can have from Tyrkia. Sicilia also needs a better market without Californian competition. .
Elon Musk has had success enough now.
Andalucia in Spain and Marocco, could n`t they sell it better?
Kryim and Georgia could deliver it as well, and think of Syria and Kurdistan. They need a market. We sell the dried fishes and they sell the fruits. Would n`t that be lovely?
California has only got the Berkeley University. Else they have no argument and deliver nothing. Berkeley can be mooved uphill.
@Jim Bullis says: –
” Yet we have clean water from melting snow pack every year that is lost into the salty Pacific. ”
ms: — You’re right – one of the solutions is water retention from precipitation or river water.
I recommend converting former mines underground into water storage tanks that can double as pump storage and/or compressed air storage as a large battery for renewable energy.
They can also be used to store heat and cold at the same time and are a good protection against drought and floods.
https://climateprotectionhardware.files.wordpress.com/2022/10/pumpspeicher_ahrtal.jpg
But there are also other, cheaper measures to improve a region’s water management.
https://climateprotectionhardware.wordpress.com/
Another 60 inches of snow was added yesterday.
Also, the ‘Boring technology’ refers to tunnel boring machinery used by the Elon Musk company called the Boring Company for building tunnels in Los Angeles and Las Vegas.
“Also, the ‘Boring technology’ refers to tunnel boring machinery used by the Elon Musk company called The Boring Company, for building tunnels in Los Angeles and Las Vegas.”
Musk is definitely Boring, and he’s no genius. He’s also managed to turn Twitter into a boring company.
Ok, just a last thought about why it matters whether we limit global population for conscious environmental reasons vs for solely economic reasons. Think about it, Zebra. If we just hope that when the rising population levels meets the falling rate at some point in the future, then stays there, the world population might top out at 10 or 12 billion. (or more. Hopfenberg and Pimentel say that “Populations increase as a function of food availability”, so it could continue to rise as long as the resources are there). The results are in either case lots of extinctions of both human and other species, and a wrecked earth.
If we do it for conscious, environmental reasons, we can limit it right now, and even bring it down.to carrying capacity levels again.
That’s the differences between these two approaches.
You can have the last word on this.
Just thought of a slogan on the two approaches,
There’s a world of difference. :)
Many have experimented with the intentional method. Here’s a list just in the last 120-130 years:
https://www.scaruffi.com/politics/dictat.html
More info:
https://hawaii.edu/powerkills/JCR.ART.HTM
Mr Knowitall
I found something for you.
Great is he who knows.
Greater is he who knows where to ask..
SANN!
From Piet Hein Kumbel Gruk, Denmark.
No Zebra, I didn’t try it.
My other question is, if you don’t want to discuss things …
I just have no desire to argue the obvious endlessly as is done here and thereby waste time and stall action.
“Anyway, you’ve confirmed my point… it’s all about control.”
Are you implying that I just want to control what people can do? That I don’t really care about other species, or am I misinterpreting?
How to solve it? I’ve been honest in saying that I don’t know all the details, but as an added point in my article says, answers that are blurry in foresight, are often obvious in hind.
Many years ago when I first heard of global warming and being blissfully unaware of the greenhouse effect I assumed that the warming was caused by the heat humanity produced by burning fossil fuel, nuclear power and wood etc. My question is does this heat factor at all in global warming or is it just insignificant in the grand scheme of things?
[Response: It can be locally important (i.e. in urban heat islands), but globally it is very small compared to the impact of CO2 changes. – gavin]
Phil Glynn,
Today’s energy production globally contributes not much more than a single percentage of the warming resulting from the increase in the greenhouse effect. This SkS graphic from 2005 shows it at 2% and about a third the size of the energy flowing through the Earth’s crust. Of course the energy flowing through the crust has always been there so it doesn’t contribute to modern global warming
In terms of fossil fuels, the atmospheric CO2 from burning coal continues to provide warming while the direct warming from burning a pile of coal is a one-off event. The CO2-from-coal warming requires less than a year to provide the global warming energy equivalent to that released by the burning of the coal. CO2 from natural gas (which contains hydrogen) will require a little longer to do likewise but less than two years.
“I’m glad to see that everyone has come around to my way of thinking about the need to reduce population as rapidly a possible.”
Quite inaccurate and unnecessary egoism. Come on, let’s put this childish pettiness behind us, stop pointing fingers and calling names, join together and figure out how to deal with this, shall we, Killian? All it does is turn people off.
I did not say that. Follow the threading more accurately, eh?
That was intentional. A bit of a joke. Sorry.
I mean, Zebra.
“Quite inaccurate and unnecessary egoism….Killian…I mean Zebra”
Agreed, but what a classic freudian slip!
What’s the optimum human population for earth? We can start with that question. Then what’s the optimum human population for each country? Then for each city. I don’t mean how many can we cram into one place and thus displace the other 10,000,000 species or so that inhabit this planet. I mean carrying capacity wise. Figure that out. Then promote it, from political leaders on down.
In my opinion we have about 10 times too many people here. But that’s just my opinion.
Now I really want to live up to my vow to stop talking about this!
*Don’t do it, Ron. Don’t take the bait*
The problem with the “optimum population” approach is that it will very predictably be approached from a jingoistic perspective, with a great many folks feeling that the world needs more of their sort, and rather fewer of all others.
The question of “whose ox is gored” is always humanly relevant, I fear.
Unlike eliminating the burning of fossil fuels in 30 years, of course. I mean, it’s not like anyone would go to war over the threat of their assets being devalued, right?
The question of “who has the nukes” will be even more relevant, I fear.
Copernicus ERA5 SAT reanalysis has posted its February page with a global anomaly of +0.49ºC, up on January’s +0.44ºC. Feb 2023 is the 5th warmest February on record and also the 5th warmest start to the year (ranked below 2020, 2016, 2017 & 2019 in both cases). Although an El Niño is forecast for the end of the year which would boost the full annual anomaly higher, there is quite a jump required for 2023 to climb up the rankings.
Feb 2023 is the 55th highest anomaly in the all-month record.
…….. Jan-Feb Ave … Annual Ave ..Annual ranking
2016 .. +0.81ºC … … … +0.63ºC … … … 1st
2020 .. +0.78ºC … … … +0.63ºC … … … 2nd
2017 .. +0.64ºC … … … +0.54ºC … … … 4th
2019 .. +0.49ºC … … … +0.59ºC … … … 3rd
2023 .. +0.46ºC
2022 .. +0.45ºC … … … +0.49ºC … … … 5th
2018 .. +0.44ºC … … … +0.46ºC … … … 7th
2007 .. +0.42ºC … … … +0.23ºC … … … 15th
2010 .. +0.40ºC … … … +0.32ºC … … … 9th
2015 .. +0.39ºC … … … +0.45ºC … … … 8th
2021 .. +0.34ºC … … … +0.47ºC … … … 6th
PS NRDC claims CO2 we exhale should not be counted because it is from what plants have inhaled.
https://www.nrdc.org/stories/do-we-exhale-carbon
I think that argument is claptrap for two reasons. One, Carbon in a tree (vice a corn field) is sequestered as much as coal in the ground. Two, NRDC does not consider the enormous carbon emitted in cultivating, harvesting and transporting out food. We don’t step outside the door and pluck cheeseburgers off the cheeseburger bush at lunch time.
https://ourworldindata.org/food-ghg-emissions
Interesting question, or rather questions.
To your first point, it’s hardly a binary choice between trees and corn. And the sequestration accomplished by trees is temporary, too–if trees are in equilibrium (they’re not, of course) then so is the carbon flux ‘through’ trees. Plus, whether it’s rice, corn, or something, else, we’ve got to eat. Ultimately, it’s carbon from fossil sources that’s the issue, not carbon already in the system.
To your second point, you’re right that our food supply is incredibly carbon-intensive, and yes, that urgently needs to change. However, that’s not the carbon that we actually exhale–that’s carbon emitted from feedlots, and tractors, and food-processing plants (and their power sources, many times). And all those are already ‘counted.’ No double counts, please!
1) A hardwood tree in North America can grow for 100+ years — and even when it dies it will retain carbon for several decays of decay. Useful if we are trying to slow the rise of CO2.
2) Whereas CO2 absorbed by agricultural plants and consumed by humans is released back into the atmosphere within a year or 2. Flows are important in addition to sinks.
Plus there is the methane emission problem if we all turn vegan and have to consume beans for protein. Seems unfair to pin all the blame on the cows.
The relevant distinction here for you to internalize is that there are two things going on and you have to keep both in mind at the same time.
First there is an annual carbon cycle as carbon cycles from plants to the atmosphere and back due to the much greater plant biomass of the Northern Hemisphere and other factors. No net carbon is put into or taken away over time.
Then there is the carbon emissions from sinks were long isolated from the atmosphere that humans have decided to mine and put into the atmosphere. While natural sinks are able to soak up some of it (at a cost to shellfish in the ocean among other issues) there is a quite significant release of this mined carbon into the atmosphere annually.
Kevin, you’re right and Zebra is right that it is “jingoistic” and “magical thinking”. I don’t deny it. Never have. Not realistic. But it’s still possible if we’re really serious and thoughtful about it. Think of all the “impossible” things that have become possible once we decided to really try them.
If we know that an action that we need to take will become an inevitable action for us somewhere down the road in the future (and that dealing with it then will likely be much more consequential if we put it off now), that someday we will have to address it one way or the other, then why the heck put it off?
Zebra, you’re fond of asking others what their solution is to over-population, “to reduce population as rapidly as possible” as you put it. I put the question to you now. What is your solution (that doesn’t involve “magical thinking”)? ‘Cause as it is right now, I can’t tell if you really want it reduced or not.
My apologies if I misstated things.
BBC News is reporting a new cheaper way for Direct Air Capture of CO2 which additionally would allow the easy deposition of the captured CO2 in the oceans as baking soda. The removal is costed at “less than $100/tonne” and a paper cited – Chen et al (2023) ‘Direct air capture (DAC) and sequestration of CO2: Dramatic effect of coordinated Cu(II) onto a chelating weak base ion exchanger’.
Interestingly, the largest carbon capture plant in the UK which opened last year captures 40.000t(CO2)/y from emissions also turns it into baking soda but presumably with more conventional carbon capture methods.
It would be great if the analysis of various methods of direct air capture included energy and materials accounting, as well as economic accounting. I’ve lost track of how many supposedly promising methods I’ve seen touted over the years. I always see the accounting in terms of money, if at all.
The laws of thermodynamics require that it takes more energy to capture and put the carbon back into the ground than you get by digging it out and oxidizing it. You can argue that you can get more energy out of hydrocarbons by oxidizing the hydrogen, too, but it doesn’t generally work in practice.
So, the energy accounting runs a negative balance. If you’re making it up with renewable energy, great. However, then the economics says that it will generally be cheaper to just use that energy for something else you want. It’s always going to cost money to do direct air capture – lots of it. Usually we’d rather do other stuff with most of the money, at least so far. It’s just more fun to spend money on new stuff than on fixing problems that we’ve already made.
Materials accounting also gets interesting. We’re burning an enormous amount of fossil fuel. Finding spaces to capture and return it in the amounts required is extremely difficult. (e.g. What happens if we start dumping multiple gigatons of bicarbonate into the oceans?) And how do we generate the quantities of substrates required to do the capturing?
All the direct air capture methods I’ve seen so far amount to boutique efforts to waylay a little bit of the carbon. They’re suitable for specialized applications, research grants, and general greenwashing purposes. Hardly scalable into something that would actually make a dent in atmospheric CO2 concentrations.
John Pollack,
It is indeed exceedingly frustrating that DAC technologies as well as CCS technologies fail to explain the total solution; the cost of the infrastructure, the scalability, the energy use and also to allow/show comparisons. This baking soda approach is talking of costs “less than $100/tonne” so not a million miles from the Carbon Engineering Ltd claim of “approx US$100 per ton at large scale” although that likely is for the capture and not for the CO2 storage into saline aquifers (which is at least scalable). Because the Carbon Eng method is storing CO2, the energy use is not using energy for chemical conversion of the CO2 but (from memory) I once calculated they still use about half the energy of burning carbon in the capturing.
And given this is an issue of some considerable current significance, why is this still requiring personal number crunching to dig out this important information?
Hr Polack
I se that also you referre to “The laws of thermodynamics”…
Which I think is unprecize and wrong.
Thermo- dynamics is rather what it says, steam- engines, diesel otto and turbo and jet- motors . They are all thermo and dynamic. With that principple of Sadi Carnot for more efficient steamengines.
But for most other uses, it would be better to say principles and laws of entrophy, where it does not have to be motoric or dynamic or “thermo” at all.
It is rather about the reversibility of processes and increasing entrophy allways for the wholeness of systems. Further, about the cost of processes in terms of necessary money, expensive materials, or energy.
Or the cost of making time or processes go in opposite direction. That it is often quite impossible. And not because of “thermodynamics”. , Steam engines,…
Rot and decay, even radioactive decay, and bio, as life and time goes on,. “SIC TRANCIT….” in the processes….. avoid having to teach about and to explain that by one and only one theory and model principle that is also falsely chosen..
I believe you all shoulde think over this and dream more autenticly about this first..
RSS have updated their TLT posting for both Jan & Feb (although as I type, not yet (a href=”https://images.remss.com/msu/msu_time_series.html”>their browser tool). The Febuary monthly TLT anomaly comes in at +0.54ºC, the 10th warmest Feb on the RSS TLT record (11th in UAH TLT, 5th in ERA5 SAT re-analysis). The Feb RSS anomaly is up on their Jan anomaly of +0.45ºC which was in turn up on their rather chilly +0.42ºC December 2022 anomaly (this the lowest RSS TLT anomaly since April 2015).
The start of the year in RSS TLT is sitting 14th in the rankings (17th in UAH, 5th in ERA5 SAT) but it will likely rise up the RSS rankings some way as the El Niño predicted for the end of the year will be boosting these TLT anomalies, possibly well into the top ten.
…….. Jan-Feb Ave … Annual Ave ..Annual ranking
2016 .. +1.10ºC … … … +0.82ºC … … … 2nd
2020 .. +0.97ºC … … … +0.82ºC … … … 1st
2017 .. +0.71ºC … … … +0.69ºC … … … 4th
2010 .. +0.70ºC … … … +0.62ºC … … … 7th
2019 .. +0.70ºC … … … +0.76ºC … … … 3rd
1998 .. +0.67ºC … … … +0.58ºC … … … 9th
2021 .. +0.63ºC … … … +0.62ºC … … … 5th
2007 .. +0.60ºC … … … +0.42ºC … … … 14th
2015 .. +0.59ºC … … … +0.62ºC … … … 6th
2018 .. +0.57ºC … … … +0.55ºC … … … 10th
2022 .. +0.52ºC … … … +0.60ºC … … … 8th
2005 .. +0.52ºC … … … +0.47ºC … … … 12th
2013 .. +0.52ºC … … … +0.43ºC … … … 13th
2023 .. +0.49ºC
2003 .. +0.47ºC … … … +0.40ºC … … … 15th
2002 .. +0.45ºC … … … +0.39ºC … … … 16th
2014 .. +0.45ºC … … … +0.49ºC … … … 11th
A person exhales an estimated 0.9 kilogram of CO2 per day 328.5 kg per year 8 billion people emit 2.9 Gigatons per year by breathing – CO2 that stays in the atmosphere.
The emissions could increase by a factor of ? If we all discard our automobiles and transition to bicycling (maybe the reason for China’s high emissions?) I need to see if Vaclav Smil has done a calculation on this.
The only reason a person can exhale CO2 is that they ate something that contained carbon and metabolized it. The stuff we eat ultimately came from plants that harvested CO2 from the atmosphere. The exhalations of we and all the other animals on the planet are balanced by the inhalations of plants from the atmosphere.
This generalization becomes untrue over geological time scales. Plants might harvest more CO2 from the atmosphere than animals manage to consume, and get buried instead of being eaten (or rotted). Over a great amount of time, buried plant material becomes a fossil fuel deposit. Inorganic processes can also absorb or release excess carbon over geological time.
We’ve now created a short circuit for what has been an extremely slow process by digging up and burning fossil fuels to support various activities – including transportation, agriculture, and maintaining a comfortable temperature in our dwellings. It is this short circuit that results in rapidly rising CO2 levels and rapid climate change.
As I noted to Kevin above, if we are worried about near term temperature rises/tipping points then there is a difference between a hardwood tree absorbing CO2 and holding it for 100 years then slowly releasing it via decay vs a 1-2 year cycle in which CO2 is absorbed by agriculture crops and then released back into the atmosphere as human consume the crops. 3 Gton a year is 3 Gton a year whether from coal or human breathing. There is no evidence that plants only absorb human emissions and not coal emissions.
The point being that Zebra’s arguments re human overpopulation are valid –especially when you consider the even greater emissions generated by agriculture to produce our food — as noted in the link I provided to Kevin.
Unless you have a rather unusual diet in which much of your carbon is coming from trees (e.g. you’re eating a lot of beavers, termites, and wood fungus) the amount of carbon you and 7.95 billion or whatever others exhale is irrelevant to the global CO2 levels being out of balance. It’s part of a short cycle that lasts a few years or less. You can ignore it in the accounting, because it goes in and out at essentially the same rate. *(a simplified example below.)
I agree that population is highly relevant. The major portion of the world population that is supported by industrial agriculture has a very big carbon footprint because the energy input from fossil fuels into growing the food is quite large. Both industrial and subsistence agriculture can add to that footprint by land clearing – such as cutting down the trees you mentioned. Soil decarbonization is also a factor. Those are all long cycle activities that raise CO2 levels in a way uncompensated by plant uptake, unlike animal exhalations.
*simplified example: You and your spouse are doing a household budget. The two of you are in the habit of swapping a dime back and forth numerous times a day. Your position is that the dime swaps have to be included in the budget. They amount to the transfer of hundreds of dollars per year between the two of you. Your spouse’s position is that you can ignore the dimes as part of the budget, because they don’t accumulate, just move back and forth. You say that the dimes matter, because sometimes you may use one to buy other items, and swap back a different dime later. Your spouse says it doesn’t matter where each individual dime goes, as long as you’re still swapping one dime back and forth. It would make a difference if one of you was stashing dimes in a jar, and the other had to keep coming up with new ones, but that’s not happening.
It makes as much sense to worry about keeping track of all the dimes as it does to worry about exhaling CO2. As long as it’s part of a short cycle and doesn’t accumulate, it will balance overall. It’s the items that don’t balance that you have to be concerned with, not the ones that repeatedly get cycled back and forth in the same amounts over a short period, such as metabolic CO2 between plants and animals. Concerns do include changes in forest and other land cover, among many other items.
Don Williams,
You say with regard to the carbon cycle, “3 Gton a year is 3 Gton a year whether from coal or human breathing. “ It is not true.
Consider the analogy of a swimming pool full of water from which occasionally somebody takes a bucket full then sits the bucket down in the corner. Later this full bucket will be emptied back into the bath. The bucket which concerns you empties and fills a total of 3 Gt(CO2)/y which is small compared to other buckets also being filled and emptied, all the buckets emptying and filling some 600Gt(CO2)/y from the pool which contains 3,300Gt(CO2). Even those hardwood trees breathe.
That use of the 3Gt(CO2)/y bucket is not the same as the coal bucket which some joker fills from the standpipe and pours into the pool at a rate of 40Gt(CO2)/year. This 40Gt(CO2) bucket does result in more water taken from the pool being stored in the buckets, but about half the 40Gt(CO2)/y remains in the pool which is slowly filling higher.
Don, I don’t know what ideas you are referring to. I have said that the relationship of population to environmental degradation is non-linear, but that doesn’t support your argument.
If you have a smaller population, the benefit is in the ability to move away from agricultural practices that produce more CO2 (and methane), and towards more local and regenerative ones.
However, the cycle of individual consumption and exhalation is not likely to be affected that significantly, since other species will replace us in consuming plant matter. Evolution is funny that way; the system is designed as a balance, and niches get filled.
Don, you seem to be ignoring one side of your own “1-2 year cycle”–that is, if the emissions are accelerated, so is the absorption from the atmosphere. Kind of the opposite of what you did WRT the tree piece, where you ignored the emissions piece in favor of the absorption. Now, there are questions that could be investigated in all of this, but answering them would be matter for empirical, quantitative analysis. If we’re going with simplifications instead, I think much the best one is that only FF use truly *de-sequesters* carbon into the system. (As MAR tried to show in his pool analogy.)
@Kevin , MA Rodger, Pollack
1) IPCC AR6 WGIII:, Fig SPM-1: CO2 emissions in 2019: 38 GtCO2 from fossil fuels/industry, 6.6 GtCO2 from LULUCF(land use, land use change, forestry removal )
An additional 3 GtCO2 from human breathing — 7 percent of total — is not a trival “Dime”. Plus land use by 8 billion people is what destroys reforestration — the most practical means of removing CO2 from the atmosphere. Look at what is happening to the Amazon — one of the major tipping points.
2) @Zebra: The population of animal life in forests is far less than human overpopulation .
Vaclav Smil has calculated that humans now make up 1/3 of earth biomass, our domesticated food animals make up 2/3rd and wild animal biomass is now less than 5% of the total.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/jun/21/mass-extinction-science-warning
Don Williams,
You’ve misunderstood the example. The “dime” is irrelevant to the logic. It could be a stack of $100 bills. As long as they are swapped back and forth on a short cycle, and the number in the stack doesn’t change, the long-term balance doesn’t change either. You need only to consider what is out of long-term balance. That’s the 38 Gt CO2 from fossil fuel use, and the 6.6 Gt from LULUCF in the IPCC figures. And, yes, those numbers are increased both by the human population, and the activities of that population.
If you’re concerned with accounting for the 3Gt from human respiration, why aren’t you concerned with far larger amounts from bacterial and fungal respiration? What’s so special about human respiration?
Don Williams. You still don’t seem to accept that breathing is a carbon neutral process, despite several people explaining. Maybe this will help:
https://skepticalscience.com/breathing-co2-carbon-dioxide.htm
@nigelj
1) Plants absorb CO2 from the air without distinguishing between human emitted CO2 or fossil fuel CO2. What basis is there for arguing that all human emitted CO2 is totally absorbed by plants and all fossil fuel CO2 goes into the atmosphere for 100 years?
2) Leaving aside the enormous CO2 emissions associated with agriculture, there is a basic difference between agricultural plants and forests. A tree absorbs CO2 for 100 years, captures it over that 100 year term and only slowly releases it via decay over several decades. subsequent to the tree death. The CO2 absorbed by agriculture plants is only absorbed for roughly 1 year before being released back into the atmosphere –either by decay or human consumption.
I don’t understand why this is hard for you guys to understand — it is well known that the ongoing destruction of the Amazon rain forest is a major tipping point for a global temperature increase. Greatly increasing the size of our forests is one of the more plausible suggestions for lowering atmospheric CO2. It is human population growth — and the need to sustain that mass — that has destroyed huge areas of forest land.
@Pollack
Did you not see my citation to Vaclav Smil’s calculation that human biomass and the biomass of our food cultivation systems makes up over 95% of the world’s biomass?
During a tree’s 100 year lifespan, how much CO2 does it emit compared to rice paddies?
Don Williams
Don, I haven’t followed this closely, and my comment to you was based solely on the question of human food consumption and exhalations, not the net effect due to other human activities.
Going by the numbers you gave:
-Humans exhale a certain amount of CO2.
-If you eliminated all humans tomorrow, there would still be all those cows etc.
-Something would eat them, and exhale CO2, and the population of that something would increase.
-The ecosystem would reach a new balance.
So the numbers you gave don’t really tell us what the new balance would be like. Would the predators, and the cows etc., and the other life forms whose food sources are currently co-opted by humans produce less CO2 than is currently exhaled by humans? I don’t know, but I’m pretty sure the difference would not be that great.
What would be significant is that all the human activities other than eating and exhaling would stop.
W: “Did you not see my citation to Vaclav Smil’s calculation that human biomass and the biomass of our food cultivation systems makes up over 95% of the world’s biomass?”
P: I saw it. Get your categories straight if you want anyone to believe you. Smil “has calculated that simply measured by mass, humans now make up a third of land vertebrates, and the animals that we keep to eat – cows, pigs, sheep and so on – make up most of the other two thirds.”
Did you not understand that “land vertebrates” are not the same as “the world’s biomass?” 70% of the world is ocean. Moreover, the biomass of vertebrates is vastly outweighed by the mass of non-vertebrate organisms that respire to produce CO2, including invertebrates, bacteria, fungi, etc.
As you noted, nature doesn’t distinguish where the CO2 comes from. However, your concern for the fate of the CO2 respired specifically by humans is misplaced. The concern belongs with those sources of CO2 which are not balanced overall by uptake from plants. (Plant uptake supports all the metabolism by us and all the other oxygen users.) Unbalanced sources particularly include fossil fuel burning and emissions resulting from habitat destruction. Uncompensated oxidation of organic matter in soils also adds to global CO2 levels.
