Say, are you really using virtual intelligenhce the freshly inaugurated way Hr. o twentyseven?
As you can clearly see, I do not,
Quite on the contrary, I do demonstrate quite consciously that I perform and work against uniformation and industrialization mechanization, datafication of mind and manners.
You see, if you can buy yourself a personality and immune set of manners and performance, then SATAN in Hell can also do that and soon sit on the throne and have you all with him in your closed society and quite hot peoples republic.
Automatic routine æsoteric reading hearing and seeing and judging and cleaning and recognitional programs in virtual reality is an old problem and even characteristic primary symptom of militarism, dictatorship, and thyranny.
Our major defence against virtual intelligence, its automatic & unwarranted and unofficial rules and regulations of procedure with keyewords and secret vocabulary,……….
……… is given in the UN declaration of Humanh Rights articles 19, 26, and 27.
That is signed to and aspired under by all autentic, responsible world leaders.
No science without it. No understanding without it. No united nations, not even sustainable United strates without it Hardly even any climate without it.
No one shall have to aspire under your editing and moral consceptual machine.
nigeljsays
patrick o twentyseven
Regarding your comments above thread on the appropriate priorities for things like climate mitigation, life in general, and for secular minded people. The book 21 lessons for the 21st century by Noval Harari has some interesting and quite convincing chapters on all these issues you raised. The book also has chapters on other topical issues related to artificial intelligence, political ideologies and world views, the importance of human story telling, the climate problem, and misinformation etcetera. IMO its a very convincing book overall.
patrick o twentysevensays
Thank you, that sounds interesting; I’ll look for it.
Related books I’ve read recently:
The Spiral Staircase (bibliographical, with insights on comparative religion, spirituality, and people)
The Quest for Character (philosophers trying to teach moral values to politicians – a lot of interesting ancient Greek and Roman history)
The Dawn of Everything (written by an archeologist and an anthropologist, goes over the history/variety of human societal/cultural development, from the stone age to recent times, particularly looking at indigenous societies and how Europeans reacted to them, looking for (and finding) egalitarianism and freedom (Killian’s wheelhouse)- many mindblowing bits of info, overturns/questions common assumptions/conventional wisdom – eg. the socialist cosmopolitan city of Teotihuacan in early AD (after the revolution), Californian (Puritan abolitionist capitalists – well not quite but…) vs. Pacific Northwest indigenous societies, Minoan civilization (ruled by a college of Priestesses); Kandiaronk; in particular, an indigenous American Arctic people: husbands dominate their wives much of the year, but there is a time of year when wives can swap husbands; setting aside the distinctions of elected representation vs. sortition vs. direct democracy, Athenian democracy was a bit like the US. South pre-Civil War, vs. the more ancient Mesopotamian city states were a bit more like the US c. 2008 (women participated) – this is before the kings took over – but even then….
The Journey of Humanity – has perhaps some of the very assumptions/conventional wisdom that the former challenges, but still an interesting account of how humanity has (to an extent) broken free of the Malthusian trap – and explanations of why different regions have gone on different paths…
The End of the Myth – a history of the U.S. focussing on inequality and racism, etc – the Myth refers to endless room for expansion, being used as a sort of opiate for the masses – a “safety valve”
patrick o twentysevensays
Apologies if I just violated my own rule: “Puritan abolitionist capitalists” – it’s an interesting and engaging, though inexact comparison, but this is a general description of the societies; ie. I imagine individual attitudes may have varied (it would be odd if they didn’t, right?), and there may have been some variation among the different Californian tribes (note Californian is not exactly = having or being within or limited by the modern boundaries of the state of CA) Etc.
nigeljsays
patrick o twentyseven
Thank’s for the list of books.
I just wanted to add I thought your lists of priorities sounded quite good and was not dissimilar to Harari’s take on things.
I checked out the Dawn of Everything book on amazon.com.au and read the main review and a couple of the detailed reviews posted by readers. Looks good. Hunter gatherer and early farming groups were different in many ways. Have read that elsewhere including peer reviewed studies.
Have read an excellent university anthropology text The Human Past edited by Chris Scarre although this was physical anthropology more than cultural. I’m largely retired and I like to read at least one textbook each year on a different subject area as well as other books.
One key issue in all this seems to be hierarchical behaviours and structures versus egalitarian behaviour and structures. Humans seem to have a dual nature with organisation that we can adopt either hierarchical modes or egalitarians modes (although deep down genetically we are fundamentally hierarchical but capable of adopting egalitarian modes from a peer reviewed study I came across).
You could probably organise a business to run either way, egalitarian or hierarchical (or a combination) but surely a fully egalitarian structure would require every decision be approved by all the people in the organisation. This would be very inefficient. While I naturally lean towards egalitarianism it doesn’t seem practical in all situations or if taken to extremes. Like with many things in life.
Killiansays
Or…. you can work from First Principles and understand most things on your own. The last thing I do is ask others what I should think unless I *can’t* understand something via my own self-education first. There’s nothing wrong with being the student most or all of the time. However, if one truly wants to understand novel things, one must learn to teach themselves.
1) I admit that my assertion that only the difference between the upwelling and downwelling infrared radiation does play a role in the atmosphere thermal budget was not suitable for explaining why the correction of the latent heat flow by the factor 1/3 is unnecessary and would have been inappropriate.
2) Maybe your treasury metaphor might serve the purpose better. We do have the latent heat flow, sensible heat flow and the upwelling infrared radiation as three different spendings from the same budget which is energy balance of the Earth surface. There is a trade-off between them, because their sum must remain constant. In other words, if this sum remains constant, any change in global mean latent heat flow must cause an opposite change in the sum of the upwelling radiation and of the sensible heat flow.
3) Equally important is the circumstance that on the revenue side of the same budget, the downwelling radiation does not change if we change the ratio between both spendings. There is no “extra” revenue in amount of two thirds of the latent heat flow, because this “return” is already included in the value of the downwelling radiation flow and does not change because thermal budget of the atmosphere remains constant as well.
4) The result of the change in the ratio of the heat transported from the surface by radiation and by non-radiative heat flows thus does not change the emission temperature of the atmosphere but decreases the average emission temperature of the Earth surface only.
5) Strictly, I had to consider the an increase in the latent heat flow decreases both the upwelling radiation as well as the sensible heat flow, and the decrease in the average upwelling radiation from the Earth surface is thus not perfectly commensurate to the increase in the latent heat flow. Although I am still not sure that the role of sensible heat is in fact negligible (what suggested several times JCM), I do not suppose that the decrease in the upwelling radiation flow must be as small as only 1/3 of the increase in the latent heat flow.
6) As regards your assumption that any increase in the latent heat flow must be accompanied by a massive increase in mean water vapour concentration and a commensurate enhancement of the radiative greenhouse effect, I would like to remind you that latent heat flow and mean water vapour concentration are strongly decoupled from each other. It is apparent from the fact that annual global precipitation accounts for about 500 000 km3 water (average 990 mm on 510 000 000 square km Earth surface area), while total water amount in the atmosphere is about 13000 km3 only.
6) For all the above reasons, I must still respectfully disagree with your opinion that only small part of the the latent heat flow cools Earth surface. I also do not think that changes in the water cycle intensity must have any substantial influence on average absolute humidity and thus on the intensity of the radiative greenhouse effect.
