It is rather steady warm with some snow coming and going. It is way beyond earlier marks where steady enen deep frost should have come by now, with possible safe ice for skating and so on.
The signals and relict traditions in mans memory of gardening and skiing and rural sawing storing and icefreight & selling industries as I can see it from my point of wiew is rather roughly and certainly along with the IPCC longtime mean global temperature curves, so I feel no reason to fight them from 60 deg north east atlantic.
They harvested, stored, and sold the wither chill, that was believed elsewhere to be a handicap, against hard cash.
What a good commercial idea.
It is also finest freshwater that can be shipped to where both chill and freshwater is needed. They managed to export it under sail packed in straw and sawdust 100 years ago. To where both straw and sawdust was further valuable.
I can guarantee some of the same in the fameous Lake district USA, knowing how to earn also on the winters.
All theese traditions and industries seem to have been conquered and ruled out by steady support of coal and frossile fuel where cooling machines were invented and installed shortly after high voltade AC networks driven by coal heated steam turbines. Then, one could give a damn both to weather and climate.
Before that, , one had do do the best out of it in a scientific way. .
Carbomontanussays
Yes, I found it.
“Ice trade” is found on Wikipedia, and shows to have been big business on global scale with Norway as a major participant.
It has been known from antiquity even in Italia and Persia. Ice harvested in the mountains and brought to downtown and stored in ice-houses for use in summer.
Where I grew up there were old “Ice dams” everywhere, good for bathing in early summer as they warmed up sooner than the fjordwater, for juvenile limnology and fishing, and for skating festivals in early winter.
It was quite essencial for distribution of flesh, fish, and milk before the motorized coolers, and an important extra income for the peasants.
Something to think of again if fuel and energy is to be saved and definitely also good freshwater and drinkwater to be delivered during summer.
My favorite ‘early climate change paper’ is William Charles Wells’s “On Dew.” And one of the many curious things considered in it is the Bengali ‘ice trade’, which typically involved ice-making under cold but not freezing surface temps by utilizing radiational cooling to the sky. Wells replicated the effect, along with a very considerable amount of other experimental activity.
This was quite a lot, and important early science.
I have thought out at least 5 different “desktop experiments showing that only the field conductivity decides how heat is spreading out, And that it superposes of course, the stronger heat does not push back the weaker heat on broad front.
Thus you can “warm further up” a hottest place in the field by “help heating” it by a next heat of lower temperature and fewer watts from the side in the same field such as a large iron or copper plate that you have to weld or to solder on one spot by higth enough fusing temperature.
This is knowledge and experience of humanity all through stoneage,allready, that was especially long. Humanity would not have survined outside of the tropics with ape climate without knowing this.
It actually warms you up to take on a thick pullover with an anurak in the winter. You can then relax and consume less fuel in terms of calories and still keep warm..
That back- radiation or conduction in joules is real and can be sold against hard cash on the free market. As you save fuel by isolating the stove to keep your necessary high glow temperature for baking bricks or pottery or porcelain or fusing gold or iron. And you can sell off the fuel that you save that way in calories pr ton or per gallon on the free market.
Sound sources and radio transmitters work the same way.
Sound & signals & music is not matter, but forms of matter, it is given materials certain more or less meaningful ways of being.
They believed heat ” le chaleur” to be material and a kind of gas. But careful weighing showed no mass -> material increase or loss at all. Thus concluded along with Aristoteles who got that ritght, that heat “le chaleur” as they called it, is not matter, but material form, a steady material state of moovement.
Then we come to light and electromagnetism.
Ørsted, Faraday, and Maxwell could clear it up. Newton was an atomist and thought in terms of mechanic material particles. But being totally weightless and able to thingly occupy the same room or space or field, light is not material or particular in Classical sense. But light is still energetic and as real as can be.
The end- conditions of light and electromagnetic radiators, not light itself,…. is what is material, massive, Particular, and quantum mechanic. I do not believe in the photon particle travelling onward in space at lightspeed, because I know to much about radiowaves and soundwaves.
I repeat….!
light itself is not quantum mechanic , Its massive and material even more or less electrically conductive / resistand end- conditions are, and giving light and radiowaves its forms.
Light is carrying with it the particular and materiall forms of its endconditions without being particular and material itself.
Light and heat is not “matter” in that sense, I repeat,…… … but still as real as can be.
They had to resign also on the ETER being old supersticion that was consequently ruled out by proper science No proper scientist could find it or show it positively existant allthough most of them did hope and believe strongly in it.
.
The conscept of meaning and meaningful- ness is what can take over for that fruitful but lost conscept of “The ETER.”,
Try “its being ETERIC”. about meaningful sigtnaling in space or in the room or in the field, in the saloon, on the website… or “in the area,…. “. That can make sense.
In radio after having lost the Eter, they went on saying “On the air”. that might simply mean available room or field or space. “AIR, in the air, on the air” ……….. took over as a necessary and meaningful conscept as the “ETER” was ruled out.
Light is invisible. Nobody has seen the light.
They have only seen its endconditions. That is also what is so practical with the light. Light over it, and you can see what things are.. And if there is nothing to throw light on, you will also see nothing
Goethe took darkness for a positive & active reality. Helmholz in his fameous critics of Goethes Farbenlehre called that “Plain wrong”. It is not about light.
Silence is an important and real element in music, think of all the meaningful pauses. Silence is forgotten and given a damn to in todays commercialy perverted music.
As chill ( How often do I mention it? ) is aso an important element and reality in the real climate.
Just look at me, I am having the upper hand here as long as it lasts, by having better asked what cools us, rather than what heats us, and can recommend that further.
I score and earn better on selling and defending the elementary global chill or heat- sinks..
Chill is very traditional and has been purchased commercially in qvanta, hectoliters of ice agaist pound sterlings hard cash and lifestyle luxury on the free market
It is the global radiator element, its heat sink, that is being fought against, ruined, and polluted and that must be defended as a most vital natural resource.
Thanks, Susan! Yes, it was me, and IIRC, you were kind enough to comment back then. (There’s also a condensed version somewhere on SkS, so you might have seen it there.)
Juliansays
I’ve been lurking here for a while now, but this question is keeping me up at night: is it already too late to prevent the worst consequences of climate change? I know there’s plethora of opinions, but the more I read the more hopeless the situation seems, especially given the current (geopolitical) situation.
Sorry if this is a dumb question, but I just struggle to see myself alive in the next 30 years.
[Response: Opinions differ on this, but my take – as a scientist and a father – is that no, it is not too late, and actually, it will never be too late because there are always decisions that will need to be made that will make it worse, or better. We need to keep pushing for better decisions, precisely because we have agency. – gavin]
Ray Ladburysays
Julian: The question is ill posed. It presumes that the damage will somehow saturate. We are still in the realm where every additional kilogram of CO2 makes things worse, and probably nonlinearly so. It is not a question of whether it’s too late, but rather of how bad are we willing to let things get for our progeny.
Chuck Hughessays
If we get into a “runaway warming” situation where the earth’s own sources of CO2 start releasing it into the atmosphere, it may not matter what we do about cutting emissions. Turning forests into a carbon source and methane welling up from the permafrost, among other things. could put us on a path towards extinction. Then there are the oceans dying and releasing more heat, and so on.
We’ve burned through our carbon budget already, and we’re obviously not going to stop so yeah, I’d say it’s game over for humanity.
Juliansays
Chuck Hughes: This also worries me greatly.
We may have agency over anthropogenic emissions, but once we hit (if we haven’t already) climate tipping points, especially soil carbon feedback and potentially destabilisation of methane clathrates, it’s pretty much over. Maybe I’m just paranoid, but I can very easily image such scenarios playing out in the near future (the next decade or two) – and it really makes me question it all on some days. However, I don’t know what the academic consensus is.
Juliansays
Ray Ladbury, gavin: I don’t expect damage to equally distribute over the population and/or environment. I understand that the poor will be disproportionately affected at first, but their suffering will soon come to us. In addition, there’s always this gut-wrenching feeling of civilizational collapse – the industrial agriculture failure, famine and water shortages etc. that’ll affect the entire population and possibly cause our extinction. Not to mention projected collapses of ecosystems, that life relies on.
I didn’t ask for any of this – maybe it’s because I’m still young, but I do want people that come after me to have the same opportunities as I did. I know I can’t change the world as a whole, so I’m trying to do everything I can to change the world around me. Problem is, it’s really difficult to keep your chin up when you see things like the recent paper by Hansen (“Global Warming in the pipeline”) and what’s currently happening in geopolitics.
zebrasays
Julian, there are various traditions that address keeping your chin up:
And others, of course. For me, it is briefly put…”pain means you’re alive” …which balances out to be a good thing.
So, you have something to do, in contributing to a solution, which means being alive is an interesting and engaging state. What more could one ask?
Susan Andersonsays
Since we are alive, we can and must ask ourselves the question, here we all are and what are we going to do about it?
We can always make things less bad. Giving up is not an option. Ray explains better than I can.
And since I’m here, do look at Russell’s glorious takedown of the dangerous educational efforts ot the CO2 coalition below!
Silvia Leahu-Aluassays
Julian, it is a very pertinent question and a rational reaction. Difficult not to be hopeless, given the reality, the scientists’ warnings and the lack of political will to stop the climate emergency and the other crises from getting to the point of no return. However, please resist, if you can. Please know that many of us are doing everything possible to change things and that we will never give up. We are in the fight to win.
One way to fight hopelessness and those who caused and deepen the metacrisis is to look for solutions, invest in them, create them, communicate them broadly, adopt them, boast about adopting them. We can all help with the litigation against those responsible for the metacrisis, vote for rational and scientifically literate representatives, run for any decision making position, support the good decision makers, invest in climate positive business, start a farm, work on a farm, plant a forest. And many more.
I hope to bring a smile to you with a favorite joke from the old communist times in my native country:
The pessimist says: it cannot get worse than this
The optimist answers: yes it can.
Let’s be that kind of pessimist.
Juliansays
Silvia Leahu-Aluas: Hey, I know this joke! My grandparents used to tell it all the time during the times of Eastern Bloc :)
Thank you very, very much for your reply – I’ll keep returning to it everytime I feel down in the future. You and Susan Anderson are both right – even if the situation seems hopeless, giving up is not and never will be an option. Not now, when the stakes are higher than ever.
Julian: what a nice coincidence, I am happy that I decided to comment and to share that joke (my native country is Romania).
Yes, that’s the attitude, no matter how difficult and too often maddening the state of the biosphere and human society is, we are alive, we are knowledgeable, we are responsible, we fight with unwavering will to win. The stakes could not be higher.
ozajhsays
This is more a reply to Gavin’s response than to Julian’s post. Sorry if it comes across as a rant.
I’m personally not so sure that we (if “we” means the science community) DOES have agency, although I fully agree there is a need to keep pushing for better decisions.
I refer in particular to Julian’s “.especially given the current (geopolitical) situation”. The reality in the United States is that a straight out Young Earth Creationist/ Climate Denialist has been elected speaker of the House of Representatives, and there appears to be a non-zero chance that the next US Presidential election is going to be won by a malignant narcissist with an all-consuming desire for revenge against anybody he sees as either an enemy or a threat.
There is almost no chance that a Republican Administration would take any measures whatsoever to mitigate CO2 emissions, and indeed every chance that they would cause them to increase. Whether this would be by accident or by design simply doesn’t matter.
The Right-Wing coalition currently in opposition here in Australia is not so personally poisonous, but certainly holds similar views regarding fossil fuels, and the overall political situation is such that NEW export coal mines are being approved.
I fully expect this November (or perhaps even October) to be the last month in my lifetime to have an average Mauna Loa CO2 level below 420 ppm. I am not sufficiently aware of the science as to know what the medium-term implications of a halt at that level would be, but my layman’s guess is that at least some additional warming and quite a lot of Greenland/Antarctic melting are at that level “baked in”.
Solar Jimsays
RE: “at that (420 ppm) level”
Please note: The planet is not reacting to carbonic acid gas (CO2) alone. It is responding to all hothouse gases, including man-made methane and the resultant planetary releases of CO2 and CH4 gases due to global heating (from this total ensemble of new man-made hothouse gases).
The total is of such present radiative forcing (approx. 4W/m2) that the “ppm” number in terms of CO2 is in the 500 – 600 ppm,e range. (For example, the increasing methane concentration has a “Global Warming Potential” two orders of magnitude worse than CO2). The resultant Rising Energy Flux into the Earth system has, so far, doubled from approx. 0.6 W/m2 during this century’s first decade to a recent value of 1.2 W/m2. This is across every square meter on Earth. That total value of heat input is gigantic (and is apparently rising in order to meet/equalize with an increasing radiative forcing level from “our” foolishness in considering underground Matter as “economical forms of Energy,” ie. “fuels.”
The planet seems to disagree.
Barry E Finchsays
Solar Jim 4 NOV 2023 AT 11:43 AM Jason Box at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LYdvn2pGyOw shows at 1:06 an Earth’s energy imbalance (EEI) 12-month running mean at presumably mid 2023 of 1.45 w/m**2 on the trend line and of 1.97 w/m**2 for the last 12 months of running mean, though I don’t know how a 12-month running mean is calculated when a plot ends fewer than 6 months before the analysis date. So 1.45 w/m**2 rather than 1.2w/m**2.
Barry E Finch,
The EEI graphic shown by Jason Box was posted on Twitter back in July. A more up-to-date version of these 12-month average EEI figures from CERES are plotted by ClimateChangeTracker showing TSI & outward long wave & short wave (reflected) radiation. The last data point is four months newer than the graphic in the video and shows the EEI average has been flat at ~.1.9Wm^-2 over those 4 months. The albedo numbers shown here (after Penttilä et al 2022) are just a few days old and the numbers appear to show it is albedo over the first nine months of 2023 (lowest months on record 4, second lowest 3) as the reason for the high EEI.
Carbomontanussays
Just a minor detail, solar jim, but I allways like to correct this.
Carbonic acid H2CO3 hardly exists in the universe,
I repeat,….!
Not at any temperature and pressure, That molecule is too unstable.
You can mix Na2 CO3 with tartaric or citric acid and add a drop of water, CO2 will pop right off.
CO2 + 2H2O reacts rather slowly and into HCO3- and H3O+ that are real molecules. There you can also see the acidification of water by CO2.
Dissolve “Baking soda” NaHCO3 in pure water pH 7, that solution is stable. consisting of Na+ and HCO3- ions in balance.
But have the same “baking soda” on your tonge, and CO2 will sprattle- pop off, although Saliva has got pH8.
That “Para Doxon” is explained by a very fameous and strong enzyme called , Carbonic anhydrase one of the first ones to be discovered and found on Wikipedia.
The same enzyme helps blood and serum to get rid of CO2 from dissolved bicarbonate, in the lounges at pH7., Probably also working in the opposite direction when plants assimilate CO2 from air, by water and solar energy, and form carbohydrates.
I preferre stating the truth whenever possible, and believe that CO2 + OH- -> HCO3- by a rather slow and intricate reaction, when canbon dioxide dissolves in water,. That quite more simpler molecular reaction on ionic form is much easier to explain and to remember, and tells us also why it acidifies a bit due to binding of OH- present in common water..
But I red that NASA has managed to produce, isolate, and show, H2CO3 in pure form at last.
I shall not believe it until I have it sustained by an independent source, but that it took NASA at last to do it. That hardly surprizes me,.
But, never believe all that is told about NASA either.
I recommend it to you all, never to “further” that so- called “Carbonic acid” , until you have it sustained by 2 more independent sources. .
I was told of it in public school, but that “carbonic acid” and its gas is obvious old supersticion that has been ruled out by science 100 years ago.
Moral:
Never argue by “carbonic acid”., not even as an intermediate or hypotetic state in the reactions.
I believe “carbonic acid” and “carbonic acid gas” were used quite commonly in the 19th century as synonymous with what we now call “CO2” or “carbon dioxide.” The famous 1859 Tyndall paper is an example:
Of course, chemistry then was still relatively undeveloped by present standards. For example, it would only be with Arrhenius a couple of decades later that ‘ionic chemistry’ would triumph.
prlsays
Kohlensäure (lit. “carbon acid”) is still commonly used for both carbonic acid and carbon dioxide in German, but the latter is more properly Kohlendioxid.
Carbonic acid H2CO3 hardly exists in the universe,
I repeat,….!
Not at any temperature and pressure, That molecule is too unstable.
Carbon dioxide dissolved in water is present as a mixture of CO2 and H2CO3, but it’s mostly present as CO2 .
Anhydrous H2CO2 is a quite stable gas and there are reactions that produce it.
I have seen prl s reference Wicipedia carbonic acid and must correct myself
H2CO3 seems to exist in diluted form along with recent chemical orthodoxy on 10 E-3 level depending on themperature, and is being discussed in pure form as a solid and as a gas at lower temperature given that water is absolutely absent.
Which it normally aint not and hardly can be because
CO2 + H2O= H2CO3 and universal thermal diffusion at any real termperasture
It might be quite an explosive along with Daltons law given H2CO3 solid or gaseous, And I have made juvenile experiments with it, the selzer- bomb Canned tartaric acid with NaHCO3 in dry form and water cunningly canned.
An adult, burgeoise observer saw it and spoke: : “We shall have no bombs here!” So I could not shown it But it is a standard recepy for highpressure watery fire extinguishers.
They discuss how fast it will decay giving one free water molecule to start the chain reaction. of H2CO3 decay, That according to recent Wikipedia seems rather stable in absolutely dry and pure form.
But what aint not possible is to mix H2O ice and CO2 ice stoeciometrically, mill that together under low temperature and high pressure and expect H2CO3 to form.
Rumors on Wikipedia tells that by proton- irradiation, that will happen. And that must be the NASA- recepy.
There are other important examples of reactions that are highly irreversible by cleverly made stable mixtures and substances that can be chemically arranged, such as silver fulminate, lead azid, IN3 and ClN3 and triacetonperoxide, that explode violently or even detonate and expand at PV=nRT at certain tiniest initial impacts.
That tiny interaction even by a catalyzer lowers the initial activation energy in a chain reaction. .
But, there are more convenient “primers” for blasting and for military purposes than the pure carbonic acid by formula H2CO3 from NASA. .
The reaction H2O + CO2 H2CO3 is higly irreversible.
Even more important, the CO2 +H2O giving HCO3- + H+ in aqueous solution is a fameous, frappingly slow reaction. My old book from 1935 tells of 20 seconds reaction halving time having been cleverly measured ,
Which is Important for discussion of the Revelle- factor.
The very fameous enzyme Carbonic anhydrase throughout biology it seems, operates in that reactional area.
Moral:
Rather set on the green values, the photosynthesis I say, that is solar driven, and bio- enzymatic, thus very safe and traditional for Carbon sink into H2O rather by solar.
and
Moral2
Carbonic acid is a rather illusionary, supersticious, obsolete, misleading, and intensionally stupidi- fying model theory in real climate.
That statement I can further defend.
Postwar isotopic examination by O17 could show very interestingly that the oxygen of CO2 goes right out again through the plant stomata as O2. And that the chemically bound oxygen in the carbohydrates come excusively from the taken up water..
CO2 +H2O -> HCOH + O2
HCOH then polymerizes normally in hexagonal rings as carbohydrates. The Carbon having 2 further valence bonds to the sides up and down. .
Carbomontanussays
Hr. Prl
“Carbon dioxide dissolved in water is present as a mixture of CO2 and H2CO3 but its mostly present as CO2. ”
“…there appears to be a non-zero chance that the next US Presidential election is going to be won by a malignant narcissist with an all-consuming desire for revenge against anybody he sees as either an enemy or a threat.
And who is totally in the pocket of fossil fuel and allied interests. It wasn’t by chance that his Houston rally last Thursday was held at an oil-drilling company HQ, nor that one of the MAGA crazies in attendance was quoted as saying “Drill, baby, drill!”
“There is almost no chance that a Republican Administration would take any measures whatsoever to mitigate CO2 emissions, and indeed every chance that they would cause them to increase. Whether this would be by accident or by design simply doesn’t matter.”
Oh, if it happens it won’t in any way be accidental.
So much for the bad news. The good news?
TFG would be unelectable under most circumstances.
So much for the good news. The further bad news?
RFK Jr., the anti-vaxing, Putin-supporting nut case with the ambiguous views on climate change and its mitigation has been polling pretty well, which raises the possibility that he could be the Jill Stein of 2024 and tilt the election right into the lap of the insurrectionist, fascist mob-boss who will burn the planet if we give him a chance.
So much for the further bad news. The further good news?
No-one is stopping us from fighting like hell to prevent this redoubled catastrophe.
I really, really hate to say it, because this response by Gavin–and Ray’s below, too–is admirable in most respects, and really the present-day ‘takeaway’ we need to hear.
However, there is an invalid implicit assumption in this bit:
…it will never be too late because there are always decisions that will need to be made that will make it worse, or better.
That assumes that things never get so bad that either a) our global society is reduced to some combination of population and capability such that we can no longer meaningfully affect land use or direct GHG emissions; or b) the subset of such cases in which we are actually extinct as a species.
To be clear, I don’t personally regard extinction as a likely outcome, and I acknowledge that we’re probably still a long way from condition ‘a’ being met. However, AFAICT, nothing we now know about the potential impacts allows us to confidently exclude such possibilities.
Radge Haverssays
Yes and throw in a couple more wars, or maybe one big one (China?), and I can see action on climate change falling off people’s radar altogether; adding to potential multipliers, toxic social media feedbacks, and a question of whether human societies have become too complicated to manage– especially during a perfect storm of stupid.
“I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones.” ~Albert Einstein
On the the optimistic side… somebody help me out here…
I do see some positive signs, particularly among younger people, if they can be brought up to speed quickly enough…
Worse case is 2.2C by 2100. More likely is 1.7C. This is not an existential threat. People in this thread need to get a grip. I thought this was supposed to be a science blog. Where is there actual science showing extinction risk?
I will have a good laugh when I’m skiing with my grandchildren.
Geoff Miellsays
Dave: – “Worse case is 2.2C by 2100. More likely is 1.7C. This is not an existential threat. People in this thread need to get a grip.”
Dave, it’s clear to me you have no idea of the escalating threats to civilisation. ICYMI/FYI:
1. On 2 Nov 2023, Oxford Open Climate Change published a peer-reviewed journal article titled Global warming in the pipeline by James E Hansen et al. It includes:
With current policies, we expect climate forcing for a few decades post-2010 to increase 0.5–06 W/m² per decade and produce global warming of at least +0.27°C per decade. In that case, global warming will reach 1.5°C in the 2020s and 2°C before 2050 (Fig. 24). Such acceleration is dangerous in a climate system that is already far out of equilibrium and dominated by multiple amplifying feedbacks.
2. The Lancet published their 2023 Countdown on health and climate change report on 14 Nov 2023. Delaying climate action will lead to a nearly five-fold increase in heat-related deaths by 2050, underscoring that the health of humans around the world is “at the mercy of fossil fuels.” https://www.thelancet.com/countdown-health-climate
3. On 14 Sep 2021, Chatham House published a research paper titled Climate change risk assessment 2021: The risks are compounding, and without immediate action the impacts will be devastating, by Dr Daniel Quiggin et al. The Summary includes:
– If emissions do not come down drastically before 2030, then by 2040 some 3.9 billion people are likely to experience major heatwaves, 12 times more than the historic average. By the 2030s, 400 million people globally each year are likely to be exposed to temperatures exceeding the workability threshold. Also by the 2030s, the number of people on the planet exposed to heat stress exceeding the survivability threshold is likely to surpass 10 million a year.
– To meet global demand, agriculture will need to produce almost 50 per cent more food by 2050. However, yields could decline by 30 per cent in the absence of dramatic emissions reductions. By 2040, the average proportion of global cropland affected by severe drought will likely rise to 32 per cent a year, more than three times the historic average.
– By the 2040s, the probability of a 10 per cent yield loss, or greater, within the top four maize producing countries (the US, China, Brazil and Argentina) rises to between 40 and 70 per cent. These countries currently account for 87 per cent of the world’s maize exports. The probability of a synchronous, greater than 10 per cent crop failure across all four countries during the 2040s is just less than 50 per cent.
4. Multi-metre sea level rise (SLR) is now unstoppable at current atmospheric GHG concentrations and ocean heat content. The Earth System is already committed to more than 20 metres SLR over a timescale of centuries to millennia. SLR will change every coastline.
See glaciologist Professor Jason Box talking about committed SLR from time interval 0:15:27 in: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iE6QIDJIcUQ
From time interval 0:17:03, James Hansen said:
“The 1.5-degree limit is deader than a doornail, and the 2-degree limit can be rescued only with the help of purposeful actions to effect Earth’s Energy Balance. We will need to cool off Earth to save our coastlines, coastal cities worldwide, and lowlands, while also addressing the other problems caused by global warming.” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NXDWpBlPCY8
Dave: – “Where is there actual science showing extinction risk?”
On our current GHG emissions trajectory there is a very real risk of global civilisation collapse within this century, through severe and compounding climate impacts—rising sea levels, drought, flooding, extreme heat, and so forth—that could undermine agriculture, water availability, and other essential bases of civilization. I’d suggest there are dire existential consequences for billions of people deriving from that. https://academic.oup.com/nsr/article/10/6/nwad082/7085016 https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2210525119
Dave,
I’d suggest that skiing is not a good idea for an old fool who is so unperceptive. Hopefully your grandkids will dissuade you from such rash behaviour.
The IEA report Dave has trolled in here World Energy Outlook 2023 is saying that current global stated policy commitments put us on a path somewhere between SSP1-2.6 and SSP2-4.5, this being what the fool calls the “worst case” and projects AGW of 2.4ºC by 2100. This projection of emissions (STEPS) is set alongside an “Announced Policy Scenario” which assumes all announced policies are achieved and then projects 2100 warming of 1.7ºC.
The report then sets out the requirement to meet the 1.5ºC which may be bad news for Dave’s future skiing trips. But given the hazards of skiing for elderly folk, that might be beneficial for him.
The CO2 Coalition has passed a climate communication milestone with a vividly animated homeschool climate science curriculum focused on Grades K through Retaking First.
It breaks truly new ground in climate skepticism by challenging the so-called consensus on how to spell “oxygen>”
It’s a crying shame to see Hansen bending models to suit the Guardian’s political taste.
Susan Andersonsays
Hansen is not interested in the Guardian’s politics, though he does get cited there. I normally enjoy and presume to admire your work and acute perception, but this is wrong. Mike Mann is also cited there, fwiw. ++
However, not in response to you but since I’m here, the hatefest of Hansen fans blaming Mann for everything under the sun, including getting Trump elected and the manifold crimes including fossil’s domination of the latest COPs, is shameful and a terrible waste of energy.
Robert Cutler @ Oct UV thread
The shorthand I used ‘ENSO→Temp→CO2’ and ‘ENSO→CO2 was hopefully indicating that ENSO is the driver of the CO2 wobbles being examined. And while Temp may be a part of the mechanism that results in the CO2 wobble being caused by ENSO, this is in no way supporting the idea your comments repeatedly allude-to in which you appear to suggest the rising CO2 over the last century and more was not wholly caused by mankind’s CO2 emissions.
(Note that the cause of the rising CO2 levels has no bearing on your grand model which suggests the global warming over the last century or so is due to solar forcing, this a suggestion which is also not borne out by the physics/science.)
To explain the ENSO→CO2 thing beyond the simple number analysis (and from memory rather than here providing reference), the wobble in CO2 following an El Niño is due to three regional processes which impact the carbon cycle in the (1) Tropical Pacific waters, (2) Tropical biosphere, and (3) NH biosphere. None are explicitly or entirely driven by rising temperatures.
Thus:-
(1) With pretty-much zero lag, the ENSO cycle impacts the temperature of the tropical Pacific (no surprise as the ONI is a measure of such temperature – NINO3.4 – and is usually taken as the official El Niño/La Niña indicator). But while it is the physical case that a warmer ocean has less CO2 capacity, things are different here. The tropical Pacific is colder during a La Niña but is also pumping out significant levels of CO2. This upside-down situation is because it is the warming of those colder surface waters that is pumping out the CO2, not the ocean average temperature.
So the first impact of an El Niño is to reduce CO2 levels and reduce the size of that CO2 wobble.
(2) In the months following El Niño, the tropical biosphere, particularly the Amazon, is impacted by cooler/drier weather which reduces its carbon-content and emits significant CO2. While there may be a local Temp→CO2 correlation, the rainfall is likely the major factor in the CO2 wobble caused.
(3) And later, in the NH summer/autumn following an El Niño jetstream characteristics also impact regional temperature and rainfall which add to the CO2 wobble.
But if you are properly trying to identify a Temp→CO2 relationship over short time periods, perhaps you should be using absolute temperatures and no anomalies. ,BEST do tend to set out the anomaly base in its data sets.) This is because the anomalies prevent analysis of the annual cycle in temperature (which rises from a low in mid-Jan and peaks at the end of July) and CO2 (which rises from a low at the end of Sept and peaks in mid-May). Of course, this is a simple repeating annual effect so there is no signal to show whether there is a short lag CO2→Temp or a long lag Temp→CO2 , this an interesting dilemma to address.
zebrasays
MAR, this is an example of why I still check in on your comments. A rare gem which is a valid counterexample to my usual complaints about people responding to long, nutty, Denialism in detail.
Of course, you aren’t going to get a meaningful response, any more than I would with the more pithy question I had in mind for Robert… WTF does any of your babbling and graphs have to do with climate change???
Anyway, a nicely written and informative exposition.
Jonathan Davidsays
MA Rodger
Thanks for taking the time to continue your very interesting interchange with Mr Cutler in this thread. My personal background is in applied mathematics and modelling and you remind us of some key points. First, mathematical models are useful tools to understand reality but they are only models. It’s never legitimate to infer a physical causality simply from a model. No matter how detailed and elaborate. The modeller may have simply forgotten to account for specific factors that change the result. Or the model may have been imperfectly designed or that the interpretation of the results is driven by bias and thus flawed. Especially in this case in which Mr Cutler’s model contradicts a large body of observational and data driven accumulated knowledge. It seems to me that several of these problems have marred Mr Cutler’s analysis but he seems absolutely convinced of his results which in itself should give one pause regarding subjective bias. Anyway, thanks for the interesting read.
zebrasays
Jonathan, this is more a philosophical/terminology question, since this is your field, about the term “model”.
People trying to disparage the climate consensus often say “it’s just a model”. So when you say “infer a physical causality just from a model”, I’m assuming you are using the term in a different way.
My response to Robert would have included the statement that “correlation doe not imply causality”, because he is making that fundamental error in reasoning, as others have illustrated. He is inferring causality from a statistical correlation.
Again, this may simply be a matter of usage in different fields. I understand models, like the ones used in climate science, to begin with what I call a “causal narrative” and then proceed to establish quantitative relationships using observation and measurement… refining “the math” to allow for prediction.
I’m just making the distinction, as I said, because of the misuse of the term by those trying to deny the climate problem.
Piotrsays
The main problem of R. Cutler is the intellectual hubris of bringing his statistical tools into the discipline he knows nothing about, and thinking he discovered climate relationships that the hundreds of climatologists working in the field for decades, has not thought of.
In my Oct.22 post I have indicated the pitfalls of that approach, in short:
1. You can’t tell a real causation from a spurious correlation.
2. Your statistical test for causality – potential cause before effect, ignores the positive feedbacks – CO2 increase T, even if the initial small warming was caused by another factor (e.g. Milankovic cycles in cases of deglaciation – see my Oct.22 post).
3. You have no idea about any confounding variables that could distort the relationships, or lead to spurious correlations, and therefore – to false conclusions on causation.
4. You ignore?/don’t know that? different processes may determine T at different time scale:
at the short-time scales – oscillation in pCO2 are too small to drive oscillations in T:
– seasonal oscillations in T are likely driven by the unequal albedo and heat capacity of having more land NH and mostly oceanic SH
– multiyear/decadal oscillations in T – ENSO and various decadal oscillations are caused by rearrangement of atm/ocean circulation and upwellings, and possibly 11-year solar cycle
Over these short timescales, CO2 changes by several ppm , i.e. not enough to overpower the short-term forcing. But who really cares about short-term forcing – studying it does not provide any actionable information to the society – these are natural oscillations around the mean – hence do not make a trend, and we have no influence on, thus no responsibility for, it.
The climate change is the opposite – it is a trend, not an oscillation, typically characterized as a 30-year running average, with anything shorter being, in effect, weather. i.e. at most – the noise to be removed. And over that climatological time scale CO2 DOES change enough to have an influence – since 1958 it increased, by 100 ppm, not by meagre several ppm as are the short term oscillations.
Your correlations, by being DOMINATED by the short-term variability, do not bring any useful information about climate change. Actually, it is worse than useless, it may be actually harmful: if you don’t know/don’t care/don’t want to know that your analysis is relevant only to the weather, and not to the climate, then your conclusion:
R. Cutler: “ Frankly, I don’t think that CO2 is playing much of a role. ”
can and will be used by the climate change deniers as another “proof” that’s “It’s not us, stupid!” –
and if so – then we can burn as much fossil fuels as Russia and Saudi Arabia would wish us to.
You will help to seed the doubt (a.k.a.: “the science is not settled”) that the politicians in the pocket of fossil fuels need as an excuse to block any meaningful action on GHG emissions.
Thus willingly or unwillingly, you will be contributing to the delay in the necessary reductions in GHG emissions, and as such, you will bear your share of moral responsibility for the human and ecological costs of such a delay.
“thinking he discovered climate relationships that the hundreds of climatologists working in the field for decades, has not thought of.”
As far as natural climate variations is concerned, someone will eventually make this discovery, be it man or machine. It will become accepted only after thorough cross-validation and through the test of time.
Piotrsays
Paul Pukite: Nov. 6: “ As far as natural climate variations is concerned, someone will eventually make this discovery, be it man or machine.”
From the quality of the reasoning shown here, somehow I doubt the name of that man or machine will be: “R. Cutler”…
And when that discovery happens, it will be a discovery for discovery sake – satisfying intellectually, but not meaningful societally, the way the discoveries in AGW are. The latter, in addition to the said intellectual satisfaction, ALSO have implications to the future of the humanity: by informing the choices we make, and by evaluating and comparing the consequences our actions, or inactions, thus providing societies with actionable advice.
In this context, studies of natural oscillations are only the natural noise, a noise to be cancelled out by the process of long-term averaging that leaves the climatological AGW trend.
And if that man or machine “ doesn’t know/doesn’t care/doesn’t want to know – that their discoveries are relevant only to the weather, and not to the climate“, then their discoveries would have a net negative societal impact – not only will they not inform our response to the AGW, but would be open to misuse to thwart that very response, as described
in my previous post
“R. Cutler ‘s conclusion: “ Frankly, I don’t think that CO2 is playing much of a role. ” – can and will be used by the climate change deniers as another “proof” that’s “It’s not us, stupid! and if so – then we can burn as much fossil fuels as Russia and Saudi Arabia wish us to.”
“discovery for discovery sake – satisfying intellectually, but not meaningful societally, the way the discoveries in AGW are”
You must be kidding, right? There are a number of benefits that would arise from excellent long-range predictions. Since I’m not going to engage in such silliness, I will direct you to ChatGPT, where you can argue all day long in your agenda to marginalize anything not related to your pet crusade.
Prompt: “In terms of benefit to society, how useful would it be to be able to predict future El Nino events years in advance. And that leads to much better prediction of other climate measures such as MJO, AMO, PDO, etc. “
Piotrsays
Paul Pukite: You must be kidding, right? There are a number of benefits that would arise from excellent long-range predictions.
No, I am not kidding, and you, of all people, should have known it best since we already have had this discussion – when you bitterly complained how the money, scientific priorities and prestige go to the research into climate change, instead of your hobby horse – oscillations around the mean: A Nobel pursuit, “Oct. 2021, e.g.
A summary attached below.
That earlier discussion tells me all I need to know om how much trust I can put in your arguments on any subject. Credibility, like a chain, is only as strong as its weakest link:
if you couldn’t admit being wrong in such an open-and-shut case, then you are not likely to admit being wrong in the more complicated, thus less obvious, technical discussion on ENSO modelling, in which your subject knowledge is miles ahead of mine – hence your probability of being caught – so much less.
======= summary of the earlier discussion on the same subject =====
– Paul Pukite, Oct.2021: “predictions of the next El Nino or La Nina [could have] therefore saved countless lives“
– I asked about how those “countless lives” could be saved
– P.P: “ If subsistence farmers knew that an El Nino was upcoming, then they would know how much seed to purchase or level of irrigation or flood control to prepare for.”
– I responded that telling subsistence farmers when exactly next ENSO stage will happen – is useless to them since they can’t do anything with this information – being subsistence farmers they have no choice but to use the seed they saved from the previous year, and if
they couldn’t afford irrigation in the past, they are not likely to afford it now, even if thanks to Paul they know that the next El Nino will start on, say, on Dec. 15, instead of the previous, more vague knowledge that it has 70% probability to start in the coming winter.
– To which P. Pukite …. tried to win the argument by lecturing me on …semantics:
P.Pukite: “ you are upset that I used the American English idiom “countless” instead of “unknown” ”
Piotr: “That’s a cop-out and you know it”: you argued for much more research resources into ENSO – so which of the two possible meanings of the word “countless” would convince the donors to open their research purses MORE:
– a proposal to save … “ UNKNOWN number ” of human lives, OR
– a proposal to save “SO MANY lives that it is not even possible to count them all” (which is the other, and the main, meaning of the word “countless”)?
In other words, in which of the two meanings have you used the word “saving countless lives”?
==
In response, P. Pukite … doubled down on his claim that I criticized his argument NOT on the merit (that he can’t prove his claim of better prediction of ENSO “saving countless lives”),
but SOLELY on … .”grammar:
PP: I could care less about what you think of my grammar”. “Long known sign of someone spending too much time on the net.” “Poisoning the well much?”
====
During submission I responded to a questionnaire including: “What do you see as the major topics that require discussion and collaboration within the community in the area of comparing observed historical trends with models and ensuring models are behaving accurately?”
My response: Difficulty in discriminating natural climate variations from man-made trends.
Piotrsays
Paul Pukite, Nov. 9″ So why are you even attempting to continue with this discussion? You admit that understanding natural climate variation is way outside your expertise.”
So why are you even attempting to continue lecturing others, when you are obviously unable to follow even a simple argument? I haven’t questioned the quantitative details of your ENSO calculations – I questioned your massive overhyping of the value of the ENSO research to the humanity:
===
– Paul Pukite, Oct.2021: “predictions of the next El Nino or La Nina [could have] therefore saved countless lives“
– Piotr: how exactly these “countless lives” could be saved
– P.P: “If subsistence farmers knew that an El Nino was upcoming, then they would know how much seed to purchase or level of irrigation or flood control to prepare for.”
– Piotr: telling subsistence farmers when exactly next ENSO stage will happen – is useless to them, since they can’t do anything with this information – being subsistence farmers they have no choice but to use their seed they saved from the previous year, and if
they couldn’t afford irrigation in the past, they are not likely to afford it now, even if they now , that El Nino will start on Dec. 15.
====
See? No need to know quantitative techniques to question your conclusions on the importance of ENSO research compared to the research into AGW.
And your subsequent defense made things only worse – unable to explain HOW the “countless lives” would be saved, you tried to … slither out on semantics: that by “ saving countless lives” you didn’t mean “ many, but merely “unknown” (i.e. maybe many, maybe few).
To recognize a cop-out in it, AGAIN one didn’t need to know the details of your El Nino calculations – Ockham’s razor did suffice:
Piotr Nov. 8: “ Which would convince the donors to open their research purses MORE:
– a proposal to save … “ UNKNOWN number ” of human lives, OR
– a proposal to save “SO MANY lives that it is not even possible to count them all” (which is the other, and the main, meaning of the word “countless”)? “
There is indeed a “massive … value of the ENSO research to the humanity”. It’s a simple argument. The claim is that AGW research has a massive value to humanity. That appears self-evident from the whining that appears from whenever something not directly related to AGW is discussed in the comments here. Yet, understanding ENSO is important in being able to discriminate the AGW signal from natural climate variations, in which ENSO is part of. QED
That’s a straightforward argument But here’s the challenge. In a mature scientific or engineering discipline, a model of the “noise” (in this case natural climate variations) is developed and that is used to discriminate against the signal of interest. See Kalman filtering for example. Unfortunately, climate science has no consensus model for the noise. Piotr marginalizes this aspect and considers it “overhyped”, which is apart from the value it has as a predictive tool for advance mitigation.
Piotrsays
Paul Pukite: The claim is that AGW research has a massive value to humanity. That appears self-evident from the whining that appears from whenever something not directly related to AGW is discussed in the comments here.
By this logic, Victor must a veritable fountain of climatic insight: self-evident from the massive whining that appears each time he posts.
Jonathan Davidsays
Good points. What I found questionable was the stated intention of using sunspots as a surrogate for solar irradiance. The statement being made that “we” don’t have adequate information to quantify this. Taking a quick look at the literature, it became clear that this supposition is not accurate. In fact, there has been a substantial body of work published. However, the weight of evidence does not, to my inexpert eye, support the conclusion that variations in solar output are responsible for global warming. It seems to me that climate science and astrophysics are separate disciplines and experts in one field should not, in general, attempt to draw conclusions in the other. The results for solar irradiance should be taken as a boundary condition to then incorporate into the climate scientist’s methodologies. The bulk of the published literature seems to comply with this.
JCMsays
“”””that climate science and astrophysics are separate disciplines and experts in one field should not, in general, attempt to draw conclusions in the other””””
The two fields must be complementary, of course, and include many others in addition.
The trouble is when enthusiasts have the impression that climates are to be reduced to astrophysical radiative concepts using exclusively Schwarzschild-style stellar theory (SSST);
they have fixated on atmospheric transparency to light. This is apparently a consequence of how climates are introduced in classrooms since 20 or 30 years ago. The astrophysical dimensions have monopolized the subject. Even the dissenters are fixated on stellar circumstances.
In doing so, students have become progressively disconnected from their perceptionability – sight, smell, touch, hearing, and taste. In this way, empiricism is replaced by virtual reality / computation / screen time.
By losing touch with their senses and diminishing those who still have it – they ultimately defy knowing the subject; a subject which they hold so dear. Conceptual horizons with strict limits imposed by nay-saying influencers.
That is not the way to do it.
Oke describes it better in 1987 – what’s real are those climates formed near the ground in terms of the cycling of energy and mass through systems. That’s how climates are to be introduced. Not by carbon dioxide and astrophysical greenhouse analogies first and foremost https://climatekids.nasa.gov/ – these things lead only to dark and dull inquiring minds.
JCM: The trouble is when enthusiasts have the impression that climates are to be reduced to astrophysical radiative concepts using exclusively Schwarzschild-style stellar theory (SSST);
BPL: JCM, why do you hate Ray Bolger?
Geoff Miellsays
On 2 Nov 2023, Oxford Open Climate Change published a journal article titled Global warming in the pipeline by James E Hansen et. al. It includes:
With current policies, we expect climate forcing for a few decades post-2010 to increase 0.5–06 W/m² per decade and produce global warming of at least +0.27°C per decade. In that case, global warming will reach 1.5°C in the 2020s and 2°C before 2050 (Fig. 24). Such acceleration is dangerous in a climate system that is already far out of equilibrium and dominated by multiple amplifying feedbacks.
…
Earth’s energy imbalance (EEI) is the net gain (or loss) of energy by the planet, the difference between absorbed solar energy and emitted thermal (heat) radiation. As long as EEI is positive, Earth will continue to get hotter.
Oxford Open Climate Change also published a journal article titled Editorial on Hansen et al. ‘Global warming in the pipeline’ (this issue) by Eelco J Rohling and Anna S von der Heydt. https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfclm/kgad010
The Guardian article by Oliver Milman published on Nov 2 headlined Global heating is accelerating, warns scientist who sounded climate alarm in the 80s, includes:
Hansen said there is a huge amount of global heating “in the pipeline” because of the continued burning of fossil fuels and Earth being “very sensitive” to the impacts of this – far more sensitive than the best estimates laid out by the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
“We would be damned fools and bad scientists if we didn’t expect an acceleration of global warming,” Hansen said. “We are beginning to suffer the effect of our Faustian bargain. That is why the rate of global warming is accelerating.”
I’d be interested in hearing people’s reactions to Hansen’s new paper: Global warming in the pipeline. I thought climate sensitivity had been pretty well constrained by now, but this paper finds a significantly higher value than earlier estimates.
Geoff Miellsays
Jim Galasyn: – “I thought climate sensitivity had been pretty well constrained by now, but this paper finds a significantly higher value than earlier estimates.”
Leon Simon, one of the co-authors of the Global warming in the pipeline paper, tweeted on Nov 4 (my local time) including Figure 25 from the paper:
Don’t get me wrong, I appreciate the discussions about how warm a hypothetical world in 2100 might be at a stabilized double CO₂ forcing.
But I’d appreciate discussions on the causes and effects of this doubling in Earth’s Energy Imbalance over the past 20 years more.
The UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN) published on Nov 3 the YouTube video titled An Intimate Conversation with Leading Climate Scientists To Discuss New Research on Global Warming, duration 1:12:23. Ahead of the upcoming COP28, renowned climate scientist, Dr. James Hansen, and his co-authors present their novel findings of their new paper Global Warming in the Pipeline.
From time interval 0:17:03, James Hansen said:
“The 1.5 degree limit is deader than a doornail, and the 2 degree limit can be rescued only with the help of purposeful actions to effect Earth’s Energy Balance. We will need to cool off Earth to save our coastlines, coastal cities worldwide, and lowlands, while also addressing the other problems caused by global warming.” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NXDWpBlPCY8
Is there anyone that has a better scientific explanation of the recent observations of accelerating warming?
JCMsays
We have observations daily and seasonally which show the extreme sensitivity of dry regions as the solar Force goes up and down. Evidently, the sum stabilizing feedback effect of dry-lands is substantially less powerful than that of the wet-regions. As Force goes down, temperature goes way down. As Force goes up, temperature goes way up. These relatively sensitive dry-lands exhibit a climate of extremes compared to other places.
Now that humanity has substantially dried, eroded, and drained billions of hectares of lands over the past couple centuries, at a pace inconceivable prior to the industrial revolution, it is reasonable to assume that the average of climate sensitivities is higher than before. This increasing overall sensitivity to radiative Force, in addition to increasing net radiative Force, is a double AGW impact. Conceptually, the human caused impact to stability alone may be a contributor to nudging the system into a new steadystate temperature configuration, irrespective of net IR forcing changes.
Some authors have suggested the range of this new class which I label Δλ”humanity” is enough to perturb the system steady-state about 8K in terms of surface air Temperature, ranging from full desert outside glaciated regions on the warm end, to a fully productive hydro-biological regime on the cooler end. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1023/A:1005559518889
Δλ”humanity” seems necessary to account for the fast and unnatural impacts to the feedback parameter caused by us.
Carbomontanussays
JCM
What you describe is what I did launche as the damping or thermo- stating effects of water, after Matthias Schürle launced the earth as a “water- cooled planet”.
That difference also disturbs and ruins your argument. given as
“This increasing overall sensitivity to radiative force, in addition to net radiative force, is a doubble AGW impact.”
It has also got to do with being a flat earther and a landcrab. forgetting or having not yet learnt that most of the global surface is sheere water getting warmer and warmer, entailing another formula of it namely W.W.W that means Warmer Wetter and Wilder.
And maybe denying the vapur pressure or dewpoint curve of water that rules worldwide, correcting and teaching that Clausius Clappeyrons and van t`Hoffs principle is only valid in the laboratory, in the desktop experiment test tubes,……… that is a closed system, ……….smile smile.
We discussed this befrore.
I shall not have to repeat that again of the rain in Spain stays mainly in the plain, Thus once again, where does it rain……. in Spain in the plain,..
And in Hereford Harford and Hampstead hurricanes hardly happen.
Both examples can be found on youtube, for those interested. By Rex Harrison and Audrey Hepburn, in My fair lady. Their learning scientific exercises in the lab. )
As old rumors and new ones are showing less and less appliciable in the real climate.
JCMsays
To old rumors about Spain,
I asked my wife and she says it’s a myth from old Hollywood – it’s raining mostly in the hilltop regions there.
The armchair critics of hydrologies are obviously confused, and lacking exposure to practical reality. Resorting to old Hollywood rumors transmitted through a screen..
If the plain in Spain are behaving like any other, the rate of topsoil soil loss is ranging from 5-20 t per acre annual. Most regions are now showing subsoil as if naked, relying on chemical input additions ($ to $$). many thousands of tons disappeared. SPot it as lighter shades in an airphoto on a screen, except for maybe in higher latitude shieldlands.
It’s missing in modern climate research literature, and it’s not transmitted digitally very often. But reality is ongoing.
You may notice your roadway and other hard and compacted mineral concrete type surfaces show characteristics of a dry place even after 50mm of continuous 24 hour rain. Impenetrable, dry in a flash; it never really got wet. Like a modern synthetic raincoat; the garment is not really soaked like wool or felt in the old way. The coat remains dry somehow even when wet.
More broadly, we know the system of continents and the Earth cannot be partitioned, isolated, and re-assembled like lego. The continental plumes of mass and energy loaded with biota, especially in warmer seasons, are heading well offshore out of eyeshot range. Here you can see ‘the climate’ on screen: https://youtu.be/qh011eAYjAA?si=Gcy49IkH7Xwr1GGV
Old Hollywood transmissions and clever linguistic tricks, while entertaining, do not offer anything in the way of practical methods.
What more delightful avocation than to restore something for real, as an alternative.
JCM: “To old rumors about Spain, I asked my wife and she says it’s a myth from old Hollywood – it’s raining mostly in the hilltop regions there. The armchair critics of hydrologies are obviously confused, and lacking exposure to practical reality.”
This may be important: what were the exact words of your wife? “The rain in Spain stays mainly in the plain“??? Her name isn’t, by any chance, Eliza?
In the background a choir known as “Armchair Critics of Hydrologies Lacking Exposure to Practical Reality.” jumps to their feet and bursts spontaneously into a song:
“ By Gavin, she’s got it!
By Gavin, she’s got it!
Now, once again where does it rain?
On the plain! On the plain!
And where’s that soggy plain?
In Spain! In Spain!
The rain in Spain stays mainly in the plain!
The rain in Spain stays mainly in the plain!
In Hartford, Hereford, and Hampshire…?
Hurricanes cat. 5 hardly happen.
How kind of you to let me come!
Now once again, where does it rain?
On the plane! On the plane !
And where’s that blasted Ryanair plane?
Stuck in Spain! Stuck in Spain!“
Secular Animistsays
I would be grateful if RealClimate’s experts would post an article about James Hansen et al’s new paper “Global warming in the pipeline” and Michael Mann’s criticisms thereof. Who is right?
UAH TLT has reported for Oct 2023 with another highest all-time monthly anomaly at +0.93ºC, this topping Sept’s +0.90ºC and pushing the +0.70ºC of Feb 2016 down into third spot, Feb16 being a month boosted by the height of the big 2015/16 El Niño. Perhaps the one mitigating factor in these crazy “scorchyisimoooo!!!!” times as a new El Niño develops is that it’s presently looking to be a “moderate El Niño event.”
The previously warmest October in UAH was 2020 with an anomaly of +0.47ºC.
The 2023 year-to-date average has now risen to top spot in UAH TLT with a “scorchyisimoooo!!!!” for the 2023 calendar year looking unavoidable, it requiring Nov & Dec to average below +0.16ºC to not gain top spot. 2022 did have a particularly chilly Nov & Dec averaging +0.11ºC but there is no sign yet of this “scorchyisimoooo!!!!” begining to wane.
…….. Jan-Sept Ave … Annual Ave ..Annual ranking 2023 .. +0.43ºC
2016 .. +0.42ºC … … … +0.39ºC … … … 1st
1998 .. +0.41ºC … … … +0.35ºC … … … 3rd
2020 .. +0.37ºC … … … +0.36ºC … … … 2nd
2019 .. +0.28ºC … … … +0.30ºC … … … 4th
2017 .. +0.26ºC … … … +0.26ºC … … … 5th
2010 .. +0.23ºC … … … +0.19ºC … … … 6th
2022 .. +0.19ºC … … … +0.17ºC … … … 7th
2021 .. +0.13ºC … … … +0.13ºC … … … 9th
2015 .. +0.11ºC … … … +0.14ºC … … … 8th
Susan Andersonsays
I join the chorus requesting an update on Hansen-Mann, though to be honest I believe Gavin and Ray Ladbury both provided the answer. If people want to be hopeless and inactive, they will. Things are grim. But as long as we are alive, we’re here. What else is there?
How is giving up a solution to an argument between good people? People want an enmity so badly? I can’t help thinking this is a surrogate for people who can’t bear it (tbh, I’m a bit that way myself).
An opponent who will actually listen and understand is, unfortunately, one with whom we should be joining forces. It’s easy to be angry and to blame, but undermining good people helps the ‘enemy’ (lies, greed, violence all too evident these days).
With special thanks to Silvia Leahu-Aluas for this!
The pessimist says: it cannot get worse than this
The optimist answers: yes it can.
Let’s be that kind of pessimist.
Silvia Leahu-Aluassays
My pleasure, Susan. The joke was very motivating in a very hopeless situation, but what seemed impossible to change, changed almost overnight. Yesterday was the anniversary of the fall of Berlin Wall and the rest is history, mostly good history for my native country, Europe and world, in general.
I like and subscribe to your stating the obvious: we are the ones alive, very lucky ones, we have to fix this. Many of us are also alive in the countries that caused the crises and that can afford to solve them.
Let’s get to work! Let’s abandon fossil fuels today, tomorrow, no later than 2030. We are alive, we can do it, we have the obligation to do it!
Sound familiar? I’ve been hearing essentially the same sort of thing from countless climate pundits via countless media sources over the last 15 years at least. Anderson’s eyes are literally popping out of his head, as he tries, for the umpteenth time, to get his chilling message across. It’s always the same: IT’S WORSE THAN WE THOUGHT! IT’S HAPPENING NOW! Unchecked CO2 emissions will inevitably lead to complete disaster for the entire human race, unless we do something radical to drastically alter our self-indulgent ways. And, of course, over the last 20 years we hear the same refrain: unless we act NOW there will no longer be any hope. “Hope” of course, is the key word. No matter how “inevitable” the coming disaster there will always be “hope” — so long as we act NOW!!!!
What we do not hear from any of these self-appointed experts is any attempt to delineate exactly what it is they expect us to do if this “existential” crisis is to be avoided. If only we can somehow, by whatever means, get it together NOW to literally rip the foundations of modern society to pieces by somehow ridding ourselves of all those evil fossil fuels we’ve all come to depend on.
Well sorry folks, but “now” has come and gone — a long time ago — and, as Anderson reminds us, little to nothing of any consequence has been done, or is likely to be done.
And as I see it, that’s a good thing. When we actually get around to considering the evidence, there is really no cause for alarm. There will, of course, always be extreme weather events. And some years will be worse than others. And yes, sea levels are rising — at more or less the same rate they’ve been rising over the last 150 years or so — but the notion that humans can somehow control the climate and the weather and the level of the sea is an exercise in hubris.
If one is willing to apply a modicum of critical thinking to the evidence at hand, we ought to see very clearly that the popular notion at the heart of the “climate change” meme has been falsified. Over a period of roughly 40 years, from ca. 1940 to ca. 1980, temperatures failed to rise despite a significant rise in CO2 levels over the same period. If the theory had been correct, we would have seen such a rise, but we did not — not only globally but just about anywhere in the world, including several regions where the cooling effects of industrial aerosols would have been either nonexistent or minimal.