Since bicycling is one of, if not the most energy efficient mode of transportation (even more energy efficient than walking), I see no reason why a transition from automobiles to bicycles would result in anything other than a decrease in CO2 emissions. Even accounting for the inefficiency of food production and human metabolism, the energy required to move a cyclist one mile is massively less than required to move a motor vehicle and driver one mile that there is tons of room to absorb those inefficiencies. Lets not forget that someone driving a car is also emitting CO2 purely as a result of respiration necessary to stay alive.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_efficiency_in_transport
I see different estimates from different sources. For example, this source says a coal-fired Chevy bolt with 2 people car-pooling would easily beat 2 male bicyclists fueled by beef (not counting CO2 to BUILD the EV, of course.):
https://www.greencarreports.com/news/1108357_electric-cars-vs-bicycles-which-has-a-higher-carbon-footprint
European Cyclists Foundation says bicycles easily beat FF cars
https://bikeportland.org/2011/12/12/new-study-compares-bicyclings-co2-emissions-to-other-modes-63536
A 2010 article on a conservative site disagrees but VO2 estimate seems flaky. However, I would like to see some actual measurements taken of both bicyclists and cars done versus math calculations. I myself would be gasping if I tried to cycle 25 mph to match car’s speed.
https://pjmedia.com/blog/ronnie-schreiber/2010/03/28/do-bicycles-actually-have-a-lower-co2-footprint-than-cars-n14052
A few observations:
The diet that produces the energy is extremely important for emissions. If you’re a human fueling mostly on grains and riding a bike, your emissions are far lower than if you’re fueling on beef raised by industrial agriculture. If your EV is fueling on renewable electricity, its emissions are far lower than on coal-generated electricity.
Humans on bikes aren’t getting much more efficient. EVs are, both due to the improvements in technology, and the rising proportion of generation from renewables. Old comparisons are missing the improvements.
Mass is also an important variable. It is far more efficient to get around on an e-bike than an e-SUV or e-truck. But the latter make far more money for the manufacturers.
Ultimately a cyclist will require a lot less energy to get around than a motorist, so much so that the carbon footprint of the claimed extra food consumption will not change the comparison. There is the other issue that if the cyclist is doing short journeys, they may not consume much extra food, I do not consciously eat more just because I do an occasional 15 minute bike ride, and if someone is cycling regularly, they will improve their cardiovascular fitness which may make their respiration more efficient.
I did read somewhere that electric bicycles are more energy efficient than standard bicycles. I don’t unserstand why, as an electric bike has the added weight of a battery and motor, and in an urban environment requiring frequent stopping and starting, or if going up and down hills, extra weight requires more energy to move, and that is before you consider the footprint of manufacture and eventual disposal of the battery.
Who deliberately consumes a steak for the purpose of cycling? I don’t, I don’t even eat beef. It is not necessary to consume beef to obtain the calorie intake required for a cycle journey, even the 19 mile round trip to my former workplace. The attempt to claim cycling is worse than driving because the cyclist might have eaten beef produced from cattle reared in recently cleared Amazonian rainforest is extremist cherry picking (lets pick the most carbon intensive food we can think of in a desperate attempt to make driving compare favourably) and just doesn’t stand up to scrutiny. When it comes down to it, moving a bicycle requires a lot less energy than moving a motor vehicle, and the resources need to manufacture a bicycle so much less than the resources needed to manufacture a car, there is no doubt that cycling has a lower carbon footprint than driving.
Personally I’d like to think that the calories used in my cycling journeys are offset by the calories consumed from the vegetables I grow on my allotment (organically and minimal dig). That is analogous to driving an electric car and charging it using solar PV.
So I was super impressed by the train commenting on the Dengler and Reid paper and am hoping some of you are interested in critiquing this new ecomodernist approach to climate mitigation:
https://medium.com/@schalk.cloete
Analyzing the Most Severe Risks of Climate Change and Climate Alarmism
“Finding a middle ground is the only way to make real progress. That is why I recommend a 2.5 °C target as a reasonable compromise between the risks of climate change and the risks of climate alarm.”
What do you think of his science? Comparison with the Hansen paper?
Bill Henderson: – “What do you think of his science?”
Who is Schalk Cloete? What’s his area(s) of expertise? Does he have any track record of peer-reviewed scientific papers in the field of climate science? No?
As for Schalk Cloete stating “a 2.5 °C target as a reasonable compromise”, this indicates to me he has no idea of the consequences for humanity and human civilisation at that temperature target.
Per the Discussion Paper titled Faster, Higher, Hotter: What we learned about the climate system in 2022, by science communicator David Spratt, published Mar 7 by Breakthrough, that provides a short overview of the recent climate science and the implications for global disruption, that included on page 6:
https://www.breakthroughonline.org.au/papers
US security analysts say 3°C could result in a world of “outright chaos”.
https://www.csis.org/analysis/age-consequences
There is NO CARBON BUDGET REMAINING now for a safe climate for humanity.
You cannot negotiate with the Laws of Physics.
“If we don’t solve the climate crisis, we can forget about the rest.” – Professor H J Schellnhuber atmospheric physicist, climatologist and founding director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research
See also the YouTube video titled SR Australia – Social and Earth System Tipping Points | Prof. Will Steffen + Dr. Nick Abel, published 3 Apr 2022, duration 1:02:28, that includes Prof. Dr. Will Steffen, Professor of Climate Sciences at the Australian National University and contributing author to the IPCC Special Report on 1.5°C (2018), who summarises the urgent and deteriorating state of the climate and ecological crisis and why we must confront this reality before we lose our ability to adapt.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mn3WQGS9wOI
Bill, a basic rule of propaganda is to always include little bits of truth. But this is not “science”; the blog is a performance designed to offer the opportunity to repeat all the Fox News memes about how bad wind and solar are, and EV, and lots of false equivalence in multiple areas.
I’ve been saying for a long time now that eliminating CO2 emissions by 2050 is just a silly fantasy… because there are all these forces acting against that goal. That’s a bit of truth. But that same truth negates the author’s claim that there will be terrible negative consequences from various actions intended to reduce CO2 as rapidly as possible.
Stuff will happen at some yet to be determined rate; both negative consequences from the changing climate, and negative consequences from various economic transitions. Jiffy Lube will still have customers for the next 30 years; there aren’t woke liberal Storm Troopers coming to take ICE from Noble American Rural Folk tomorrow. And anyway, they have all those guns, right?
Schalk Cloete appears to design and research renewable energy systems, according to his linkedin profile( hope I have the right man). So its hard to believe he’s spreading anti renewable talking points.
Ah, life is a circle–enjoy the ride.
https://ourchangingclimate.wordpress.com/2010/10/21/moving-the-debate-forward-tom-fullers-league-of-2-5/
It’s the latest version of soft climate denial. It ignores risk analysis. Using a mid-range risk as your metric in assessing an existential threat is illogical, guaranteeing failure if anything worse than the middle case happens. That’s like loading a Derringer with one bullet and playing Russian Roulette.
So,, first let me state that I agree with Cloete that climate change is only one of many problems we have to tackle, and I agree that development of poor nations is essential. However, there are a number of shortcomings in his analysis. The first is that he seems to be contending that it is OK to ignore thick tails. That is an especially timely given the recent collapse of Silicon Valley Bank. Arguably, their demise could be at least partially attributed to their failure to anticipate the possibility, let alone the probability that interest rates would be rising significantly just as the tech sector was experiencing serious headwinds. I mean in 2021, everything looked golden!. In finance, ignoring thick-tailed risks has been a time-honored recipe for gaining first-hand experience of how bankruptcy courts work.
Thick tails are generally a pain in the posterior–as well as the Prior if you are a Bayesian. Basically a thick-tailed risk means that either we cannot bound the probability of an adverse outcome, or that we cannot bound the consequences if that outcome is realized–or both. Usually, this is because the event in question is difficult to predict. It’s rare. It corresponds to conditions we haven’t experienced before. Because of this, we cannot estimate probability from our prior experience, and we may not be able to bound the cost we’d incur if it did happen. Unfortunately the unprecedented often becomes realized. If we cannot bound the probability, then we have to find a way to bound the consequences–by analysis of the unmitigated or though mitigation. And that brings us to Cloete’s second shortcoming.
Many of the mitigations he is proposing are untried, and there is no way to know if they’d work, if they’d be scalable to the levels needed or whether they would have side effects worse than the relief they provide. We are in terra incognita here–that’s why we have trouble estimating probability in the first place, and it’s why we have no idea what will work in terms of mitigation.
In my opinion, a third shortcoming is that he assumes that removing the pressure of meeting 1.5 degrees C would make it possible to come together and agree on what needs to be done. This is not consistent with my experience in the climate wars. Our opponents are not reasonable people. Attempting to compromise with them merely means thay’ll retreat even further. Indeed, the only substantive climate legislation passed in the US was passed largely because it was essential if 1.5 degrees were to be even a possibility.
I note an unfortunate similarity to some of the less unreasonable arguments of Bjorn Lomborg. I do not think tha Cloete is similarly disingenuous–merely that we’ve heard this song before, and a lot of us are reluctant to dance to it, cause we know how it ends. The whole argument that we can’t declare a climate emergency because it would force us to move too quickly is both ludicrous and exasperating. I mean, ferchrissake, we’ve wasted 40 years. Forty years ago would have been the time to move gradually. Instead we moved backwards. You’re worried this will cause pain? Well, no shit. We were warning that 40 years ago. Pain is inevitable now. Our inaction has guaranteed that. Now that the added pressure has finally gotten us moving forward with the tiniest of baby steps, I don’t think it is wise to remove it.
Mr. Ladbury, I don’t think the past 40 years have been wasted. Certainly more could have been done, but what the world has accomplished has rendered RCP8.5 moot. That at least deserves a pat on the back.
To be specific, it renders the ASSUMPTIONS of 8.5 not in line with what is observed.
FWIW, I agree completely with your sentiments–though not WRT the author, as I’ve not read his piece, and hence have not got an opinion on that.
We have (largely) wasted 40 years, and our opportunity to move gradually.
Our opponents are not reasonable (and seem in general to be becoming even less so.)
And there’s no path to a clean ‘win’ any longer; climate pain is as you say inevitable. (Well, it’s actually been happening, so that’s kind of a tautology.) But there is still a choice between kind of bad and really terrible.
Kevin McKinney: – “But there is still a choice between kind of bad and really terrible.”
Climate change has arrived and it’s going to get worse, and how much worse depends on the decisions that we/humanity make this decade especially, this year and today.
On 11 Mar 2023, John Menadue’s Pearls and Irritations published a piece by Ian Dunlop titled A desperate race to avoid locking in the pathway to human extinction. It included:
https://johnmenadue.com/negotiating-with-the-laws-of-physics-is-not-good-climate-policy/
Thanks so much Ray and Killan,
Cleote’s argument is unfortunately one we should expect to hear in some form from oil execs, etc as the climate science clarifies the possibilities of civilization crushing fat tail risks. I think it’s important to work through how ‘doomers’ should answer because effective mitigation (or maybe mitigation that is possible if not all that is required) must now be transformational, disruptive, not just EV SUVs in our very fortunate BAU, and this isn’t allowed.
My interpretation of Cloete’s essay was that he was arguing that keeping warming under 1.5 degrees would be economically very painful, especially for low income people, and given global warming of the worst case scenario would not cause extinction of the human race, there is no compelling case to try to keep warming under 1.5 degrees.
Yes there are other low possibility but very high impact risks if warming gets above 1.5 degrees but there are huge risks in trying to radically restructure the entire economy and in just 15 years. So perhaps Cloete has a point.
I believe we still have a chance of keeping warming under 2 degrees without causing too much pain for ourselves. It seems like an achievable goal, where 1.5 degrees seems out of our grasp now.
Westinghouse creates a mini-me reactor. Yay? It will serve the electricity needs of @ 6,000 California households. Since we want an *equitable* (right?) transition, then we must assume the whole world gets to live well in the end. (Right?) So, that means we need more than 333k of these for the entire stock of @ 2.3 households.
Bet’cha we don’t see more than 1% of that number over the next 20 ~ 30 years.
Of course, these numbers can be squished this way and that, energy mixes considered, e.g., but the basic point should be clear: No matter what mix one uses, a 1:1 replacement of FFs with electricity is never gonna happen in a timely manner under the constraints we have. The sheer number of units needed is beyond the resource limits if the planet.
The Westinghouse story is at autoevolution.com. The household estimate comes from https://www.architectureanddesign.com.au/features/list/how-many-houses-are-in-the-world
Killian: – “Westinghouse creates a mini-me reactor. Yay?”
It seems this type of reactor doesn’t yet physically exist, nor does it even have design approval certification. It’s described in the article you mention as (bold text my emphasis):
https://www.autoevolution.com/news/westinghouse-evinci-the-pint-sized-micro-reactor-designed-to-kick-diesel-to-the-curb-211614.html
Per the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission, as at 9 Mar 2023, the Westinghouse eVinci type reactor is still in the process of “preapplication interactions”.
https://www.nrc.gov/reactors/new-reactors/advanced/licensing-activities/pre-application-activities/evinci.html
Evidence/data I see indicates so-called small modular reactors (SMRs) are not economically competitive. Per the World Nuclear Industry Status Report 2022, on page 228:
https://www.worldnuclearreport.org/-World-Nuclear-Industry-Status-Report-2022-.html
The latest UAMPS NuScale SMR estimated electricity price has risen to US$89/MWh, and would be significantly higher if not for subsidies from US taxpayers through a $1.4 billion contribution from the Department of Energy and the estimated $30/MWh subsidy in the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA).
https://ieefa.org/resources/eye-popping-new-cost-estimates-released-nuscale-small-modular-reactor
An analysis by physicist and University of British Columbia Professor M.V. Ramana, published in a perspectives paper titled Small Modular and Advanced Nuclear Reactors: A Reality Check, in IEEE Xplore on 9 Mar 2021, that examines some of the claims being made by nuclear technology proponents, with a particular focus on the economic challenges. It briefly discusses the technical challenges confronting advanced reactor designs and the many decades it might take for these to be commercialized, if ever. It concludes with:
https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/9374057
Hr. G Miell
” It seems this type of reactor does n`t yet physically exist..”
Yes, that seems to be an ongoing problem as long as I can remember.
My father once told me of ” a nuclear motor” as small as a toy electromotor but able to drive a whole car. And the popular periodicals told of nuclear fusion tokamaks that were to come now in 20 years. I found that later in original from C.F. von Weizäcker ” Early fifties.
It has remained a Fata Morgana quite constantly 20 years out in the future ever since then.
But, what seems even more sad now is that molten salt thorium fast breeder.
I believe that I have understood what that is all about.
It was the Hiroshima a<nd Nagasaki and the Bikini and the Sakharov transportable hydfrogen bomb that were to be excused and shown to have a moral and civilized purpose also so that the bomb plutonium production- industries could go on and flourish by national subventions.
We had a GURU here for a while, "Engineer poet" There must be limits to both poetry and engineering. He advocated those tiny easy absolutely clean molten salt thorium fast breeder fifth generation reactors.
"But, where are they when we suddenly need them at last? " I asked.
Then he disappeared.
It goes by red hot plutonium in outer space where there is not sunshine enough, where the extension chords will be too long and where there is no air so butane gas and charcoal willo also be impossible. But quite a danger and hush hush when it is sent up. The cassini huyghens sonde to Saturnus and new horizons to Pluto were driven very sucessfully on hot plutonium and thermoelectricity. That is convincing and practical poetic engineering.
But where are those small and absolutely clean and safe, cheap and elegant thorium uranium plutonium molten salt fast and safe and local breeders for sale when we suddenly need them?
Thery seem to be sheere moral propaganda and excuses still going on in the media 70 years after the Bikini heaqvy water and the Sakharov litium deuteride, lightweight transportable thermonuclear bomb.
Carbo. Not saying you are wrong, but what mystifies me is we have small nuclear reactors in nuclear submarines, but cant seem to design a small land based nuclear reactor.
Yes, that also puzzles me.
We must be aware perhaps that in submarines as in Cassini sondes, money hardly means anything.
But what really puzzles me is that both the US and India has had functioning thorium reactors in the sixties allready, and they are said to be more clean. And even as easy to make as u235- reactors. But now they do not know how anymore.
Perhaps be aware that in the beginning, thorium seemed as good as uranium only for one exeption they cannot deliver plutonium and nuclear weapons, so war actually drove on the uranium miles. Plutonium as by product meant later that civil electricity production was strongly subventioned by the military mad- ness. 20 times overkill capacity is not defence, it is mad- ness. ,
nigelj: – “…what mystifies me is we have small nuclear reactors in nuclear submarines, but cant seem to design a small land based nuclear reactor.”
Nuclear propulsion submarines are for military purposes. I’d suggest endurance, speed and staying hidden beneath the ocean surface for much longer (compared with conventional diesel/battery/electric propulsion submarines) are more important considerations for some navies (e.g. operational for US, Russia, UK, France, China & India + planned developments by Brazil & Australia) than operating cost.
Carbomontanus: – “Perhaps be aware that in the beginning, thorium seemed as good as uranium only for one exeption they cannot deliver plutonium and nuclear weapons, so war actually drove on the uranium miles.”
I’d suggest you might like to read the OECD Nuclear Energy Agency’s 2015 report titled Introduction of Thorium in the Nuclear Fuel Cycle: Short- to long-term considerations, that includes these important facts (see sections 1. Introduction & 9.1 Critical mass):
Thorium lacks any fissionable isotope: it is impossible to start any fission chain reaction purely on mined thorium.
Thorium does, nonetheless, generate the fissile nuclide ²³³U by neutron capture in a nuclear reactor. ²³³U is an excellent fissile nuclide, with advantages over the ²³⁵U or ²³⁹Pu used in current reactors.
The situation with uranium was entirely different; natural uranium, which contains 0.71% fissile ²³⁵U, provided the fuel for heavy water and carbon moderated reactors which did not require any enrichment of ²³⁵U. Enriched uranium fuel led to the use of light water reactors. The plutonium generated in all these uranium-fuelled reactor types provided an obvious route for developing fast breeder reactors, which could use the plutonium as fuel and generate, from fertile ²³⁸U, more plutonium than they consumed.
Fertile thorium, atomically transfigured into fissile ²³³U in a nuclear reactor, can be reprocessed to provide enriched fissile material for nuclear weapons.
The critical mass of ²³³U and plutonium are fairly similar, while that of ²³⁵U is comparatively higher. Depending on the design, it takes between 5 and 15 kg of ²³³U to make an atomic bomb, which is not very different from the required mass of plutonium. See Table 9.1.
The thorium fuel cycle is yet to be resolved technically and industrially.
https://www.oecd.org/publications/introduction-of-thorium-in-the-nuclear-fuel-cycle-9789264241732-en.htm
Yep, afraid you are exactly right. Nuclear in the short-to-mid-term will be helpful in a minor way, mostly via extant capacity. It won’t be a solution on its own.
You seem to have misthreaded this. It’s not hard. Let me help you:
“Yep, afraid *both* of you are exactly right.”
It seems to me (3 major floods in the past 6 months here in NZ) that the frequency & intensity of flooding events has increased over the past 3 years.
Also thinking of Oz, Pakistan.. quite a few noticed now.
Could this have reached statistical significance vs the years before ~ 2019, and where would I start to look?
@BJ says: – ” and where would I start to look? ”
ms: — In the statistics of the insurance industry or reinsurers – some others also recommend the Bible and the chapter of the apocalypse.
Hr Schürle
What he tells you from New Zealand is what I have tried to tell you now many times.
Your basic model climate theory is deeply unsufficient, and cannot be repaired by whishful thinking and your dia- lectic materialism, that is not rooted in empircal physic sciences such as physical geography and hydrology. .
Evapotranjpiration and rain and snow increases steadily worldwide without your help and plans for saving the planet, simply because of big coal and big oil..
Even Al Gore was right on that. Aristoteles and Claussius Clappeyron must be takenn serious first before you can go on. Vapour pressure of water increases with themperature and what goes up must come down somewhere but not necessarily in Las Vegas and Hollywood. Maybe rather in the “rockies” and on New Zealand and in Pakistan.
You behave like a flat earther and desert walker in your own dry and exeptional province and peoples scientific and democratic republic where the earth is quite flat and all has been understood and prooven.
You are fishing in Las Vegas and in southern California and blame your own misconsceptions and errors on the alians.
From my point of wiew, I see the traditional psychopharmacological causes of that more and more shürly and clearly. .
@carbonito says: – ” Evapotranjpiration and rain and snow increases steadily worldwide without your help and plans for saving the planet,
https://climateprotectionhardware.files.wordpress.com/2023/03/era_1.png
So the desert walker is obviously you – and the trend in evaporation is decreasing by
-0,86W/m² per 20 years.
Instead of taking your psychedelic UFO for sightseeing flights around sauerkraut and mackerel soup, you should urgently study climatology to be up to date. You’re not making much progress with spelling and ABC either.
Nobody needs complete idiots and flying saucers here – but you don’t even care or notice that.
Genosse,
I am expert exerienced and autodidact on flying objects, so I identify them and can hardly report any UFOs.
Whenever I can, I report them.
Resign on your NAZI- style dopes that make you impossible and out of step exept where the earth is flat.
Those traditional and secret “vitamins” of yours are severely psychedelic being intensionally euphoric “central stimulants”. That make you see ” alians” and think in terms of flying saucers all the way.
And shurly of your situation and your mission and case.
Genosse Schürle
About your UFOs.
“UFO” is a standard comment and remark in the astronomical society. I can bet also in NASA.
“…….You have an UFO there…”
“Look ……. there comes an UFO… Can`t you see? several UFOs. ….. they are coming all the time….”
And everyone looks up to try and find out what it is. UFOs must be rentlessly cleaned out in the astronomical society because we cannot set on them and sell them…
It is mostly what we do all the time.
Ony the Schürlers in the society and climat dispute set on them everywhere and sell them as their deeper and higher spiritual, more professional wisdom and deliveries..
Have you ever heard of http://www.Hessdalen? I do not live there. Schürlers are swarming there.
Why not go to Hessdalen with your mission?.
Gotta love it. Let the culture wars madness begin.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2023/03/12/precision-cultivated-dairy/
“The first course was a celery root soup lush with whole milk. The last was a spice cake topped with maple cream cheese frosting served with a side of ice cream. And then a latte with its fat cap of glossy foam. In all, a delicious lunch. Maybe a little heavy on the dairy.
Only this dairy was different. It was not the product of a cow or soybean or nut. The main ingredient of this milk was made by microbes in a lab, turned into tasty and recognizable food, and then served to a hungry reporter.
Lab-grown meat is coming. But lab-grown dairy has already arrived.”
Yes Zebra. Let us begin a better life!
It is eqvinox, and springtime is coming in the climate.
You mention celery soup.
Together with white cabbage and wild onions, Thickened celery soup at is an ingredient of the general white nordic or mackerel soup. The british variety is not celery however, it is phoeniculum
But are you aware that Aegopodium podagraria known as ground elder or masterweed or bishops weed tastes rather exactly the same and even better, as if Podagrarium was the wild form of celery?
It is known also as Podagrarium officinalis recommended by Hildegard von Bingen, and cures Podagra quite efficiently thus “Bishops weed. Due to the fact that the old bishops were way too fond of salted and dried and smoked pork and ham, With Portwine, Ale, and Whiskey.
Then Hildegard was asked to cure them of that also..
Podagrarium is extreemly invasine, It probably came by the romans to England and Ireland and that weed tastes exaxtly the same and even better than celery weed.
So it has not invaded for nothing in the climate.
Codfish is known as the best substitute of dairy.
And for vitamin C, Scurvy weed, horseradish, and fermented Sauerkraut was preferred on long voyages at sea. Sauerkraut will also contain B12
Horseradish is contained in any professional remoulade sauce.
Even better than horseradish is another very invasive species, the Alliarium officinalis, that is still another Coclearia. together with horseradish and scurvy weed. You will breathe and smell like a turk.
It turns rotten fish into standard vulgar fast food “Kebab” or Mc Donalds “burger”
Alliarium officinalis can indeed secure your cultural collisions as efficient as Garlic.
With enough Alliarium officinalis in your fastfood and salads, you can forget all you learnt about vegetables..
Zebra, you must wrap yourself together and get conscious here.
Brewers yeast is an old remedy for B- complex with B12 vitamins. Where the better alternatives were allways calf ande swine and goose and flying fish- liver, the faster the fishes more potent their livers.
There was a scandal. The Norwegians had found how to grow artifricial proteins on stainless steel tanks from brackish saltwater, industrial NH3 and Urea, earth gas CH4 compressed, with common air. That could be dried in sacks, pelleted and purchased instead of Soya- meal as swine, chicken, and imprisoned Salmon fish fodder..
The russians did protest and ban it at home. They said, imported Salmon had too much mercury and cadmium and arsenik & cetera. That was Norwegian bacterial synthetic Salmon food.
But it is the situation. Bacterial synthesis of proteins from saltwater , combustibles and ammonium and air in obscure, stainless steel and polyetylene industrial tanks under pressure.
Our traditional culinary substitutes is codfish for milk, cheese, youghurt, salami, and butter,
where you may need Angelicum archangelicum L and Alliarium officinalis and Allium ursinum and perhaps some tomatoes and spanish pepper and some malt vinegar or maybe even some Svartadaudir ( = Icelandic aqva vita) for swallowing it at Thorrablot in the winter.
Proper whale is the very best.
There aint no better beef on land. But where is the fried fat and skin and where are the sausseages and the liver pasten and where is the marrow bone bouillion and the fried and roasted fins and beards? and the salted and hanged and smoked glands and gonades?
All those resources go overboard again or is rotted for soap and fertillizer.
We could have 5 times more whale or shoot 5 times less of them , if only the whole whale could be
cunningly carefully taken care of. and served for human consumption.
Where are the qualified butchers and chefs in the whale industries?
That is the real problem!
And why Soya? Why not Pisum sativa L proper peasoup anymore? and why not the whole variety of common beans with cider vinegar or tomatoe sauce…. or simply fermented with fish and chicken?
As a paralell, Poule a la Ferrari is a French dish announced from uphill Province.
It is chicken driven over by a Ferrari, scraped up from the road again, stewed in french a la cuisine with secret spices, anounced and served to the tourists agaist hard cash..
Why dirts from the stainless steel tanks when better alternatives are allready invented and purchased?
Shall I also have to discuss the “wine” and “cognac” industries?