7) Oppositely, it appears that there is still lack of reliable studies dealing with the relationship between cloud formation an water cycle intensity. A positive feedback between the water cycle intensity and cloud albedo that might further enhance the surface cooling effect of the water cycle intensification thus seems to be still well possible.
8) I therefore still believe that my questions regarding past changes in the water cycle intensity and its distribution over land and oceans and their importance for Earth climate are relevant.
Greetings
Tomáš
Piotrsays
Re: Tomáš Kalisz 28 Jun
I thought that my point about you, Tomáš:
” If you still can’t wrap your head around it, hit the books, or take some intro course. Functioning of this group is predicated on having a minimum understanding of the basics of climate, and willingness to learn from the answers by people who may know more than you. So far you have shown neither.,”
was sufficiently supported with dozens of your earlier post, so adding another one to the collection would be an overkill, But I stand corrected, by your latest claim (note the confident, patronizing, tone)
“I would like to remind you that latent heat flow and mean water vapour concentration are strongly decoupled from each other. It is apparent from the fact that annual global precipitation [is] 500 000 km3 water, while total water amount in the atmosphere is 13000 km3 only ”
Whau. Dismissing a reservoir with a flux. I did not see this one coming. What’s next – disproving the mouse by pointing that during a year it would have to eat 50 times more than it weighs?
Tomáš Kaliszsays
Dear Piotr,
Thank you very much for your swift feedback.
Apologies for the patronizing tone, it was not my goal. I just wished to attract your attention to the relationship between total annual precipitation and the average latent heat flow. I consider this aspect quite central for our discussion, however, you have not commented thereon yet.
In this respect, I would like to ask what was wrong with small reservoir (13000 km3) vs high flux (500 000 km3). Could you clarify in more detail why you think that I am mistaken?
Thank you in advance and greetings,
Tom
Piotrsays
T. Kalisz: “ I would like to ask what was wrong with small reservoir (13000 km3) vs high flux (500 000 km3). Could you clarify in more detail why you think that I am mistaken?”
Because you are comparing apples and oranges, well actually more like apples and … photosynthesis rate – one is a reservoir the other is a flux – different concepts, different units – it’s “500 000 km3/yr”, not as you wrote “500 000 km3”.
But why should we use “per yr” and not, say, “per second” – after all, the radiative fluxes are given in W/m2, with watts being J/s. But if we use per sec- your precipitation rate becomes = 0.016 km3/s. The reservoir size is still the same = 13000km3. So who is “small” now?
If two variables have different dimensions/units you CAN’T claim that one is larger or smaller than the other, and therefore you can’t claim that one is more or less important than the other.
@piotr says: – ” What’s next… by people who may know more than you. ”
ms: — Send your full puke bag, preferably peer reviewed, to the IPCC.
The IPCC still claims that irrigation and albedo have a cooling effect on Earth’s temperature.
Same goes for other fools & stupid desert walkers like nigelj, levenson, zebra, ron r.,
& crap-O-mountain alias sverre kolberg.
JCMsays
There need not be any dispute that the drying of the landscape directly by human influence is most easily observed and understood by those whose lifestyle and occupation is directly dependent on those very lands (soils). The defensiveness of the recreationalists, bird watchers, photography enthusiasts is neither here nor there.
However, it should be clarified conceptually that the influence of the lands for realclimates is to provide a consistent reservoir of moisture in the root zone for transpiration. Specifically, evaporation and runoff is to be minimized, and transpiration maximized.
This is only achieved with appropriate soil properties, in terms of organic matter, texture, infiltration, and associated bulk density. The transpiration only occurring during green growth. Ecological actionists should bear this in mind. Transpiration from a deep root zone, optimally. Sprinkling water on the surface is sub-optimal.
Trees in the desertifying zone is certainly questionable, but hedgerows can reduce wind erosion of topsoil (organics) and minimize evaporative losses. Additionally, trees along streambanks and human caused ditches/irrigation canals also reduce evaporative losses and foster microbial and fungal diversity. Wetlands are the stabilizers of water table from which the native species are adapted. The annuals with roots in the unsaturated zone need more help.
It is a system, with no single actionable solution. Highly localized and diverse. But the general principle to maximize transpiration. It is not so controversial, except only to uncompromising idealists. In rural lands with several dozen people per square km only 1 or 2 need to step up within each unit. No need for begging centralized decision makers.
“defensiveness”, in sweedish Hårsår hyper- sensitive.
You are making a strawman, a ridiculous model of what you never learnt, because you were trained to hate and to go against all that the politically militant progressive way, namely all western civilization all U- U- U that stands for Upstairs at the University of Uppsala, Where you first meet theit LOGO high above you on the main entrance door at the high AULA. stating:
“Att tänka är storartat. Att tänka rätt är högare!”
Meaning
To think is grandious. To think right is higher!
SANN!
Thus they are in charge also of Kungliga Akademin (the Royal Society) and set to give out the Nobel Prices.
Beat that.
You ridicule the scientific and enlighted approach to it by rather making and fighting a strawman model of yourself, namely that tourist birdwatcher and plastic flower picker and paparaci with long, japanese camera tube. A living standard tourist, offroad, offtracks, with broad feet and boots climatic footprints in the ackers and birdsnests on the shores and in the wild hearhers. Onshore and offshore, even in the air and in the bushes.
It is how the soviet academy in Leningrad and in the old Greifswald were countering and eradicating and etnically rinsing out the Royal Frederiks and Uppsala civilization from our given public school and highscool system. Replacing it with KADREs from the inaugurated GOP. Mafia in charge in the same high seats.
They were further rinsing out the UNIVERSITAS CAROLINVM IV di PRAGA, ….. The Sorbonne,…..Bologne,…. the Cambridge, the Harward, and the Berkeley universities. With much success
It all sums up in the Frank Lunz` professional instructions to the grand old party, that did instruct The Republican war on science..
I repeat….!
That special alternative state religion goes on doped & centrally stimulated in recent time, as it also marched in closed order under Adolf Lenin and Stalin, Qvisling and Mussolini as the High GURUs and He- men of The People with P. .
That all were High nosed and snobbish teaching new systematics.
You seem to be lacking Robert Boyles school and enlightment, the sceptical chemist, against goldmaking, having not yet guessed that deep roots sucking up the water for evapotranspirating it in order to cool the climate……….
……………will dry out the landscape. The contrarians believe consequently contrary, that their cooling “evapotranspiration” will create water and irrigate the landscape.
The idea of permanence of matter and of material element budgeting is obviously alian to the pioneering swedish “Rallares” also, as tom the young pioneers of dia- lectic materialism and “scientific” socialism.
Such were also the cheaters and the magicians and croocs from the gilds and the unions,…. that Robert Boyle wrote against,… and SIR Isaac Newton took to Court and to Tower in order for them to make a free choise between chopping block and rope. Namely on behalf of The Royal Mint and the wealth of nations. And rather for food for the Kings Ravens.
It rules for the antarctic winter where temperatures are so low that IR spectra taken from space show positive spikes at the CO2 absorption bands.