I’ve been accused of ignoring the evidence, but just about every comment I’ve ever posted here has been BASED on evidence – solid evidence. It’s you who are in denial.
See also the graph of the NASA satellite record of sea level rise (from 1993 to 2022) in the JPL post dated 17 Mar 2023. Per JPL, the current rate of SLR is 0.44 cm per year.
This graphic shows rising sea levels (in blue) from data recorded by a series of five satellites starting in 1993. The solid red line shows the trajectory of rise from 1993 to 2022, illustrating that the rate of rise has more than doubled. By 2040, sea levels could be 3.66 inches (9.3 cm) higher than today. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
The National Snow and Ice Data Centre (NSIDC) provides easy access to melt statistics and scientific analysis of ice sheet conditions. The graph shows cumulative estimated ice sheet changes from 1992 to 2021. The overall mass balance of both the Greenland and Antarctic Ice Sheets have declined, with an increasing acceleration in recent years (excluding East Antarctica). https://nsidc.org/ice-sheets-today/analyses/introducing-ice-sheets-today
Victor: – “I’ve been accused of ignoring the evidence…”
Yep, and I’d suggest you are still doing so… Same old, same old…
Have you ever conscidered telling the truth about that, given that:
Def: Truth is to tell of what is that it is and of what aint not that it aint not.
According to Aristoteles.
Then first, you must be aware of and reallize what is, …. and further get aware of and reallize what aint not.
That is called Ontology..
Then I must recommend the axiom of permanence of matter, and further the permanence of chemjical elements, that is a bit more tricky but for this case you can use the 4 aristotelian elements namely Earth, Fire, water, and Air,… roughly at least. and set on The permanence of water in a closed system, namely the earthly hydro, cryo, and atmosphere.
And then begin with what you seem to believe in at the moment , the steady sealevel rise for the last 150 yeaqrs or so, seemingly regardless of temperature that has really been very steady in that period allong with Lindzen. I tend to agree with lindzen there if I am allowed to doubble his temperature estimate. But that is trivial.
Ok,… then you are to tell the truth of why that sealevel has risen near linear for the last 150 years.
The chanse is yours now for telling us the truth.
============0000
This is the scientifric and facultary way of approachintg it you see. Try and adapt to0 that and rather score that way.
We have a situation here. our former, quite weighty, conservative prime minister from Bergen has been married all through her royal minister period and her husand has been employed next highest in the NHO- union, who are the conrarians to the labour unions. And selling trafficking a severe lots of shares 125 megabucks all in all and earnt alltogether 1.8 megabucks.
1.8 / 128 = 1.4% in 8 years, . Conclusion, I would not employ him for administering my fortune accounts or for administering the Nobel Price Fortune funds. They do it quite much better.
But it is about “hability” of the prime minister and whether the husband of a prime minister ought to go to bed with and eat breakfast with his wife, who is to make and to recommend high political decisions for firms, where her husband is having ownerships, interests, and shares.
A very tricky situation because, she is also telling with tears inher eyes that her husband has not allways been quite honest to her, but quite obviously kept his secrets. .
But on the other hand, buying and owning shares is open to everyone and it may be a hobby or passion however small or large. It has been his obvious right as a citizen.
And being married is also legal.
Shall a prime minister have to divorce or have to be of unmarried order or gender? What about the holiness and privacy of matrimony… including bed, breakfast, and children?.
Then in order for me to understand it and judge it right, I have tried to put myself in the seat of a judge in court who is to state proof of peoples duties and rights and eventual changes of the same by warrant in law..
thus, having thought that practical situation all over and through, I came to the conclusion that I would not be able as a judge in court to state such a proof by warrant in law under such circumstances.
Luckily, it showed that the “Økokrim” namely the national police dept of oeconomical crime did dismiss the case being not able to prosecute it on behalf of the Law and those circumstances in court……… and recommend proof of it by warrant in law, stated by His Honour.
They came to my conclusion in the same case.
Moral:
Try and think in terms of being entitled and due to secure the truth by warrant in accepted constitutional law and that you will have to state proof.
Namely Proof of what is that it is and what is not that it is not.
So that civil people and civilization can rely on it without furter dispute war and violence and sinful behaviours in bed and at the table.
I tried that, and I scored side by side of the national oeconomical police, thus won the case together with them.
Their top lawyer from the labour party was honoured for his conclusion..
======000
When sealevel rises, according to defenitions and law and agreement, that can only be caused by
1, freswater and groundwater running out from land,
2, Glaciers snow and permafrost melting, and
3, thermal liquid seawater expansion.
That is easily prooven by warrant in law and definitions. so you hardly have to discuss global temperatures minutely in detail at all for your heathy proof. Without specifying any temperaturesyou will be able to state proof that the earth has been heated up rather linearly for the last 150 years. And advice people to discuss Lavoisiers ice- calorimeter instead.
You can thus have told the truth , all the truth, and nothing but the truth. that can be recommended for stated proof.
Geoff Miellsays
Victor: = “Consulting the graph provided by Wikipedia, it’s clear that indeed nothing dramatic has changed over that time, despite all the hand wringing over what looks like a very minor (and possibly short-lived) acceleration.”
What part of “the rate of rise has more than doubled” for “data recorded by a series of five satellites starting in 1993” from the JPL link I referred to in my earlier comment to you do you not understand, Victor? This is another example of you continuing to ignore inconvenient data.
SLR is ACCELERATING over a 30-year period, consistent with rising temperatures. Even Wikipedia reference you link to shows the satellite data indicating acceleration.
One of your mistakes is to assume that all changes will manifest within a few years. This is an egregious error for oceans, which are capable of heating up for decades or centuries before the effects fully manifest. Even so, sea level rise is clearly increasing. In the 70 years from 1880 to 1950, it rose about 3 1/2 inches. From 1950 to 2020 it rose about 6 inches. That’s not “more or less the same rate.” If you think it is, try telling that to the police when you get caught doing 60 mph in a 35 mph zone.
The varying response times between surface temperature, glacier volume, and sea level is also hard to ignore, but you’re doing it.
Brian C Dodgesays
“We combine satellite observations and numerical models to show that Earth lost 28 trillion tonnes of ice between 1994 and 2017. Arctic sea ice (7.6 trillion tonnes), Antarctic ice shelves (6.5 trillion tonnes), mountain glaciers (6.1 trillion tonnes), the Greenland ice sheet (3.8 trillion tonnes), the Antarctic ice sheet (2.5 trillion tonnes), and Southern Ocean sea ice (0.9 trillion tonnes) have all decreased in mass. Just over half (58 %) of the ice loss was from the Northern Hemisphere, and the remainder (42 %) was from the Southern Hemisphere.
The rate of ice loss has risen by 57 % since the 1990s –
from 0.8 to 1.2 trillion tonnes per year – owing to increased losses from mountain glaciers, Antarctica, Greenland and from Antarctic ice shelves.
During the same period, the loss of grounded ice from the Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets and mountain glaciers raised the global sea level by 34.6 ± 3.1 mm. ” https://tc.copernicus.org/articles/15/233/2021/
Which implies 50 mm more in the next 2-3 decades, assuming that the acceleration doesn’t increase..
But “Changes in the Thwaites system have accelerated over the past 20 years (refs. 8,9,10), resulting in breakup of the TGT and propagation of rifts across the TEIS10. Recent GL retreat has varied from 0.6 to 1.2 km year−1 (ref. 12). Ocean melting, dynamic thinning and ice-flow rates influence this retreat12, but exactly how these factors operate is difficult to constrain with generally poor observations below the ice. Satellite observations, which measure the surface elevation of the glacier, suggest that the TEIS is thinning on average 25 metres per decade10,12, whereas airborne ice-penetrating radar that directly measures ice thickness estimates rates up to 45 metres per decade.” https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-022-05691-0
When the Thwaites Eastern Ice Shelf goes, Thwaites Glacial Tongue will accelerate just like Larsen after its shelf disintegrated. “The immediate post-collapse acceleration and thinning of upstream glaciers demonstrated the important role of ice shelves in buttressing outward glacial flow that directly contributes to sea level rise” https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0012821X23000900 https://theshovel.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/fire-danger-rating-scaled.jpg
V: Over a period of roughly 40 years, from ca. 1940 to ca. 1980, temperatures failed to rise despite a significant rise in CO2 levels over the same period.
BPL: That’s because other things that CO2 also affect temperature. Quit lying about it. This has been discussed to death in this very forum, so it’s highly dishonest of you to keep bringing it up.
Carbomontanussays
You do not teach moral and geophysics in any convincing way;Victor.
Together with the people that you are fighting, you behave in your collective social way just like flies around fresh & politically feromoneous cowdung/ bullshit from year to year from time to time in the seasons.
You obviously have and earn your sponsored and professional warrants and “existance” from it like all the flies in that swarm of yours. trying to hummmm and to bzzzzz the more convincing way.
I, on my side, is able to pick up and learn a few details here and there for practical life, and try my best to serve back from my own special resources for the common good and climate welfare, and believe that to be a more healthy agenda. .
Susan Andersonsays
Thanks for sharing Kevin Anderson’s superb material. (no relation): “Enough of treating nature like a toilet” and much more.
Coming to a climate science forum hosted by some of the world’s best experts on the subject and claiming you alone, a fake skeptic, have the one true word, is a waste of your and our time.
Susan Anderson: – “Thanks for sharing Kevin Anderson’s superb material.”
You may wish to observe the latest (a few hours ago) discussion between ClimateGenn host Nick Breeze and Professor Kevin Anderson in the YouTube video titled Kevin Anderson: Climate Failures and Phantasies | Full episode, duration 0:43:29. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A_7Z58eVzk4
Jonathan Davidsays
Hi Victor, from reading your posts one would conclude that you believe the entire scientific discipline of climate science is based on fraud and it’s practitioners are engaged in some sort of organized conspiracy, is that true? Personally, I am a scientist myself although climate science is not my field. But as a scientist, I have a fundamental confidence in the integrity of the scientific method. The idea that the overwhelming majority of researchers in any particular field are participating in such fraudulent behavior is, to me, more than a little odd, to say the least.
Also, is it your opinion that the majority of the contributors to this blog are what: delusional? Hoping for an apocalyptic collapse of civilization? Simply choosing knowingly to embrace a falsehood? Really like to hear your thinking on these matters.
Susan Andersonsays
JonD: Please, don’t encourage V (both boring and wrong, here to make a noise with his overweening sense of self worth)!
Mike Mann has an article in Time – not a technical journal, but a broad discussion of interlocking phenomena which contribute to worsening faster than predicted. https://time.com/6328017/climate-change-hockey-stick/
Jonathan Davidsays
I hear you Susan. Unfortunately, it’s become clear to me that Victor (and others) will not simply give up and quit posting no matter how many times their points (always the same) are refuted. Probably the best strategy is to simply not respond to such posts at all as suggested by zebra but that doesn’t seem likely. Perhaps a good strategy would be to simply post a link to a website like skeptical science which would address any points he may bring up since they do tend to be the same thing over and over.
Carbomontanussays
@ Jonathan David
“Don`t feed the trolls” , that is recent formula.
In Norway we know better, we invented and launched and published the trolls.
Old and efficient traditional rules are sunshine- daylight over them. They splash as the sun goes up. They hate daylight and thrive in the foggy slimy darkness.
Next rule is to guess and tell- publish- their true name, then they loose their power.
Name and full adress ad hominem, because they thrive in collective immunity.
And steal their one and only one eye that they share in common so that they cannot see anymore.
What about homemade pepperspray in that eye?
Susan Andersonsays
Yes. Every correction gets a response, ad nauseam. I wish RC had a minimize and/or blocking function to skip over the nonsense. There was substance in the links, whilst discouraging innocent newcomers from adding to the affray.
Radge Haverssays
JD,
Pointing to Skeptical Science, is a good idea.
Personally I’m a little curious, and a little concerned, about Victor myself.
Looking at his corpus of trolling, it’s hard not to see it as roadkill that won’t stop twitching; hard to witness and a sad expression of his inner life.
I’m sympathetic to your suggestion, but the infamous “Swiftboating* of John Kerry suggests strongly to me at least that’s it’s better never to let these lies stand if you can avoid it.
Of course, better to be brief–a maxim I rather neglected in favor of some outraged rhetoric the other day. Hey, I’m human.
Radge Haverssays
Re: DNFTT
One measure for dealing with trolls is to not address them directly, but to discuss their behavior and any useful points with other commenters– another form of shunning.
If they leave, maybe don’t refer to them after that; they’re likely lurking and will feel missed.
Radger Haverssays
Susan,
Thanks for the link to the Time article.
“…our fragile moment…next month at the COP28 international climate summit in Dubai, possibly the last opportunity to negotiate the emissions reductions necessary.”
A sobering reminder that the situation and the discussion around it is changing as we speak.
Victorsays
No, I see no evidence of fraud. What I see is a classic example of group think, rooted in research based on confirmation bias. This sort of thing is hardly new. Think of the disastrous influence Lysenko’s misguided theories had on Soviet agriculture; the “tulip madness” that overtook Holland in the 17th century; the witch hunts that destroyed so many innocent lives in various societies over many years; more recently the Enron scandal, the Bernie Madoff ponzi scheme, which went unnoticed by the authorities until Madoff himself revealed it, the Theranous fraud engineered by Elizabeth Holmes and supported by just about every financial and political “expert”, the case of Sam Bankman-Fried, who accumulated tens of billions under the noses of a host of “experts.”
I too believe strongly in the scientific method, but I know from the experience of my own research how easily it can be subverted by those with an agenda. I’m not accusing anyone — but I see no reason to support flawed research.
Ray Ladburysays
Weaktor, you wouldn’t recognize the scientific method if it bit your thumb off. If there were such an instance of “goupthink,” don’t you think that the rest of the scientific community would have noticed? And yet, the conclusions of the IPCC have been endorsed by every professional society of scientists with expertise pertinent to the subject: Physicists, chemists, geologists, statisticians, mathematicians, meteorologists… well over 100 in all. And not one has taken a position in dissent. NOT ONE! Hell, even the climate experts at Exxon-Mobil were writing internal research saying that CO2 was warming the planet (only discovered due to suits against the Exx-Mob).
Dude, I cannot figure out whether you are just totally delusional, a lying sack of snake feces or satire.
It is interesting that the majority of the examples of “goupthink” that the idiot presents to demonstrate that he is not accusing anybody of “fraud” (for which he tells us he sees “no evidence”); the majority of the examples are actually nothing but “fraud.” (Of the rest, one was simply a bizarre example of a financial bubble, one which requires [to some degree at least] a belief in magic and then Lysenkoism which required the approval of a dictatorship happy to imprison/execute thousands to keep the lid on the officially adopted policy.)
An accusation of “goupthink” would only be possible if there was some reason for the accusation, some evidence to suggest that the scientific understanding of AGW was in some way flawed. Otherwise the whole of science would become open to being branded as “goupthink,”
So where is that evidence? After arriving here nine years ago, the Troll has managed to demonstrate very little, demonstrating he doesn’t understand squat about correlation, about the geographical effects of SO2 emissions, about Occam’s Razor. And nine years on, he still thinks he is right and all the folk here are wrong.
So if he is right, why is Victor the Troll not coming mob-handed with his well-founded evidence that is unaccounted by IPCC assessments? Is there nobody that agrees with his theorising? It should be noted here (this being a scientifically-based process) that the folk like Victor the Troll who argue so loudly that AGW science is wrong set out reasons that, remarkably, are contradictory with each other, perhaps here an example of Anna Karenina Principle.
That is not to say that no scientific ideas should ever be set out because they may be incorrect. Arguably, science learns more identifying what is incorrect than from identifying what is correct. The problem with Victor the Troll is the interminable presentation of the same old crap.
And that is not to say that a theory which is initially dismissed should be just junked. The scientific establishment is full of folk chipping away with pet theories which should have been junked decades ago. But these folk are at least ‘chipping away’ rather than just regurgitating the same old pile of crap. Nor do they attempt to give weight to their argument by banding together with other purveyors of crap-piles, ones that are so often entirely contradictory to their own.
Such is the state of climate change denial. Given that, you might even see this denialism as itself an example of “goupthink” if it actually involved mental processes worthy of the description ‘thinking.’
So perhaps, if Victor the Troll is so convinced that his own pile of crap has such merit, I would suggest he take his crap on a trip to the rogue planetoid Wattsupia and see who there agrees with him there. Or is it a case of once bitten twice shy.
A question:
Were the Exxon-Mobil scientists writing reports pointing to CO2 warming Earth, or, actually, rather reports pointing to CO2 emissions capability to warm Earth?
I do not think it is the same.
Greetings
Tom
Piotrsays
Ray to Weaktor, after proving, again, the lies of the latter: “Dude, I cannot figure out whether you are just totally delusional, a lying sack of snake feces or satire.”
A satire would have worn off years ago. Which leaves … the sack.
V: What I see is a classic example of group think, rooted in research based on confirmation bias. This sort of thing is hardly new. Think of the disastrous influence Lysenko’s misguided theories had on Soviet agriculture; the “tulip madness” that overtook Holland in the 17th century; the witch hunts that destroyed so many innocent lives in various societies over many years; more recently the Enron scandal, the Bernie Madoff ponzi scheme, which went unnoticed by the authorities until Madoff himself revealed it, the Theranous fraud engineered by Elizabeth Holmes and supported by just about every financial and political “expert”, the case of Sam Bankman-Fried, who accumulated tens of billions under the noses of a host of “experts.”
BPL: You forgot the persecution of Galileo, the sinking of the Maine, the siege of the Alamo, and the terrible, the awful, the horrible destruction wrought by the kitchen sink.
Carbomontanussays
To all andeveryone
about Victor behind his back.
On Confirmation bias and groupthink….
We have a lot of routines for checking up on such things.
To chech up on such things is so common that it is rather trained initial routine seen as rather trivial and most elementary to those who do it rather the enlighted trained educated and orderly scientific way.
On how to find out and tell the truth when the truth or the answer is not yet published in the facit and facit to it is not yet written so you have to do that yourself, The art or craft of how to find out and know about things that are unknown. On how to make, and to publish discoverioes. and write the new Facits,… To tell the truth of how it is and of the future for instance. What do we have to do and what do we have to know then first?
But victor seem rather to be an exeption operating rather contrary to such primary and trivial things., comitting his special groupthink and confirmation bias.
As Putin put it “it takes one to know one!”
Victor is an especially hardnecked example of confirmation bias and groupthink. who has it from the experts in anonymeous plural, from his groupthink. Victor in person as an example or study material is hardly of any further intellectual and scientific interest.
Victor seems to be a hardcore flat earther and blind, secteric congregational believer in the scriptures also. That is where we rather have him.
Carbomontanussays
Jonathan David
I never saw you here before, and you say you are a scientist.
You say you have fundeamental confidence in the integrity of the scientific method, in definite form singular.
I once did believe in the same. Today i am really more in doubt, because as it comes to it, it shows hardly to be any definite form singular, and that really ought to be discussed.
My teacher / GURU (one of them at least) did teach that
Def: Science is systematic or systematizizeed knowledge.
That, I keep as a fruitful conscept that can cover several faculties, meeting with other paradigms that I cannot share, but that ought to be taken for serious.
I once got to do with a highly trained intellectual musician and new age astrologist, who could work very well for me as I took her for serious, And then tried further to make up my own “astrologyical horoscope for her on my own paradigmatic premises. That is: , What can it possibly entail for her given character and destiny exactly where and when she was born, as the stars are mooving on from that point?.
And told her that as I see it, the heavens are not flat either but rather global as seen from here. I have to disqualify the flat heaveners blind believers also. And that at the polar circle , the very zodiacal animals are lying around there looking at you from all sides, low the bushes 2 times a day in the high mountain plains at the polar circle monument. , So that , the conscept of “ascendent” is hardly appliciable worldwide.
Further, that there is a birth clinic in Logyearbyen Spitzbergen also. , Shall all those children be discriminated and have no horoscope? As the “ascendent” showed very tricky for me at 60 deg north allready as I tried to take it out of the real starmaps..
She broke and divorced with me after all, I was very broken hearted because she really seemed to understand a bit…..
But there are obvious paradigm, learning, training, and character- contrasts and conflicts also to be seen and taken for serious. And what cannot go well together after all should not be labeled “un- scientific”. by routine.
I have further found for definite that authors that call themselves both scientific and smash around with someting they call “classical physics” for damned sure and highly trained, …….. hardly has got to do with what they are discussing, namely common molecular and vital matter and its possible use, values, and behaviours, and how to examine that..
Their learnings is obviously rooting in other and….. popular paradigms, that are also taken for higly serious and even “scientific”.
We are meeting at least some of it different from sheere madness, here and should be aware of scientific paradigm and basic learning and belief and training- collisions.
They all tend to label it science” as that is extreemly popular.
“Reason also, has got its history of style” My next GURU could teach.
.
Jonathan Davidsays
Hello Carbo,
I’m mostly a lurker here although I have posted a few comments on topics related to my background. My initial background was in applied mathematics, with particular interest in non-linear dynamics, dynamical systems and bifurcation theory. Particularly in the context of fluid flow instability including turbulence modelling. So there aren’t too many points that appear on this blog that I can contribute to.
Radge Haverssays
“Def: Science is systematic or systematizizeed knowledge.’
That would apply to other things as well, notably dogma, a closed system of “knowledge.”
I much prefer Ray’s definition of science as a box of tools to keep you from fooling yourself (or words to that effect).
nigeljsays
I like this definition. “Science is a rigorous, systematic endeavor that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the world.” (Science, ,Wikipedia).
Victor said (among other things that have already been debunked repetitively to no visible effect, in Victor’s mind at least):
What we do not hear from any of these self-appointed experts is any attempt to delineate exactly what it is they expect us to do if this “existential” crisis is to be avoided. If only we can somehow, by whatever means, get it together NOW to literally rip the foundations of modern society to pieces by somehow ridding ourselves of all those evil fossil fuels we’ve all come to depend on.
Oh, what tepid, polluted, nausea-inducing bilgewater! We’ve debated ways, means, and strategies for mitigation on these very pages for a very long time, and the debate has certainly not been limited to the denizens of RC. There is considerable disagreement, Victor–as one might expect on an important policy matter. However, we all agree that there are several things that need to be done.
1) Fossil fuels must be phased out, and from a climate perspective, the faster the better. (The decades of slow-walking this no doubt account for the good Dr. Anderson’s ‘popping eyes.’)
2) Land use must be reformed as well; it’s a very significant secondary source of GHG emissions. (For a truly bad example, see “Bolsonaro.”)
3) Poorer nations must be assisted because a) it’s fair; b) we can’t get to net zero without them; c) they struggle to fund energy projects of any description; and d) they are very often at enhanced risk due to geography, and allowing people to die unnecessarily is by and large considered a Bad Thing.
Detailed comment:
…get it together NOW…
Yes, thanks in no small part to the collective efforts of denialists such as yourself. Had the energy transition been started with more conviction in, say, 1992, we would be in much less parlous state today. But oh, no, FF-fanbois had to do everything in their power to blunt public demand for this necessary change.
…to literally rip the foundations of modern society to pieces…
Talk about alarmist! Literally no-one wants to do that. What we want to do, in fact, is to transform modern society such that it can be continued indefinitely into the future. Visions differ, of course. Again, that is to be expected. But the only recklessness actually on display is on the part of folks like you, Victor, who insist that there’s no problem when any halfway sane appraisal shows quite the opposite. Just the latest example of sickeningly many:
…the notion that humans can somehow control the climate and the weather and the level of the sea is an exercise in hubris.
Excuse me while I retch. “Control” of the climate, however partial, would require precisely that we demonstrate the ability to control our GHG emissions… which is exactly what Dr. Anderson advocates so desperately. No-one claims that we have yet demonstrated that capability.
However, it is *not* hubris, but demonstrated fact, that we have already *affected* the climate. Therefore, our problem is not hubris, but rather a self-serving, hypocritical false humility. Ah, “puny humans!”
I think I understand your scepticism as regards economical viability of fossil fuel replacement. Nevertheless, I do not see a problem in technical feasibility of this transition.
Rather oppositely, I think that human technical creativity is a factor that any time in human history helped to human survival. This crucial feature of human nature seems to be, paradoxically, almost completely ignored in present discussions of global problems. Nevertheless, I think that this human ability has not disappeared yet and that it can and should be also among clues to resolution of present problems.
Nevertheless, I doubt very strongly that a transition of world economy to green energy may be viable the way it is currently pushed – by an international effort organized by rich nations, relying on worldwide good will to implement arbitrarily selected technical measures supposed to bring the desired effect if the entire process will be funded by huge subsidies / worldwide redistribution of wealth. This is, in my opinion, not the way how humans work.
Possibly, it may be the point in which I disagree with Kevin, because it appears that prevailing opinion (at least on this website) is that “we must phase out fossil fuels”…at any cost. Have I understood correctly, Kevin?
If yes, I do respectfully disagree – and rather support Viktor in his scepticism about this approach. Because “any costs” may be in my opinion justified only in case of a certainty (“above any reasonable doubt”) that the proposed measures indeed bring the desired effect. Can we indeed honestly say that phasing out fossil fuels is a sufficient condition for taking global climate under human control? I do not think so.
That is why my personal vision of the outcome is not in smart policies / strategies / plans / whatever like this, any of them decided arbitrarily by smart enlighted politicians / scientists / intellectuals. I simply do not believe that something like this may really work in the complexity of the real world.
Personally, I rather trust in individual activity of people and in general human creativity, especially if they will not be hampered by arbitrarily decided artificial big plans and strategies and by lack of resources caused by wasting scarce tax money on such programs. Let us make green energy reliable and, in parallel, less expensive than fossil fuels. I bet that everybody will implement it spontanbeously, without heavy subsidies.
Unfortunately, the present trend seems to be exactly opposite. The very rare bipartisan consensus in the US Congress on subsidies for billion dollar direct air capture programs may serve as an evidence, I am afraid.
For those who believe in necessity of “fighting climate change at any cost”, I would like to recommend works of Dr. Mark Jacobson. He shows quite convincingly that DAC belongs to least efficient available ways towards climate change mitigation. Interestingly, a recent announcement that the US DOE assigned such huge subsidies for the DAC projects has not raised any particular attention on the RC website.
Greetings
Tomáš
nigeljsays
Thomas Kalisz
“Nevertheless, I doubt very strongly that a transition of world economy to green energy may be viable the way it is currently pushed – by an international effort organized by rich nations, relying on worldwide good will to implement arbitrarily selected technical measures supposed to bring the desired effect if the entire process will be funded by huge subsidies / worldwide redistribution of wealth. This is, in my opinion, not the way how humans work.”
I agree to some extent. However the ideal approach to climate mitigation recommended by academics, economists, bodies like the IPCC and preferred in principle by governmnets is not subsidies. The ideal approach is to put a price on carbon by way of carbon taxes or emissions trading schemes, this having the benefit of pushing everyone towards low or zero carbon solutions while preserving a level of free markets and individual choice and creativity. And its my preferred choice.
Unfortunately in some countries like America carbon taxes and cap and trade schemes get a lot of ideological resistance from libertarian leaning anti tax parties like Americas GOP. And for cap and trade to work well needs a high price on carbon and will lead to increases in fuel costs and governmnets are naturally scared of a public backlash.
Therefore in some countries like America governments have resorted to subsidies to promote wind farms, DAC, etc,etc. Although it still costs the tax payer, the costs are less obvious and so subsidies tend to be more acceptable to the public. Crazy I know but theres a lot of psychology in the issue.
Subsidies, while not my ideal choice, are not necessarily terrible provided the government does not indulge in selection of very specific technologies, but subsidises all zero carbon power sources equally (for example wind, geothermal, nuclear, solar etc). This avoids micro management and allows markets to decide optimim solutions. In fact it seems that in America they have generally done this, and subsidies have seeded their wind and solar industries and got them going so that now they no longer need or get subsidies. So subsidies are not always a bad thing.
I assume you realise wind and solar power are now cheaper than fossil fuels per m/watt hour although as they expand storage will be required that will add some costs.
You may find the following study of interest:
“As the planet approaches local and global exceedance of the 1.5°C stabilization target, damages from climate change, mostly due to extremes, are growing far faster than projected. While assessment models have largely estimated high costs of mitigation, the cost of green energy is dropping faster than projected. Climate policy has assumed that damage costs are manageable while decarbonization is expensive. Both these assumptions are wrong, potentially leading to a tipping point in human behavior: scientists need to explore options aligned with this emerging reality.”
Therefore the idea that climate mitigation will impoverish poor people further does not seem convincing, and is just more denialism coming in the main from sources that normally couldn’t care less about poor people. (Although I don’t think that includes Victor. While I dont agree with his views on the science, and his rhetoric about group think, he appears to have some genuine concerns for poor people)
I do not think that relying purely on individual creativity and initiative without any government plan or incentivisation would solve the climate problem. The “tragedy of the commons” problems demonstrates that humans will pollute and ruin the environment over the long term and that this only stops when governmnets intervene either by setting up a system where you can sue polluters in court, or alternatively have a system of government rules, regulations, and fines or carbon taxes or subsidies or similar mechanisms.
Libertarian solutions of zero government involvement to environmental problems have a long history of abject failure so there is no escaping some government role, but I agree it should not micro manage the situation or stifle creativity. Carbon tax schemes, and cap and trade are a good balance of government rules and free market.
Regarding global redistribution of wealth. Your comment that the world doesnt work like that might be interpreted as justifying greed and the status quo. Things sometimes change, and with such things there is often a sensible half way house. For example many wealthy countries give some aid to developing countries. This is humanitarian and ultimately also benefits everyone. However I admit I do not subscribe to academic visions of some sort of perfect equality of wealth. Its just not practical or even necessary.
Tomáš Kaliszsays
Dear Nigel,
Many thanks for your kind reply.
I do agree with your view that human society needs rules and mechanisms for their enforcement, othervise anarchy and the right of the stronger prevail.
Nevertheless, as regards subsidies, I think that it is a measure that has to be used exceptionally and very carefully, because there is a huge addictive potential. The addiction is, moreover, insidious, as – similarly as individuals – societies tend to ignore warning signs thereof. And, as you know, it may become impossible for a heavy addict to help himself.
I am afraid that we just experience a fall of world economy into a kind of “subsidy addiction”. We can easily cross an invisible border. Beyond that border, working hard on practical things, seeking for improvements and new solutions, may not matter anymore, because your primary necessity for survival will become competition for subsidies.
I observed the deteriorating effect of arbitrarily decided and heavily subsidized “innovation strategies” when I asked several institutes of German Fraunhofer Society, an institution dedicated for development of advanced technologies, if they could check function of a sodium-fuelled electrochemical cell described in an old expired patent. Although this fuel cell might offer many technical and economical advantages, they had no interest. When I asked for reasoning, one of involved leaders responded:
“Our capacity is fully saturated with development of hydrogen fuel cells that have huge commercial potential.”
“Based on huge state subsidies for that.”, I added in my mind.
Greetings
Tomáš
Tomáš Kaliszsays
Hallo Nigel,
Apologies for a late reply.
I posted it on November 10, but it has not appeared in the thread.
I do agree with your view that human society needs rules and mechanisms for their enforcement, othervise anarchy and the right of the stronger prevail.
Nevertheless, as regards subsidies, I think that it is a measure that has to be used exceptionally and very carefully, because there is a huge addictive potential. The addiction is, moreover, insidious, as – similarly as individuals – societies tend to ignore warning signs thereof. And, as you know, it may become impossible for a heavy addict to help himself.
I am afraid that we just experience a fall of world economy into a kind of “subsidy addiction”. We can easily cross an invisible border. Beyond that border, working hard on practical things, seeking for improvements and new solutions, may not matter anymore, because your primary necessity for survival will become competition for subsidies.
I observed the deteriorating effect of arbitrarily decided and heavily subsidized “innovation strategies” when I asked several institutes of German Fraunhofer Society, an institution dedicated for development of advanced technologies, if they could check function of a sodium-fuelled electrochemical cell described in an old expired patent. Although this fuel cell might offer many technical and economical advantages, they had no interest. When I asked for reasoning, one of involved leaders responded: “Our capacity is fully saturated with development of hydrogen fuel cells that have huge commercial potential.” “Based on huge state subsidies for that.”, I added in my mind.
Greetings
Carbomontanussays
Kalisz
Subsidies being highly addictive and all the consequenses of addiction…. there you really have a weighty point at last. Congratulations.
I have a next formula.
FISCVS is the Emperors most important monitoring (¨Überwachungs) and cometition- distortion organ in peace- time.
Not only in Moravia but also here we have had the grand old Party with P in charge with absolute majority for a very long time. And they did exel in taxation and subventions. and …. iron curtains control at the national boarders the best they could.
They first called it socialism, then social-democracy,… and today “Welfare- state”.
After all, I believe the USA is more heavily infected by this in our days than we are in Europe.
But Hr Kalisz, what kind of privileges and welfare would you preferre? Golf course
and Mar a Lago administered by King Donald Grozny? or tempered and boreal forests, fjords, lakes and rivers quite next to where you live?
King Donald would even set up a majestetic iron curtain through wild and pristine nature along the Mexican boarder.
Piotrsays
Back from the retreat for climate change deniers, Tomas?
Tomas Kalisz Nov. 9) “ human technical creativity is a factor that any time in human history helped to human survival. This crucial feature of human nature seems to be, paradoxically, almost completely ignored in present discussions of global problems.”
“Paradoxically”??? ;-) It is ignored for very good reasons. First, it is intellectually weak – a form of wishful thinking, a Panglossian view of humanity and the world. That reason helped us in the past, does not guarantee it will save us from a global climate catastrophe on the planet with 8 bln people and growing. That you managed to fight off a vicious chihuahua in the past, does not guarantee that you will be able to fight off a hungry tiger tomorrow. In more general terms –
it is a part of cornucopianism, a belief in no limits for growth and the invisible hand of the market as a solution for anything.
Second, it is not helpful, quite the opposite – not only does it not help to solve AGW, but it makes the solution less likely by detracting from the urgency of the current action in favour of the future, pie-in-the-sky technological fix, brought about by the famous human ingenuity. The possible future “best” is an enemy of the already today-existing “good”.
Tomáš Kaliszsays
Dear Piotr,
Thank you very much for your reply.
I could not survive longer without further portion of your sharp criticism, I admit.
Greetings
Tom
P.S..
Excuse my little joke, now seriously :-)
I do not believe in absence of limits for economical growth, at least with respect to quantity.
I believe, however, that humans have no clear limits in their creativity, and that it is our greatest strength.
It appears that you consider this feature of our nature that converted African apes into geological force rather as a spell, because it became also a threat for global ecosystems, and potentially for mankind itself, am I right?
I am aware of this “dark” side of our nature, however, I doubt that treating human creativity solely as a risk and threat is a good idea. I think that exploiting this (in my opinion not entirely negative) human capability for problem solving might be the better way.
And as regards urgency, the difference in our trust in human creativity mirrors also in our different view on anthropogenic global warming treatment:
Whereas you suppose that it is necessary to stop discussing and start full steam mitigation efforts with currently available tools, irrespective how unsuitable for the purpose they might be (because “the planet burns”), I am afraid that this approach relying on unsuitable tools may cause more harm than good. I think that possible harms may be prevented and the problem finally solved quicker than with your “brute force” approach, if we invent more suitable and more efficient tools.
Also, denialati are also–and actually, in my insufficiently humble opinion, more frequently–guilty of ignoring or selectively denying “human technical creativity” when it threatens to upend their preferred solution (which, of course, is to burn ever more fossil fuels so that–per them–we can all lift up the poor, green the planet, and generally live happily ever after.)
It tends to go like this:
Denier: We’re dependent on fossil fuels, which have done more to raise up humanity than anything in history! Renewable energy is too expensive!
Realist: Er, renewable energy is generally cheaper now–and sometimes even cheaper to build from scratch than is just *operating* extant fossil fueled plants. [Cites sources.]
Denier: Renewable energy is too unreliable! How can we count on a source that comes and goes with the wind and clouds?
Realist: We mustn’t confuse intermittent availability with unreliability; they are not the same. For one thing, we can forecast generation conditions to useful degree, and plan accordingly. And the dispersed nature of generation means that outages are very often less problematic for the grid than the much less predictable failures of fossil plants and transmission facilities. [Cites numerous reported instances where RE ended up backstopping fossil outages.]
Denier: Renewable energy is too diffuse! It will use up all our land, strip virgin forests, and ruin the countryside with noise and heat pollution!/em>
Realist: RE coexists very well with agriculture, and in fact wind power leases are helping keep a whole lot of farmers in business these days. And solar does very well not only on rooftops, but on a whole range of degraded ‘brown-field’ sites, not to mention urban areas such as parking lots. [Cites studies and examples.]
Denier: Windmills will puree all our birds!
Realist: Bird and bat kill is a valid concern, but is far from the most dire human threat to flying species. Moreover, there are technological and operational strategies that can significantly mitigate the problem. [More cites follow.]
Denier: Solar panels pollute worse than fossil fuels!
Realist: Maybe you haven’t noticed, but the toxic ingredients in a solar panel are chemically and physically combined into solid-state modules, which are then enclosed in a sturdy, waterproof, weatherproof, tempered-glass and metal box. Coal ash, not so much. [Just shakes head.]
And so on, and on, and on…
Tomáš Kaliszsays
Dear Piotr,
I already replied on November 10, however, the reply has not appeared in the thread.
Thank you very much for your reply. I could not survive longer without further portion of your sharp criticism, I admit.
Greetings
Tom
P.S.. Excuse my little joke, now seriously :-)
I do not believe in absence of limits for economical growth, at least with respect to quantity. I believe, however, that humans have no clear limits in their creativity, and that it is our greatest strength.
It appears that you consider this feature of our nature that converted African apes into geological force rather as a spell, because it became also a threat for global ecosystems, and potentially for mankind itself, am I right?
I am aware of this “dark” side of our nature, however, I doubt that treating human creativity solely as a risk and threat is a good idea. I think that exploiting this (in my opinion not entirely negative) human capability for problem solving might be the better way.
And as regards urgency, the difference in our trust in human creativity mirrors also in our different view on anthropogenic global warming treatment:
Whereas you suppose that it is necessary to stop discussing and start full steam mitigation efforts with currently available tools, irrespective how unsuitable for the purpose they might be (because “the planet burns”), I am afraid that this approach relying on unsuitable tools may cause more harm than good. I think that possible harms may be prevented and the problem finally solved quicker than with your “brute force” approach, if we invent more suitable and more efficient tools.
Radge Haverssays
TK,
Re: “Unsuitable tool”, or WTF are you talking about?
A basic principle of investment that applies broadly: Past performance is in and of itself no guarantee of future results.
You have no analysis other than you “hope” that things will work out. And because you’re apparently afraid of any disruption to the status quo, you ascribe almost magical power to platitudes about creativity — that so long as we all just sit around blathering and kicking the can down the road, things will somehow just sort of work out, because… Rah rah sis boom ba! Abracadabra! Ta-da! Humans!
Here’s a news flash for you, it’s due to the exceptionally creative and hard analytical work of scientists that we know about the problem and what needs to be done. You, on the other hand, offer nothing but bromides and hand waving.
(Although, to be fair, I will pointedly give you a pointless point for politeness. But that’s it.)
Piotrsays
Re: Tomas Kalisz 12 NOV 2023,
If your view has been challenged you have to either disprove it or change your view.
I have challenged your claim we don’t have to don’t anything about climate change today, because people when faced with a problem, always invented something. My reply:
“That reason helped us in the past, does not guarantee it will save us from a global climate catastrophe on the planet with 8 bln people and growing.” And that certainly we can’t plan our future on your wishful thinking.
You were unable to disprove this argument and you did not change your view in response either, instead pretending that these are two subjective, i.e. untestable with reason opinions, implying that your opinion is as valid as is mine. It is not. As I said – “
That you managed to fight off a vicious chihuahua in the past, does not guarantee that you will be able to fight off a hungry tiger tomorrow. “, Particularly that your chances of such a future technological fix are diminishing the longer we wait for it:
as the civilization-supporting systems, most notably food production, collapse – with them will collapse the civilization and the chances that you can invent and implement your technological fix. The road to hell is paved with wishful thinking about human ingenuity.
An example of an unsuitable tool for fighting climate change can be taken from my country, I am afraid.
There is a strange widespread popular belief in the Czech Republic that nuclear power plants do represent an advanced technology. There are two nuclear power plants in Dukovany (finished in 1986) and Temelín (finished 2002) that do work reliably and cover ca 35 % electricity production in the country.
Nevertheless, even bigger share of electricity is still produced in power plants fed with brown coal. According to decarbonization strategy supported by a strong majority of Czech politicians, the electricity from coal power plants should be replaced basically with electricity from new nuclear power plants.
In this strategy, the poor thermal efficiency of the available PWR technology about 33 %, or the negligible exploitation of the natural uranium in this technology (less than 1 %) do not play a role. Recent cost estimations for this technology are quite blurred, however, humble estimations suggest that the return of the foreseen investments may require at least 30 years, likely much longer.
In other words, technology on the technical level of year 1960 shall still form basis of electricity production in Czech Republic around the year 2100. Can you imagine hundred year old steam engines driving contemporary factories?
What is most strange for me: Very few people see these absurd consequences of the above mentioned long-term plans and strategies.
I think that one of the key differences between us may be in different view on applicability of available technologies for climate change mitigation:
Whereas you assess them as “good”, I strongly doubt that e.g. massive use of available nuclear technology, planned massive replacement of natural gas with hydrogen and like for the sake of decarbonization can fulfill the task without causing more harm than good.
I am afraid that “acting quickly” may results just in locking the society to these unsatisfying technologies. The only winners might be the respective vendors, I think.
Greetings
Tomáš
nigeljsays
Tomas Kalisz
“Nevertheless, as regards subsidies, I think that it is a measure that has to be used exceptionally and very carefully, because there is a huge addictive potential.”
Agreed. I assume you mean businesses becoming dependent on subsidies and lobbying to keep them in place, and governments being reluctant to end subsidies, because of possible job losses, and the potential the loss of campaign donations from affected industries. This is a problem. Australia’s car industry received subsidies for about 40 years! And they only ended recently.
The purpose of subsidies is sometimes to enable certain industries to get started, where there is a public good, and they would struggle in a free market setting. This seems ok to me in certain cases. Asia started its technology sector with strictly time limited subsidies. Western countries seem to be more relaxed about how long subsidies last but this just means companies get addicted.
Subsidies can be used for dubious purposes like appeasing campaign donors or subsidising energy costs to appease the public.
“human technical creativity is a factor that any time in human history helped to human survival. ”
I interpreted this to mean you feel governments can suppress creativity with their bureaucracy. It can happen sometimes but California has quite an activist local government and massive creativity. It all depends how the bureaucracy is structured. California shows it can be done well.
Piotr appeared to interpret you to mean that we don’t have to do anything much about climate change right now because we can rely on technical innovation in the future. I agree with Piotrs criticisms on this. We cannot assume we will eventually find a novel and excellent solution and it seems unlikely we would. And we have some reasonably good solutions right now (renewable energy, nuclear energy, carbon sequestration schemes).
And the longer we wait to do something, or expand renewables, the more we lock ourselves into either geoengineering or carbon sequestration. We know geoengineering is always going to be risky and carbon sequestration has huge problems if we were very reliant on it. Its a huge gamble to think some future innovation would overcome these obstacles.
“Whereas you assess them as “good”, I strongly doubt that e.g. massive use of available nuclear technology, planned massive replacement of natural gas with hydrogen and like for the sake of decarbonization can fulfill the task without causing more harm than good.”
I do not recall Piotr promoting those schemes in particular. We already have a range of viable solutions including wind, solar, and geothermal power. I would not rule out nuclear power provided the industry sorts out the problems with waste disposal. It is clean, zero carbon power.
Use of hydrogen is more debatable due to its low efficiency.
The point is we don’t have one magic bullet power source that stands out. Fusion MIGHT eventually fill that role but its not going to be developed in time to be useful with the climate issue. Generally many countries historically have had a mixture of generating sources and have made that work. For example coal, plus gas, plus hydro. I suspect this will continue in principle for some time, but with a mixture of wind, solar, geothermal, hydro and nuclear power. This may not be the perfect solution, but I’m not seeing some massive problem with it. “Don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good” (Voltaire).
Radge Haverssays
Tomáš Kalisz,
Not following your logic, sounds like you’re saying that because you don’t like certain solutions, therefore climate change isn’t an urgent problem.
I may be missing something (I haven’t read all of your comments) but it seems as though your argument consists mainly of a collection of disconnected circumstances and worries.
If you’re saying we shouldn’t be worrying so much and that there’s no urgent problem, then maybe you should stick to demonstrating that we have plenty of time to play around, using evidence and a scientifically valid alternative theory of what’s happening with climate.
Expressing trepidation I get, using trepidation as a premise for inaction sounds more like FUD, and is not constructive.
Thanks.
Piotrsays
Tomas Kalisz “ I strongly doubt that e.g. massive use of available nuclear technology, planned massive replacement of natural gas with hydrogen and like for the sake of decarbonization can fulfill the task without causing more harm than good.
Your “strong doubts ” prove nothing, other than proving your arrogance in spouting the opinions on which truth or falsehood you know nothing about, because you lack the knowledge of the subject you are proclaiming on, and you lack the humility to learn first from other people’s work, before advancing your opinions.
Your “ causing more harm than good” is a QUANTITATIVE statement – and to make such a claim you have to back it up with numbers, But you have NO numbers, so what you are really saying is that you “have strong doubts” that the number that you don’t know on the left side, is smaller than the number you don’t know on the right side.
And arrogant ignorance and supporting the continuous use of the fossil fuels, while waiting for the miraculous silver bullet that will save us, and achieve that before the collapse or irreversible changes happen – is not something on which I want to risk the future of humanity on.
I would like to make clear that I do not think that we have to rely on some hypothetical “silver bullet” technical innovation in the future. Actually, I think that we have to
1) be smart and creative NOW, because an action is needed NOW,
2) care about our capability of technical innovation GENERALLY, because it is the crucial strength of humanity.
By the way, it appears that I differ from Piotr rather in point 2). He seems to be quite sceptical about strength of human creativity and, if I undersood him correctly, strongly recommends to rely on instantly available “ready-to-use” solutions.
Contrary to Piotr, I am afraid that the available technical means are unsuitable or insufficient and that relying solely on them may become a way to hell. I believe, however, that unleashing the innovative human power may fix the existing weaknesses of available technologies quickly and thus help us to escape unharmed from the dangerous situation.
Personally, I think that there is basically a single but very generic and serious weakness in technical solutions that are currently considered as available for the desired economy decarbonization. In my opinion, it is their economical incompetitiveness with fossil fuel use.
Below, I will try to explain in more detail why I do not trust in long term plans and strategies relying on the belief that we “have no time to think, because we must act” and that we therefore must overcome the economical mediocrity of existing decarbonization technologies by huge public subsidies therefor.
I am afraid that the entire history of the former Soviet empire (which asserted that planned economy based on smart thoughts of wise men relying on their “scientific” knowledge is the right solution for human society) showed quite convincingly that this idea was a mere illusion (or delusion). Its spectacular failure can be inb my opinion explained as a result of
(i) severe underestimation of the complexity of real world, combined with
(ii) severe overestimation of capability of any human individual to process all available information and cope with this complexity rationally.
I am afraid that personal experience of the contrast between real life in stagnating “socialistic” state on one hand and visions of the bright future based on (allegedly) smart ideas and (allegedly) scientific knowledge of its leaders on the other hand may be an essence that is missing in thoughts of authors and proponents of present plans and strategies for climate change mitigation.
It may sound rude but I cannot help myself: To be frank, these plans look like copy-paste from resolutions released by Communist Party of Czechoslovakia assemblies that I still remember well.
Let me now to explain how the strategies and policies aimed to support technical innovation may in fact harm it.
Under true technical innovation, I understand checking yet unproven technical concepts. Such concepts may not be new. The stories of the Stephen Skala’s idea of “sodium economy” and of the Lockheed Martin patent US 3 730 776 for a sodium fuel cell
are examples of publicly known inventions that have not attracted attention of industry and/or of policy makers yet, although they may properly address the issue as hot as finding an economically feasible way to a “decarbonized” and still efficient economy.
I am not aware of any public policy or strategy supporting such kind of fundamental technical innovation. I attempted for almost two years to find a corporation or a public institution willing to check technical feasibility of the above mentioned patent or to obtain some funding therefor.
As I already mentioned, one of reasons for this striking lack of interst was the circumstance that these entities already are busy with implementing arbitrarily decided and (due to poor technical-economical parameters heavily publicly subsidized) “ready-to-use” solutions.
Finally, I was successfull thank to a good luck only, when I met an extraordinarily capable ingenieur who invested his own money and spare time to reproduce the first example of the patent in his garage.
To make a conclusion:
More than by climate change itself, I am worried by the circumstance that we believe in mitigation thereof by policies directing public funding to incremental technical innovation that
(i) cannot resolve fundamental deficiencies of the available technologies that hamper their economical competitiveness with fossil fuels, and
(ii) for this mere reason have never capable to replace them, despite being technically mature enough,
instead of checking feasibility of yet unexplored ideas that may show new and better ways toward fossil fuel replacement by technologies that are genuinely better (and therefore economically attractive per se).
Last but not least, funding such proof-of-concept testing may be significantly cheaper than heavy subsidies for technologies like PWR or hydrogen that already are at their technical limits and do not promise any reasonable perspective that they really become cheaper than fossil fuel use in a near future.
The present thread is rather a side branch of a discussion that started on March 30 by my question addressed to the moderators of this discussion forum
The original plea for a comment, addressing doubts about reliability of present climate models and their predictions / projections expressed in the article
If we consider “blue” hydrogen produced by the best available technique from natural gas with capture and storage of carbon dioxide formed as a by-product, we have to take into account that at least half of the energy comprised in the natural gas extracted from the Earth crust gets lost during this conversion.
Further, we have to consider that due to lower volumetric energy density (burning certain volume of gaseous hydrogen gives only ca 30 % of heat obtained by burning the same volume of methane), transporting the same amount of energy in form of hydrogen will need more than triple capacity of pipelines. The same applies for eventual storage.
As a result, heating with hydrogen, widely touted as a “green” solution for climate change mitigation, could be certainly a good business for gas industry but not so much interesting for customers who will pay for the same amount of consumed energy several times more.
Considering that electricity from renewable sources is now slightly cheaper than electricity generated from fossil fuels and that direct electrical heating is still a luxury in comparison with gas heating, heating with “green” hydrogen made from renewable electricity will be even more expensive than with the “blue” hydrogen.
I trust the gas industry that mutiplicating the existing gas infrastructure by mean of public subsidies and locking their customers to expensive hydrogen must be really a big dream / big Deal for them.
As a plain consumer, I am not sure if paying all these costs is a necessary sacrifice for “saving the planet”. I still hope that better solutions are possible.
Greetings
Tomáš
Piotrsays
Re: Tomas Kalisz: “as regards subsidies, I think that it is a measure that has to be used exceptionally and very carefully, because there is a huge addictive potential.”
Regurgitating the climate denier clichés much lately, Mr. Kalisz? You bemoan the bipartisan support in the US for direct air carbon capture (even though the Republicans were on board only because it extends the usage of fossil fuels) and instead you favour the status quo in which :
“ 52 advanced and emerging economies — representing about 90% of global fossil-fuel supplies — gave subsidies worth an average of US$555 billion each year from 2017 to 2019” https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-02847-2
And that is NOT including the benefits of releasing the fossil fuel producers from the responsibility for most of the environmental damage they cause, thus allowing them to privatize the profits while socializing/nationalizing the costs. And that is also NOT including the massive subsidies to the fossil fuel USERS (Big Agro, airline industry) or the makers of products that need cheap fossil fuels (big Auto).
Ever heard about seeing a subsidy straw in the eye of another, and not seeing a beam in your own, Mr. Kalisz?
And then you rant against the decarbonization, because …. the nuclear energy in your country is “a 1960 technology” and is expensive, so instead a … 200+ year old technology
of the brown-coal, one of the dirtiest fossil fuels – both in terms of CO2 emissions per kWhr, and in terms of general pollution – the brown-coal power plants in the “triangle of death ” -where the brown coal power plants in Poland, then-Czechoslovakia and DDR destroyed thousands of square km of forests by massive acid rains, and over the years killed probably 10s (?), 100(?) of thousands of people by respiratory diseases. Add to that heavy metal pollution and radioactive pollution – if brown coal mines had the same limits of radioactive pollution as nuclear power plants – they would have been shut down for exceeding them.
And then there are the open pit mines not only devoured forests and agricultural land, but lowered the water table over a massive area. Mr Kalisz knows it well, because Poland has been paying Czech Republic half a million of Euro A DAY for not shutting down one of its brown-coal mines that destroyed houses and left thousands of Czech households without drinking water (dropping the water table in 8 meters in 2020 alone) But since the fines (already about 200 mln Euros) are covered by the taxpayer, it does not affect the bottom line of the mine, nor the CEO salaries, and nor the profits of the shareholders. But don’t let it stop you from lecturing us, how it is the alternatives to fossil fuel that are “addicted to public subsidies”
. And to clarify you misrepresentation – I am not some gung-ho supporter of nuclear power, as my past posts on RC on the subject attest – I am merely saying that comparing nuclear and fossil fuels, the nuclear is not as bad as the fossil fuels you promote. That said, nuclear is not my only or even the preferred solution – where possible I’d rather see investments into renewables, and reduction in the consumption/energy wastage (smart grid, energy efficiency and energy storage) before we build new nuclear.
None of these alternatives is 100% perfect, but we have no luxury of time to wait for the perfect, we have to go with the good, or since misconstrued “the good” as uncritical approval – with the less worse.
Piotrsays
Tomas Kalisz: “ Dear Piotr. If we consider “blue” hydrogen produced by the best available technique from natural gas with capture and storage of carbon dioxide formed as a by-product, we have to take into account that at least half of the energy comprised in the natural gas extracted from the Earth crust gets lost during this conversion”
In my best de Niro voice: “You talkin’ to me??!” _I_ didn’t promote the use of natural gas to create H2.. _I_am for making hydrogen from water using the renewable electricity – thus getting H2 with near-zero emissions of GHGs. And you can use this H2 in various ways:
1, in applications that require H2 as the raw material, thus replacing the nat. gas that would have been used to produce the same amount of H2
2. in places, where the renewable electricity can not be effectively used (say, to power the planes) thus replacing fossil fuels used there
3. in places, where CO2 capture from fossil fuels would not work – e.g. in vehicles and planes. To use your own example – even if I lose half of energy from the fossil fuel to make H2, if I capture the GHG emissions – then I still reduced my GHG emissions BY HALF,
comparing to you using fossil fuels in your car or plane without the capture of the resulting CO2.
P.S. Why did you suddenly shifted to talking about the least GHG-intense fossil fuel – natural gas, when in your _previous_ post you touted the benefits of one of the most GHG-emitting fossil fuel, and one with massive collateral heath and environmental costs – brown coal?
nigeljsays
Tomas Kalisz
You appear to be criticising the American approach of government subsidising very particular climate solutions (eg blue hydrogen). In new Zealand we call it “picking winners”. You are critical of the technology and economics of blue hydrogen and the limitations of related government decision making of ”picking winners” equating it with communism.
Again I do generally agree on this even although I’m not a fanatical capitalist and anti every socialist idea. Blue hydrogen looks like a bad solution to me in all respects. Green hydrogen would be better.