“the relationship of population to environmental degradation is non-linear
That’s (mostly) true if you consider environmental degradation only in terms of the climate crisis. It’s true that we in the 1st world are putting much more C02 in the atmosphere than the 3rd world (except where slash and burn of land for homes, ranching and crops – usually cattle ranching and growing soybeans – is occurring, such as in the Amazon and Asia ((yet they are also growing industrially, and often there’s no pollution laws))), But “environmental destruction” globally, which involves the other half of the equation, is (mostly) linear now, as I point out in the elephant in the room. It’s growing masses of people replacing the many other species on this planet that we both need and that also deserve to be here. So we are all guilty, but in different ways. Both need to be addressed seriously, not just one while the other is ridiculously overlooked. I don’t know why that’s so hard to understand; it’s so obvious! Just one example:
https://midmiocene.wordpress.com/2015/03/25/guardian-africa-is-centre-of-a-wildlife-war-that-the-world-is-losing/
Let’s be grown up about this, acknowledge it, and not turn it into a political football.
Ray, yes, absolutely. If we know that someday we will have to address these issues one way or another (or face worse consequences), then why the heck not address them now while we still have something worth saving??? Controlling climate change is hard, yet necessary. Figuring out how to control population growth is likewise.
Ron R.
I largely agree with your comments. Human over population is huge problem, but its not clear that theres a viable way of quickly reducing the size of the population. We cant line people up and shoot them, forced one child policies have gone out of favour due to the problems encountered in China, and it seems unlikely the majority of people would choose to go childless or only have one child. The government would need massive financial incentives and this isnt very viable.
Zebra points out some countries have shrinking populations but they are a small minority and it doesnt mean others will all quickly follow. The UN believe the fertility ratewill likely fall to 1.9 by year 2100, as a natural part of the demographic transition process, which means global population would then shrink but VERY slowly.
I believe its possible the fertility rate could drop to 1.5, being a mixture of small families, and childless couples and a few one child families, as the most optimistic possibility, but even that would take about three centuries before the population would shrink to a couple of billion (for example). And its probably something that will emerge naturally with little input form the government directed at the problem.
Higher rates of per capita consumption are also an issue, but weaning people off that drug won’t be easy, and I tend to believe consumption will fall mainly due to the emerging pressure of resource scarcity.
Sounds a bit pessimistic I guess. But it highlights the fact that human civilisation is complex and like the titanic and is hard to turn around quickly, in respect of some things. Therefore we have to focus mainly on those things that can be done (slightly) more quickly , like renewable energy, recycling, electric cars, stronger environmetal laws and agreements (like the recent global agreement on protecting the oceans). So the boring mundane stuff.
Joseph Tainter has written some interesting related commentary.
Found this video on YouTube by a PhD student working in the field of climate change, “Are We Doomed”, which talks about the threats from anthropogenic climate change and the chance it is an existential threat for humanity:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=scXY34nV4LM
“Q1: Will climate change wipe out humanity?
Anyone who claims this with any certainty is not looking at the science. What does the science say? Climate change is scary, but we’re still well within the realm where our efforts can prevent the worst outcomes. We need to transition to a low-carbon future, the sooner the better.”
Provides references, and appears to be consistent with the mainstream science as far as I can tell.
Thanks Adam, super important video
I rarely watch videos much preferring print but Hunter’s video is state of the art climate science, maybe the most accurate, nuanced and reasonable short look at Are we doomed?available. Hope the kids are watching and hope his reasonableness is a sign of things to come.
Good video thanks Adam.
Adam Lea: – “Q1: Will climate change wipe out humanity?”
I think the video you’ve linked to glosses over the big existential risks of the climate crisis and that some tipping points are already initiating, or close to initiating, bringing us dangerously closer to a cascade of climate tipping points.
Evidence/data I see indicates we/humanity are currently on a GHG emissions trajectory towards civilisation collapse within this century. I’d suggest that could mean the suffering and deaths of billions of people, but not necessarily human species extinction. But we/humanity are not doing enough to even avoid civilisation collapse.
The Earth System is already at around the +1.2 °C warming level now (relative to the 1880-1920 global mean surface temperature baseline, per GISS analysis). This is already not a safe climate for humanity and human civilisation, and millions of people are already being displaced by weather/climate disasters.
Atmospheric GHG concentrations are already sufficient to force the Earth System warming to inevitably overshoot the +1.5 °C threshold, possibly within this decade (2020s), per Hansen et. al. pre-print Global warming in the pipeline. Even the scholarly reticent IPCC’s AR6 WG1 SPM, Table SPM. 1, on page 14 indicates their best estimate is for reaching +1.5 °C in the near-term (2021-2040), for all scenarios.
Hansen and colleagues at Columbia University suggest:
http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/mailings/2023/Temperature2022.12January2023.pdf
So it seems we could experience a first breach of the +1.5 °C warming threshold as early as next year (2024) if a strong El Niño emerges later this year and continues well into 2024.
I’d suggest you should see/hear the YouTube video titled SR Australia – Social and Earth System Tipping Points | Prof. Will Steffen + Dr. Nick Abel, published 3 Apr 2022, duration 1:02:28. Prof Will Steffen said from time interval 0:20:28:
“Let’s take the IPCC assessment and say the best we can do is 2050. Now, that’s not good enough, but let’s just take this because a lot of people, a lot of countries are saying net-zero by 2050. Alright, that’s a reaction time of thirty years. Actually now, it’s twenty… twenty-eight years. Ah, but, what are the intervention times to stop tipping points?
OK, Arctic Sea ice: I think we’re right at it now – I think we’re… I think it’s zero. I think within this decade that’s, that’s going to tip, and I think by 2040 or 2050 you’ll see an ice-free Arctic Sea.
West Antarctic ice sheet – about three metres of sea level rise. I think within ten years, um… that’s going to look over it’s tipping point, and we will be committed to losing it.
Amazon forest – I estimated fifteen years…”
Will Steffen posed the question: “Are we already losing control of the system?”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mn3WQGS9wOI
On 22 August 2022, at the Cryosphere 2022 Symposium at the Harpa Conference Centre Reykjavik, Iceland, glaciologist Professor Jason Box said from time interval 0:15:27:
“And at this level of CO₂, this rough approximation suggests that we’ve committed already to more than 20 metres of sea level rise. So, obviously it would help to remove a hell-of-a-lot of CO₂ from the atmosphere, and I don’t hear that conversation very much, because we’re still adding 35 gigatonnes
per year.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iE6QIDJIcUQ
There is NO CARBON BUDGET REMAINING for a safe climate for humanity
Three stages are required to mitigate the climate emergency:
i. Deep and rapid decarbonization of civilisation ASAP – no more new fossil fuel developments AND a rapid phase out of utilization of existing fossil fuel infrastructure;
ii. ‘Negative emissions’ or atmospheric carbon drawdown to safely get CO₂ levels back to well below 350 ppm (CO₂-equivalent); and
iii. Maintain arctic summer sea ice cover.
“What we, humanity, do in the next 4 to 5 years will determine the future of humanity for the next few thousand years.” – Sir David King, Founder and Chair of the Centre for Climate Repair, University of Cambridge
https://vimeo.com/527806796
Don’t need a video for that. It’s really obvious. However, it is obvious only if one understands just how quickly we can shift to being a regenerative society. There is the issue of doing so while people still don’t see the true danger, then there’s what happens when an ax murderer is chasing you down the street.
I have argued for years the ax murderer needs to be acknowledge in no uncertain terms by the science community, That hasn’t yet happened except for a few hardy souls.
Tell people society really is in the process of collapse, human extinction is in process. Tell them how to avoid both.
THEN see what happens. This is not a new concept, it’s not new knowledge, it’s not new visioning. You’ve been hearing it here for at least a decade.
I guess a nice video makes a difference.
How about we stop waiting for nice videos?
Nigelj, you’re absolutely right that figuring out how to control world population is really, really hard. I offer some possible answers in the article and others have as well. No, we can’t just line people up and shoot them (or off them some other way, obviously). But like climate change this has to be addressed politically, and soon. But unlike climate change it isn’t being. That’s why I call it The Elephant in the Room.
Everyone (relatively speaking) is just looking the other way. Hoping that human numbers will just taper off in the future at 10 or 12 billion. Then we’ll be OK they say. No, not everyone will be OK. Or not everything. But we humans (in general) seem to keep not seeing or caring beyond humanity.
I’m saying that if population does level out at ten or twelve billion (and that’s a big IF if there are still resources to grow) it might result in a leveling out of human numbers, but it will spell the extinction of a whole lot of other species that we not only need, but that also deserve to be here as much as do (or as much a anything deserves to be here). Those animals took a whole lot of time to evolve. What a waste! Would w really be OK with a world filled with only people?
But if we believe that CC action is also really hard, but doable if we’re willing to figure it out, then why the **** not population control as well? They’re more or less linked. There’s no logical reason why one is given all this attention (which is right, of course) while the other is ignored (except at the NGO level). No reason why we consider the one as fixable because we have to of we are to survive, or at least be really uncomfortable, but the other is “Sorry” inevitable. No logical reason – except they’re not people.
Most of them are still here. So there’s still time. But like they say, “Extinction is forever”. We’ll, or our children, will be really kicking ourselves in the future if we just let them go without trying everything we could.
Ron R,
Yes the population problem is definitely not getting the attention the climate change problem does. Perhaps this is because the size of families is quite a personal and sensitive sort of issue and so governments in democracies don’t want to get too involved, out of a fear of a voter backlash and a fear that a lack of young people will reduce the tax take. Its hard to imagine there ever being an international body on population control, analogous to the IPCC.
I agree the biodiversity loss is very serious. Its largely due to huge population pressure converting natural habitat to farming. Half our medical drugs come from plants and animals. There are multiple reasons to stop the loss of biodiversity.
Sigh. Mr. R, your assumptions about population are not being born out by real time evidence. Populations are decreasing in places as diverse as Russia and China, the birth rate is cratering in much of the world and it increasingly appears that population will peak at between 9.5 and 10 billion human souls.
This information is really easy to find.
As I have noted, this argument– about a vital subject– is akin to a religious faith statement. UN has a range of estimates for 2100 — from 9 to 12 billion. However, if you slap a ruler on the line from 1980 to present and extend it you can get around 14.5 billion.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_population#/media/File:World_Population_Prospects.svg
While some areas have declining growth rates, places like Africa still have very high birth rates , big drops in mortality due to improved health care., and soaring growth in population.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_population#/media/File:World_population_(UN).svg
While IPCC does not address population, it should fall under G20’s charter given that G20 is supposed to address sustainability.
Don Williams. You don’t project / predict the future just by slapping a ruler on a graph and just ASSUMIMG the recent trend will continue indefinitely. You have to account for things that are likely to affect a future trend. For example there are clear reasons to predict that sea level rise will accelerate and equally clear reasons to believe it wont go on forever because water is a finite resource.
There are good reasons to believe the rate of population growth will slow down, as more countries go through the demographic transition and move towards having smaller families. The issue is really about how much population growth will slow down, and the UN thinks the most likely case is about 11 billion by the end of this century. They have researched the issue in depth. Have you? Have you read any of the studies? You have to show line by line where they are wrong. Have you done that? I doubt that you have done any of this.
@nigelj
1) I suppose I also need to refute every logical argument in Thomas Aquinas’s “Summa Theologica” in order to disprove his conclusions?
“Hence it must be said that the angels, even according as they are immaterial substances, exist in exceeding great number, far beyond all material magnitude…The reason for this is that because, since it is the perfection of the universe that God chiefly intends in the creation of things, the more perfect things are, in so much greater profusion are they created by God.”
2) My citation is more relevant than yours since Catholicism has 1.3 billion followers, many in areas of high population growth , and is against contraception.
With influence much greater than the UN’s.
3) On the other hand, nuclear war and famine would admittedly bend the curve down a bit.
4) There is also the data provided by John Calhoun’s experiments on the effects of overcrowding:
“In 1972, eight mice were placed in a utopia. Full of food, water, bedding, and space for 3000 mice. Within three years there were no survivors. “
Reason?
“It was here that the social roles of mice began to break down. Mice born during this period found they lacked space to mark out territories in, and random acts of violence among the mice began to occur. Many males simply gave up on trying to find females. These males retreated into their bedding and rarely ventured out. Simply eating, sleeping, and grooming. Calhoun dubbed these narcissistic loners “The Beautiful Ones”. They also tended to be rather stupid.
Days 600-800: The “Die” phase. The population, which maxed-out at 2,200, began to decline. No surviving births took place after day 600, and the colony ultimately died out. Individuals removed from the colony and placed in similar units continued to demonstrate erratic behavior and also failed to reproduce. The mice were remarkably violent at this time, for little reason.”
https://bigthink.com/the-present/why-overpopulation-is-more-than-just-a-material-problem/
Don Williams
I can’t find your citation on catholicism, but it should be regarded with some caution. Its never a great idea to rely on just one research study, for self evident reasons. Even quite compelling studies have been found to be wrong sometimes. This is why the IPCC look at thousands of research studies. Its a commonsense form of quality control.
And although population is still growing in latin america, that RATE of growth has slowed down. Here is Brazil. Other countries are similar.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/1066832/population-brazil-since-1800/
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:US_vs_Latin_America_Growth_Rates.jpg
Yes you are correct the catholic church is against condoms and family planning, but many catholics have been ignoring this (one reason the rate of population growth has slowed) and the Church hierarchy is not making much of a fuss about that.
I have read the mice study some years back. Its a good study that has been replicated.
Your underlying proposition seems to be that human population will continue to grow very strongly until it hits hard resource limits and it will crash in a painful way. I agree to the extent this cant be ruled out. We don’t have a crystal ball and there are so many factors involved its hard to project accurately what will happen.
However I believe we will avoid a food related collapse. I lean towards the UN evaluation that global population will stabilise at about 11 billion then fall very slowly. Once people get a taste for small families, both governments and religion have struggled to reverse this. Zebra has quoted examples. Calculations show the planet is able to feed 11 billion people.
I do think we will come up against painful mineral resource limits with 11 billion people, but this will cause a simplification of lifestyle, rather than institutional collapse and mass starvation.
That said, I really struggle to see how we could shrink population really QUICKLY, as pointed out in another comment. Religious convictions do seem to take time to change, and governments wont love shrinking populations for obvious reasons.
Don Williams
I forgot to mention that humans adapt to cramped living conditions much better than mice. For example the country of Singapore is a good example. Population density is high, and there are several cultural groups, but its a stable,peaceful country and no huge social problems relatively speaking. Although I’m obviously not advocating we all live like that if we can avoid it.
DW: Catholicism has 1.3 billion followers, many in areas of high population growth , and is against contraception.
With influence much greater than the UN’s.
BPL: In the US, at least, 2/3 of Catholics use contraception, whatever their church says.
nigelj (at 18 MAR 2023 AT 7:32 PM): – “However I believe we will avoid a food related collapse.”
Based on what evidence/data, or is your belief based only on wishful thinking, nigelj?
I think humanity is facing at least three existential threats to human civilisation if we/humanity continue business-as-usual (BAU). These are:
1. The Climate Crisis;
2. The Energy Crisis, including particularly the emerging Oil Crisis; and
3. The ongoing COVID-19 / SARS-CoV-2 pandemic.
I think these escalating threats will inevitably worsen global food security.
Some of the evidence/data I see that supports my concerns is highlighted in my Submission (#165) to the Australian Parliament House of Representatives Standing Committee on Agriculture for their Inquiry into Food Security in Australia.
https://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Committees/House/Agriculture/FoodsecurityinAustrali/Submissions
What is the risk of getting ‘Long-COVID’? A graph of the 1%, 5%, 10%, 20%, 30% & 50% risk curves for the cumulative probability of getting ‘Long-COVID’ versus the number of times being infected with SARS-CoV-2, is included with this tweet:
https://twitter.com/bagger_blue/status/1636702479219036162
Per the risk curve graph, the US CDC estimate suggests there’s a 20% risk of getting ‘Long-COVID’ for each EPISODE of infection, meaning by the 5th infection there’s about a 65% probability of getting ‘Long-COVID’.
If the risk is 10% (the Nature paper titled Long COVID major findings, mechanisms and recommendations suggests 10-12% of vaccinated cases), then by the 7th infection the probability of having ‘Long-COVID’ exceeds 50%.
The top-10 riskiest occupations for acquiring SARS-CoV-2 infections in Australia (obtained via FOI) are apparently:
#1 School Teachers
#2 Child Carers
#3 Hospitality Workers
#4 Checkout Operators & Office Cashiers
#5 Education, Health & Welfare Services Managers
#6 Education Aides
#7 Defence Force Members, Fire Fighters & Police
#8 Sports & Fitness Workers
#9 Food Process Workers
#10 Hairdressers
https://twitter.com/bagger_blue/status/1636892543479840768
Get infected with SARS-CoV-2 a few times per year and it seems to me per the risk curve data, the risk of being substantially debilitated by ‘Long-COVID’ is likely very high within a few years.
An increasingly disrupted food production & supply workforce due to recurring SARS-CoV-2 infections means an increasingly disrupted food supply and worsening food security.
Then there’s the global phosphorus supply challenge issue:
1. Phosphorus equals food
2. Growing food demand, growing phosphorus demand
3. Finite phosphate: we’ve used up the good stuff
4. Geopolitical risks: an issue of national security? All farmers need phosphorus, yet just 5 countries control 88% of the worlds remaining phosphate rock reserves
5. An inefficient global food system
6. Cheap fertilizer – a thing of the past for farmers
7. No one is monitoring phosphorus: whose responsibility is it?
http://phosphorusfutures.net/the-phosphorus-challenge/the-story-of-phosphorus-8-reasons-why-we-need-to-rethink-the-management-of-phosphorus-resources-in-the-global-food-system/
http://phosphorusfutures.net/the-phosphorus-challenge/
https://theconversation.com/how-the-great-phosphorus-shortage-could-leave-us-all-hungry-54432
Geoff Miel
When I said “however I believe we will avoid a food related collapse”, this was in the context of a discussion of population growth and the sheer numbers of humans. No mention was made of other factors such as covid, peak oil or climate change. However I’m inclined to agree with you that once we add those factors (and other risks like wars like the Ukraine war) to the sheer weight of numbers of humans we do face a very significant risk of food insecurity.
In fact New Zealand has just had two huge record setting flood events and one of these has destroyed a major fruit and vebetable growing region. We are already seeing this reflected in the price and availability of some food products. Fixing the region has been estimated at 16 billion dollars. Both events have been made worse by climate change according to experts. Essentially 1) higher humidity and thus more intense rainfall and 2) a low pressure centre and an atmospheric river coming against blocking highs. The frequency of blocking highs we are seeing may also be a function of climate change.
And about two minutes after reading your comment the evening news talked about a young lady having caught covid four times. Spooky coincidence.
Regarding “peak phosphorous.” I acknowledge this is a potential problem and forgot about this in my comment on mineral scarcity. Obviously its a finite resource and so there is a limit, however it does not seem to be a short or medium term concern as below.
https://www.agweb.com/news/crops/crop-production/phosphorus-time-bomb-agriculture-myth-and-reality
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peak_phosphorus
The mineral scarcity issue is very real but IMO there’s also some media hype at times. I recall an article breathlessly telling me we would run out of lithium or zinc or something in 75 years. Check the fine print buried away and they were referring to known land based reserves at current market prices, totally ignoring potential future discoveries, known lower grade deposits, and reserves dissolved in sea water or at the bottom of the oceans. Mineral scarcity is one of the issues where the truth is nuanced. However we should be recycling what we have and not wasting materials on foolish exploits.
Peak oil might be a more urgent concern. This is a very, very finite resource and my bet is light crude has already peaked. Another good reason to build a zero carbon energy grid and electric transport etcetera.
nigelj (at 20 MAR 2023 AT 1:20 AM): – “Mineral scarcity is one of the issues where the truth is nuanced.”
Club of Rome member Ugo Bardi produced a report in 2014 titled EXTRACTED: How the Quest for Mineral Wealth is Plundering the Planet. A YouTube video was produced to promote it, duration 0:08:57. There’s a voiceover from time interval 0:03:48 (bold text my emphasis):
“We will never run out of minerals, but we will run out of cheap fossil fuels and high-grade ores.
The limits to mineral extraction are not limits of quantity, but of energy.
Extracting minerals takes energy, and the more dispersed the minerals are, the more energy is needed.
Technology can mitigate the depletion problem, but cannot solve it.
The depletion of fossil fuels is already becoming a serious problem. The peak of conventional oil production may have passed between 2005 and 2008, while all other oil and gas resources could peak within the next ten years. Coal production could increase for several years, but at a tremendous cost to the environment.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u_Y29DqzWkc
I’d suggest the limits to mineral extraction/processing is one of energy-dependency is a fundamental truth – IMO, there’s nothing nuanced about that.
nigelj: – “…my bet is light crude has already peaked.”
Nope – it’s the heavier crudes containing the longer-chain hydrocarbon molecules that are apparently becoming scarcer. See my Submission referred in my earlier comment, particularly Slides #25 through #41. As a consequence, global gasoil/diesel fuel production reached a peak plateau of around 26 Mb/d during 2015-2018, then subsequently declined to below 23 Mb/d by mid-2021 (see Slide #40). The gasoil/diesel fuel decline began before the COVID pandemic emerged. The Russian invasion of Ukraine exacerbated gasoil/diesel supply shortages.
Diesel is the premier fuel, for road, rail and marine transport, for mining and agricultural machines, and in many manufacturing processes. Diesel is the workhorse of the global economy.
Scarcer diesel fuel supplies leads to higher prices, which increases the prices of everything dependent on diesel.
nigelj: – “Another good reason to build a zero carbon energy grid and electric transport etcetera”
Unfortunately, it seems from the available data, global diesel fuel production has already begun declining. I think a decline in global kerosene/jet fuel production is perhaps next; timing is anybody’s guess. It seems the emerging reality is not quite what ‘peak oilers’ had originally in mind.
I’d suggest we/humanity will be playing catch-up. Even if we/humanity can rapidly increase sales of new vehicles/vessels/aircraft that don’t use petroleum-based fuels, there will still likely remain a huge fleet of legacy vehicles/vessels/aircraft that do beyond this decade – See Slide #45 (that outlines Australia’s ICEV predicament as an example).
Various people have been warning about the consequences of a post- ‘peak oil’ world, and the need for society to prepare for that day, including the IEA’s Fatih Birol (see Slide #46), but few people wanted to know. The party is now over – the era of cheap and abundant crude oil and petroleum fuels has ended forever!
@nigelj and BPL
From the BBC
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-49564397
” And a study published by the US-based Center for Applied Research showed that in the period between 1980 and 2012 the number of Catholics in the world had increased by 57% to 1.2 billion, but growth in Europe was just 6%, compared to 283% in Africa. It put the number of Catholics in Africa at almost 200 million.
“I think Africa is where the future is really [for the Catholic Church],” says Nicolette Manglos-Weber, Assistant Professor of Religion and Society at Boston University’s School of Theology. “
Don Williams,
Yes the numbers of Catholics in Africa could well grow as the religion takes hold, but that is just displacing other tribal religions. Its not population growth per se. Its a bit hard to see why the Catholic religion would lead to higher population growth rates in Africa, because it already has quite high population growth and large family size.
And whats to stop the catholics in Africa opting for small families and ignoring the Popes edicts against contraceptives, , as has happened in both North and South America? Remember Africa will most likely go through a demographic transition process like the western world has,
Even if a significant proportion of Catholics do keep having large families, many people in the world are already opting for small families and they outweigh the number of catholics quite substantially. And its difficult to see the Catholic religion gaining traction in Asia. Provided the net result globally is a fertility rate of about 2.1 on average, world population starts to shrink.
Interesting discussion.
Don Williams, I’m gonna go out on a limb and take a wild guess that you probably have never set foot on the African continent, and that you have probably spoken to few if any natives of said continent. As such, perhaps you are not the best informed to tell us of their hopes, aspirations and plans for their offspring.
Africa is an entire frigging continent. It is an astoundingly diverse continent as well. Looking up a few stats and thinking you understand it is a colossal error.
DW, what if the growth in Catholics is mainly through conversion, not population growth, especially in Africa and southeast Asia?
Last time I visited, Spain, Italy and Portugal were quite Catholic (and quite catholic, come to that) and had fertility per female rates that were low, low, low. The IPCC does not address population, other than to label it the biggest (!) driver of human-caused climate change. Many other organizations do, however, and they pretty much speak as one when it comes to labeling previous fantastikal projections of peak totals as such.
IOW, let’s make figuring out how to control our numbers a part of the climate debate, instead of a separate and unrelated issue. It’s all anthropocene.
Republicans want everyone to copulate and make more White babies so they don’t die out. The Stupids will keep on being stupid till everything is gone. What needs to happen is the scientific community needs to figure out how to get rid of stupid people before it’s too late. KIA, I’m looking at you for some answers.
The human population/wildlife extinction connection.
https://stanfordpress.typepad.com/.a/6a00d8342f027653ef01b8d11a416f970c-pi
Source: Scott, J.M. 2008. Threats to Biological Diversity: Global, Continental, Local. U.S. Geological Survey, Idaho Cooperative Fish and Wildlife, Research Unit, University Of Idaho.
https://populationmatters.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/Human-population-and-extinctions-no-logo.png
https://ourworldindata.org/uploads/2022/03/Annual-World-Population-since-10-thousand-BCE-1536×1080.png
No link? Again, we cause them directly, by hunting and poaching, or indirectly, by habitat destruction. Let’s control it.