I believe Kirchoff formulated it from spectral analysis of Fraunhofer lines and bunsen burner plasma emitting spectra. Atomic absorption has become a method in addition to atomic emission.
and futher black body thermal absorption and emission.
Bullshit propatganda and quackery here violates, stupidifies, and goes against what all responsible experiemnced and qualified workers have to know from Public school, all the way through blackismithing and goldsmithing, metal casting and glass- blowing and pottery at different temperatures, in the heat and in a hurry to stay alert and to judge the materials and the temperatures on eye measurement. .
Namely that Emittance= Absorbance, even in Radio- technology. .
It would be nice to have an independent support for the claim that continent are drying. You mentioned gravity measurements in this regard. Could you provide a reference?
ms: — Since 1993, global mean sea level has increased by 3.3 ± 0.3 mm/year. This amounts to a total increase of 9.7 cm over the past 30 years.
About 30% of this rise can be attributed to ocean thermal expansion,
60% is due to land ice melt from glaciers and from the Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets.
— The remaining 10% is attributed to changes in land water storage, such as soil moisture, surface water and groundwater. —
Global mean sea level rise has accelerated from a trend of 2.6 ± 0.7 mm/year during 1993–2008 to a trend of 4.2 ± 0.4 mm/year during 2007–2022, representing an increase of 61%. This corresponds to an acceleration of 1.1 ± 0.6 mm/year per decade over the past 30 years.
From year to year, the global mean sea level record shows significant variations, related mainly to ENSO.
El Niño events are characterised by higher-than-average rainfall over the tropical oceans leading to higher-than-average sea level, while La Niña events lead to higher-than-average rainfall over the tropical continents resulting in lower-than-average sea level
In your original post, you mentioned an experiment called GRACE-FO as an independent source allowing an estimate of continental drying during the last decades.
Could you amend your kind reply with a reference to the publication that presented this estimate?
You seem to be still of the opinion that the condensation heat released during cloud formation cannot escape to the space. If I understand correctly, you object that for fotons falling in the carbon dioxide absorption bands, the sky above clouds is still too opaque.
You have, however, not explained why other fotons, having different wavelengths, should be prevented from escaping too. Coul you clarify?
Furthermore, you seem to object that the air in the cloud altitude is too cold to be able to emit enough radiation to cool the Earth effectively, am I right?
If so, please note that the estimate of the average surface emission temperature of the Earth without atmosphere is about 255 K. This temperature fits quite well with the average temperature in altitudes 5-6 km.
Should you still think that the condensation heat must return from the atmosphere to Earth surface, please explain your reasoning in more detail.
Rather try and formulate the argumjent that you are planning to make, and I might help you.
Only CO2 radiating IR to space is plain wrong.
Arrhenius is known for spectrophotometry in IR of moonshine on groundlevel. (Probably by classical thermopile the way Tyndall did it and the way the http://www.pyrgeometer works.) And found the absorptionspectra of CO2 and water in it.
That does tell us very much, and is a pioneering work of geophysics , delivery of timeless wisdom, in regard to earth climate.
In cloudy weather, he would hardly have got IR spectra from space at all. We can conclude with certainty that the top of the tropospheric clouds emit IR warmth directly to space. That science is settled!
Sattelites have come since and could only refine and improove this, not deny or disqualify it.
Thus, it seems that you operate as an old magic rainmaker together with your colleagues here, , who is recommending making shadowy clouds and even cooling rainshowers by pouring water on the ground. On large industrial level.
An idea that might sell in the wild west, in Las Vegas Utah Arizona and Hollywood. But I do not live there and I tend solidly to know better from just looking at the weathers, so I do not buy it.
All in all, I am a better shaman than that, who can even advice people on such things.
I also find it very hard to believe that the IPCC coulod not guess and take into conscideration what I am saying here.. So what the …. are you frighting for?
Am I understanding you right?
Tomáš Kaliszsays
Dear Carbomontanus,
Thank you very much for your question and especially for your reference to Arrhenius’ pioneering detection of the infrared radiation coming from the space, namely from Moon surface, on the Earth surface.
If you visit my public orgpage wherein I track the present discussion (you can access it and even add your own comment if you use the link https://orgpad.com/s/6jf-rtG8wUP), you can see that in his thread, Ray objects that latent heat cannot cool Earth surface because it cannot be radiated to the space from the altitudes wherein clouds form, and must thus be retained “in the system” (in other words, must warm another place on Earth surface).
I objected that in this case, infrared astronomy could be hardly possible on places famous therefor, such as Mauna Kea observatory.
Your reference to Svante Arrhenius seems thus to represent another good example supporting my doubts about general validity of Ray’s assertion. In my opinion, he may be perhaps correct with respect to IR photons in the range of CO2 absorption bands, but hardly with respect to other wavelengths ot the Earth infrared spectrum.
Have I clarified this still open sub-point of the entire dispute about the role of latent heat transport in Earth climate and specifically in Earth surface temperature regulation sufficiently?
You woul like to know if I agree that it is necessary to keep the global warming within a certain limit, specifically 2 K.
I am afraid that it is difficult to answer a such question simply by yes or no and be honest at the same time.
1) First of all, 2 K is an estimate what could be perhaps “affordable”. Based on my suspicion that present climate models still do not allow any reliable prediction of the future Earth climate, I assume that this “affordable” range is rather arbitrary and in fact very uncertain.
2) I am afraid that the same applies for the measures that shall allegedly ensure that the set goal is fulfilled.
3) Less disputed, but from my point of view more important question:
Is the single parameter of global mean temperature really the crucial information decisive for human living conditions in the planet Earth, or can the situation be in fact much more complex?
In the present discussion, I strive to bring an attention to the possibility of very different climate scenarii at the same global mean temperature, for example, a planet with dry, desertified continents versus the same planet with rich continental precipitation ensuring an equally rich terrestrial flora and fauna. Both scenarii may be perhaps suitable for humans, however, it is my feeling that we have not cared yet much if it is indeed so.
4) In such situations of a major uncertainty, I think that it may be reasonable to
a) ask questions in which extent we are indeed sure that we really understand what is going on and what we shall do, with the aim to improve this understanding, and
b) prefer measures bringing clear, undisputable advantages.
5) An example of such measure could be choosing such ways towards economy transformation that will bring the desired decrease of greenhouse gas emissions together with another advantage that will be beneficial – even in case that keeping the greenhouse gas concentration within certain limit finally does not bring the supposed beneficial effect for the climate.
6) Presently, it appears possible to make the proposed “decarbonization” of the world economy “reasonably beneficial” (in sense “a reasonable chance for a net benefit in return for invested money and effort”) if we make renewable energy sources in parallel both reliable and cheaper than their classical alternatives.
7) For this reason, I quite doubt about present decarbonization policies that are either silent about an unpleasant truth that an economically beneficial “Energiewende” is not feasible with commercially available energy storage and transport technologies, or asserting that economy decarbonization must be enforced at any cost because “the planet is burning”.
I am afraid that all such “brute force” approaches, pretending that there are unlimited financial resources, will very likely fail.