And governments do have a bad track record of picking winners. They just don’t have the expertise or freedom from bias. As I previously stated, governments are instead better to apply their subsidies equally ( if they must have subsidies) to a wide range of possible solutions (for example all possible biofuels, electrofuels or zero carbon generating sources) and then the private sector in a free market setting is better placed to figure out the most economic option and converge on that. Of course even this doesn’t work perfectly, but its better.
You cite the creative and technical value of a sodium fuel cell, and that this solution has been ignored. Well perhaps it has been ignored but the harsh reality is no matter how the government run the economy and no matter what the private sector do, they might just not be aware of the patents for this technology and might never find them. That’s a fact of life and a tragedy of life.
Although It seems to me likely that the corporations exploring hydrogen fuel cells would have considered things like sodium fuel cells and perhaps found problems.
You complain that governments do not support innovation and creativity. In my country of New Zealand our government subsidises some private sector research where there is a possible public good but it is not financially attractive to the corporate to fund the research. This seems like one of the better uses of subsidies. I don’t know what America does.
First of all, I would like to correct your feeling that I promote fossil fuels, or, specifically, brown coal.
I believe that if you will go through my posts carefully, or through all my previous posts that you may inspect in my track of the discussion that is publicly accessible under link
As regards hydrogen, I have not asserted that you promote or support “blue” hydrogen and/or “carbon capture and storage” (CCS). I just tried to provide some (semi)quantitative comparisons to satisfy your request expressed in
and explain in more detail why I think that a crusade against climate change based on available nuclear technology, hydrogen, etc. may be in fact harmful.
I simply think that less may be sometimes more and that much smaller investments in proof-of-concept testing of yet unexplored technologies may open much more effective ways towards sustainable economy and thus prevent the threat of societal disruptions due to economical stagnation, inflation, powerty etc. caused by huge ineffective investments into decarbonisation as promoted by lobbyists of present industries.
Personally, I think that we have to exploit the fortunate circumstance that astronomical public money already spent in promotion of solar and wind energy indeed helped to bring these technologies economically on par with fossil fuels.
As the last hindrance for their triumph over fossil fuel use is lack of cheap electricity storage that would make them as reliable as their “classical” competition, I strive to promote electricity storage in cheap abundant alkali metals sodium and potassium. It is an alternative to available electricity storage technologies that in my opinion indeed has technical potential to make renewable energy sources economically competitive with fossil fuels.
As regards subsidies, I expressed my belief that direct and indirect subsidies into existing technologies hamper technical progress and this undermine adaptability and resilience of human civilization. As fossil fuel use definitely belongs to existing technologies, I agree with your view that subsidies for fossil fuel industry are counter-productive and harmful.
…The original plea for a comment, addressing doubts about reliability of present climate models and their predictions / projections expressed in the article
…remains still unanswered…
I presume Gavin’s response was not what you were looking for?
[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]
BTW, The Makarieva article concludes
We call for an urgent global moratorium on the exploitation of the remaining natural ecosystems and a broad application of the proforestation strategy to allow them to restore to their full ecological and climate-regulating potential.
Merits (or lack thereof) of the paper aside, this doesn’t exactly help your case.
Anyway, my comment remains, You’ve been determinedly throwing spaghetti against the wall to see if anything sticks, and still no compelling and coherent argument that all we have to do is sit around and watch you generate FUD until… what? Cold fusion? Or…?
JCM cited an older (2013) article by Makarieva et al., related to so called “biotic pump” hypothesis. The dismissal expressed by Dr. Schmidt pertains to this hypothesis.
Myself, I am not capable of assessing the arguments regarding this hypothesis. Perhaps it would be comparably instructive as various articles about dubious applications of statistics, or about journeys of quantum physicists into climatology, if the moderators explained to the general public also the “biotic pump” story.
My question, however, pertained to a much more recent article authored by Makarieva
because it casts a serious generic doubt on recent climate models, with respect to their insensitivity to intrinsic changes in water cycle intensity. The authors of this article object that this insensitivity is built in the models by the assumption of constant lapse rate.
Contrary to solar activity, galactic cosmic rays and other factors with a questioned influence on Earth climate, water cycle intensity does play a prominent role therein. My feeling is that contemporary climatology considers this intensity as a “feedback” that reacts to external “forcings” like changes in insolation or in concentration of non-condensing greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. I would like to learn more about the grounds of this approach.
Should the insensitivity of climate model predictions on deliberately introduced water cycle intensity variations be indeed caused by an invalid approximation as objected by Makarieva et al., the role of anthropogenic changes in water cycle intensity in global climate could be in fact much more important than the models show. This is in my opinion a serious thing and for this reason I believe that my question regarding the recent article by Makarieva et al might indeed deserve an attention of the moderators.
As regards technologies for decarbonization, I just strived to express my concern that economy matters.
I am afraid that policies relying on promoting economically incompetitive technologies by public subsidies may fail, because money is not an unlimited resource. I personally prefer rather incentives pushing the industry to fix the weak points of the available technologies, so that they become competitive, rather than just pouring money on them.
Lack of efficient and cheap electricity storage may in my opinion serve as a prominent example of a persisting weakness, because it prevents competitiveness of renewable energy sources with fossil fuels in electricity production. In current settings, incentivizing “commercialization” of the available (but incompetitive, because ineffective / expensive) technologies for energy storage, such as hydrogen or batteries, industry mostly focuses on these technologies in expectation of subsidies promised in “green” public policies, and does not seek fundamentally better solutions.
Greetings
Tomáš
Radge Haverssays
Tomáš Kalisz
Well, the paper certainly seems to have gotten a lot of hype. Personally I have a hard time buying that models somehow implicitly end up prescribing and incentivizing the destruction of forests. I would object to that happening on any number of grounds. The only people likely to advocate for that would be the same people who deny AGW in the first place.
Anyway, I leave the technical details of modeling to others. That said, not addressed in the article is the correlation between atmospheric CO2 and past loss of diversification and extinction events.
And something interesting to note in light of the authors saying “natural ecosystems evolved to maintain environmental homeostasis” is a comment by Spencer on the Clauserology thread:
FWIW, when Arrhenius first proposed global warming from anthropogenic carbon dioxide emissions, at the turn of the last century, one of the arguments used against him was that more moisture would mean more clouds, which would reflect enough sunlight to counter heating. This was part of the common (then and now) belief in a natural, or perhaps God-given, “balance of nature” that maintains a sort of beneficent planetary homeostasis. https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2023/11/clauser-ology-cloudy-with-a-chance-of-meatballs/#comment-816032
The Gaia Hypothesis is an interesting idea to me, but it’s not something I’d use as an assumption.
Your argument however, not explicitly stated, apparently amounts to this: that there is no AGW (carbon) driven emergency because you don’t like what you perceive as policy implications, and therefore we can afford to fiddle around indefinitely until technology solves the problem.
It seems to me intuitively obvious that this is backwards, and that if there’s a problem with the science, then simultaneously mixing in a lot of verbiage about policy is just obfuscation. Policy in this context should be addressed as a separate topic altogether, IMO.
What’s suspicious in your comments is the denialist refrain, “Don’t worry, technology will fix it!” Which is also resonant with other denialist memes that certain people have long been using here, including some of the following (listed and discussed at Skeptical Science https://skepticalscience.com/argument.php and to some extent here at RC):
6. Models are unreliable
13 climate sensitivity is low
30 increasing CO2 has little to no effect
35 IPCC is alarmist
38 CO2 limits will harm the economy
74. CO2 effect is saturated
86. It’s land use
98. CO2 limits will make little difference
108. It’s not urgent
109. It’s too hard
129. Climate ‘skeptics’ are like Galileo
149, Climate change solutions are too expensive
154. Water vapor in the stratosphere stopped global warming
207. Holistic Management can reverse climate change (soil management)
215. Planting a trillion trees will solve global warming
Potshots.
Bottom line for me (so far), I don’t see anything that rises to the level that we should just drop everything we’re already doing to adapt to and mitigate climate change.
Many thanks for your reply. It inspired me to thinking about my views on mainstream climate science, its teaching about anthropogenic global warming, and on mitigation policies.
I am afraid that nowadays, there is no clear distinction between science and politics generally, and particularly not in case of AGW.
As regards myself, I feel rather as a “doubting non-believer” than as a “denialist”, but I admit that others can see it differently.
Greetings
Tomáš
Carbomontanussays
@ Thomas Kalisz
Your paragraph 21 nov at 2. 43AM
You term yourself a doubting non believer different from a denialist.
and tell that today there is no difference between science and politics.
That difference we must be able to clear up for ourselves. Both are extreemly unprecise and diffuse and float into each other, thus we must be able to sort and to clear it up the rather cunning way. .
You seem to be in confusion and delusion especially about “the water cycle” where I am an experienced and learnt specialist who has not fallen into that tempting and slippery hole of denialist strictly orthodox, traditionally, congregational political propaganda.
(It is political wolleyball theoretical systematics from The Asbestos Palace, Palatz der Republik behind the late Berlin wall / Thinktank at Chateau Heartland in Michigan, both by the grand old Party with P, where I do not have to specify which Party, only that it is the grand old one. That will be understood by those who need to understand it. .
Read University Football for Wolleyball,and you have it also for the USA.
It further explains the affinity / love affair between Czar Puttler and King Donald Grozny, that is of religious nature.
I also tend to believe that water and the clouds will save us also this time as a cooling agent and negative feedback to global warming. But not the way you are selling and describing it as cooling “evapo- transpirations” from land continental ground.
That argument is created only for the Mafia to get access to Lake Mead in Las Vegas, by perverting possible physical understanding in the climate dispute……….. in order to sell, defend, and to further Big Coal and Big Oil, where the earth must be flattened within political error- bars.
TK: there is no clear distinction between science and politics generally, and particularly not in case of AGW.
BPL: Possibly not in the minds of part of the public, but among scientists the difference is quite clear.
JCMsays
“Soils” mentioned as a remark in parentheses way down the list at denialist meme #207??
That ranks quite low in the commandments of taboo and politically incorrect subjects. It places so low that it barely registers as transgression against the congregation; akin to playing footsie with Karen or chewing gum in the pews.
Radge Haverssays
Tomáš Kalisz.
As regards myself, I feel rather as a “doubting non-believer” than as a “denialist”, but I admit that others can see it differently.
Being skeptical is good, plus being skeptical of skeptics is good, plus being skeptical of yourself makes good times three. “Doubting non-believer” (odd term) sounds more like you’ve made up your mind but feel the need to look for confirmation.
I am afraid that nowadays, there is no clear distinction between science and politics generally, and particularly not in case of AGW.
Now why would some people find that so? A crisis of epistemology in a post-truth world? Constant attacks on science, death threats against scientists, the recent treatment of Dr. Faucci…
I first noticed our national lurch toward fantasy in 2004, after President George W. Bush’s political mastermind, Karl Rove, came up with the remarkable phrase reality-based community. People in “the reality-based community,” he told a reporter, “believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality … That’s not the way the world really works anymore.” A year later, The Colbert Report went on the air. In the first few minutes of the first episode, Stephen Colbert, playing his right-wing-populist commentator character, performed a feature called “The Word.” His first selection: truthiness. “Now, I’m sure some of the ‘word police,’ the ‘wordinistas’ over at Webster’s, are gonna say, ‘Hey, that’s not a word!’ Well, anybody who knows me knows that I’m no fan of dictionaries or reference books. They’re elitist. Constantly telling us what is or isn’t true. Or what did or didn’t happen. Who’s Britannica to tell me the Panama Canal was finished in 1914? If I wanna say it happened in 1941, that’s my right. I don’t trust books—they’re all fact, no heart … Face it, folks, we are a divided nation … divided between those who think with their head and those who know with their heart … Because that’s where the truth comes from, ladies and gentlemen—the gut.”
A little perspective on inductive science and convergence of evidence.
For AGW skeptics to overturn the consensus, they would need to find flaws with all the lines of supportive evidence and show a consistent convergence of evidence toward a different theory that explains the data. (Creationists have the same problem overturning evolutionary theory.) This they have not done.
For complicated science like climate, there’s been a shift from solo scientists in labs to extensive, large scale research, developed with many eyes on in many areas — such that potshots from would be skeptics have little practical impact, other than maybe tightening up loose ends, but mainly just being time wasting, smoke and mirrors.
So what’s the deal with these septics? A partial answer
More rules of thumb. It would help if people better understood how science works and not just the general facts of a subject, because frankly the depths of climate change science are the realm of PhDs with a life time of expertise built on the shoulders of their predecessors– and way beyond the vast majority of people, and certainly beyond ditto-heads living in the fever swamp of hyper-political media and alternate facts.
The idea (that such distinction does hardly exist today and perhaps may have never existed) is not mine.
Depends on what you mean by political. In any case, from what I’ve observed the people who run this site are circumspect in that regard.
FWIW, from having had an opportunity to observe first hand a regional comprehensive planning project for protecting the environment, part of what made it successful was how the relationship between scientists, different government agencies, businesses, and other stake holders was organized and managed. There was a lot of heat as you can imagine, but a firewall was maintained around the scientists, where information flowed out, but politics didn’t flow into the science. Frankly, and perhaps not surprisingly, a big problem was certain interests trying to bully the scientists, not the other way around.
On a personal note, I’ve had it up to here with people who don’t know what they’re talking about doing their best to impugn the integrity of the scientific community and its members. And that includes the outrageous smears that Michael Mann, a contributor here, has had to put up with from Steyn at that rag The National Review; and that’s not to mention the death threats and other crap he’s had to put up with.
Piotrsays
Tomas Kalisz: “I would like to correct your feeling that I promote fossil fuels, or, specifically, brown coal.
By their fruits, not their declarations, you shall know them. If:
– you advocate the delaying the reduction in GHG emissions, and
– you attack the existing alternatives by claiming that may cause more harm than good than the fossil-dominated status-quo and
– you illustrate that by attacking nuclear as “1960s technology” and contrast it with the
brown coal (status-quo in Czechia),
then … WHAT ELSE do you say?
If you can’t, or won’t, understand the arguments of others, and apparently not even the implications of yours – what’s the point answering you with detailed arguments? Particularly, when you don’t answer even the simplest questions, like:
“ If we are so smart, how comes we haven’t invented [your perfect solution to climate change] – YET?”
And no, it’s not for lack of funding for your small proof-of-concept projects – if you come up with a plausible non-fossil technology that is BETTER than the existing ones, then the governments with $ trillions on the line, would happily pay you your weight in gold.
So again, WHERE ARE THEY?!
Carbomontanussays
Kalisz
There are things here that I tend to agree with but there must be social and constitutional, “Congregational” and political order con- sensus and agreement, for human ingeniousity and creativity to work more than on individual level.
I repeat….!
You can see that a lot of people argue that “There is no climate crizis!” in order for them to counter actual or suggested measures against a defined climate crisis.
Which is also how humans are working and actioning in their creative way, traditionally.
Then we have different traditional ruler- or leaderships also. Dictatorship, thyranny, Wars and civil wars, “Martial” law, that is partial dictatorship, and civil agreement con-sensus and social dicipline.
Social economy carried out by a ruling class or Party with P of the people still with P and even “of” the people, smile smile..” …… in the nations of the world with further orders sciences taxes, monopolies, price regulations…………….. is also very traditiona human ways of social and racial class leader and rulership.
It is a special art of how to make people obey, pray and to pay, as schedueld, .. the more or less violent way.
Sigmund Freud once coined a radical conscept. “Das Unbehagen der Kultur”.
I was once personally blamed and accused in court for being peaceful even pacifistic as long as I am alone and my opinions are shared only by a young and small minority. “But give him right or let them become in charge in society,.. and we will all see something else namely who he really is../ who they really are!”. Hum Hum.
Well that racial warrant and attitude is really not in my career political plans It is not in my class or racial Bloodgrup. I am not of that “blood!”.
but as Putin (with P) said it “It takes one to know one!”
I believe I got that judgement from a true Genosse-Comrade from the Party with P, and I need not specify which Party with P , only that it was the grand old one. But we simply do not share that state religion and basic lifestyle. We never learnt to pray, damn and swear that way for the people to pay and to obey.
There are differences of style, paradigms and upbringings,
because “Reason has alsio got its history of style!”.
Irepeat….!
That fameous political action of James Hansen Gro Harlem Brundtland, Al Gore IPCC, Rajendra Pachauri and Greta Thunberg roots in a certain deeper Paradigm that I tend to share.
Wherefore I also advocate flowerpower and the photosynthesis, the green values.
I hardly share the fameous paradigm or state religion of denialism, surrealism, dia- lectic materialism, . national socialism, and monopoly capitalism.
Adolph A for Adolph and Arian,… ran out of gas after all, that is what really kept him up. Adolph understood nothing else.
Who invented the copper wire?
That was 2 scots who found a penny on the road,
Adam Smith was truly Scotsch.
Rajendra Pachauri spoke in “Oslo City” as he was here:
“No one shall have to reduce his living standard. We only need to chose other values!”
(Applaud from the King and the Queen and from all galleries high and low in “Oslo City”.)
The fameous case against Rajendra Pachauri for “Mansplaining” was dismissed by Indian supreme court quite recently.
Al Gore was ingenious in many ways Just due to a microscopic election loss in Florida he drove up the very Hollywood and took strangle grip on
1, the American way of life
2, the Chineese way of life and
3, the oil lead between Saudi Arabia and Pentagon.
Strangle grip, beat that!
And did set Guinnes world record of conspiration. .
Al Gore could teach further: “Tax on human work is not autenic US constitutional . In fact it is an ugly alian intruding German Prussian invention. Skip all taxation of human work, and rather tax Big Coal and Big Oil instead and pay that out to the opressed working class. This will solve it.
I tend to agree with Al Gore on that.
It will have very many social and economic advantages. I even believe that Al Gores doctrine of how to rule the world by more intelligent taxation is what the Victors and Knowitalls , surrealism and denialism have deeply understood, thus are fearing and fighting .for their very “existance”. ,
after having been aimed at and hurt most deeply by Al Gore (the nobel price winner), on their basic paradigm, at the assembly line on the factory floor where the earth is flat within error bars and Big Coal and Big Oil is in charge.
I believe, this is rather what we are quarreling about.
Carbomontanussays
@ Tomas Kalisz
I wrote a long reply that unluckily got away. But now I see that the political opinions of nigelj for you are roughly also those of mine
Climate and weather and environments also affects society and solutions must be made on social loevel. To solve on inivdual level the clever way may prepare you in time for possible political and social collective solutions., thus positive.
I myself is quite a- social and believe in creativity, but there must be limeits and there must also be law and order.. I obviously cannot live alone and only care and solve for myself. Quite often I must also make people agree, and even have to agree with people. There must be Con- sensus.
There are para- cites in society. . Those are the worst I think., both high and low, right and left.
An old moslem word says ” Wealth is the ability to give out!”
We have words on that also in the new testament.
I even have 2 formulas of my own
Wealth W is what you have divided through what you desire W = h /d
Powrity P is the reciproke of W , P = d/h
And that rules for many orders of magnitude of h and d
But there are also limits, h must be above existencial minimum. A minimum naturalis.
Maxima, I dont know, but God seems to have set some devine limits there to most earthly life.
Thank you very much for your kind reply.
Your “wealth equation” is inspiring.
Greetings
Tom
jgnfldsays
“If one is willing to apply a modicum of critical thinking to the evidence at hand, ”
Yup.
But you have shown ad nauseam are not.
Ray Ladburysays
Weaktor,
While I agree that nowhere near enough has been done, I think that describing the situation as “too late” fails to grasp the fact that we continue to make the consequences worse with every kg of CO2 we add to the atmosphere. There is literally almost no end to how much worse we can make things for our progeny.
And I would note that the reason why we have accomplished so little is because of denialist imbeciles like you! So, while I may not persuade my politicians to take effective action (Biden is at least trying), I also have the goal of ensuring that your efforts at obstruction and obfuscation are not forgotten and that our progeny have your name to revile for their suffering.
Victorsays
LOL! You exaggerate my influence, Ray. Regardless of anything I might post, you and your deluded army of deranged alarmists remain in the drivers seat and may well drive us all into chaos long before any of the additional warming you fear might kick in.
Clearly Ray’s “you” was plural and collective. Not everything is about you personally, Vic.
Ned Kellysays
@Victor 8 nov 2.29pm , be assured that nobody here on these pages is in the drivers seat of any ‘vehicle’ pushing for action to slow global warming. Much chatter. No ‘driving’. Relax.
Radge Haverssays
…but the notion that humans can somehow control the climate and the weather and the level of the sea is an exercise in hubris.
Ah, the empty platitude, pompously delivered.
Look, the earth shapes life, and life shapes the earth. We can breathe because millions of years ago tiny algae began to oxygenate the planet. One thing we know is that humans are really good at damaging the environment and on an increasingly grand scale. Now, presumably we have more agency than algae, not that you’re any indication of that.
That’s the deal: We’re not in control, you keep messing with Mother Nature, and eventually Mother Nature will kick your ass. The big question is, Can we control ourselves?
Carbomontanussays
Well said.
John Monrosays
In regard to comments about “Is it too late”. I think the answer is undoubtedly yes, of course it is.. Because we won’t change our behaviour – we have not just prevaricated over the last thirty years, but our collective CO2 emissions have massively increased. The science today is straightforward, To prevent a permanent rise over 1.5 deg we have to stop all CO2 emissions within the next eight years. That is just not going to happen. The UK PM, Rishi Sunak, the richest man in the UK Parliament, has just announced a new round of oil and gas exploration licenses in the North Sea, and proposed this will now happen annually from now on. He recently stated that in 2050, the absurd lie of the “net-zero” year, that fully 25% of the UK’s energy needs will still come from the burning of fossil fuels. He omits to explain how that will be offset. and worse, not a single reporter or interviewer has even asked him this basic question. We are all complicit in living a lie. According to my back of the envelope calculation, it would approximately require planting trees on every single acre of the UK landscape and leaving them in perpetuity. . CCS is a totally unproven con. The rich and powerful in our societies are literally insane and are going to take us all down with them. As Martin Luther King Jr once said ““We are faced with the fact, my friends, that tomorrow is today. Procrastination is still the thief of time. Over the bleached bones and jumbled residues of numerous civilisations are written the pathetic words ‘Too Late’.” Whereas even concerned scientists and environmentalists were not that long ago thinking we had a bit of time to sort this out, our climate is telling us with ever increasing urgency – we don’t. Unmanageable increases in forced migration, wild weather extremes, temperatures too hot to survive outdoors, the loss of food productive capacity etc. We as a species might not be facing actual extinction, but our civilisation of commerce, art, society, comfort is vanishing even now. How can our massively complicated inter-related societies cope? They can’t, chaos, ugliness and frightening violence is coming. When I was born in 1946 the world population was 2.5 billion. Perhaps if we still had that number of people, we’d struggle, but survive. But 8 billion? Sorry, no chance at all. I can see the death of billions by 2100 by starvation, drought and disease.. We could perhaps even now do something to ameliorate that ugliness but I have absolutely no hope now at all that we will. And as for Victor? Sorry, old man, your denial of reality is touching in its infantilism, but when you write “but the notion that humans can somehow control the climate and the weather and the level of the sea is an exercise in hubris” you are undoubtedly right, as the last hundred years have shown our futility. Like us all, though, you’re just a pebble stranded on the shore by a mighty implacable ocean that bears no concern for you or your future or indeed any particular future at all.
“To prevent a permanent rise over 1.5 deg we have to stop all CO2 emissions within the next eight years.”
No. Such a rise would not necessarily be permanent (see “overshoot scenarios”)–which is not to say there isn’t ample justification for pessimism.
Ned Kellysays
@ John Monro says: “I can see the death of billions by 2100 by starvation, drought and disease.”
Nah, you’re not seeing straight. Far more likely is 2 to 3 before 2050 – that is easily achievable for us without even trying that hard to totally screw it all up. We have achieved so much of nothing already in the last 30 years the next 30 we will be easy to kill billions of humans as we keep wiping out the natural world especially the animal species everywhere. I’m mean seriously they are far more screwed than we are.
Luckily baby boomers like will miss most of this destruction and it’s cumulative impacts.
But hey John, at least the “scientific models were correct” on what caused climate change. :-)
Jonathan Davidsays
@ John Monro How does the fact of global depletion of oil reserves and Peak Oil modify this scenario, if at all? As global reserves are depleted, the return on investment from new drilling will, at some point, no longer be profitable, and this activity simply cannot continue indefinitely.
Geoff Miellsays
John Monro: – “The science today is straightforward, To prevent a permanent rise over 1.5 deg we have to stop all CO2 emissions within the next eight years.”
Nothing less will do. The Laws of Physics are not negotiable.
John Monro: – “I can see the death of billions by 2100 by starvation, drought and disease..”
Evidence/data I see suggests a substantially earlier timeline. Lethal heat conditions is another emerging risk.
Per Oxford Open Climate Change paper tiled Global warming in the pipeline by Hansen et. al., published 2 Nov 2023:
With current policies, we expect climate forcing for a few decades post-2010 to increase 0.5–06 W/m² per decade and produce global warming of at least +0.27°C per decade. In that case, global warming will reach 1.5°C in the 2020s and 2°C before 2050 (Fig. 24). Such acceleration is dangerous in a climate system that is already far out of equilibrium and dominated by multiple amplifying feedbacks.
Per the Sep 2021 Chatham House research paper titled Climate change risk assessment 2021: The risks are compounding, and without immediate action the impacts will be devastating, includes:
By 2040, 3.9 billion people are likely to experience major heatwaves, 12 times more than the historic average.
…
By 2050 the central estimate indicates that nearly 40 per cent of global cropland area will be exposed
to severe drought for three months or more each year.
…
The probability of a synchronous, greater than 10 per cent crop failure across all of the top four maize producing countries is currently near zero, but this rises to around 6.1 per cent each year in the 2040s. The probability of a synchronous crop failure of this order during the decade of the 2040s is just less than 50 per cent.
…
Physical risk events from heatwaves, wildfires, floods and droughts are of particular concern because of their potential to impact food security, energy and water infrastructure, as well as lead to business defaults on a scale that the insurance industry would be unable to cope with.
See also PNAS paper titled Greatly enhanced risk to humans as a consequence of empirically determined lower moist heat stress tolerance, by Daniel J. Vecellio et. al., published 9 Oct 2023, Fig 1. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2305427120
Also see a tweet by Professor Stefan Rahmstorf posted on 25 May 2023 including a gif animation showing areas of the globe (in purple) that would be considered no longer habitable (MAT ≥ 29 °C). https://twitter.com/rahmstorf/status/1661450321766371329
I wrote a small piece on the Hansen &al – paper about global warming rate going up from .18 to .27 K/decade.
tldr: the CERES data on global net absorbed power are unreliable bc. of being a very small difference of two measurements, and the ocean heat content data of von Schuckmann &al have been superseded by – allegedly better – data by Cheng &al , which show no increase in net absorbed power. https://remarksandobservations.wordpress.com/2023/11/06/is-global-heat-uptake-accelerating-or-not/?page_id=603
zebrasays
Good job.
I don’t know the answer either, but the disagreement is a wonderful example of how scientific “debates” are supposed to be done.
And yet here, people are still indulging the Victors et al, who offer illogical rhetoric and pretend science, over and over and over.
I would suggest any lurkers or visitors be directed to read both papers before they spend too much time following one of those threads on RC.
Geoff Miellsays
Dominik Lenné: – “tldr: the CERES data on global net absorbed power are unreliable bc. of being a very small difference of two measurements, and the ocean heat content data of von Schuckmann &al have been superseded by – allegedly better – data by Cheng &al , which show no increase in net absorbed power.”
Can you please explain then why the Daily Sea Surface Temperature has been at record seasonal highs? Are you suggesting this data is unreliable? https://climatereanalyzer.org/clim/sst_daily/
Can you please explain then why the Southern Hemisphere Daily Sea Ice Extent has been at record seasonal lows? Are you suggesting this data is unreliable? https://climatereanalyzer.org/clim/seaice/
The UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN) published on Nov 3 the YouTube video titled An Intimate Conversation with Leading Climate Scientists To Discuss New Research on Global Warming, duration 1:12:23. Ahead of the upcoming COP28, renowned climate scientist, Dr James Hansen, and his co-authors present their novel findings of their new paper Global Warming in the Pipeline.
From time interval 0:42:19, Norman Loeb from NASA Langley Research Center provided a briefing on the status of satellite measurements of Earth’s Energy Imbalance. There are multiple satellites (see from time interval 0:45:37) that provide continuous CERES data since the launch of TRMM at the end of 1997, and Terra launched at the end of 1999, which is still providing data.
And from time interval 1:04:03, James Hansen said:
“Yeah, the most important tipping point is the, the Antarctic ice sheet, and in particular the Thwaites ah, Glacier, which who’s grounding line has been moving inland at a rate of about a kilometre per year, and ha, in another 20 years, it will reach a point where it, it… the, the um, bed ah, is so-called ah, retrograde bed, so it gets deeper. The Antarctic ice sheet sits on bedrock below sea level, but it gets deeper as you go towards the centre of the continent, and it gets… It hits a canyon in about 20-years if we continue at one kilometre ah, per year. When it hits that canyon you’re going to get very rapid disintegration of that glacier, which is basically the cork that’s holding ah, a lot of the West Antarctic ice ah, in the bottle. So we don’t want to get there. And if we want to prevent, to slow down, and even stop the melting of the Antarctic ice sheet we have to cool off the planet. That’s, um… And, and we need to do that because, hah, more than half the large global cities in the world are on coastlines, and there are a lot of lowlands. Ah, so, that, that’s the tipping point which ah, I think dominates. But it so happens that there’s so many other ah, climate impacts that we would be getting to see and it would be much more if we go beyond two degrees, that there are many reasons to want to cool off the planet. If we want we want to keep a planet that looks more or less like the one that has existed the last ten thousand years, we actually have to cool off the planet back to a Holocene-level temperature, and that’s possible, but it’s not easy.” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NXDWpBlPCY8
What Hansen says re Thwaites Glacier is based on peer-reviewed literature that follows from Rignot et. al. (2014). Are you suggesting this data is unreliable? https://doi.org/10.1002/2014GL060140
John Pollacksays
A recent paper by S. Shackleton et. al. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41561-023-01250-y – (Nature Geoscience Sept. 2023 may still be paywalled) had an elegant assessment of the prevailing rate of Earth’s energy imbalance reconstructed for the past 150 kyr. The greatest sustained EEI in the entire period was estimated around 0.3 w/m^2 going from full glacial to warm interglacial conditions at the termination of the last two ice ages. This accounts for full ocean heating and ice sheet melting.
EEI corresponds to global heat uptake, which at present is mostly oceanic heat uptake. The rate of oceanic heat uptake in recent decades – even the more conservatively estimated by Cheng et. al. at around 8.7 Zj /yr since 1986 – would still be equivalent to over 0.5 w/m^2. Even without acceleration, this is already a substantially higher rate than what was required to go from an ice age world to an interglacial one over several millennia. There can be little doubt that the EEI will continue to increase as long as we keep pumping more GHGs into the atmosphere.
This is another indicator that we already have created a very large problem, regardless of whether there has been a very recent further acceleration. I suggest that as the oceans continue to warm, more of the EEI will likely be partitioned into melting remaining ice sheets by one mechanism or another. Glaciers are slow to respond, but they are getting quite a hot prod.
Solar Jimsays
Thank you John. However horrible our existential condition has now become as you point out above, I should mention that recent analysis of actual Heat Flux into the earth system, which is evidently driven by a substantially larger man-made Radiative Forcing, has gone from about 0.6 W/m2 in the first decade to 1..2 W/m2 average during the recent decade, and is rising. (See eg. Hansen et al.)
We seem to be cooking the planet, as well as acidifying it’s biosphere, because of a theocratic political economy which defines underground Matter as “three forms of energy” (soil, liquid, gas). Call it Fraud of Underground Nation-State Economics, or call it The (Two) Fuels of War Economy (fossilized Carbon and Uranium).
Solar Jimsays
We are not burning “soil,” (at least not directly, mostly depleting its nutrients and washing it into estuaries by industrial agro-business).
My mistake was from starting with solid and finishing with oil. Correction (solid, liquid, gas), three forms of Matter., not of Energy. Thus, for example, energy in “barrels of petroleum equivalent” would be fraudulent, under this definition. Rather like dividing by zero in the societal energy efficiency equation. Result: unquantifiable.
John Pollacksays
Solar Jim,
Hansen’s estimate of actual heat flux seems to be an outlier, although the better agreed-upon range around 0.6 to 0.8 W/m2 is certainly bad enough. I’m looking at the posting by Dominik Lenne’ and its various references. There is agreement that around 90% of the excess heat is going into the ocean at present. The ocean is accumulating something like 10 ZJ/yr down to 2000m. https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/access/global-ocean-heat-content/ I calculate that 1.0 W/m2 is roughly equivalent to 16.1 ZJ/yr.
Yes, we’re cooking the planet, and we’ve already turned up the heat roughly twice as high as what it took to come out of the last ice age, albeit the average imbalance that was sustained over thousands of years.
prlsays
What’s wrong with barrel of oil equivalent as a unit of energy (even if it’s a little odd)? It’s defined in the US as 5.8 million BTU (or for the world outside the few remaining imperial unit countries, ~6.1 GJ).
Nothing about the quality, nothing about the cost of production and the costs of rinsing and refining it..
“Oil” is anything from purest lightergas and lamp kerosene burning clean odeourless like a candle in church down to that incredible mud that not even Saddam Hussein could set fire to.
“Coal” is the same misery., from finest charcoal and firewood good enough for the tea ceremony ……. down to the bottom muds of old fossile palm bugs.
And even worse than that, “Eierkohle” from Ruhrkohle. Only yellow worms rising, that will not ignite, and when all the worms have vanished there is only ashes remaining.
It may look black but it is not “Carbon”.
I had to glow up and weld over an iron, in the summer in the garden and feared that our very young and very strict minister of environment would arrive with wailing sirenes to stop it.
Then I found “Brikette” instead and thought Lignite brown coal might be better. But it was the same misery. Just salt and sulphur and less carbon, impossible for blasting up temperatures.
So I had to do the Norwegian way where there is no ” seacoal” . Take a round in the landscape and find fallen twigs and wreckboards.
The best ” coal” is standing ready seasoned on root on the upper marsh, I say, and is quite a privilege, good enough for the tea ceremony and for glass and goldwork.
Solar Jimsays
RE: prl’s question.
A barrel is a measurement of volume, which is not a “unit of energy. ” That volume of mined liquid has a mass, measured on earth as weight, neither of which are “units of energy.” As regards “defined in the US,” that is the political-economy that determines the “economics” of governmental and societal financing, through numerous subsidies and externalized costs, of our approaching financial and ecological demise.
prlsays
If you don’t like volume as a unit of energy, there’s also a tonne of oil equivalent, which is about 42 GJ.
A megatonne is similarly a unit of mass, but a megaton of TNT equivalent is still a unit of energy (~4.2 PJ) – despite the spelling, the megaton of TNT equivalent is based on the tonne. One one ton of TNT equivalent is about 0.1 tonnes of oil equivalent.
The barrel of oil equivalent is only intended to be a measure of energy. It does not say anything about the other costs associated with burning fossil fuels, as great as they are. Using gigajoule instead doesn’t tell you anything about any of the other costs of releasing or harvesting the energy, either.
Solar Jim (at 18 NOV 2023 AT 11:52 AM): – “A barrel is a measurement of volume, which is not a “unit of energy. ” That volume of mined liquid has a mass, measured on earth as weight, neither of which are “units of energy.””
A barrel of oil when combusted releases energy – about 6.119 GJ (per Energy Institute’s Statistical Review of World Energy 2023, page 58)
A million tonnes of liquified natural gas when combusted releases energy – about 48.747 PJ.
40 tonnes of hard coal when combusted releases energy – about 1 EJ.
The discerning question is how much of this primary energy released is transformed into doing actual useful work, and how much is wasted?
Per Our World in Data:
Primary to secondary energy: the conversion of primary to secondary energy can be very inefficient. In thermal power plants – which convert fossil fuels, biomass or nuclear into electricity, up to two-thirds of the primary energy is wasted as heat. For every three units of energy we put in, you get just one unit of electricity out.
Because primary energy losses are particularly large for fossil fuels, their contribution to energy demand is much higher in primary energy terms compared to the other three ways of measuring energy. This is important to know because it can skew our perception of how much of a contribution low-carbon sources make: in primary energy terms they can appear smaller because they are diluted by the wasted energy that comes along with fossil fuel burning.
Solar Jim (at 18 NOV 2023 AT 11:52 AM): – “As regards “defined in the US,” that is the political-economy that determines the “economics” of governmental and societal financing, through numerous subsidies and externalized costs, of our approaching financial and ecological demise.”
I’d suggest an enormous externalized cost is, per IEA:
Global energy-related CO₂ emissions grew by 0.9% or 321 Mt in 2022, reaching a new high of over 36.8 Gt. Following two years of exceptional oscillations in energy use and emissions, caused in part by the Covid-19 pandemic, last year’s growth was much slower than 2021’s rebound of more than 6%. Emissions from energy combustion increased by 423 Mt, while emissions from industrial processes decreased by 102 Mt.
All those tens of gigatonnes of human-induced waste CO₂ emissions per year, year-on-year accumulating in the atmosphere, unseen, and out-of-mind for many, but ultimately driving the climate to become increasingly more hostile for civilisation globally. A tragedy of the commons. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commons
William E Rees says in a YouTube podcast titled William E. Rees on The Fundamental Issue: Overshoot, from time interval 0:02:39:
“Climate change is a pollution problem, because carbon dioxide is the single largest waste product by weight of industrial economies. So the anthropogenic component of climate, the carbon emissions, is a waste product, a waste management issue. The system, the Earth System, cannot cope in a timely manner, it will over time, but not in time with, with the quantity of carbon dioxide that we’re putting out there.” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o1vX03h7w9c
Barry E Finchsays
The following comment attempted to post on GooglesyTubes by me gets deleted & earns me 24 hours of comment suspension for my Scams, Spams and Deceptive Practices:
“Increase of Cat 3 hurricanes from 31.5% in 1980 to 39.5% in 2016 (Kossin et al. August 2020) at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NnUlax_S5EA at 24:22″
Interesting little non-science-related thing, in a dull, tiresome sort of way.
which talks about an upward trend in the proportion of tropical cyclones reaching cat 4/5 intensity.
This Klotzbach et al paper suggests a decreasing trend in tropical cyclones and ACE index globally from 1990-2021 and links that to a trend towards more frequent La Nina events which suppress N Pacific tropical cyclone activity. There seems to be some sensitivity as to which year you start from. I looked at the IBTRACS data a few years ago and the trends are sensitive to whether you start in 1980 or 1990.
Logically I would expect global warming to increase the proportion of very intense tropical cyclones by increasing the maximum potential intensity through SST warming. I expect this to be difficult to detect in the data due to the problem with analysing trends in datasets with small counts and by the time we see it conclusively in the data, it has already been happening for decades.
Adam Leasays
This Klotzbach paper, sorry accidentally missed the link:
In New Guinea in 1946, in response to wartime occupation of the islands, natives slaughtered their pigs, their main source of subsistence, in the belief that Great Pigs would appear from the sky at the millennium, which would be announced on mock radios attached to bamboo and rope “antennae”.
The natives didn’t only slaughter their pigs, but they also burned down their own huts and ruined their fields, and sat for several days on the beach waiting for the ship with their forefathers’ spirits to arrive with food for them. (“Vailala Madness – Cargo cult which ended in tragedy”)
A Xhosa cult, based on a prophecy, came after many years of colonial exploitation, leading to desperation:
“The movement, which began as a trickle, turned into a deluge after the great chief Sarhili traveled to the Gxarha, where “the same voices that spoke to Nongqawuse spoke to him as well,” according to an oral source from the time. Over 15 months, the Xhosas massacred 400,000 cattle and destroyed countless acres of crops. Tens of thousands of people died of starvation, with many more fleeing their homes.” (The Cattle Massacre That Haunts South Africa)
Yes, a chilling parallel to modern climate denialism.
jgnfldsays
They obviously needed some trained scientists to get their information from and not cult leaders with a political agenda rather than being focused on reality.
You could benefit from the same medicine instead of religiously drinking the chlorine.
Carbomontanussays
To Kevin mcKinney and jgnfld
Selvangivelse is danish and reminds the target of his / her routine self- confessment for taxes, that is supposed to be very honest..
Google translate gives “Tax declaration”.
I recommend you and everyone rather to interprete peculiar propaganda postulates P P P and again P fror Pig and Party the grand old one, …. in terms of Psychic Projections and Putins Postulate ( how many P- s now?) ………..according to Putin, “It takes one to know one!”
My routine reply is “Thanks for your “Selvangivelse”- tax declaration. That will be orderly studied and used as our basis for correct equation and calculation of your taxes!”
That formula hurts.
“Selvangivelse” being a very tense political word that was coined by the Grand Old Party with P.
Moral:
Be aware of Possible Psychic Projections when Postulates are especially Peculiar..
Barry E Finchsays
I just now typed “…12-month running mean ..” but of course the dashed trend line is the 12-month running mean of the title and solid is instant monthly, whatever, so ignore that lost-focus comment.
Russell Seitzsays
Victor should brush up on his Tok Pigin. –
There were no radios around when the Vailala Ghost Ship cult emerged in 1919. and his bamboo radio antenna yarn is a transplant from a generation later and a thousand miles away— the John Frum Cargo Cult inspired by the war surplus glut that washed over the New Hebrides after Japan’s abrupt surrender in 1945. I ran into a few aging Frum fans on Ambrym and Malekula in 1975
Secular Animistsays
It is beyond me why a site like RealClimate tolerates the commenter who calls himself “Victor”.
I have seen many global warming deniers spewing nonsense and falsehoods online over the decades, and Victor is about as crude, clumsy and clownish as they get — not to mention repetitive and blatantly dishonest.
In the ordinary social media, like Facebook, a denier like Victor would be driven from the room by howls of contemptuous laughter. And yet, what should be one of the premiere climate science sites on the Internet not only tolerates him but encourages him by responding to his repetitive drivel as though it were serious.
Why do you all humor him? Do you consider him to be some sort of “pet” or something?
nigeljsays
Secular Animist
“It is beyond me why a site like RealClimate tolerates the commenter who calls himself “Victor”.”
I assume its Gavins and Rasmus’s allegiance to freedom of speech. It would be a bad look to totally forbid sceptics / denialists to put their case. However IMO free speech is the right to share information and voice opinions. I do not think that websites have to tolerate repetition and spamming especially when it becomes idiotic. Victor is very repetitive, and he talks nonsense, so in my view it would make sense to put about half of his comments in the borehole which will force him to sharpen up his act. He still gets a limited version of free speech in the borehole anyway.
“I have seen many global warming deniers spewing nonsense and falsehoods online over the decades, and Victor is about as crude, clumsy and clownish as they get — not to mention repetitive and blatantly dishonest.”
Agreed, except Victors writing is smooth talking sophistry that might be convincing to some people in the general public.
“Why do you all humor him? Do you consider him to be some sort of “pet” or something?”
Ha ha. Perhaps. Or perhaps when someone keeps putting their head up above the parapet spouting nonsense over and over they are just begging people to throw rotten tomatoes at them. And people will do it for different reasons and in different ways. Fact based rebuttals, making fun of them , name calling. It you effectively hold up a sign saying hit me, you will get hit. The responses to the denialists can be entertaining and informative.
And I think its important to rebut the denialists. Ignoring them means people might assume their views are correct and cannot be rebutted. But I know there’s an awful problem of feeding the trolls. There just isn’t an ideal answer to all this.
My response to your comments is complicated, full of compromise approaches, judgement calls, and probably a bit frustrating. I find my own comment frustrating. But I don’t think there is a simple answer to the stubborn repetitive cranks of this world. If there was we would have found it by now.
Carbomontanussays
Hr S.Animist
It might be imortant allways to have a rather purest sample of it allways at hand for reference when you shall think and write about what it is, different from what it aint not.
That is old routine in science, you see.
As in theology, medicine and justice also.
In old cathedrals, the Devil was also pictured and carefully mounted in his niche corner to be referred to in person, and all the devil worshippers would be attracked and worship there so we know where we have them.
Else, the Devil will dissolve and spread out over the whole room and people will look for him everywhere..
Any cunningly setup and decorated Temple, , Cathedral , Tavern or Website or University or National museum must also have a junkyard, a borhole, a bitty, a horror cabinet. On where to spit.
Secular Animistsays
The problem with “It’s too late” is that it is an incomplete sentence. Too late FOR WHAT, exactly?
Obviously it is already too late to prevent what has already happened. Equally obviously it is never too late to stop making things worse. What’s in between?
Instead of debating whether or not “it’s too late”, let’s talk about what it is too late FOR, and what it is not too late FOR.
ERA5 has posted for October with a global SAT anomay of +0.85ºC, a small drop on the September anomaly of +0.93ºC giving October 2023 second spot in ERA5’s all-month monthly anomaly rankings, with July’s (+0.72ºC) & August’s (+0.71ºC) anomalies in 3rd & 4th spot
The record previous all-month record prior to 2023 was Feb 2016 (+0.69ºC) now demoted to 5th with March 2016 (+0.63ºC) in 6th, both these boosted by the 2015/16 El Niño.
As well as July-Oct 2023 taking the top 4 spots, June ranks 13th (+0.53ºC) and March ranks 16th (+0.51ºC).
Previous to 2023, the hottest Octobers comprised the previous 8 years, their anomalies spanning +0.45ºC (2019) down to +0.34ºC (2016).
The Jan-Oct year-so-far average for 2023 now sits +0.1ºC above second-spot 2016, this twice the increase of Jan-Sept. Copernicus are saying 2023 is “virtually certain” to end as the warmest calendar year on record. Note that the rankings below of Jan-Oct averages in ERA5 show the same order as the final annual rankings. And to properl quantif what is meand by “virtually certain,” it would take an average anomaly of -0.12ºC thro Nov-Dec 2023 for 2023 to dodge top spot. Such chilly a Nov-Dec has not been seen since the year 2000. Indeed, even a negative Nov-Dec ERA5 anomaly was last seen in 2011.
“Clear evidence of climate fatigue emerges from recent opinion polls on voting intentions in the next European parliament elections, in June 2024. While European green parties are expected to lose more than a third of their seats, rightwing climate-sceptic conservatives are expected to win big.
This shift in public sentiment may even result in the EU backtracking on its so-called green deal, a core policy that has defined Ursula von der Leyen’s term as president of the European Commission. Scepticism is widespread within the member states whose governments call the shots in the EU. In the general election in the Netherlands on 22 November, Frans Timmermans, a former European environment commissioner and architect of the green deal, will have his work cut out to win over the Dutch public – a majority of whom support farmers in opposing government plans to cut pollution by reducing livestock herds.”
“The urgent question now is: how can we put the climate crisis back at the top of the agenda, for politicians and the public alike? The first step is to recognise that climate fatigue in Europe has little to do with Europeans being less concerned about the impact of volatile climate systems. Indeed, people feel the effects directly and terrifyingly as the continent is increasingly battered by heatwaves, wildfires, storms and floods.
But people are also terrified of what they believe will be the cost to individuals of the required energy transition. According to the consulting firm McKinsey, the global transition to net zero will require additional investments in fixed assets of $3.5tn a year until 2050. That’s about a quarter of all the tax raised worldwide. There is still no convincing mechanism for financing this in ways that reassure families, individuals, small firms and farmers that they are not going to be bankrupted. Increasingly, ordinary citizens know that many of them will have to foot crippling bills for such things as renovating homes to make them comply with energy efficiency rules.
Just look at the European Commission’s plan to upgrade the energy performance of buildings by 2050 (2030 for new buildings). Buildings account for more than 40% of energy consumed and 36% of energy-related greenhouse gas emissions in the EU. But in a country such as Italy, more than half of existing homes need to be adapted to the new standards. Italian families would have to pay out about €500bn over the next decade, an average of €40,000 per affected household, according to a study done for the Vision thinktank I am affiliated to. No wonder many families, impoverished by years of economic stagnation and more recent inflation, view the green deal not as a transition to a more just model of distributed energy production, but as a waking nightmare.”
It is no wonder there is a sense of hopelessness in some people when reports like this are published.
Solar Jimsays
Adam,
McKinsey has long towed-the-line for fossil subsidized corporate political economy. We now have a globalized economic theocracy that wants the population to ignore trillions of dollars worth of direct, indirect and (may the god’s help us) “externalized” finance, or “subsidies” by governments around the world, of some &7 trillion/yr plus or minus several trillion depending on your valuation of life on earth.. Not only have the plutocrat’s and oligarch’s stashed tens of trillions of “wealth” in “offshore tax havens,” but we further finance them with trillions for militarism, tax avoidance and massive state support through debt-financing of national treasuries.
In other words, this is spin, aimed at brainwashing the public that there is no alternative to the present ecocidal, corporatism, military-industrial fuels-of-war complex and so we just have to cook the planet (to death). So therefore, we can not possibly have programs to insulate buildings, retrofit and new, because that would not increase private plutocratic wealth past its present absurdity, don’t you know.
Economics is man-made, and “The Man” is full of BS. Everyone somehow feels it, but the current global propaganda complex is currently winning (via corporatism and the power of mammon). Their talent is extremely impressive, in a macabre way. The above Free Market Speak about “public sentiment” may be true. Yet that is precisely by design of nation-state powered, militant, ecocidal, oligarchs who essentially own most governments, in my humble opinion (and observation of the Anthropocene).
It’s not climate fatigue nor fear so much as a long-predicted turn to the conservative that always comes with long-term crises/pessimism.
Victorsays
Kevin McKinney says:
Victor said (among other things that have already been debunked repetitively to no visible effect, in Victor’s mind at least):
“What we do not hear from any of these self-appointed experts is any attempt to delineate exactly what it is they expect us to do if this “existential” crisis is to be avoided. If only we can somehow, by whatever means, get it together NOW to literally rip the foundations of modern society to pieces by somehow ridding ourselves of all those evil fossil fuels we’ve all come to depend on.”
Oh, what tepid, polluted, nausea-inducing bilgewater! We’ve debated ways, means, and strategies for mitigation on these very pages for a very long time, and the debate has certainly not been limited to the denizens of RC. There is considerable disagreement, Victor–as one might expect on an important policy matter. However, we all agree that there are several things that need to be done.
1) Fossil fuels must be phased out, and from a climate perspective, the faster the better. (The decades of slow-walking this no doubt account for the good Dr. Anderson’s ‘popping eyes.’)
2) Land use must be reformed as well; it’s a very significant secondary source of GHG emissions. (For a truly bad example, see “Bolsonaro.”)
V: Yes, of course. We all know what the alarmist pipe dream is. The real question is: HOW do you make it happen? If “fossil fuels must be phased out” exactly how do you propose to do that? Any honest economist will tell you the world is dependent on the wide distribution of these fuels, not only in rich countries, but literally all countries. Cutting back to any meaningful extent means much higher prices for low income people already struggling to survive. Is that really what you want to see?
KM: 3) Poorer nations must be assisted because a) it’s fair; b) we can’t get to net zero without them; c) they struggle to fund energy projects of any description; and d) they are very often at enhanced risk due to geography, and allowing people to die unnecessarily is by and large considered a Bad Thing.
V: So suddenly, thanks to your panic over “climate change,” you’ve come to care about the people struggling in these poorer nations? As though they weren’t in need of assistance long before “climate change” became the order of the day. Shame on you.
V: If “fossil fuels must be phased out” exactly how do you propose to do that?
BPL: I have posted detailed plans for this. Mark Z. Jacobsen published a much more detailed on in Scientific American. Many other people on this board have suggested plans. How did you miss all this?
V: So suddenly, thanks to your panic over “climate change,” you’ve come to care about the people struggling in these poorer nations?
BPL: Your thesis that people here didn’t use to care about people in poor nations is also vitiated by masses of evidence, since this has been discussed widely both here and elsewhere. False accusation doesn’t help your case.
If “fossil fuels must be phased out” exactly how do you propose to do that? Any honest economist will tell you the world is dependent on the wide distribution of these fuels, not only in rich countries, but literally all countries. Cutting back to any meaningful extent means much higher prices for low income people already struggling to survive. Is that really what you want to see?
False. While the transition involves costs–you can’t very well expect that retiring generation assets prior to their full expected lifespan will be cost-free–it’s also true that denialati just *love* to inflate theses costs for the fullest propaganda effect, and particularly by ignoring all co-benefits.
One offset is that new solar and, to a lesser extent, wind, has now reached the point where in many cases it is cheaper to build and run than merely operating extant coal capacity (see page 7 of the report linked):
(Not sure that link will be stable, but for now at least, the story on the Michigan RE law is top center.)
Victor then goes on to sling some mud, albeit from his characteristic position of ignorance–in this case, ignorance of my stance and actions vis a vis the developing world:
V: So suddenly, thanks to your panic over “climate change,” you’ve come to care about the people struggling in these poorer nations? As though they weren’t in need of assistance long before “climate change” became the order of the day. Shame on you.
That is an accusation as false as it is unsupported. It is Victor who should feel shame for resorting to it.
He does a very good job of teasing out the technicalities of measurement. YCC’s EotS keeps regular track of world weather and climate and maintains databases of the various mounting problems.
Solar Jimsays
Sorry Susan, both 1.5 and 2.0 C are shot to hell. There are many reasons for this including accelerating Heat Flux (see comments above), eg. their UN graph considering methane, etc. over one hundred years for GWP in their article is fossil-industry speak. Try ten years for methane and the current GWP for methane is in the 100-200 range instead of 34 for 1oo years, or even some 84 for 20 years. Besides, even their colors (blue and teal) seem to be backward. The planet is “just warming up.”
Forget “teasing out the technicalities” and consider trends Such as: increasing nation-state financing for fossil burning and wars, massively deteriorating biological systems, accelerating ice-sheet collapse, shifting ocean and atmospheric circulation, etc. The person to read beside Henson is Hansen (Global Warming in the Pipeline, and many other published science articles over the decades).
Russellsays
If Victor can’t afford a human fact checker or editor, he really ought to switch to Twitter Classic, as it is hard to convey more that three wrong ideas in 140 characters or less.
I’m surprised at thrth of discussion of why temperatures jumped so suddenly and dramatically beginning in June. I don’t recall there being anything like this previously and I would have that it would have called for some analysis and explanation. I have read that some point to hunga tonga injected wv into the stratusphere but personally (as a non-scientist) I am skeptical of this explanation because the warming of the ocean surface in 2023 is just as startling and precedes the record air temperatures by a few months. if this were due to an atmospheric source, would we expect the reverse – the air would warm first and then cause the ocean to warm? i’m more inclined to believe this is simple ocean-current “weather” – that for whatever reason a bunch of the ocean surface has experienced less upwelling or whatever than normal and so has warmed, the record air temperatures are in response to the record ocean temperatures? any more expert thoughts?
Dan. Too bad that the AMO oceanic climate index time-series is not being updated (see the explanation at https://psl.noaa.gov/data/timeseries/AMO/). But an alternate measure is available based on ERSST
The AMO has shown temperature spikes in the past but this still looks significant.
The diff between the conventional AMO and this ad hoc AMO is that the trend has not been removed?
dan blumsays
one more question while I am at it. when i look at climate reanalyzer website, and select daily temperatures for the northern hemisphere versus the southern hemisphere, the southern hemisphere temperatures are highly volatile from day to day – the line bounces up and down considerably. the nothern hemisphere lines are quite smooth day-to-day. since the southern hemisphere is most ocean i would have expected exactly the opposite – that the air temperatures would be moderated by the relatively stable sea surface temperature and *less* volatile day-to-day. any thoughts?