Both GISTEMP and <a href="https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/access/monitoring/monthly-report/global/202302"NOAA have reported for February, both with anomalies significantly up on January. GISTEMP gives February as +0.97ºC up from Jan’s +0.86ºC. In GISTEMP, this is the 4th warmest Feb on record (also 4th in NOAA, 5th in ERA5, & in TLTs RSS 10th & UAH 11th). In both GISTEMP & NOAA Feb 2023 is =28th in the highest all-month anomaly list.
In GISTEMP, the first two months of 2023 sit as the 5th warmest start-to-the-year (=4th in NOAA with 2023 sitting just above 2019 & equalling 2022, 5th in ERA5, 14th in RSS TLT & 17th in the trend-busting UAH).
…….. Jan-Feb Ave … Annual Ave ..Annual ranking
2016 .. +1.27ºC … … … +1.01ºC … … … 2nd
2020 .. +1.21ºC … … … +1.02ºC … … … 1st
2017 .. +1.08ºC … … … +0.92ºC … … … 4th
2019 .. +0.94ºC … … … +0.98ºC … … … 3rd
2023 .. +0.92ºC
2022 .. +0.90ºC … … … +0.89ºC … … … 6th
2015 .. +0.88ºC … … … +0.90ºC … … … 5th
2007 .. +0.86ºC … … … +0.66ºC … … … 13th
2018 .. +0.83ºC … … … +0.85ºC … … … 7th
2010 .. +0.79ºC … … … +0.72ºC … … … 10th
Thinks – we have the Auzzie BoM declaring an El Niño watch with the La Niña ended so the end of the year is going to see the monthly anomalies boosted by ENSO. Are we now looking at the return of ‘scorchio’ with a potential top-three warmest-year for 2023? And that with El Niño-boosted ‘scorchyisimo’ in 2024 to follow?
Concern about animals. How quaint.
Ok, can I just quickly offer my opinions on nuclear power before I go? We should not have them because:
1) we are not nearly stable enough as a species to have thousands of them scattered all over the world. Think sabotage and wars.
2) we shouldn’t be making things that we can’t turn off and that will (likely) be contaminating the world long looong after we’re gone.
The are other reasons as well. But I’ll limit it to that.
Send those rods deep into a subduction zone (preferably) or into space. Choose solar instead.
I’ll get down off my soapbox now. Sorry. :)
@ Ron R
This is also my concern.
But I have the impression that there is new development of molten salt and fast breeder reactors that simply cannot escalate the Cernobyl way, that produce way less fissible materials for possible atomic bombs, and way less radioactive waste in the form of long lived isotopes also.
I would try and judge it from that side and try ande see if this is true first, that are rumors,
And then see it further in the perspective of the alternatives that are chemical and biological environmental problems and political pollution and problems related to conventional use of fossile fuels.
I suspect the solar panel and battery and windmill- industies of having rather large enviromental costs and “footprints” that are politically denied and that are hidden in the environmental and climate dispute.. I have tried to judge it theoreticaloly, by planning the easiest and cheapest way of having a house and having a car. Pedals are really sublime, sunshine and rain is sublime, the photosyntesis is devine and sublime, sailing winds can be utilized by knowledge and patience, and the diesel engine is sublime and exellent having all the worlds records, and can run on CH3-O-CH3.
Whether mankind can be enlighted and educated …. that is dubious and a remaining, maybe a greatest environmental problem.
I must add here so that everyone exept for a few ones can see it.
On what may be the worst environmental problem.
And in original German & Danish so that the wiser ones will take to the holy ghost- (The Holy Wind) or to Google translate.
” Die Dummheit bekämpfen sogar die Götter vergeblich!!
In Danish:
Dumheden bekæmper selv Guderne forgjæves
SANN! (=AMEN!)
It is about G.E.Lessings Die Erziehung des Menschengeschlechtes., On whether that suggestion makes sense or not.
Truly, that is not a task for drunken sailors and for dia- lektic materialists, as we can see here..
But, being no god, , maybe one should try?
Hi CM. “But I have the impression that there is new development of molten salt and fast breeder reactors that simply cannot escalate the Cernobyl way,”
See https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Fukushima_Disaster:_The_Myth_of_Nuclear_Safety
Sorry, it’s not worth the risk. A accident has a vastly disproportionate chance of contamination compared to the benefit. And there are always accidents no matter how safe they make them.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_nuclear_power_accidents_by_country
I believe, and hope, that solar will get smaller and cheaper. I myself have a solar power watering timer (Digg brand) on the outlet of my hose that waters all the trees and plants I planted, and there are a lot of them, with about a 1 inch solar panel. Twice a week for a half hour a time is what I use, though I could increase that to twice a day for longer if I want. Soooo much better than constantly replacing batteries.
diesel engine is sublime. Noooooo, no, no, no. Have you ever sat behind one in traffic?OMG. It’s unfair that they are allowed to pollute like that while those using unleaded fuel are subject to stringent rules. In my view, diesel should be banned from the face of the earth.
Round shoelaces too for constantly untying :D
By the way, those accidents are just the ones we know, or learned about later. My guess is that there are a lot more accidents (and intentional releases for pressure or accident prevention) that we are never told of.
Let’s have our own comparatively much safer, decentralized power. Power that we don’t have to pay somebody else for.
Dr.. Ron C:
Huge black worms behind it when the buses take off, and behind the 50 tons Semitrailers in the crab- fields uphill on the Autobahn at 20 Km per hour is …….. engine alarm.
I repeat, and I I am the chief engineer on this.
Black smoke is engine alarm.. Must I repeat?
To see what it is, Look up http://www.Detroyt Diesel on youtube. 2 stroke V6 or V8 turbo- diesel. Also shown as Dragsters on youtube.
That was developed for tanks and for airplanes in WW2 to scare the enemy but it came too late.
With bottom throttle accelerating It burns sheere hydrogen and leaves pure carbon back to where it came from . It harly leaves CO2, not even CO back to Nature.
At idle,…
“WrrmmWrmmWrmmWrmmWrmm…….”…. totally clear exhaust
and then sudden bottom trottle taking off,..
“GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRmmmm” …. very large black worms behind them in town.
suddenly more fuel than what it breathes in for at that rpm, That will surely smoke.
See also the US Greyhound long distance buses. They go by classic turbo 2 stroke detroyt diesel. “GrrmGrrmGrrmGrrm.. Brmm…” which is themendously simple, strong, and convincing
But, look at V 12 4 stroke Top valved water cooled Adolph tiger tank Diesel…. it hardly smokes.
That is what it is meant to be theoretically, Adolph was desperately short of fuel, wherefore he could not afford anything else.
I am brought up with low compression , carburetor 4 and 2 stroke sparkplug engines , 1, 2, and 4 cyl, side and top valved, inline and boxer. Water and air cooled..
There is no motor saw, Renault or Volswagen so wrong in the cold that I cannot get it to explode.
But my Son recommended rather Diesel in the boat. That was quite a new challenge , but I slowly get it.
Diesel it is RED/ OX as shown in Public school with combustion and mechanisms. Where black smole is engine alarm. Blue smolke is also engine alarm but for other reasons.
The exhaust is supposed to be absolutely clean, as intended by Rudolf Diesel, and it is possible.
Listen to
Dumdumdumdumdumdumdumdum……
or
dbdbdbndbdbdbdbdbdbdbd…….
or
grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr……..
that is diesel in order.. A lovely sound it hardly smokes and drinks anymore.
Drive carefully.
Diesel is just rank as far as I’m concerned. Pollution, smell, noise. But I’m no expert.
https://theconversation.com/fact-check-are-diesel-cars-really-more-polluting-than-petrol-cars-76241
Ron”R
Iam especially satisfied with my new( re- cycloed) yanmar 2GM20 engine. 2cyl 2×1/3L, top valved 4 stroke high compressen swirl chamber injection. Only that the flywheel is too light so one cannot crank it.
My son has a 4 cyl inline Ford car diesel, it hardly smokes and drinks either with a convincing torc and smooth sound.
Once in the winter, it suddenly did smell of sharp, nitration acid HNO3 +H2SO4 behinde a car.
That is illegal, to drive on tremendously cheap heaviy ship bunkers “solar” oil.
The smell of chemical lab NOx behind todays diesels entails that it is an especially sublime and efficient Diesel. It never smelt that way in the good old days when there were rather black worms behind them.
But, that NOx is easily converted into nitrogen and water with urea NH2-CO-NH2 solution in the exhaust pipe, simply piss in the pipe, that cleans up the NOx…
Or– the way I have taken small motors in the workshop,by an exhaustpipe leading through a can of wet sawdust. The sawdust can be composted afterwards.
I have seen recentry that the large tourist lorries in the fjord, hardly smoke anymore as they did before. They are obviously “shrubing ” the exhaust now for being permitted in the fjords and in town.
“Clean diesel” has been an American political argument together with “Clean coal”.
At sea, clean diesel is important, and there we shrub the flexible pipe with coolwater anyway. With proper diesel, you can gladly afford better fuel also, because it hardly drinks either anymore if you drive catrefully.
Once at Tromsø Airport with especially clean air, namely the special Tromsø atmosphere smelling of sea and mountain heathers combined,……… it suddenly smelt extreemly nostalgic from old Kerosene torchlamp or Primus cooking- device.
So I asked the Aborgineans what is that?
“Oh, it is that Russian over there!”
And there stood Aeroflot.
Their flagship aircrafrt carrier Admiral Kuznetsov went from Murmansk to Syria and back recently, showing russian style. That was oil- heated steam turbine engine. on cheapest dirties possible fuel in case of war. It could hardly moove without togbgoats following and got worlds famous for its huge cloud of very special representative exhaust.
Oil heated steam piston engines tripple expansion doubble action, = practically 12 cyl were rather clean if only the burners were in order and they went at economic speed.
Remember the traditional Thunder and Sabre- jets and the B52 with 8 engines, they had allways stripes of brown exhaust behind them.. But todays low sulphur and low aromate jet fuel and lamp kerosene is odeorless and burns clean as a candle in church.
Oh, Thomas J. Fuller, reread my comments again.
About that Antarctic ice. Looks like no melting in the near future at the South Pole:
https://www.accuweather.com/en/aq/amundsen-scott-south-pole-station/2258520/march-weather/2258520
Yes, I know that isn’t on the coast.
Speaking of ice, Emerald Bay in Lake Tahoe has completely frozen over for the first time since 1993. They think it’s about 6″ thick. That seems fairly thick for rarely freezing over.
https://www.sfgate.com/renotahoe/article/atmospheric-river-freezes-tahoe-emerald-bay-17832444.php
Please tell us what a lack of “melting” at a station nearly 10,000 feet up in a place which AVERAGES -28C in summer and -60C in winter means for global warming?
Please tell us what a single weather event in a single place at a single time (kinda’ the very essence of cherry picking there, obviously) means for global warming?
We await your science with bated breath.
Mr. Know It All: – “Looks like no melting in the near future at the South Pole…”
So what if the South Pole remains frozen? There are many other locations in Antarctica that are melting, and the rate of melting is accelerating.
On 22 August 2022, at the Cryosphere 2022 Symposium at the Harpa Conference Centre Reykjavik, Iceland, glaciologist Professor Jason Box presented a graph showing accelerating land ice loss from 1971 through to 2019, for the Arctic (including Greenland), Greenland only, Arctic (without Greenland) and Antarctica (1992-2017) from time interval 0:12:47.
Per the displayed graph, the rates of eustatic sea level contributions from land ice loss have been accelerating decade by decade:
* Arctic (including Greenland): 12.3 mm (for period 2009-2019)
* Greenland only: _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ 6.8 mm (for period 2009-2019)
* Arctic (without Greenland): _ _5.5 mm (for period 2009-2019)
* Antarctica: _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ 7.6 mm (for period 1992-2017)
It seems per the displayed graph, the rate of land ice loss from Antarctica is beginning to overtake the Arctic (without Greenland) region as a leading source of eustatic sea level rise (SLR).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iE6QIDJIcUQ
Per the Nature Communications paper titled Mekong delta much lower than previously assumed in sea-level rise impact assessments, published 28 Aug 2019 (bold text my emphasis):
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-019-11602-1
If oceanographer John Englander’s 9-box matrix for SLR is close to the mark, then it’s quite possible that the Mekong Delta could be submerged before 2050 under the high risk sensitivity scenario, and very precarious for the medium risk sensitivity.
https://johnenglander.net/british-engineers-use-9-box-matrix-as-flood-design-guide/
The Mekong Delta is a major rice, fisheries and fruit producing region that underpins Vietnam’s role as the world’s second largest rice exporter.
https://www.aciar.gov.au/media-search/news/critical-need-australian-expertise-tackle-food-systems-threats-mekong-delta
I’d suggest compelling evidence/data indicates SLR will inevitably disrupt global food security in the coming decades, whether the South Pole remains frozen or not.
Your contributions to this site so far have been nil. Zero. If you can’t post useful information, please stop. We’re all tired of your ignorance.
If anyone is interested, I thought I’d post a futuristic short story I wrote in 2017 on how it could all work out in the end – if we actually decide to do it right.
https://midmiocene.wordpress.com/2017/11/22/the-last-option/
Nothing there.
I moved it, Killian.
https://midmiocene.wordpress.com/the-last-option/
ICC has just issued an arrest warrant for Putin for “crimes against humanity”. Strange — if Dick Cheney, George W Bush , Joe Biden and Hillary Clinton accomplished nothing else I thought they had showed decisively –with the Iraq invasion of 2003 — that there is no such thing as “international law” when it comes to nuclear powers.
Russia is in the G20 — the G20 that is supposed to fix climate change. Kinda hard to do if the major source of fossil fuels can’t show up for the meetings. Of it if decides to open up a 3 foot pipeline of methane and start venting it into the atmosphere.
Re: Don Williams Mar. 17
I don’t think fixing climate change has been among the priorities of G20. Not surprising, given that the two members of G20 are: Russia and Saudi Arabia. the countries whose regimes, affluence of the elites, economies and geopolitical importance would collapse without the continued world’s dependency on oil and gas, So having one country fewer to sabotage any attempts to fix the global change, may not be as bad as you suggest it is.
And then there is your false equivalency of the invasion of Ukraine by Russia in Ukraine with the invasion of Iraq by the US. The numbers of victims on both sides, and the deliberate targeting the civilians and civilian infrastructure – are the two most obvious differences. And then there are underlying goals – the US did not attempt to annex parts or entire country of Iraq, nor did the US invade Iraq to erase the self-identity, history and culture of the Iraqis. So no, not the same or even similar.
The problem with false equivalencies is that relativizes the evil – whitewashes the crimes of the worse party by implying that they are not worse than those by the others. And if everybody is guilty then nobody is really guilty. Which is a logical and ethical fallacy we know well from climate debates:
see the denier’s classic
“if you use ANY fossil fuels, then you are a hypocrite to criticize those who use much more fossil fuels than you (drive gas-guzzlers, live in urban sprawl, have high-carbon footprint diet, are frequent fliers). And until you give up ALL your uses of fossil fuel energy – you shouldn’t be criticizing the fossil fuel industrial complex – all multinationals and petro-states that rely on continued selling of fossil fuels, or whose business models relies on the prices for fossil fuels that do not reflect their climatic costs.
@Piotr
PS RE G20 dealing with climate change:
https://www.cnn.com/2021/10/31/politics/g20-climate-communique/index.html
Climate Change Coordination among the major economic powers of the world is required lest some evade the required sacrifices in order to gain advantages in military and economic competition.
Re: Don Williams
> https://www.cnn.com/2021/10/31/politics/g20-climate-communique/index.html
So, on one hand you see yourself as a man who would not have wool pulled over his eyes by the cynical politicians (see you tirade on “Dick Cheney, George W Bush, Joe Biden and Hillary Clinton”), and then in very next post, you ask me to uncritically buy the official …. communique of the meeting of a bunch of politicians? The communique that … your own source criticizes as smoke and mirrors:
“the final communiqué lacked firm pledges and failed to put an end date on the actual use of coal. It did not make any commitments to improve on issues like climate finance.”
And that’s on top of the fact at least TWO members of G-20, Russia and Saudi Arabia, have EVERYTHING riding on … scuttling any attempts to reduce the world’s use of fossil fuels, since such a reduction would have meant the collapse of their economies, destroying their wealthy elites, destabilizing the ruling regime, and the end of their geopolitical importance.
You can equally well expect a design of safe chicken coop from a panel which two members are foxes, and several others – benefit from the foxes raids on the coop.
1) It was President Barack Obama who decided G20 would be the organization addressing climate change.
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/obama-to-usher-in-new-world-order-at-g-20
2) It was Barack Obama’s National Economic Advisor, Larry Summers, who originally drew up the list of who would be in the G20 –and who would not.
3) Last time I checked, the US and UK fossil fuel corporations –Exxon, Chevron, Peabody Coal, BP, etc – have neither gone out of business nor halted political donations nor limited extraction to the US and UK.
https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/iraq-acquire-exxon-mobils-stake-west-qurna-oilfield-minister-2022-01-05/
https://www.iraq-businessnews.com/2021/04/29/the-demise-of-exxonmobil-in-the-iraqi-petroleum-sector/
4) Re your “false equivalence” , Russia is trying to prevent stealth platforms with nukes from being deployed within 300 miles of Moscow and her ICBM sites. Joe Biden voted for an unnecessary war 6000 miles from the US to seize non-existent nukes from a country with no significant bombers or missiles.
5) Climate Change may drive China to migrate north and seize eastern Russia. Saudi Arabia may become uninhabitable if climate change progresses.
Don Williams:
Sure, Tankie. Das Vidanya.
Re. https://www.foxnews.com/politics/obama-to-usher-in-new-world-order-at-g-20
Uh you do know she is a Fox News blogger, right Don? Do you expect any smidgeon of truth?
Re: Don Williams, Mar. 20
Again – you see yourself as a man who would not have wool pulled over his eyes by the partisan propaganda and then your support your defense of Putins war crimes with a
… FoxNews piece on how Obama was “to usher in New World Order”. Whau.
And then in defense of your whitewashing of Russian invading an independent country and murdering tens of thousands of civilians – you regurgitate the standard Kremlin propaganda how it is the … US that made them do it. You are what Lenin called – “Russia’s useful idiots”. Until 1990 it used to the Western lefties, but now are apparently their stronghold is in FoxNews and among Trumpists.
And no – the fact that there American corporations that make money on fossil fuels does not make your equivalency of Russia and US any more honest – the US economy is NOT dominated by the export and oil, the way Russia’s and Saudi Arabia’s are. Take away fossil fuel exports and their economy collapses, and with that – their totalitarian rulers can no longer be certain of their power, and it goes – even their lives. So no, Don Williams, these are not the same.
DW: Russia is trying to prevent stealth platforms with nukes from being deployed within 300 miles of Moscow and her ICBM sites.
BPL: Nobody is trying to put in said stealth platforms. They exist entirely in the mind of people who, like you, take Russian disinformation seriously. Stop spreading Russian propaganda. It’s not welcome.
And here’s why…
https://twitter.com/45bestwords/status/1635930240131411968?s=20
I expect Putin to turn himself in to the authorities any day now.
Putin has cleverly made himsel to the very one and only authority, the son of God or something, the Czar, where the God is dead and he has taken over that seat.
So where shall he turn himself in?
He can go to Hell, can he.
I am being refused in Hell because I know to much about heat, but Putin may not know enough about heat yet.
The chineese dragon may eat him.
Yes. As we’re continually reminded, weather and climate are two different things. Weather is what is happening now, climate is what has been happening over many years. Yet, according to the alarmists (you know who you are), “climate change” is “happening NOW!” If climate and weather are two different things, how can climate be happening “now”?
In any case, what is happening NOW is a period of unprecedented, record-breaking COLD, accompanied by unprecedented devastating snowfall. Not only in one region of the world, but all over the place — and for an extended period. https://abcnews.go.com/US/dangerous-possibly-record-breaking-freeze-heading-northeast-expect/story?id=96851205
https://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/local/san-francisco-cold-record/3165929/
https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2023/02/coldest-temperatures-record-asia-climate-change/
https://watchers.news/2023/02/15/record-breaking-snowfall-hits-anchorage-alaska/
https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2023-03-01/yosemite-national-park-closed-indefinitely-historic-snowfall
https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20221218-record-breaking-snowfall-blankets-moscow
Wow. Looks like that Polar Vortex is working overtime.
I’m sorry folks, but if you want to insist “climate change” is HAPPENING NOW, then you must acknowledge that the opposite of what’s being predicted by all that “settled science” is also happening now. While weather and climate are indeed different, weather like this is NOT on the alarmist agenda. Winters were supposed to be getting milder, not more intense. And it’s not just this winter, as similar instances of extreme cold and snowfall have been recorded in the recent past as well: https://www.ibtimes.com/snowfall-2020-already-breaking-records-it-isnt-even-winter-yet-3070076
And if you prefer to fall back on all those heat waves, be my guest. According to evidence that would be difficult to refute, the 21st century has very clearly been warmer than any time in the 19th or 20th. So “unprecedented” heat waves are to be expected. Which tells us NOTHING about what has caused the warming. As I’ve demonstrated, there is NO meaningful correlation between CO2 levels and global temperatures: http://amoleintheground.blogspot.com/2018/10/thoughts-on-climate-change-part-8-tale.html
Nor is there any evidence of such a correlation in the past. For example: https://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/12/27/vostok-and-the-8000-year-time-lag/
Ahh…Vic brings up BOTH Vostok and “correlation” in the same post.
That’s TWO drinks!!!
V: If climate and weather are two different things, how can climate be happening “now”?
BPL: Victor, this doesn’t even make sense. Obviously something ongoing can be happening now.
V: Winters were supposed to be getting milder, not more intense.
BPL: No, they were not. In fact, it was specifically predicted that weather would get more variable. That means the standard deviation increases.
V: there is NO meaningful correlation between CO2 levels and global temperatures
BPL: r = 0.92 (N = 170)
Here again Victor, you are fighting the necessary principle of what has been shown to be an isolator, as such.
Because you do not understand what you are actually fightingt and denying. You are fighting the principle of electric and thermic conductivity and isolation as such, and all the obvious ways that it can be shown.
If your measurements and your statistics cannot show it, then your measurements and statistics and opinions are wrong
Vic: “ Weather is what is happening now, climate is what has been happening over many years. Yet, according to the alarmists (you know who you are), “climate change” is “happening NOW!”
Yes, Genius – NOW as: “ in the last few decades“. Decades: ergo climate, not weather.
I haven’t seen any “alarmist” PROVING CLIMATE change solely on the basis of a … a single local weather event. On the other hand I have seen quite a few of “nothing-to-worry-aboutists” and conspiracy theorists trying t dismiss global climate change with a single local weather event. See for instance
your fellow Very Stable Genius – who claimed that that Global Warming was “ created by and for the Chinese in order to make US manufacturing non-competitive” and then disproved it by brilliantly
arguing:
“In the East, it could be the COLDEST New Year’s Eve on record. Perhaps we could use a little bit of that good old Global Warming,” Pres. of the US, Donald J. Trump
So sorry, Mr. Victor, no sane person claims that a single extreme weather event unequivocally proves or disproves climate change. The increased frequency and severity of the extreme events OVER THE SCALE OF DECADES is a different story – this can be one of the symptoms of climate change. Is it possible that in your head you got the two completely different arguments conflated?
Vic: “ In any case, what is happening NOW is a period of unprecedented, record-breaking COLD, accompanied by unprecedented devastating snowfall”
Huh? First you tried to score points by inventing your opponents and making them discredit themselves by supposed proving climate change with a single local weather event, and then .
you turn around and try to … disprove global warming with a … local weather event???
Make up your mind, Genius, you can’ t eat the cake and pontificate how you are above eating cakes.
The world according to Piotr:
Vic: “ Weather is what is happening now, climate is what has been happening over many years. Yet, according to the alarmists (you know who you are), “climate change” is “happening NOW!”
Piotr: Yes, Genius – NOW as: “ in the last few decades“. Decades: ergo climate, not weather.
V: That’s not what’s being said. “Now” means now. Literally. And we’re hearing it everywhere. Take for example the following youtube clip, from an interview by Amy Goodman with Michael Mann: https://youtu.be/smD-fkleQEc?t=78
Note that every single disastrous event she references is literally “happening now,” i.e. autumn 2022, when the interview took place. From the perspective of climate science each is clearly an instance of weather, NOT climate. Note also that the types of events she’s listing, regardless of how disturbing, are the sorts of thing that’s happened a great many times in the past and will no doubt continue to happen in the future regardless of what we do or don’t do. Mann’s response is equally misleading: “With these catastrophic events we see playing out now in real time, we are witnessing the devastating consequences of climate change now.”
He goes on to cite various instances of “devastating” climate change, from heat waves to “flooding events,” “more drought,” “devastating wild fires,” “The physics isn’t that difficult here, you make the planet warmer you get more heat, more heat waves” etc.
Ok, at this point he IS attempting to extrapolate from what is happening “now” to what has happened in the (relatively recent) past (i.e. “climate”), by invoking certain basic principles of physics: a warmer planet can lead to more heat waves, floods, storms, etc.
Does anyone see the problem here? The fact that the world is getting warmer, a fact that hardly anyone would dispute, is provided as evidence of “climate change,” taken for granted to mean anthropogenic climate change, due largely to the burning of fossil fuels. Yet NOTHING he says supports such a theory. It’s simply taken for granted. I’m sorry, but there is something profoundly dishonest in Mann’s presentation, where he has no problem skipping over the essential question regarding cause and effect by simply assuming 1. that a serious long-term warming trend actually exists and 2. that he knows what’s caused it.