8) Personally, I seek ways towards commercialization of a known but yet neglected electricity storage in cheap elemental alkali metals sodium and potassium, because it seems to have technical parameters that might enable achieving the desired net economical advantage of renewable energy sources over fossil fuels:
Your comments make you look like a denialist, because they are full of common climate denialist talking points. For example raising doubts about climate modelling and the affordability of renewables, raising doubts about whether warming is the real concern, and raising doubts about if we really understand the climate. It makes it hard to know whether you are a denialist, or are just engaging in some normal healthy scepticism.
It would help if you prefaced your comments by saying that you accept the science of the greenhouse effect and that that burning fossil fuels is warming the climate, and it will be problematic. And do you accept those things in general terms?
The climate modelling is clearly not perfect but it seems to have predicted the global warming trend quite well and that is the main thing. (Refer model / data comparisons on this website). There is already good evidence heatwaves have become more intense and frequent and you don’t need modelling to tell you that 3 degrees will make the situation considerably worse. So while we dont know everything the future will bring some things are highly probable.
Regarding whether renewables are viable. Jacobson has done peer reviewed studies showing that a renewables grid at global scale can work and be affordable and even cheaper than a fossils fuels grid. He uses a combination of storage, smart grids and overbuild. Even if Jacobson is wrong to some extent about costs, it suggests to me we can make a renewables system work without incurring massive increases in costs of electricity.
I agree sodium based batteries have potential.
This is how I see the issue. We will run out of fossil fuels eventually anyway. (That can be extracted at reasonable costs). As a species we have little choice but to use things like wind and solar power and storage. We are just bringing that issue forwards. Nuclear power has the problem of not being renewable and uranium is fairly scarce, and fusion power is incredibly ambitious and is still a early prototype. It may never be truly viable and it looks to me like its a long way away still. We cant count on it as a solution.
Tomáš Kaliszsays
Dear nigelj,
Many thanks for your kind reply.
It is definitely up to you how you assign me. I do consider myself as a curious person striving to understand what is going on and what may be my own small contribution to making things better.
I definitely agree that the present climate changes dynamically. There is hardly any other possible explanation that environmental changes due human activities are the cause of this dynamics.
It is doubtless (proven e.g. by changing abundance of carbon nuclides in atmospheric CO2) that fossil fuel consumption during last two centuries significantly contributed to the observed rise of atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration.
It is further a proven fact that carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas absorbing infrared radiation at certain wavelengths. It is therefore also doubtless that rising carbon dioxide concentration strengthens the radiative greenhouse effect. Finally, I do agree that it can be reasonably assumed that enhanced radiative greenhouse effect will result in a warming climate – if not compensated by climate regulation mechanisms acting oppositely.
Herein, my doubts start – not about climate science that deals also with these mechanisms, but rather about presentations of the present state of its knowledge in media, in public discussion and in relevant policies.
In my opinion, this presentation is often heavily distorted and simplified the way that the climate is a simple machine we perfectly understand to, and the average global temperature is an universal parameter sufficiently characterizing it.
The picture presented by various activists is seemingly clear: There is a direct relationship between the greenhouse gas concentration and the average global temperature, and if we caused the rise of the global temperature by our emissions of greenhouse gases, we can simply “repair” the damaged climate or prevent further changes (and thus “save the planet”) by decreasing this concentration or stopping its increase.
To be honest, I do not believe that the nature is as simple as people wish. Evaporative cooling of Earth surface by water cycle (which is in my understanding a standard part if climate science but is basically ignored in present climate debate and policies resulting therefrom) could perhaps serve as a quite prominent example supporting this feeling.
I am afraid that bold actions based rather
on feelings, wishes and unsupported assumptions than on a solid knowledge and risk analysis may cause more harm than good. That is the reason why I raise my doubts and ask my questions, and I have to say that the answers I obtained so far have rather increased than settled my concerns.
Under “bold actions”, I understand spending significant resources on activities having an unclear outcome. As a good example can serve the allegedly beneficial fossil fuel replacement with so called “biomass”, massively supported from public resources in many countries, despite it is
(i) clear that biomass became an insufficient energy source for the humankind already some 250 years ago,
(ii) burning biomass has lot of deteriorating effects, e.g. on local air quality and public health, which cannot be easily avoided – similarly as the same negative effects arising from the fossil fuel use,
(iii) promoting this useless replacement causes net harm by deterioration of biodiversity and of the forests as such, which last but not least, are another important (but in public policies quite neglected) component of the climate system.
An opposite to the criticized “bold” activities could be “humble” activities that may be less spectacular / expensive and/or more efficient. Such humble activities can consist in seeking ways how the desirable goals like decarbonization could be made economically profitable. Such mode of decarbonization would avoid huge economical losses in case that it finally fails to achieve its expected main goal (reduction of the average temperature rise).
Another example of the “humble” approach may consist in small scale experiments, practically testing efficiency, economical feasibility and possible side effects of various decarbonization technologies on suitable models that might enable also seeking for possible synergies of these technologies bringing another direct benefit for a local or for the global climate.
An example of this approach could be perhaps the proposed testing of the “dry” and the “wet” mode of solar energy exploitation in urban heat islands that might reveal their applicability and possible limitations on a large scale and thus increase the efficiency and the chance for a success if solar energy should really become a major energy source for humankind.
As regards cheap electricity storage that might enable an economically feasible large scale / seasonal electricity storage and/or a technically feasible long distance electricity transport at affordable costs, there are principal physical reasons preventing any kind of batteries, including sodium batteries, from an applicability in this direction. Shortly, the active chemical species saving the energy is a tiny fraction of the materials used in a battery. Consequently, unit cost for a kWh of storage capacity in a battery can be hardly lower than ca 100 USD.
Saving electricity in sodium (using sodium fuel cells instead of sodium batteries) is the way how we could combine high efficiency of batteries with high volume energy density (and related cheap storage / transport) of liquid fuels. That is why is the sodium fuel cell so important – it is the sole element in the “electrochemical sodium fuel cycle” that is commercially unavailable yet.
Race religion political opinion and gender is to be declared first.
I have only rudimentary experience with Ceskoslovensko through Irena Pejskova and Jaroslav Tusek in Praha. Both migrated to the west by my help and could later behave. Met them in Mecenice north of Praha in 1965.
I hardly hear the difference of chechi and polish. They had a Prager Deutsch that was our Lingua Franca but only known by elder people.
The youngsters knew russian and did sneek- study English and Italian. Irena later took english and norwgian with ease.
There were Mickey Mouse grafitti on the toilet walls in Praha.
I was shown the grave of Tycho Brahe in Mala Strana, and we were able to get Iovanni Keppleri Harmonices Mundi in original from 1619, secretly in the cellar of the University library.. The university did their very best in those days. Keep up with that. It is sustainable.
I am from the Royal Frederiks of 1809 in Christiania faculty of philosophy, patent from Praha. 1342.
@ p. o twentyseven
Say, are you really using virtual intelligenhce the freshly inaugurated way Hr. o twentyseven?
As you can clearly see, I do not,
Quite on the contrary, I do demonstrate quite consciously that I perform and work against uniformation and industrialization mechanization, datafication of mind and manners.
You see, if you can buy yourself a personality and immune set of manners and performance, then SATAN in Hell can also do that and soon sit on the throne and have you all with him in your closed society and quite hot peoples republic.