Susan Andersonsays
For weather questions, you could do worse than ask them over at YCC EotS, though the comment section is a hodgepodge and extremely busy. A lot of expert meteos hang out there and could tell you more. The main articles are consistently fine (Masters & Henson). https://yaleclimateconnections.org/topic/eye-on-the-storm/
Silvia Leahu-Aluassays
Today, November 10, is the World Science Day for Peace and Development, part of the International Week of Science and Peace (Nov 9 – 15).
Let’s celebrate science and scientists and thank them for their hard and most valuable work.
I want to thank in particular @Group for their essential work and for taking their time and probably a lot of restraint to maintain this valuable website. I am grateful to all the climate scientists (with few exceptions of those who have gone awry for fossil money or having lost their capacity to reason) who continue to show us all what we are causing to our most unique planet, but also the solutions to reverse the climate emergency and bring humanity back withing the planetary boundaries.
Hurrah!!
After 205 days of the Antarctica Sea Ice Extent setting record low levels (since 20th April), mostly records set by a seriously massive margin, it looks at last like 2023 has met its match.
And more than that, as the Antarctic melt season gets into top gear, 2023 SIE looks like it’s stalled (famous last words?) and might now return to more expected levels. It’s certainly going in that direction at the moment. See graph 3a here.
Mike Ssays
This is about weather, rather than climate, but I would be interested in what people here think about the article below. It is about a Google AI weather forecasting project that claims to beat traditional computer models, although there are some limitations.
First, a disclaimer. I am no longer an active weather forecaster, so I am not fully aware of the latest techniques. This is a response to the Science article only.
AI as described in the article looks like a valuable tool. However, like most tools, it can be well-used or ill-used. Making more efficient use of processing time for large weather forecasting models would be a good use. Also, allowing forecasters to “auto-fill” detail better. For example, adjusting a forecast to complex topography, or providing detailed wind forecasts for maritime use. It is very computer intensive to generate this type of detail from numerical models, and beyond the time constraints of a human forecaster. It might also be a good use in situations where there aren’t enough forecasters to provide adequate coverage. It might do better in selecting likely weather pattern evolution for long-range weather forecasts.
A.I. would be ill-used to reduce the number of forecasters or observations for the purpose of saving money. This will certainly be a temptation for those who don’t know what forecasters do. It would be the equivalent of cutting back on fire fighters or equipment because big fires are rare. You won’t have what you need to do the job when the occasion arises. This is somewhat understood for fire fighting, but not necessarily for dealing with big weather events.
A more subtle pathway to ill-usage is the probably weaker AI ability to handle rare weather events. In my experience, these tend to be the most consequential, because humans and infrastructure are often unprepared. The article mentions a 40-year training period with ECMWF reanalysis data. What I’ve seen so far of AI is that it succeeds by picking the most likely or median response, somewhat as if it were crowd-sourced. If the AI forecast is biased in this way, it will understate the magnitude of these rare situations. This is already a problem for forecasters. When a truly large weather anomaly looms, it is hard to believe that things will get that severe – and successfully incorporate it into forecasts and warnings in a way that will be effective. Numerical models at least have the virtue of incorporating the physics of the situation. If it’s a 500-year extreme in physical parameters, they will crank out a 500-year extreme forecast, and thereby alert the human forecaster that something really unusual might occur.. (They also have a high false-alarm rate for extreme events, but are sometimes accurate.) I also wonder how well AI will handle events that are rare because of multiple factors that don’t always align. For example, rainfall that is enhanced both by large scale weather systems, embedded mesoscale structures such as fronts or outflow boundaries, convection, and topography.
Evaluating whether one forecast tool “beats” another is less straightforward than it might seem. It depends on which criteria you use, and how you measure the error. For example, Let’s say that AI was able reduce the mean(or even rms) wind speed error at an airport by 10% from 0.20 to 0.18 m/sec by identifying common numerical model biases in prevailing winds and correcting for them. However, it consistently underestimates the rare instances where the wind speed exceeds 20 m/sec, and the airport has to be closed due to low level wind shear. If I’m the airport operator, I might prefer the numerical forecast with the larger error, but less bias in extreme situations.
Carbomontanussays
On Unforced Variations in the Real Climate
Ladies and Gentlemen, Kjære Menighed
Now we are at the end of novemer and it is time for introspection & Lux interna. I live in the northern hemisphere 59.5 deg north. The sun is very low and will turn again at St.Thomas, winter solstice.. Before that we have Barbara, Nicolaus and Lucia.
But we will have the 25th sunday in the church year that does not come every year because of the moon calendar. With Bachs Cantate to that day of the 10 virgins. Mattheus 25-
Along with the Boyscouts, Be prepared,………. Allways prepared.
You have to read for yourselves, and the next Parabel is that about the Talents.
But my message today is BWV 645 Bach Werk Verzeichnis 645 Choralvorpiel to the Cantate. BWV 140
That is my favourite Bach Organ composition using 3 registers , the 5 virgins in Principal 4 foot open labial pipes with Basso in 16 foot Open labial pipe register
Then comes CANTVS “Wachet au ruft uns die Stimme” in sharp Regal thounge- pipe register. into it.
It is shown on Video from several places on Youtube.
Showing righthand 5 good virgins fingers in flauto principal dis-cantus, accompanied by 16 foot Basso in the Pedal, and then comes and interferes CANTVS choral, sharp as a ramhorn of old Sion in the left hand…. by Regal pipes…. of ,the crumhorn reed type..
” Sleepers awake ..” in English translation.
This special piece is my Bach favourite. ….quite especiallyin this late novemjber winter darkness.
Allways keept your tiny “higher spiritual” candle flame of consciousness that is quite exacty between your ears and atop of your cerebellum trimmed even asleep….
especially in late November…..
TK has pointed out, correctly, that I made an illogical transition in my article on evaporative cooling in the climate system. I assumed proportionate global rise in water vapor from a land-based rise in evaporation. Land is only 29.2% of Earth’s surface (Sellers 1965, p. 5). Thus water vapor doubled over land should increase global airborne water vapor only 29.2%, not 100%.
However, as I demonstrated in my article, water vapor must increase less than 18% for the doubled evaporation to yield net cooling. This implies that a 100% increase in land evaporation is accompanied by only a 61.6% increase in water vapor. In mathematical terms:
W/Wo = (E/Eo) ^ 0.692
where W is water vapor burden and E evaporation, both over land. Calling the exponent p, the purveyors of the evaporation solution have the burden of proof that p <= 0.692. To me it doesn't seem likely, because 1) the more humid the air, the closer to saturation, and it gets harder for more evaporation to occur, and 2) evaporation is driven by solar radiation, and more water vapor in the atmosphere increases the shortwave optical thickness of the atmosphere, resulting in less sunlight at the ground–that would also cool the surface a bit, of course, so which direction the net effect would be is unclear,
So BP, now that you have all the kinks worked out, could you maybe calculate what would happen if you decrease the water vapor in the atmosphere?
Piotrsays
Zebra to BPL: “ could you maybe calculate what would happen if you decrease the water vapor in the atmosphere?”
What for? That won’t convince the deniers who called here for an increase in evaporation,
(and there is no reason to expect the results of lowering and increasing evaporation to be symmetrical)..
Nor would it help to understand the future, since the future warmer world would have more, not less, evaporation. And the effect of increasing evaporation have been shown in Schmidt et al. 2010 – where he uses a realistic climate model instead of extremely simplified model by BPL.
zebrasays
“that won’t convince the deniers”
Whereas you and BP have just shut them down completely with your detailed and insightful long-form arguments.
Got it.
Piotrsays
Zebra Nov 18 “Whereas you and BP have just shut them down completely with your detailed and insightful long-form arguments. Got it.”
No, you didn’t. My and BPL’s “detailed and insightful (thank you) comments” are not for the deniers, but for the people who may come to this site, having heard deniers claims and either are not sure how to answer them, or might think that there may be something in it.
And it’s …rich that your lecture BPL that his detailed arguments and calculations will be lost on the deniers, a mere day after^* you asked
… the very same BPL to run for some additional …. calculations for you, with which you hoped to convince … the deniers. You see the irony, right?
——
^* Zebra Nov.17: “ So BP, now that you have all the kinks worked out, could you maybe calculate what would happen if you decrease the water vapor in the atmosphere?”
z: could you maybe calculate what would happen if you decrease the water vapor in the atmosphere?
BPL: It would cool the surface.
Piotrsays
zebra: could you maybe calculate what would happen if you decrease the water vapor in the atmosphere?
BPL: It would cool the surface.
Olé ! ;-) (didn’t know they have corridas de cebras …)
Piotrsays
BPL “I assumed proportionate global rise in water vapor from a land-based rise in evaporation. Land is only 29.2% of Earth’s surface (Sellers 1965, p. 5). Thus water vapor doubled over land should increase global airborne water vapor only 29.2%, not 100%.”
Barton, you may have went too far in the other. The water vapour does not stay in the same place it evaporated. The excess vapour It will move from land over to the ocean
Piotrsays
BPL “I assumed proportionate global rise in water vapor from a land-based rise in evaporation. Land is only 29.2% of Earth’s surface. Thus water vapor doubled over land should increase global airborne water vapor only 29.2%, not 100%.”
You may have overcorrected , Barton . The water vapour does not stay over the same place it evaporated from. A 25 km/h air mass movement (warm fronts may move up to 5o/km/h) over the 9 days (~ average residence time) could take you 5,500 km away from the source of the evaporation.
Furthermore, the water vapour over the ocean may increase NOT only by extra humid air masses drifting from the land, but also by the reduced supply of CCNs from the same land. Doubling the evaporation over land and resulting increase in precipitation would washout a lot of CCNs (dust, pollen, industrial pollution) so the washed out CCNs would no longer drift over the ocean and “seed” clouds and rain over there.
In other words, with fewer CCNs getting over the ocean, the room for extra water vapour would increase, since you can have the RH >100 % and under the scarcity of the CCNs – still not form the clouds. With relative humidity (RH) > 100 % and no precipitation yet – you have increased warming without the cooling by latent heat. So the increases in water vapour would not be limited to land but would extend 1000s of km from the shorelines.
Finally, as you already hinted – the evaporation is most effective in places that have low RH. Which means that most of the doubling of the natural evaporation from land would have to happen disproportionally over dry places. places like Sahara where the near ground the RH today could be as low as 25%. which means that you can add you can increase the humidity 4-fold vapour, and still not precipitate any rain. Which means, again. that you increased the LW absorption by water vapour without any latent heat nor cloud albedo increase.
Although I highly appreciate your correction, I must respectfully disagree therewith. Unfortunately, it appears that when correcting your mistake, you overlooked that in Part 1 of your analysis
you assumed in accordance with Sellers, 1965, that the latent heat flux above land) is 38 W/m2 only – significantly less than the latent heat flux assumed above ocean (108.6 W/m2). Accordingly, you assumed in Part 2 of your analysis
that if the latent heat flux doubles to 76 W/m2, the global convective flux will rise from original 112 W/m2 to 123.1 W/m2. As 123.1/112 is approximately 1.1, I tend to still agree with the objection raised by JCM on September 9
although he calculated slightly higher increase of the global convective energy flux (12 instead 10 %) as a result of the assumed latent heat flux doubling above land.
In other words, if my and JCM objections are correct, the true result of your analysis will be opposite to the result that you repeatedly presented:
Should global water vapour concentration rise commensurately to the assumed convective flux increase, as you assumed in Part 5 of your analysis
as the upper limit for water vapour concentration increase that may be allowable if an increase in water cycle intensity should exhibit a neat cooling effect on global surface temperature.
Conclusion:
I still believe that (contrary to your repeated assertion), your analysis in fact showed that an artificial increase in water cycle intensity may have a neat cooling effect, even if this increase would have been accompanied by a commensurate increase of the global average absolute air humidity.
Please, double-check and let me know if I am wrong.
Greetings
Tomáš
Carbomontanussays
Kalisz
You make it very coplicated for Mr. Levenson, but your conclusion seems orthodox and even trivial.
You claim that the formation of clouds due to convective heat transfer at higher atmospheric water content may actually cool the situation, despite of water vapours warming at the same time as an invisible greehhouse gas.
It is what we have here each year more or less regular, the monsune- effect.
but notice that it is not “evapotranspiration” from the ground by intact forest vegetation that cools it.
Both chill rain from the sky and the shadow of clouds cools it.
Now we have deeper frosty nights here at last due to more clear weather. That is typical radiative chilling.
Moral:
Water has got both warming and chilling effects alltogether typical damping and termostatic effects damping the extreemes. Water is aquite especially good, practical, and fameous carrier of both warmth and chill…..
JCMsays
The equilibrium vapor pressure follows from temperature. The vapor pressure should not be thought to lead temperature. Water is unlike a trace gas forcing.
In a scheme which is initially reducing temperature 2K or whatever, along with natural evapotranspiration process, it’s unphysical in computation to have an excess of vapor sticking around.
The steady state flows of mass and energy involve ET, condensation, and other natural cycling mechanisms through the system. This used to be foundational primary teaching.
Advanced teachings suggest that the latent flux must be matched by radiative cooling in the non equilibrium steady state of flows. Traffic jams in computed flux are the result of half-baked conceptual logics.
On humidity: we see normally that in cooler months the precipitation frequency is considerably higher than that of warmer months. Conversely, in the hottest deserts water vapor duration is exceedingly long in spite of its low concentration. Relatively cool places minimize vapor duration irrespective of the magnitude, distribution, and frequency of flows in and out. This is optimal.
The opening of windows for cooler nights requires also the condensation (dehumidification) aloft, someplace, preferably during the daylight updrafts so as to reflect the incoming solar beam. Late afternoon showers lead to cooler nights.
I should caution that exploitation of natural processes is distinct from continuously “forcing” water into the air by mechanical pumped irrigation or whatever; for this reason I do not endorse a continuous irrigation concept. This fights against the natural balance sheet.
The optimal scheme is a landscape which frees up the air to sort it out. Increasing freedom is the opposite of forcing it.
TK: that if the latent heat flux doubles to 76 W/m2, the global convective flux will rise from original 112 W/m2 to 123.1 W/m2. As 123.1/112 is approximately 1.1, I tend to still agree with the objection raised by JCM on September 9
BPL: No, you’re dragging in the wrong numbers. I wasn’t talking about the global convective flux, which covers sensible heat as well as latent heat. I was talking about evaporation only.
I apologize for my confusion, but I still have not understood your explanation.
In your example, you considered a change of the Fconv parameter in the given global energy balance from initial 112 to 123.1 W/m2.
Later, you considered that this change would have been accompanied by doubling of global average absolute humidity, and recently admitted a mistake and corrected the assumed water vapour concentration increase to ca 30 % only.
Could you explain in more detail why the 10 % Fconv increase was caused by 30 % global humidity increase?
As correctly noted by JCM, doubling the assumed value 38 W/m2 of latent heat flux above land to 76 W/m2 is equivalent to 12.6 % increase in the global latent heat flux, because the latent heat flux above sea (which is considered unchanged) is 108 W/m2.
If one assumes that mean global absolute humidity should be proportionate to global latent heat flux, I would expect that the average absolute air humidity, taken as a basis for the subsequent estimation of the water vapour greenhouse effect, will be also 12.6 % higher.
TK
Russellsays
Imagine what Bach might have written had he been court organist in some principality that saw more of the Northern Lights
nigeljsays
Tomas Kalisz
“Nevertheless, as regards subsidies, I think that it is a measure that has to be used exceptionally and very carefully, because there is a huge addictive potential.”
Agreed. I assume you mean businesses becoming dependent on subsidies and lobbying to keep them in place, and governments being reluctant to end subsidies, because of possible job losses, and the potential the loss of campaign donations from affected industries. This is a problem. Australia’s car industry received subsidies for about 40 years! And they only ended recently.
The purpose of subsidies is sometimes to enable certain industries to get started, where there is a public good, and they would struggle in a free market setting. This seems ok to me in certain cases. Asia started its technology sector with strictly time limited subsidies. Western countries seem to be more relaxed about how long subsidies last but this just means companies get addicted.
Subsidies can be used for dubious purposes like appeasing campaign donors or subsidising energy costs to appease the public.
“human technical creativity is a factor that any time in human history helped to human survival. ”
I interpreted this to mean you feel governments can suppress creativity with their bureaucracy. It can happen sometimes but California has quite an activist local government and massive creativity. It all depends how the bureaucracy is structured. California shows it can be done well.
Piotr appeared to interpret you to mean that we don’t have to do anything much about climate change right now because we can rely on technical innovation in the future. I agree with Piotrs criticisms on this. We cannot assume we will eventually find a novel and excellent solution and it seems unlikely we would. And we have some reasonably good solutions right now (renewable energy, nuclear energy, carbon sequestration schemes).
And the longer we wait to do something, or expand renewables, the more we lock ourselves into either geoengineering or carbon sequestration. We know geoengineering is always going to be risky and carbon sequestration has huge problems if we were very reliant on it. Its a huge gamble to think some future innovation would overcome these obstacles.
“Whereas you assess them as “good”, I strongly doubt that e.g. massive use of available nuclear technology, planned massive replacement of natural gas with hydrogen and like for the sake of decarbonization can fulfill the task without causing more harm than good.”
I do not recall Piotr promoting those schemes in particular. We already have a range of viable solutions including wind, solar, and geothermal power. I would not rule out nuclear power provided the industry sorts out the problems with waste disposal. It is clean, zero carbon power.
Use of hydrogen is more debatable due to its low efficiency.
The point is we don’t have one magic bullet power source that stands out. Fusion MIGHT eventually fill that role but its not going to be developed in time to be useful with the climate issue. Generally many countries historically have had a mixture of generating sources and have made that work. For example coal, plus gas, plus hydro. I suspect this will continue in principle for some time, but with a mixture of wind, solar, geothermal, hydro and nuclear power. This may not be the perfect solution, but I’m not seeing some massive problem with it. “Don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good” (Voltaire).
Piotrsays
Good reply, Nigel. A clarification though, could you explain what you mean by “use of hydrogen its low efficiency“?
Hydrogen is not a source of (industrial) energy – I don’t think there are any exploitable concentrations of H2 gas on Earth – so hydrogen could be at best a carrier and/or storage of the energy already produced:
It could be used to replace oil or gas in cars and trucks (fuel cell technology). Or it could be used to make the renewables more effective – by using the surplus energy (in times when the demand is less than the supply) that otherwise would go to waste. This can be done in two ways:
1. as energy storage: the surplus electricity is used in hydrolysis to produce H2, and then H2 is converted back to electricity, when electricity is needed. Obviously, there will be losses in converting electricity into H and then back to electricity – but this efficiency has to be compared either with the efficiency and cost of other storage, or if those are unavailable – with the 0% efficiency of wasting the surplus electricity by stopping the turbines or burning the surplus on wires.
2. the other application is to use the surplus energy in making a product that otherwise would require the use of “non-surplus” electricity and/or natural gas. This is what a planned wind turbine project in Newfoundland proposes to do – they will use the wind power to produce ammonia – which then will be exported to Germany – where either they will strip H from NH3 molecules and use to make the electricity (making it a form of storage and transatlantic transport of electricity), or use NH3 in industrial processes that require NH3 as their raw material, the production of which is today responsible for 1.8% of global CO2 emissions.
The 2nd application is obviously better – as the same amount surplus electricity is more effective in displacing GHG emissions than the storage.
nigeljsays
Piotr
“A clarification though, could you explain what you mean by “use of hydrogen its low efficiency“?
Quote: “Hydrogen is an inefficient use of clean electricity. It is always more efficient to use renewable power directly than to convert renewable energy to hydrogen for use as an energy source. This is true across sectors and end uses. Using renewables to produce hydrogen is about 20 to 40 percent less efficient than using renewable energy directly, when direct use is feasible. For this reason, the Sierra Club would always prefer to use renewable electricity directly where possible. Potential uses for green hydrogen should be limited to cases in which the renewable energy cannot be used directly or stored effectively. ”
It appears to me that the article is referring to use of hydrogen as a primary energy source in combustion engines or in hydrogen fuel cells being inefficient and undesirable, but they do accept that hydrogen has a place as an electrofuel storage medium to deal with the intermittency of renewables as you outlined.
The source also discriminates between blue hydrogen (bad) and green hydrogen. (preferable). Kalisz appears to be criticising blue hydrogen. Its unclear what he thinks about green hydrogen.
The source seems like a good overall review of the use of hydrogen.
I admit I should have written a more detailed comment on the hydrogen issue in my original post stating that it does have some good uses. However the thing that I was focused on was Tomas Kaliz sweeping generalisation’s that the current technical solutions to the climate issue are deficient, thus smearing everything, but when pressed he refers just to allegedly nuclear power and hydrogen power. I was trying to point out yes those two solutions do have SOME limitations, but we already have other credible solutions like wind and solar power, (and other storage solutions).
Piotrsays
Piotr: “A clarification though, could you explain what you mean by “use of hydrogen its low efficiency“?
Nigel: “I was going by sources such as the Sierra Club referring to use of hydrogen as a primary energy source in combustion engines or in hydrogen fuel cells being inefficient and undesirable”
I understand. Energetically – direct use of electricity is obviously better than converting it to hydrogen and then running the same application with hydrogen, and unless there some kind of distortion of the market with massive subsidies – I don’t see why anybody would do it.
So the only reason I can see for Sierra Club in putting such a caveat is to avoid such distortions:
if the gov. subsidized building Hydrogen-cars so much, that it would make it cheaper to have electricity to convert to H and drive a car with hydrogen than it would be to have it run directly with electricity. Obviously this would be an absurd way to do it, but that never stopped the politicians before (see the subsidies to crops grown for biofuel that were not about climate but providing subsidies to vote-rich electorate)
But if we leave the political distortion aside, the sensible uses of hydrogen are:
a) using it as raw material for industrial process that require H2, which otherwise would have to be obtained from fossil fuels – by replacing them – it obviously is “good”
b) temporary storage of the surplus electricity (when the supply is larger than demand) – here we judge whether H is good or bad what it is more efficient than the alternatives – i.e. more effective that other forms of storage, or in the absence of these – better than nothing (nothing = wasting the excess energy by stopping turbines or burning the excess electricity on wires)
c) displacing fossil fuels by increasing the portability of renewable electricity – say a plane powered with hydrogen made from electricity as opposed to putting heavy batteries onto the plane to run it directly by that electricity.
d) allowing to better sequester emitted GHGs – you can’t collect CO2 from individual cars tailpipes, but if you run cars on hydrogen then either you would not need to collect CO2 if H was from renewables, or if you used nat. gas to make H2 – you could sequester CO2 from a single smokestack instead of thousands of tail pipes.
And it is from these applications that Kalisz tries to distract us by throwing the baby with bathwater – he used such wrong (and still theoretical) uses of hydrogen as a proof that decarbonization using existing technologies “would do more bad than good”. Which was needed by him to defend his claim that we should do nothing about our emissions of CO2, while counting on the famous human ingenuity to kick in with 100% perfect solution.
It appears that you do not care much about efficiency an costs of energy storage and transport, but I am afraid that if we have to make renewable sources really competitive with fossil fuels – and I do not think that any other mode of this desirable transition is viable – then efficiency and economy matter.
The reasoning for ammonia as energy storage medium is in its significantly higher volumetric energy density and significantly lower storage and transport costs resulting therefrom. Compare ca 2 kWh/L for liquid hydrogen at – 253 °C, requiring hi-tech cryogenic tanks, with more than 4 kWh/L for liquid ammonia that can be transported at normal temperature in simple steel tanks.
There are, however, still some drawbacks. First, already by converting hydrogen into ammonia, you dissipate into environment as a basically useless heat ca 30 % of the valuable electric energy that you originally saved by water electrolysis in hydrogen, and the same amount of energy will be required for splitting ammonia back to nitrogen and hydrogen if you would like to use hydrogen in hydrogen fuel cells.
You may, of course, consider fuel cells processing directly ammonia instead of hydrogen. Should this fuel cell be reversible, you could even convert nitrogen and water directly into ammonia and oxygen and avoid also the loss of the enthalpy of ammonia formation in the classical Haber-Bosch process. The problem is in low electrochemical reactivity of covalently bound hydrogen in molecular hydrogen as well as in ammonia, and even lower reactivity of molecular nitrogen. This is the reason why even after hundred years of hydrogen fuel cell development, we cannot build any hydrogen cell with a reasonable power density without considerable amount of extremely expensive platinum metals.
The low abundance and high price of platinum metals basically prevent any large scale use of hydrogen or ammonia fuel cell technology until we achieve a breakthrough in development of equally or more efficient catalysts based on cheap materials, I am afraid. The same applies even stronger also for direct electrochemical ammonia synthesis that is still basically unexplored.
In view of notorious unpredictability of chemical arts, nobody can say when the desired breakthroughs in the development of the respective catalysts may come, if at all. In other words: Although ammonia could theoretically enable an efficient direct electricity conversion into chemical energy, cheap storage and transport, and efficient direct conversion back into electricity, development of the respective technology is a basic science rather than engineering. In a such situation, it cannot be predicted with any certainty when the goal can be achieved, irrespective of resources dedicated thereto.
On the other hand, sodium has a similar volumetric density and can be stored and transported even easier than ammonia (no pressure vessels necessary). It can be prepared by direct electrolysis analogously as hydrogen. US 3 730 776 showed that explosive reaction of metallic sodium with water can be tamed to produce electricity. As this extremely quick reaction enables industrially applicable power densities without any catalyst, commercialization of Geisler’s fuel cell is a purely engineering task, not requiring any material development with a highly uncertain success prospect. For these reasons, I believe that large scale electricity storage in metallic sodium can make electricity from renewable sources fully competitive with electricity from fossil fuels during a few years. And I must say that I indeed observe how subsidies dedicated to promote electricity storage in hydrogen distort the environment for possible alternatives.
At the end, I would like to add a short remark regarding green hydrogen use as a raw material for chemical industry. I think that if we consider economy decarbonisation with electricity from renewable sources, providing a method for an efficient and cheap large scale electricity storage can enable complete decarbonisation of electricity production within next 15 years without substantial subsidies from public sources. On the other hand, it can be reasonably expected that “green” hydrogen will be then still significantly more expensive than hydrogen from natural gas.
For this reason, I think that even in a longer perspective, it can be more efficient to decarbonize ammonia production (and, possibly also further technologies using hydrogen) with “blue” hydrogen from natural gas rather than with “green” hydrogen. It could be especially advantageous if the blue hydrogen production and its conversion to the desired chemical products would have taken place directly at natural gas production fields.
The same might apply for metallurgy decarbonisation. As far as I know, steelmaking with hydrogen would have been, for fundamental reasons given by thermodynamics of the respective reactions, several times more expensive than current technology. I therefore suppose that until a technology for direct iron production by electrolysis (analogous to current aluminium production technology) becomes cheaper than classical steelmaking amended with carbon dioxide capture and storage, the latter may be much more appropriate alternative for decarbonisation of this industry branch than brute force “clean” approach using “green” hydrogen.
Greetings
Tomáš
Piotrsays
Tomas Kalisz Nov 18
“Dear Piotr, I tried to explain the drawbacks of hydrogen as a medium for energy storage by numbers presented in, but I have a feeling that I was too short”
Then your feeling is wrong – the last thing anyone here could accuse you of, is being too … brief.
Your problem is your ignorance, and your brain being over the place – in this thread you promoted doing nothing about climate change, while waiting for the famous human ingenuity to kick in and providing a 100% perfect technological fix. (If we are so smart, how comes we haven’t invented it YET?)
Then you ignored?/were unable to understand? the response that “The perfect is the enemy of the good”, and you:
a) assured us how nuclear is a “1960s technology”, and as such not as “good” (in the discussion of reducing GHG emissions!) as …. one of the dirtiest of the fossil fuels, and XVIII (?) technology, brown coal.
b) attacked hydrogen, as if it were an inefficient source of energy, and not a STORAGE for the temporary EXCESS renewable energy, or a more portable MEDIUM for renewable electricity
Unless you address these points – your writing MORE pages why you don’t like hydrogen
is putting even more lipstick on a pig.
nigeljsays
Tomas Kalisz
In your comments above thread, you appear to be criticising the American approach of government subsidising very particular climate solutions (eg blue hydrogen). In new Zealand we call it “picking winners”. You are critical of the technology and economics of blue hydrogen and the limitations of related government decision making of ”picking winners” equating it with communism.
Again I do generally agree on this even although I’m not a fanatical capitalist and Im not anti every socialist idea. Blue hydrogen looks like a bad solution to me in all respects. Green hydrogen would be better.
And governments do have a bad track record of picking winners. They just don’t have the expertise or freedom from bias. As I previously stated, governments are instead better to apply their subsidies equally ( if they must have subsidies) to a wide range of possible solutions (for example all possible biofuels, electrofuels or zero carbon generating sources) and then the private sector in a free market setting is better placed to figure out the most economic option and converge on that. Of course even this doesn’t work perfectly, but its better.
You cite the creative and technical value of a sodium fuel cell, and that this solution has been ignored. Well perhaps it has been ignored, but the harsh reality is no matter how the government run the economy and no matter what the private sector do, they might just not be aware of the patents for this technology and might never find them. That’s a fact of life and a tragedy of life.
Although It seems to me likely that the corporations exploring hydrogen fuel cells would have considered things like sodium fuel cells and perhaps found problems with the technology. I do not have a chemistry degree but I recall from school that sodium is very volatile especially in contact with water or even slight dampness. There might be safety issues.
You complain that governments do not support innovation and creativity. In my country of New Zealand our government subsidises some private sector research where there is a possible public good but it is not financially attractive to the corporate to fund the research. This seems like one of the better uses of subsidies. I don’t know what America does.
As regards communication with politics and corporate sphere, I admit that I must learn how to make more efficient the promotion of possible alternatives, like electricity storage in metallic sodium, and, more generally, of testing fundamental innovations that may create such alternatives.
I only think that Piotr’s assumption that they are receptive (or, even, that they perhaps proactively look after such alternatives and/or after ways to find them more efficiently) may not fit with reality.
As regards sodium storage, you are right that sodium does react violently with water. Under circumstances, the reaction may even result in an explosion.
By the way, the mechanism of this explosive reaction has been explored in more detail relatively recently
Sodium sensitivity to water is, however, the sole issue with sodium storage. It is a relatively trivial problem that is simply and reliably resolved by using tight containers. In comparison with other “green” media for large scale energy like hydrogen, sodium storage is technically much simpler and accordingly cheaper. The same applies for its transport.
On the other hand, the extreme rate of sodium reaction with water may become a trump card if you compare sodium and hydrogen fuel cells: Hydrogen fuel cells require significant amounts of sophisticated catalysts what effectively prevents their scale-up to industrially applicable powers.
Practically, after more than 100 years of development, the best catalysts for hydrogen fuel cells are still extreme expensive platinum metals, and no one can predict if (and if so, when) a solution enabling efficient hydrogen fuel cells with megawatt power for an affordable price will be found. There is no such problem with sodium, and I do not see a substantial physical obstacle preventing sodium fuel cell scale up.
That is why I believe that megawatt generators fuelled with Na can become commercial within a few years, and why I very recently founded a company with the main task to develop and promote them.
GISTEMP have posted for October with a global anomaly of +1.34ºC, a small drop on the September’s +1.47ºC but, no surprise, still the warmest October on record by a country mile. The previous top-ten warmest Octobers run 2015 (+1.09ºC), 2018 (+1.01ºC), 2019, 2021, 2022, 2017, 2020 & 2016 (both +0.88ºC), and 2012 & 2014 (both +0.80ºC).
October 2023’s +1.34ºC is the 4th highest ranking ‘all-month’ anomaly behind Sept 2015 (+1.47ºC) and just behind the El-Niño-boosted Feb 2016 (+1.36ºC) & March 2016 (+1.35ºC).
The months of 2023 are making quite a presence at the top of the ‘all-month’ anomaly rankings, now sitting in 1st (Sept), 3rd (Oct), 6th (Mar), 7th (Aug) & 8th (Jul), with both Jun (21st) and April (=30th) also well up the order. And with the UoMaine ReAnalyzer continuing to post record daily global SATs and even all-day-of-the-year records for the anomalies over the last four days (Oct 16th-19th run +1.2ºC, +1.3ºC, +1.3ºC, +1.2ºC when I see onting higher than +1.1ºC, previously on record). So chances are, we can expect November to be pushing for another highest ‘all-month’ anomaly.
With October’s GISTEMP arrived, there does seem to be a NH-SH variation appearing, with the NH being increasingly the reason for record-breaking 2023 months, the NH Oct anomaly being +1.9ºC, a massive +0.6ºC above the previous warmest Octs (2022 & 2021 =1st).
Carbomontanussays
Ladies and gentlemen
On FAG-IDIOTs.
I am trying to translate the conscept “Fag- idiot” into English, where they seem to lack both the conscept and the word. That is put together from Fag and Idiot.
Faq, comes from Fach in German, ( probably by Hanseatic diffusion to scandinavia) that is a wooden frame of any kind and with a bottom meant to contain things. Especially in houses. where it comes recycled brickwork and when that is not available, mixed bullshit with clay straw and twigs into the Fach- work, wooden frameworks.
See Fachwerk= Masonry frame- work.
Das Fach! then suddenly also means the drawer or an open “box” mounted in further furnitures, where you can put and store away things and close it.
Further, in borrowed meaning it means what you call a trade, a craft, or a profession. Also called “Fag!.
But I tend to believe that this is recent meaning and comes from industrial segregation and strict political commercial isolation of operations, Anti- scientifric and canti- academic, obviously rather desired and furthered in recent time by monopoly- capitalism, heavily stinking of production secrets also.
See Adam Smiths obsolete recepy for “the wealth of nations”.
And there we have it, the routine working ROBOTic workers in the factory where the earth is flat within error- bars… who know and care for nothing outside of their strictly defined and segregated frames of reference.
Those and their grandchildren all the way make up the typical Fag- idiots today, the Frame- worker – idiots.
That is a mental, political and socio- cultural disease or disaster.
Example: “Good tools do good work, the shoemaker said, he ate the soup with his awl!”
Thus, the shoemaker said because he was an incorrigible FAG-IDIOT.
But common sense should have told him that the tool and the operation should be somehow phaenomenolotgically congruent. For broad soups better take and use broad spoons.
Then I hope that those who can get it will have got it,
I am asking for a good and deeply enough hurting , english or US American translation of “FAG-IDIOT!” that can be further used and applied wherever appliciable in the climate dispute.
Ned Kellysays
Carbomontanus, Skriv tankene dine på det som er ditt første språk, og få dem deretter oversatt til engelsk av deepL, google-translate eller yandex-translate (eller andre tilsvarende).
Å prøve å analysere dine forsøk på å kjøre forbi det engelske språket er en resultatløs bestrebelse – du formidler ingen merkbar mening.
Vennligst bruk en oversetter!
Then I had a funny thought – what if he already is using a translator? :-)
Carbomontanussays
Kalisz
Very frine thank you, so “Fagmann and Fagidiot will be understood in Praha.
Definitely. I am, however, afraid that Radge Havers’ reaction might be a sign that I overestimated the influence of German language on English.
Dear Radge,
I believe that Carbomontanus’ was not going to introduce a particularly rude insult not yet heard in this forum..
Greetings to both of you
Tom
Radge Haverssays
TK,
“.. that I overestimated the influence of German language on English.”
Hard for me to say. I think German is colloquially more influential in some regions than others. And in some academic fields German is probably more influential than in every day speech.
When it comes to words, English is a fairly acquisitive language, all kinds of influences.
I think that there’s a fairly strong influence of Germanic languages on English. Less so for modern German. I think I’d be hard-pressed to name a dozen German words that have been adopted into common English use since the start of the 19th century.
MA Rodgersays
prl,
You may be hard-pressed but there are actually plenty of German words fed into English since 1800. A list of German words from here (the bottom section of the list of 52) yields only one that pre-dates 1800 in the Oxford Shorter English Dictionary, and that one only by 44 years. (neanderthal, spiel, verboten, wunderkind, poltergeist, doppelgänger ersatz, zeppelin, flak, rucksack, umlaut, kaput, quartz, hinterland, angst, gesundheit, schadenfreude)
And note the absence of the words ‘climate’ and ‘science’ from the list.
Ned Kellysays
“Fagmann and Fagidiot”
Very professional science there Carbomontanus ….. Deep. Really mature. Not!
I see you have already retrograded back into a bossy arrogant little three year old again … just what the site needs. Not.
Jeg synes synd på de stakkars ansatte som snart må ta seg av det ustabile, utålelige rasistiske søppelet ditt på sykehjemmet slik vi er tvunget til her!
Ha litt respekt for andre mennesker og legg en sokk i den!
prlsays
M A Rodgers: After I posted, I thought I perhaps should have said “twenty” rather than “a dozen”. Twenty would cover that list. It’s still a very small number compared to the number of words in English with much earlier Germanic roots.
I think that at least in science, English language absorbed some German words or converted them into compound terms like e.g. “Eigenvalue”.
Possibly, there is also an exact equivalent to German “Fachidiot”.
I think that in German, this word has a close relationship to the word “Fachmann”. “Fachmann” is usually used in sense “skilled person”, “skilled artisan”, “expert”. In plain Czech language, “fachman” is a good craftsman, or, more generally, anybody skilled in his field.
“Fachidiot”, on the other hand, focuses on the circumstance that a narrow specialization in certain “Fach” (field, branch, sector..of the industry, science..) may not only provide the respective person with a high skill in this specific field, but, in parallel, it may on the other hand constrain its general knowledge.
In other words, my understanding to the term “Fachidiot” is “a narrow specialist, with high social deficits”, or, simply, a specialist without any feeling of a broader context of his discipline.
Your explanation with wooden shelves was also very good in this regard. I just guess that perhaps the word Fachidiot might be indeed known and used also in English in its original form.
Greetings
Tomáš
prlsays
Tomáš Kalisz:
In other words, my understanding to the term “Fachidiot” is “a narrow specialist, with high social deficits”, or, simply, a specialist without any feeling of a broader context of his discipline.
That’s how I understand it, but German isn’t my first language.
Your explanation with wooden shelves was also very good in this regard.
The derivation of Fach is from an earlier Germanic word meaning something that divides space or water.
I just guess that perhaps the word Fachidiot might be indeed known and used also in English in its original form.
I’ve never heard it used in English. It’s one of those German compound nouns that has no simple translation into English, rather like Schadenfreude, which is used in English in its original form, and with more-or-less the German pronunciation.
Google Translate translates Fachidiot as “professional idiot”, which I don’t think really captures the intention of the word in German.
As Radge Havers points out, translating Fach to “fag” in English really, really doesn’t work at all, in any of the senses of “fag”. Perhaps Carbomontanus might stop trying to coin English neologisms.
Carbomontanussays
@ prl
But perhaps also to all and everyone:
Let me not (yet) mention anything at all about pearls and swines
But I know an important principle of linguistics that rules universally , telling that
“The greater the empire (where I need not specify which empire ) the more poor and primitive is the imperial school investments in linguistic and gramatic education in the imperial center!”
Proof: . They only learn that “english is understood everywhere” and then read Charles Dickens for the rest.
Check up this by comparing several great imperial centers, Moskva, Madrid Peking, Paris,.. as many as you know about, and you will find a clear tendency..
Then compare this with the smaller and smallest empires, like Moravia, Noruegia, Hungaria, Islandia, even Holland and Helvetia.
It`s obvious why that is so.
The smaller and smallest empires have so few inhabitants that they cannot afford the print of schoolbooks and special trade and craft periodicals on any specialized subject. They publish and teach rather the basic generals quite much better, and then referre to foreign linguistic litterature and periodicals for the higher and detail detail studies.. Giving pupils and youngsters a quite much better learnings on grammars and semantics and general linguistics, and on how to find their ways aboad and in foreighn languages.
Old England, is a very old and fameous great imperial center where Downstairs cannot even understand Upstairs & vice versa,… due to minute difference of sociolects. I heard a Scotsman saying: “Bluddy britter, they can`t understand me talkin`”……
A lot of bluddy brittes are quite proud of that nowaday.
.New England is quite much better. They are bi- linguistic at least, with typical Riksmaal and Landsmaal like in old Norway. Their Riksmaal is cristal clear Harward dialect wheras Rhode Island Landsmaal is totally behind the barn allready. They tried me out on Landsmaal, smiling…so I answered in Norwegian, and then they spoke Riksmaal again.
(The normal human being in this world is tri- and quadro- linguistic rather fluently.)
I once counted up how many languages I have had to crack in order to get grown up and graduate., Then I take all 4 official scandinavian languages for one.
I counted 7 alltogether the trickiest was mideival scolastic Latin that I had to take by dictionary and some frenc grammar from high school, and …. eastern slovakian…. Well I had been 2 weeks in Praha.
And I am no philologist. But this is expected Science` levels of it.
Language problems is not Salonfähig.-> Stue- ren. ( Stue = livingroom, ren = clean) It is not “clean” it is snobbish vulgar ugly undignified.
Linguistic difficulties is something that you sshould not have got. and if you have got it, do not betray it and tell it around because being It is like being both broke and wet in your napkins and proud of your being able to mark Revier that way!.
It betrays your obvious lacks of manners and formation.
I) repeat…!
As there is allways a polish taxi- driver next by who can help you in Russian or Serbian or Moravian. That you shall have learnt in public school allready. You are not “sophisticated”.
Then we have the “Lingua Franca” the Pidgin- languages Mideival and old university Latin is a such one …. and hardly correct Cæsar Bello Gallico at all. But it is what works and not to be corrected and picked on by arbitrary provincial unqualified snob and “Fagidioti”
Kaisz an I are meeti8ng on a Pidgin- level.
==================000
I was over there in the states on the folks museum in “Connidicvt”.
And found The Swede, Professor of biochemistery standing on the museum lawn, damning and swearing so it was lightening all over the north american continent. “Dom e` så dumma här borta!” = They are so stupid over here! Repeatedly.
Are they really? I said, I pesonally find all varieties a high diversity over here.
Then took him down to earth on the museum lawn to show him proper Botanics along with Linnes system. Which is due swedish from Upstairs at the University of Uppsala. I found and showed him Veronica Malvaceae, Geranium, Compositae Plantago and so on. And just look around here. We clearly see Pinus Populus Salix Qvercus Acer Betula Sorbus,… Juniperus …everything, just by slightly different species. Because here we are on another continent but in the same tempered and coastal zone.
By good LATIN and in Linnes system, I showed him, we rule and instruct the world. But if we fall off from that, we loose the Empire!
The fameous Professor could breathe out and calm down. He was very upset because his finnish Nokia telephones did not work over there in the states.
That is the trick. Rather lift to Upstairs and use Linnaean systematics on it also over there in the states, then it clears up.
Which is also why “influenzers” and Trolls pick on that and will have it away first, in order to mark Revier and “further” rather their own and tribal racial national pure arena.
Vulgars believe opposite, they smash around with their arbitrary native mother and her silly “Tounge” that it is so especially clear, to their conscepts.
But she is the worst wherever we find her and hear her mentioned in the world That woman hardly understands her own “talkin”. and how she is barking commanding and swearing.
Instead, lift to “high language”, to “Riksmaal” even to Good “LATIN and even greek, if necessary. Try rather Pi pnevma evreka tangens alpha,.. Theta epsilon,… namely the borrowed words that are common to several languages, the foreighn words by old and enlighted tradition Upstairs at the University of Uppsala and things clears up, people can possibly understand each other and relate.
Whereas “Plain English” Englischer Platt / london cockney by that silly mother with her etnical racial purification programs is sin against the holy spirit, unforgiveable .
Radge Haverssays
Carbuncle,
OK. English evolved from germanic roots around a thousand years ago, and was strongly impacted by French when William of Normandy took over England in 1066 by poking King Harold in the eyeball with a pointed stick.
My OED has devoted about seven columns of dense text to fag and faggot. Origins of the various usages are obscure, but it seems mostly to have come into the English language via French. FWIW, in one of its many incarnations it can refer to a bundle of sticks. In another it’s a slur against homosexuals.
English is fairly rich in insults, and there is a long history of insult battles in the form of poetry from the Scotts to modern rap battles. not to mention pastimes such as the dozens. To my mind modern denizens of the mysterious land of Scotland have the funniest insults.
Re your comments, for non-native speakers an easy way to create your own insults is via the form of “dumb as a …”
Dumb as a post,
Dumb as as sack of door knobs,
etc.
That’s right, you’re welcome, you cockered long-tongued mangy-dog.
jgnfldsays
The Dictionary of Newfoundland English list additional definitions of the term including a stack, or ‘faggot’ of dried and salted fish (cod) and a term for a ‘saucy child’. I’ve heard both usages in everyday speech in rural areas (though the modern streaming media environment is fast wiping out quirky dialects).
Carbomontanussays
Jgnfld
a stack->faggot of dried codfish,-… that may possibly make sense. We say Høystakk, haystack.
A Stack has a Staur or a Stokk Stick in the middle to store or stuck it higher and safer.
if Fag- entails some kind of systematic framework so the stack- sticks better together and that is called a “fagg- ot” , then perhaps you have found something, especially on New Foundland.
Stokkafisk from Lofoten is still sold as “Stoccavisso” in Italia. They have taken over the word directly.
But you can actually stock- stack- stuck bild up and store stoccavisso in Fag.
A next word that may be etymologically related is fathom and favn and fange namely what you can favne fathom around wit 2 arms …. of firewood or hey or even stoccavisso.
Then see Wikipedias discussion of Fathom.
Autentic Masterwork Fachwerk- Fagverk masonry was measured and controlled in fathoms yards alen feet and inches.
And why Fach in German becomes Fag in Norway but becomes Fack in Sweden, , there the Dutch may have interfered, . who say ch for g. van Gogh is spoke van chooch , and den Haag is den Haach. Sweden rather related to the eastern and Lübecker Hansa.
Radge Haverssays
Oops, I should have said that English evolved around the sixth century in the current era, give or take.
Radge Haverssays
…although, it looks as though ‘fag’ might derive from ‘flag’ in which case it may have entered English via one of the Germanic languages.
nigeljsays
Carbomontanus. Somewhere above thread that I cant find now, you said something like that clouds or the water cycle would ultimately act as a negative feedback on global warming and would stop global warming. I do not see why this would necessarily happen. There is no guarantee the system would reach that sort of balance / equilibrium.
Could you explain how clouds or the water cycle would stop global warming, and when this would happen, and why at that point in time?
Note that so far, global warming has shown no signs of stopping, and has reduced the low level cumulus clouds that reflect heat which looks more like a positive feedback.
JCMsays
It has been characterized as simultaneously ‘damping or thermo-stating’ and ‘warmer wetter and wilder’ echoing old hollywood rumors and artistic dissonance.
Sea-creatures couldn’t possibly know that the marine surface is acting always at maximum thermodynamic limits and offers strict zero freedom to adapt and respond to unnatural direct continental desiccation.
The sea knows only the saturation vapor curves and surface air temperature (adjacent), and it obeys.
There is no response-ability there to bail out the landcrabs. This is essential to realize. It’s part of the feedback schemes already embedded into land-ocean temperature contrasts; it is embedded into respective curving vapor pressure disparities and transport mode.
Carbomontanussays
Nigelj
It follows from the common property of H2O as “a condensing greenhouse gas”, first as a positive feedback to CO2 and CH4 but then when it has vapored enough, forming white clouds with the para- sol effect and further by icy and chill rain from above, that cools down the situation again when the summer has become warm enough.
Theese effects are real and fameous, but I cannot quantify and scale them.
Also to be mentioned is the sequence of sunshine temperature and moisture in the year summer and winter. By time delay in the monsune areas. That is also a reality, easily observeable and to be taken for serious.
The presence of water and moisture obviously damps the temperature swings day and night summer and winter. But whether there is a resultant and increasing netto cooling effect at higher temperatures and moistures in the air, that will “curve off” global warming, I do not know. But I tend to believe it from what happens allready in todays situation in several fameous natural forms. related to clouds winds sunshine and water.
But it may for instance first come in a much too hot climate for our conscepts.
The keye to it, Gavin Schmidts turning knob on the earth climate termostat still remains CO2, but there may be a next and a bit lazy turning knob rather by H2O higher up on the temperature scale. That is what I believe and suggest. And the weathers may be dramatic before that next knob sets in.
Carbomontanussays
PS
Nigel
After having thought it more over I come to think that the negative feedback function of water by rain and clouds maybe even snow albedo, is not something higher in global temperature but because of massive liquid water inertia against beeing heated up for evaporation.
This thought is conscistent with both diurnal and annual time delay. Temperature follows radiation and moisture follow temperature.
Only in Las Vegas where there is no water nearby, , rascals believe othervice and are able to suggest artificial irrigation of Sahara to “repair the watercycle.”
For global climate we can think of warming up also the deeper oceans that mix with the surface layers.
But as there surely is such a chilling termostating effect in miniature allready, daily and annually in the monsunes, , we may further think in terms of the same on century scale.
The situation today, as far as i can see it is not so typical of higher global temperatures as to extreemly rapid and unbalanced globat. up- warming. DS.
JCMsays
A stabilizing water cycle effect can only be enhanced by increasing the area and/or duration of surface evaporation + transpiration.
In a forced warming case, a natural stabilizing effect is the increasing area (or duration) of open ocean associated with sea-ice extent decline.
Holding open water area fixed offers no additional stabilizing effect on temperature.
Conversely, closing open water area under forced cooling (and sea-ice advance) reduces moisture flux through atmosphere and slows the rate of cooling.
The climate stability dependence on sea-ice extent (and therefore temperature) is a battle between albedo and lapse rate, which are opposite in sign in terms of lambda.
Although the ocean area is large, its area is practically fixed in the climate states of interest for today. This suggests no capacity to increase climate stability.
Assuming a case of fixed area of open ocean, the remaining lever for climate stability is the area and duration of evapotranspiration from land.
Land warms faster than open ocean under net Force largely because of the local moisture limitation.
For land, the lifted condensation level is higher than over open ocean because the near surface relative humidity is lower.
The lifted condensation level (LCL) is that altitude above the surface at which the relative humidity achieves 100%. The vertical distance between surface and LCL depends on the local moisture limitation.
Initialized with a moisture limited case, a parcel of air must rise higher before saturation is reached compared to an unlimited case.
In considering the lapse rate, the temperature drop with height to the LCL follows the dry adiabatic rate (say 10K per km?). The moist adiabatic rate (say 6K per km?), and associated latent flux conversion to sensible heat, happens only above the LCL where condensation can occur in the free troposphere.
Below the condensation level the lapse rate is “dry” & rapid; Above the LCL is lapse rate is “moist” & slow (lesser). This critical inflection point on a column lapse can be visualized as roughly the cloud deck.
As should be obvious by now, the total column lapse rate (averaged) will be greater in the moisture limited cases. The inflection point is shifted higher in the sky. An alternative interpretation is that it will tend to be less cloudy on average.
Using a trace gas forcing, up in the free troposphere or tropopause or wherever up there, which can be thought to increase the potential temperature (or moist static energy) irrespective of surface properties, the resulting observed actual temperature will depend on the column lapse rate.
For this reason, and others, the temperature change with forcing is greater in moisture limited cases compared to unlimited case. In cases with Forcing + ongoing moisture suppression, the temperature change will appear even greater.
In the most simple alternative way, the partitioning of moist static energy in water limited cases is favoring the sensible heat (temperature) as opposed to the moistening flux.
Clearly you are right that anthropogenic warming could in theory create more low level clouds which reflect heat and have negative feedback properties. But the prevailing wisdom is that the total additional water vapour added to the atmospheric system by warming is a net POSITIVE feedback (clouds and free water vapour). Therefore those additional low level clouds reflecting heat are at best meaning global warming is slightly less than it would have been.
In addition low level clouds are in fact REDUCING, and models expect they will reduce. So this is actually increasing the warming effect:
So right now those low level clouds are breaking up and reducing. The clouds are breaking up due to changes in the convection and circulation I read a good explanation but cant find it now. Now its perhaps possible this process could reach a threshold and go into reverse but I haven’t seen any expert suggest this would happen. And it seems unlikely it would.
As you mention rainfall has a local cooling effect right at the surface but only right at the surface and its only when it rains. And you would obviously need a massive increase in rainfall for this to become a significant brake on global warming.
I certainly agree that IF the water cycle was to stop global warming it would only be after warming is already considerably higher than presently. However its just not clear how it would happen. I can see why you think it might happen. Because in many ways the earth is a self regulating system and water has various cooling properties.
But things can sometimes spin out of control, like the atmosphere of Venus and those processes only stopped getting worse when it reached the limits of the planets resource base! You could argue this was still a form of self regulation, but only after extreme temperatures were reached and the atmosphere was full of sulphuric acid clouds!
So the moral of the story is yes I guess its possible the water cycle could eventually stop earths global warming, but I’m not very sure that it will , and only after the earth gets very hot so its a bit academic.
And clearly irrigating the Sahara at massive scale is a bad solution. Totally impractical as various people have pointed out.
Carbomontanussays
@ Nigelj
We must take this later, Its the end of the month.
It is important things here that I believe you havent understood.
Where I have the advandtage of thinking in terms of chill also and rather unravel the climate RE-BUS from its cool side. that must be realized and discussed first. The global cooling system with radiator is being disturbed by human industries.
Allthough not quite orthodox , it is no more worse than also to think in terms of vacuum, not just pressure, and in terms of both positive and negative electrical charge current.
What about negative loaded particle heat- current flow when it comes to hails for instance? and to chilling rain? That current goes downwards. And the chill source aqnd heat sink with a very high chilling -capacity is the tropopause.
And for dissolving clouds in recent years, rather think in terms of sulphur and sulphate- aerosols. Vanishing clouds will not be a result of CO2 and global warming then, and we get rid of a paradox.
A remark to the question whether or not there is (or might be) a clear distinction between science and politics.
The idea (that such distinction does hardly exist today and perhaps may have never existed) is not mine. I read it in an article by Czech sociologist Zdeněk Konopásek, a co-author of the book “Anthropocene” that I already mentioned in this forum with respect to Amazonian black soils.
I think that although science is a quite unique method of exploration of the world around us, in the phase of its involvement in making conclusions what is actually going on around us and making practical decisions, there might be indeed an unavoidable interference with politics.
That was at least my understanding to the article I read, and I must admit that as I was not able to disprove this idea, I have adopted it. I am afraid that scientists making a practical advice or promoting any specific decision and believing that they still do science live in potentially dangerous illusion that they are somehow different from other players in this field.
I said “potentially dangerous”, because in such situations, people tend to believe that they are better informed and therefore more insightful than others, and often forget that the decision to be made may comprise lot of aspects that are completely outside their own expertise and insight.
I think that it may be beneficial if scientists actively involved in hot discussions about climate change mitigation policies take themselves as politicians.
If they are not willing to do so ourselves, I would recommend that the public perceives them the same way as it perceives other politicians. I do not believe that there is a substantial difference, and that assuming an opposite may be false and potentially harmful.
Perhaps in some respects, Tomas, but I suspect that scientists who advocate for policy are in general pretty aware of when they are advocating and when they are researching. (E.g., I’m quite certain that when Dr. James Hansen put himself in a position to be arrested for protesting against coal combustion, he was very well aware that he was not engaged in climate research. And I suspect further that he’d much rather have been doing climate research, as well.)
So I disagree with your conclusion. If a researcher advocates for a policy, that does not, in my view, mean that they should be labeled merely as a “politician.” After all, all citizens in a democracy are entitled to political speech. If an autoworker or a manufacturing CEO speaks on industrial policy, do we pretend that they don’t have particular interests and (one hopes) expertise relevant to the topic, and implicitly dismiss them as ‘just another politician?’ No–to answer my own rhetorical question–we do not. Nor should we in the case of researchers who also advocate.