As far as extreme events are concerned, when we consult the historical record we see little to no evidence that they are getting worse, as both Goodman and Mann assume. US heat waves — no long term trend: https://www.epa.gov/system/files/images/2022-07/heat-waves_figure3_2022.png
Hurricanes. No long term trend: https://climatlas.com/tropical/
Precipitation. No long-term trend: https://climatedataguide.ucar.edu/sites/default/files/styles/square/public/2022-03/key_figures_420.png?itok=s_NRNWBK
US drought. No long term trend since 1890: https://www.epa.gov/sites/default/files/2021-04/drought_download1_2021.png
Little change in global drought: https://www.nature.com/articles/nature11575
Victor.
“Note that every single disastrous event she references is literally “happening now,” i.e. autumn 2022, when the interview took place. From the perspective of climate science each is clearly an instance of weather, NOT climate. ”
I suspect that what people really mean by saying “climate change is happening now” is we have seen some especially dramatic weather events in the last couple of years and we are seeing the IMPRINT of climate change on some specific weather events. . Scientific attribution studies have evaluated the impact of climate change on specific weather events. Essentially its making some types of events worse in specific ways. For example storms typically have higher rainfall intensity in recent years. There are some relevant links near the end of my post.
“US heatwaves- no long term trend.”
Its plain to see an increasing trend from 1940 – 2020 so I’m not sure what Victor is looking at. However the graph doesn’t show us a GLOBAL trend so Victor is just cherry picking. Trends vary in different countries and only the global tend shows what global climate change is doing. Studies show that globally heatwaves have increased in frequency and intensity:
“Here, using the Berkeley Earth temperature dataset and key heatwave metrics, we systematically examine regional and global observed heatwave trends. In almost all regions, heatwave frequency demonstrates the most rapid and significant change. A measure of cumulative heat shows significant increases almost everywhere since the 1950s, mainly driven by heatwave days. Trends in heatwave frequency, duration and cumulative heat have accelerated since the 1950s”
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-020-16970-7
“Heatwaves are growing in frequency and intensity around the world due to climate change”
https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2022/07/hot-weather-climate-change-heatwave-risk
Similar commentary and summation of what a variety of research studies have found:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jun/18/burning-planet-why-are-the-worlds-heatwaves-getting-more-intense
“Hurricanes. No long term trend”
Ryan Maues data and commentary is his own view and should be viewed with extreme caution. He was appointed to NOAA by the Trump administration and he has a history of climate science denialism.
https://www.desmog.com/ryan-maue/
The following is data on hurricanes: “Number of Category 4 and 5 Hurricanes Has Doubled Over the Past 35 Years, according to the National Science Foundation.” They are a more credible source.
https://www.nsf.gov/news/news_summ.jsp?cntn_id=104428
“Precipitation. No long-term trend”
The graph has no title, no location data, no source.
Numerous studies show heavy rainfall events have increased globally. One example. “While there are regional differences, and some places are becoming drier, Met Office data shows that overall, intense rainfall is increasing globally, meaning the rainiest days of the year are getting wetter. Changes to rainfall extremes – the number of very heavy rainfall days – are also a problem. These short, intense periods of rainfall can lead to flash flooding, with devastating impacts on infrastructure and the environment.”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/jul/07/human-activity-influencing-global-rainfall-study-finds
“US drought. No long term trend since 1890”
Only looks at one aspect of droughts, the palmer index. Look more widely: “Climate change has further altered the natural pattern of droughts, making them more frequent, longer, and more severe. Since 2000, the western United States is experiencing some of the driest conditions on record.”
https://www.usgs.gov/science/science-explorer/climate/droughts-and-climate-change#:~:text=Climate%20change%20has%20further%20altered,the%20driest%20conditions%20on%20record.
“Little change in global drought”
Victor cherry picks one single study on drought that suits his narrative. Numerous studies show changes in droughts “Climate change is making droughts more frequent, severe, and pervasive” according to NASA.
https://climate.nasa.gov/news/3117/drought-makes-its-home-on-the-range/
“Human-caused global warming has made severe droughts like the ones this summer in Europe, North America and China at least 20 times as likely to occur as they would have been more than a century ago, scientists said Wednesday.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/05/climate/climate-change-europe-drought.html
“The intensity of extreme drought and rainfall has “sharply” increased over the past 20 years, according to a study published Monday in the journal Nature Water. ”
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/science/scientists-confirm-global-floods-and-droughts-worsened-by-climate-change
I could go on. The point is you have to look widely at several studies to be able to see the wood and not be distracted by the trees, as the saying goes. Victor relentlessly cherry picks, so just ends up fooling himself, and demonstrating nothing of value.
“The following is data on hurricanes: “Number of Category 4 and 5 Hurricanes Has Doubled Over the Past 35 Years, according to the National Science Foundation.” They are a more credible source.”
Is this referring to a paper released in 2005? If so, there was significant debate regarding the conclusions of that paper:
https://www.wunderground.com/blog/JeffMasters/are-category-4-and-5-hurricanes-increasing-in-number.html
Victor’s claim was about hurricanes, not specifically category 4/5 hurricanes. To quote from the above link:
“Webster et al. also present plots of the global frequency of tropical storms, hurricanes, and the number of days those storms are present (Figure 3). No trend is apparent in these plots, and the paper states that “against a backdrop of increasing SST, no global trend has yet emerged in the number of tropical storms and hurricanes.” So far, all hurricane scientists are in agreement.”
Victor might be wrong on a lot of things, but in this isolated case I don’t think he is a million miles out.
When it comes to just the cat4/5 storms, you cannot directly compare counts from raw data without first applying some homogenisation to the data to account for the better instrumentation we have available today compared to 50 years ago. Based on fundamental physics, I would expect climate change to increase the frequency/intensity of the strongest storms but it is not clear whether it is possible to detect this now due to the fact that the numbers are small and inhomogenities in the historical data.
Victor
I got in 2 remarks on environment, stupidity and on Gods here.
So maybe you are also willing to learn.
Wise people often know how to turn the question and problems around and ask the opposite way if it is difficult. If it cannot be prooven that A causes B, then try whether B is causing A.
I take as an examp0le , if you have metals on you, it will be detected by the metal detector bowl at the airport, and if not, the metal detector is out of order and does not work.
It is as elementary as that, And it is not a matter of statistics and confidence at all. It has another category of cause. It comes because of the electric conductivity of metals different from common flesh and air, thus giving a radio eccho and interference.
CO2 giving global warming is not decided on or prooven by confidence and statistics the way you are trying to0 teaqch us in order to rule it out. If not shown by measurement statistics and confidence, then your measurements statistics and confidence is out of order and you better find your own error first..
Further, if iron metal does not hang on a magnet, there must be an error because iron is magnetic
Your error may then be that it is not an iron or that is not a magnet, or both . That way is rather the scientific way by which we analyze and conclude, given that we are not just cheaters or dilettants.
CO2 more or less causing global warming was first shown in the lab by John Tyndall, and further taken for real and not disputed.
Because wise men do not deny and dispute the physical experimental premises, such as heat radiation from boiling water temperature, the mirror galvanometer, the fine silver parabolic mirrors, and the recently invented termopile enabling a doubble beam experimental method of sample and reference..
Moral: You must understand how nature and how cruxive lab experiments work first, in order to understand what you are up to and will have to fighting against and to deny. Else you will but fight and deny and ruin your own credibility..
That fameous diffuse back radiation of radiated heat, that is giving us an efficient optically cleann IR isolator by timeless univeral necessity, is not what we decide on by confridence or political or personal opinion on the desktop.
I even have in my Jøtul 507 stove where I have to steadily restore the inner porous terracotta fireproof isolation to keep the combustion temperatures under control and in order. The stove is actually also at the same time heating back and heating up the burning and heating wood and coal inside of it. A fact that was fiercefully fought for a while by the contrarian industies.
Knowing a few such elementary things, I am rather able to follow the Paris convention quite well, because I understand better then what they are talking about.
I even read it by eye measure out of the glow colour temperatures in my stove and the cleanness of my chimney and then further in my own portemonnaise..
It is not for dilettants you see, it takes a bit learning and wisdom and responsibility also.
By steadily teaching and propagating the way you do, people who take your propaganda for true may become hardened stupid. And loose more and more control of their vital methods and understanding of their own lives, behaviours, and points of wiew..
They are being taught and guided and trained and drilled away from understanding common reality out from elementary and reliable quite common , physics, chemistery and bio.
You are performingb a civil war against easier cheaper and better understanding as such.
So that then alternatives, quackery and thyranny can take over.
You are fighting peoples and societys elementary defence and consumer protection.against trolls and whitchcraft, disaster plague and disease.
Exactly that fameous mission and propaganda may be a really worst and most accute on short term, political economic, and environmental pollution problem.
Vic: “from an interview by Amy Goodman with Michael Mann”
I didn’t ask you what you THINK they said, I asked
for a QUOTE in a climate scientist proves the climate change based solely ON A SINGLE local weather event.
No, Mann’s words: “The physics isn’t that difficult here, you make the planet warmer you get more heat, more heat waves” IS NOT that. Hint look for a quote analogous the words of your fellow very Stable Genius:
“ In the East, it could be the COLDEST New Year’s Eve on record. Perhaps we could use a little bit of that good old Global Warming”
Pres. Donald J. Trump
See – you have a single, local (“in the East”) weather (one day) event – that the author uses to question the reality of Global Warming.
So where is the quote, Vic?
Can you guys not just ignore the trolls? They’re obviously not going away, and they’re not going to learn anything no matter how hard you try. Just call it bullshit and move on.
The Russians on evaporation, condensation, and the atmospheric circulation
https://acp.copernicus.org/articles/13/1039/2013/acp-13-1039-2013.pdf
Makarieva, Gorshkov, Sheil, Nobre, & Li, 2013
A summary of the associated biotic pump and global hydroclimatological teleconnections
https://repository.usergioarboleda.edu.co/bitstream/handle/11232/397/How%20the%20biotic%20pump.pdf?sequence=7
“The Biotic Pump Theory, as set forward by Drs. Makarieva and Gorshkov, states that the primary force driving surface winds, certainly in the tropics, is induced by the negative changes in atmospheric pressure caused by condensation of water vapour when clouds form. A high rate of condensation is necessary and therefore the theory requires that a sufficiently high rate of evapotranspiration from large areas of forest provides the ‘fuel’ for the process.”
“The theory therefore runs contrary to the traditional view, as introduced in climate models, that surface winds are the sole products of differences in surface heating as well as of latent heat release during the process of condensation. Indeed, Makarieva and her colleagues claim that transitions in the phases of water play a far more important role in driving atmospheric dynamics than is currently recognised (Makarieva, Gorshkov, Sheil, Nobre, & Li, 2013).”
“The challenge is to find empirical data which indicates whether significant correlations exist between surface airflows and cloud condensation. That is not an easy task given the spatial distance between the ground and those atmospheric events which lead to clouds appearing and vanishing. Temperature and humidity undoubtedly play critical roles in generating the right conditions as indeed do the cloud condensation nuclei which are emitted from the surface, not least from vegetation, and which act to prevent super-saturation with water vapour and thereby enable it to condense at dew point temperatures.”
“Nevertheless, more work needs to be done, more evidence brought to bear before the climatological community will accept the biotic pump theory and its implications for modelling climate change”
[Response: This was all shown to be nonsense in the epic series of comments on a submitted (but never accepted) paper. An error in their theoretical derivation was ‘recast’ as a new parameterization but one that has no actual basis in reality. The rejection of this ‘theory’ has absolutely nothing to do with it’s supposed consequences. – gavin]
JCM
I shall try and look at this.
The study of para- sciences also is important for our understanding of science. And especially interesting that it is russian in our days.
darnit. i see that now
https://www.science.org/content/article/controversial-russian-theory-claims-forests-don-t-just-make-rain-they-make-wind
“Gavin Schmidt, a climate modeler at Columbia University, says, “It’s simply nonsense.” The authors’ responses to criticisms were “really just mathematics that gave no one any confidence that there was any point in continuing the dialogue.””
I will not hang my hat on it.
low impact work continues https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2405844022024616
on land clearing and soil desiccation, irrespective of the direct 10 hPa/km “evaporative/condensation force” conjecture:
“Incomplete understanding of vegetation-water feedbacks as related to temperature have implications for models and resulting global climate projections. Recent studies demonstrate that the warming that results from reduced transpiration more than compensates for the cooling that results from increased albedo”
This phenomenon is well known to land stewards.
Hr. JCM
After thinking it more over, I come to that Gavin Schmidt may have a point due to quite common things that urbanized people and people far from nature, farming, responsible ownership of own homes and gardens by economic and oecologicalo traditional order maybe never saw.,
Together with Matthias Schürle, You are discussibng it by one and only one seemingly popular, qvasi- scientific, conscept, Global Cooling by “Evapo-transpiration”
Hardly consceiving its whole- ness, namely its parametric connections and naturally balanced reversibility..
Keyeword, The fameous warming by condensing of water from vapour.
You are apparently proceding by no conscepts of both processes taking place at the same spot at the same time, thermo molecular processes going both ways at the same time and the macro- scopic result will be a balance of both.
I am more aquainted to that from chemistery you see, where we have that everywhere, so we learn about it and must respect it. Else, bad results.
Surrealism did fight “backradiation” fiercely ideologically , until Roy Spencer knocked down his own folks on that political point.
In any case, green forests and lawns and bushes cooling the average world situation and landscape is not obvious at all to me, because, here where I live the situation is rather obviously opposite. Green forests and lawns and tight bush vegetation quite obviously rather warm us and the situation and the landscape, houses gardens and ackers and flowers and fruits for ripening here where I live, and that situation is well known and traditionally true for the very tempered and sub- arctic and sub alpine and glacial zone on earth!.
I repeat…..!
We even arrange it cunningly artificiallye traditionally to make “microclimate” for houses and gardens and ackers…. thus expand the area of sensitive thermophile crops and animals fruits and flowers way out of the original quite warm climatic zones where they did origine naturally.
Again I repeat….!
Because we do not live in Las Vegas, Hollywood and Southern California and on Cicilia and the Holy Land and in Tyrkia only. where the monocausal evapotranspiration political doctrine may be most valid and vital.
Personally, I am able to save maybe 2 deg of warmth and winter fuel and 5-6 weeks of summer season length by protecting the natural tempered and taiga forest vegetation right here on the spot, and even save higly industrially purified drinkwater for my lawns and my flowers, and rather harvest tomatoes cherries apples and wines northslope in the old Taiga, where wild oaks and apples are coming over the hill to us in quite recent years .
Those big trees obviously warm us and need no artificial evapotranspiration.for thriving.
There is birdbath and birbath-festival under it now, with bare ground, as the neighbours only have snow and ice on their pavements and lawns. This is obvious and traditional kinowledge in Scandinavia and in old England and in Holland. .
The “Jungle” obviously stabilizes and protects against the extreeme temperatures and weathers, alltogether rather by a bit warming, not chilling effect. As Life and Bio obviously knows how to ajust the environment to its own advantage due to an obviously very long history of evolution or maybe even intelligent creation.
As for the last, Bio and life has the ability in itself to create and to evolve intelligently at least.
@carbomontanus
thank you.
however
I am not discussing the trees and the multiple reflections of solar beams important in northern high latitudes. neat stuff tho.
nor do I have much interest in the sub arctic periglacial shallow sandy till and bedrock regions. Such geographies are pretty stable from a hydrological standpoint. There really isn’t much to erode.
Importantly, I am not talking about “monocauses”, I find such reductionism to be the domain of intellectually lazy and phony environmentalists.
A lot of people fall into this trap – especially well intentioned ones. Everyone does it, I think.
I am most interested in the regions with active and ongoing soil erosion, drainage, and desiccation. This is my niche.
De-vegetation is a related sub-domain. But I’m not hung up on “tree planting”. The hydrological stability is always paramount.
In some cases the trees make things worse.
The good europeans did enough damage with introducing their Scotch Pine in the colonies during the 19th century. What a total disaster ecologically and hydrologically speaking. Today we’re pulling them out. They’re absolutely everywhere!
The preachers are free to go on about their energy transitions, technophilia, emergency declarations, and trace gas emission cutting programs. Good for them.
However, in their reductionism they are causing net harm. This I know for sure. In all the excitement the do-gooders really do show a kind of willful blindness.
In 1997 we could have predicted with reasonable precision using the crude products from UNEP where the hydrological emergencies would be observed over the coming decades.
https://www.globalagriculture.org/fileadmin/_processed_/csm_Soildegradationalles_886cca3dd4.jpg
They hydrological emergencies have been re-branded “climate emergencies” in the headlines.
“As Life and Bio obviously knows how to ajust the environment to its own advantage due to an obviously very long history of evolution” –
I totally agree. An equilibrium of sorts, completely untangled in the blink of an eye. No wonder things are different now.
JCM
@ JCM
I do not buy that evapotransoiration theory or folklore propaganda and suggestion for countering global warming, neither that folklore of earth being a water cooled planet.
especially not on behalf of wholeness and holism contra all that IPCC has forgotten or ignored.
When the same actiivists here wear blinkers against the whole truth and serve my only less than a half of it.
Water is also what is warming the earth, and the evaporation entrophy of water does also warm the situation as well as it cools.
And as I told and showed by obvious examples from the very Eurasia, , trees bushes and jungles do also warm the planet over maybe most of the planets jungle and bush and forest areas.
The holists in their hurry seem not to be aware of this at all.
You have suggested that there is hardly anything to erode in the rocky mineral sandy north, subglacial and subalpine areas, thus Amazonas is in charge..
False. That is where it erodes for the most. In the tropics, is has allready eroded and is not much more there to erode exept by human help.
The rather very high erosion of sub-boreal landscapes follow from the fact that it is especially young landscapes and young soils hardly more than 10-20 000 years old.
large meandering river systems and especially kaolinized soils like in the tropical rainforests tell us the opposite. Namely that it is allready edoded and can hardly erode anymore. It is allready eroded and flattened and washed out to sea, and all plant nutricians frogs and birds snails mosses and spiders are thus living up in the treetops.. When that falls down it rots rapidly in the warmth and all minerals are re- cycled up there again, whereas the ground is fully eroded and has become sheere, poor Kaolin.
Chop down and sell aqnd burn all that biomass, and possible fertility rushes out the river in a few years, and you can pay for and carry on it waggons of NPK & Dolomite and ammoniumm nitrate fertillizer to have any crop yield at all.
That is the problem. Not evapotranspiration and rainbarrels.
Whether trees and palms will cool Sahara Arizona and Las Vegas and Southern California and the plains in spain,…and give rain in the plains,…. I really doubt it.
There is also night, namely bright light moonshines night in Sahara and in Spain in the Plain where hurricanes hardly happen. With nightfrost! becaus that cools especially fast half of the time.
Holism you see.
Moral and summa summarum is then easy to see and to agree on.
Water neither cools nor warms the planet. quite on the contrary it anti- warms and anti- cools. It stabilizes the situation and protects planetary lifre against extreme chill and heat.
And so does also the wild natural vegetation and jungle as far as I can judge it.
Water and jungles ar not heaters or coolers, they are thermo- stats that damp and even break the swingings. .
Psevdo- holism and quasi- science must be shown back behind the ropes and the bars here to the aspirand and tourist visiror class…….
where they should rather be given the chanse to rather pay and to obey and to pray, in order to qualify first……
because they fight politically against the wholeness and the global environment and even against humanity, flowers birds trees and wildlife., rivers, mountains and glaciers and waters.
JCM
I forgot to say it, but ththis is also orthodoxy.
Water vapour, an invisible greenhouse gas way more potent than CO2, will warm the situation in southern California and Las Vegas, in Sahara and in Spain, in the plain, if there has been enough evapotranspitration there.
And due to IR- backradiation it will not cool down enough again in Spain, and in the plain in the nights,……… that is more or less half of the time in Spain in the plain
But in Hereford Hardford and Hampshire where hurricane hardly happen there may be grey and foggy dews and rain……. with no proper summer warmth……. but rather nasty bathing weather.
Evapotranspirations from the sea that falls down again as warm rain in the plain and further on the glaciers is what eats glaciers more than anything else.
Thus again,….,!
All this is Real Climate, you see. Not just in Amazonas.
They are fearing it now in southern and northern California, that all that evapotranspiration with rain in the terrain in the plain, but quite especially in the mountains when it rains,….
…..it will wash them out from the plain.
Because, what really eats snow is warm rain in the plain. ,
much more than sunshine in southern California and in Hollywood.
Because, Holism tells us that the Earth is a water- warmed planet, not a water- cooled one. Contra veteres.
All this is Real Climate and timeless wisdom.
@carbomontanus,
a lot of effort there,
but less trying.
an amateurish interpretation of landscape.
has no idea what is the meaning of erosion in reality.
an audacious lecture, directed to those who live by the nature of the watersheds.
the glamour of chemistry, and physical mathematics notwithstanding.
A disappointing space created, here, by climatology.
snap out of it, y’all.
JCM
JCM
What I am correcting here is “evapotranspiration” being the holistric understanding of global warming and progressive scientific political solution to it.
“Evapotranspiratiuon” is an invasive pagan (vulgar moslem), dia- lectic materialistic progressive DDR scientific, southern so- vi ett union mission doctrine formula, from the special desert walkers, flat earthers, and blind believers in Las Vegas, Hollywood, Southern California (where it rains again), in , Arizona, and in Death walley where the earth is severely dry and flat. .
Blind believers, flat earthers and desert walkers on their way to Mecca in order to find and to kiss Allah are not to be our experts and teachers, especially not in Las Vegas, Hollywood and southern California and quite especially not in Amazonas.
In Kasakhstan and in Donbas you see, where the Earth is also flat and where all blind believers and desertb walkers have settled and instructed, they need other medicines now.
The Aral sea is an environmental ruin due to monopoly capitalism and politicians, much worse than even Las Vegas, Lake Mead, Hollywood, Salton Sea, and Death Valley.
Antarktis is an important reference. (The Norwegians are claiming Queen Mauds land there due to Roald Amundsen.)
There are death valleys there due to evapo- transpiration so severe that even the snow and ices have evapo- transpirated
I repeat….
and there is only sheere apparently sterile desert rocks remaining, as JCM suggests and understans from the inferiour unimportant north where they have not yet understood what erosion is about..
. Some seals have immigrated and have simply died, and remain there in Antarktis>`death valleys as evapotranspirated http://www.Stoccavisso mummies. at zero Fahrenheit exactly.
A sublime situation, that is due to sublimation.
So evapotranspiration does not do it and is no good medicine regardless, not even the upper hand and most important principle and explaination and medicine against global warming and climate.
There are typical http://www.Stoccafisso see also www,Stokkafisk mummies of humans found in the sands on the plains in the Spains where it hardlyb rains and where hurricanes hardly happen… all along the silk- roads in central Eurasia. You do not have to go to Las Vegas, Hollywood, Southern California and to Death valley for it.
In fact, one finds proof of desert walkers as dried out mummies and skeletons in the sands, with a hat, and a frying pan in their right fore- paw, only 4-5 steps ahead of a poisoned well of water thrieving for “evapotranspiration”.
it is not called “Death Valley” for nothing with so extreeme evapotranspiration.
“Blow boys blow
to Californai oh
Theres plenty of gold
so I am told
on the banks of Sacramento”
SANN
Because,
Fanatism, Reductionism Holism Capitalism Dia- lectic materialism and Evapotranspiration youn see,… is not automatically successful and sustainable.
It may end up as I pointed at, as a dried out Stoccafisso skeleton 4 steps ahead of a poisened water hole in Death Walley with hat still on and a frying pan forward to it in the right hand.
Just think of it.
Your Amazonas is where they try again. “There`s plenty of gold so I am told…”
@ JCM
2 graphics and a link should complement your above posts about mongobay & others.
https://media.springernature.com/lw685/springer-static/image/art%3A10.1007%2Fs00382-014-2430-z/MediaObjects/382_2014_2430_Fig2_HTML.gif?as=webp
https://climateprotectionhardware.files.wordpress.com/2022/09/clouds-transportofheatandwatervapour.jpg
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00382-020-05451-8
Our host Dr. GA Schmidt (2010) is the man who ascribes a warming GHE of ~75% (+116.25W/m²) to water (vapour) and clouds (total GHE = ~ +155W/m²). But water(vapour) & clouds warm AND cool the earth system. However, the cooling effect of clouds and evaporation according to Prof. M. Wild et al (2018) is ~ 129W/m² (evaporation = 82W/m² + cloud radiation effect = 47W/m²)
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00382-018-4413-y/figures/14
Makarieva and Gorshkov’s Biotic Pump Theory would further reinforce the perception that the hydrological function of rainforests is far more important than their ability to act as a sink for atmospheric carbon dioxide. In fact, ET is a cooling process and thereby helps to reduce global warming and climate change due to cloud generation.
The historically fatal and very likely deadly mistake for creation of presenting CO2 concentrations as the sole driver of global warming stems from the stupidity of climate scientists and the IPCC. In their attribution research on climate change, they actually forgot to price in their own stupidity.
I would love to see your continued support to break down the blind glass windows of their ivory towers. And if we fail, don’t despair. The SUN stands by our side and will help us to dry out the last stupid brains until the lukewarm pee is in their underpants. I vouch for this with my name and my word of honour…
@macias,
thank you and I appreciate your ongoing virtual companionship.
I offer further notes below –
A compiled listing from the New York times of the observed hydrological and temperature extremes attributed solely to trace gas emission last summer:
1) In the U.S., a heat wave on the West Coast has sent temperatures soaring above 110 degrees Fahrenheit in the past few days. About 100 million Americans across the country suffered another heat wave earlier this summer. And floods have ravaged parts of the U.S., including Kentucky and Missouri.
2) The earlier heat wave that hit Pakistan reached India, too. A severe drought also struck parts of India this summer, reducing the country’s food exports. And floods in Bengaluru, India’s tech capital, forced workers to ride boats and tractors to get to the office.