Automatic routine æsoteric reading hearing and seeing and judging and cleaning and recognitional programs in virtual reality is an old problem and even characteristic primary symptom of militarism, dictatorship, and thyranny.
Our major defence against virtual intelligence, its automatic & unwarranted and unofficial rules and regulations of procedure with keyewords and secret vocabulary,……….
……… is given in the UN declaration of Humanh Rights articles 19, 26, and 27.
That is signed to and aspired under by all autentic, responsible world leaders.
No science without it. No understanding without it. No united nations, not even sustainable United strates without it Hardly even any climate without it.
No one shall have to aspire under your editing and moral consceptual machine.
patrick o twentyseven
Regarding your comments above thread on the appropriate priorities for things like climate mitigation, life in general, and for secular minded people. The book 21 lessons for the 21st century by Noval Harari has some interesting and quite convincing chapters on all these issues you raised. The book also has chapters on other topical issues related to artificial intelligence, political ideologies and world views, the importance of human story telling, the climate problem, and misinformation etcetera. IMO its a very convincing book overall.
Thank you, that sounds interesting; I’ll look for it.
Related books I’ve read recently:
The Spiral Staircase (bibliographical, with insights on comparative religion, spirituality, and people)
The Quest for Character (philosophers trying to teach moral values to politicians – a lot of interesting ancient Greek and Roman history)
The Dawn of Everything (written by an archeologist and an anthropologist, goes over the history/variety of human societal/cultural development, from the stone age to recent times, particularly looking at indigenous societies and how Europeans reacted to them, looking for (and finding) egalitarianism and freedom (Killian’s wheelhouse)- many mindblowing bits of info, overturns/questions common assumptions/conventional wisdom – eg. the socialist cosmopolitan city of Teotihuacan in early AD (after the revolution), Californian (Puritan abolitionist capitalists – well not quite but…) vs. Pacific Northwest indigenous societies, Minoan civilization (ruled by a college of Priestesses); Kandiaronk; in particular, an indigenous American Arctic people: husbands dominate their wives much of the year, but there is a time of year when wives can swap husbands; setting aside the distinctions of elected representation vs. sortition vs. direct democracy, Athenian democracy was a bit like the US. South pre-Civil War, vs. the more ancient Mesopotamian city states were a bit more like the US c. 2008 (women participated) – this is before the kings took over – but even then….
The Journey of Humanity – has perhaps some of the very assumptions/conventional wisdom that the former challenges, but still an interesting account of how humanity has (to an extent) broken free of the Malthusian trap – and explanations of why different regions have gone on different paths…
The End of the Myth – a history of the U.S. focussing on inequality and racism, etc – the Myth refers to endless room for expansion, being used as a sort of opiate for the masses – a “safety valve”
Apologies if I just violated my own rule: “Puritan abolitionist capitalists” – it’s an interesting and engaging, though inexact comparison, but this is a general description of the societies; ie. I imagine individual attitudes may have varied (it would be odd if they didn’t, right?), and there may have been some variation among the different Californian tribes (note Californian is not exactly = having or being within or limited by the modern boundaries of the state of CA) Etc.
patrick o twentyseven
Thank’s for the list of books.
I just wanted to add I thought your lists of priorities sounded quite good and was not dissimilar to Harari’s take on things.
I checked out the Dawn of Everything book on amazon.com.au and read the main review and a couple of the detailed reviews posted by readers. Looks good. Hunter gatherer and early farming groups were different in many ways. Have read that elsewhere including peer reviewed studies.
Have read an excellent university anthropology text The Human Past edited by Chris Scarre although this was physical anthropology more than cultural. I’m largely retired and I like to read at least one textbook each year on a different subject area as well as other books.
One key issue in all this seems to be hierarchical behaviours and structures versus egalitarian behaviour and structures. Humans seem to have a dual nature with organisation that we can adopt either hierarchical modes or egalitarians modes (although deep down genetically we are fundamentally hierarchical but capable of adopting egalitarian modes from a peer reviewed study I came across).
You could probably organise a business to run either way, egalitarian or hierarchical (or a combination) but surely a fully egalitarian structure would require every decision be approved by all the people in the organisation. This would be very inefficient. While I naturally lean towards egalitarianism it doesn’t seem practical in all situations or if taken to extremes. Like with many things in life.
Or…. you can work from First Principles and understand most things on your own. The last thing I do is ask others what I should think unless I *can’t* understand something via my own self-education first. There’s nothing wrong with being the student most or all of the time. However, if one truly wants to understand novel things, one must learn to teach themselves.
In Re to
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2023/06/unforced-variations-jun-2023/#comment-812689
Dear Piotr,
Thank you very much for your objections.
1) I admit that my assertion that only the difference between the upwelling and downwelling infrared radiation does play a role in the atmosphere thermal budget was not suitable for explaining why the correction of the latent heat flow by the factor 1/3 is unnecessary and would have been inappropriate.
2) Maybe your treasury metaphor might serve the purpose better. We do have the latent heat flow, sensible heat flow and the upwelling infrared radiation as three different spendings from the same budget which is energy balance of the Earth surface. There is a trade-off between them, because their sum must remain constant. In other words, if this sum remains constant, any change in global mean latent heat flow must cause an opposite change in the sum of the upwelling radiation and of the sensible heat flow.
3) Equally important is the circumstance that on the revenue side of the same budget, the downwelling radiation does not change if we change the ratio between both spendings. There is no “extra” revenue in amount of two thirds of the latent heat flow, because this “return” is already included in the value of the downwelling radiation flow and does not change because thermal budget of the atmosphere remains constant as well.
4) The result of the change in the ratio of the heat transported from the surface by radiation and by non-radiative heat flows thus does not change the emission temperature of the atmosphere but decreases the average emission temperature of the Earth surface only.
5) Strictly, I had to consider the an increase in the latent heat flow decreases both the upwelling radiation as well as the sensible heat flow, and the decrease in the average upwelling radiation from the Earth surface is thus not perfectly commensurate to the increase in the latent heat flow. Although I am still not sure that the role of sensible heat is in fact negligible (what suggested several times JCM), I do not suppose that the decrease in the upwelling radiation flow must be as small as only 1/3 of the increase in the latent heat flow.
6) As regards your assumption that any increase in the latent heat flow must be accompanied by a massive increase in mean water vapour concentration and a commensurate enhancement of the radiative greenhouse effect, I would like to remind you that latent heat flow and mean water vapour concentration are strongly decoupled from each other. It is apparent from the fact that annual global precipitation accounts for about 500 000 km3 water (average 990 mm on 510 000 000 square km Earth surface area), while total water amount in the atmosphere is about 13000 km3 only.
6) For all the above reasons, I must still respectfully disagree with your opinion that only small part of the the latent heat flow cools Earth surface. I also do not think that changes in the water cycle intensity must have any substantial influence on average absolute humidity and thus on the intensity of the radiative greenhouse effect.
7) Oppositely, it appears that there is still lack of reliable studies dealing with the relationship between cloud formation an water cycle intensity. A positive feedback between the water cycle intensity and cloud albedo that might further enhance the surface cooling effect of the water cycle intensification thus seems to be still well possible.
8) I therefore still believe that my questions regarding past changes in the water cycle intensity and its distribution over land and oceans and their importance for Earth climate are relevant.