Ray Ladburysays
A couple of comments. Science is a human activity–so, of course it is political. The politics of science, though, revolve around which scientists and studies are most useful and convincing. It is only when politicians poke their nose into the science and try to put their thumbs on the scales that science becomes political in the sense that you are suggesting. Whether it is “Drill. Baby, Drill” or Lysenkoism, politics distorts the science and tries to elevate third-rate researchers to prominence merely because their conclusions are convenient to the party.
Tomáš Kaliszsays
Two corrections:
My last sentence had to read: ..and I am afraid that assuming an opposite may be false and potentially harmful.
The last sentence in the fourth paragraph had rather end with words ..other players in decision making / politics.
Geoff Miellsays
Dr. James Hansen, former Director of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, and Adjunct Professor at Columbia University’s Earth Institute, joined Paul Beckwith in a discussion about his recent work, as shown in the YouTube video titled Dr. James E. Hansen in Conversation with Paul Beckwith, duration 0:43:12. This video was recorded on 13 Nov 2023, and published on 26 Nov 2023.
The video notes include:
“Global Warming in the Pipeline,” a groundbreaking paper challenging the conservative estimates of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and emphasizing the urgency of the climate crisis is the main focus of the conversation. The details of the paper are delved into focusing on the rapid and potentially exponential increase in ice melt rates and the associated risks of major climate disruptions.
The discussion then shifts to a recent letter published by Dr. Hansen, where he declares that global warming is accelerating and questions the viability of the goals set by the Paris Agreement. The conversation explores the role of aerosols, particularly the reduction of sulfur in shipping fuels, in contributing to the observed warming acceleration.
The Earth’s energy imbalance, the potential role of missing Antarctic sea ice, and the anticipation of alarming events in the near future are brought up in addition to the critical need for informed decision-making to address the accelerating climate challenges.
James’s upcoming work on sea level rise and his book, “Sophie’s Planet,” which aims to make climate science more accessible to a broader audience, are mentioned as the conversation closes.
Geoff Miell 26 NOV 2023 Not discussed in the brief wide-ranging chat you linked were the reasons for the prior 4 large variations in the EEI since 1984 (some smaller ones also) that are linked in MA Rodger’s Reply 7 NOV 2023 AT 10:03 to mine (with a Jason Box video link) of 8:18 both of which have references to plots of EEI, mine back to 2001 and MA Rodger’s back to 1984. Obviously, understanding these prior excursions in which EEI went down, or up, by amounts similar to (presumably less than though) the last ~8 months and then reversed and went up, or down, again would be very useful in determining what portion of this recent exceptional EEI increase is actually exceptional. James mentions the 1 w/m**2 and MA Rodger’s link has a big temporary excursion from 1994 to 2002 (I’m inferring that’s before the period of improved data) and, more relevant to now, from December 2007 to June 2010 an EEI increase of 1.09 w/m**2 following by an EEI decrease of 1.22 w/m**2. I’m thinking that a typical person in early 2009 would think “The EEI is exponentially increasing and will likely be 22 w/m**2 in 1`1 years” but it didn’t and it wasn’t. I’m not making any specific assertion about these last ~8 months, I don’t have enough information, but I’m saying that much careful analysis is required before stating quantities of this & that and making predictions with any confidence.
Geoff Miellsays
Barry E Finch: – “James mentions the 1 w/m**2 and MA Rodger’s link has a big temporary excursion from 1994 to 2002 (I’m inferring that’s before the period of improved data)…”
I’d suggest you view the segment presented by Norman G Loeb on the Status of Satellite Measurements of Earth’s Energy Imbalance, from time interval 0:42:19 in the YouTube video titled An Intimate Conversation with Leading Climate Scientists To Discuss New Research on Global Warming (included in the video notes of the referred video linked to in my previous comment).
According to Norman Loeb, CERES is the only dedicated satellite record in the world for EEI. The CERES data began from year-2000. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NXDWpBlPCY8
Barry E Finch: – “I’m thinking that a typical person in early 2009 would think “The EEI is exponentially increasing and will likely be 22 w/m**2 in 1`1 years” but it didn’t and it wasn’t.”
Barry E Finch: – “I don’t have enough information, but I’m saying that much careful analysis is required before stating quantities of this & that and making predictions with any confidence.”
Um… Barry, are you suggesting James Hansen et al. re their peer-reviewed Nov 2023 published scientific paper titled Global warming in the pipeline haven’t already done “much careful analysis”? Have you had any peer-reviewed scientific papers published, Barry? What relevant competencies do you have to judge their work?
ICYMI/FYI, the Hansen et al. paper includes:
The data indicate that EEI has doubled since the first decade of this century (Fig. 25). This increase is one basis for our prediction of post-2010 acceleration of the global warming rate. The EEI increase may be partly due to restrictions on maritime aerosol precursor emissions imposed in 2015 and 2020 (The great inadvertent aerosol experiment section), but the growth rate of GHG climate forcing also increased in 2015 and since has remained at the higher level (Equilibrium warming versus committed warming section).
Barry E Finch,
The wobbles in EEI you are considering can be confusing by go up as well as down. On the climate tracker EEI web-page, the pre-CERES data is likely wobbly due to the El Chichón and Mt Pinatubo eruptions of 1984 & 1991 respectively resulting in negative (cooling) EEI wobbles.
The big 2007-10 positive (warming) wobble in the post-2001 CERES data is due to the albedo for once adding to an outward IR wobble when usually the albedo and outward IR wobbles work if anything tend to work against each other. See this graphic of the different components of the CERES data.
The outward IR is seemingly reacting to the global temperature with the wobbles showing something like a 2.8Wm^-2/ºC(SAT) and the trend in outward IR relative to SAT running at 1.2Wm*-2/ºC.
So…. regarding climate sensitivity… the Hansen, et al., preprint is now in print and the new climate sensitivity is… drumroll…………. 4.8C!
Yeah… told ya so.
But you still won’t listen, will you.
Nope.
That’s why I don’t come here anymore. Complete waste of 15 years. You can contact me via Patreon if any of you want to better understand the risks and solutions.
Piotrsays
KIllian: “That’s why I don’t come here anymore. Complete waste of 15 years.”
And it took you … 15 years to figure it out that it is not your cup of cake? No adulation of the Great Killian,
who could see what others failed, and only the ungratefully hard questions about your claims?
I could have said that it was nice to know you, but that would be a lie.
Carbomontanussays
Hr Killian
I shall not mention drunken sailors this time, but since you are leaving now, pleace take it especially from me that the idea of terrapreta may have its values in tropical rainforest with extreeme rains and highly kaolinized soils where the very humus with frogs & salamandris is up in the treetops.
When that falls down it rots especially fast, all minerals are set free and must be taken up in a hurry and recycled to the treetops.
Chop that down and burn it, and the very reserve of soluble mineral plant nutriciants will rush into the river and to sea and you can drive on waggons and lorries of NPK & Dolomite & NH4NO3 fertillizer to have any crop at all. And that is going to cost.
Here where I live there are glaciofluvial sediments and marine clays that came up by landrising, no Kaolin at all, and no soil older than 10 000 years. Kaolin is found where there has been pissing and raining for 10 000 000 years. Here you can uncover sheere humus- free mineral soil with bulldozers good enough for making concrete, and thick forests of Violoncello size will grow up on it in 120 years with no human help and added fertillizers & humus at all.
In Eiffel Germany there is fresh volcanic ashes less than a million years old with the worlds best wineyards and fruitgardens but they must piss on it every 7th year to have that winery with potassium tartrate sediment in the bottles sustainable.
That culture has been sustainable for 2000 years now.
The nordic way with NPK & Dolomite and artificial watering was exported to Egypt and Sahara and gave Salty ground disaster. . They must make and open their own agricultural highschool and university.
As you must also in Las Vegas and southern Califorhia, and furtherresign on teaching the world on moral and systemjatics. But New England is rather quite similar to Scandinavia of the sameold tectonic plate, , better than old England. .
Moral:
The Earth is round with tectonic plate moovements, with Köppen climate zones, and a system of Milancovic- cycles,due to the moon, so you better ask there.
I burn twigs and choisest wreckwood with pleasure, it is quite a privilege. But not on the ackers because that sterilizes it for 10 years. We burn it in the stove for heating and bring finest ashes back to the garden together with rubbish and piss 0n it. There are meter thick sediments of that culture in western norwegian terrasses wher the soil is too stony and steep. But most exellent for fruit trees right in the wilderness. Quite traditional in England also is sea- compost wherever available.
Moral 2
Simply see that your Microfauna is in order and see that highest natural predator is present and thrives. , Then you hardly need terrapreta exept on sheere kaolin in the rainforests.
Moral 3
Avoid medication and recommendations of the same by obscure patent medicines however “natural”, without anamnesis and diagnosis. for the individual case.
Ray Ladburysays
Not an entire waste. You did help me understand that increased simplicity must play a role in any future sustainable society. That I don’t agree with you entirely does not mean you haven’t influenced my thinking. Best of luck to you. I understand your frustration.
Barry E Finchsays
Oh wow there’s an erudite discussion of faggots such as at Radge Havers 23 NOV 2023. Way too nostalgic. In 1964 at University College of Swansea (Tokyo Melody, Donovan Catch The Wind) we very much favoured Welsh faggots (sounds weirdly like an economy-combo ethnic-social slur now) us 3 students surviving each on 5 quid p.w. Scholarship Grant for the BSc courses were living at Ben & Carol Jones’ Boarding House (completely ordinary tiny row house) with 6 healthy fried Welsh faggots, heaps of mash & processed peas we cooked ourselves for most daily lunches Carol included breakfast & tea). The Davies (other 2 students, not related at all) called it “a tangling dinner” in a gourmet appreciation sort-of tone.
Barry E Finchsays
This is just info (or not depending on whether everybody already knew all that) At 11:41 to 16:28 at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z_-8u86R3Yc from the PALEOSENS project analyses we see that 27 of the 38 paleo-climate proxy analyses are in the range 0.57 to 1.28 degrees per w/m**2 for “equilibrium climate sensitivity (ECS)” which is after the 2,000 years of ocean >99% balancing. For CO2*2 type metric climate sensitivity that would be 2.1 to 4.7 degrees so centred on 3.4 degrees. Then there’s Eelco Rohling presenting 18 paleo-climate proxy analyses in the range of 2.6 to 4.8 degrees for CO2*2 and asking “next slide please Jim” (presumably James Hansen sitting next to him and 1 of the 3 scientists at the presentation desk) at 19:43 at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KTTlAAiwgwM so the 4.8 degrees that you say Jim has decided on as most likely was there as the high end of the paleo-climate proxy analyses for +12 years. James Hansen has changed his mind a bit because I know for a remembered fact that he said his “best guess” was 2.8 degrees in early 2013 when I started looking at this Global Warmage thing and I was then for a few years using that in GoogleyTubes (BertyTubes back then) replies to bods quoting Richard Lindzen’s 1.6 degrees with Iris Effect feature and Roy Spencer’s 1.2 degrees with whatever is his analysis that I’ve never fathomed but I suspect he looked around and said “troposphere looks cool, I’ve got a good feeling about 1.2”. Cut’n’paste of mine from early 2013: “As example (but highly plausible) value for illustration only, if “final” (exc. natural periodic vagaries) Dr. Hansen “best estimate” average surface temperature +2.8 degrees C is required in order to balance in & out TOA radiation then it seems logical that “Global Warming” will stop when the oceans are ~+2.8 degrees C warmer than a hundred years ago, or whatever is the base line for this. I read currently the deepest 80% ocean is 2-6 degrees with avge. ~4.4 and that substantial mixing takes centuries. If so, deepest 80% increases from present 4.4 to ~7.2 degrees and that is a significant rise vis-a-vis the melt-freeze point of water on this Celsius scale. I think (unless there’s some science that shows deepest ocean does not get warm when the surface stays warms for millenia) that is one of the most significant points that a layperson might understand”. I found out a lot more accurate about ocean since but then I’ve now forgotten it all again.
Jane Jacksonsays
I’m learning, and helping family and friends to learn — so I prepared some quotes about James Hansen’s recent public work — mostly from the transcript at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NXDWpBlPCY8 . I included screenshots.
[At 2.5 minutes] the climate on our remarkable home planet is characterized by delayed response and amplifying feedbacks, which is a recipe to lock in intergenerational injustice. So we climate scientists have an obligation to explain this situation clearly as best we can, especially to young people — and to include the policy implications — because if we don’t include these implications, people who have a special financial interest will make their own conclusions.
…
[Background: James Hansen wrote, on Nov. 10, 2023 at http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/: “Factors that alter Earth’s energy balance [EEI] are called climate forcings. There are two large human-made climate forcings: changes of atmospheric greenhouse gases (GHGs) and changes of aerosols. GHGs reduce heat radiation to space; thus, an increase of GHGs causes a positive energy imbalance, more energy coming in than going out, which causes warming. Aerosols reflect sunlight to space, which is a negative contribution to EEI that causes cooling.”
Aerosols are fine particles in the air: “Key aerosol groups include sulfates, organic carbon, black carbon, nitrates, mineral dust, and sea salt, they usually clump together to form a complex mixture.” ( en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aerosol )
CLOUDS can form around aerosols. Generally, aerosols have a cooling effect. Unfortunately, NASA & other agencies don’t monitor/measure them. Climate models have been wrongly underestimating their sensitivity/importance (freely download Jessica Tierney and Matthew Osman’s research at Univ. of Arizona: pubs.aip.org/physicstoday/article/75/1/14/2842415/24-000-years-of-climate-change-mappedA-numerical). Furthermore, in the past decade, we’ve reduced aerosols in “cleaning up pollution”; thus we’ve reduced their cooling effect. 70% of the planet is ocean; thus we can’t SEE this newly decreased cloud cover over the oceans.]
[At 8 minutes] Aerosols are fine airborne particulates. They are a health hazard, killing several million people per year. Aerosols also cool the climate by reflecting sunlight to space, their main effect being as condensation nuclei for cloud drops. They slightly increase cloud cover and make clouds a bit brighter. Humanity made a Faustian bargain by offsetting a substantial but uncertain fraction of greenhouse gas warming with aerosol cooling. Now, as we want to reduce all the chronic health effects of aerosols, our first Faustian payment is due: the payment is ACCELERATION OF GLOBAL WARMING.
China reduced its aerosols in the past 15 years; and aerosols from ships decreased [starting] in 2015 and especially in 2020 as Leon will describe in a few minutes, so we expect the post-2010 global warming rate to increase at least 50%, which is the lower edge of the yellow area. If we are right, the 12-month running mean temperature will rise above the yellow region by next spring as the current El Nino peaks. The mean temperature for the rest of this decade will be at least 1.5° Celsius warming; and 2° Celsius [i.e., 3 ½ degrees Fahrenheit] global warming will be reached within 20 years.
——————
[Background: “Factors that alter Earth’s energy balance are called climate forcings. There are two large human-made climate forcings: changes of atmospheric greenhouse gases (GHGs) and changes of aerosols. GHGs reduce heat radiation to space; thus, an increase of GHGs causes a positive energy imbalance, more energy coming in than going out, which causes warming. Aerosols reflect sunlight to space, which is a negative contribution to EEI that causes cooling. ” …”rather small changes of clouds can have a large impact on EEI. [We conclude in Pipeline that cloud changes are the feedback that increases what would otherwise be a planetary sensitivity of 2.4°C for 2×CO2 to the empirically-derived real-world sensitivity of 4.8°C for 2×CO2. Similarly, it does not take much cloud change to produce the ~1 W/m2 increase of absorbed solar radiation “… Nov. 10, 2023 at http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/ ]
The “Pipeline” article (50 pgs) is free in pdf at this URL: academic.oup.com/oocc/article/3/1/kgad008/7335889 . The editorial there is important also! I quote the editor: “the high value [of equilibrium climate sensitivity, ECS] inferred by Hansen et al. is intriguing: it suggests that past climate changes may indicate larger implications of modern climate change than we had estimated before. This elevates ‘high impact, low probability’ impacts toward the ‘high impact, high probability’ level, and this is enough reason to publish the new estimates. It should make everyone sit up and take notice. … The Hansen et al. re-evaluation of paleo-information suggests that … continued work on the climate models is warranted to ensure that emissions reduction and mitigation targets are not systematically set too low.” ]
[At 11 minutes] On global average, the solar radiation absorbed by Earth has increased about one watt per meter square.
This increase of absorbed solar radiation is the reason that Earth’s energy imbalance has almost doubled since 2015. When I gave a TED Talk, more than a decade ago, Earth’s energy imbalance was about 6/10 of a watt per square meter, which is equivalent to 400,000 Hiroshima atomic bombs per day — that much energy being poured mostly into the ocean. That imbalance has now doubled; that’s why global warming will accelerate, that’s why global melting will accelerate.
[At 11:50 minutes] Let’s look at the absorbed solar radiation again. If this is not noise, and I don’t think it is noise, this one-watt increase is a BFD — a Big !** Deal! Let’s compare it with greenhouse gas climate forcings. The greenhouse gas climate forcing (on the next chart) has increased about 0.045 watt per meter squared per year, which is almost half a watt per decade. So the one-watt increase of absorbed solar radiation is equivalent to more than a 20-year increase of greenhouse gases at their current high rate of increase. That’s why I can say with confidence that global warming will now accelerate. …
——————————————–
[At 15.5 minutes] As I said, most of today’s emissions are from emerging economies [including China], which want to increase their living standards, so the task is to reduce the carbon intensity of global energy to near zero — but we reduced it only from 0.8 to 0.7 in the past half century! It’s not plausible for it to go to near zero by midcentury. Sweden did well by decarbonizing its electricity — in part, by building nuclear power plants.
Now my last chart on the fundamental required actions: NONE of these are occurring!
A rising carbon fee is the fastest, most effective way to affect all uses of fossil fuels, but the fossil fuel industry has prevented it.
Instead of East-West cooperation, our politics and special interests have led to a focus on economic and military hegemony, which is foolish because we are all in the same boat, and we’ll sink together if we don’t work together. I don’t think that anyone asks young people if this confrontational approach is the kind of world they wish to aim for.
The 1.5 degree limit is deader than a doornail, and the two-degree limit [i.e., 3 ½ degrees Fahrenheit] can be rescued only with the help of purposeful actions to affect earth’s energy balance. We will need to cool off Earth to save our coastlines — coastal cities worldwide and lowlands, while also addressing the other problems caused by global warming.
Now, it will take several years for socialization of what is needed, for the public to understand — which will be aided by the increasing problems that they will see from global warming. That several years will provide the time that young people need to understand this matter — and specifically the fact that, I believe, a political party that takes NO money from special interests is probably an essential part of the solution. Young people should not underestimate their political clout.
————————
[At 19 ½ minutes] … the planet is now out of balance by an incredible amount — more than it ever has been — you know it’s doubled, so you’ve got a huge amount of incoming energy — that’s what causes the temperature change. So 1.5 degrees [i.e., 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit] is going to be occurring in the next several months, and averaged over the next several years will be at least that level. If there’s more energy coming in than going out, the planet is going to get warmer; and we’re already at that level! and so far as two degrees is concerned, you can see that the attempts to make a plan for how you could stay under two degrees [i.e., 3 ½ degrees Fahrenheit] — we’re shooting way over that. And that was without considering the effect of this additional imbalance caused by aerosols being reduced. …
We can do it, we will HAVE to do it, but it’s going to require the combination of reducing emissions as rapidly as possible — but also if we’re going to avoid Antarctic –well, I shouldn’t go into the details, but if we’re going to keep sea level close to where it is, we actually have to COOL the planet. We can’t allow it to continue to be out of balance the way it is now, because it’s melting the ice shelves, and we’re going to lose the West Antarctic ice sheet if we don’t COOL the planet off.
Ned Kellysays
Jane, huge kudos to you… well done. You’re wonderful, keep at it.
I have a point however about what Hansen said, as part fo his public outreach … I love and admire Hnasen, the guy is a saint. No doubt.
But this here explanation – learning moment — [Background: James Hansen wrote, on Nov. 10, 2023 at http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/: “Factors that alter Earth’s energy balance [EEI] are called climate forcings. There are two large human-made climate forcings: changes of atmospheric greenhouse gases (GHGs) and changes of aerosols. GHGs reduce heat radiation to space; thus, an increase of GHGs causes a positive energy imbalance, more energy coming in than going out, which causes warming. Aerosols reflect sunlight to space, which is a negative contribution to EEI that causes cooling.” —
It simply makes me want to cry…. or is it scream!
As an exercise in public communication it is a disgrace. For over 33 years since Rio this is what has been happening. Climate scientists may as well be speaking Klingon to the world.
And it’s not as if they haven’t been repeatedly told about this massive and critical problem that leads to failure. Oh well. I guess it just wasn’t meant to be. All that time effort and commitment by millions, all for nothing, because this is still the best, the best like Hansen, can do.
On Climate topics primo Nov 2023
It is rather steady warm with some snow coming and going. It is way beyond earlier marks where steady enen deep frost should have come by now, with possible safe ice for skating and so on.
The signals and relict traditions in mans memory of gardening and skiing and rural sawing storing and icefreight & selling industries as I can see it from my point of wiew is rather roughly and certainly along with the IPCC longtime mean global temperature curves, so I feel no reason to fight them from 60 deg north east atlantic.
They harvested, stored, and sold the wither chill, that was believed elsewhere to be a handicap, against hard cash.
What a good commercial idea.
It is also finest freshwater that can be shipped to where both chill and freshwater is needed. They managed to export it under sail packed in straw and sawdust 100 years ago. To where both straw and sawdust was further valuable.
I can guarantee some of the same in the fameous Lake district USA, knowing how to earn also on the winters.
All theese traditions and industries seem to have been conquered and ruled out by steady support of coal and frossile fuel where cooling machines were invented and installed shortly after high voltade AC networks driven by coal heated steam turbines. Then, one could give a damn both to weather and climate.
Before that, , one had do do the best out of it in a scientific way. .
Yes, I found it.
“Ice trade” is found on Wikipedia, and shows to have been big business on global scale with Norway as a major participant.
It has been known from antiquity even in Italia and Persia. Ice harvested in the mountains and brought to downtown and stored in ice-houses for use in summer.
Where I grew up there were old “Ice dams” everywhere, good for bathing in early summer as they warmed up sooner than the fjordwater, for juvenile limnology and fishing, and for skating festivals in early winter.
It was quite essencial for distribution of flesh, fish, and milk before the motorized coolers, and an important extra income for the peasants.
Something to think of again if fuel and energy is to be saved and definitely also good freshwater and drinkwater to be delivered during summer.
My favorite ‘early climate change paper’ is William Charles Wells’s “On Dew.” And one of the many curious things considered in it is the Bengali ‘ice trade’, which typically involved ice-making under cold but not freezing surface temps by utilizing radiational cooling to the sky. Wells replicated the effect, along with a very considerable amount of other experimental activity.
I wrote about it here:
https://discover.hubpages.com/education/Global-Warming-Science-In-The-Age-Of-Washington-And-Jefferson-William-Charles-Wells
Hr McKinney
This was quite a lot, and important early science.
I have thought out at least 5 different “desktop experiments showing that only the field conductivity decides how heat is spreading out, And that it superposes of course, the stronger heat does not push back the weaker heat on broad front.
Thus you can “warm further up” a hottest place in the field by “help heating” it by a next heat of lower temperature and fewer watts from the side in the same field such as a large iron or copper plate that you have to weld or to solder on one spot by higth enough fusing temperature.
This is knowledge and experience of humanity all through stoneage,allready, that was especially long. Humanity would not have survined outside of the tropics with ape climate without knowing this.
It actually warms you up to take on a thick pullover with an anurak in the winter. You can then relax and consume less fuel in terms of calories and still keep warm..
That back- radiation or conduction in joules is real and can be sold against hard cash on the free market. As you save fuel by isolating the stove to keep your necessary high glow temperature for baking bricks or pottery or porcelain or fusing gold or iron. And you can sell off the fuel that you save that way in calories pr ton or per gallon on the free market.
Sound sources and radio transmitters work the same way.
Sound & signals & music is not matter, but forms of matter, it is given materials certain more or less meaningful ways of being.
They believed heat ” le chaleur” to be material and a kind of gas. But careful weighing showed no mass -> material increase or loss at all. Thus concluded along with Aristoteles who got that ritght, that heat “le chaleur” as they called it, is not matter, but material form, a steady material state of moovement.
Then we come to light and electromagnetism.
Ørsted, Faraday, and Maxwell could clear it up. Newton was an atomist and thought in terms of mechanic material particles. But being totally weightless and able to thingly occupy the same room or space or field, light is not material or particular in Classical sense. But light is still energetic and as real as can be.
The end- conditions of light and electromagnetic radiators, not light itself,…. is what is material, massive, Particular, and quantum mechanic. I do not believe in the photon particle travelling onward in space at lightspeed, because I know to much about radiowaves and soundwaves.
I repeat….!
light itself is not quantum mechanic , Its massive and material even more or less electrically conductive / resistand end- conditions are, and giving light and radiowaves its forms.
Light is carrying with it the particular and materiall forms of its endconditions without being particular and material itself.
Light and heat is not “matter” in that sense, I repeat,…… … but still as real as can be.
They had to resign also on the ETER being old supersticion that was consequently ruled out by proper science No proper scientist could find it or show it positively existant allthough most of them did hope and believe strongly in it.
.
The conscept of meaning and meaningful- ness is what can take over for that fruitful but lost conscept of “The ETER.”,
Try “its being ETERIC”. about meaningful sigtnaling in space or in the room or in the field, in the saloon, on the website… or “in the area,…. “. That can make sense.
In radio after having lost the Eter, they went on saying “On the air”. that might simply mean available room or field or space. “AIR, in the air, on the air” ……….. took over as a necessary and meaningful conscept as the “ETER” was ruled out.
Light is invisible. Nobody has seen the light.
They have only seen its endconditions. That is also what is so practical with the light. Light over it, and you can see what things are.. And if there is nothing to throw light on, you will also see nothing
Goethe took darkness for a positive & active reality. Helmholz in his fameous critics of Goethes Farbenlehre called that “Plain wrong”. It is not about light.
Silence is an important and real element in music, think of all the meaningful pauses. Silence is forgotten and given a damn to in todays commercialy perverted music.
As chill ( How often do I mention it? ) is aso an important element and reality in the real climate.
Just look at me, I am having the upper hand here as long as it lasts, by having better asked what cools us, rather than what heats us, and can recommend that further.
I score and earn better on selling and defending the elementary global chill or heat- sinks..
Chill is very traditional and has been purchased commercially in qvanta, hectoliters of ice agaist pound sterlings hard cash and lifestyle luxury on the free market
It is the global radiator element, its heat sink, that is being fought against, ruined, and polluted and that must be defended as a most vital natural resource.
Proper chill will become big business again.
I think I mostly agree–insofar as I can decipher your usual whimsical and highly idiosyncratic style of writing.
I read that when you (if it was you) posted it years ago, trying to put my brain to work! Thanks for the reminder.
Thanks, Susan! Yes, it was me, and IIRC, you were kind enough to comment back then. (There’s also a condensed version somewhere on SkS, so you might have seen it there.)
I’ve been lurking here for a while now, but this question is keeping me up at night: is it already too late to prevent the worst consequences of climate change? I know there’s plethora of opinions, but the more I read the more hopeless the situation seems, especially given the current (geopolitical) situation.
Sorry if this is a dumb question, but I just struggle to see myself alive in the next 30 years.
[Response: Opinions differ on this, but my take – as a scientist and a father – is that no, it is not too late, and actually, it will never be too late because there are always decisions that will need to be made that will make it worse, or better. We need to keep pushing for better decisions, precisely because we have agency. – gavin]
Julian: The question is ill posed. It presumes that the damage will somehow saturate. We are still in the realm where every additional kilogram of CO2 makes things worse, and probably nonlinearly so. It is not a question of whether it’s too late, but rather of how bad are we willing to let things get for our progeny.
If we get into a “runaway warming” situation where the earth’s own sources of CO2 start releasing it into the atmosphere, it may not matter what we do about cutting emissions. Turning forests into a carbon source and methane welling up from the permafrost, among other things. could put us on a path towards extinction. Then there are the oceans dying and releasing more heat, and so on.
We’ve burned through our carbon budget already, and we’re obviously not going to stop so yeah, I’d say it’s game over for humanity.
Chuck Hughes: This also worries me greatly.
We may have agency over anthropogenic emissions, but once we hit (if we haven’t already) climate tipping points, especially soil carbon feedback and potentially destabilisation of methane clathrates, it’s pretty much over. Maybe I’m just paranoid, but I can very easily image such scenarios playing out in the near future (the next decade or two) – and it really makes me question it all on some days. However, I don’t know what the academic consensus is.
Ray Ladbury, gavin: I don’t expect damage to equally distribute over the population and/or environment. I understand that the poor will be disproportionately affected at first, but their suffering will soon come to us. In addition, there’s always this gut-wrenching feeling of civilizational collapse – the industrial agriculture failure, famine and water shortages etc. that’ll affect the entire population and possibly cause our extinction. Not to mention projected collapses of ecosystems, that life relies on.
I didn’t ask for any of this – maybe it’s because I’m still young, but I do want people that come after me to have the same opportunities as I did. I know I can’t change the world as a whole, so I’m trying to do everything I can to change the world around me. Problem is, it’s really difficult to keep your chin up when you see things like the recent paper by Hansen (“Global Warming in the pipeline”) and what’s currently happening in geopolitics.
Julian, there are various traditions that address keeping your chin up:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Noble_Truths
https://atkinsbookshelf.wordpress.com/2018/09/18/to-live-is-to-suffer-to-survive-is-to-find-meaning-in-the-suffering/
And others, of course. For me, it is briefly put…”pain means you’re alive” …which balances out to be a good thing.
So, you have something to do, in contributing to a solution, which means being alive is an interesting and engaging state. What more could one ask?
Since we are alive, we can and must ask ourselves the question, here we all are and what are we going to do about it?
We can always make things less bad. Giving up is not an option. Ray explains better than I can.
And since I’m here, do look at Russell’s glorious takedown of the dangerous educational efforts ot the CO2 coalition below!
Julian, it is a very pertinent question and a rational reaction. Difficult not to be hopeless, given the reality, the scientists’ warnings and the lack of political will to stop the climate emergency and the other crises from getting to the point of no return. However, please resist, if you can. Please know that many of us are doing everything possible to change things and that we will never give up. We are in the fight to win.
One way to fight hopelessness and those who caused and deepen the metacrisis is to look for solutions, invest in them, create them, communicate them broadly, adopt them, boast about adopting them. We can all help with the litigation against those responsible for the metacrisis, vote for rational and scientifically literate representatives, run for any decision making position, support the good decision makers, invest in climate positive business, start a farm, work on a farm, plant a forest. And many more.
I hope to bring a smile to you with a favorite joke from the old communist times in my native country:
The pessimist says: it cannot get worse than this
The optimist answers: yes it can.
Let’s be that kind of pessimist.
Silvia Leahu-Aluas: Hey, I know this joke! My grandparents used to tell it all the time during the times of Eastern Bloc :)
Thank you very, very much for your reply – I’ll keep returning to it everytime I feel down in the future. You and Susan Anderson are both right – even if the situation seems hopeless, giving up is not and never will be an option. Not now, when the stakes are higher than ever.
Well-said!
Julian: what a nice coincidence, I am happy that I decided to comment and to share that joke (my native country is Romania).
Yes, that’s the attitude, no matter how difficult and too often maddening the state of the biosphere and human society is, we are alive, we are knowledgeable, we are responsible, we fight with unwavering will to win. The stakes could not be higher.
This is more a reply to Gavin’s response than to Julian’s post. Sorry if it comes across as a rant.
I’m personally not so sure that we (if “we” means the science community) DOES have agency, although I fully agree there is a need to keep pushing for better decisions.
I refer in particular to Julian’s “.especially given the current (geopolitical) situation”. The reality in the United States is that a straight out Young Earth Creationist/ Climate Denialist has been elected speaker of the House of Representatives, and there appears to be a non-zero chance that the next US Presidential election is going to be won by a malignant narcissist with an all-consuming desire for revenge against anybody he sees as either an enemy or a threat.
There is almost no chance that a Republican Administration would take any measures whatsoever to mitigate CO2 emissions, and indeed every chance that they would cause them to increase. Whether this would be by accident or by design simply doesn’t matter.
The Right-Wing coalition currently in opposition here in Australia is not so personally poisonous, but certainly holds similar views regarding fossil fuels, and the overall political situation is such that NEW export coal mines are being approved.
I fully expect this November (or perhaps even October) to be the last month in my lifetime to have an average Mauna Loa CO2 level below 420 ppm. I am not sufficiently aware of the science as to know what the medium-term implications of a halt at that level would be, but my layman’s guess is that at least some additional warming and quite a lot of Greenland/Antarctic melting are at that level “baked in”.
RE: “at that (420 ppm) level”
Please note: The planet is not reacting to carbonic acid gas (CO2) alone. It is responding to all hothouse gases, including man-made methane and the resultant planetary releases of CO2 and CH4 gases due to global heating (from this total ensemble of new man-made hothouse gases).
The total is of such present radiative forcing (approx. 4W/m2) that the “ppm” number in terms of CO2 is in the 500 – 600 ppm,e range. (For example, the increasing methane concentration has a “Global Warming Potential” two orders of magnitude worse than CO2). The resultant Rising Energy Flux into the Earth system has, so far, doubled from approx. 0.6 W/m2 during this century’s first decade to a recent value of 1.2 W/m2. This is across every square meter on Earth. That total value of heat input is gigantic (and is apparently rising in order to meet/equalize with an increasing radiative forcing level from “our” foolishness in considering underground Matter as “economical forms of Energy,” ie. “fuels.”
The planet seems to disagree.
Solar Jim 4 NOV 2023 AT 11:43 AM Jason Box at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LYdvn2pGyOw shows at 1:06 an Earth’s energy imbalance (EEI) 12-month running mean at presumably mid 2023 of 1.45 w/m**2 on the trend line and of 1.97 w/m**2 for the last 12 months of running mean, though I don’t know how a 12-month running mean is calculated when a plot ends fewer than 6 months before the analysis date. So 1.45 w/m**2 rather than 1.2w/m**2.
Barry E Finch,
The EEI graphic shown by Jason Box was posted on Twitter back in July. A more up-to-date version of these 12-month average EEI figures from CERES are plotted by ClimateChangeTracker showing TSI & outward long wave & short wave (reflected) radiation. The last data point is four months newer than the graphic in the video and shows the EEI average has been flat at ~.1.9Wm^-2 over those 4 months. The albedo numbers shown here (after Penttilä et al 2022) are just a few days old and the numbers appear to show it is albedo over the first nine months of 2023 (lowest months on record 4, second lowest 3) as the reason for the high EEI.
Just a minor detail, solar jim, but I allways like to correct this.
Carbonic acid H2CO3 hardly exists in the universe,
I repeat,….!
Not at any temperature and pressure, That molecule is too unstable.
You can mix Na2 CO3 with tartaric or citric acid and add a drop of water, CO2 will pop right off.
CO2 + 2H2O reacts rather slowly and into HCO3- and H3O+ that are real molecules. There you can also see the acidification of water by CO2.
Dissolve “Baking soda” NaHCO3 in pure water pH 7, that solution is stable. consisting of Na+ and HCO3- ions in balance.
But have the same “baking soda” on your tonge, and CO2 will sprattle- pop off, although Saliva has got pH8.
That “Para Doxon” is explained by a very fameous and strong enzyme called , Carbonic anhydrase one of the first ones to be discovered and found on Wikipedia.
The same enzyme helps blood and serum to get rid of CO2 from dissolved bicarbonate, in the lounges at pH7., Probably also working in the opposite direction when plants assimilate CO2 from air, by water and solar energy, and form carbohydrates.
I preferre stating the truth whenever possible, and believe that CO2 + OH- -> HCO3- by a rather slow and intricate reaction, when canbon dioxide dissolves in water,. That quite more simpler molecular reaction on ionic form is much easier to explain and to remember, and tells us also why it acidifies a bit due to binding of OH- present in common water..
But I red that NASA has managed to produce, isolate, and show, H2CO3 in pure form at last.
I shall not believe it until I have it sustained by an independent source, but that it took NASA at last to do it. That hardly surprizes me,.
But, never believe all that is told about NASA either.
I recommend it to you all, never to “further” that so- called “Carbonic acid” , until you have it sustained by 2 more independent sources. .
I was told of it in public school, but that “carbonic acid” and its gas is obvious old supersticion that has been ruled out by science 100 years ago.
Moral:
Never argue by “carbonic acid”., not even as an intermediate or hypotetic state in the reactions.
I believe “carbonic acid” and “carbonic acid gas” were used quite commonly in the 19th century as synonymous with what we now call “CO2” or “carbon dioxide.” The famous 1859 Tyndall paper is an example:
https://discover.hubpages.com/education/Global-Warming-Science-In-The-Age-Of-Queen-Victoria
Of course, chemistry then was still relatively undeveloped by present standards. For example, it would only be with Arrhenius a couple of decades later that ‘ionic chemistry’ would triumph.
Kohlensäure (lit. “carbon acid”) is still commonly used for both carbonic acid and carbon dioxide in German, but the latter is more properly Kohlendioxid.
Carbon dioxide dissolved in water is present as a mixture of CO2 and H2CO3, but it’s mostly present as CO2 .
Anhydrous H2CO2 is a quite stable gas and there are reactions that produce it.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbonic_acid
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kohlenstoffdioxid
I have seen prl s reference Wicipedia carbonic acid and must correct myself
H2CO3 seems to exist in diluted form along with recent chemical orthodoxy on 10 E-3 level depending on themperature, and is being discussed in pure form as a solid and as a gas at lower temperature given that water is absolutely absent.
Which it normally aint not and hardly can be because
CO2 + H2O= H2CO3 and universal thermal diffusion at any real termperasture
It might be quite an explosive along with Daltons law given H2CO3 solid or gaseous, And I have made juvenile experiments with it, the selzer- bomb Canned tartaric acid with NaHCO3 in dry form and water cunningly canned.
An adult, burgeoise observer saw it and spoke: : “We shall have no bombs here!” So I could not shown it But it is a standard recepy for highpressure watery fire extinguishers.
They discuss how fast it will decay giving one free water molecule to start the chain reaction. of H2CO3 decay, That according to recent Wikipedia seems rather stable in absolutely dry and pure form.
But what aint not possible is to mix H2O ice and CO2 ice stoeciometrically, mill that together under low temperature and high pressure and expect H2CO3 to form.
Rumors on Wikipedia tells that by proton- irradiation, that will happen. And that must be the NASA- recepy.
There are other important examples of reactions that are highly irreversible by cleverly made stable mixtures and substances that can be chemically arranged, such as silver fulminate, lead azid, IN3 and ClN3 and triacetonperoxide, that explode violently or even detonate and expand at PV=nRT at certain tiniest initial impacts.
That tiny interaction even by a catalyzer lowers the initial activation energy in a chain reaction. .
But, there are more convenient “primers” for blasting and for military purposes than the pure carbonic acid by formula H2CO3 from NASA. .
The reaction H2O + CO2 H2CO3 is higly irreversible.
Even more important, the CO2 +H2O giving HCO3- + H+ in aqueous solution is a fameous, frappingly slow reaction. My old book from 1935 tells of 20 seconds reaction halving time having been cleverly measured ,
Which is Important for discussion of the Revelle- factor.
The very fameous enzyme Carbonic anhydrase throughout biology it seems, operates in that reactional area.
Moral:
Rather set on the green values, the photosynthesis I say, that is solar driven, and bio- enzymatic, thus very safe and traditional for Carbon sink into H2O rather by solar.
and
Moral2
Carbonic acid is a rather illusionary, supersticious, obsolete, misleading, and intensionally stupidi- fying model theory in real climate.
That statement I can further defend.
Postwar isotopic examination by O17 could show very interestingly that the oxygen of CO2 goes right out again through the plant stomata as O2. And that the chemically bound oxygen in the carbohydrates come excusively from the taken up water..
CO2 +H2O -> HCOH + O2
HCOH then polymerizes normally in hexagonal rings as carbohydrates. The Carbon having 2 further valence bonds to the sides up and down. .
Hr. Prl
“Carbon dioxide dissolved in water is present as a mixture of CO2 and H2CO3 but its mostly present as CO2. ”
How dare you?
ojazh said:
And who is totally in the pocket of fossil fuel and allied interests. It wasn’t by chance that his Houston rally last Thursday was held at an oil-drilling company HQ, nor that one of the MAGA crazies in attendance was quoted as saying “Drill, baby, drill!”
Oh, if it happens it won’t in any way be accidental.
So much for the bad news. The good news?
TFG would be unelectable under most circumstances.
So much for the good news. The further bad news?
RFK Jr., the anti-vaxing, Putin-supporting nut case with the ambiguous views on climate change and its mitigation has been polling pretty well, which raises the possibility that he could be the Jill Stein of 2024 and tilt the election right into the lap of the insurrectionist, fascist mob-boss who will burn the planet if we give him a chance.
So much for the further bad news. The further good news?
No-one is stopping us from fighting like hell to prevent this redoubled catastrophe.
I really, really hate to say it, because this response by Gavin–and Ray’s below, too–is admirable in most respects, and really the present-day ‘takeaway’ we need to hear.
However, there is an invalid implicit assumption in this bit:
That assumes that things never get so bad that either a) our global society is reduced to some combination of population and capability such that we can no longer meaningfully affect land use or direct GHG emissions; or b) the subset of such cases in which we are actually extinct as a species.
To be clear, I don’t personally regard extinction as a likely outcome, and I acknowledge that we’re probably still a long way from condition ‘a’ being met. However, AFAICT, nothing we now know about the potential impacts allows us to confidently exclude such possibilities.
Yes and throw in a couple more wars, or maybe one big one (China?), and I can see action on climate change falling off people’s radar altogether; adding to potential multipliers, toxic social media feedbacks, and a question of whether human societies have become too complicated to manage– especially during a perfect storm of stupid.
“I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones.” ~Albert Einstein
On the the optimistic side… somebody help me out here…
I do see some positive signs, particularly among younger people, if they can be brought up to speed quickly enough…
Hope is a good thing, but it’s not a strategy.
Please. Look at more recent outlooks, such as IEA’s World Energy Outlook; https://www.iea.org/reports/world-energy-outlook-2023/secure-and-people-centred-energy-transitions#abstract
Worse case is 2.2C by 2100. More likely is 1.7C. This is not an existential threat. People in this thread need to get a grip. I thought this was supposed to be a science blog. Where is there actual science showing extinction risk?
I will have a good laugh when I’m skiing with my grandchildren.
Dave: – “Worse case is 2.2C by 2100. More likely is 1.7C. This is not an existential threat. People in this thread need to get a grip.”
Dave, it’s clear to me you have no idea of the escalating threats to civilisation. ICYMI/FYI:
1. On 2 Nov 2023, Oxford Open Climate Change published a peer-reviewed journal article titled Global warming in the pipeline by James E Hansen et al. It includes:
https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfclm/kgad008
2. The Lancet published their 2023 Countdown on health and climate change report on 14 Nov 2023. Delaying climate action will lead to a nearly five-fold increase in heat-related deaths by 2050, underscoring that the health of humans around the world is “at the mercy of fossil fuels.”
https://www.thelancet.com/countdown-health-climate
3. On 14 Sep 2021, Chatham House published a research paper titled Climate change risk assessment 2021: The risks are compounding, and without immediate action the impacts will be devastating, by Dr Daniel Quiggin et al. The Summary includes:
https://www.chathamhouse.org/2021/09/climate-change-risk-assessment-2021
4. Multi-metre sea level rise (SLR) is now unstoppable at current atmospheric GHG concentrations and ocean heat content. The Earth System is already committed to more than 20 metres SLR over a timescale of centuries to millennia. SLR will change every coastline.
See glaciologist Professor Jason Box talking about committed SLR from time interval 0:15:27 in: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iE6QIDJIcUQ
From time interval 0:17:03, James Hansen said:
“The 1.5-degree limit is deader than a doornail, and the 2-degree limit can be rescued only with the help of purposeful actions to effect Earth’s Energy Balance. We will need to cool off Earth to save our coastlines, coastal cities worldwide, and lowlands, while also addressing the other problems caused by global warming.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NXDWpBlPCY8
See Table 2.3 in the NOAA 2022 technical report showing projected SLR relative to year-2000 baseline for years 2050, 2100 & 2150 at:
https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/hazards/sealevelrise/sealevelrise-tech-report.html
Dave: – “Where is there actual science showing extinction risk?”
On our current GHG emissions trajectory there is a very real risk of global civilisation collapse within this century, through severe and compounding climate impacts—rising sea levels, drought, flooding, extreme heat, and so forth—that could undermine agriculture, water availability, and other essential bases of civilization. I’d suggest there are dire existential consequences for billions of people deriving from that.
https://academic.oup.com/nsr/article/10/6/nwad082/7085016
https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2210525119
Dave,
I’d suggest that skiing is not a good idea for an old fool who is so unperceptive. Hopefully your grandkids will dissuade you from such rash behaviour.
The IEA report Dave has trolled in here World Energy Outlook 2023 is saying that current global stated policy commitments put us on a path somewhere between SSP1-2.6 and SSP2-4.5, this being what the fool calls the “worst case” and projects AGW of 2.4ºC by 2100. This projection of emissions (STEPS) is set alongside an “Announced Policy Scenario” which assumes all announced policies are achieved and then projects 2100 warming of 1.7ºC.
The report then sets out the requirement to meet the 1.5ºC which may be bad news for Dave’s future skiing trips. But given the hazards of skiing for elderly folk, that might be beneficial for him.
The CO2 Coalition has passed a climate communication milestone with a vividly animated homeschool climate science curriculum focused on Grades K through Retaking First.
It breaks truly new ground in climate skepticism by challenging the so-called consensus on how to spell “oxygen>”
https://vvattsupwiththat.blogspot.com/2023/11/attack-of-user-friendly-anime-molecules.html
File under “better to laugh than cry.”
It’s a crying shame to see Hansen bending models to suit the Guardian’s political taste.
Hansen is not interested in the Guardian’s politics, though he does get cited there. I normally enjoy and presume to admire your work and acute perception, but this is wrong. Mike Mann is also cited there, fwiw. ++
However, not in response to you but since I’m here, the hatefest of Hansen fans blaming Mann for everything under the sun, including getting Trump elected and the manifold crimes including fossil’s domination of the latest COPs, is shameful and a terrible waste of energy.
++ https://www.theguardian.com/environment/climate-crisis – and, more local }
https://www.theguardian.com/uk/environment
Damien Carrington seems to be the overview guy there.
Robert Cutler @ Oct UV thread
The shorthand I used ‘ENSO→Temp→CO2’ and ‘ENSO→CO2 was hopefully indicating that ENSO is the driver of the CO2 wobbles being examined. And while Temp may be a part of the mechanism that results in the CO2 wobble being caused by ENSO, this is in no way supporting the idea your comments repeatedly allude-to in which you appear to suggest the rising CO2 over the last century and more was not wholly caused by mankind’s CO2 emissions.
(Note that the cause of the rising CO2 levels has no bearing on your grand model which suggests the global warming over the last century or so is due to solar forcing, this a suggestion which is also not borne out by the physics/science.)
To explain the ENSO→CO2 thing beyond the simple number analysis (and from memory rather than here providing reference), the wobble in CO2 following an El Niño is due to three regional processes which impact the carbon cycle in the (1) Tropical Pacific waters, (2) Tropical biosphere, and (3) NH biosphere. None are explicitly or entirely driven by rising temperatures.
Thus:-
(1) With pretty-much zero lag, the ENSO cycle impacts the temperature of the tropical Pacific (no surprise as the ONI is a measure of such temperature – NINO3.4 – and is usually taken as the official El Niño/La Niña indicator). But while it is the physical case that a warmer ocean has less CO2 capacity, things are different here. The tropical Pacific is colder during a La Niña but is also pumping out significant levels of CO2. This upside-down situation is because it is the warming of those colder surface waters that is pumping out the CO2, not the ocean average temperature.
So the first impact of an El Niño is to reduce CO2 levels and reduce the size of that CO2 wobble.
(2) In the months following El Niño, the tropical biosphere, particularly the Amazon, is impacted by cooler/drier weather which reduces its carbon-content and emits significant CO2. While there may be a local Temp→CO2 correlation, the rainfall is likely the major factor in the CO2 wobble caused.
(3) And later, in the NH summer/autumn following an El Niño jetstream characteristics also impact regional temperature and rainfall which add to the CO2 wobble.
But if you are properly trying to identify a Temp→CO2 relationship over short time periods, perhaps you should be using absolute temperatures and no anomalies. ,BEST do tend to set out the anomaly base in its data sets.) This is because the anomalies prevent analysis of the annual cycle in temperature (which rises from a low in mid-Jan and peaks at the end of July) and CO2 (which rises from a low at the end of Sept and peaks in mid-May). Of course, this is a simple repeating annual effect so there is no signal to show whether there is a short lag CO2→Temp or a long lag Temp→CO2 , this an interesting dilemma to address.
MAR, this is an example of why I still check in on your comments. A rare gem which is a valid counterexample to my usual complaints about people responding to long, nutty, Denialism in detail.
Of course, you aren’t going to get a meaningful response, any more than I would with the more pithy question I had in mind for Robert… WTF does any of your babbling and graphs have to do with climate change???
Anyway, a nicely written and informative exposition.
MA Rodger
Thanks for taking the time to continue your very interesting interchange with Mr Cutler in this thread. My personal background is in applied mathematics and modelling and you remind us of some key points. First, mathematical models are useful tools to understand reality but they are only models. It’s never legitimate to infer a physical causality simply from a model. No matter how detailed and elaborate. The modeller may have simply forgotten to account for specific factors that change the result. Or the model may have been imperfectly designed or that the interpretation of the results is driven by bias and thus flawed. Especially in this case in which Mr Cutler’s model contradicts a large body of observational and data driven accumulated knowledge. It seems to me that several of these problems have marred Mr Cutler’s analysis but he seems absolutely convinced of his results which in itself should give one pause regarding subjective bias. Anyway, thanks for the interesting read.
Jonathan, this is more a philosophical/terminology question, since this is your field, about the term “model”.
People trying to disparage the climate consensus often say “it’s just a model”. So when you say “infer a physical causality just from a model”, I’m assuming you are using the term in a different way.
My response to Robert would have included the statement that “correlation doe not imply causality”, because he is making that fundamental error in reasoning, as others have illustrated. He is inferring causality from a statistical correlation.
Again, this may simply be a matter of usage in different fields. I understand models, like the ones used in climate science, to begin with what I call a “causal narrative” and then proceed to establish quantitative relationships using observation and measurement… refining “the math” to allow for prediction.
I’m just making the distinction, as I said, because of the misuse of the term by those trying to deny the climate problem.
The main problem of R. Cutler is the intellectual hubris of bringing his statistical tools into the discipline he knows nothing about, and thinking he discovered climate relationships that the hundreds of climatologists working in the field for decades, has not thought of.
In my Oct.22 post I have indicated the pitfalls of that approach, in short:
1. You can’t tell a real causation from a spurious correlation.
2. Your statistical test for causality – potential cause before effect, ignores the positive feedbacks – CO2 increase T, even if the initial small warming was caused by another factor (e.g. Milankovic cycles in cases of deglaciation – see my Oct.22 post).
3. You have no idea about any confounding variables that could distort the relationships, or lead to spurious correlations, and therefore – to false conclusions on causation.
4. You ignore?/don’t know that? different processes may determine T at different time scale:
at the short-time scales – oscillation in pCO2 are too small to drive oscillations in T:
– seasonal oscillations in T are likely driven by the unequal albedo and heat capacity of having more land NH and mostly oceanic SH
– multiyear/decadal oscillations in T – ENSO and various decadal oscillations are caused by rearrangement of atm/ocean circulation and upwellings, and possibly 11-year solar cycle
Over these short timescales, CO2 changes by several ppm , i.e. not enough to overpower the short-term forcing. But who really cares about short-term forcing – studying it does not provide any actionable information to the society – these are natural oscillations around the mean – hence do not make a trend, and we have no influence on, thus no responsibility for, it.
The climate change is the opposite – it is a trend, not an oscillation, typically characterized as a 30-year running average, with anything shorter being, in effect, weather. i.e. at most – the noise to be removed. And over that climatological time scale CO2 DOES change enough to have an influence – since 1958 it increased, by 100 ppm, not by meagre several ppm as are the short term oscillations.
Your correlations, by being DOMINATED by the short-term variability, do not bring any useful information about climate change. Actually, it is worse than useless, it may be actually harmful: if you don’t know/don’t care/don’t want to know that your analysis is relevant only to the weather, and not to the climate, then your conclusion:
R. Cutler: “ Frankly, I don’t think that CO2 is playing much of a role. ”
can and will be used by the climate change deniers as another “proof” that’s “It’s not us, stupid!” –
and if so – then we can burn as much fossil fuels as Russia and Saudi Arabia would wish us to.
You will help to seed the doubt (a.k.a.: “the science is not settled”) that the politicians in the pocket of fossil fuels need as an excuse to block any meaningful action on GHG emissions.
Thus willingly or unwillingly, you will be contributing to the delay in the necessary reductions in GHG emissions, and as such, you will bear your share of moral responsibility for the human and ecological costs of such a delay.
Piotr said:
As far as natural climate variations is concerned, someone will eventually make this discovery, be it man or machine. It will become accepted only after thorough cross-validation and through the test of time.
Paul Pukite: Nov. 6: “ As far as natural climate variations is concerned, someone will eventually make this discovery, be it man or machine.”
From the quality of the reasoning shown here, somehow I doubt the name of that man or machine will be: “R. Cutler”…
And when that discovery happens, it will be a discovery for discovery sake – satisfying intellectually, but not meaningful societally, the way the discoveries in AGW are. The latter, in addition to the said intellectual satisfaction, ALSO have implications to the future of the humanity: by informing the choices we make, and by evaluating and comparing the consequences our actions, or inactions, thus providing societies with actionable advice.
In this context, studies of natural oscillations are only the natural noise, a noise to be cancelled out by the process of long-term averaging that leaves the climatological AGW trend.
And if that man or machine “ doesn’t know/doesn’t care/doesn’t want to know – that their discoveries are relevant only to the weather, and not to the climate“, then their discoveries would have a net negative societal impact – not only will they not inform our response to the AGW, but would be open to misuse to thwart that very response, as described
in my previous post
“R. Cutler ‘s conclusion: “ Frankly, I don’t think that CO2 is playing much of a role. ” – can and will be used by the climate change deniers as another “proof” that’s “It’s not us, stupid! and if so – then we can burn as much fossil fuels as Russia and Saudi Arabia wish us to.”
Piotr said:
You must be kidding, right? There are a number of benefits that would arise from excellent long-range predictions. Since I’m not going to engage in such silliness, I will direct you to ChatGPT, where you can argue all day long in your agenda to marginalize anything not related to your pet crusade.
https://chat.openai.com/share/f85ff56f-f0e7-4df4-9ae1-0885f0d94f34
Prompt: “In terms of benefit to society, how useful would it be to be able to predict future El Nino events years in advance. And that leads to much better prediction of other climate measures such as MJO, AMO, PDO, etc. “
Paul Pukite: You must be kidding, right? There are a number of benefits that would arise from excellent long-range predictions.
No, I am not kidding, and you, of all people, should have known it best since we already have had this discussion – when you bitterly complained how the money, scientific priorities and prestige go to the research into climate change, instead of your hobby horse – oscillations around the mean:
A Nobel pursuit, “Oct. 2021, e.g.
A summary attached below.