3) A heat wave and drought in China dried up rivers, disabling hydroelectric dams and cutting off ships carrying supplies.
4) Another heat wave in Europe sent temperatures in Britain to a record 104 degrees Fahrenheit. Droughts across the continent dried up rivers, exposing sunken ships from World War II and disrupting the river cruise industry. And wildfires in Europe have burned nearly three times as much land so far this year as the 2006-2021 average.
5) In April, heavy rainfall caused floods and mudslides in South Africa that killed at least 45 people.
Conspicuously absent in the reporting and from scientific authorities are aspects of catchment hydrology and soil desiccation acting in addition to trace gas effects.
The imprints of desertification cannot be denied. So we evidently have a total failure in our institutional systems of communication.
My new thinking is that the fundamental aspects of landscape are so simple to understand in reality that discussion of the mechanism beggars belief and results in outright rejection.
The scope of human alteration to biophysical catchment characteristics is vast. I think there might be a psychosocial technical term for when something becomes so omnipresent that we come to filter it out of our conscious awareness. It may be related somehow to the phenomenon ‘inattentional blindness’.
Sabine Hossefielder has discussed some aspects of our inattention and systematic bias on her wildly popular youtube channel, in the segment labelled “Collective Stupidity – How Can We Avoid It?” https://youtu.be/25kqobiv4ng
In a fit of rage Angel F. Adames Corraliza, PhD prof. in moist atmospheric dynamics has the following remark on Twitter: https://twitter.com/afadames/status/1639049114578219008
“The academic system needs to burn to the ground and be built from scratch. It’s elitist and based on “prestige” rather than access, following centuries of racist/sexist/classist policies. It’s mostly a place where rich boys talk and act superior and that’s why the public hates us”
This is an extremist view, but it is a symptom of something very real.
It some respects I think we are still capable of thinking and discussing instead of regurgitating reductionist concepts from superiorists. However, this ability is waning as we descend further into collectivist camps. On one hand the ‘denialists’ who scoff at any notion of human alteration to earth system process, and on the other hand the blind ‘believers’ with myopic visions of trace gas. A reasoned milieu is absent.
I couldn’t help but notice the myopia on another youtube channel “Texas Methane Hunters” in their segment “Uncovering the Permian Climate Bomb”. We see the activists filming in great detail the emission of trace gas exhausting from the fossil fuel facility. However, the omnipresent total ecosystem desiccation in the background surrounding the facility extending across countless millions of hectares goes unnoticed. A useful metaphor. It’s all captured on film plain for all to see. if you cannot see consider yourself part of the collectivists stupidification. https://youtu.be/dMT2ESXlZ14?t=178
Makarieva, Nefidov, and Nobre remain defiant in their ongoing efforts to learn, discuss, and to communicate the role of ecosystems in atmospheric phenomena and how it relates to our experiences and measurement of climates. “The role of ecosystem transpiration in creating alternate moisture regimes by influencing atmospheric moisture convergence” https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/gcb.16644
The reductionist superiorists may completely reject notions of landscape because it does not explain all things climate But the ideas are meant to offer a bridge for multi-disciplinary and across-class and non academic practitioner engagement.
@crapomontanus says: –
” Green forests and lawns and tight bush vegetation quite obviously rather warm us…”
ms: —
Then take a chainsaw and saw off all the trees and bushes in Norway – you complete idiot,
to finally save us from global warming.
When you’re done with that in Norway, you can go to the Amazon – there’s still a lot of work waiting for you there.
But be careful! Some natives still live there behind the bushes, and they can also use chainsaws. Out of sheer gratitude, they will saw you and your stupidity into small slices to feed their pigs. — Well done – I think.
I do the opposite here, genosse,
I let it come up as free as possible and chop it as little as possible by a very basic principle of carpentry, do it with as low number of chops and cuts as possible and avoid grinding and milling it or sawing it if possible. Thy and make least possible number of material particles out of it. That means, cut whole trees and whole branches or nothing
Es ist besser das Wekzeug zu schleiffen als das Holz zu schleiffen.
Thus, We save you from global warming.
It rather falls down from itself by the storm ready dried and seasoned for barbeque, and we avoid using tropical charcoal and blue butane gas boxes for the same. and have a much finer barbecue.
But flat earthers, desert walkers and blind believers are unable to get any geopgysical idea of any global situation and the role of water and bio in the universe, not even on earth.
Here we see, it, They just smash around with cycles and chainsaw sales promotion arguments.
Der Wald wuchert in Deutschland aber man nennt ihn Unkraut. Was da los ist, das ist kein Waldsterben sondern grassate, direkte Tortur von alles lebendige was man nicht kennt und erkennenn kann,
Auf Armlänge Abstand.
Und jene fanatische Pöbel wollen uns was beibringen.
They are envious to us who reallize that we have maximum cash prophit allready from not being at war with the green values and do not go across the creek for water Think globally and act locally.
Oline came from the Rudolf Steiner- school with a very fine portrait drawing of herself and the cat.
I showed her my own technical drawings and told her to get us some ” common reed” and some bark of older, Alnus incana and glutinosa L for ink calligraphy..
By good techniques , it looks as if you could draw, I said her. Take it out of empty air and quite localm resources. Not from Amazonas. Our own nature and environment must be defended first
Tell also Killian about that. Who told us to heat for the crows and burn and make “Terrapreta” here out of our best materials and resources and kill all we have of mushroms and microbes in it..
Another way of examining it is to compare annual mean temperature in a set of tro0pical jungles and rainforests with annual mean temperatures in known deserts north and south in the high pressure and representative desert areas.
We will hardly find night frost in the tropical rainforests and why not? because water and vegetation has got a consequent warming effect there when the sun is away, and a cooling effect only at day and bright sunshine.
Then compare to the desert data of annual mean temperatures, and compare also the amplitude of annual and of diurnal temperature swing and extreemes. Burning sun and hot during day, and with nightfrost and even snow during night and in winter.
T heese are things that were not guessed and not conscidered by our evapotranspirationists, who at the same time also seem also to play down the fameous role of CO2 as hard as they dare to.
Instead of simply guessing and grasping that the earth is not a water- cooloed planet but rathere a water- and vegetation- damped planet, because it is also q1uite obviously a water and vegetation and evapotranspirational warmed planed.
My car is standing with windows at the roadside next to my garden with thick bush and tree and jungle- vegetation on the right side and open sky at the left side.
Guess on which side I have to scrape frost from in the winter mornings at sunrise, and on which side it is rather allways all clear without frost?
Dew and frost settles on the coldest side you see, and that side both of the car and of the earth radiates against the starry heavens at night.
No ice and frost on the jungle and bushy evapotranspirational side of course, because that warms my car at night in the winters by radiation half of the year and half of the time on earth when sun and daylight is away and with no burning fossile fuel inside.
And frost that I have to scrape on the side against open sky is due to the fameous BIG BANG, that is what cools the situation on earth,
IUndeed, Nothing else can possibly cool us. The Earth is a Big-Bang cooled planet, you see. by the chill of outer space, not by any chill of water and evapotranspiration of the same. .
Not the water, . and not the jungle, and not the Bio , the mosses, and the vegetation because all that rather warms us actually all the time. .
Bio jungle and vegetation and water clealy warms the situation half of the time when the sun is away. which is half of the time also in Amazonas.
Thus declared holists here are exelling and forgetting and hiding and denying and fighting half of the truth at least As they also damn and swear for stating proof of their illusions.
.
You complete idiot, he writes.
“It takes one to know one” Putin remarked.
When one tries to explain by best knowledge and will, they get large arrogant wild and brutal and smash around with chainsaws when they reallize only faintly that they may be unright and misconsceived.
That seems to be the core and the bottoms of mafia mobsters syndicalism and denialism, dia- lectic materialism when they begin to feel that they may be loosing in the wars and in the disputes. It was so fine as it was only peaceful rainbarrels.
But to all and everyone including Gavin Schmidt, who may be responsible here,
They reallize only halfway and half of the truth and half of it all and “further” and sell that as the wholeness, that the alians and “the west” and IPCC has forgotten or hidden in a cheating way.
They hide the decline. It takes one to know one, namely.
They forget and they hide half of the time, they hide the whole night and the whole winters when water and all the vegetation rather warms as well and even more than thyat, without even have to burn.
They fight and they ridicule autentic nature and elementary physics and possible whole understanding of it
It shows and documents and it betrays backgrounds and upbringings in the artificial and halved and flattened and sterilized prisons and peoples republøics on the factory floor where the earth is flat behind barbed wires, and where they were lacking elementary clean waters and were served only the substitute pure Vodka in the baby bottles to strengten and to cool them and referesh them.
I saw it again this morning, the obvious and natural. At the most neutral situation of vernal equinox where day and night are equally long and can be compared at windstill and clear sky high pressure.
Frost on the car roofs and clear surfaces and windeows onwards to the jungle and earthly and thick vegetational side and evapotranspirational side of the cars and of the earth, the warmer side of the cars and of the globe half of the time.
The evapotranspirational believers forget the frosty desert nights due to no vegetation and no warming “evapotranspirational” water.
And smash around with motorsaws against both people andv vegetation as you can see, when they begin to reallize in their core and at their bottoms that they are fanatically wrong and misconsceived.
Carbo, this is pretty incompetent stuff. Terra preta kills microbes? LOL….
I would correct this in detail, but it’s pretty much impossible to make this mistake if one has even the slightest understanding of what terra preta is, so I’m confident nobody else will repeat this gobsmackingly obvious error.
“frosty desert nights due to no vegetation”
yes exactly. during the night the net turbulent flux in the boundary layer is directed downwards, always opposing the direction of net radiation.
That residual water vapor circulating in the boundary layer, which has not sufficiently released in condensation at altitude, is returned to the surface condensing as ground frost and dew.
This is most common in times of calm weather and high pressure systems.
Overall the reality is that condensation occurring aloft far exceeds the condensation occurring at surface.
With net transport aloft, the condensed matter surfaces act as broadband IR radiators at height where the atmosphere is more transparent.
The effective radiating surface observed from space includes this condensed matter.
from a local perspective, to reduce extreme heat accumulation the goal must always be to maximize net heat transport aloft, up and out of the boundary layer.
This can be accomplished by reducing optical depth to radiation, and by a restoration of the net latent flux and dynamical transport process.
The night is dominated by longwave radiative cooling, during which time net radiation is directed upwards.
The day is dominated by cooling latent heat transport aloft, during which time net radiation is directed downwards.
A sufficiently high rate of net latent transport by surface water availability + condensation aloft during the day also corresponds with lower optical depth in the evening.
The air is cleansed of the heat trapping humid haze with the aid of a functional ecosystem process.
Importantly, the specific heat and radiation regime of naturally dry sandy deserts is far different than unnaturally exposed loam subsoils in more humid regions.
Sensible heat is very poor at penetrating up and out of the boundary layer. The best bet is by latent and radiative flux.
The symbiotic vegetation, fungi, and microbes are intimately involved with the latent heat transport and cloud condensation mechanisms, in addition to ensuring the windows are left sufficiently ajar to longer wave radiative flux.
Perhaps it can be argued these processes on the continents play a role in larger scale dynamical process. There appears to be an increasing budget of SW down penetrating into ocean where this energy is not immediately reradiated to space.
Indeed, there is no dispute IR actives gases act in harmony with the dynamic equilibrium process.
There is no need to minimize the multiple co-benefits of ecological restoration out of some fear that this might undermine the reductionist trace gas policy communication efforts.
@ Killian again
“”nobodey else will repeat this gobsmackingly obvious error”
“Terrapreta kills mictobes? LOL”
Your hair is long, genosse, but your thoughts seem quite much shorter.
As if fire and heat does not kill microbes and sterilizes, de-naturates the materials, which is exactly what is done artificially in order for the substrate not to rot and be eaten away quickly by microbes in that climate..
But may be a necessary technique when the tropical soil is hardly more than sheere kaolin and biological decay goes especially fast.
Where it is burnt, all life is killeds, and it takes years for it to grow back again if ever. But there are typical pioneering plants also after bushfires and where houses have burnt down. Rubus idea L for instance, and young birches. And quite interestingly Leguminosae.
Plants and life show high diversity. Tomatoes I have learnt, can be grown on sterile glasswool with sheere lifeless mineral fertillizer. But with potatoes,… you hardly have success without fresh… bullshit… or Man-shit… They seem special in their ability of taking up ammonium before it is oxidized to nitric acid buffered with limwestone. and very fond of phosphate.
Carrots and cabbage shall rather have it thorroughly decayed odeourless without any smell of “manure”.
Ribes negrum rubrum and album and uva crispi like well drained stony ground like we have, Morrhaines. But with ferilliser, leavefall and piss. I have had very fine results simply with sawdust morraine sand rough grinded dolomite and NPK fertillizer. When the mushroms blossom atop of that after 3-4 years it is ready , and you get record yield for many years. .
Potatoes were phaenomenal in fresh sawdust. Hardly in freshly grinded charcoal.
Mushroms do it you see, they take the sawdust and the needlefall of pinaceae make mykorrhiza, and re- cycle the minerals..
But the premises for all this is burnt by Terrapreta. That is not to be recommended , rather to be dis- qualified and warned against,… for agricultre and gardenintg in tempered and northern areas.
It grows most phaenomenal in basaltic volcanic aqshes by the way, on Island, on Hawai, on Vesuv , and in Vulkaneiffel Germania.
Not because of the char and the coal and the “brand” but because of the plutonic original mineral content that is weathered from it rather fast.
Litt: Slash–and-burn Wikipedia.
Not recommended by FAO, because not sustainable.
JCM
The vertical currents that fully explain the climate, is another rumor, meme , and folklore in the denialist state religion.
If that “parcel of air ” mooves downwardes , it will heat up adiabatically, and fogs will dissolve. Cfr extreemly dry and hot föhn- winds.
Dew and frost on the ground happens when the air for some reason contains enough invisible H2O- gas, its partialm pressure or molar pro9portion being high enough, and then, thew whole temperature falls in steady air hardly with winde, and that seems only possible by …. radiation.
Rather the surfaces, the car roofs and windows radiate and have low enough heat capacity to cool down (thin car roof metal isolated inside) below the condensing and freezing point of H2O that is allready there in the air. And the temperature at the ground falls low enough tho the very fameous Dew- point” because of radiation upwards. in trhe night.
Fogs in the air near the ground at night and at windstill comes because of the same, but by aerosols enough in the air for drop nuclei in the air. .
There is morning dew and frost in the grass for the same reason and I have seen it extreemly at the shore in Pisa in summer. With burning sun and hot during day but clear nights, and strong morning dew everywhere on the tents and on the willow tree- leaves.
A German who knew said that “Theese trees have no other water in summer than this morning dew. “!.
The land is heated by the sun during day, the air rises leaving a vacuum. . The sea is more cool, there water evaporates from the sea, and blows in over land.
Homer has written about it allready. “It smells pristine sea in town during day and smells sinful town at sea during night.” The Odysse.
Moist air going up may give Cumulus and cumulonimbus. But moist air being forcede down will give fönwind and deserts. Eventual clouds and fogs will disasolve.
The watering and greening of mediterraneann coasts such as southern California and Holluwood is mainly horizontal.
That effect may be quite important for arid areas and desert vegetation. But that water has evaporated at sea and blown in from the sea during day. Not fallen down from above. in vapour form
Wherefore you also see green stripes of vegetation at the sea shores everywhere in arid and desert mediterranean climate…. worldwide.
Italian mountains and californian mountains are green. There, the moist sea- winds are forcede up against mountains and water condenses by lapsrate and adiabatic expansion to hit the claussius clappeyron dewpoint- curve in empty air.
@Carbomontanus
“The vertical currents that fully explain the climate”
I said no such thing! I detect an obsession with the “monocause”. My cause, or your cause. A false choice. Denialists suffer the same defect.
The principles of turbulent flux are discussed in great detail by TR Oke 2nd ed 1987. it is probably still being used to support undergraduate lecture.
The turbulent fluxes of H and LE, he labels it, if I recall. A solid foundation without which further discussion will be fruitless!
“If that “parcel of air ” mooves downwardes , it will heat up adiabatically”
yes it must be so! the H transforming to and fro the kinetic and potential energy reservoirs. The latter representing a storage term.
This is happening everywhere always, not only in the extreme case of the Foehn winds. The sunlit side charging of the potential energy reservoirs.
In the evening the air relatively warmer than it otherwise might have been.
The LE operating by different physical mechanism, the energy stored in vapor phase. That heat stored until condensation, being on the ground or at altitude. That is a turbulent flux too.
The H has no mechanism to transport heat to space. It simply rises and cools, decreasing the kinetic energy and increasing the potential.
The LE, on another hand, delivers heat effectively in condensation aloft. In the night it can be delivered to the surface too, if the radiative conditions permit.
Along with the LE, the surface radiative transmission are of primary interest from a cooling perspective.
The warmist perspective may want to study the H in some more detail, and its relation to the LE. Shifting flux more to the H will evidently reduce the ability for the system to cool.
So we must understand in great detail the surface energy budget. That is my viewpoint.
the net radiation = the H + LE. Now which terms are in charge?
Or is there a dynamic radiative-convective type equilibrium situation occurring here. a codependency across domains like a bad marriage.
JCM
I nave not come to any bconclusion about that Biotic pump of Makarieva yet, others than it being more rain where it is green may have the opposite cause. Where it rains there will be more green. But, I would guess that it is a phaenomenon that works both ways. A causes B , while B also causes A..
I consequently go for the green values, being our only serious carbon sink, so protection of natural and sustainable vegetation has highest priority in any case. But then it is important not to contaminate or ridicule the propaganda for it by para- sciences and quackery. It can be advocated for many enough reasons without having to fight the IPCC. or serving that rumor of the earth being a water cooled planet, for personal career- reasons.
One does not have to disqualify and to showel away climate research and meteorology for having audience and room and money for it. On the contrary, It can very well go together,.
Sahara and Central Asia were clearly more green at Max holocene, and the worlds major Loess- areas settled sub- glacial by enormeous and frequent dust- bowls during the ice- ages. That together entails clearly that the higher the earth temperature, the more it rains, also inland.
Google Earth clearly shows fossile lakes and river systems everywhere in todays deserts. Oase- culture remains everywhere in relict old water systems from max holocene.
The southern California and Las Vegas and Hollywood- and lake-mead arguments are wrong and misconsceived in other words, or rather quite provincial, not appliciable worldwide. .
The Congo- bassin and Amazonas seem to have been rather Savannas in Max holocene and grown over with jungle as the world has cooled. The worlde is ratherv turning back to that situation in our days. Desertification today is rather antropogene sheere local human error. and not the main tendency. anymore.
@ JCM
To your remark 30 mars 857 am
We must take it next month, it will soon be closed here.
“The turbulent fluxes of H and LE…”
and futher down
“the net radiation = the H + LE..”
Seems not defined. I cannot understand it.
Turbulent and laminar fluxes, I simply cannot see what turbulent fluxes means here. Turbulence in the fluxes will soon dissapear because of gaseous viscosity if not steadily and fiercefully forced. Hope that is not part of your argument..
Also be aware of the fameous http://www.Hans/Jelbring & al argument of lapserate and global warming having its simple “physical scientific” explaination of weighty air falling down in the gravitational field along with E = mgh, Energy = mass times graitation times heigth of falling.
A theory that shall fully explain the ground temperatures on Venus and all further planets..
That fameous folklore constitutes a Perpetuum mobile, that was Ruined by Roy Spencer
See Roy Spencer, “Thibute to Willis Eschenbach for setting the Zeller Nicolov silliness straight”
If you pump up a gas tank of air, it gets hot. Next day it has cooled down, and you can tap off the conndense water by a cock at the bottom next day. It did hardly condense before next day.
Venus would have cooled fully down during the last 4 billion years also.
That fameous Hans Jelbring- argument is not the way to disqualify James Hansens explaination of the russian Venera sonde data.
And turbulence is irrelevant to it. It heats and cools in a hurry by adiabatic compression expansion, not by turbulence friction. either.
“Sahara and Central Asia were clearly more green at Max holocene”
as the theory goes the descending air masses of the so-called Hadley cells shall dictate the location of the major natural deserts.
so there has been an exception at Max holocene which defies theory. Even today, many locations defy theoretical desert effect by global circulation.
what has occurred there in Central asia and Sahara (or elsewhere by teleconnection) during holocene to cause such a change?
what causes such exceptions – how do such exceptions influence our views about global circulation, trade winds, and forced response?
certainly the currently observed aridification there in Afghanistan and associated social unrest is not caused by trace gas emission. In earlier times the area was indeed quite affluent by anecdotal records. Moreso like Switzerland.
It is evidently a human caused phenomenon. Certainly at a much smaller scale than today, but equally impactful for the residents there.
PS looks like they’re still at it with some fancy visuals. I suspect the principles apply across all continents and ecological communities, not only Amazonia.
https://news.mongabay.com/2023/02/forest-modeling-misses-the-water-for-the-carbon-qa-with-antonio-nobre-anastassia-makarieva/
JCM
Very interesting indeed, (Probably of high value. I must read it all more carefully.)
I really go for the same.
But I see that they are activists, and then why do they have to talk down the role and importance of CO2 at all? That ony makes them dubious and contaminates their healthy good mission .
In fact, I think I came to that basic objection to the IPCC political campaign way before them as the climate problem was first launched to the public at the university square festival.
“But,… what about the clouds? ”
was my very first critical remark. To which I mostly have just foggy answers. Simply because people know less about the clouds and the foggy dews. http://www.Nephelai in greek.
Having been a bathing beauty in the fameous bathing town in all those ugly chill summers with clouds coming and going fror the sun, Mostly coming, I know what I am talking about. , It was only evapotranpiration and chill windy percipitation with no warmth from the sun. “We have no weather here, just climate!” they said, where it is was even worse. Long flat steady gray and horizontal with no summer. ( seeing ho blue sky for 6 weeks, you get depressed.)
So I have consceived a much better idea of how to fight and ruin the IPCC.
Simply immagine an effect that increases slowly and steadily over a centry, and globally. A certain global “bias and tendency” to what causes the fameous greenhouse effect. By which it slowly, allmost imperceptibly clods over a bit more and more during day,…. and clears up a bit more and more during night. And in addition to that, clouding over more and more during the summers and clearing up steadily a bit more and more during the winters,
Local observers and public opinions can be disqualified, That hypothetic bias and tendency in the “global warming” must also be global and on an average, only remarkable thus exclusivly under contol only by “peers” and anonymeous global statisticians..
That will do it, That will ruin the very NASA- GISS and the Hansen Brundtland Gore Thunberg- project.
Q1: Am I really that ingenious?
Q2: Why have only I, and no one among the surrealists come up with that conspiration hypothesis?
To Q 1&2 I have very good answers:
They, the Surrealists never were bathing beauties in the summers on 60 deg north in the fameous summer bathing town. , and 2, they never studied meteorology and geophysics, not even as amateurs. Because They never took weather and climate for serious until quite recently.
Quite on the contrary, they were for years of the sort that goes on vacation to Costa for warmth, by Turbofan engines that consumes 5 barrels of fossile fuel per passenger each way, and feel that sinful lifestyle threatened now.
And just see how people fight for Donbas and Krim also now, the fameous soviet russian communal Costa paradise..
Dr Schmidt
This is one of my best essays here ever, . that should be peer rewiewed
Those Russians on the http://www.Nephelai =Clouds in the Amazonas are calling upon our artistic interests.
See also Richard Lindzens iris- theory , that can be re- cycled, slaughtered, welded over and restored, changed to the better, and launched on the free market again.
One shall never say never.
@crabonito (common pubic louse) says: – ”
” Q1: Am I really that ingenious? ”
ms: — Definitely – how you – and only you – with 3 neurons and an enlarged mouth part can produce so much whisked shit is extremely admirable. Trump even considers you a universal genius.
“
Yes, I am obviously in his eyes.
And he feels more and more anxious because it threatens his career..
He confuses fingertips with mouth and eyes with ears also.
PS
He took it, as the first “Peer”.
That is how those “Peers” often behave. DS
I saw this in SkepticalScience’s roundup last week
https://skepticalscience.com/new_research_2023_11.html
“Human-induced changes in the global meridional overturning circulation are emerging from the Southern Ocean finds changes happening for a variety of reasons but substantially including “us.” Concerningly, Antarctic meltwater seems to be playing a large role: “These changes are driven by the increasing Southern Hemisphere (SH) Ferrel cell and associated increases in the westerlies and the surface buoyancy loss over its sinking branch, and the increasing Antarctic meltwater discharge, in response to ozone depletion in the SH stratosphere and increasing atmospheric CO2. A large-scale readjustment of the GMOC seems to be underway in the South Atlantic and Indo-Pacific Oceans since the mid-2000s in response to the Southern Ocean changes.”
Read it once but not slowly, but I am wondering – is the shifted flow ratios of the of Upper vs. Lower Circumpolar Deep Water part of what might be driving the melting at the base of the Western Antarctic ice shelves?
Wondering, too, if this shifting of water movements in the deep Southern Ocean might lead to any change in temperature trends of what flows towards the Indian Ocean.
I don’t know much about the GMOC in terms of detailed understanding of specific currents and interactions, but this strikes me as one of those things few realize is as big a signal as it actually is, but is likely to be a huge issue in the long run. That is. a wobble before a bifurcation, aka tipping point.
I.e., this is likely signaling the long-term shift of the oceans to gobs of goo is much further along than has been understood. I don’t get this kind of thing wrong; it’s a pattern awareness thing, but I really hope I am on this: As go the oceans, so goes the planet.
To all and everyone
On settled science being not settled, Victor has mentioned it
Richard Lindzen was here on show in DOMVS ACADEMICA @ the Royal Frederiks.