Greetings
Tomáš
Re: Tomáš Kalisz 28 Jun
I thought that my point about you, Tomáš:
” If you still can’t wrap your head around it, hit the books, or take some intro course. Functioning of this group is predicated on having a minimum understanding of the basics of climate, and willingness to learn from the answers by people who may know more than you. So far you have shown neither.,”
was sufficiently supported with dozens of your earlier post, so adding another one to the collection would be an overkill, But I stand corrected, by your latest claim (note the confident, patronizing, tone)
“I would like to remind you that latent heat flow and mean water vapour concentration are strongly decoupled from each other. It is apparent from the fact that annual global precipitation [is] 500 000 km3 water, while total water amount in the atmosphere is 13000 km3 only ”
Whau. Dismissing a reservoir with a flux. I did not see this one coming. What’s next – disproving the mouse by pointing that during a year it would have to eat 50 times more than it weighs?
Dear Piotr,
Thank you very much for your swift feedback.
Apologies for the patronizing tone, it was not my goal. I just wished to attract your attention to the relationship between total annual precipitation and the average latent heat flow. I consider this aspect quite central for our discussion, however, you have not commented thereon yet.
In this respect, I would like to ask what was wrong with small reservoir (13000 km3) vs high flux (500 000 km3). Could you clarify in more detail why you think that I am mistaken?
Thank you in advance and greetings,
Tom
T. Kalisz: “ I would like to ask what was wrong with small reservoir (13000 km3) vs high flux (500 000 km3). Could you clarify in more detail why you think that I am mistaken?”
Because you are comparing apples and oranges, well actually more like apples and … photosynthesis rate – one is a reservoir the other is a flux – different concepts, different units – it’s “500 000 km3/yr”, not as you wrote “500 000 km3”.
But why should we use “per yr” and not, say, “per second” – after all, the radiative fluxes are given in W/m2, with watts being J/s. But if we use per sec- your precipitation rate becomes = 0.016 km3/s. The reservoir size is still the same = 13000km3. So who is “small” now?
If two variables have different dimensions/units you CAN’T claim that one is larger or smaller than the other, and therefore you can’t claim that one is more or less important than the other.
@piotr says: – ” What’s next… by people who may know more than you. ”
ms: — Send your full puke bag, preferably peer reviewed, to the IPCC.
The IPCC still claims that irrigation and albedo have a cooling effect on Earth’s temperature.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/a/a0/Physical_Drivers_of_climate_change.svg/450px-Physical_Drivers_of_climate_change.svg.png
Same goes for other fools & stupid desert walkers like nigelj, levenson, zebra, ron r.,
& crap-O-mountain alias sverre kolberg.
There need not be any dispute that the drying of the landscape directly by human influence is most easily observed and understood by those whose lifestyle and occupation is directly dependent on those very lands (soils). The defensiveness of the recreationalists, bird watchers, photography enthusiasts is neither here nor there.
However, it should be clarified conceptually that the influence of the lands for realclimates is to provide a consistent reservoir of moisture in the root zone for transpiration. Specifically, evaporation and runoff is to be minimized, and transpiration maximized.
This is only achieved with appropriate soil properties, in terms of organic matter, texture, infiltration, and associated bulk density. The transpiration only occurring during green growth. Ecological actionists should bear this in mind. Transpiration from a deep root zone, optimally. Sprinkling water on the surface is sub-optimal.
Trees in the desertifying zone is certainly questionable, but hedgerows can reduce wind erosion of topsoil (organics) and minimize evaporative losses. Additionally, trees along streambanks and human caused ditches/irrigation canals also reduce evaporative losses and foster microbial and fungal diversity. Wetlands are the stabilizers of water table from which the native species are adapted. The annuals with roots in the unsaturated zone need more help.
It is a system, with no single actionable solution. Highly localized and diverse. But the general principle to maximize transpiration. It is not so controversial, except only to uncompromising idealists. In rural lands with several dozen people per square km only 1 or 2 need to step up within each unit. No need for begging centralized decision makers.
JCM
“defensiveness”, in sweedish Hårsår hyper- sensitive.
You are making a strawman, a ridiculous model of what you never learnt, because you were trained to hate and to go against all that the politically militant progressive way, namely all western civilization all U- U- U that stands for Upstairs at the University of Uppsala, Where you first meet theit LOGO high above you on the main entrance door at the high AULA. stating:
“Att tänka är storartat. Att tänka rätt är högare!”
Meaning
To think is grandious. To think right is higher!
SANN!
Thus they are in charge also of Kungliga Akademin (the Royal Society) and set to give out the Nobel Prices.
Beat that.
You ridicule the scientific and enlighted approach to it by rather making and fighting a strawman model of yourself, namely that tourist birdwatcher and plastic flower picker and paparaci with long, japanese camera tube. A living standard tourist, offroad, offtracks, with broad feet and boots climatic footprints in the ackers and birdsnests on the shores and in the wild hearhers. Onshore and offshore, even in the air and in the bushes.
It is how the soviet academy in Leningrad and in the old Greifswald were countering and eradicating and etnically rinsing out the Royal Frederiks and Uppsala civilization from our given public school and highscool system. Replacing it with KADREs from the inaugurated GOP. Mafia in charge in the same high seats.
They were further rinsing out the UNIVERSITAS CAROLINVM IV di PRAGA, ….. The Sorbonne,…..Bologne,…. the Cambridge, the Harward, and the Berkeley universities. With much success
It all sums up in the Frank Lunz` professional instructions to the grand old party, that did instruct The Republican war on science..
I repeat….!
That special alternative state religion goes on doped & centrally stimulated in recent time, as it also marched in closed order under Adolf Lenin and Stalin, Qvisling and Mussolini as the High GURUs and He- men of The People with P. .
That all were High nosed and snobbish teaching new systematics.
You seem to be lacking Robert Boyles school and enlightment, the sceptical chemist, against goldmaking, having not yet guessed that deep roots sucking up the water for evapotranspirating it in order to cool the climate……….
……………will dry out the landscape. The contrarians believe consequently contrary, that their cooling “evapotranspiration” will create water and irrigate the landscape.
The idea of permanence of matter and of material element budgeting is obviously alian to the pioneering swedish “Rallares” also, as tom the young pioneers of dia- lectic materialism and “scientific” socialism.
Such were also the cheaters and the magicians and croocs from the gilds and the unions,…. that Robert Boyle wrote against,… and SIR Isaac Newton took to Court and to Tower in order for them to make a free choise between chopping block and rope. Namely on behalf of The Royal Mint and the wealth of nations. And rather for food for the Kings Ravens.
COP28 Lead-Up Negotiations Plagued By Disagreements https://climatestate.com/2023/06/28/bonn-cop28-negotiations-see-disagreements-june-2023/
Jim Steele asserted in regards to Antarctica:
Would you please post a reference to a peer-reviewed, scientific paper supporting this assertion.
Emmerson
This is found and to be taken serious.
It rules for the antarctic winter where temperatures are so low that IR spectra taken from space show positive spikes at the CO2 absorption bands.
I believe Kirchoff formulated it from spectral analysis of Fraunhofer lines and bunsen burner plasma emitting spectra. Atomic absorption has become a method in addition to atomic emission.
and futher black body thermal absorption and emission.