That earlier discussion tells me all I need to know om how much trust I can put in your arguments on any subject. Credibility, like a chain, is only as strong as its weakest link:
if you couldn’t admit being wrong in such an open-and-shut case, then you are not likely to admit being wrong in the more complicated, thus less obvious, technical discussion on ENSO modelling, in which your subject knowledge is miles ahead of mine – hence your probability of being caught – so much less.
======= summary of the earlier discussion on the same subject =====
– Paul Pukite, Oct.2021: “predictions of the next El Nino or La Nina [could have] therefore saved countless lives“
– I asked about how those “countless lives” could be saved
– P.P: “ If subsistence farmers knew that an El Nino was upcoming, then they would know how much seed to purchase or level of irrigation or flood control to prepare for.”
– I responded that telling subsistence farmers when exactly next ENSO stage will happen – is useless to them since they can’t do anything with this information – being subsistence farmers they have no choice but to use the seed they saved from the previous year, and if
they couldn’t afford irrigation in the past, they are not likely to afford it now, even if thanks to Paul they know that the next El Nino will start on, say, on Dec. 15, instead of the previous, more vague knowledge that it has 70% probability to start in the coming winter.
– To which P. Pukite …. tried to win the argument by lecturing me on …semantics:
P.Pukite: “ you are upset that I used the American English idiom “countless” instead of “unknown” ”
Piotr: “That’s a cop-out and you know it”: you argued for much more research resources into ENSO – so which of the two possible meanings of the word “countless” would convince the donors to open their research purses MORE:
– a proposal to save … “ UNKNOWN number ” of human lives, OR
– a proposal to save “SO MANY lives that it is not even possible to count them all” (which is the other, and the main, meaning of the word “countless”)?
In other words, in which of the two meanings have you used the word “saving countless lives”?
==
In response, P. Pukite … doubled down on his claim that I criticized his argument NOT on the merit (that he can’t prove his claim of better prediction of ENSO “saving countless lives”),
but SOLELY on … .”grammar:
PP: I could care less about what you think of my grammar”. “Long known sign of someone spending too much time on the net.” “Poisoning the well much?”
====
Piotr said:
So why are you even attempting to continue with this discussion? You admit that understanding natural climate variation is way outside your expertise.
If anyone else is interested, I submitted a presentation to the US CliVar workshop next year “Confronting Earth System Model Trends with Observations: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly” . From the title alone, one can infer that there is still much to be done in modeling the Earth’s climate.
During submission I responded to a questionnaire including:
“What do you see as the major topics that require discussion and collaboration within the community in the area of comparing observed historical trends with models and ensuring models are behaving accurately?”
My response: Difficulty in discriminating natural climate variations from man-made trends.
Paul Pukite, Nov. 9″ So why are you even attempting to continue with this discussion? You admit that understanding natural climate variation is way outside your expertise.”
So why are you even attempting to continue lecturing others, when you are obviously unable to follow even a simple argument? I haven’t questioned the quantitative details of your ENSO calculations – I questioned your massive overhyping of the value of the ENSO research to the humanity:
===
– Paul Pukite, Oct.2021: “predictions of the next El Nino or La Nina [could have] therefore saved countless lives“
– Piotr: how exactly these “countless lives” could be saved
– P.P: “If subsistence farmers knew that an El Nino was upcoming, then they would know how much seed to purchase or level of irrigation or flood control to prepare for.”
– Piotr: telling subsistence farmers when exactly next ENSO stage will happen – is useless to them, since they can’t do anything with this information – being subsistence farmers they have no choice but to use their seed they saved from the previous year, and if
they couldn’t afford irrigation in the past, they are not likely to afford it now, even if they now , that El Nino will start on Dec. 15.
====
See? No need to know quantitative techniques to question your conclusions on the importance of ENSO research compared to the research into AGW.
And your subsequent defense made things only worse – unable to explain HOW the “countless lives” would be saved, you tried to … slither out on semantics: that by “ saving countless lives” you didn’t mean “ many, but merely “unknown” (i.e. maybe many, maybe few).
To recognize a cop-out in it, AGAIN one didn’t need to know the details of your El Nino calculations – Ockham’s razor did suffice:
Piotr Nov. 8: “ Which would convince the donors to open their research purses MORE:
– a proposal to save … “ UNKNOWN number ” of human lives, OR
– a proposal to save “SO MANY lives that it is not even possible to count them all” (which is the other, and the main, meaning of the word “countless”)? “
There is indeed a “massive … value of the ENSO research to the humanity”. It’s a simple argument. The claim is that AGW research has a massive value to humanity. That appears self-evident from the whining that appears from whenever something not directly related to AGW is discussed in the comments here. Yet, understanding ENSO is important in being able to discriminate the AGW signal from natural climate variations, in which ENSO is part of. QED
That’s a straightforward argument But here’s the challenge. In a mature scientific or engineering discipline, a model of the “noise” (in this case natural climate variations) is developed and that is used to discriminate against the signal of interest. See Kalman filtering for example. Unfortunately, climate science has no consensus model for the noise. Piotr marginalizes this aspect and considers it “overhyped”, which is apart from the value it has as a predictive tool for advance mitigation.
Paul Pukite:
The claim is that AGW research has a massive value to humanity. That appears self-evident from the whining that appears from whenever something not directly related to AGW is discussed in the comments here.
By this logic, Victor must a veritable fountain of climatic insight: self-evident from the massive whining that appears each time he posts.
Good points. What I found questionable was the stated intention of using sunspots as a surrogate for solar irradiance. The statement being made that “we” don’t have adequate information to quantify this. Taking a quick look at the literature, it became clear that this supposition is not accurate. In fact, there has been a substantial body of work published. However, the weight of evidence does not, to my inexpert eye, support the conclusion that variations in solar output are responsible for global warming. It seems to me that climate science and astrophysics are separate disciplines and experts in one field should not, in general, attempt to draw conclusions in the other. The results for solar irradiance should be taken as a boundary condition to then incorporate into the climate scientist’s methodologies. The bulk of the published literature seems to comply with this.
“”””that climate science and astrophysics are separate disciplines and experts in one field should not, in general, attempt to draw conclusions in the other””””
The two fields must be complementary, of course, and include many others in addition.
The trouble is when enthusiasts have the impression that climates are to be reduced to astrophysical radiative concepts using exclusively Schwarzschild-style stellar theory (SSST);
they have fixated on atmospheric transparency to light. This is apparently a consequence of how climates are introduced in classrooms since 20 or 30 years ago. The astrophysical dimensions have monopolized the subject. Even the dissenters are fixated on stellar circumstances.
In doing so, students have become progressively disconnected from their perceptionability – sight, smell, touch, hearing, and taste. In this way, empiricism is replaced by virtual reality / computation / screen time.
By losing touch with their senses and diminishing those who still have it – they ultimately defy knowing the subject; a subject which they hold so dear. Conceptual horizons with strict limits imposed by nay-saying influencers.
That is not the way to do it.
Oke describes it better in 1987 – what’s real are those climates formed near the ground in terms of the cycling of energy and mass through systems. That’s how climates are to be introduced. Not by carbon dioxide and astrophysical greenhouse analogies first and foremost https://climatekids.nasa.gov/ – these things lead only to dark and dull inquiring minds.
JCM: The trouble is when enthusiasts have the impression that climates are to be reduced to astrophysical radiative concepts using exclusively Schwarzschild-style stellar theory (SSST);
BPL: JCM, why do you hate Ray Bolger?
On 2 Nov 2023, Oxford Open Climate Change published a journal article titled Global warming in the pipeline by James E Hansen et. al. It includes:
https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfclm/kgad008
Oxford Open Climate Change also published a journal article titled Editorial on Hansen et al. ‘Global warming in the pipeline’ (this issue) by Eelco J Rohling and Anna S von der Heydt.
https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfclm/kgad010
The Guardian article by Oliver Milman published on Nov 2 headlined Global heating is accelerating, warns scientist who sounded climate alarm in the 80s, includes:
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/nov/02/heating-faster-climate-change-greenhouse-james-hansen
I’d be interested in hearing people’s reactions to Hansen’s new paper: Global warming in the pipeline. I thought climate sensitivity had been pretty well constrained by now, but this paper finds a significantly higher value than earlier estimates.
Jim Galasyn: – “I thought climate sensitivity had been pretty well constrained by now, but this paper finds a significantly higher value than earlier estimates.”
Leon Simon, one of the co-authors of the Global warming in the pipeline paper, tweeted on Nov 4 (my local time) including Figure 25 from the paper:
https://twitter.com/LeonSimons8/status/1720458134458691978
The UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN) published on Nov 3 the YouTube video titled An Intimate Conversation with Leading Climate Scientists To Discuss New Research on Global Warming, duration 1:12:23. Ahead of the upcoming COP28, renowned climate scientist, Dr. James Hansen, and his co-authors present their novel findings of their new paper Global Warming in the Pipeline.
From time interval 0:17:03, James Hansen said:
“The 1.5 degree limit is deader than a doornail, and the 2 degree limit can be rescued only with the help of purposeful actions to effect Earth’s Energy Balance. We will need to cool off Earth to save our coastlines, coastal cities worldwide, and lowlands, while also addressing the other problems caused by global warming.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NXDWpBlPCY8
See the CBC article by Nicole Mortillaro headlined Scientists warn Earth warming faster than expected — due to reduction in ship pollution.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/science/marine-clouds-climate-change-1.7016498
Is there anyone that has a better scientific explanation of the recent observations of accelerating warming?
We have observations daily and seasonally which show the extreme sensitivity of dry regions as the solar Force goes up and down. Evidently, the sum stabilizing feedback effect of dry-lands is substantially less powerful than that of the wet-regions. As Force goes down, temperature goes way down. As Force goes up, temperature goes way up. These relatively sensitive dry-lands exhibit a climate of extremes compared to other places.
Now that humanity has substantially dried, eroded, and drained billions of hectares of lands over the past couple centuries, at a pace inconceivable prior to the industrial revolution, it is reasonable to assume that the average of climate sensitivities is higher than before. This increasing overall sensitivity to radiative Force, in addition to increasing net radiative Force, is a double AGW impact. Conceptually, the human caused impact to stability alone may be a contributor to nudging the system into a new steadystate temperature configuration, irrespective of net IR forcing changes.
Qualitatively, a new class within Δλ is certainly reasonable. Related specifically to profound hydro-biological disruption. This is to accompany the α ΔT + Δ”patterns” as discussed in Sherwood 2020. https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1029/2019RG000678
Some authors have suggested the range of this new class which I label Δλ”humanity” is enough to perturb the system steady-state about 8K in terms of surface air Temperature, ranging from full desert outside glaciated regions on the warm end, to a fully productive hydro-biological regime on the cooler end. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1023/A:1005559518889
Δλ”humanity” seems necessary to account for the fast and unnatural impacts to the feedback parameter caused by us.
JCM
What you describe is what I did launche as the damping or thermo- stating effects of water, after Matthias Schürle launced the earth as a “water- cooled planet”.
That difference also disturbs and ruins your argument. given as
“This increasing overall sensitivity to radiative force, in addition to net radiative force, is a doubble AGW impact.”
It has also got to do with being a flat earther and a landcrab. forgetting or having not yet learnt that most of the global surface is sheere water getting warmer and warmer, entailing another formula of it namely W.W.W that means Warmer Wetter and Wilder.
And maybe denying the vapur pressure or dewpoint curve of water that rules worldwide, correcting and teaching that Clausius Clappeyrons and van t`Hoffs principle is only valid in the laboratory, in the desktop experiment test tubes,……… that is a closed system, ……….smile smile.
We discussed this befrore.
I shall not have to repeat that again of the rain in Spain stays mainly in the plain, Thus once again, where does it rain……. in Spain in the plain,..
And in Hereford Harford and Hampstead hurricanes hardly happen.
Both examples can be found on youtube, for those interested. By Rex Harrison and Audrey Hepburn, in My fair lady. Their learning scientific exercises in the lab. )
As old rumors and new ones are showing less and less appliciable in the real climate.
To old rumors about Spain,
I asked my wife and she says it’s a myth from old Hollywood – it’s raining mostly in the hilltop regions there.
The armchair critics of hydrologies are obviously confused, and lacking exposure to practical reality. Resorting to old Hollywood rumors transmitted through a screen..
If the plain in Spain are behaving like any other, the rate of topsoil soil loss is ranging from 5-20 t per acre annual. Most regions are now showing subsoil as if naked, relying on chemical input additions ($ to $$). many thousands of tons disappeared. SPot it as lighter shades in an airphoto on a screen, except for maybe in higher latitude shieldlands.
It’s missing in modern climate research literature, and it’s not transmitted digitally very often. But reality is ongoing.
You may notice your roadway and other hard and compacted mineral concrete type surfaces show characteristics of a dry place even after 50mm of continuous 24 hour rain. Impenetrable, dry in a flash; it never really got wet. Like a modern synthetic raincoat; the garment is not really soaked like wool or felt in the old way. The coat remains dry somehow even when wet.
More broadly, we know the system of continents and the Earth cannot be partitioned, isolated, and re-assembled like lego. The continental plumes of mass and energy loaded with biota, especially in warmer seasons, are heading well offshore out of eyeshot range. Here you can see ‘the climate’ on screen:
https://youtu.be/qh011eAYjAA?si=Gcy49IkH7Xwr1GGV
Old Hollywood transmissions and clever linguistic tricks, while entertaining, do not offer anything in the way of practical methods.
What more delightful avocation than to restore something for real, as an alternative.
UN is offering soil awareness day again December 5th, 1 month from today. Mark your calendars!! https://www.un.org/en/observances/world-soil-day
JCM: “To old rumors about Spain, I asked my wife and she says it’s a myth from old Hollywood – it’s raining mostly in the hilltop regions there. The armchair critics of hydrologies are obviously confused, and lacking exposure to practical reality.”
This may be important: what were the exact words of your wife? “The rain in Spain stays mainly in the plain“??? Her name isn’t, by any chance, Eliza?
In the background a choir known as “Armchair Critics of Hydrologies Lacking Exposure to Practical Reality.” jumps to their feet and bursts spontaneously into a song:
“ By Gavin, she’s got it!
By Gavin, she’s got it!
Now, once again where does it rain?
On the plain! On the plain!
And where’s that soggy plain?
In Spain! In Spain!
The rain in Spain stays mainly in the plain!
The rain in Spain stays mainly in the plain!
In Hartford, Hereford, and Hampshire…?
Hurricanes cat. 5 hardly happen.
How kind of you to let me come!
Now once again, where does it rain?
On the plane! On the plane !
And where’s that blasted Ryanair plane?
Stuck in Spain! Stuck in Spain!“
I would be grateful if RealClimate’s experts would post an article about James Hansen et al’s new paper “Global warming in the pipeline” and Michael Mann’s criticisms thereof. Who is right?
Links:
https://www.cnn.com/2023/11/02/climate/the-planet-is-heating-up-faster-than-predicted-says-scientist-who-first-warned-the-world-about-climate-change/index.html
https://academic.oup.com/oocc/article/3/1/kgad008/7335889
https://academic.oup.com/oocc/article/3/1/kgad010/7335888
UAH TLT has reported for Oct 2023 with another highest all-time monthly anomaly at +0.93ºC, this topping Sept’s +0.90ºC and pushing the +0.70ºC of Feb 2016 down into third spot, Feb16 being a month boosted by the height of the big 2015/16 El Niño. Perhaps the one mitigating factor in these crazy “scorchyisimoooo!!!!” times as a new El Niño develops is that it’s presently looking to be a “moderate El Niño event.”
The previously warmest October in UAH was 2020 with an anomaly of +0.47ºC.
The 2023 year-to-date average has now risen to top spot in UAH TLT with a “scorchyisimoooo!!!!” for the 2023 calendar year looking unavoidable, it requiring Nov & Dec to average below +0.16ºC to not gain top spot. 2022 did have a particularly chilly Nov & Dec averaging +0.11ºC but there is no sign yet of this “scorchyisimoooo!!!!” begining to wane.
…….. Jan-Sept Ave … Annual Ave ..Annual ranking
2023 .. +0.43ºC
2016 .. +0.42ºC … … … +0.39ºC … … … 1st
1998 .. +0.41ºC … … … +0.35ºC … … … 3rd
2020 .. +0.37ºC … … … +0.36ºC … … … 2nd
2019 .. +0.28ºC … … … +0.30ºC … … … 4th
2017 .. +0.26ºC … … … +0.26ºC … … … 5th
2010 .. +0.23ºC … … … +0.19ºC … … … 6th
2022 .. +0.19ºC … … … +0.17ºC … … … 7th
2021 .. +0.13ºC … … … +0.13ºC … … … 9th
2015 .. +0.11ºC … … … +0.14ºC … … … 8th
I join the chorus requesting an update on Hansen-Mann, though to be honest I believe Gavin and Ray Ladbury both provided the answer. If people want to be hopeless and inactive, they will. Things are grim. But as long as we are alive, we’re here. What else is there?
How is giving up a solution to an argument between good people? People want an enmity so badly? I can’t help thinking this is a surrogate for people who can’t bear it (tbh, I’m a bit that way myself).
An opponent who will actually listen and understand is, unfortunately, one with whom we should be joining forces. It’s easy to be angry and to blame, but undermining good people helps the ‘enemy’ (lies, greed, violence all too evident these days).
With special thanks to Silvia Leahu-Aluas for this!
My pleasure, Susan. The joke was very motivating in a very hopeless situation, but what seemed impossible to change, changed almost overnight. Yesterday was the anniversary of the fall of Berlin Wall and the rest is history, mostly good history for my native country, Europe and world, in general.
I like and subscribe to your stating the obvious: we are the ones alive, very lucky ones, we have to fix this. Many of us are also alive in the countries that caused the crises and that can afford to solve them.
Let’s get to work! Let’s abandon fossil fuels today, tomorrow, no later than 2030. We are alive, we can do it, we have the obligation to do it!
Here’s a recent diatribe by Kevin Anderson, on his favorite topic:: the dire consequences of climate change. https://youtu.be/o_FtS_HNbkc?si=APP3__3Pg0IWR-gc
Sound familiar? I’ve been hearing essentially the same sort of thing from countless climate pundits via countless media sources over the last 15 years at least. Anderson’s eyes are literally popping out of his head, as he tries, for the umpteenth time, to get his chilling message across. It’s always the same: IT’S WORSE THAN WE THOUGHT! IT’S HAPPENING NOW! Unchecked CO2 emissions will inevitably lead to complete disaster for the entire human race, unless we do something radical to drastically alter our self-indulgent ways. And, of course, over the last 20 years we hear the same refrain: unless we act NOW there will no longer be any hope. “Hope” of course, is the key word. No matter how “inevitable” the coming disaster there will always be “hope” — so long as we act NOW!!!!
What we do not hear from any of these self-appointed experts is any attempt to delineate exactly what it is they expect us to do if this “existential” crisis is to be avoided. If only we can somehow, by whatever means, get it together NOW to literally rip the foundations of modern society to pieces by somehow ridding ourselves of all those evil fossil fuels we’ve all come to depend on.
Well sorry folks, but “now” has come and gone — a long time ago — and, as Anderson reminds us, little to nothing of any consequence has been done, or is likely to be done.
And as I see it, that’s a good thing. When we actually get around to considering the evidence, there is really no cause for alarm. There will, of course, always be extreme weather events. And some years will be worse than others. And yes, sea levels are rising — at more or less the same rate they’ve been rising over the last 150 years or so — but the notion that humans can somehow control the climate and the weather and the level of the sea is an exercise in hubris.
If one is willing to apply a modicum of critical thinking to the evidence at hand, we ought to see very clearly that the popular notion at the heart of the “climate change” meme has been falsified. Over a period of roughly 40 years, from ca. 1940 to ca. 1980, temperatures failed to rise despite a significant rise in CO2 levels over the same period. If the theory had been correct, we would have seen such a rise, but we did not — not only globally but just about anywhere in the world, including several regions where the cooling effects of industrial aerosols would have been either nonexistent or minimal.
I’ve been accused of ignoring the evidence, but just about every comment I’ve ever posted here has been BASED on evidence – solid evidence. It’s you who are in denial.
Victor: – “Sound familiar?”
Yep. Do keep up, Victor!
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2023/07/what-is-happening-in-the-atlantic-ocean-to-the-amoc/#comment-813633
Victor: – “And yes, sea levels are rising — at more or less the same rate they’ve been rising over the last 150 years or so…”
Nope. We’ve been through this before in Apr 2023, Victor. Do you think I’d forgotten?
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2023/04/unforced-variations-apr-2023/#comment-810504
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2023/04/unforced-variations-apr-2023/#comment-810560
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2023/04/unforced-variations-apr-2023/#comment-810634
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2023/04/unforced-variations-apr-2023/#comment-810758
See also the graph of the NASA satellite record of sea level rise (from 1993 to 2022) in the JPL post dated 17 Mar 2023. Per JPL, the current rate of SLR is 0.44 cm per year.
https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/nasa-uses-30-year-satellite-record-to-track-and-project-rising-seas
The National Snow and Ice Data Centre (NSIDC) provides easy access to melt statistics and scientific analysis of ice sheet conditions. The graph shows cumulative estimated ice sheet changes from 1992 to 2021. The overall mass balance of both the Greenland and Antarctic Ice Sheets have declined, with an increasing acceleration in recent years (excluding East Antarctica).
https://nsidc.org/ice-sheets-today/analyses/introducing-ice-sheets-today
Victor: – “I’ve been accused of ignoring the evidence…”
Yep, and I’d suggest you are still doing so… Same old, same old…
I wrote that sea levels were rising at “more or less the same rate they’ve been rising over the last 150 years or so.” Consulting the graph provided by Wikipedia, it’s clear that indeed nothing dramatic has changed over that time, despite all the hand wringing over what looks like a very minor (and possibly short-lived) acceleration. https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/38/1880-_Global_average_sea_level_rise_%28SLR%29_-_annually.svg/600px-1880-_Global_average_sea_level_rise_%28SLR%29_-_annually.svg.png
Equally significant is the fact that sea level has risen steadily over all that time, despite the wide variation we see in global temperatures. It’s also difficult to ignore the fact that sea level began to rise during a period when global temperatures were falling. https://i0.wp.com/thundersaidenergy.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/Global-Temperatures-HAD.png?resize=525%2C236&ssl=1
What can cause sea levels to rise, Victor?
Have you ever conscidered telling the truth about that, given that:
Def: Truth is to tell of what is that it is and of what aint not that it aint not.
According to Aristoteles.
Then first, you must be aware of and reallize what is, …. and further get aware of and reallize what aint not.
That is called Ontology..
Then I must recommend the axiom of permanence of matter, and further the permanence of chemjical elements, that is a bit more tricky but for this case you can use the 4 aristotelian elements namely Earth, Fire, water, and Air,… roughly at least. and set on The permanence of water in a closed system, namely the earthly hydro, cryo, and atmosphere.
And then begin with what you seem to believe in at the moment , the steady sealevel rise for the last 150 yeaqrs or so, seemingly regardless of temperature that has really been very steady in that period allong with Lindzen. I tend to agree with lindzen there if I am allowed to doubble his temperature estimate. But that is trivial.
Ok,… then you are to tell the truth of why that sealevel has risen near linear for the last 150 years.
The chanse is yours now for telling us the truth.
============0000
This is the scientifric and facultary way of approachintg it you see. Try and adapt to0 that and rather score that way.
We have a situation here. our former, quite weighty, conservative prime minister from Bergen has been married all through her royal minister period and her husand has been employed next highest in the NHO- union, who are the conrarians to the labour unions. And selling trafficking a severe lots of shares 125 megabucks all in all and earnt alltogether 1.8 megabucks.
1.8 / 128 = 1.4% in 8 years, . Conclusion, I would not employ him for administering my fortune accounts or for administering the Nobel Price Fortune funds. They do it quite much better.
But it is about “hability” of the prime minister and whether the husband of a prime minister ought to go to bed with and eat breakfast with his wife, who is to make and to recommend high political decisions for firms, where her husband is having ownerships, interests, and shares.
A very tricky situation because, she is also telling with tears inher eyes that her husband has not allways been quite honest to her, but quite obviously kept his secrets. .
But on the other hand, buying and owning shares is open to everyone and it may be a hobby or passion however small or large. It has been his obvious right as a citizen.
And being married is also legal.
Shall a prime minister have to divorce or have to be of unmarried order or gender? What about the holiness and privacy of matrimony… including bed, breakfast, and children?.
Then in order for me to understand it and judge it right, I have tried to put myself in the seat of a judge in court who is to state proof of peoples duties and rights and eventual changes of the same by warrant in law..
thus, having thought that practical situation all over and through, I came to the conclusion that I would not be able as a judge in court to state such a proof by warrant in law under such circumstances.
Luckily, it showed that the “Økokrim” namely the national police dept of oeconomical crime did dismiss the case being not able to prosecute it on behalf of the Law and those circumstances in court……… and recommend proof of it by warrant in law, stated by His Honour.
They came to my conclusion in the same case.
Moral:
Try and think in terms of being entitled and due to secure the truth by warrant in accepted constitutional law and that you will have to state proof.
Namely Proof of what is that it is and what is not that it is not.
So that civil people and civilization can rely on it without furter dispute war and violence and sinful behaviours in bed and at the table.
I tried that, and I scored side by side of the national oeconomical police, thus won the case together with them.
Their top lawyer from the labour party was honoured for his conclusion..
======000
When sealevel rises, according to defenitions and law and agreement, that can only be caused by
1, freswater and groundwater running out from land,
2, Glaciers snow and permafrost melting, and
3, thermal liquid seawater expansion.
That is easily prooven by warrant in law and definitions. so you hardly have to discuss global temperatures minutely in detail at all for your heathy proof. Without specifying any temperaturesyou will be able to state proof that the earth has been heated up rather linearly for the last 150 years. And advice people to discuss Lavoisiers ice- calorimeter instead.
You can thus have told the truth , all the truth, and nothing but the truth. that can be recommended for stated proof.
Victor: = “Consulting the graph provided by Wikipedia, it’s clear that indeed nothing dramatic has changed over that time, despite all the hand wringing over what looks like a very minor (and possibly short-lived) acceleration.”
What part of “the rate of rise has more than doubled” for “data recorded by a series of five satellites starting in 1993” from the JPL link I referred to in my earlier comment to you do you not understand, Victor? This is another example of you continuing to ignore inconvenient data.
SLR is ACCELERATING over a 30-year period, consistent with rising temperatures. Even Wikipedia reference you link to shows the satellite data indicating acceleration.
Victor, the climate science denier, regurgitator of climate myths, and denier of reality.
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2023/10/unforced-variations-oct-2023/#comment-814936
One of your mistakes is to assume that all changes will manifest within a few years. This is an egregious error for oceans, which are capable of heating up for decades or centuries before the effects fully manifest. Even so, sea level rise is clearly increasing. In the 70 years from 1880 to 1950, it rose about 3 1/2 inches. From 1950 to 2020 it rose about 6 inches. That’s not “more or less the same rate.” If you think it is, try telling that to the police when you get caught doing 60 mph in a 35 mph zone.
The varying response times between surface temperature, glacier volume, and sea level is also hard to ignore, but you’re doing it.
“We combine satellite observations and numerical models to show that Earth lost 28 trillion tonnes of ice between 1994 and 2017. Arctic sea ice (7.6 trillion tonnes), Antarctic ice shelves (6.5 trillion tonnes), mountain glaciers (6.1 trillion tonnes), the Greenland ice sheet (3.8 trillion tonnes), the Antarctic ice sheet (2.5 trillion tonnes), and Southern Ocean sea ice (0.9 trillion tonnes) have all decreased in mass. Just over half (58 %) of the ice loss was from the Northern Hemisphere, and the remainder (42 %) was from the Southern Hemisphere.
The rate of ice loss has risen by 57 % since the 1990s –
from 0.8 to 1.2 trillion tonnes per year – owing to increased losses from mountain glaciers, Antarctica, Greenland and from Antarctic ice shelves.
During the same period, the loss of grounded ice from the Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets and mountain glaciers raised the global sea level by 34.6 ± 3.1 mm. ” https://tc.copernicus.org/articles/15/233/2021/
Which implies 50 mm more in the next 2-3 decades, assuming that the acceleration doesn’t increase..
But “Changes in the Thwaites system have accelerated over the past 20 years (refs. 8,9,10), resulting in breakup of the TGT and propagation of rifts across the TEIS10. Recent GL retreat has varied from 0.6 to 1.2 km year−1 (ref. 12). Ocean melting, dynamic thinning and ice-flow rates influence this retreat12, but exactly how these factors operate is difficult to constrain with generally poor observations below the ice. Satellite observations, which measure the surface elevation of the glacier, suggest that the TEIS is thinning on average 25 metres per decade10,12, whereas airborne ice-penetrating radar that directly measures ice thickness estimates rates up to 45 metres per decade.” https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-022-05691-0
When the Thwaites Eastern Ice Shelf goes, Thwaites Glacial Tongue will accelerate just like Larsen after its shelf disintegrated. “The immediate post-collapse acceleration and thinning of upstream glaciers demonstrated the important role of ice shelves in buttressing outward glacial flow that directly contributes to sea level rise” https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0012821X23000900
https://theshovel.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/fire-danger-rating-scaled.jpg
V: Over a period of roughly 40 years, from ca. 1940 to ca. 1980, temperatures failed to rise despite a significant rise in CO2 levels over the same period.
BPL: That’s because other things that CO2 also affect temperature. Quit lying about it. This has been discussed to death in this very forum, so it’s highly dishonest of you to keep bringing it up.
You do not teach moral and geophysics in any convincing way;Victor.
Together with the people that you are fighting, you behave in your collective social way just like flies around fresh & politically feromoneous cowdung/ bullshit from year to year from time to time in the seasons.
You obviously have and earn your sponsored and professional warrants and “existance” from it like all the flies in that swarm of yours. trying to hummmm and to bzzzzz the more convincing way.
I, on my side, is able to pick up and learn a few details here and there for practical life, and try my best to serve back from my own special resources for the common good and climate welfare, and believe that to be a more healthy agenda. .
Thanks for sharing Kevin Anderson’s superb material. (no relation): “Enough of treating nature like a toilet” and much more.
Coming to a climate science forum hosted by some of the world’s best experts on the subject and claiming you alone, a fake skeptic, have the one true word, is a waste of your and our time.
File under: accusations which are confessions. Here’s another good one (Johan Rockstrom on planetary limits):
https://www.weforum.org/videos/how-16-tipping-points-could-push-our-entire-planet-into-crisis/
Susan Anderson: – “Thanks for sharing Kevin Anderson’s superb material.”
You may wish to observe the latest (a few hours ago) discussion between ClimateGenn host Nick Breeze and Professor Kevin Anderson in the YouTube video titled Kevin Anderson: Climate Failures and Phantasies | Full episode, duration 0:43:29.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A_7Z58eVzk4
Hi Victor, from reading your posts one would conclude that you believe the entire scientific discipline of climate science is based on fraud and it’s practitioners are engaged in some sort of organized conspiracy, is that true? Personally, I am a scientist myself although climate science is not my field. But as a scientist, I have a fundamental confidence in the integrity of the scientific method. The idea that the overwhelming majority of researchers in any particular field are participating in such fraudulent behavior is, to me, more than a little odd, to say the least.
Also, is it your opinion that the majority of the contributors to this blog are what: delusional? Hoping for an apocalyptic collapse of civilization? Simply choosing knowingly to embrace a falsehood? Really like to hear your thinking on these matters.
JonD: Please, don’t encourage V (both boring and wrong, here to make a noise with his overweening sense of self worth)!
The Kevin Anderson he deplores is very fine (opening minute a mite obscure). Here’s the link again:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o_FtS_HNbkc
Mike Mann has an article in Time – not a technical journal, but a broad discussion of interlocking phenomena which contribute to worsening faster than predicted.
https://time.com/6328017/climate-change-hockey-stick/
I hear you Susan. Unfortunately, it’s become clear to me that Victor (and others) will not simply give up and quit posting no matter how many times their points (always the same) are refuted. Probably the best strategy is to simply not respond to such posts at all as suggested by zebra but that doesn’t seem likely. Perhaps a good strategy would be to simply post a link to a website like skeptical science which would address any points he may bring up since they do tend to be the same thing over and over.
@ Jonathan David
“Don`t feed the trolls” , that is recent formula.
In Norway we know better, we invented and launched and published the trolls.
Old and efficient traditional rules are sunshine- daylight over them. They splash as the sun goes up. They hate daylight and thrive in the foggy slimy darkness.
Next rule is to guess and tell- publish- their true name, then they loose their power.
Name and full adress ad hominem, because they thrive in collective immunity.
And steal their one and only one eye that they share in common so that they cannot see anymore.
What about homemade pepperspray in that eye?
Yes. Every correction gets a response, ad nauseam. I wish RC had a minimize and/or blocking function to skip over the nonsense. There was substance in the links, whilst discouraging innocent newcomers from adding to the affray.
JD,
Pointing to Skeptical Science, is a good idea.
Personally I’m a little curious, and a little concerned, about Victor myself.
Looking at his corpus of trolling, it’s hard not to see it as roadkill that won’t stop twitching; hard to witness and a sad expression of his inner life.
I’m sympathetic to your suggestion, but the infamous “Swiftboating* of John Kerry suggests strongly to me at least that’s it’s better never to let these lies stand if you can avoid it.
Of course, better to be brief–a maxim I rather neglected in favor of some outraged rhetoric the other day. Hey, I’m human.
Re: DNFTT
One measure for dealing with trolls is to not address them directly, but to discuss their behavior and any useful points with other commenters– another form of shunning.
If they leave, maybe don’t refer to them after that; they’re likely lurking and will feel missed.
Susan,
Thanks for the link to the Time article.
A sobering reminder that the situation and the discussion around it is changing as we speak.
No, I see no evidence of fraud. What I see is a classic example of group think, rooted in research based on confirmation bias. This sort of thing is hardly new. Think of the disastrous influence Lysenko’s misguided theories had on Soviet agriculture; the “tulip madness” that overtook Holland in the 17th century; the witch hunts that destroyed so many innocent lives in various societies over many years; more recently the Enron scandal, the Bernie Madoff ponzi scheme, which went unnoticed by the authorities until Madoff himself revealed it, the Theranous fraud engineered by Elizabeth Holmes and supported by just about every financial and political “expert”, the case of Sam Bankman-Fried, who accumulated tens of billions under the noses of a host of “experts.”
I too believe strongly in the scientific method, but I know from the experience of my own research how easily it can be subverted by those with an agenda. I’m not accusing anyone — but I see no reason to support flawed research.
Weaktor, you wouldn’t recognize the scientific method if it bit your thumb off. If there were such an instance of “goupthink,” don’t you think that the rest of the scientific community would have noticed? And yet, the conclusions of the IPCC have been endorsed by every professional society of scientists with expertise pertinent to the subject: Physicists, chemists, geologists, statisticians, mathematicians, meteorologists… well over 100 in all. And not one has taken a position in dissent. NOT ONE! Hell, even the climate experts at Exxon-Mobil were writing internal research saying that CO2 was warming the planet (only discovered due to suits against the Exx-Mob).
Dude, I cannot figure out whether you are just totally delusional, a lying sack of snake feces or satire.
It is interesting that the majority of the examples of “goupthink” that the idiot presents to demonstrate that he is not accusing anybody of “fraud” (for which he tells us he sees “no evidence”); the majority of the examples are actually nothing but “fraud.” (Of the rest, one was simply a bizarre example of a financial bubble, one which requires [to some degree at least] a belief in magic and then Lysenkoism which required the approval of a dictatorship happy to imprison/execute thousands to keep the lid on the officially adopted policy.)
An accusation of “goupthink” would only be possible if there was some reason for the accusation, some evidence to suggest that the scientific understanding of AGW was in some way flawed. Otherwise the whole of science would become open to being branded as “goupthink,”
So where is that evidence? After arriving here nine years ago, the Troll has managed to demonstrate very little, demonstrating he doesn’t understand squat about correlation, about the geographical effects of SO2 emissions, about Occam’s Razor. And nine years on, he still thinks he is right and all the folk here are wrong.
So if he is right, why is Victor the Troll not coming mob-handed with his well-founded evidence that is unaccounted by IPCC assessments? Is there nobody that agrees with his theorising? It should be noted here (this being a scientifically-based process) that the folk like Victor the Troll who argue so loudly that AGW science is wrong set out reasons that, remarkably, are contradictory with each other, perhaps here an example of Anna Karenina Principle.
That is not to say that no scientific ideas should ever be set out because they may be incorrect. Arguably, science learns more identifying what is incorrect than from identifying what is correct. The problem with Victor the Troll is the interminable presentation of the same old crap.
And that is not to say that a theory which is initially dismissed should be just junked. The scientific establishment is full of folk chipping away with pet theories which should have been junked decades ago. But these folk are at least ‘chipping away’ rather than just regurgitating the same old pile of crap. Nor do they attempt to give weight to their argument by banding together with other purveyors of crap-piles, ones that are so often entirely contradictory to their own.
Such is the state of climate change denial. Given that, you might even see this denialism as itself an example of “goupthink” if it actually involved mental processes worthy of the description ‘thinking.’
So perhaps, if Victor the Troll is so convinced that his own pile of crap has such merit, I would suggest he take his crap on a trip to the rogue planetoid Wattsupia and see who there agrees with him there. Or is it a case of once bitten twice shy.
in Re to
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2023/11/unforced-variations-nov-2023/#comment-815579
Dear Dr. Ladbury,
A question:
Were the Exxon-Mobil scientists writing reports pointing to CO2 warming Earth, or, actually, rather reports pointing to CO2 emissions capability to warm Earth?
I do not think it is the same.
Greetings
Tom
Ray to Weaktor, after proving, again, the lies of the latter: “Dude, I cannot figure out whether you are just totally delusional, a lying sack of snake feces or satire.”
A satire would have worn off years ago. Which leaves … the sack.
V: What I see is a classic example of group think, rooted in research based on confirmation bias. This sort of thing is hardly new. Think of the disastrous influence Lysenko’s misguided theories had on Soviet agriculture; the “tulip madness” that overtook Holland in the 17th century; the witch hunts that destroyed so many innocent lives in various societies over many years; more recently the Enron scandal, the Bernie Madoff ponzi scheme, which went unnoticed by the authorities until Madoff himself revealed it, the Theranous fraud engineered by Elizabeth Holmes and supported by just about every financial and political “expert”, the case of Sam Bankman-Fried, who accumulated tens of billions under the noses of a host of “experts.”
BPL: You forgot the persecution of Galileo, the sinking of the Maine, the siege of the Alamo, and the terrible, the awful, the horrible destruction wrought by the kitchen sink.
To all andeveryone
about Victor behind his back.
On Confirmation bias and groupthink….
We have a lot of routines for checking up on such things.
To chech up on such things is so common that it is rather trained initial routine seen as rather trivial and most elementary to those who do it rather the enlighted trained educated and orderly scientific way.
On how to find out and tell the truth when the truth or the answer is not yet published in the facit and facit to it is not yet written so you have to do that yourself, The art or craft of how to find out and know about things that are unknown. On how to make, and to publish discoverioes. and write the new Facits,… To tell the truth of how it is and of the future for instance. What do we have to do and what do we have to know then first?
But victor seem rather to be an exeption operating rather contrary to such primary and trivial things., comitting his special groupthink and confirmation bias.
As Putin put it “it takes one to know one!”
Victor is an especially hardnecked example of confirmation bias and groupthink. who has it from the experts in anonymeous plural, from his groupthink. Victor in person as an example or study material is hardly of any further intellectual and scientific interest.
Victor seems to be a hardcore flat earther and blind, secteric congregational believer in the scriptures also. That is where we rather have him.
Jonathan David
I never saw you here before, and you say you are a scientist.
You say you have fundeamental confidence in the integrity of the scientific method, in definite form singular.
I once did believe in the same. Today i am really more in doubt, because as it comes to it, it shows hardly to be any definite form singular, and that really ought to be discussed.
My teacher / GURU (one of them at least) did teach that
Def: Science is systematic or systematizizeed knowledge.
That, I keep as a fruitful conscept that can cover several faculties, meeting with other paradigms that I cannot share, but that ought to be taken for serious.
I once got to do with a highly trained intellectual musician and new age astrologist, who could work very well for me as I took her for serious, And then tried further to make up my own “astrologyical horoscope for her on my own paradigmatic premises. That is: , What can it possibly entail for her given character and destiny exactly where and when she was born, as the stars are mooving on from that point?.
And told her that as I see it, the heavens are not flat either but rather global as seen from here. I have to disqualify the flat heaveners blind believers also. And that at the polar circle , the very zodiacal animals are lying around there looking at you from all sides, low the bushes 2 times a day in the high mountain plains at the polar circle monument. , So that , the conscept of “ascendent” is hardly appliciable worldwide.
Further, that there is a birth clinic in Logyearbyen Spitzbergen also. , Shall all those children be discriminated and have no horoscope? As the “ascendent” showed very tricky for me at 60 deg north allready as I tried to take it out of the real starmaps..
She broke and divorced with me after all, I was very broken hearted because she really seemed to understand a bit…..
But there are obvious paradigm, learning, training, and character- contrasts and conflicts also to be seen and taken for serious. And what cannot go well together after all should not be labeled “un- scientific”. by routine.
I have further found for definite that authors that call themselves both scientific and smash around with someting they call “classical physics” for damned sure and highly trained, …….. hardly has got to do with what they are discussing, namely common molecular and vital matter and its possible use, values, and behaviours, and how to examine that..
Their learnings is obviously rooting in other and….. popular paradigms, that are also taken for higly serious and even “scientific”.
We are meeting at least some of it different from sheere madness, here and should be aware of scientific paradigm and basic learning and belief and training- collisions.
They all tend to label it science” as that is extreemly popular.
“Reason also, has got its history of style” My next GURU could teach.
.
Hello Carbo,
I’m mostly a lurker here although I have posted a few comments on topics related to my background. My initial background was in applied mathematics, with particular interest in non-linear dynamics, dynamical systems and bifurcation theory. Particularly in the context of fluid flow instability including turbulence modelling. So there aren’t too many points that appear on this blog that I can contribute to.
That would apply to other things as well, notably dogma, a closed system of “knowledge.”
I much prefer Ray’s definition of science as a box of tools to keep you from fooling yourself (or words to that effect).
I like this definition. “Science is a rigorous, systematic endeavor that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the world.” (Science, ,Wikipedia).
Victor said (among other things that have already been debunked repetitively to no visible effect, in Victor’s mind at least):
Oh, what tepid, polluted, nausea-inducing bilgewater! We’ve debated ways, means, and strategies for mitigation on these very pages for a very long time, and the debate has certainly not been limited to the denizens of RC. There is considerable disagreement, Victor–as one might expect on an important policy matter. However, we all agree that there are several things that need to be done.
1) Fossil fuels must be phased out, and from a climate perspective, the faster the better. (The decades of slow-walking this no doubt account for the good Dr. Anderson’s ‘popping eyes.’)
2) Land use must be reformed as well; it’s a very significant secondary source of GHG emissions. (For a truly bad example, see “Bolsonaro.”)
3) Poorer nations must be assisted because a) it’s fair; b) we can’t get to net zero without them; c) they struggle to fund energy projects of any description; and d) they are very often at enhanced risk due to geography, and allowing people to die unnecessarily is by and large considered a Bad Thing.
Detailed comment:
Yes, thanks in no small part to the collective efforts of denialists such as yourself. Had the energy transition been started with more conviction in, say, 1992, we would be in much less parlous state today. But oh, no, FF-fanbois had to do everything in their power to blunt public demand for this necessary change.
Talk about alarmist! Literally no-one wants to do that. What we want to do, in fact, is to transform modern society such that it can be continued indefinitely into the future. Visions differ, of course. Again, that is to be expected. But the only recklessness actually on display is on the part of folks like you, Victor, who insist that there’s no problem when any halfway sane appraisal shows quite the opposite. Just the latest example of sickeningly many:
https://www.cnn.com/2023/10/24/weather/hurricane-otis-acapulco-mexico/index.html
If I didn’t know from observation that you are totally learning-disabled, Victor, I’d call that a barefaced lie:
https://sealevel.colorado.edu/
Excuse me while I retch. “Control” of the climate, however partial, would require precisely that we demonstrate the ability to control our GHG emissions… which is exactly what Dr. Anderson advocates so desperately. No-one claims that we have yet demonstrated that capability.
However, it is *not* hubris, but demonstrated fact, that we have already *affected* the climate. Therefore, our problem is not hubris, but rather a self-serving, hypocritical false humility. Ah, “puny humans!”
https://discover.hubpages.com/education/Puny-Humans-Can-We-Change-The-Course-Of-Nature
In Re to
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2023/11/unforced-variations-nov-2023/#comment-815526
and to
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2023/11/unforced-variations-nov-2023/#comment-815576
Dear Victor,
I think I understand your scepticism as regards economical viability of fossil fuel replacement. Nevertheless, I do not see a problem in technical feasibility of this transition.
Rather oppositely, I think that human technical creativity is a factor that any time in human history helped to human survival. This crucial feature of human nature seems to be, paradoxically, almost completely ignored in present discussions of global problems. Nevertheless, I think that this human ability has not disappeared yet and that it can and should be also among clues to resolution of present problems.
Nevertheless, I doubt very strongly that a transition of world economy to green energy may be viable the way it is currently pushed – by an international effort organized by rich nations, relying on worldwide good will to implement arbitrarily selected technical measures supposed to bring the desired effect if the entire process will be funded by huge subsidies / worldwide redistribution of wealth. This is, in my opinion, not the way how humans work.
Possibly, it may be the point in which I disagree with Kevin, because it appears that prevailing opinion (at least on this website) is that “we must phase out fossil fuels”…at any cost. Have I understood correctly, Kevin?
If yes, I do respectfully disagree – and rather support Viktor in his scepticism about this approach. Because “any costs” may be in my opinion justified only in case of a certainty (“above any reasonable doubt”) that the proposed measures indeed bring the desired effect. Can we indeed honestly say that phasing out fossil fuels is a sufficient condition for taking global climate under human control? I do not think so.
That is why my personal vision of the outcome is not in smart policies / strategies / plans / whatever like this, any of them decided arbitrarily by smart enlighted politicians / scientists / intellectuals. I simply do not believe that something like this may really work in the complexity of the real world.
Personally, I rather trust in individual activity of people and in general human creativity, especially if they will not be hampered by arbitrarily decided artificial big plans and strategies and by lack of resources caused by wasting scarce tax money on such programs. Let us make green energy reliable and, in parallel, less expensive than fossil fuels. I bet that everybody will implement it spontanbeously, without heavy subsidies.
Unfortunately, the present trend seems to be exactly opposite. The very rare bipartisan consensus in the US Congress on subsidies for billion dollar direct air capture programs may serve as an evidence, I am afraid.
For those who believe in necessity of “fighting climate change at any cost”, I would like to recommend works of Dr. Mark Jacobson. He shows quite convincingly that DAC belongs to least efficient available ways towards climate change mitigation. Interestingly, a recent announcement that the US DOE assigned such huge subsidies for the DAC projects has not raised any particular attention on the RC website.
Greetings
Tomáš
Thomas Kalisz
“Nevertheless, I doubt very strongly that a transition of world economy to green energy may be viable the way it is currently pushed – by an international effort organized by rich nations, relying on worldwide good will to implement arbitrarily selected technical measures supposed to bring the desired effect if the entire process will be funded by huge subsidies / worldwide redistribution of wealth. This is, in my opinion, not the way how humans work.”
I agree to some extent. However the ideal approach to climate mitigation recommended by academics, economists, bodies like the IPCC and preferred in principle by governmnets is not subsidies. The ideal approach is to put a price on carbon by way of carbon taxes or emissions trading schemes, this having the benefit of pushing everyone towards low or zero carbon solutions while preserving a level of free markets and individual choice and creativity. And its my preferred choice.
Unfortunately in some countries like America carbon taxes and cap and trade schemes get a lot of ideological resistance from libertarian leaning anti tax parties like Americas GOP. And for cap and trade to work well needs a high price on carbon and will lead to increases in fuel costs and governmnets are naturally scared of a public backlash.
Therefore in some countries like America governments have resorted to subsidies to promote wind farms, DAC, etc,etc. Although it still costs the tax payer, the costs are less obvious and so subsidies tend to be more acceptable to the public. Crazy I know but theres a lot of psychology in the issue.
Subsidies, while not my ideal choice, are not necessarily terrible provided the government does not indulge in selection of very specific technologies, but subsidises all zero carbon power sources equally (for example wind, geothermal, nuclear, solar etc). This avoids micro management and allows markets to decide optimim solutions. In fact it seems that in America they have generally done this, and subsidies have seeded their wind and solar industries and got them going so that now they no longer need or get subsidies. So subsidies are not always a bad thing.
I assume you realise wind and solar power are now cheaper than fossil fuels per m/watt hour although as they expand storage will be required that will add some costs.
You may find the following study of interest:
“As the planet approaches local and global exceedance of the 1.5°C stabilization target, damages from climate change, mostly due to extremes, are growing far faster than projected. While assessment models have largely estimated high costs of mitigation, the cost of green energy is dropping faster than projected. Climate policy has assumed that damage costs are manageable while decarbonization is expensive. Both these assumptions are wrong, potentially leading to a tipping point in human behavior: scientists need to explore options aligned with this emerging reality.”
https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2023AV001020
Therefore the idea that climate mitigation will impoverish poor people further does not seem convincing, and is just more denialism coming in the main from sources that normally couldn’t care less about poor people. (Although I don’t think that includes Victor. While I dont agree with his views on the science, and his rhetoric about group think, he appears to have some genuine concerns for poor people)
I do not think that relying purely on individual creativity and initiative without any government plan or incentivisation would solve the climate problem. The “tragedy of the commons” problems demonstrates that humans will pollute and ruin the environment over the long term and that this only stops when governmnets intervene either by setting up a system where you can sue polluters in court, or alternatively have a system of government rules, regulations, and fines or carbon taxes or subsidies or similar mechanisms.
Libertarian solutions of zero government involvement to environmental problems have a long history of abject failure so there is no escaping some government role, but I agree it should not micro manage the situation or stifle creativity. Carbon tax schemes, and cap and trade are a good balance of government rules and free market.
Regarding global redistribution of wealth. Your comment that the world doesnt work like that might be interpreted as justifying greed and the status quo. Things sometimes change, and with such things there is often a sensible half way house. For example many wealthy countries give some aid to developing countries. This is humanitarian and ultimately also benefits everyone. However I admit I do not subscribe to academic visions of some sort of perfect equality of wealth. Its just not practical or even necessary.
Dear Nigel,
Many thanks for your kind reply.
I do agree with your view that human society needs rules and mechanisms for their enforcement, othervise anarchy and the right of the stronger prevail.
Nevertheless, as regards subsidies, I think that it is a measure that has to be used exceptionally and very carefully, because there is a huge addictive potential. The addiction is, moreover, insidious, as – similarly as individuals – societies tend to ignore warning signs thereof. And, as you know, it may become impossible for a heavy addict to help himself.
I am afraid that we just experience a fall of world economy into a kind of “subsidy addiction”. We can easily cross an invisible border. Beyond that border, working hard on practical things, seeking for improvements and new solutions, may not matter anymore, because your primary necessity for survival will become competition for subsidies.
I observed the deteriorating effect of arbitrarily decided and heavily subsidized “innovation strategies” when I asked several institutes of German Fraunhofer Society, an institution dedicated for development of advanced technologies, if they could check function of a sodium-fuelled electrochemical cell described in an old expired patent. Although this fuel cell might offer many technical and economical advantages, they had no interest. When I asked for reasoning, one of involved leaders responded:
“Our capacity is fully saturated with development of hydrogen fuel cells that have huge commercial potential.”
“Based on huge state subsidies for that.”, I added in my mind.
Greetings
Tomáš
Hallo Nigel,
Apologies for a late reply.
I posted it on November 10, but it has not appeared in the thread.
Trying again:
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2023/11/unforced-variations-nov-2023/#comment-815645
Dear Nigel,
Many thanks for your kind reply.
I do agree with your view that human society needs rules and mechanisms for their enforcement, othervise anarchy and the right of the stronger prevail.
Nevertheless, as regards subsidies, I think that it is a measure that has to be used exceptionally and very carefully, because there is a huge addictive potential. The addiction is, moreover, insidious, as – similarly as individuals – societies tend to ignore warning signs thereof. And, as you know, it may become impossible for a heavy addict to help himself.
I am afraid that we just experience a fall of world economy into a kind of “subsidy addiction”. We can easily cross an invisible border. Beyond that border, working hard on practical things, seeking for improvements and new solutions, may not matter anymore, because your primary necessity for survival will become competition for subsidies.
I observed the deteriorating effect of arbitrarily decided and heavily subsidized “innovation strategies” when I asked several institutes of German Fraunhofer Society, an institution dedicated for development of advanced technologies, if they could check function of a sodium-fuelled electrochemical cell described in an old expired patent. Although this fuel cell might offer many technical and economical advantages, they had no interest. When I asked for reasoning, one of involved leaders responded: “Our capacity is fully saturated with development of hydrogen fuel cells that have huge commercial potential.” “Based on huge state subsidies for that.”, I added in my mind.
Greetings
Kalisz
Subsidies being highly addictive and all the consequenses of addiction…. there you really have a weighty point at last. Congratulations.
I have a next formula.
FISCVS is the Emperors most important monitoring (¨Überwachungs) and cometition- distortion organ in peace- time.
Not only in Moravia but also here we have had the grand old Party with P in charge with absolute majority for a very long time. And they did exel in taxation and subventions. and …. iron curtains control at the national boarders the best they could.
They first called it socialism, then social-democracy,… and today “Welfare- state”.
After all, I believe the USA is more heavily infected by this in our days than we are in Europe.
But Hr Kalisz, what kind of privileges and welfare would you preferre? Golf course
and Mar a Lago administered by King Donald Grozny? or tempered and boreal forests, fjords, lakes and rivers quite next to where you live?
King Donald would even set up a majestetic iron curtain through wild and pristine nature along the Mexican boarder.
Back from the retreat for climate change deniers, Tomas?
Tomas Kalisz Nov. 9) “ human technical creativity is a factor that any time in human history helped to human survival. This crucial feature of human nature seems to be, paradoxically, almost completely ignored in present discussions of global problems.”
“Paradoxically”??? ;-) It is ignored for very good reasons. First, it is intellectually weak – a form of wishful thinking, a Panglossian view of humanity and the world. That reason helped us in the past, does not guarantee it will save us from a global climate catastrophe on the planet with 8 bln people and growing. That you managed to fight off a vicious chihuahua in the past, does not guarantee that you will be able to fight off a hungry tiger tomorrow. In more general terms –
it is a part of cornucopianism, a belief in no limits for growth and the invisible hand of the market as a solution for anything.
Second, it is not helpful, quite the opposite – not only does it not help to solve AGW, but it makes the solution less likely by detracting from the urgency of the current action in favour of the future, pie-in-the-sky technological fix, brought about by the famous human ingenuity. The possible future “best” is an enemy of the already today-existing “good”.
Dear Piotr,
Thank you very much for your reply.
I could not survive longer without further portion of your sharp criticism, I admit.
Greetings
Tom
P.S..
Excuse my little joke, now seriously :-)
I do not believe in absence of limits for economical growth, at least with respect to quantity.
I believe, however, that humans have no clear limits in their creativity, and that it is our greatest strength.
It appears that you consider this feature of our nature that converted African apes into geological force rather as a spell, because it became also a threat for global ecosystems, and potentially for mankind itself, am I right?