I did not go because I knew it would come on youtube and I meet the surrealists better downtown.
It came on youtube as predicted, I turned it on and went to sleep. But then I suddenly woke up hearing Lindzen saying quite clearly:
“Where there is science , there is not consensus, and where there is consensus, there is not Science….PERIOD!”
Having heard that I went safely o sleep again and lost nothing!
On next surrealist “Klimapizza” downtown I took with me Otto Øgrims small Catechism on
“Magnituds, units and definitions in Physics”.
that gives the Paris convention on the MKSA system, plancs constant lightspeed mass force and acceleration heat , temperature decibels and so on. what that is and what that is not, In only 50 pages.
Ant gave it out at the table. “Here you have the Consensus- book ….. From Universitas Osloensis as you can see”. .
It was not opened.
But everywhere I have been and there is science, The CRC Handbook of Chemistery and Physics Rubber Bible is seen on the writing desk, and lies further open in the library!
I repeat…..!
because that is the consensus- book.
And when the large CRC- rubber bible is not there,…. there is not science either, that is for sure.
There they rather commit “scientific socialism” and “dia lectic materialism”.
I cannot use “National semiconductor IC components without a multimeter, ohyhms law and kirchoffs rule, Ørsteds galvanic electromagnetism that is settled science now, with voltage ampere seconds ohms and microfarads, and NASA could not get to the moon and safely back again either without the same consensus where everything and everyone had to work together.
There were a near cathastrophic miss by the Cassini-Huyghens expedition where ESAs Huyghens was to depart from Cassini and land safely on Titan. And send data all the way via Cassini asw Radio relay station… and back to earth.
Science, both NASA and ESA had forgotten old Consensus in all the hurry namely Ole Rømers ” Lysets tøven” in all the details.
(translated as as “the hesitation of light” by Google Translate,)
and the consequence of that after Huyghens had separated from Cassini. both going further in different orbits with different relative speeds. They would then not be exactly in radio- tune by minute quarz frequencies. They suddenly came to think of it only weeks before, that there would be no Consensus anymore between Cassini and Huyghens at Titan an thus no possible science either.
So they had to go back to0 Newton Gauss and Lagrange again in space and re- design the separation and further orbits so that the 2 sondes would go in step and in tune at near zero relative speed to each other duringt the very critical Huyghens landing on Titan.
I repeat….!
and this is very tricky science by consensus. and no settled science without it .
REALIA we call it, On which science must be founded settled first and taken for serious. Else you get only Dia- lectic materialism and Eristische Dialektik.
That has been how to science and how not to science even way out at Saturnus and Titan, and even at Pluto and Charon. later on .
I could really make up my opinion and judgement of Richard Lindzen after his fameous performance in the great festivalo hall in DOMVS ACADEMICA @ Royal Frederics University lane 47 UiO.no
I would love to hear some comments on the latest IPCC report that’s coming out. It seems this is our final warning from this body about what’s coming our way. and it looks as if we’ve turned a corner, and not in a good way. Twitter is awash with gloomy projections and dire warnings, so I’m waiting to hear something from the experts here at realclimate.
nigelj says:
“US heatwaves- no long term trend.”
nigel: Its plain to see an increasing trend from 1940 – 2020 so I’m not sure what Victor is looking at.
V: Here’s what I’m looking at. From the EPA https://www.epa.gov/system/files/images/2022-07/heat-waves_figure3_2022.png
In the same paper that displays this graph. we find the following highly misleading assertion:
“Heat waves are occurring more often than they used to in major cities across the United States. Their frequency has increased steadily, from an average of two heat waves per year during the 1960s to six per year during the 2010s and 2020s”
Talk about cherry picking. They choose the 1960s as their reference point, the start of a period beginning in 1960 and continuing through 1980, where, according to the graph, there were hardly any heat waves at all. If you consider the entire graph, however, representing data from 1895 through 2020, it becomes clear that there is no long-term trend.
nigel: However the graph doesn’t show us a GLOBAL trend so Victor is just cherry picking. Trends vary in different countries and only the global tend shows what global climate change is doing. Studies show that globally heatwaves have increased in frequency and intensity:
V: Ah yes, always with the “cherry picking.” Just about every reference I could find was to heatwaves in the contiguous 48 states. I did, however, manage to find one very strange graph representing global data (https://ars.els-cdn.com/content/image/1-s2.0-S0048969716314516-fx1.jpg ) included in the following article: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0048969716314516
Very strange indeed! Note the complete lack of any long-term upward trend — in fact we see a distinct downward trend from 1940 to just prior to 2000. From 2000 through 2010 (a period of only 10 years) we see a sudden leap where the whole thing seems to go haywire. Pardon me for finding this very odd leap highly suspicious. In any case it’s not at all clear what this study is supposed to be telling us.
nigel: “Here, using the Berkeley Earth temperature dataset and key heatwave metrics, we systematically examine regional and global observed heatwave trends. In almost all regions, heatwave frequency demonstrates the most rapid and significant change. A measure of cumulative heat shows significant increases almost everywhere since the 1950s, mainly driven by heatwave days. Trends in heatwave frequency, duration and cumulative heat have accelerated since the 1950s”
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-020-16970-7
V: Interesting. I can’t help noting the complete difference between the data displayed in this paper and the graph I alluded to above. Looks like results will vary depending on the methodology employed.
“Hurricanes. No long term trend”
nigel: Ryan Maues data and commentary is his own view and should be viewed with extreme caution. He was appointed to NOAA by the Trump administration and he has a history of climate science denialism.
V: So you’re suggesting he faked his data? Wow. That would be quite a scandal wouldn’t it? Another climategate, perhaps?
nigel: The following is data on hurricanes: “Number of Category 4 and 5 Hurricanes Has Doubled Over the Past 35 Years, according to the National Science Foundation.” They are a more credible source.
https://www.nsf.gov/news/news_summ.jsp?cntn_id=104428
V: Published in 2005. Isn’t that a bit out of date? From an article in the Washington Post, 2017: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2017/09/07/the-science-behind-the-u-s-s-strange-hurricane-drought-and-its-sudden-end/
“Since 2005 . . . we’ve experienced no major U.S. landfalls until Harvey this year. . . Before Hurricane Harvey, the continental United States had not been hit by a Category 3 or higher “major hurricane” for 12 years — dating all the way back to 2005’s Hurricane Wilma.”
“. . . the question of whether storms are measurably stronger at present remains contested, with NOAA’s Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory asserting that “it is premature to conclude that human activities — and particularly greenhouse gas emissions that cause global warming — have already had a detectable impact on Atlantic hurricane or global tropical cyclone activity.” The effect could be there, NOAA said, but not yet clearly detectable in the statistics.”
nigel: “Precipitation. No long-term trend”
The graph has no title, no location data, no source.
V: Sorry about that: https://climatedataguide.ucar.edu/climate-data/gpcp-monthly-global-precipitation-climatology-project
nigel: “Little change in global drought”
Victor cherry picks one single study on drought that suits his narrative. Numerous studies show changes in droughts “Climate change is making droughts more frequent, severe, and pervasive” according to NASA.
https://climate.nasa.gov/news/3117/drought-makes-its-home-on-the-range/
V: This article references relatively recent satellite observations, which tell us nothing about long-term trends.
nigel: “Human-caused global warming has made severe droughts like the ones this summer in Europe, North America and China at least 20 times as likely to occur as they would have been more than a century ago, scientists said Wednesday.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/05/climate/climate-change-europe-drought.html
V: That’s a newspaper article, not a scientific study. In any case it’s behind a paywall so I can’t (won’t) review it, sorry.
“The intensity of extreme drought and rainfall has “sharply” increased over the past 20 years, according to a study published Monday in the journal Nature Water. ”
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/science/scientists-confirm-global-floods-and-droughts-worsened-by-climate-change
V: Once again, this report references satellite data, telling us nothing about any possible long-term trend. The report I referenced covered a much longer period and revealed no such trend.
nigel: I could go on. The point is you have to look widely at several studies to be able to see the wood and not be distracted by the trees, as the saying goes. Victor relentlessly cherry picks, so just ends up fooling himself, and demonstrating nothing of value.
V: Reporting on perfectly legitimate, peer reviewed science published in reputable journals is NOT cherry picking. That’s an all too easy out for those who, like you, refuse to accept that different methods can produce contradictory results — in other words, the science is NOT settled.
Regardless. What’s much more important is the tendency I’ve seen over and over again in the alarmist screeds, both from the media and the climate scientists themselves. Those long lists of all the awful things that are supposedly happening due to global warming (aka “climate change”) do NOT constitute evidence that the warming in question is being caused by CO2 emissions. Yet that’s consistently been implied. This is both unscientific and dishonest. And as far as those “attribution studies” are concerned, they are all based on the prior assumption that CO2 and other greenhouse gases are heating the atmosphere and the oceans to a significant degree — which was to be demonstrated. Clearly an example of circular reasoning.
Victor:
“Talk about cherry picking. They choose the 1960s as their reference point, the start of a period beginning in 1960 and continuing through 1980, where, according to the graph, there were hardly any heat waves at all. If you consider the entire graph, however, representing data from 1895 through 2020, it becomes clear that there is no long-term trend.”
This is the graph you originally posted on heatwaves in the USA:
https://www.epa.gov/system/files/images/2022-07/heat-waves_figure3_2022.png
We are most interested in the period 1960 – 2020 in the graph you posted, because this is when anthopogenic emissions became most significant. This is a useful long term trend. We do not have to go back further or hundreds of years. You have mentioned yourself that CO2 was insignificant in the 1930s. The period 1960 – 2020 clearly shows increasing heatwaves. The spike in heatwave activity around 1930 -1935 was due to an extreme natural event where both the Pacific and Atalantic oceans were simultaneously in a warming phase. It is more of a weather event than a climate trend.
“Ah yes, always with the “cherry picking.” Just about every reference I could find was to heatwaves in the contiguous 48 states. ”
Yes it can be hard finding data. That doesnt mean ity doesnt exist. Thats why I gave you some references to published studies, (and media articles discussing published studies) that looked at the global picture. You have not given any evidence they are wrong.
“Very strange indeed! Note the complete lack of any long-term upward trend — in fact we see a distinct downward trend from 1940 to just prior to 2000. From 2000 through 2010 (a period of only 10 years) we see a sudden leap where the whole thing seems to go haywire. ”
The graph you posted is not germane because it is on the area of heatwaves, not frequency or intensity.
“Interesting. I can’t help noting the complete difference between the data displayed in this paper and the graph I alluded to above. Looks like results will vary depending on the methodology employed.”
Its because the research paper I posted is looking at the global situation – not the USA!
“So you’re suggesting he faked his data? Wow. That would be quite a scandal wouldn’t it? Another climategate, perhaps?”
I’m suggesting dont take anything he says too seriously. The data is unlikely to be faked but it it may not be relevant or the full picture. I gave you sources that don’t come from a climate science denialist, for balance.
“The following is data on hurricanes…..Published in 2005. Isn’t that a bit out of date?
Since when did the date of publication make science valid or invalid,Victor? Plenty of science has stood the test of time despite recent attempts to debunk it.
“the question of whether storms are measurably stronger at present remains contested, with NOAA’s Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory asserting”
Yes correct, however there is good evidence that storms now have heavier rainfall and are tracking more slowly making that rainfall process even more impactful. Some of the links I previously posted documented this. The point is look widely not just at one metric.
“Sorry about that: https://climatedataguide.ucar.edu/climate-data/gpcp-monthly-global-precipitation-climatology-project”
The link has a graph of the period 1980 – 2010 which is a very short time period that isnt much use. It doesn’t show any particular trend. However a longer term graph from 1901 – 2020 shows increasing precipitation more clearly particularly from mid last century to 2020.
https://www.epa.gov/climate-indicators/climate-change-indicators-us-and-global-precipitation#:~:text=Since%201901%2C%20global%20precipitation%20has,of%200.20%20inches%20per%20decade.
However we are not just simplistically interested in precipitation. Several of the studies I linked were about rainfall INTENSITY. I repeat we need to look widely at a range is issues related to precipitation.
“This article references relatively recent satellite observations, which tell us nothing about long-term trends.”
Why is that somehow irrelevant? I say this because he links YOU have posted on the issues all have very different time periods from 30 years to 100 years! Talk about a double standard! Victor.
“That’s a newspaper article, not a scientific study. In any case it’s behind a paywall so I can’t (won’t) review it, sorry.”
It’s a newspaper article that references and discusses scientic studies! So you cant dismiss it quite so easily as that.
“Reporting on perfectly legitimate, peer reviewed science published in reputable journals is NOT cherry picking. That’s an all too easy out for those who, like you, refuse to accept that different methods can produce contradictory results — in other words, the science is NOT settled.”
Selecting just one paper to demonstrate your case is cherrypicking. There are dozens of papers on issues like precipitation, often finding different results. The IPCC reviews these to determine which have the most credibility, and what it all means, something you are not qualified to do and clearly haven’t done, and probably don’t have the time to do. (with all due respect) And thats the same for most of us. However its why I gave you a RANGE of papers, and sources, to provide at least some balance.
Papers producing contradictory results does not necessarily mean the science isn’t settled. It means some of those papers may be flawed. The science community has its ways of determining which studies are valid and that has been explained to you before many times by various people.
“Regardless. What’s much more important is the tendency I’ve seen over and over again in the alarmist screeds, both from the media and the climate scientists themselves. Those long lists of all the awful things that are supposedly happening due to global warming (aka “climate change”) do NOT constitute evidence that the warming in question is being caused by CO2 emissions. Yet that’s consistently been implied. This is both unscientific and dishonest”
The media releases don’t “imply” warming is due to CO2. They implicitly accept that the warming is due to CO2, because thats what the IPCC has determined, and the greenhouse effect was demonstrated in numerous laboratory experiments going back about 160 years!
I don’t agree with your views, but at least you are civil.
Weaktor, Thank you for your admission that you have no idea what a trend is. In that graph, the 1930s are clearly an outlier–and an outlier for 7% of Earth’s surface, the US mainland. Please do drop by if you ever what to stop being an innumerate moron.
“Those long lists of all the awful things that are supposedly happening due to global warming (aka “climate change”) do NOT constitute evidence that the warming in question is being caused by CO2 emissions. ***Yet that’s consistently been implied.***”
No it is not. The link between climate change and rising CO2 levels from anthropogenic sources comes from fundamental physics combined with the fact there is no other possible source of external forcing that could cause the observed rise in global temperature over the last century. At its most fundamental level, the Earth’s mean temperature is determined by the magnitude of the energy going in and the energy going out. If one of those changes, the temperature changes in response. It is like the level of my thermal comfort is dependant on the heat generated by my body, the heat transferred from the surroundings to my body, and the heat lost from my body through conduction, convection and evaporation. If I reduce the heat lost by putting on another layer of clothing, I will feel warmer, and may start to feel sweaty through being too warm.
Heat waves
V: I can’t help noting the complete difference between the data displayed in this paper and the graph I alluded to above. Looks like results will vary depending on the methodology employed.
J: You’re right about methodology. Since a heat wave is too much heat for too long for a given area, there are a very large number of ways of defining them. There isn’t one agreed-upon criterion, so you have to be careful when comparing studies and methods.
V: In the same paper that displays this graph…
J: You included the reference for the graph you wrote about, but not the publication it came from, which is https://www.epa.gov/climate-indicators/climate-change-indicators-heat-waves
V: …we find the following highly misleading assertion:
“Heat waves are occurring more often than they used to in major cities across the United States. Their frequency has increased steadily, from an average of two heat waves per year during the 1960s to six per year during the 2010s and 2020s”
J: You’re the one making the highly misleading assertion. You gave us the first key point of the publication. However, that refers to figures 1 and 2. These do show an increasing trend in frequency, duration, and season length, starting from non-zero incidence in the 1960s. As explained in the publication,
“The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) calculated apparent temperature for this indicator based on temperature and humidity measurements from long-term weather stations, which are generally located at airports. Figures 1 and 2 focus on the 50 most populous U.S. metropolitan areas that have recorded weather data from a consistent location without many missing days over the time period examined. The year 1961 was chosen as the starting point because most major cities have collected consistent data since at least that time.”
This indicator utilizes minimum temperatures, humidity, in major U.S. cities, since 1961. It’s not cherry-picked. That’s when the good data started.
By the way, there was a major heat wave in the central and eastern US in 1966. The spike in heat mortality in St. Louis is one of the public health events that brought attention to heat stress in urban areas. The EPA is properly concerned with an increase heat for areas in which lots of people live.
V: …according to the graph, there were hardly any heat waves at all…
J: Yours was a different graph, figure 3! It’s from different study, looking at maximum temperatures across the U.S. from the cooperative observer network. That is preferentially located away from cities. The standout event in fig. 3 was the Dust Bowl period. That had its most extreme temperature anomalies in the central and northern Plains region. There is very little overlap, with the larger cities on the fringe of the big anomaly, or outside the region. Although the data are harder to find, I can tell you that the 1930s drought was generally associated with high temperatures but low humidity. The apparent temperatures would have been close to the actual temperatures, unlike the humid heat commonly experienced in the major cities in the eastern and central U.S.
Hurricanes: The studies I’ve seen generally agree that there will be little change soon in overall hurricane frequency as a consequence of global warming. There is clearly an expected increase in the potential intensity of the strongest ones as oceans warm. This increase is based on the physics of a tropical cyclone as a heat engine. Warm ocean water is the source of the energy. The observed increase generally falls below statistical significance so far, due to the rarity of major tropical cyclones and a short data set due to changes in sampling. However, there are at least two areas of concern that haven’t been considered here.
Warm ocean water allows rapid intensification of hurricanes (and other tropical cyclones) when conditions are otherwise favorable. For example, take the National Hurricane Center archives about Hurricane Ian – which struck the west Florida coast as a high category 4 last September: https://www.nhc.noaa.gov/archive/2022/IAN.shtml? In their 11pm Sep. 24 discussion, the NHC noted conditions favorable for rapid intensification, including warm ocean water and low shear. At that time, peak winds were 45 knots (23 m/sec.) By Sep. 28, peak sustained winds reached 155 kt. Nobody wants to be evacuated unless necessary. It may take up to two days to thoroughly accomplish in a heavily populated coastal area. However, if more hurricanes intensify rapidly, it cuts down on the warning time, or increases the number unneeded evacuations.
The other concern is the increasing danger of even minimal hurricanes as they reach higher latitudes and become extratropical. The warmer the oceans, the higher the latitudes at which this occurs. Warmer systems also contain more moisture, which leads to more flooding in landfalling systems – even those no longer officially “tropical” in character. Often it is the flooding that is the major disaster, not the winds.
“Alarmist Screeds”
I suppose that this is one. An alarm is something that is supposed to alert you to impending danger, and jolt you from unconcerned complacency into protective action. As a forecaster, that was part of my job in dangerous weather situations. The same is true for climate, albeit on a longer time scale. Some aspects of climate change do manifest in short term events such as severe heat waves. Others play out over years (droughts) or centuries (polar ice caps.) The evidence of CO2 and other greenhouse gases being a direct cause of global warming and climate change on various time scales is abundantly documented – e.g.. IPCC reports. The alarm is triggered by more than doubling the natural range of CO2 variability in the last several million years (about 100 ppm) in the course of a lifetime. You can pooh-pooh the alarm, pick statistics that don’t show the danger yet, or feign deafness. Not everyone responds to weather alarms by taking life-saving action, either. But there is no more obligation to explain global warming to you now than there is to explain that water can cause drowning to somebody driving around a barrier to traverse a water-covered road during a flood warning.
John Pollack.
“The other concern is the increasing danger of even minimal hurricanes as they reach higher latitudes and become extratropical. The warmer the oceans, the higher the latitudes at which this occurs. Warmer systems also contain more moisture, which leads to more flooding in landfalling systems – even those no longer officially “tropical” in character. Often it is the flooding that is the major disaster, not the winds.”
A good recent example in the southern hemisphere is Cyclone Gabrielle fyi: “The role of climate change in extreme rainfall associated with Cyclone Gabrielle over Aotearoa New Zealand’s East Coast.”
https://spiral.imperial.ac.uk/bitstream/10044/1/102624/10/Scientific%20report%20New%20Zealand%20Floods.pdf
Cyclone Gabrielle started out as a powerful tropical cyclone near Australia and became an ex tropical cyclone as it impacted NZ , but it was still a massive event in terms of wind strengths and particularly rainfall. The worst in 60 years and it did immense damage.
The cyclone also came up against a blocking high causing it to slow down and deliver even more rainfall than these events usually do. I was on the periphery of this event but the rainfall was intense and prolonged and wind speeds as high as Ive ever experienced. Is there evidence that blocking highs themselves are becoming more prevalent due to climate change (anyone?).
Nigel,
Thanks for your interesting example and reference. I was unaware of the extent of the disaster from Gabrielle.
I would guess that the SH is having the same pattern as the NH, with subtropical high pressure ridges aloft extending poleward and lingering more often, allowing more frequent interactions with tropical cyclones at higher latitudes. I’m not up on the research, however.
“Is there evidence that blocking highs themselves are becoming more prevalent due to climate change (anyone?).”
I think Jennifer Francis did some work on this related to Arctic amplification and weakening of the jet stream. I would be interested to know if blocking events in the northern hemisphere have become more common. The UK’s climate seems to have swapped some of its traditional high frequency variability for more frequent locked in weather patterns. Last year was an extreme case, but even recently, we’ve just had a very dry February which has flipped to a wet March. Over the last few years I have been struggling to get much from my allotment as my crops struggle in prolonged dry or wet periods, and in the latter case the slugs come out and decimate the leafy crops.
“For example, take the National Hurricane Center archives about Hurricane Ian – which struck the west Florida coast as a high category 4 last September: https://www.nhc.noaa.gov/archive/2022/IAN.shtml? In their 11pm Sep. 24 discussion, the NHC noted conditions favorable for rapid intensification, including warm ocean water and low shear. At that time, peak winds were 45 knots (23 m/sec.) By Sep. 28, peak sustained winds reached 155 kt. ”
Minor correction, I think you mean 155mph which was Ian’s peak intensity. Ian didn’t quite get to cat 5, but that was little consolation for the residents in and around Punta Gorda.
Thanks for the correction, Adam. I mis-read the Sep. 28 morning advisories. As you said, the maximum reported sustained winds were around 155 mph, 250 km/hr.
If only others here would accept professional advice/correction/editing.
Regarding the link about heatwave trends since the 1960’s, the article suggests that some of the trend might be due to increased urbanisation (which is still an anthropogenic contribution):
“Urban growth since 1961 may have contributed to part of the increase in heat waves that Figures 1 and 2 show for certain cities.”
I doubt that would explain all the trend and it is logical to think climate change is contributing something to this upward trend.
nigel: Its plain to see an increasing trend from 1940 – 2020 so I’m not sure what Victor is looking at.
V: Here’s what I’m looking at. From the EPA https://www.epa.gov/system/files/images/2022-07/heat-waves_figure3_2022.png
BPL: Do you have the digital data and have you calculated the trend? I’m betting the answer is “No.”
V: That would be quite a scandal wouldn’t it? Another climategate, perhaps?
BPL: Only the worst conspiracy-theory crackpots among the deniers still cite climategate. Here’s what really happened:
https://bartonlevenson.com/Climategate.html
Mr. Levenson
Your depiction of the events surrounding Climategate make a nice work of fiction. There is no relationship between your account and the truth. But as Cli-Fi it’s entertaining.
No, BPL I was too hasty. Your description of ‘hide the decline’ is accurate. It was taken out of context by popular media and exploited by many skeptics. I apologize for my quick dismissal. But everything above that is pure fiction.
T W Fuller. I don’t find your claims credible. You provide no details, no evidence, no sources, nothing. BPLs comments are detailed, he gives some sources such as formal investigations, and his comments are consistent with other material I have read.
@ Levenson again.
Victor is hardly valid and interesting in that respect, in the way you see and treat him and try and teach him.
If you have a blind or a deaf or a one eyed man or someone obviously with some mental or sensual defect, ……
( who simply cannot mind and see or hear and reallize, which is really quite common, such as the one legged who simply cannot walk,…) ..
…..so simply let it be!
Make the patient or the observand aware of it, but Try not to correct it if they do not ask for that..
Try rather and see and study how that man with his obvious major handicaps and deformities also can moove around in person on the free markert, and by what means , crutches and supporters… maybe even advantages, along with todays privileges for all the veterans and invalids.
That they will better understand. That will also be more autentic and valuable science namely social sciences humaniora, . with possible, scientific findings and results that can be peer rewiewed and published. to the advantage of humanity.
“Antarctic sea ice anyone?”
We hit the Spring equinox with the Antarctic ice now growing after 2023 set that record annual daily minimum. 2023 has set 62 daily minimum records (out of 80 days) and has otherwise been 2nd lowest or =2nd lowest so no surprise that 2023 has the lowest average SIE of the year-so-far.
The records have not been massively below as they threatened through December last year and there is always the chance of the year seeing another big wobble kick-in although as the table below shows the ranking of average SIE levels for the full year can be remarkably similar to the ranking for the first 80 days.
Graphs of daily Antarctic SIE anomaly (with the annual cycle removed) here – Graphs 3 & 3a
Antarctic SIE average 1st Jan to 21st Mar. (& present ranking for full year average)
Top of the rankings & also lower placed recent years.