Bullshit propatganda and quackery here violates, stupidifies, and goes against what all responsible experiemnced and qualified workers have to know from Public school, all the way through blackismithing and goldsmithing, metal casting and glass- blowing and pottery at different temperatures, in the heat and in a hurry to stay alert and to judge the materials and the temperatures on eye measurement. .
Namely that Emittance= Absorbance, even in Radio- technology. .
In Re to
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2023/06/unforced-variations-jun-2023/#comment-812408
Dear macias,
It would be nice to have an independent support for the claim that continent are drying. You mentioned gravity measurements in this regard. Could you provide a reference?
Many thanks in advance and greetings
T
@Tom
ms: — Since 1993, global mean sea level has increased by 3.3 ± 0.3 mm/year. This amounts to a total increase of 9.7 cm over the past 30 years.
About 30% of this rise can be attributed to ocean thermal expansion,
60% is due to land ice melt from glaciers and from the Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets.
— The remaining 10% is attributed to changes in land water storage, such as soil moisture, surface water and groundwater. —
Global mean sea level rise has accelerated from a trend of 2.6 ± 0.7 mm/year during 1993–2008 to a trend of 4.2 ± 0.4 mm/year during 2007–2022, representing an increase of 61%. This corresponds to an acceleration of 1.1 ± 0.6 mm/year per decade over the past 30 years.
From year to year, the global mean sea level record shows significant variations, related mainly to ENSO.
El Niño events are characterised by higher-than-average rainfall over the tropical oceans leading to higher-than-average sea level, while La Niña events lead to higher-than-average rainfall over the tropical continents resulting in lower-than-average sea level
https://climate.copernicus.eu/climate-indicators/sea-level
greetings ms
Dear macias,
In your original post, you mentioned an experiment called GRACE-FO as an independent source allowing an estimate of continental drying during the last decades.
Could you amend your kind reply with a reference to the publication that presented this estimate?
Greetings
Tomáš
In Re to
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2023/06/unforced-variations-jun-2023/#comment-812630
Dear Ray,
You seem to be still of the opinion that the condensation heat released during cloud formation cannot escape to the space. If I understand correctly, you object that for fotons falling in the carbon dioxide absorption bands, the sky above clouds is still too opaque.
You have, however, not explained why other fotons, having different wavelengths, should be prevented from escaping too. Coul you clarify?
Furthermore, you seem to object that the air in the cloud altitude is too cold to be able to emit enough radiation to cool the Earth effectively, am I right?
If so, please note that the estimate of the average surface emission temperature of the Earth without atmosphere is about 255 K. This temperature fits quite well with the average temperature in altitudes 5-6 km.
Should you still think that the condensation heat must return from the atmosphere to Earth surface, please explain your reasoning in more detail.
Greetings
Tomáš
@ Thomas Kalisz
Rather try and formulate the argumjent that you are planning to make, and I might help you.
Only CO2 radiating IR to space is plain wrong.
Arrhenius is known for spectrophotometry in IR of moonshine on groundlevel. (Probably by classical thermopile the way Tyndall did it and the way the http://www.pyrgeometer works.) And found the absorptionspectra of CO2 and water in it.
That does tell us very much, and is a pioneering work of geophysics , delivery of timeless wisdom, in regard to earth climate.
In cloudy weather, he would hardly have got IR spectra from space at all. We can conclude with certainty that the top of the tropospheric clouds emit IR warmth directly to space. That science is settled!
Sattelites have come since and could only refine and improove this, not deny or disqualify it.
Thus, it seems that you operate as an old magic rainmaker together with your colleagues here, , who is recommending making shadowy clouds and even cooling rainshowers by pouring water on the ground. On large industrial level.
An idea that might sell in the wild west, in Las Vegas Utah Arizona and Hollywood. But I do not live there and I tend solidly to know better from just looking at the weathers, so I do not buy it.
All in all, I am a better shaman than that, who can even advice people on such things.
I also find it very hard to believe that the IPCC coulod not guess and take into conscideration what I am saying here.. So what the …. are you frighting for?
Am I understanding you right?
Dear Carbomontanus,
Thank you very much for your question and especially for your reference to Arrhenius’ pioneering detection of the infrared radiation coming from the space, namely from Moon surface, on the Earth surface.
If you visit my public orgpage wherein I track the present discussion (you can access it and even add your own comment if you use the link https://orgpad.com/s/6jf-rtG8wUP), you can see that in his thread, Ray objects that latent heat cannot cool Earth surface because it cannot be radiated to the space from the altitudes wherein clouds form, and must thus be retained “in the system” (in other words, must warm another place on Earth surface).
I objected that in this case, infrared astronomy could be hardly possible on places famous therefor, such as Mauna Kea observatory.
Your reference to Svante Arrhenius seems thus to represent another good example supporting my doubts about general validity of Ray’s assertion. In my opinion, he may be perhaps correct with respect to IR photons in the range of CO2 absorption bands, but hardly with respect to other wavelengths ot the Earth infrared spectrum.
Have I clarified this still open sub-point of the entire dispute about the role of latent heat transport in Earth climate and specifically in Earth surface temperature regulation sufficiently?
Greetings
Tom
In Re to
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2023/06/unforced-variations-jun-2023/#comment-812690
Dear nigelj,
You woul like to know if I agree that it is necessary to keep the global warming within a certain limit, specifically 2 K.
I am afraid that it is difficult to answer a such question simply by yes or no and be honest at the same time.
1) First of all, 2 K is an estimate what could be perhaps “affordable”. Based on my suspicion that present climate models still do not allow any reliable prediction of the future Earth climate, I assume that this “affordable” range is rather arbitrary and in fact very uncertain.
2) I am afraid that the same applies for the measures that shall allegedly ensure that the set goal is fulfilled.
3) Less disputed, but from my point of view more important question:
Is the single parameter of global mean temperature really the crucial information decisive for human living conditions in the planet Earth, or can the situation be in fact much more complex?
In the present discussion, I strive to bring an attention to the possibility of very different climate scenarii at the same global mean temperature, for example, a planet with dry, desertified continents versus the same planet with rich continental precipitation ensuring an equally rich terrestrial flora and fauna. Both scenarii may be perhaps suitable for humans, however, it is my feeling that we have not cared yet much if it is indeed so.
4) In such situations of a major uncertainty, I think that it may be reasonable to
a) ask questions in which extent we are indeed sure that we really understand what is going on and what we shall do, with the aim to improve this understanding, and
b) prefer measures bringing clear, undisputable advantages.
5) An example of such measure could be choosing such ways towards economy transformation that will bring the desired decrease of greenhouse gas emissions together with another advantage that will be beneficial – even in case that keeping the greenhouse gas concentration within certain limit finally does not bring the supposed beneficial effect for the climate.
6) Presently, it appears possible to make the proposed “decarbonization” of the world economy “reasonably beneficial” (in sense “a reasonable chance for a net benefit in return for invested money and effort”) if we make renewable energy sources in parallel both reliable and cheaper than their classical alternatives.
7) For this reason, I quite doubt about present decarbonization policies that are either silent about an unpleasant truth that an economically beneficial “Energiewende” is not feasible with commercially available energy storage and transport technologies, or asserting that economy decarbonization must be enforced at any cost because “the planet is burning”.