I am aware of this “dark” side of our nature, however, I doubt that treating human creativity solely as a risk and threat is a good idea. I think that exploiting this (in my opinion not entirely negative) human capability for problem solving might be the better way.
And as regards urgency, the difference in our trust in human creativity mirrors also in our different view on anthropogenic global warming treatment:
Whereas you suppose that it is necessary to stop discussing and start full steam mitigation efforts with currently available tools, irrespective how unsuitable for the purpose they might be (because “the planet burns”), I am afraid that this approach relying on unsuitable tools may cause more harm than good. I think that possible harms may be prevented and the problem finally solved quicker than with your “brute force” approach, if we invent more suitable and more efficient tools.
Also, denialati are also–and actually, in my insufficiently humble opinion, more frequently–guilty of ignoring or selectively denying “human technical creativity” when it threatens to upend their preferred solution (which, of course, is to burn ever more fossil fuels so that–per them–we can all lift up the poor, green the planet, and generally live happily ever after.)
It tends to go like this:
Denier: We’re dependent on fossil fuels, which have done more to raise up humanity than anything in history! Renewable energy is too expensive!
Realist: Er, renewable energy is generally cheaper now–and sometimes even cheaper to build from scratch than is just *operating* extant fossil fueled plants. [Cites sources.]
Denier: Renewable energy is too unreliable! How can we count on a source that comes and goes with the wind and clouds?
Realist: We mustn’t confuse intermittent availability with unreliability; they are not the same. For one thing, we can forecast generation conditions to useful degree, and plan accordingly. And the dispersed nature of generation means that outages are very often less problematic for the grid than the much less predictable failures of fossil plants and transmission facilities. [Cites numerous reported instances where RE ended up backstopping fossil outages.]
Denier: Renewable energy is too diffuse! It will use up all our land, strip virgin forests, and ruin the countryside with noise and heat pollution!/em>
Realist: RE coexists very well with agriculture, and in fact wind power leases are helping keep a whole lot of farmers in business these days. And solar does very well not only on rooftops, but on a whole range of degraded ‘brown-field’ sites, not to mention urban areas such as parking lots. [Cites studies and examples.]
Denier: Windmills will puree all our birds!
Realist: Bird and bat kill is a valid concern, but is far from the most dire human threat to flying species. Moreover, there are technological and operational strategies that can significantly mitigate the problem. [More cites follow.]
Denier: Solar panels pollute worse than fossil fuels!
Realist: Maybe you haven’t noticed, but the toxic ingredients in a solar panel are chemically and physically combined into solid-state modules, which are then enclosed in a sturdy, waterproof, weatherproof, tempered-glass and metal box. Coal ash, not so much. [Just shakes head.]
And so on, and on, and on…
Dear Piotr,
I already replied on November 10, however, the reply has not appeared in the thread.
I am trying to re-post it herein:
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2023/11/unforced-variations-nov-2023/#comment-815641
Dear Piotr,
Thank you very much for your reply. I could not survive longer without further portion of your sharp criticism, I admit.
Greetings
Tom
P.S.. Excuse my little joke, now seriously :-)
I do not believe in absence of limits for economical growth, at least with respect to quantity. I believe, however, that humans have no clear limits in their creativity, and that it is our greatest strength.
It appears that you consider this feature of our nature that converted African apes into geological force rather as a spell, because it became also a threat for global ecosystems, and potentially for mankind itself, am I right?
I am aware of this “dark” side of our nature, however, I doubt that treating human creativity solely as a risk and threat is a good idea. I think that exploiting this (in my opinion not entirely negative) human capability for problem solving might be the better way.
And as regards urgency, the difference in our trust in human creativity mirrors also in our different view on anthropogenic global warming treatment:
Whereas you suppose that it is necessary to stop discussing and start full steam mitigation efforts with currently available tools, irrespective how unsuitable for the purpose they might be (because “the planet burns”), I am afraid that this approach relying on unsuitable tools may cause more harm than good. I think that possible harms may be prevented and the problem finally solved quicker than with your “brute force” approach, if we invent more suitable and more efficient tools.
TK,
Re: “Unsuitable tool”, or WTF are you talking about?
A basic principle of investment that applies broadly:
Past performance is in and of itself no guarantee of future results.
You have no analysis other than you “hope” that things will work out. And because you’re apparently afraid of any disruption to the status quo, you ascribe almost magical power to platitudes about creativity — that so long as we all just sit around blathering and kicking the can down the road, things will somehow just sort of work out, because… Rah rah sis boom ba! Abracadabra! Ta-da! Humans!
Here’s a news flash for you, it’s due to the exceptionally creative and hard analytical work of scientists that we know about the problem and what needs to be done. You, on the other hand, offer nothing but bromides and hand waving.
(Although, to be fair, I will pointedly give you a pointless point for politeness. But that’s it.)
Re: Tomas Kalisz 12 NOV 2023,
If your view has been challenged you have to either disprove it or change your view.
I have challenged your claim we don’t have to don’t anything about climate change today, because people when faced with a problem, always invented something. My reply:
“That reason helped us in the past, does not guarantee it will save us from a global climate catastrophe on the planet with 8 bln people and growing.” And that certainly we can’t plan our future on your wishful thinking.
You were unable to disprove this argument and you did not change your view in response either, instead pretending that these are two subjective, i.e. untestable with reason opinions, implying that your opinion is as valid as is mine. It is not. As I said – “
That you managed to fight off a vicious chihuahua in the past, does not guarantee that you will be able to fight off a hungry tiger tomorrow. “, Particularly that your chances of such a future technological fix are diminishing the longer we wait for it:
as the civilization-supporting systems, most notably food production, collapse – with them will collapse the civilization and the chances that you can invent and implement your technological fix. The road to hell is paved with wishful thinking about human ingenuity.
In Re to
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2023/11/unforced-variations-nov-2023/#comment-815731
Dear Radge,
An example of an unsuitable tool for fighting climate change can be taken from my country, I am afraid.
There is a strange widespread popular belief in the Czech Republic that nuclear power plants do represent an advanced technology. There are two nuclear power plants in Dukovany (finished in 1986) and Temelín (finished 2002) that do work reliably and cover ca 35 % electricity production in the country.
Nevertheless, even bigger share of electricity is still produced in power plants fed with brown coal. According to decarbonization strategy supported by a strong majority of Czech politicians, the electricity from coal power plants should be replaced basically with electricity from new nuclear power plants.
In this strategy, the poor thermal efficiency of the available PWR technology about 33 %, or the negligible exploitation of the natural uranium in this technology (less than 1 %) do not play a role. Recent cost estimations for this technology are quite blurred, however, humble estimations suggest that the return of the foreseen investments may require at least 30 years, likely much longer.
In other words, technology on the technical level of year 1960 shall still form basis of electricity production in Czech Republic around the year 2100. Can you imagine hundred year old steam engines driving contemporary factories?
What is most strange for me: Very few people see these absurd consequences of the above mentioned long-term plans and strategies.
Greetings
Tom
in Re to
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2023/11/unforced-variations-nov-2023/#comment-815769
Dear Piotr,
I think that one of the key differences between us may be in different view on applicability of available technologies for climate change mitigation:
Whereas you assess them as “good”, I strongly doubt that e.g. massive use of available nuclear technology, planned massive replacement of natural gas with hydrogen and like for the sake of decarbonization can fulfill the task without causing more harm than good.
I am afraid that “acting quickly” may results just in locking the society to these unsatisfying technologies. The only winners might be the respective vendors, I think.
Greetings
Tomáš
Tomas Kalisz
“Nevertheless, as regards subsidies, I think that it is a measure that has to be used exceptionally and very carefully, because there is a huge addictive potential.”
Agreed. I assume you mean businesses becoming dependent on subsidies and lobbying to keep them in place, and governments being reluctant to end subsidies, because of possible job losses, and the potential the loss of campaign donations from affected industries. This is a problem. Australia’s car industry received subsidies for about 40 years! And they only ended recently.
The purpose of subsidies is sometimes to enable certain industries to get started, where there is a public good, and they would struggle in a free market setting. This seems ok to me in certain cases. Asia started its technology sector with strictly time limited subsidies. Western countries seem to be more relaxed about how long subsidies last but this just means companies get addicted.
Subsidies can be used for dubious purposes like appeasing campaign donors or subsidising energy costs to appease the public.
“human technical creativity is a factor that any time in human history helped to human survival. ”
I interpreted this to mean you feel governments can suppress creativity with their bureaucracy. It can happen sometimes but California has quite an activist local government and massive creativity. It all depends how the bureaucracy is structured. California shows it can be done well.
Piotr appeared to interpret you to mean that we don’t have to do anything much about climate change right now because we can rely on technical innovation in the future. I agree with Piotrs criticisms on this. We cannot assume we will eventually find a novel and excellent solution and it seems unlikely we would. And we have some reasonably good solutions right now (renewable energy, nuclear energy, carbon sequestration schemes).
And the longer we wait to do something, or expand renewables, the more we lock ourselves into either geoengineering or carbon sequestration. We know geoengineering is always going to be risky and carbon sequestration has huge problems if we were very reliant on it. Its a huge gamble to think some future innovation would overcome these obstacles.
“Whereas you assess them as “good”, I strongly doubt that e.g. massive use of available nuclear technology, planned massive replacement of natural gas with hydrogen and like for the sake of decarbonization can fulfill the task without causing more harm than good.”
I do not recall Piotr promoting those schemes in particular. We already have a range of viable solutions including wind, solar, and geothermal power. I would not rule out nuclear power provided the industry sorts out the problems with waste disposal. It is clean, zero carbon power.
Use of hydrogen is more debatable due to its low efficiency.
The point is we don’t have one magic bullet power source that stands out. Fusion MIGHT eventually fill that role but its not going to be developed in time to be useful with the climate issue. Generally many countries historically have had a mixture of generating sources and have made that work. For example coal, plus gas, plus hydro. I suspect this will continue in principle for some time, but with a mixture of wind, solar, geothermal, hydro and nuclear power. This may not be the perfect solution, but I’m not seeing some massive problem with it. “Don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good” (Voltaire).
Tomáš Kalisz,
Not following your logic, sounds like you’re saying that because you don’t like certain solutions, therefore climate change isn’t an urgent problem.
I may be missing something (I haven’t read all of your comments) but it seems as though your argument consists mainly of a collection of disconnected circumstances and worries.
If you’re saying we shouldn’t be worrying so much and that there’s no urgent problem, then maybe you should stick to demonstrating that we have plenty of time to play around, using evidence and a scientifically valid alternative theory of what’s happening with climate.
Expressing trepidation I get, using trepidation as a premise for inaction sounds more like FUD, and is not constructive.
Thanks.
Tomas Kalisz “ I strongly doubt that e.g. massive use of available nuclear technology, planned massive replacement of natural gas with hydrogen and like for the sake of decarbonization can fulfill the task without causing more harm than good.
Your “strong doubts ” prove nothing, other than proving your arrogance in spouting the opinions on which truth or falsehood you know nothing about, because you lack the knowledge of the subject you are proclaiming on, and you lack the humility to learn first from other people’s work, before advancing your opinions.
Your “ causing more harm than good” is a QUANTITATIVE statement – and to make such a claim you have to back it up with numbers, But you have NO numbers, so what you are really saying is that you “have strong doubts” that the number that you don’t know on the left side, is smaller than the number you don’t know on the right side.
And arrogant ignorance and supporting the continuous use of the fossil fuels, while waiting for the miraculous silver bullet that will save us, and achieve that before the collapse or irreversible changes happen – is not something on which I want to risk the future of humanity on.
in Re to
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2023/11/unforced-variations-nov-2023/#comment-815886
Dear Nigel,
Many thanks for your reply.
I would like to make clear that I do not think that we have to rely on some hypothetical “silver bullet” technical innovation in the future. Actually, I think that we have to
1) be smart and creative NOW, because an action is needed NOW,
2) care about our capability of technical innovation GENERALLY, because it is the crucial strength of humanity.
By the way, it appears that I differ from Piotr rather in point 2). He seems to be quite sceptical about strength of human creativity and, if I undersood him correctly, strongly recommends to rely on instantly available “ready-to-use” solutions.
Contrary to Piotr, I am afraid that the available technical means are unsuitable or insufficient and that relying solely on them may become a way to hell. I believe, however, that unleashing the innovative human power may fix the existing weaknesses of available technologies quickly and thus help us to escape unharmed from the dangerous situation.
Personally, I think that there is basically a single but very generic and serious weakness in technical solutions that are currently considered as available for the desired economy decarbonization. In my opinion, it is their economical incompetitiveness with fossil fuel use.
Below, I will try to explain in more detail why I do not trust in long term plans and strategies relying on the belief that we “have no time to think, because we must act” and that we therefore must overcome the economical mediocrity of existing decarbonization technologies by huge public subsidies therefor.
I am afraid that the entire history of the former Soviet empire (which asserted that planned economy based on smart thoughts of wise men relying on their “scientific” knowledge is the right solution for human society) showed quite convincingly that this idea was a mere illusion (or delusion). Its spectacular failure can be inb my opinion explained as a result of
(i) severe underestimation of the complexity of real world, combined with
(ii) severe overestimation of capability of any human individual to process all available information and cope with this complexity rationally.
I am afraid that personal experience of the contrast between real life in stagnating “socialistic” state on one hand and visions of the bright future based on (allegedly) smart ideas and (allegedly) scientific knowledge of its leaders on the other hand may be an essence that is missing in thoughts of authors and proponents of present plans and strategies for climate change mitigation.
It may sound rude but I cannot help myself: To be frank, these plans look like copy-paste from resolutions released by Communist Party of Czechoslovakia assemblies that I still remember well.
Let me now to explain how the strategies and policies aimed to support technical innovation may in fact harm it.
Under true technical innovation, I understand checking yet unproven technical concepts. Such concepts may not be new. The stories of the Stephen Skala’s idea of “sodium economy” and of the Lockheed Martin patent US 3 730 776 for a sodium fuel cell
https://orgpad.com/s/5BfLP-cxj-7
are examples of publicly known inventions that have not attracted attention of industry and/or of policy makers yet, although they may properly address the issue as hot as finding an economically feasible way to a “decarbonized” and still efficient economy.
I am not aware of any public policy or strategy supporting such kind of fundamental technical innovation. I attempted for almost two years to find a corporation or a public institution willing to check technical feasibility of the above mentioned patent or to obtain some funding therefor.
As I already mentioned, one of reasons for this striking lack of interst was the circumstance that these entities already are busy with implementing arbitrarily decided and (due to poor technical-economical parameters heavily publicly subsidized) “ready-to-use” solutions.
Finally, I was successfull thank to a good luck only, when I met an extraordinarily capable ingenieur who invested his own money and spare time to reproduce the first example of the patent in his garage.
To make a conclusion:
More than by climate change itself, I am worried by the circumstance that we believe in mitigation thereof by policies directing public funding to incremental technical innovation that
(i) cannot resolve fundamental deficiencies of the available technologies that hamper their economical competitiveness with fossil fuels, and
(ii) for this mere reason have never capable to replace them, despite being technically mature enough,
instead of checking feasibility of yet unexplored ideas that may show new and better ways toward fossil fuel replacement by technologies that are genuinely better (and therefore economically attractive per se).
Last but not least, funding such proof-of-concept testing may be significantly cheaper than heavy subsidies for technologies like PWR or hydrogen that already are at their technical limits and do not promise any reasonable perspective that they really become cheaper than fossil fuel use in a near future.
Greetings
Tomáš
In Re to
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2023/11/unforced-variations-nov-2023/#comment-815890
Dear Radge,
The present thread is rather a side branch of a discussion that started on March 30 by my question addressed to the moderators of this discussion forum
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2023/03/unforced-variations-march-2023/comment-page-2/#comment-810452
There is a public record of the entire discussion in the web application OrgPad that you might easily access under following link
https://orgpad.com/s/7zfynb_y5o7
The original plea for a comment, addressing doubts about reliability of present climate models and their predictions / projections expressed in the article
https://arxiv.org/abs/2301.09998
that meanwhile appeared also in a peer-reviewed journal
https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/ffgc.2023.1150191/full
remains still unanswered.
Greetings
Tomáš
In Re to
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2023/11/unforced-variations-nov-2023/#comment-815891
Dear Piotr,
If we consider “blue” hydrogen produced by the best available technique from natural gas with capture and storage of carbon dioxide formed as a by-product, we have to take into account that at least half of the energy comprised in the natural gas extracted from the Earth crust gets lost during this conversion.
Further, we have to consider that due to lower volumetric energy density (burning certain volume of gaseous hydrogen gives only ca 30 % of heat obtained by burning the same volume of methane), transporting the same amount of energy in form of hydrogen will need more than triple capacity of pipelines. The same applies for eventual storage.
As a result, heating with hydrogen, widely touted as a “green” solution for climate change mitigation, could be certainly a good business for gas industry but not so much interesting for customers who will pay for the same amount of consumed energy several times more.
Considering that electricity from renewable sources is now slightly cheaper than electricity generated from fossil fuels and that direct electrical heating is still a luxury in comparison with gas heating, heating with “green” hydrogen made from renewable electricity will be even more expensive than with the “blue” hydrogen.
I trust the gas industry that mutiplicating the existing gas infrastructure by mean of public subsidies and locking their customers to expensive hydrogen must be really a big dream / big Deal for them.
As a plain consumer, I am not sure if paying all these costs is a necessary sacrifice for “saving the planet”. I still hope that better solutions are possible.
Greetings
Tomáš
Re: Tomas Kalisz: “as regards subsidies, I think that it is a measure that has to be used exceptionally and very carefully, because there is a huge addictive potential.”
Regurgitating the climate denier clichés much lately, Mr. Kalisz? You bemoan the bipartisan support in the US for direct air carbon capture (even though the Republicans were on board only because it extends the usage of fossil fuels) and instead you favour the status quo in which :
“ 52 advanced and emerging economies — representing about 90% of global fossil-fuel supplies — gave subsidies worth an average of US$555 billion each year from 2017 to 2019” https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-02847-2
And that is NOT including the benefits of releasing the fossil fuel producers from the responsibility for most of the environmental damage they cause, thus allowing them to privatize the profits while socializing/nationalizing the costs. And that is also NOT including the massive subsidies to the fossil fuel USERS (Big Agro, airline industry) or the makers of products that need cheap fossil fuels (big Auto).
Ever heard about seeing a subsidy straw in the eye of another, and not seeing a beam in your own, Mr. Kalisz?
And then you rant against the decarbonization, because …. the nuclear energy in your country is “a 1960 technology” and is expensive, so instead a … 200+ year old technology
of the brown-coal, one of the dirtiest fossil fuels – both in terms of CO2 emissions per kWhr, and in terms of general pollution – the brown-coal power plants in the “triangle of death ” -where the brown coal power plants in Poland, then-Czechoslovakia and DDR destroyed thousands of square km of forests by massive acid rains, and over the years killed probably 10s (?), 100(?) of thousands of people by respiratory diseases. Add to that heavy metal pollution and radioactive pollution – if brown coal mines had the same limits of radioactive pollution as nuclear power plants – they would have been shut down for exceeding them.
And then there are the open pit mines not only devoured forests and agricultural land, but lowered the water table over a massive area. Mr Kalisz knows it well, because Poland has been paying Czech Republic half a million of Euro A DAY for not shutting down one of its brown-coal mines that destroyed houses and left thousands of Czech households without drinking water (dropping the water table in 8 meters in 2020 alone) But since the fines (already about 200 mln Euros) are covered by the taxpayer, it does not affect the bottom line of the mine, nor the CEO salaries, and nor the profits of the shareholders. But don’t let it stop you from lecturing us, how it is the alternatives to fossil fuel that are “addicted to public subsidies”
. And to clarify you misrepresentation – I am not some gung-ho supporter of nuclear power, as my past posts on RC on the subject attest – I am merely saying that comparing nuclear and fossil fuels, the nuclear is not as bad as the fossil fuels you promote. That said, nuclear is not my only or even the preferred solution – where possible I’d rather see investments into renewables, and reduction in the consumption/energy wastage (smart grid, energy efficiency and energy storage) before we build new nuclear.
None of these alternatives is 100% perfect, but we have no luxury of time to wait for the perfect, we have to go with the good, or since misconstrued “the good” as uncritical approval – with the less worse.
Tomas Kalisz: “ Dear Piotr. If we consider “blue” hydrogen produced by the best available technique from natural gas with capture and storage of carbon dioxide formed as a by-product, we have to take into account that at least half of the energy comprised in the natural gas extracted from the Earth crust gets lost during this conversion”
In my best de Niro voice: “You talkin’ to me??!” _I_ didn’t promote the use of natural gas to create H2.. _I_am for making hydrogen from water using the renewable electricity – thus getting H2 with near-zero emissions of GHGs. And you can use this H2 in various ways:
1, in applications that require H2 as the raw material, thus replacing the nat. gas that would have been used to produce the same amount of H2
2. in places, where the renewable electricity can not be effectively used (say, to power the planes) thus replacing fossil fuels used there
3. in places, where CO2 capture from fossil fuels would not work – e.g. in vehicles and planes. To use your own example – even if I lose half of energy from the fossil fuel to make H2, if I capture the GHG emissions – then I still reduced my GHG emissions BY HALF,
comparing to you using fossil fuels in your car or plane without the capture of the resulting CO2.
P.S. Why did you suddenly shifted to talking about the least GHG-intense fossil fuel – natural gas, when in your _previous_ post you touted the benefits of one of the most GHG-emitting fossil fuel, and one with massive collateral heath and environmental costs – brown coal?
Tomas Kalisz
You appear to be criticising the American approach of government subsidising very particular climate solutions (eg blue hydrogen). In new Zealand we call it “picking winners”. You are critical of the technology and economics of blue hydrogen and the limitations of related government decision making of ”picking winners” equating it with communism.
Again I do generally agree on this even although I’m not a fanatical capitalist and anti every socialist idea. Blue hydrogen looks like a bad solution to me in all respects. Green hydrogen would be better.
https://www.sierraclub.org/articles/2022/01/hydrogen-future-clean-energy-or-false-solution
And governments do have a bad track record of picking winners. They just don’t have the expertise or freedom from bias. As I previously stated, governments are instead better to apply their subsidies equally ( if they must have subsidies) to a wide range of possible solutions (for example all possible biofuels, electrofuels or zero carbon generating sources) and then the private sector in a free market setting is better placed to figure out the most economic option and converge on that. Of course even this doesn’t work perfectly, but its better.
You cite the creative and technical value of a sodium fuel cell, and that this solution has been ignored. Well perhaps it has been ignored but the harsh reality is no matter how the government run the economy and no matter what the private sector do, they might just not be aware of the patents for this technology and might never find them. That’s a fact of life and a tragedy of life.
Although It seems to me likely that the corporations exploring hydrogen fuel cells would have considered things like sodium fuel cells and perhaps found problems.
You complain that governments do not support innovation and creativity. In my country of New Zealand our government subsidises some private sector research where there is a possible public good but it is not financially attractive to the corporate to fund the research. This seems like one of the better uses of subsidies. I don’t know what America does.
In Re to
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2023/11/unforced-variations-nov-2023/#comment-815942
and
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2023/11/unforced-variations-nov-2023/#comment-815952
Dear Piotr,
Many thanks for your feedback.
First of all, I would like to correct your feeling that I promote fossil fuels, or, specifically, brown coal.
I believe that if you will go through my posts carefully, or through all my previous posts that you may inspect in my track of the discussion that is publicly accessible under link
https://orgpad.com/s/7zfynb_y5o7 ,
you hardly find any evidence therefor.
As regards hydrogen, I have not asserted that you promote or support “blue” hydrogen and/or “carbon capture and storage” (CCS). I just tried to provide some (semi)quantitative comparisons to satisfy your request expressed in
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2023/11/unforced-variations-nov-2023/#comment-815891
and explain in more detail why I think that a crusade against climate change based on available nuclear technology, hydrogen, etc. may be in fact harmful.
I simply think that less may be sometimes more and that much smaller investments in proof-of-concept testing of yet unexplored technologies may open much more effective ways towards sustainable economy and thus prevent the threat of societal disruptions due to economical stagnation, inflation, powerty etc. caused by huge ineffective investments into decarbonisation as promoted by lobbyists of present industries.
Personally, I think that we have to exploit the fortunate circumstance that astronomical public money already spent in promotion of solar and wind energy indeed helped to bring these technologies economically on par with fossil fuels.
As the last hindrance for their triumph over fossil fuel use is lack of cheap electricity storage that would make them as reliable as their “classical” competition, I strive to promote electricity storage in cheap abundant alkali metals sodium and potassium. It is an alternative to available electricity storage technologies that in my opinion indeed has technical potential to make renewable energy sources economically competitive with fossil fuels.
As regards subsidies, I expressed my belief that direct and indirect subsidies into existing technologies hamper technical progress and this undermine adaptability and resilience of human civilization. As fossil fuel use definitely belongs to existing technologies, I agree with your view that subsidies for fossil fuel industry are counter-productive and harmful.
Greetings
Tomáš
Tomáš Kalisz
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2023/11/unforced-variations-nov-2023/#comment-815922
I presume Gavin’s response was not what you were looking for?
BTW, The Makarieva article concludes
Merits (or lack thereof) of the paper aside, this doesn’t exactly help your case.
Anyway, my comment remains, You’ve been determinedly throwing spaghetti against the wall to see if anything sticks, and still no compelling and coherent argument that all we have to do is sit around and watch you generate FUD until… what? Cold fusion? Or…?
In Re to
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2023/11/unforced-variations-nov-2023/#comment-815993
Dear Radge,
In his post of March 20, 2023
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2023/03/unforced-variations-march-2023/#comment-810210 ,
JCM cited an older (2013) article by Makarieva et al., related to so called “biotic pump” hypothesis. The dismissal expressed by Dr. Schmidt pertains to this hypothesis.
Myself, I am not capable of assessing the arguments regarding this hypothesis. Perhaps it would be comparably instructive as various articles about dubious applications of statistics, or about journeys of quantum physicists into climatology, if the moderators explained to the general public also the “biotic pump” story.
My question, however, pertained to a much more recent article authored by Makarieva
https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/ffgc.2023.1150191/full
because it casts a serious generic doubt on recent climate models, with respect to their insensitivity to intrinsic changes in water cycle intensity. The authors of this article object that this insensitivity is built in the models by the assumption of constant lapse rate.
Contrary to solar activity, galactic cosmic rays and other factors with a questioned influence on Earth climate, water cycle intensity does play a prominent role therein. My feeling is that contemporary climatology considers this intensity as a “feedback” that reacts to external “forcings” like changes in insolation or in concentration of non-condensing greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. I would like to learn more about the grounds of this approach.
Should the insensitivity of climate model predictions on deliberately introduced water cycle intensity variations be indeed caused by an invalid approximation as objected by Makarieva et al., the role of anthropogenic changes in water cycle intensity in global climate could be in fact much more important than the models show. This is in my opinion a serious thing and for this reason I believe that my question regarding the recent article by Makarieva et al might indeed deserve an attention of the moderators.
As regards technologies for decarbonization, I just strived to express my concern that economy matters.
I am afraid that policies relying on promoting economically incompetitive technologies by public subsidies may fail, because money is not an unlimited resource. I personally prefer rather incentives pushing the industry to fix the weak points of the available technologies, so that they become competitive, rather than just pouring money on them.
Lack of efficient and cheap electricity storage may in my opinion serve as a prominent example of a persisting weakness, because it prevents competitiveness of renewable energy sources with fossil fuels in electricity production. In current settings, incentivizing “commercialization” of the available (but incompetitive, because ineffective / expensive) technologies for energy storage, such as hydrogen or batteries, industry mostly focuses on these technologies in expectation of subsidies promised in “green” public policies, and does not seek fundamentally better solutions.
Greetings
Tomáš
Tomáš Kalisz
Well, the paper certainly seems to have gotten a lot of hype. Personally I have a hard time buying that models somehow implicitly end up prescribing and incentivizing the destruction of forests. I would object to that happening on any number of grounds. The only people likely to advocate for that would be the same people who deny AGW in the first place.
Anyway, I leave the technical details of modeling to others. That said, not addressed in the article is the correlation between atmospheric CO2 and past loss of diversification and extinction events.
And something interesting to note in light of the authors saying “natural ecosystems evolved to maintain environmental homeostasis” is a comment by Spencer on the Clauserology thread:
The Gaia Hypothesis is an interesting idea to me, but it’s not something I’d use as an assumption.
Your argument however, not explicitly stated, apparently amounts to this: that there is no AGW (carbon) driven emergency because you don’t like what you perceive as policy implications, and therefore we can afford to fiddle around indefinitely until technology solves the problem.
It seems to me intuitively obvious that this is backwards, and that if there’s a problem with the science, then simultaneously mixing in a lot of verbiage about policy is just obfuscation. Policy in this context should be addressed as a separate topic altogether, IMO.
What’s suspicious in your comments is the denialist refrain, “Don’t worry, technology will fix it!” Which is also resonant with other denialist memes that certain people have long been using here, including some of the following (listed and discussed at Skeptical Science https://skepticalscience.com/argument.php and to some extent here at RC):
6. Models are unreliable
13 climate sensitivity is low
30 increasing CO2 has little to no effect
35 IPCC is alarmist
38 CO2 limits will harm the economy
74. CO2 effect is saturated
86. It’s land use
98. CO2 limits will make little difference
108. It’s not urgent
109. It’s too hard
129. Climate ‘skeptics’ are like Galileo
149, Climate change solutions are too expensive
154. Water vapor in the stratosphere stopped global warming
207. Holistic Management can reverse climate change (soil management)
215. Planting a trillion trees will solve global warming
Potshots.
Bottom line for me (so far), I don’t see anything that rises to the level that we should just drop everything we’re already doing to adapt to and mitigate climate change.
On the contrary.
“What if it’s a big hoax and we create a better world for nothing?”
https://www.kentucky.com/opinion/op-ed/article44162106.html
Dear Radge,
Many thanks for your reply. It inspired me to thinking about my views on mainstream climate science, its teaching about anthropogenic global warming, and on mitigation policies.
I am afraid that nowadays, there is no clear distinction between science and politics generally, and particularly not in case of AGW.
As regards myself, I feel rather as a “doubting non-believer” than as a “denialist”, but I admit that others can see it differently.
Greetings
Tomáš
@ Thomas Kalisz
Your paragraph 21 nov at 2. 43AM
You term yourself a doubting non believer different from a denialist.
and tell that today there is no difference between science and politics.
That difference we must be able to clear up for ourselves. Both are extreemly unprecise and diffuse and float into each other, thus we must be able to sort and to clear it up the rather cunning way. .
You seem to be in confusion and delusion especially about “the water cycle” where I am an experienced and learnt specialist who has not fallen into that tempting and slippery hole of denialist strictly orthodox, traditionally, congregational political propaganda.
(It is political wolleyball theoretical systematics from The Asbestos Palace, Palatz der Republik behind the late Berlin wall / Thinktank at Chateau Heartland in Michigan, both by the grand old Party with P, where I do not have to specify which Party, only that it is the grand old one. That will be understood by those who need to understand it. .
Read University Football for Wolleyball,and you have it also for the USA.
It further explains the affinity / love affair between Czar Puttler and King Donald Grozny, that is of religious nature.
I also tend to believe that water and the clouds will save us also this time as a cooling agent and negative feedback to global warming. But not the way you are selling and describing it as cooling “evapo- transpirations” from land continental ground.
That argument is created only for the Mafia to get access to Lake Mead in Las Vegas, by perverting possible physical understanding in the climate dispute……….. in order to sell, defend, and to further Big Coal and Big Oil, where the earth must be flattened within political error- bars.
TK: there is no clear distinction between science and politics generally, and particularly not in case of AGW.
BPL: Possibly not in the minds of part of the public, but among scientists the difference is quite clear.
“Soils” mentioned as a remark in parentheses way down the list at denialist meme #207??
That ranks quite low in the commandments of taboo and politically incorrect subjects. It places so low that it barely registers as transgression against the congregation; akin to playing footsie with Karen or chewing gum in the pews.
Tomáš Kalisz.
Being skeptical is good, plus being skeptical of skeptics is good, plus being skeptical of yourself makes good times three. “Doubting non-believer” (odd term) sounds more like you’ve made up your mind but feel the need to look for confirmation.
Now why would some people find that so? A crisis of epistemology in a post-truth world? Constant attacks on science, death threats against scientists, the recent treatment of Dr. Faucci…
First a refresher on historical context, an article by Kurt Anderson author of Fantasyland: How America Went Haywire, magical thinking through out America’s history.
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/09/how-america-lost-its-mind/534231/
A little perspective on inductive science and convergence of evidence.
Why climate skeptics are wrong
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/why-climate-skeptics-are-wrong/
For complicated science like climate, there’s been a shift from solo scientists in labs to extensive, large scale research, developed with many eyes on in many areas — such that potshots from would be skeptics have little practical impact, other than maybe tightening up loose ends, but mainly just being time wasting, smoke and mirrors.
So what’s the deal with these septics? A partial answer
Relationships among conspiratorial beliefs, conservatism and climate scepticism across nations
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-018-0157-2?error=cookies_not_supported&code=4157f9fb-02d4-45ff-b3ec-54728617a7cc
Some practical heuristic advice, not the be-all and end-all, but some rules of thumb.
How to spot “alternative scientists”.
“The term “infodemic” reflects the fact that false information is just as contagious as an epidemic.”
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2020/08/how-to-spot-alternative-scientists/
More rules of thumb. It would help if people better understood how science works and not just the general facts of a subject, because frankly the depths of climate change science are the realm of PhDs with a life time of expertise built on the shoulders of their predecessors– and way beyond the vast majority of people, and certainly beyond ditto-heads living in the fever swamp of hyper-political media and alternate facts.
Hierarchy of reliability for science literacy
https://www.researchgate.net/figure/A-hierarchy-of-evidence-showing-increasing-reliability-of-evidence-in-a-progression-from_fig2_232692359
Likely at the top of a general hierarchy “The ‘gold standard’ in climate credibility is a report from the National Academy of Sciences.” John W. Nielsen-Gammon of Texas A&M University
https://yaleclimateconnections.org/2012/12/state-climatologist-offers-hierarchy-of-credibility/
https://yaleclimateconnections.org/2012/12/climate-literacy-no-says-texas-tech-scientist-meta-literacy-yes/
TK:
Depends on what you mean by political. In any case, from what I’ve observed the people who run this site are circumspect in that regard.
FWIW, from having had an opportunity to observe first hand a regional comprehensive planning project for protecting the environment, part of what made it successful was how the relationship between scientists, different government agencies, businesses, and other stake holders was organized and managed. There was a lot of heat as you can imagine, but a firewall was maintained around the scientists, where information flowed out, but politics didn’t flow into the science. Frankly, and perhaps not surprisingly, a big problem was certain interests trying to bully the scientists, not the other way around.
On a personal note, I’ve had it up to here with people who don’t know what they’re talking about doing their best to impugn the integrity of the scientific community and its members. And that includes the outrageous smears that Michael Mann, a contributor here, has had to put up with from Steyn at that rag The National Review; and that’s not to mention the death threats and other crap he’s had to put up with.
Tomas Kalisz: “I would like to correct your feeling that I promote fossil fuels, or, specifically, brown coal.
By their fruits, not their declarations, you shall know them. If:
– you advocate the delaying the reduction in GHG emissions, and
– you attack the existing alternatives by claiming that may cause more harm than good than the fossil-dominated status-quo and
– you illustrate that by attacking nuclear as “1960s technology” and contrast it with the
brown coal (status-quo in Czechia),
then … WHAT ELSE do you say?
If you can’t, or won’t, understand the arguments of others, and apparently not even the implications of yours – what’s the point answering you with detailed arguments? Particularly, when you don’t answer even the simplest questions, like:
“ If we are so smart, how comes we haven’t invented [your perfect solution to climate change] – YET?”
And no, it’s not for lack of funding for your small proof-of-concept projects – if you come up with a plausible non-fossil technology that is BETTER than the existing ones, then the governments with $ trillions on the line, would happily pay you your weight in gold.
So again, WHERE ARE THEY?!
Kalisz
There are things here that I tend to agree with but there must be social and constitutional, “Congregational” and political order con- sensus and agreement, for human ingeniousity and creativity to work more than on individual level.
I repeat….!
You can see that a lot of people argue that “There is no climate crizis!” in order for them to counter actual or suggested measures against a defined climate crisis.
Which is also how humans are working and actioning in their creative way, traditionally.
Then we have different traditional ruler- or leaderships also. Dictatorship, thyranny, Wars and civil wars, “Martial” law, that is partial dictatorship, and civil agreement con-sensus and social dicipline.
Social economy carried out by a ruling class or Party with P of the people still with P and even “of” the people, smile smile..” …… in the nations of the world with further orders sciences taxes, monopolies, price regulations…………….. is also very traditiona human ways of social and racial class leader and rulership.
It is a special art of how to make people obey, pray and to pay, as schedueld, .. the more or less violent way.
Sigmund Freud once coined a radical conscept. “Das Unbehagen der Kultur”.
I was once personally blamed and accused in court for being peaceful even pacifistic as long as I am alone and my opinions are shared only by a young and small minority. “But give him right or let them become in charge in society,.. and we will all see something else namely who he really is../ who they really are!”. Hum Hum.
Well that racial warrant and attitude is really not in my career political plans It is not in my class or racial Bloodgrup. I am not of that “blood!”.
but as Putin (with P) said it “It takes one to know one!”
I believe I got that judgement from a true Genosse-Comrade from the Party with P, and I need not specify which Party with P , only that it was the grand old one. But we simply do not share that state religion and basic lifestyle. We never learnt to pray, damn and swear that way for the people to pay and to obey.
There are differences of style, paradigms and upbringings,
because “Reason has alsio got its history of style!”.
Irepeat….!
That fameous political action of James Hansen Gro Harlem Brundtland, Al Gore IPCC, Rajendra Pachauri and Greta Thunberg roots in a certain deeper Paradigm that I tend to share.
Wherefore I also advocate flowerpower and the photosynthesis, the green values.
I hardly share the fameous paradigm or state religion of denialism, surrealism, dia- lectic materialism, . national socialism, and monopoly capitalism.
Adolph A for Adolph and Arian,… ran out of gas after all, that is what really kept him up. Adolph understood nothing else.
Who invented the copper wire?
That was 2 scots who found a penny on the road,
Adam Smith was truly Scotsch.
Rajendra Pachauri spoke in “Oslo City” as he was here:
“No one shall have to reduce his living standard. We only need to chose other values!”
(Applaud from the King and the Queen and from all galleries high and low in “Oslo City”.)
The fameous case against Rajendra Pachauri for “Mansplaining” was dismissed by Indian supreme court quite recently.
Al Gore was ingenious in many ways Just due to a microscopic election loss in Florida he drove up the very Hollywood and took strangle grip on
1, the American way of life
2, the Chineese way of life and
3, the oil lead between Saudi Arabia and Pentagon.
Strangle grip, beat that!
And did set Guinnes world record of conspiration. .
Al Gore could teach further: “Tax on human work is not autenic US constitutional . In fact it is an ugly alian intruding German Prussian invention. Skip all taxation of human work, and rather tax Big Coal and Big Oil instead and pay that out to the opressed working class. This will solve it.
I tend to agree with Al Gore on that.
It will have very many social and economic advantages. I even believe that Al Gores doctrine of how to rule the world by more intelligent taxation is what the Victors and Knowitalls , surrealism and denialism have deeply understood, thus are fearing and fighting .for their very “existance”. ,
after having been aimed at and hurt most deeply by Al Gore (the nobel price winner), on their basic paradigm, at the assembly line on the factory floor where the earth is flat within error bars and Big Coal and Big Oil is in charge.
I believe, this is rather what we are quarreling about.
@ Tomas Kalisz
I wrote a long reply that unluckily got away. But now I see that the political opinions of nigelj for you are roughly also those of mine
Climate and weather and environments also affects society and solutions must be made on social loevel. To solve on inivdual level the clever way may prepare you in time for possible political and social collective solutions., thus positive.
I myself is quite a- social and believe in creativity, but there must be limeits and there must also be law and order.. I obviously cannot live alone and only care and solve for myself. Quite often I must also make people agree, and even have to agree with people. There must be Con- sensus.
There are para- cites in society. . Those are the worst I think., both high and low, right and left.
An old moslem word says ” Wealth is the ability to give out!”
We have words on that also in the new testament.
I even have 2 formulas of my own
Wealth W is what you have divided through what you desire W = h /d
Powrity P is the reciproke of W , P = d/h
And that rules for many orders of magnitude of h and d
But there are also limits, h must be above existencial minimum. A minimum naturalis.
Maxima, I dont know, but God seems to have set some devine limits there to most earthly life.
In Re to:
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2023/11/unforced-variations-nov-2023/#comment-815676
Dear Carbomontanus,
Thank you very much for your kind reply.
Your “wealth equation” is inspiring.
Greetings
Tom
“If one is willing to apply a modicum of critical thinking to the evidence at hand, ”
Yup.
But you have shown ad nauseam are not.
Weaktor,
While I agree that nowhere near enough has been done, I think that describing the situation as “too late” fails to grasp the fact that we continue to make the consequences worse with every kg of CO2 we add to the atmosphere. There is literally almost no end to how much worse we can make things for our progeny.
And I would note that the reason why we have accomplished so little is because of denialist imbeciles like you! So, while I may not persuade my politicians to take effective action (Biden is at least trying), I also have the goal of ensuring that your efforts at obstruction and obfuscation are not forgotten and that our progeny have your name to revile for their suffering.
LOL! You exaggerate my influence, Ray. Regardless of anything I might post, you and your deluded army of deranged alarmists remain in the drivers seat and may well drive us all into chaos long before any of the additional warming you fear might kick in.
Clearly Ray’s “you” was plural and collective. Not everything is about you personally, Vic.
@Victor 8 nov 2.29pm , be assured that nobody here on these pages is in the drivers seat of any ‘vehicle’ pushing for action to slow global warming. Much chatter. No ‘driving’. Relax.
Ah, the empty platitude, pompously delivered.
Look, the earth shapes life, and life shapes the earth. We can breathe because millions of years ago tiny algae began to oxygenate the planet. One thing we know is that humans are really good at damaging the environment and on an increasingly grand scale. Now, presumably we have more agency than algae, not that you’re any indication of that.
That’s the deal: We’re not in control, you keep messing with Mother Nature, and eventually Mother Nature will kick your ass. The big question is, Can we control ourselves?
Well said.
In regard to comments about “Is it too late”. I think the answer is undoubtedly yes, of course it is.. Because we won’t change our behaviour – we have not just prevaricated over the last thirty years, but our collective CO2 emissions have massively increased. The science today is straightforward, To prevent a permanent rise over 1.5 deg we have to stop all CO2 emissions within the next eight years. That is just not going to happen. The UK PM, Rishi Sunak, the richest man in the UK Parliament, has just announced a new round of oil and gas exploration licenses in the North Sea, and proposed this will now happen annually from now on. He recently stated that in 2050, the absurd lie of the “net-zero” year, that fully 25% of the UK’s energy needs will still come from the burning of fossil fuels. He omits to explain how that will be offset. and worse, not a single reporter or interviewer has even asked him this basic question. We are all complicit in living a lie. According to my back of the envelope calculation, it would approximately require planting trees on every single acre of the UK landscape and leaving them in perpetuity. . CCS is a totally unproven con. The rich and powerful in our societies are literally insane and are going to take us all down with them. As Martin Luther King Jr once said ““We are faced with the fact, my friends, that tomorrow is today. Procrastination is still the thief of time. Over the bleached bones and jumbled residues of numerous civilisations are written the pathetic words ‘Too Late’.” Whereas even concerned scientists and environmentalists were not that long ago thinking we had a bit of time to sort this out, our climate is telling us with ever increasing urgency – we don’t. Unmanageable increases in forced migration, wild weather extremes, temperatures too hot to survive outdoors, the loss of food productive capacity etc. We as a species might not be facing actual extinction, but our civilisation of commerce, art, society, comfort is vanishing even now. How can our massively complicated inter-related societies cope? They can’t, chaos, ugliness and frightening violence is coming. When I was born in 1946 the world population was 2.5 billion. Perhaps if we still had that number of people, we’d struggle, but survive. But 8 billion? Sorry, no chance at all. I can see the death of billions by 2100 by starvation, drought and disease.. We could perhaps even now do something to ameliorate that ugliness but I have absolutely no hope now at all that we will. And as for Victor? Sorry, old man, your denial of reality is touching in its infantilism, but when you write “but the notion that humans can somehow control the climate and the weather and the level of the sea is an exercise in hubris” you are undoubtedly right, as the last hundred years have shown our futility. Like us all, though, you’re just a pebble stranded on the shore by a mighty implacable ocean that bears no concern for you or your future or indeed any particular future at all.
“To prevent a permanent rise over 1.5 deg we have to stop all CO2 emissions within the next eight years.”
No. Such a rise would not necessarily be permanent (see “overshoot scenarios”)–which is not to say there isn’t ample justification for pessimism.
@ John Monro says: “I can see the death of billions by 2100 by starvation, drought and disease.”
Nah, you’re not seeing straight. Far more likely is 2 to 3 before 2050 – that is easily achievable for us without even trying that hard to totally screw it all up. We have achieved so much of nothing already in the last 30 years the next 30 we will be easy to kill billions of humans as we keep wiping out the natural world especially the animal species everywhere. I’m mean seriously they are far more screwed than we are.
Luckily baby boomers like will miss most of this destruction and it’s cumulative impacts.
But hey John, at least the “scientific models were correct” on what caused climate change. :-)
@ John Monro How does the fact of global depletion of oil reserves and Peak Oil modify this scenario, if at all? As global reserves are depleted, the return on investment from new drilling will, at some point, no longer be profitable, and this activity simply cannot continue indefinitely.
John Monro: – “The science today is straightforward, To prevent a permanent rise over 1.5 deg we have to stop all CO2 emissions within the next eight years.”
Nope – it requires more than that. It requires:
1. Reducing human-induced GHG emissions to zero at emergency speed;
2. Removing atmospheric carbon by drawdown to return atmospheric conditions to the Holocene zone;
3. Repairing vital systems.
https://www.climatecodered.org/2023/06/three-climate-interventions-reduce.html
Nothing less will do. The Laws of Physics are not negotiable.
John Monro: – “I can see the death of billions by 2100 by starvation, drought and disease..”
Evidence/data I see suggests a substantially earlier timeline. Lethal heat conditions is another emerging risk.
Per Oxford Open Climate Change paper tiled Global warming in the pipeline by Hansen et. al., published 2 Nov 2023:
https://academic.oup.com/oocc/article/3/1/kgad008/7335889
Per the Sep 2021 Chatham House research paper titled Climate change risk assessment 2021: The risks are compounding, and without immediate action the impacts will be devastating, includes:
https://www.chathamhouse.org/2021/09/climate-change-risk-assessment-2021
See also PNAS paper titled Greatly enhanced risk to humans as a consequence of empirically determined lower moist heat stress tolerance, by Daniel J. Vecellio et. al., published 9 Oct 2023, Fig 1.
https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2305427120
Also see a tweet by Professor Stefan Rahmstorf posted on 25 May 2023 including a gif animation showing areas of the globe (in purple) that would be considered no longer habitable (MAT ≥ 29 °C).
https://twitter.com/rahmstorf/status/1661450321766371329
I wrote a small piece on the Hansen &al – paper about global warming rate going up from .18 to .27 K/decade.
tldr: the CERES data on global net absorbed power are unreliable bc. of being a very small difference of two measurements, and the ocean heat content data of von Schuckmann &al have been superseded by – allegedly better – data by Cheng &al , which show no increase in net absorbed power.
https://remarksandobservations.wordpress.com/2023/11/06/is-global-heat-uptake-accelerating-or-not/?page_id=603
Good job.
I don’t know the answer either, but the disagreement is a wonderful example of how scientific “debates” are supposed to be done.
And yet here, people are still indulging the Victors et al, who offer illogical rhetoric and pretend science, over and over and over.
I would suggest any lurkers or visitors be directed to read both papers before they spend too much time following one of those threads on RC.
Dominik Lenné: – “tldr: the CERES data on global net absorbed power are unreliable bc. of being a very small difference of two measurements, and the ocean heat content data of von Schuckmann &al have been superseded by – allegedly better – data by Cheng &al , which show no increase in net absorbed power.”
Can you please explain then why the Daily Surface Air Temperature has been at record seasonal highs? Are you suggesting this data is unreliable?
https://climatereanalyzer.org/clim/t2_daily/?dm_id=world
Can you please explain then why the Daily Sea Surface Temperature has been at record seasonal highs? Are you suggesting this data is unreliable?
https://climatereanalyzer.org/clim/sst_daily/
Can you please explain then why the Southern Hemisphere Daily Sea Ice Extent has been at record seasonal lows? Are you suggesting this data is unreliable?
https://climatereanalyzer.org/clim/seaice/
Can you please explain then why the rate of land ice mass loss & sea level rise (SLR) is accelerating? Are you suggesting this data is unreliable?
https://nsidc.org/ice-sheets-today/analyses/introducing-ice-sheets-today
https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/nasa-uses-30-year-satellite-record-to-track-and-project-rising-seas
The UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN) published on Nov 3 the YouTube video titled An Intimate Conversation with Leading Climate Scientists To Discuss New Research on Global Warming, duration 1:12:23. Ahead of the upcoming COP28, renowned climate scientist, Dr James Hansen, and his co-authors present their novel findings of their new paper Global Warming in the Pipeline.
From time interval 0:42:19, Norman Loeb from NASA Langley Research Center provided a briefing on the status of satellite measurements of Earth’s Energy Imbalance. There are multiple satellites (see from time interval 0:45:37) that provide continuous CERES data since the launch of TRMM at the end of 1997, and Terra launched at the end of 1999, which is still providing data.
And from time interval 1:04:03, James Hansen said:
“Yeah, the most important tipping point is the, the Antarctic ice sheet, and in particular the Thwaites ah, Glacier, which who’s grounding line has been moving inland at a rate of about a kilometre per year, and ha, in another 20 years, it will reach a point where it, it… the, the um, bed ah, is so-called ah, retrograde bed, so it gets deeper. The Antarctic ice sheet sits on bedrock below sea level, but it gets deeper as you go towards the centre of the continent, and it gets… It hits a canyon in about 20-years if we continue at one kilometre ah, per year. When it hits that canyon you’re going to get very rapid disintegration of that glacier, which is basically the cork that’s holding ah, a lot of the West Antarctic ice ah, in the bottle. So we don’t want to get there. And if we want to prevent, to slow down, and even stop the melting of the Antarctic ice sheet we have to cool off the planet. That’s, um… And, and we need to do that because, hah, more than half the large global cities in the world are on coastlines, and there are a lot of lowlands. Ah, so, that, that’s the tipping point which ah, I think dominates. But it so happens that there’s so many other ah, climate impacts that we would be getting to see and it would be much more if we go beyond two degrees, that there are many reasons to want to cool off the planet. If we want we want to keep a planet that looks more or less like the one that has existed the last ten thousand years, we actually have to cool off the planet back to a Holocene-level temperature, and that’s possible, but it’s not easy.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NXDWpBlPCY8
What Hansen says re Thwaites Glacier is based on peer-reviewed literature that follows from Rignot et. al. (2014). Are you suggesting this data is unreliable?
https://doi.org/10.1002/2014GL060140
A recent paper by S. Shackleton et. al. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41561-023-01250-y – (Nature Geoscience Sept. 2023 may still be paywalled) had an elegant assessment of the prevailing rate of Earth’s energy imbalance reconstructed for the past 150 kyr. The greatest sustained EEI in the entire period was estimated around 0.3 w/m^2 going from full glacial to warm interglacial conditions at the termination of the last two ice ages. This accounts for full ocean heating and ice sheet melting.
EEI corresponds to global heat uptake, which at present is mostly oceanic heat uptake. The rate of oceanic heat uptake in recent decades – even the more conservatively estimated by Cheng et. al. at around 8.7 Zj /yr since 1986 – would still be equivalent to over 0.5 w/m^2. Even without acceleration, this is already a substantially higher rate than what was required to go from an ice age world to an interglacial one over several millennia. There can be little doubt that the EEI will continue to increase as long as we keep pumping more GHGs into the atmosphere.
This is another indicator that we already have created a very large problem, regardless of whether there has been a very recent further acceleration. I suggest that as the oceans continue to warm, more of the EEI will likely be partitioned into melting remaining ice sheets by one mechanism or another. Glaciers are slow to respond, but they are getting quite a hot prod.
Thank you John. However horrible our existential condition has now become as you point out above, I should mention that recent analysis of actual Heat Flux into the earth system, which is evidently driven by a substantially larger man-made Radiative Forcing, has gone from about 0.6 W/m2 in the first decade to 1..2 W/m2 average during the recent decade, and is rising. (See eg. Hansen et al.)
We seem to be cooking the planet, as well as acidifying it’s biosphere, because of a theocratic political economy which defines underground Matter as “three forms of energy” (soil, liquid, gas). Call it Fraud of Underground Nation-State Economics, or call it The (Two) Fuels of War Economy (fossilized Carbon and Uranium).
We are not burning “soil,” (at least not directly, mostly depleting its nutrients and washing it into estuaries by industrial agro-business).
My mistake was from starting with solid and finishing with oil. Correction (solid, liquid, gas), three forms of Matter., not of Energy. Thus, for example, energy in “barrels of petroleum equivalent” would be fraudulent, under this definition. Rather like dividing by zero in the societal energy efficiency equation. Result: unquantifiable.
Solar Jim,
Hansen’s estimate of actual heat flux seems to be an outlier, although the better agreed-upon range around 0.6 to 0.8 W/m2 is certainly bad enough. I’m looking at the posting by Dominik Lenne’ and its various references. There is agreement that around 90% of the excess heat is going into the ocean at present. The ocean is accumulating something like 10 ZJ/yr down to 2000m.
https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/access/global-ocean-heat-content/ I calculate that 1.0 W/m2 is roughly equivalent to 16.1 ZJ/yr.
Yes, we’re cooking the planet, and we’ve already turned up the heat roughly twice as high as what it took to come out of the last ice age, albeit the average imbalance that was sustained over thousands of years.
What’s wrong with barrel of oil equivalent as a unit of energy (even if it’s a little odd)? It’s defined in the US as 5.8 million BTU (or for the world outside the few remaining imperial unit countries, ~6.1 GJ).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barrel_of_oil_equivalent
What`s wrong with the barrel of oil eqvivalent?
It is especially stupidifying.
Nothing about the quality, nothing about the cost of production and the costs of rinsing and refining it..
“Oil” is anything from purest lightergas and lamp kerosene burning clean odeourless like a candle in church down to that incredible mud that not even Saddam Hussein could set fire to.
“Coal” is the same misery., from finest charcoal and firewood good enough for the tea ceremony ……. down to the bottom muds of old fossile palm bugs.
And even worse than that, “Eierkohle” from Ruhrkohle. Only yellow worms rising, that will not ignite, and when all the worms have vanished there is only ashes remaining.
It may look black but it is not “Carbon”.
I had to glow up and weld over an iron, in the summer in the garden and feared that our very young and very strict minister of environment would arrive with wailing sirenes to stop it.
Then I found “Brikette” instead and thought Lignite brown coal might be better. But it was the same misery. Just salt and sulphur and less carbon, impossible for blasting up temperatures.
So I had to do the Norwegian way where there is no ” seacoal” . Take a round in the landscape and find fallen twigs and wreckboards.
The best ” coal” is standing ready seasoned on root on the upper marsh, I say, and is quite a privilege, good enough for the tea ceremony and for glass and goldwork.
RE: prl’s question.