1st … 2023 … … … 2.72 M sq km
2nd … 2017 … … … 2.89 M sq km … … … (1st)
3rd … 2022 … … … 3.09 M sq km … … … (2nd)
4th … 2019 … … … 3.14 M sq km … … … (3rd)
5th … 2006 … … … 3.16 M sq km … … … (8th)
6th … 2018 … … … 3.28 M sq km … … … (4th)
17th … 2020 … … … 3.69 M sq km … … … (17th)
20th … 2016 … … … 3.74 M sq km … … … (6th)
29th … 2021 … … … 3.99 M sq km … … … (18th)
42nd … 2013 … … … 4.67 M sq km … … … (42nd)
43rd … 2014 … … … 4.90 M sq km … … … (43rd)
45th … 2015 … … … 5.18 M sq km … … … (41st)
45 years of data, (44 full calendar years)
Multidisciplinary conversation getting to the heart of solving our problems. Join us Saturday.
Could use a climate scientist at the Round table….
https://www.clubhouse.com/event/PryWWoqD?utm_medium=ch_event&utm_campaign=0vIh7fkq9PMM2ZU9Db7TFQ-643297
Many thanks to Steve Keen and Simon Michaux for taking the time to educate the public on such momentous issues.
https://www.clubhouse.com/room/xoabL87o?utm_medium=ch_room_xerc&utm_campaign=0vIh7fkq9PMM2ZU9Db7TFQ-646128
Reality check for too many.
If one does not understand resources and the flaws of neoclassical economics, one does not understand adaptation and mitigation to the suite of issues we face.
The silence in this thread is deafening.
I want to thank nigelj and John Pollack for their very thoughtful, thorough and respectful responses to my earlier posts. While I continue to disagree, I see no point in continuing my attempts to engage their assertions on a point-by-point basis, as this sort of back and forth could go on indefinitely. Bottom line: even if they are correct in their attempts to demonstrate that disasters such as hurricanes, droughts, heatwaves, floods, etc. are getting progressively more extreme and dangerous, such assertions tell us nothing about what is causing the rising temperatures supposedly responsible for such events. As I asserted in a recent post,
“Those long lists of all the awful things that are supposedly happening due to global warming (aka “climate change”) do NOT constitute evidence that the warming in question is being caused by CO2 emissions. Yet that’s consistently been implied.” In literally every case, the “disasters” have been attributed, very simply, to a warming climate. If CO2 were not available as a scapegoat, the alarmists would be forced to attribute such events to mother nature, along with earthquakes and volcanic eruptions — and we’d be forced to hope for the best and live with the consequences.
Not so, contends Adam Lea:
“The link between climate change and rising CO2 levels from anthropogenic sources comes from fundamental physics combined with the fact there is no other possible source of external forcing that could cause the observed rise in global temperature over the last century.”
V: Sorry Adam, but it’s not that simple. If the “fundamental physics” of the laboratory could be extended with certainty to the physics controlling the vast extent of the atmosphere and the oceans, then you’d have a point. But that won’t work. How do I know? Well, for one thing I must once again link to the post in which I demonstrate very clearly the lack of any meaningful long=term correlation between CO2 levels and global temperatures, noting that the “correlation” so often claimed is based solely on the events of a 20 year period: http://amoleintheground.blogspot.com/2018/10/thoughts-on-climate-change-part-8-tale.html
If that analysis fails to convince you, then consider the following:
The runup in temperature from ca. 1910 through ca. 1940 could not have been caused by CO2 emissions, according to climate scientist Spencer Weart, who wrote in his influential essay, The Discovery of Global Warming, “[Research] has shown that the temperature rise up to 1940 was . . . mainly caused by some kind of natural cyclical effect, not by the still relatively low CO2 emissions.” https://history.aip.org/climate/co2.htm Since Weart is widely regarded as an authority on the climate and strong supporter of the “climate change” paradigm, he could hardly be described as a “denier” or skeptic, most climatologists take his conclusions very seriously indeed.
After 1940, as we all know, global temperature first took a nose dive and then, until the late 1970’s, levelled off — a period of 30 to 40 years during which CO2 levels rose considerably with no apparent effect on the climate. Thus: during the first 80 years or so of the previous century we see NO evidence that the burning of fossil fuels had any significant effect on planetary temperatures.
Furthermore: after the following 20 year period in which temperatures and CO2 levels both rose rather dramatically, we have the notorious “hiatus,” which lasted anywhere from 15 to 18 years, in which global temperatures rose only very slightly, while CO2 levels continued to soar. While the “hiatus” has more recently been “debunked” by hard line advocates, some of the world’s leading climatologists have supported it, based on a thoroughly conducted research project: “Making sense of the early-2000s warming slowdown,” a paper by
John C. Fyfe, Gerald A. Meehl, Matthew H. England, Michael E. Mann, Benjamin D. Santer, Gregory M. Flato, Ed Hawkins, Nathan P. Gillett, Shang-Ping Xie, Yu Kosaka & Neil C. Swart. From the abstract:
“It has been claimed that the early-2000s global warming slowdown or hiatus, characterized by a reduced rate of global surface warming, has been overstated, lacks sound scientific basis, or is
unsupported by observations. The evidence presented here contradicts these claims.” https://courses.eas.ualberta.ca/eas570/warming_slowdown.pdf
Considering that all contributors to this project are well known climate change advocates and widely known as respected scholars, it would be difficult to dismiss their conclusions.
In sum: NO evidence of global warming driven by CO2 emissions over the first 80 years of the 20th century; little to no evidence of anything similar during the first 15 or so years of the 21st. While temperatures have indeed climbed higher in recent years, the absence of any significant CO2 forcing over such a long period leads one to seriously doubt that such an effect could suddenly have kicked in only a few years ago.
Adam: “. . . combined with the fact there is no other possible source of external forcing that could cause the observed rise in global temperature over the last century.”
V: If Spencer Weart is correct, we are still in the dark regarding the cause of the temperature runup during the first 40 years of the 20th century. The notion that “there is no other possible source of external forcing” is a well known fallacy: the argument from ignorance.
Victor, earlier temperature measurements of surface temperature in the oceans changed dramatically in the 1950s. So one has to account for the different temperatures so obtained. Modern reconstructions do so and the temperature rise has no dips from 1880 onwards.
David, and the others, who, beyond my comprehension, are still going on with this silliness: I’m objecting because, however correct your statistics, you are giving credence to the idea that this is about statistics. It’s a common Denialist ploy to ignore the underlying physics and fundamental principles of science.
-We know that increasing CO2 increases the energy in the climate system because it absorbs outbound radiant energy and converts it to thermal energy.
-We know that energy can neither be created nor destroyed.
-Therefore, the proposition that changes in the climate are independent of the increase of CO2 violates Ockham’s Razor. It requires multiple new entities that have not been provided… the energy must undergo some other transformation to become inactive, or be transferred/transported out of the system, and there must be a different source of the increased energy which manifests in whatever changes we might be observing.
If you really want to educate the public on this, that’s the place to begin. It’s very much like dealing with the nonsensical arguments on the Theory of Evolution… you have to make clear the difference between a Theory and a hypothesis. You can’t refute a Theory; you have to replace it.
(And this applies to the other silly sub-threads about water vapor as well.)
Re. ” It’s a common Denialist ploy to ignore the underlying physics and fundamental principles of science.”
I pretty much agree. But as a former stats guy I’d rephrase slightly. What is probably the most common ploy amongst deniers is to intentionally misuse stats for propaganda purposes. This is an Agitprop 101 technique we see most every day here and elsewhere.
For example, Vic’s oh-so-beloved “hiatus” simply disappears as a significant statistical finding if you actually do your stats in any sort of professional manner. There are two basic errors/intentional lies occurring here statistically:
–ANY series of observations on a phenomenon where the trend is on the order of 10x the annual variation will likely show periods of “hiatus” somewhere in a century long series over periods of 15-18 years simply by chance. It’s simply a subset of the multiple comparison problem..* This is easily modeled, easily proven, and has been known since the dawn of probability though in stats it was often simply ignored by doing only a very few comparisons per study until the 1950s. with the contributions of Tukey and Scheffe who put things on a better mathematical footing.
–With any time series one simply CANNOT make the statement that there is no significant trend using basic regression on the sequence of values as the denier “hiatus” crowd ALWAYS does and as Vic does here too, of course, due to the autoregressive nature of the values which breaks the fundamental regression assumption of independence of values.. This fact has been known for about a century and analytic techniques which correct for this autoregression in the underlying data date back about a century to Yule and Walker in the 1920s.
Anyway, Vic missed the last century or so of stats as is obvious to all here with even a basic stats education.
Fyfe et. al. examined the physics…being physicists that’s hardly surprising–to see if they could describe the energy flows during that time. They most specifically do NOT state, imply, infer, or guess that CO2 did not continue to trap heat. They conclude:
“Research into the nature and causes of the slowdown has triggered improved
understanding of observational biases, radiative forcing, and internal variability
This has led to widespread recognition that modulation by internal variability is
large enough to produce a significantly reduced rate of surface temperature
increase for a decade or even more – particularly if internal variability is
augmented by the externally driven cooling caused by a succession of volcanic
eruptions.”
Fyfe et. al. are not deniers. They do not present any data or theory that undercuts CO2 warming. They simply note there are additional processes going on that _modulate_ the flows for up to a decade or more, and they try to put some numbers on those additional modulation processes.. In this regard other such modulations are well known such as el Nino/la Nina so this shouldn’t be terribly earth-shaking. Nor do they subscribe to any notion that the fundamental warming process somehow stopped as vic tries to say they do. That is either a simple misapprehension (as in his “knowledge” of correlations or an utter lie. Fyfe et. al. are physicists trying to follow the energy flows. It’s what physicists do.
_____
*What is the multiple comparison problem? Essentially if you flip a coin three times you are far more likely to find at least one head–7/8s of the time to be exact–than if you only get to flip once where heads will turn up only 1/2 the time, of course. . A fact which all of our propagandists and deniers flogging said “hiatus” either use maliciously, ignore completely. or are utterly unaware of. Some of our resident deniers here probably are a combination of all three. (Note I am ignoring the autoregression issue here, but it is entwined as well given the number of overlapping and non-overlapping sequences available in the various temp series.)
jgnfld, obviously statistics is essential to doing this work. And the Fyfe stuff seems to be a useful contribution.
My issue is with not requiring that there be explicit agreement on the underlying fundamentals, before engaging with the Denialist on anything else.
If someone doesn’t accept quantum physics and empirical outcomes on CO2 molecules, or feels free to ignore conservation of energy, then that’s what the “debate” should be about… they are then obliged to offer their alternative understandings (Theory) of physics.
If they do accept those fundamentals, then they are obliged to present their own Theory/model explaining why that increased energy has no effect on the climate system.
If someone says there should be an exact correlation between CO2 and GMST, the correct response to me is not to give a statistics lesson, but to require them to explain why??, using physics.
In my experience with Denialists, and very likely with Victor at some time in the past, is that they run away from any explicit physical question. They cite statistics because your correction of their fallacious usage makes most people tune out, and then they can continue to cast doubt on what is actually happening. Propaganda is not about being right.
True enough in any respects. Except they NEVER do discuss underlying fundamentals and will NEVER accept that as an underlying requirement even as they act to influence climate policies and attempt to subvert the science using their propaganda. (Remember the push in the US Congress to not launch any more weather satellites a decade back?)
They just keep spouting the same old same old over and over. Standard Agitprop 101 as we are seeing in many additional places beyond science these days as well. FUD is the goal not any alternative physics. So we do need some portion of the populace to be aware of how Agitprop 101 techniques work.
In the same vein, I well remember–and sometimes even still hear–the old tobacco propaganda line about gramps smoking till the day he died at age 102 “therefore” tobacco cannot actually cause cancer. With enough people of course you’ll pretty much always find an outlier which requires much additional work to make sense of. The only way to attack that propaganda lie is to hammer home the propagandistic nature of the lies, not to spend fortunes chasing why a few specific gramps survive longer than most smoking gramps.
This is why I am equivocal about Fyfe et. al. Essentially they are chasing why gramps lived to 102 which really isn’t the point of the fundamental underlying issue even if it might be nice to know. Or as Tamino used to put it they are basically chasing noise.
[“Woke” is another example of the same thing. It is impossible to pin the term down to agreed fundamentals as we see when people using the term are asked to define it. Yet the propagandists just LUV to use it as it is a truly great FUD generator.]
Lastly, my expertise is far more stats than pure physics, and I try to limit comment to where my actual expertise is. Unlike some few others here!
Victor the Troll,
This would be the same Spencer Weart who writes:-
If my understanding of history is correct, “first 40 years of the 20th century” occurred within the period “since the 1860s” but on that I may be wrong and be presenting “argument from ignorance.”
We doubt it as much as you do, Genosse Victor.
But, we are trying to find out and know better to set on that, and on what we have found out in a rather critical and sceptical way by never believing in the experts.
Victor
It looks to me that you have not learnt how to design an analysis build a scientific argument and to deliver reliable results and proof.
Seemingly, you expect it to be done by one and only one method or one and only one faculty or factory wityh its methods and production secrets.
And you will not be able to understand it befor you learn by full examples how it is rather done and in many different ways. You are struggling teaching and fighting in vain by your methods because youn never learnt that.
You seemingly only learnt how to be immune to your opponents and not do deliver truth about nature where facitb is not written and the experts are helpless and even wrong.
V: “Those long lists of all the awful things that are supposedly happening due to global warming (aka “climate change”) do NOT constitute evidence that the warming in question is being caused by CO2 emissions. Yet that’s consistently been implied.” In literally every case, the “disasters” have been attributed, very simply, to a warming climate. If CO2 were not available as a scapegoat, the alarmists would be forced to attribute such events to mother nature, along with earthquakes and volcanic eruptions — and we’d be forced to hope for the best and live with the consequences.
BPL: Except that we know the warming is from greenhouse gases, because we’ve measured it. Here are three field studies which say so:
Evans, W.F.J., and E. Puckrin 2006. Measurements of the Radiative Surface Forcing of Climate. 18th Conference on Climate Variability and Change, P1.7
The earth’s climate system is warmed by 35 C due to the emission of downward infrared radiation by greenhouse gases in the atmosphere (surface radiative forcing) or by the absorption of upward infrared radiation (radiative trapping). Increases in this emission/absorption are the driving force behind global warming. Climate models predict that the release of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere has altered the radiative energy balance at the earth’s surface by several percent by increasing the greenhouse radiation from the atmosphere. With measurements at high spectral resolution, this increase can be quantitatively attributed to each of several anthropogenic gases. Radiance spectra of the greenhouse radiation from the atmosphere have been measured at ground level from several Canadian sites using FTIR spectroscopy at high resolution. The forcing radiative fluxes from CFC11, CFC12, CCl4, HNO3, O3, N2O, CH4, CO and CO2 have been quantitatively determined over a range of seasons. The contributions from stratospheric ozone and tropospheric ozone are separated by our measurement techniques. A comparison between our measurements of surface forcing emission and measurements of radiative trapping absorption from the IMG satellite instrument shows reasonable agreement. The experimental fluxes are simulated well by the FASCOD3 radiation code. This code has been used to calculate the model predicted increase in surface radiative forcing since 1850 to be 2.55 W/m2. In comparison, an ensemble summary of our measurements indicates that an energy flux imbalance of 3.5 W/m2 has been created by anthropogenic emissions of greenhouse gases since 1850. This experimental data should effectively end the argument by skeptics that no experimental evidence exists for the connection between greenhouse gas increases in the atmosphere and global warming.
Philipona, R., B. Dürr, C. Marty, A. Ohmura, and M. Wild 2004. Radiative Forcing–Measured at Earth’s Surface–Corroborate the Increasing Greenhouse Effect. Geophys. Res. Lett. 31, L03202
Here we show that atmospheric longwave downward radiation significantly increased (+5.2(2.2) Wm 2) partly due to increased cloud amount (+1.0(2.8) Wm 2) over eight years of measurements at eight radiation stations distributed over the central Alps. Model calculations show the cloud-free longwave flux increase (+4.2(1.9) Wm 2) to be in due proportion with temperature (+0.82(0.41) C) and absolute humidity (+0.21(0.10) g m 3) increases, but three times larger than expected from anthropogenic greenhouse gases. However, after subtracting for two thirds of temperature and humidity rises, the increase of cloud-free longwave downward radiation (+1.8(0.8) Wm 2) remains statistically significant and demonstrates radiative forcing due to an enhanced greenhouse effect.
Feldman, D.R.; Collins, W.D.; Gero, P.J.; Torn, M.S.; Mlawer, E.J.; Shippert, T.R. 2015. Observational determination of surface radiative forcing by CO2 from 2000 to 2010. Nature 519, 339-343.
The climatic impact of CO2 and other greenhouse gases is usually quantified in terms of radiative forcing1, calculated as the difference between estimates of the Earth’s radiation field from preindustrial and present day concentrations of these gases. Radiative transfer models calculate that the increase in CO2 since 1750 corresponds to a global annualmean radiative forcing at the tropopause of 1.82 ± 0.19 W m-2 (ref. 2). However, despite widespread scientific discussion and modelling of the climate impacts of wellmixed greenhouse gases, there is little direct observational evidence of the radiative impact of increasing atmospheric CO2. Here we present observationally based evidence of clearsky CO2 surface radiative forcing that is directly attributable to the increase, between 2000 and 2010, of 22 parts per million atmospheric CO2. The time series of this forcing at the two locations, the Southern Great Plains and the North Slope of Alaska, are derived from Atmospheric Emitted Radiance Interferometer spectra3together with ancillary measurements and thoroughly corroborated radiative transfer calculations4. The time series both show statistically significant trends of 0.2 W m-2 per decade (with respective uncertainties of ±0.06 W m-2 per decade and ±0.07 W m-2 per decade) and have seasonal ranges of 0.1-0.2 W m-2. This is approximately ten per cent of the trend in downwelling longwave radiation5,6,7. These results confirm theoretical predictions of the atmospheric greenhouse effect due to anthropogenic emissions, and provide empirical evidence of how rising CO2 levels, mediated by temporal variations due to photosynthesis and respiration, are affecting the surface energy balance.
BPL, perfect example of what I am talking about in my reply to David B above. I’ve gone through this with various Denialist trolls… perhaps even with Victor at some point.
Has Victor actually claimed, in plain language, that CO2 doesn’t absorb outward-bound radiant energy and convert it to thermal energy? I haven’t bothered reading him in a long time, but I suspect the language has been consistent in avoiding that question.
But here you are, giving great evidence to contradict what he hasn’t said. Basically you are arguing with yourself, as are most of the people being “owned” by the troll, who wants to create the illusion of an actual scientific debate.
People sometimes complain that I am stating the obvious, but what I’m interested in is educating the public about how science actually works, so they can see the obvious fallacies for themselves.
Would any of you engage with an actual physics student like this, at any level??
Yes. Thanks so much, Bart, for these very interesting, and relevant, references. That’s the sort of thing I have no problem with: hypotheses derived from evidence-based research are always welcome. But that wasn’t my point. What bothers me are the continual allusions we find not only in the media but all too often in statements by scientists who should know better, to extreme weather events that supposedly constitute evidence that “climate change is happening now.” Yet when we listen carefully to such alarming reports one gets the impression that the “climate change” responsible for such events constitutes little more than a rise in global temperatures, which might well be due largely to natural variation.
Any possible link with CO2 emissions is simply assumed, Which wouldn’t be so bad if they at least mentioned the sort of research you’ve presented here, but they go on about all this as though it really didn’t matter, as though scientific research weren’t really necessary. As I see it, there’s a kind of lynch mob mentality at work in so many of these reports — “we know he did it so there’s no need to investigate.” And I must hold the IPCC responsible for this attitude when they keep insisting that the science is settled, when it most definitely is not.
Now as far as the research you’ve referenced, I admit it does sound impressive, and as someone with only the most elementary understanding of physics I’m not in a position to engage it on its own terms. Nevertheless, when I look for corroborating evidence in the far more simple and straightforward data pertaining to temperature, sea-level rise and CO2 emissions, I’ve been, as you know, unable to find a meaningful connection. While, according to “the physics,” as analyzed by so many experts, there ought to be clear evidence that both global temperatures and sea levels are driven to some significant degree by greenhouse gas emissions, that evidence does not seem to be there. And given the extreme importance to all of humanity of the issue at hand, I feel a responsibility to communicate my reservations despite the unlikelihood that they will make any difference at all.
By the way, I recently came across the following youtube lecture centering on “radiative forcing,” by a physicist who seems extremely knowledgeable, challenging certain basic premises of the “climate change” paradigm. As I’m totally unqualified to evaluate his analysis I’m hoping that you or someone else reading here would be willing to do so. Here’s the link: https://youtu.be/P5HyDp_Jgd8 A transcript of this talk is provided beneath the video.
Re. “Yet when we listen carefully to such alarming reports one gets the impression that the “climate change” responsible for such events constitutes little more than a rise in global temperatures, which might well be due largely to natural variation.
Any possible link with CO2 emissions is simply assumed, ”
No, there are many studies which clearly show that natural variation alone cannot explain the observed warming. AR6 SPM has as its primary finding:
A.1 It is unequivocal that human influence has warmed the atmosphere, ocean and land. Widespread and rapid changes in the atmosphere, ocean, cryosphere and biosphere have occurred. Expand Figures SPM.1, SPM.2Links to chapters
A.1.1 Observed increases in well-mixed greenhouse gas (GHG) concentrations since around 1750 are unequivocally caused by human activities. Since 2011 (measurements reported in AR5), concentrations have continued to increase in the atmosphere, reaching annual averages of 410 parts per million (ppm) for carbon dioxide (CO2), 1866 parts per billion (ppb) for methane (CH4), and 332 ppb for nitrous oxide (N2O) in 2019. 6Land and ocean have taken up a near-constant proportion (globally about 56% per year) of CO2 emissions from human activities over the past six decades, with regional differences (high confidence).
They provide extensive backup from the peer-reviewed literature from around the world, so it’s not a “liberal conspiracy”. As well, it is not “assumed”. YOU are the one doing the assuming. Typical projection yet again.
! Levenson ! – the blindest sheep in the stable should not act as a teacher to the other sheep. Unfortunately, your skills are limited to copy & paste. You do not have an independent understanding of weather and climate and their physics because you are unable to classify the simplest observations.
The Earth’s energy system can be largely changed only by 2 major climate forcings (Albedo & GHE) if we assume solar irradiance and volcanic activity remain unchanged.
The last 2 decades the trend of the Earth energy imbalance EEI @TOA is characterized by a loss of the Bond albedo of -1.4W/m² from 2000-2020. The climate forcing due to CO2 is only ~0.6W/m² in the same period.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radiative_forcing
However, the loss through cloud, ice & snow and aerosol albedo observed by (CERES, MODIS, VIIRs) also has an impact on the GHE.
It increases the long-wave radiation emanating from the earth’s surface, so that the GHE, which was increased by higher CO2 concentrations, was overcompensated by the overall albedo loss in the observed period. Otherwise, CERES would not have been able to measure an increase in outgoing LW-out-@TOA of +0.57W/m² between 2000 and 2020.
You don’t understand any of this and probably never will, since your dependent and incomplete view of global warming is copy and paste of peer-reviewed papers.
Not all papers are useless – but quite a lot of peer-reviewed papers consist of “one idiot certifying another idiot as a genius”.
It will be very tricky and difficult for you to explain why the EEI and the global energy uptake always drop to near zero when H2O, the strongest of all GHGs in the atmosphere, reaches its highest concentration.
https://climateprotectionhardware.files.wordpress.com/2022/09/a2.png
https://pub.mdpi-res.com/atmosphere/atmosphere-12-01297/article_deploy/html/images/atmosphere-12-01297-g004.png?1634310863
But since I don’t trust you to understand these connections, you (and many others) will probably end up as a sheep skeleton in the desert – the only funny thing is that you will be found wearing yellow underpants with 3 black dots.
Even Victor (…do NOT constitute evidence that the warming in question is being caused by CO2 emissions.) is closer to the truth if he were to replace CO2 emissions with GHE in his contribution.
Brilliant, M. Barton provides 3 studies very specifically documenting support for his point; you provide 3 general references, make some assertions of dubious relevance and veracity, and then pillory him for allegedly “not understanding” the topic–throwing in a gratuitous insult or two just to show that… well, OK, I don’t actually know why you bother.
Or why I do, for that matter.
Just looked at your site, Kevin. Really impressive! I like your style. :)
Typical shurly — throw shit at the fan and hope something sticks.
@bpl says: – ” throw shit ”
ms: — Levenson – I asked you or invited you to discuss the CERES data 2000-2020, albedo and GHE. You are obviously overwhelmed intellectually or you prefer to behave like a stubborn sheep.
I didn’t make up the CERES data, Albedo or GHE – they are results from organizations like NASA & NOAA. If you think all of this is flying shit or (@KmcK: “some assertions of dubious relevance and veracity) then go to these institutions with confidence and complain to them.
By the way, RC (defined by basic science) means Real Climate here in the forum – and NOT
Royal Club (defined by blind sheep).
If you don’t get it quickly, then I’ll burn down your sheepfold full of stupid, old, gray men right here. — All I have to do is keep my legs still and grin silently.
ms: I asked you or invited you to discuss the CERES data 2000-2020, albedo and GHE.
BPL: You don’t know how to calculate a trend, do you? Or what error bars mean.
It’s an old denier trope that “It’s not carbon dioxide, it’s albedo!” Sometimes they cite CERES. Sometimes they cite Pallé. The one thing they will not do is do the math. Usually because they can’t.
ms: I’ll burn down your sheepfold
BPL: Not sure what this refers to. But in case you didn’t know, transmitting threats by electronic media is a violation of the Telecommunications Act of 1983 (the Helms Act). Violations are punishable by up to five (5) years in jail and fines up to $20,000.00.
Leaving the science aside, MS, calling names and being ***** rude and insulting is not the best way to win friends and influence people. And not the best way to get people to take you seriously and reply. Capishe?