I am afraid that all such “brute force” approaches, pretending that there are unlimited financial resources, will very likely fail.
8) Personally, I seek ways towards commercialization of a known but yet neglected electricity storage in cheap elemental alkali metals sodium and potassium, because it seems to have technical parameters that might enable achieving the desired net economical advantage of renewable energy sources over fossil fuels:
https://www.orgpad.com/s/5BfLP-cxj-7
Greetings
Tomáš
Tomáš Kalisz
Your comments make you look like a denialist, because they are full of common climate denialist talking points. For example raising doubts about climate modelling and the affordability of renewables, raising doubts about whether warming is the real concern, and raising doubts about if we really understand the climate. It makes it hard to know whether you are a denialist, or are just engaging in some normal healthy scepticism.
It would help if you prefaced your comments by saying that you accept the science of the greenhouse effect and that that burning fossil fuels is warming the climate, and it will be problematic. And do you accept those things in general terms?
The climate modelling is clearly not perfect but it seems to have predicted the global warming trend quite well and that is the main thing. (Refer model / data comparisons on this website). There is already good evidence heatwaves have become more intense and frequent and you don’t need modelling to tell you that 3 degrees will make the situation considerably worse. So while we dont know everything the future will bring some things are highly probable.
Regarding whether renewables are viable. Jacobson has done peer reviewed studies showing that a renewables grid at global scale can work and be affordable and even cheaper than a fossils fuels grid. He uses a combination of storage, smart grids and overbuild. Even if Jacobson is wrong to some extent about costs, it suggests to me we can make a renewables system work without incurring massive increases in costs of electricity.
I agree sodium based batteries have potential.
This is how I see the issue. We will run out of fossil fuels eventually anyway. (That can be extracted at reasonable costs). As a species we have little choice but to use things like wind and solar power and storage. We are just bringing that issue forwards. Nuclear power has the problem of not being renewable and uranium is fairly scarce, and fusion power is incredibly ambitious and is still a early prototype. It may never be truly viable and it looks to me like its a long way away still. We cant count on it as a solution.
Dear nigelj,
Many thanks for your kind reply.
It is definitely up to you how you assign me. I do consider myself as a curious person striving to understand what is going on and what may be my own small contribution to making things better.
I definitely agree that the present climate changes dynamically. There is hardly any other possible explanation that environmental changes due human activities are the cause of this dynamics.
It is doubtless (proven e.g. by changing abundance of carbon nuclides in atmospheric CO2) that fossil fuel consumption during last two centuries significantly contributed to the observed rise of atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration.
It is further a proven fact that carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas absorbing infrared radiation at certain wavelengths. It is therefore also doubtless that rising carbon dioxide concentration strengthens the radiative greenhouse effect. Finally, I do agree that it can be reasonably assumed that enhanced radiative greenhouse effect will result in a warming climate – if not compensated by climate regulation mechanisms acting oppositely.
Herein, my doubts start – not about climate science that deals also with these mechanisms, but rather about presentations of the present state of its knowledge in media, in public discussion and in relevant policies.
In my opinion, this presentation is often heavily distorted and simplified the way that the climate is a simple machine we perfectly understand to, and the average global temperature is an universal parameter sufficiently characterizing it.
The picture presented by various activists is seemingly clear: There is a direct relationship between the greenhouse gas concentration and the average global temperature, and if we caused the rise of the global temperature by our emissions of greenhouse gases, we can simply “repair” the damaged climate or prevent further changes (and thus “save the planet”) by decreasing this concentration or stopping its increase.
To be honest, I do not believe that the nature is as simple as people wish. Evaporative cooling of Earth surface by water cycle (which is in my understanding a standard part if climate science but is basically ignored in present climate debate and policies resulting therefrom) could perhaps serve as a quite prominent example supporting this feeling.
I am afraid that bold actions based rather
on feelings, wishes and unsupported assumptions than on a solid knowledge and risk analysis may cause more harm than good. That is the reason why I raise my doubts and ask my questions, and I have to say that the answers I obtained so far have rather increased than settled my concerns.
Under “bold actions”, I understand spending significant resources on activities having an unclear outcome. As a good example can serve the allegedly beneficial fossil fuel replacement with so called “biomass”, massively supported from public resources in many countries, despite it is
(i) clear that biomass became an insufficient energy source for the humankind already some 250 years ago,
(ii) burning biomass has lot of deteriorating effects, e.g. on local air quality and public health, which cannot be easily avoided – similarly as the same negative effects arising from the fossil fuel use,
(iii) promoting this useless replacement causes net harm by deterioration of biodiversity and of the forests as such, which last but not least, are another important (but in public policies quite neglected) component of the climate system.
An opposite to the criticized “bold” activities could be “humble” activities that may be less spectacular / expensive and/or more efficient. Such humble activities can consist in seeking ways how the desirable goals like decarbonization could be made economically profitable. Such mode of decarbonization would avoid huge economical losses in case that it finally fails to achieve its expected main goal (reduction of the average temperature rise).
Another example of the “humble” approach may consist in small scale experiments, practically testing efficiency, economical feasibility and possible side effects of various decarbonization technologies on suitable models that might enable also seeking for possible synergies of these technologies bringing another direct benefit for a local or for the global climate.
An example of this approach could be perhaps the proposed testing of the “dry” and the “wet” mode of solar energy exploitation in urban heat islands that might reveal their applicability and possible limitations on a large scale and thus increase the efficiency and the chance for a success if solar energy should really become a major energy source for humankind.
As regards cheap electricity storage that might enable an economically feasible large scale / seasonal electricity storage and/or a technically feasible long distance electricity transport at affordable costs, there are principal physical reasons preventing any kind of batteries, including sodium batteries, from an applicability in this direction. Shortly, the active chemical species saving the energy is a tiny fraction of the materials used in a battery. Consequently, unit cost for a kWh of storage capacity in a battery can be hardly lower than ca 100 USD.
Saving electricity in sodium (using sodium fuel cells instead of sodium batteries) is the way how we could combine high efficiency of batteries with high volume energy density (and related cheap storage / transport) of liquid fuels. That is why is the sodium fuel cell so important – it is the sole element in the “electrochemical sodium fuel cycle” that is commercially unavailable yet.
Greetings
Tom
that was better, Kalisz.
Race religion political opinion and gender is to be declared first.
I have only rudimentary experience with Ceskoslovensko through Irena Pejskova and Jaroslav Tusek in Praha. Both migrated to the west by my help and could later behave. Met them in Mecenice north of Praha in 1965.
I hardly hear the difference of chechi and polish. They had a Prager Deutsch that was our Lingua Franca but only known by elder people.
The youngsters knew russian and did sneek- study English and Italian. Irena later took english and norwgian with ease.
There were Mickey Mouse grafitti on the toilet walls in Praha.
I was shown the grave of Tycho Brahe in Mala Strana, and we were able to get Iovanni Keppleri Harmonices Mundi in original from 1619, secretly in the cellar of the University library.. The university did their very best in those days. Keep up with that. It is sustainable.
I am from the Royal Frederiks of 1809 in Christiania faculty of philosophy, patent from Praha. 1342.