A barrel is a measurement of volume, which is not a “unit of energy. ” That volume of mined liquid has a mass, measured on earth as weight, neither of which are “units of energy.” As regards “defined in the US,” that is the political-economy that determines the “economics” of governmental and societal financing, through numerous subsidies and externalized costs, of our approaching financial and ecological demise.
If you don’t like volume as a unit of energy, there’s also a tonne of oil equivalent, which is about 42 GJ.
A megatonne is similarly a unit of mass, but a megaton of TNT equivalent is still a unit of energy (~4.2 PJ) – despite the spelling, the megaton of TNT equivalent is based on the tonne. One one ton of TNT equivalent is about 0.1 tonnes of oil equivalent.
The barrel of oil equivalent is only intended to be a measure of energy. It does not say anything about the other costs associated with burning fossil fuels, as great as they are. Using gigajoule instead doesn’t tell you anything about any of the other costs of releasing or harvesting the energy, either.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tonne_of_oil_equivalent
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TNT_equivalent
Solar Jim (at 18 NOV 2023 AT 11:52 AM): – “A barrel is a measurement of volume, which is not a “unit of energy. ” That volume of mined liquid has a mass, measured on earth as weight, neither of which are “units of energy.””
A barrel of oil when combusted releases energy – about 6.119 GJ (per Energy Institute’s Statistical Review of World Energy 2023, page 58)
A million tonnes of liquified natural gas when combusted releases energy – about 48.747 PJ.
40 tonnes of hard coal when combusted releases energy – about 1 EJ.
A kilogram of uranium-235 when fissioned releases energy – about 82 TJ.
https://world-nuclear.org/information-library/nuclear-fuel-cycle/introduction/physics-of-nuclear-energy.aspx
The discerning question is how much of this primary energy released is transformed into doing actual useful work, and how much is wasted?
Per Our World in Data:
https://ourworldindata.org/energy-definitions
Solar Jim (at 18 NOV 2023 AT 11:52 AM): – “As regards “defined in the US,” that is the political-economy that determines the “economics” of governmental and societal financing, through numerous subsidies and externalized costs, of our approaching financial and ecological demise.”
I’d suggest an enormous externalized cost is, per IEA:
https://www.iea.org/reports/co2-emissions-in-2022
All those tens of gigatonnes of human-induced waste CO₂ emissions per year, year-on-year accumulating in the atmosphere, unseen, and out-of-mind for many, but ultimately driving the climate to become increasingly more hostile for civilisation globally. A tragedy of the commons.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commons
William E Rees says in a YouTube podcast titled William E. Rees on The Fundamental Issue: Overshoot, from time interval 0:02:39:
“Climate change is a pollution problem, because carbon dioxide is the single largest waste product by weight of industrial economies. So the anthropogenic component of climate, the carbon emissions, is a waste product, a waste management issue. The system, the Earth System, cannot cope in a timely manner, it will over time, but not in time with, with the quantity of carbon dioxide that we’re putting out there.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o1vX03h7w9c
The following comment attempted to post on GooglesyTubes by me gets deleted & earns me 24 hours of comment suspension for my Scams, Spams and Deceptive Practices:
“Increase of Cat 3 hurricanes from 31.5% in 1980 to 39.5% in 2016 (Kossin et al. August 2020) at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NnUlax_S5EA at 24:22″
Interesting little non-science-related thing, in a dull, tiresome sort of way.
This is consistent with this presentation:
https://www.iogp.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/Presentation14_ThomasKnutson_Public.pdf
which talks about an upward trend in the proportion of tropical cyclones reaching cat 4/5 intensity.
This Klotzbach et al paper suggests a decreasing trend in tropical cyclones and ACE index globally from 1990-2021 and links that to a trend towards more frequent La Nina events which suppress N Pacific tropical cyclone activity. There seems to be some sensitivity as to which year you start from. I looked at the IBTRACS data a few years ago and the trends are sensitive to whether you start in 1980 or 1990.
Logically I would expect global warming to increase the proportion of very intense tropical cyclones by increasing the maximum potential intensity through SST warming. I expect this to be difficult to detect in the data due to the problem with analysing trends in datasets with small counts and by the time we see it conclusively in the data, it has already been happening for decades.
This Klotzbach paper, sorry accidentally missed the link:
https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2021GL095774
In New Guinea in 1946, in response to wartime occupation of the islands, natives slaughtered their pigs, their main source of subsistence, in the belief that Great Pigs would appear from the sky at the millennium, which would be announced on mock radios attached to bamboo and rope “antennae”.
The natives didn’t only slaughter their pigs, but they also burned down their own huts and ruined their fields, and sat for several days on the beach waiting for the ship with their forefathers’ spirits to arrive with food for them. (“Vailala Madness – Cargo cult which ended in tragedy”)
A Xhosa cult, based on a prophecy, came after many years of colonial exploitation, leading to desperation:
“The movement, which began as a trickle, turned into a deluge after the great chief Sarhili traveled to the Gxarha, where “the same voices that spoke to Nongqawuse spoke to him as well,” according to an oral source from the time. Over 15 months, the Xhosas massacred 400,000 cattle and destroyed countless acres of crops. Tens of thousands of people died of starvation, with many more fleeing their homes.” (The Cattle Massacre That Haunts South Africa)
Yes, a chilling parallel to modern climate denialism.
They obviously needed some trained scientists to get their information from and not cult leaders with a political agenda rather than being focused on reality.
You could benefit from the same medicine instead of religiously drinking the chlorine.
To Kevin mcKinney and jgnfld
Selvangivelse is danish and reminds the target of his / her routine self- confessment for taxes, that is supposed to be very honest..
Google translate gives “Tax declaration”.
I recommend you and everyone rather to interprete peculiar propaganda postulates P P P and again P fror Pig and Party the grand old one, …. in terms of Psychic Projections and Putins Postulate ( how many P- s now?) ………..according to Putin, “It takes one to know one!”
My routine reply is “Thanks for your “Selvangivelse”- tax declaration. That will be orderly studied and used as our basis for correct equation and calculation of your taxes!”
That formula hurts.
“Selvangivelse” being a very tense political word that was coined by the Grand Old Party with P.
Moral:
Be aware of Possible Psychic Projections when Postulates are especially Peculiar..
I just now typed “…12-month running mean ..” but of course the dashed trend line is the 12-month running mean of the title and solid is instant monthly, whatever, so ignore that lost-focus comment.
Victor should brush up on his Tok Pigin. –
There were no radios around when the Vailala Ghost Ship cult emerged in 1919. and his bamboo radio antenna yarn is a transplant from a generation later and a thousand miles away— the John Frum Cargo Cult inspired by the war surplus glut that washed over the New Hebrides after Japan’s abrupt surrender in 1945. I ran into a few aging Frum fans on Ambrym and Malekula in 1975
It is beyond me why a site like RealClimate tolerates the commenter who calls himself “Victor”.
I have seen many global warming deniers spewing nonsense and falsehoods online over the decades, and Victor is about as crude, clumsy and clownish as they get — not to mention repetitive and blatantly dishonest.
In the ordinary social media, like Facebook, a denier like Victor would be driven from the room by howls of contemptuous laughter. And yet, what should be one of the premiere climate science sites on the Internet not only tolerates him but encourages him by responding to his repetitive drivel as though it were serious.
Why do you all humor him? Do you consider him to be some sort of “pet” or something?
Secular Animist
“It is beyond me why a site like RealClimate tolerates the commenter who calls himself “Victor”.”
I assume its Gavins and Rasmus’s allegiance to freedom of speech. It would be a bad look to totally forbid sceptics / denialists to put their case. However IMO free speech is the right to share information and voice opinions. I do not think that websites have to tolerate repetition and spamming especially when it becomes idiotic. Victor is very repetitive, and he talks nonsense, so in my view it would make sense to put about half of his comments in the borehole which will force him to sharpen up his act. He still gets a limited version of free speech in the borehole anyway.
“I have seen many global warming deniers spewing nonsense and falsehoods online over the decades, and Victor is about as crude, clumsy and clownish as they get — not to mention repetitive and blatantly dishonest.”
Agreed, except Victors writing is smooth talking sophistry that might be convincing to some people in the general public.
“Why do you all humor him? Do you consider him to be some sort of “pet” or something?”
Ha ha. Perhaps. Or perhaps when someone keeps putting their head up above the parapet spouting nonsense over and over they are just begging people to throw rotten tomatoes at them. And people will do it for different reasons and in different ways. Fact based rebuttals, making fun of them , name calling. It you effectively hold up a sign saying hit me, you will get hit. The responses to the denialists can be entertaining and informative.
And I think its important to rebut the denialists. Ignoring them means people might assume their views are correct and cannot be rebutted. But I know there’s an awful problem of feeding the trolls. There just isn’t an ideal answer to all this.
My response to your comments is complicated, full of compromise approaches, judgement calls, and probably a bit frustrating. I find my own comment frustrating. But I don’t think there is a simple answer to the stubborn repetitive cranks of this world. If there was we would have found it by now.
Hr S.Animist
It might be imortant allways to have a rather purest sample of it allways at hand for reference when you shall think and write about what it is, different from what it aint not.
That is old routine in science, you see.
As in theology, medicine and justice also.
In old cathedrals, the Devil was also pictured and carefully mounted in his niche corner to be referred to in person, and all the devil worshippers would be attracked and worship there so we know where we have them.
Else, the Devil will dissolve and spread out over the whole room and people will look for him everywhere..
Any cunningly setup and decorated Temple, , Cathedral , Tavern or Website or University or National museum must also have a junkyard, a borhole, a bitty, a horror cabinet. On where to spit.
The problem with “It’s too late” is that it is an incomplete sentence. Too late FOR WHAT, exactly?
Obviously it is already too late to prevent what has already happened. Equally obviously it is never too late to stop making things worse. What’s in between?
Instead of debating whether or not “it’s too late”, let’s talk about what it is too late FOR, and what it is not too late FOR.
ERA5 has posted for October with a global SAT anomay of +0.85ºC, a small drop on the September anomaly of +0.93ºC giving October 2023 second spot in ERA5’s all-month monthly anomaly rankings, with July’s (+0.72ºC) & August’s (+0.71ºC) anomalies in 3rd & 4th spot
The record previous all-month record prior to 2023 was Feb 2016 (+0.69ºC) now demoted to 5th with March 2016 (+0.63ºC) in 6th, both these boosted by the 2015/16 El Niño.
As well as July-Oct 2023 taking the top 4 spots, June ranks 13th (+0.53ºC) and March ranks 16th (+0.51ºC).
Previous to 2023, the hottest Octobers comprised the previous 8 years, their anomalies spanning +0.45ºC (2019) down to +0.34ºC (2016).
The Jan-Oct year-so-far average for 2023 now sits +0.1ºC above second-spot 2016, this twice the increase of Jan-Sept. Copernicus are saying 2023 is “virtually certain” to end as the warmest calendar year on record. Note that the rankings below of Jan-Oct averages in ERA5 show the same order as the final annual rankings. And to properl quantif what is meand by “virtually certain,” it would take an average anomaly of -0.12ºC thro Nov-Dec 2023 for 2023 to dodge top spot. Such chilly a Nov-Dec has not been seen since the year 2000. Indeed, even a negative Nov-Dec ERA5 anomaly was last seen in 2011.
…….. Jan-Oct Ave … Annual Ave ..Annual ranking
2023 .. +0.55ºC
2016 .. +0.45ºC … … … +0.44ºC … … … 1st
2020 .. +0.44ºC … … … +0.43ºC … … … 2nd
2019 .. +0.38ºC … … … +0.40ºC … … … 3rd
2017 .. +0.35ºC … … … +0.34ºC … … … 4th
2022 .. +0.32ºC … … … +0.30ºC … … … 5th
2021 .. +0.26ºC … … … +0.27ºC … … … 6th
2018 .. +0.26ºC … … … +0.26ºC … … … 7th
2015 .. +0.21ºC … … … +0.26ºC … … … 8th
2010 .. +0.15ºC … … … +0.13ºC … … … 9th
2014 .. +0.10ºC … … … +0.11ºC … … … 10th
“Climate fatigue isn’t a sign that Europeans are in denial – it’s a sign of their fear”
https://uk.yahoo.com/news/climate-fatigue-isn-t-sign-060003432.html
“Clear evidence of climate fatigue emerges from recent opinion polls on voting intentions in the next European parliament elections, in June 2024. While European green parties are expected to lose more than a third of their seats, rightwing climate-sceptic conservatives are expected to win big.
This shift in public sentiment may even result in the EU backtracking on its so-called green deal, a core policy that has defined Ursula von der Leyen’s term as president of the European Commission. Scepticism is widespread within the member states whose governments call the shots in the EU. In the general election in the Netherlands on 22 November, Frans Timmermans, a former European environment commissioner and architect of the green deal, will have his work cut out to win over the Dutch public – a majority of whom support farmers in opposing government plans to cut pollution by reducing livestock herds.”
“The urgent question now is: how can we put the climate crisis back at the top of the agenda, for politicians and the public alike? The first step is to recognise that climate fatigue in Europe has little to do with Europeans being less concerned about the impact of volatile climate systems. Indeed, people feel the effects directly and terrifyingly as the continent is increasingly battered by heatwaves, wildfires, storms and floods.
But people are also terrified of what they believe will be the cost to individuals of the required energy transition. According to the consulting firm McKinsey, the global transition to net zero will require additional investments in fixed assets of $3.5tn a year until 2050. That’s about a quarter of all the tax raised worldwide. There is still no convincing mechanism for financing this in ways that reassure families, individuals, small firms and farmers that they are not going to be bankrupted. Increasingly, ordinary citizens know that many of them will have to foot crippling bills for such things as renovating homes to make them comply with energy efficiency rules.
Just look at the European Commission’s plan to upgrade the energy performance of buildings by 2050 (2030 for new buildings). Buildings account for more than 40% of energy consumed and 36% of energy-related greenhouse gas emissions in the EU. But in a country such as Italy, more than half of existing homes need to be adapted to the new standards. Italian families would have to pay out about €500bn over the next decade, an average of €40,000 per affected household, according to a study done for the Vision thinktank I am affiliated to. No wonder many families, impoverished by years of economic stagnation and more recent inflation, view the green deal not as a transition to a more just model of distributed energy production, but as a waking nightmare.”
It is no wonder there is a sense of hopelessness in some people when reports like this are published.
Adam,
McKinsey has long towed-the-line for fossil subsidized corporate political economy. We now have a globalized economic theocracy that wants the population to ignore trillions of dollars worth of direct, indirect and (may the god’s help us) “externalized” finance, or “subsidies” by governments around the world, of some &7 trillion/yr plus or minus several trillion depending on your valuation of life on earth.. Not only have the plutocrat’s and oligarch’s stashed tens of trillions of “wealth” in “offshore tax havens,” but we further finance them with trillions for militarism, tax avoidance and massive state support through debt-financing of national treasuries.
In other words, this is spin, aimed at brainwashing the public that there is no alternative to the present ecocidal, corporatism, military-industrial fuels-of-war complex and so we just have to cook the planet (to death). So therefore, we can not possibly have programs to insulate buildings, retrofit and new, because that would not increase private plutocratic wealth past its present absurdity, don’t you know.
Economics is man-made, and “The Man” is full of BS. Everyone somehow feels it, but the current global propaganda complex is currently winning (via corporatism and the power of mammon). Their talent is extremely impressive, in a macabre way. The above Free Market Speak about “public sentiment” may be true. Yet that is precisely by design of nation-state powered, militant, ecocidal, oligarchs who essentially own most governments, in my humble opinion (and observation of the Anthropocene).
It’s not climate fatigue nor fear so much as a long-predicted turn to the conservative that always comes with long-term crises/pessimism.
Kevin McKinney says:
Victor said (among other things that have already been debunked repetitively to no visible effect, in Victor’s mind at least):
“What we do not hear from any of these self-appointed experts is any attempt to delineate exactly what it is they expect us to do if this “existential” crisis is to be avoided. If only we can somehow, by whatever means, get it together NOW to literally rip the foundations of modern society to pieces by somehow ridding ourselves of all those evil fossil fuels we’ve all come to depend on.”
Oh, what tepid, polluted, nausea-inducing bilgewater! We’ve debated ways, means, and strategies for mitigation on these very pages for a very long time, and the debate has certainly not been limited to the denizens of RC. There is considerable disagreement, Victor–as one might expect on an important policy matter. However, we all agree that there are several things that need to be done.
1) Fossil fuels must be phased out, and from a climate perspective, the faster the better. (The decades of slow-walking this no doubt account for the good Dr. Anderson’s ‘popping eyes.’)
2) Land use must be reformed as well; it’s a very significant secondary source of GHG emissions. (For a truly bad example, see “Bolsonaro.”)
V: Yes, of course. We all know what the alarmist pipe dream is. The real question is: HOW do you make it happen? If “fossil fuels must be phased out” exactly how do you propose to do that? Any honest economist will tell you the world is dependent on the wide distribution of these fuels, not only in rich countries, but literally all countries. Cutting back to any meaningful extent means much higher prices for low income people already struggling to survive. Is that really what you want to see?
KM: 3) Poorer nations must be assisted because a) it’s fair; b) we can’t get to net zero without them; c) they struggle to fund energy projects of any description; and d) they are very often at enhanced risk due to geography, and allowing people to die unnecessarily is by and large considered a Bad Thing.
V: So suddenly, thanks to your panic over “climate change,” you’ve come to care about the people struggling in these poorer nations? As though they weren’t in need of assistance long before “climate change” became the order of the day. Shame on you.
V: If “fossil fuels must be phased out” exactly how do you propose to do that?
BPL: I have posted detailed plans for this. Mark Z. Jacobsen published a much more detailed on in Scientific American. Many other people on this board have suggested plans. How did you miss all this?
V: So suddenly, thanks to your panic over “climate change,” you’ve come to care about the people struggling in these poorer nations?
BPL: Your thesis that people here didn’t use to care about people in poor nations is also vitiated by masses of evidence, since this has been discussed widely both here and elsewhere. False accusation doesn’t help your case.
Victor bloviated:
False. While the transition involves costs–you can’t very well expect that retiring generation assets prior to their full expected lifespan will be cost-free–it’s also true that denialati just *love* to inflate theses costs for the fullest propaganda effect, and particularly by ignoring all co-benefits.
One offset is that new solar and, to a lesser extent, wind, has now reached the point where in many cases it is cheaper to build and run than merely operating extant coal capacity (see page 7 of the report linked):
https://www.lazard.com/media/nltb551p/lazards-lcoeplus-april-2023.pdf
One of the co-benefits is in the surprisingly massive public health savings (see page 5 of linked report):
https://www.nrdc.org/sites/default/files/costs-inaction-burden-health-report.pdf
And, answering the first question, here’s one means of accomplishing the phase-out:
https://insideclimatenews.org/tags/inside-clean-energy/
(Not sure that link will be stable, but for now at least, the story on the Michigan RE law is top center.)
Victor then goes on to sling some mud, albeit from his characteristic position of ignorance–in this case, ignorance of my stance and actions vis a vis the developing world:
That is an accusation as false as it is unsupported. It is Victor who should feel shame for resorting to it.
Bob Henson (with Jeff Masters at Yale Climate Connections Eye on the Storm):
Can we still avoid 1.5 degrees C of global warming? Global temperatures are approaching a crucial threshold.
https://yaleclimateconnections.org/2023/11/can-we-still-avoid-1-5-degrees-c-of-global-warming/
He does a very good job of teasing out the technicalities of measurement. YCC’s EotS keeps regular track of world weather and climate and maintains databases of the various mounting problems.
Sorry Susan, both 1.5 and 2.0 C are shot to hell. There are many reasons for this including accelerating Heat Flux (see comments above), eg. their UN graph considering methane, etc. over one hundred years for GWP in their article is fossil-industry speak. Try ten years for methane and the current GWP for methane is in the 100-200 range instead of 34 for 1oo years, or even some 84 for 20 years. Besides, even their colors (blue and teal) seem to be backward. The planet is “just warming up.”
Forget “teasing out the technicalities” and consider trends Such as: increasing nation-state financing for fossil burning and wars, massively deteriorating biological systems, accelerating ice-sheet collapse, shifting ocean and atmospheric circulation, etc. The person to read beside Henson is Hansen (Global Warming in the Pipeline, and many other published science articles over the decades).
If Victor can’t afford a human fact checker or editor, he really ought to switch to Twitter Classic, as it is hard to convey more that three wrong ideas in 140 characters or less.
[Snort!]
I’m surprised at thrth of discussion of why temperatures jumped so suddenly and dramatically beginning in June. I don’t recall there being anything like this previously and I would have that it would have called for some analysis and explanation. I have read that some point to hunga tonga injected wv into the stratusphere but personally (as a non-scientist) I am skeptical of this explanation because the warming of the ocean surface in 2023 is just as startling and precedes the record air temperatures by a few months. if this were due to an atmospheric source, would we expect the reverse – the air would warm first and then cause the ocean to warm? i’m more inclined to believe this is simple ocean-current “weather” – that for whatever reason a bunch of the ocean surface has experienced less upwelling or whatever than normal and so has warmed, the record air temperatures are in response to the record ocean temperatures? any more expert thoughts?
Dan. Too bad that the AMO oceanic climate index time-series is not being updated (see the explanation at https://psl.noaa.gov/data/timeseries/AMO/). But an alternate measure is available based on ERSST
https://imagizer.imageshack.com/img924/7536/710dY9.gif
Note that this AMO is showing the temperature spike, with a rise beyond the typical maximum excursion starting in May or June of this year.
2023 0.76
2023.083333 0.74
2023.166667 0.87
2023.25 0.94
2023.333333 1.07
2023.416667 1.26
2023.5 1.44
2023.583333 1.36
2023.666667 1.42
2023.75 1.39
The AMO has shown temperature spikes in the past but this still looks significant.
The diff between the conventional AMO and this ad hoc AMO is that the trend has not been removed?
one more question while I am at it. when i look at climate reanalyzer website, and select daily temperatures for the northern hemisphere versus the southern hemisphere, the southern hemisphere temperatures are highly volatile from day to day – the line bounces up and down considerably. the nothern hemisphere lines are quite smooth day-to-day. since the southern hemisphere is most ocean i would have expected exactly the opposite – that the air temperatures would be moderated by the relatively stable sea surface temperature and *less* volatile day-to-day. any thoughts?
For weather questions, you could do worse than ask them over at YCC EotS, though the comment section is a hodgepodge and extremely busy. A lot of expert meteos hang out there and could tell you more. The main articles are consistently fine (Masters & Henson).
https://yaleclimateconnections.org/topic/eye-on-the-storm/
Today, November 10, is the World Science Day for Peace and Development, part of the International Week of Science and Peace (Nov 9 – 15).
https://www.un.org/en/observances/world-science-day/week
Let’s celebrate science and scientists and thank them for their hard and most valuable work.
I want to thank in particular @Group for their essential work and for taking their time and probably a lot of restraint to maintain this valuable website. I am grateful to all the climate scientists (with few exceptions of those who have gone awry for fossil money or having lost their capacity to reason) who continue to show us all what we are causing to our most unique planet, but also the solutions to reverse the climate emergency and bring humanity back withing the planetary boundaries.
Hurrah!!
After 205 days of the Antarctica Sea Ice Extent setting record low levels (since 20th April), mostly records set by a seriously massive margin, it looks at last like 2023 has met its match.
And more than that, as the Antarctic melt season gets into top gear, 2023 SIE looks like it’s stalled (famous last words?) and might now return to more expected levels. It’s certainly going in that direction at the moment. See graph 3a here.
This is about weather, rather than climate, but I would be interested in what people here think about the article below. It is about a Google AI weather forecasting project that claims to beat traditional computer models, although there are some limitations.
Learning skillful medium-range global weather forecasting
https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.adi2336
It was featured in a story in the Washington Post today.
Why your weather forecasts may soon become more accurate
Google has produced a weather forecasting model using artificial intelligence with better accuracy, faster speed and lower costs, study finds
https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2023/11/14/weather-forecasting-artificial-intelligence-google/
Mike S:
First, a disclaimer. I am no longer an active weather forecaster, so I am not fully aware of the latest techniques. This is a response to the Science article only.
AI as described in the article looks like a valuable tool. However, like most tools, it can be well-used or ill-used. Making more efficient use of processing time for large weather forecasting models would be a good use. Also, allowing forecasters to “auto-fill” detail better. For example, adjusting a forecast to complex topography, or providing detailed wind forecasts for maritime use. It is very computer intensive to generate this type of detail from numerical models, and beyond the time constraints of a human forecaster. It might also be a good use in situations where there aren’t enough forecasters to provide adequate coverage. It might do better in selecting likely weather pattern evolution for long-range weather forecasts.
A.I. would be ill-used to reduce the number of forecasters or observations for the purpose of saving money. This will certainly be a temptation for those who don’t know what forecasters do. It would be the equivalent of cutting back on fire fighters or equipment because big fires are rare. You won’t have what you need to do the job when the occasion arises. This is somewhat understood for fire fighting, but not necessarily for dealing with big weather events.
A more subtle pathway to ill-usage is the probably weaker AI ability to handle rare weather events. In my experience, these tend to be the most consequential, because humans and infrastructure are often unprepared. The article mentions a 40-year training period with ECMWF reanalysis data. What I’ve seen so far of AI is that it succeeds by picking the most likely or median response, somewhat as if it were crowd-sourced. If the AI forecast is biased in this way, it will understate the magnitude of these rare situations. This is already a problem for forecasters. When a truly large weather anomaly looms, it is hard to believe that things will get that severe – and successfully incorporate it into forecasts and warnings in a way that will be effective. Numerical models at least have the virtue of incorporating the physics of the situation. If it’s a 500-year extreme in physical parameters, they will crank out a 500-year extreme forecast, and thereby alert the human forecaster that something really unusual might occur.. (They also have a high false-alarm rate for extreme events, but are sometimes accurate.) I also wonder how well AI will handle events that are rare because of multiple factors that don’t always align. For example, rainfall that is enhanced both by large scale weather systems, embedded mesoscale structures such as fronts or outflow boundaries, convection, and topography.
Evaluating whether one forecast tool “beats” another is less straightforward than it might seem. It depends on which criteria you use, and how you measure the error. For example, Let’s say that AI was able reduce the mean(or even rms) wind speed error at an airport by 10% from 0.20 to 0.18 m/sec by identifying common numerical model biases in prevailing winds and correcting for them. However, it consistently underestimates the rare instances where the wind speed exceeds 20 m/sec, and the airport has to be closed due to low level wind shear. If I’m the airport operator, I might prefer the numerical forecast with the larger error, but less bias in extreme situations.
On Unforced Variations in the Real Climate
Ladies and Gentlemen, Kjære Menighed
Now we are at the end of novemer and it is time for introspection & Lux interna. I live in the northern hemisphere 59.5 deg north. The sun is very low and will turn again at St.Thomas, winter solstice.. Before that we have Barbara, Nicolaus and Lucia.
But we will have the 25th sunday in the church year that does not come every year because of the moon calendar. With Bachs Cantate to that day of the 10 virgins. Mattheus 25-
Along with the Boyscouts, Be prepared,………. Allways prepared.
You have to read for yourselves, and the next Parabel is that about the Talents.
But my message today is BWV 645 Bach Werk Verzeichnis 645 Choralvorpiel to the Cantate. BWV 140
That is my favourite Bach Organ composition using 3 registers , the 5 virgins in Principal 4 foot open labial pipes with Basso in 16 foot Open labial pipe register
Then comes CANTVS “Wachet au ruft uns die Stimme” in sharp Regal thounge- pipe register. into it.
It is shown on Video from several places on Youtube.
Showing righthand 5 good virgins fingers in flauto principal dis-cantus, accompanied by 16 foot Basso in the Pedal, and then comes and interferes CANTVS choral, sharp as a ramhorn of old Sion in the left hand…. by Regal pipes…. of ,the crumhorn reed type..
” Sleepers awake ..” in English translation.
This special piece is my Bach favourite. ….quite especiallyin this late novemjber winter darkness.
Allways keept your tiny “higher spiritual” candle flame of consciousness that is quite exacty between your ears and atop of your cerebellum trimmed even asleep….
especially in late November…..
allways ready for sudden essencial awareness
and with oil in reserve.
TK has pointed out, correctly, that I made an illogical transition in my article on evaporative cooling in the climate system. I assumed proportionate global rise in water vapor from a land-based rise in evaporation. Land is only 29.2% of Earth’s surface (Sellers 1965, p. 5). Thus water vapor doubled over land should increase global airborne water vapor only 29.2%, not 100%.
However, as I demonstrated in my article, water vapor must increase less than 18% for the doubled evaporation to yield net cooling. This implies that a 100% increase in land evaporation is accompanied by only a 61.6% increase in water vapor. In mathematical terms:
W/Wo = (E/Eo) ^ 0.692
where W is water vapor burden and E evaporation, both over land. Calling the exponent p, the purveyors of the evaporation solution have the burden of proof that p <= 0.692. To me it doesn't seem likely, because 1) the more humid the air, the closer to saturation, and it gets harder for more evaporation to occur, and 2) evaporation is driven by solar radiation, and more water vapor in the atmosphere increases the shortwave optical thickness of the atmosphere, resulting in less sunlight at the ground–that would also cool the surface a bit, of course, so which direction the net effect would be is unclear,
Ref: Sellers, W.D. 1965. Physical Climatology. Chicago, IL: Chicago Univ. Press.
So BP, now that you have all the kinks worked out, could you maybe calculate what would happen if you decrease the water vapor in the atmosphere?
Zebra to BPL: “ could you maybe calculate what would happen if you decrease the water vapor in the atmosphere?”
What for? That won’t convince the deniers who called here for an increase in evaporation,
(and there is no reason to expect the results of lowering and increasing evaporation to be symmetrical)..
Nor would it help to understand the future, since the future warmer world would have more, not less, evaporation. And the effect of increasing evaporation have been shown in Schmidt et al. 2010 – where he uses a realistic climate model instead of extremely simplified model by BPL.
“that won’t convince the deniers”
Whereas you and BP have just shut them down completely with your detailed and insightful long-form arguments.
Got it.
Zebra Nov 18 “Whereas you and BP have just shut them down completely with your detailed and insightful long-form arguments. Got it.”
No, you didn’t. My and BPL’s “detailed and insightful (thank you) comments” are not for the deniers, but for the people who may come to this site, having heard deniers claims and either are not sure how to answer them, or might think that there may be something in it.
And it’s …rich that your lecture BPL that his detailed arguments and calculations will be lost on the deniers, a mere day after^* you asked
… the very same BPL to run for some additional …. calculations for you, with which you hoped to convince … the deniers. You see the irony, right?
——
^* Zebra Nov.17: “ So BP, now that you have all the kinks worked out, could you maybe calculate what would happen if you decrease the water vapor in the atmosphere?”
z: could you maybe calculate what would happen if you decrease the water vapor in the atmosphere?
BPL: It would cool the surface.
zebra: could you maybe calculate what would happen if you decrease the water vapor in the atmosphere?
BPL: It would cool the surface.
Olé ! ;-) (didn’t know they have corridas de cebras …)
BPL “I assumed proportionate global rise in water vapor from a land-based rise in evaporation. Land is only 29.2% of Earth’s surface (Sellers 1965, p. 5). Thus water vapor doubled over land should increase global airborne water vapor only 29.2%, not 100%.”
Barton, you may have went too far in the other. The water vapour does not stay in the same place it evaporated. The excess vapour It will move from land over to the ocean
BPL “I assumed proportionate global rise in water vapor from a land-based rise in evaporation. Land is only 29.2% of Earth’s surface. Thus water vapor doubled over land should increase global airborne water vapor only 29.2%, not 100%.”
You may have overcorrected , Barton . The water vapour does not stay over the same place it evaporated from. A 25 km/h air mass movement (warm fronts may move up to 5o/km/h) over the 9 days (~ average residence time) could take you 5,500 km away from the source of the evaporation.
Furthermore, the water vapour over the ocean may increase NOT only by extra humid air masses drifting from the land, but also by the reduced supply of CCNs from the same land. Doubling the evaporation over land and resulting increase in precipitation would washout a lot of CCNs (dust, pollen, industrial pollution) so the washed out CCNs would no longer drift over the ocean and “seed” clouds and rain over there.
In other words, with fewer CCNs getting over the ocean, the room for extra water vapour would increase, since you can have the RH >100 % and under the scarcity of the CCNs – still not form the clouds. With relative humidity (RH) > 100 % and no precipitation yet – you have increased warming without the cooling by latent heat. So the increases in water vapour would not be limited to land but would extend 1000s of km from the shorelines.
Finally, as you already hinted – the evaporation is most effective in places that have low RH. Which means that most of the doubling of the natural evaporation from land would have to happen disproportionally over dry places. places like Sahara where the near ground the RH today could be as low as 25%. which means that you can add you can increase the humidity 4-fold vapour, and still not precipitate any rain. Which means, again. that you increased the LW absorption by water vapour without any latent heat nor cloud albedo increase.
In Re to
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2023/11/unforced-variations-nov-2023/#comment-815866
Dear Barton Paul,
Many thanks that you have not forgotten my objection
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2023/11/a-distraction-due-to-errors-misunderstanding-and-misguided-norwegian-statistics/#comment-815783
Although I highly appreciate your correction, I must respectfully disagree therewith. Unfortunately, it appears that when correcting your mistake, you overlooked that in Part 1 of your analysis
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2023/09/unforced-variations-sep-2023/#comment-814201 ,
you assumed in accordance with Sellers, 1965, that the latent heat flux above land) is 38 W/m2 only – significantly less than the latent heat flux assumed above ocean (108.6 W/m2). Accordingly, you assumed in Part 2 of your analysis
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2023/09/unforced-variations-sep-2023/#comment-814202
that if the latent heat flux doubles to 76 W/m2, the global convective flux will rise from original 112 W/m2 to 123.1 W/m2. As 123.1/112 is approximately 1.1, I tend to still agree with the objection raised by JCM on September 9
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2023/09/unforced-variations-sep-2023/#comment-814285 ,
although he calculated slightly higher increase of the global convective energy flux (12 instead 10 %) as a result of the assumed latent heat flux doubling above land.
In other words, if my and JCM objections are correct, the true result of your analysis will be opposite to the result that you repeatedly presented:
Should global water vapour concentration rise commensurately to the assumed convective flux increase, as you assumed in Part 5 of your analysis
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2023/09/unforced-variations-sep-2023/#comment-814205 ,
then the 10 or 12 % is still less than 18 % that you calculated in Part 6 of your analysis
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2023/09/unforced-variations-sep-2023/#comment-814206
as the upper limit for water vapour concentration increase that may be allowable if an increase in water cycle intensity should exhibit a neat cooling effect on global surface temperature.
Conclusion:
I still believe that (contrary to your repeated assertion), your analysis in fact showed that an artificial increase in water cycle intensity may have a neat cooling effect, even if this increase would have been accompanied by a commensurate increase of the global average absolute air humidity.
Please, double-check and let me know if I am wrong.
Greetings
Tomáš
Kalisz
You make it very coplicated for Mr. Levenson, but your conclusion seems orthodox and even trivial.
You claim that the formation of clouds due to convective heat transfer at higher atmospheric water content may actually cool the situation, despite of water vapours warming at the same time as an invisible greehhouse gas.
It is what we have here each year more or less regular, the monsune- effect.
but notice that it is not “evapotranspiration” from the ground by intact forest vegetation that cools it.
Both chill rain from the sky and the shadow of clouds cools it.
Now we have deeper frosty nights here at last due to more clear weather. That is typical radiative chilling.
Moral:
Water has got both warming and chilling effects alltogether typical damping and termostatic effects damping the extreemes. Water is aquite especially good, practical, and fameous carrier of both warmth and chill…..
The equilibrium vapor pressure follows from temperature. The vapor pressure should not be thought to lead temperature. Water is unlike a trace gas forcing.
In a scheme which is initially reducing temperature 2K or whatever, along with natural evapotranspiration process, it’s unphysical in computation to have an excess of vapor sticking around.
The steady state flows of mass and energy involve ET, condensation, and other natural cycling mechanisms through the system. This used to be foundational primary teaching.
Advanced teachings suggest that the latent flux must be matched by radiative cooling in the non equilibrium steady state of flows. Traffic jams in computed flux are the result of half-baked conceptual logics.
On humidity: we see normally that in cooler months the precipitation frequency is considerably higher than that of warmer months. Conversely, in the hottest deserts water vapor duration is exceedingly long in spite of its low concentration. Relatively cool places minimize vapor duration irrespective of the magnitude, distribution, and frequency of flows in and out. This is optimal.
The opening of windows for cooler nights requires also the condensation (dehumidification) aloft, someplace, preferably during the daylight updrafts so as to reflect the incoming solar beam. Late afternoon showers lead to cooler nights.
I should caution that exploitation of natural processes is distinct from continuously “forcing” water into the air by mechanical pumped irrigation or whatever; for this reason I do not endorse a continuous irrigation concept. This fights against the natural balance sheet.
The optimal scheme is a landscape which frees up the air to sort it out. Increasing freedom is the opposite of forcing it.
TK: that if the latent heat flux doubles to 76 W/m2, the global convective flux will rise from original 112 W/m2 to 123.1 W/m2. As 123.1/112 is approximately 1.1, I tend to still agree with the objection raised by JCM on September 9
BPL: No, you’re dragging in the wrong numbers. I wasn’t talking about the global convective flux, which covers sensible heat as well as latent heat. I was talking about evaporation only.
in Re to
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2023/11/unforced-variations-nov-2023/#comment-816024
Dear Barton Paul,
I apologize for my confusion, but I still have not understood your explanation.
In your example, you considered a change of the Fconv parameter in the given global energy balance from initial 112 to 123.1 W/m2.
Later, you considered that this change would have been accompanied by doubling of global average absolute humidity, and recently admitted a mistake and corrected the assumed water vapour concentration increase to ca 30 % only.
Could you explain in more detail why the 10 % Fconv increase was caused by 30 % global humidity increase?
Thank you in advance and greetings
Tomáš
In addition to
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2023/11/unforced-variations-nov-2023/#comment-816052
More precisely:
As correctly noted by JCM, doubling the assumed value 38 W/m2 of latent heat flux above land to 76 W/m2 is equivalent to 12.6 % increase in the global latent heat flux, because the latent heat flux above sea (which is considered unchanged) is 108 W/m2.
If one assumes that mean global absolute humidity should be proportionate to global latent heat flux, I would expect that the average absolute air humidity, taken as a basis for the subsequent estimation of the water vapour greenhouse effect, will be also 12.6 % higher.
TK
Imagine what Bach might have written had he been court organist in some principality that saw more of the Northern Lights
Tomas Kalisz
“Nevertheless, as regards subsidies, I think that it is a measure that has to be used exceptionally and very carefully, because there is a huge addictive potential.”
Agreed. I assume you mean businesses becoming dependent on subsidies and lobbying to keep them in place, and governments being reluctant to end subsidies, because of possible job losses, and the potential the loss of campaign donations from affected industries. This is a problem. Australia’s car industry received subsidies for about 40 years! And they only ended recently.
The purpose of subsidies is sometimes to enable certain industries to get started, where there is a public good, and they would struggle in a free market setting. This seems ok to me in certain cases. Asia started its technology sector with strictly time limited subsidies. Western countries seem to be more relaxed about how long subsidies last but this just means companies get addicted.
Subsidies can be used for dubious purposes like appeasing campaign donors or subsidising energy costs to appease the public.
“human technical creativity is a factor that any time in human history helped to human survival. ”
I interpreted this to mean you feel governments can suppress creativity with their bureaucracy. It can happen sometimes but California has quite an activist local government and massive creativity. It all depends how the bureaucracy is structured. California shows it can be done well.
Piotr appeared to interpret you to mean that we don’t have to do anything much about climate change right now because we can rely on technical innovation in the future. I agree with Piotrs criticisms on this. We cannot assume we will eventually find a novel and excellent solution and it seems unlikely we would. And we have some reasonably good solutions right now (renewable energy, nuclear energy, carbon sequestration schemes).
And the longer we wait to do something, or expand renewables, the more we lock ourselves into either geoengineering or carbon sequestration. We know geoengineering is always going to be risky and carbon sequestration has huge problems if we were very reliant on it. Its a huge gamble to think some future innovation would overcome these obstacles.
“Whereas you assess them as “good”, I strongly doubt that e.g. massive use of available nuclear technology, planned massive replacement of natural gas with hydrogen and like for the sake of decarbonization can fulfill the task without causing more harm than good.”
I do not recall Piotr promoting those schemes in particular. We already have a range of viable solutions including wind, solar, and geothermal power. I would not rule out nuclear power provided the industry sorts out the problems with waste disposal. It is clean, zero carbon power.
Use of hydrogen is more debatable due to its low efficiency.
The point is we don’t have one magic bullet power source that stands out. Fusion MIGHT eventually fill that role but its not going to be developed in time to be useful with the climate issue. Generally many countries historically have had a mixture of generating sources and have made that work. For example coal, plus gas, plus hydro. I suspect this will continue in principle for some time, but with a mixture of wind, solar, geothermal, hydro and nuclear power. This may not be the perfect solution, but I’m not seeing some massive problem with it. “Don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good” (Voltaire).
Good reply, Nigel. A clarification though, could you explain what you mean by “use of hydrogen its low efficiency“?
Hydrogen is not a source of (industrial) energy – I don’t think there are any exploitable concentrations of H2 gas on Earth – so hydrogen could be at best a carrier and/or storage of the energy already produced:
It could be used to replace oil or gas in cars and trucks (fuel cell technology). Or it could be used to make the renewables more effective – by using the surplus energy (in times when the demand is less than the supply) that otherwise would go to waste. This can be done in two ways:
1. as energy storage: the surplus electricity is used in hydrolysis to produce H2, and then H2 is converted back to electricity, when electricity is needed. Obviously, there will be losses in converting electricity into H and then back to electricity – but this efficiency has to be compared either with the efficiency and cost of other storage, or if those are unavailable – with the 0% efficiency of wasting the surplus electricity by stopping the turbines or burning the surplus on wires.
2. the other application is to use the surplus energy in making a product that otherwise would require the use of “non-surplus” electricity and/or natural gas. This is what a planned wind turbine project in Newfoundland proposes to do – they will use the wind power to produce ammonia – which then will be exported to Germany – where either they will strip H from NH3 molecules and use to make the electricity (making it a form of storage and transatlantic transport of electricity), or use NH3 in industrial processes that require NH3 as their raw material, the production of which is today responsible for 1.8% of global CO2 emissions.
The 2nd application is obviously better – as the same amount surplus electricity is more effective in displacing GHG emissions than the storage.
Piotr
“A clarification though, could you explain what you mean by “use of hydrogen its low efficiency“?
I was going by sources such as the Sierra Club:
https://www.sierraclub.org/articles/2022/01/hydrogen-future-clean-energy-or-false-solution
Quote: “Hydrogen is an inefficient use of clean electricity. It is always more efficient to use renewable power directly than to convert renewable energy to hydrogen for use as an energy source. This is true across sectors and end uses. Using renewables to produce hydrogen is about 20 to 40 percent less efficient than using renewable energy directly, when direct use is feasible. For this reason, the Sierra Club would always prefer to use renewable electricity directly where possible. Potential uses for green hydrogen should be limited to cases in which the renewable energy cannot be used directly or stored effectively. ”
It appears to me that the article is referring to use of hydrogen as a primary energy source in combustion engines or in hydrogen fuel cells being inefficient and undesirable, but they do accept that hydrogen has a place as an electrofuel storage medium to deal with the intermittency of renewables as you outlined.
The source also discriminates between blue hydrogen (bad) and green hydrogen. (preferable). Kalisz appears to be criticising blue hydrogen. Its unclear what he thinks about green hydrogen.
The source seems like a good overall review of the use of hydrogen.
I admit I should have written a more detailed comment on the hydrogen issue in my original post stating that it does have some good uses. However the thing that I was focused on was Tomas Kaliz sweeping generalisation’s that the current technical solutions to the climate issue are deficient, thus smearing everything, but when pressed he refers just to allegedly nuclear power and hydrogen power. I was trying to point out yes those two solutions do have SOME limitations, but we already have other credible solutions like wind and solar power, (and other storage solutions).
Piotr: “A clarification though, could you explain what you mean by “use of hydrogen its low efficiency“?
Nigel: “I was going by sources such as the Sierra Club referring to use of hydrogen as a primary energy source in combustion engines or in hydrogen fuel cells being inefficient and undesirable”
I understand. Energetically – direct use of electricity is obviously better than converting it to hydrogen and then running the same application with hydrogen, and unless there some kind of distortion of the market with massive subsidies – I don’t see why anybody would do it.
So the only reason I can see for Sierra Club in putting such a caveat is to avoid such distortions:
if the gov. subsidized building Hydrogen-cars so much, that it would make it cheaper to have electricity to convert to H and drive a car with hydrogen than it would be to have it run directly with electricity. Obviously this would be an absurd way to do it, but that never stopped the politicians before (see the subsidies to crops grown for biofuel that were not about climate but providing subsidies to vote-rich electorate)
But if we leave the political distortion aside, the sensible uses of hydrogen are:
a) using it as raw material for industrial process that require H2, which otherwise would have to be obtained from fossil fuels – by replacing them – it obviously is “good”
b) temporary storage of the surplus electricity (when the supply is larger than demand) – here we judge whether H is good or bad what it is more efficient than the alternatives – i.e. more effective that other forms of storage, or in the absence of these – better than nothing (nothing = wasting the excess energy by stopping turbines or burning the excess electricity on wires)
c) displacing fossil fuels by increasing the portability of renewable electricity – say a plane powered with hydrogen made from electricity as opposed to putting heavy batteries onto the plane to run it directly by that electricity.
d) allowing to better sequester emitted GHGs – you can’t collect CO2 from individual cars tailpipes, but if you run cars on hydrogen then either you would not need to collect CO2 if H was from renewables, or if you used nat. gas to make H2 – you could sequester CO2 from a single smokestack instead of thousands of tail pipes.
And it is from these applications that Kalisz tries to distract us by throwing the baby with bathwater – he used such wrong (and still theoretical) uses of hydrogen as a proof that decarbonization using existing technologies “would do more bad than good”. Which was needed by him to defend his claim that we should do nothing about our emissions of CO2, while counting on the famous human ingenuity to kick in with 100% perfect solution.
in Re to
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2023/11/unforced-variations-nov-2023/#comment-815951
Dear Piotr,
I tried to explain the drawbacks of hydrogen as a medium for energy storage by numbers presented in
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2023/11/unforced-variations-nov-2023/#comment-815891 ,
but I have a feeling that I was too short.
It appears that you do not care much about efficiency an costs of energy storage and transport, but I am afraid that if we have to make renewable sources really competitive with fossil fuels – and I do not think that any other mode of this desirable transition is viable – then efficiency and economy matter.
The reasoning for ammonia as energy storage medium is in its significantly higher volumetric energy density and significantly lower storage and transport costs resulting therefrom. Compare ca 2 kWh/L for liquid hydrogen at – 253 °C, requiring hi-tech cryogenic tanks, with more than 4 kWh/L for liquid ammonia that can be transported at normal temperature in simple steel tanks.
There are, however, still some drawbacks. First, already by converting hydrogen into ammonia, you dissipate into environment as a basically useless heat ca 30 % of the valuable electric energy that you originally saved by water electrolysis in hydrogen, and the same amount of energy will be required for splitting ammonia back to nitrogen and hydrogen if you would like to use hydrogen in hydrogen fuel cells.
You may, of course, consider fuel cells processing directly ammonia instead of hydrogen. Should this fuel cell be reversible, you could even convert nitrogen and water directly into ammonia and oxygen and avoid also the loss of the enthalpy of ammonia formation in the classical Haber-Bosch process. The problem is in low electrochemical reactivity of covalently bound hydrogen in molecular hydrogen as well as in ammonia, and even lower reactivity of molecular nitrogen. This is the reason why even after hundred years of hydrogen fuel cell development, we cannot build any hydrogen cell with a reasonable power density without considerable amount of extremely expensive platinum metals.
The low abundance and high price of platinum metals basically prevent any large scale use of hydrogen or ammonia fuel cell technology until we achieve a breakthrough in development of equally or more efficient catalysts based on cheap materials, I am afraid. The same applies even stronger also for direct electrochemical ammonia synthesis that is still basically unexplored.
In view of notorious unpredictability of chemical arts, nobody can say when the desired breakthroughs in the development of the respective catalysts may come, if at all. In other words: Although ammonia could theoretically enable an efficient direct electricity conversion into chemical energy, cheap storage and transport, and efficient direct conversion back into electricity, development of the respective technology is a basic science rather than engineering. In a such situation, it cannot be predicted with any certainty when the goal can be achieved, irrespective of resources dedicated thereto.
On the other hand, sodium has a similar volumetric density and can be stored and transported even easier than ammonia (no pressure vessels necessary). It can be prepared by direct electrolysis analogously as hydrogen. US 3 730 776 showed that explosive reaction of metallic sodium with water can be tamed to produce electricity. As this extremely quick reaction enables industrially applicable power densities without any catalyst, commercialization of Geisler’s fuel cell is a purely engineering task, not requiring any material development with a highly uncertain success prospect. For these reasons, I believe that large scale electricity storage in metallic sodium can make electricity from renewable sources fully competitive with electricity from fossil fuels during a few years. And I must say that I indeed observe how subsidies dedicated to promote electricity storage in hydrogen distort the environment for possible alternatives.
At the end, I would like to add a short remark regarding green hydrogen use as a raw material for chemical industry. I think that if we consider economy decarbonisation with electricity from renewable sources, providing a method for an efficient and cheap large scale electricity storage can enable complete decarbonisation of electricity production within next 15 years without substantial subsidies from public sources. On the other hand, it can be reasonably expected that “green” hydrogen will be then still significantly more expensive than hydrogen from natural gas.
For this reason, I think that even in a longer perspective, it can be more efficient to decarbonize ammonia production (and, possibly also further technologies using hydrogen) with “blue” hydrogen from natural gas rather than with “green” hydrogen. It could be especially advantageous if the blue hydrogen production and its conversion to the desired chemical products would have taken place directly at natural gas production fields.
The same might apply for metallurgy decarbonisation. As far as I know, steelmaking with hydrogen would have been, for fundamental reasons given by thermodynamics of the respective reactions, several times more expensive than current technology. I therefore suppose that until a technology for direct iron production by electrolysis (analogous to current aluminium production technology) becomes cheaper than classical steelmaking amended with carbon dioxide capture and storage, the latter may be much more appropriate alternative for decarbonisation of this industry branch than brute force “clean” approach using “green” hydrogen.
Greetings
Tomáš
Tomas Kalisz Nov 18
“Dear Piotr, I tried to explain the drawbacks of hydrogen as a medium for energy storage by numbers presented in, but I have a feeling that I was too short”
Then your feeling is wrong – the last thing anyone here could accuse you of, is being too … brief.
Your problem is your ignorance, and your brain being over the place – in this thread you promoted doing nothing about climate change, while waiting for the famous human ingenuity to kick in and providing a 100% perfect technological fix. (If we are so smart, how comes we haven’t invented it YET?)
Then you ignored?/were unable to understand? the response that “The perfect is the enemy of the good”, and you:
a) assured us how nuclear is a “1960s technology”, and as such not as “good” (in the discussion of reducing GHG emissions!) as …. one of the dirtiest of the fossil fuels, and XVIII (?) technology, brown coal.
b) attacked hydrogen, as if it were an inefficient source of energy, and not a STORAGE for the temporary EXCESS renewable energy, or a more portable MEDIUM for renewable electricity
Unless you address these points – your writing MORE pages why you don’t like hydrogen
is putting even more lipstick on a pig.
Tomas Kalisz
In your comments above thread, you appear to be criticising the American approach of government subsidising very particular climate solutions (eg blue hydrogen). In new Zealand we call it “picking winners”. You are critical of the technology and economics of blue hydrogen and the limitations of related government decision making of ”picking winners” equating it with communism.
Again I do generally agree on this even although I’m not a fanatical capitalist and Im not anti every socialist idea. Blue hydrogen looks like a bad solution to me in all respects. Green hydrogen would be better.
https://www.sierraclub.org/articles/2022/01/hydrogen-future-clean-energy-or-false-solution
And governments do have a bad track record of picking winners. They just don’t have the expertise or freedom from bias. As I previously stated, governments are instead better to apply their subsidies equally ( if they must have subsidies) to a wide range of possible solutions (for example all possible biofuels, electrofuels or zero carbon generating sources) and then the private sector in a free market setting is better placed to figure out the most economic option and converge on that. Of course even this doesn’t work perfectly, but its better.
You cite the creative and technical value of a sodium fuel cell, and that this solution has been ignored. Well perhaps it has been ignored, but the harsh reality is no matter how the government run the economy and no matter what the private sector do, they might just not be aware of the patents for this technology and might never find them. That’s a fact of life and a tragedy of life.
Although It seems to me likely that the corporations exploring hydrogen fuel cells would have considered things like sodium fuel cells and perhaps found problems with the technology. I do not have a chemistry degree but I recall from school that sodium is very volatile especially in contact with water or even slight dampness. There might be safety issues.
You complain that governments do not support innovation and creativity. In my country of New Zealand our government subsidises some private sector research where there is a possible public good but it is not financially attractive to the corporate to fund the research. This seems like one of the better uses of subsidies. I don’t know what America does.
in Re to
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2023/11/unforced-variations-nov-2023/#comment-815986
Dear Nigel,
Many thanks for your feedback.
As regards communication with politics and corporate sphere, I admit that I must learn how to make more efficient the promotion of possible alternatives, like electricity storage in metallic sodium, and, more generally, of testing fundamental innovations that may create such alternatives.
I only think that Piotr’s assumption that they are receptive (or, even, that they perhaps proactively look after such alternatives and/or after ways to find them more efficiently) may not fit with reality.
As regards sodium storage, you are right that sodium does react violently with water. Under circumstances, the reaction may even result in an explosion.
By the way, the mechanism of this explosive reaction has been explored in more detail relatively recently
https://www.nature.com/articles/nature.2015.16771
Sodium sensitivity to water is, however, the sole issue with sodium storage. It is a relatively trivial problem that is simply and reliably resolved by using tight containers. In comparison with other “green” media for large scale energy like hydrogen, sodium storage is technically much simpler and accordingly cheaper. The same applies for its transport.
On the other hand, the extreme rate of sodium reaction with water may become a trump card if you compare sodium and hydrogen fuel cells: Hydrogen fuel cells require significant amounts of sophisticated catalysts what effectively prevents their scale-up to industrially applicable powers.
Practically, after more than 100 years of development, the best catalysts for hydrogen fuel cells are still extreme expensive platinum metals, and no one can predict if (and if so, when) a solution enabling efficient hydrogen fuel cells with megawatt power for an affordable price will be found. There is no such problem with sodium, and I do not see a substantial physical obstacle preventing sodium fuel cell scale up.
That is why I believe that megawatt generators fuelled with Na can become commercial within a few years, and why I very recently founded a company with the main task to develop and promote them.
Greetings
Tomáš
GISTEMP have posted for October with a global anomaly of +1.34ºC, a small drop on the September’s +1.47ºC but, no surprise, still the warmest October on record by a country mile. The previous top-ten warmest Octobers run 2015 (+1.09ºC), 2018 (+1.01ºC), 2019, 2021, 2022, 2017, 2020 & 2016 (both +0.88ºC), and 2012 & 2014 (both +0.80ºC).
October 2023’s +1.34ºC is the 4th highest ranking ‘all-month’ anomaly behind Sept 2015 (+1.47ºC) and just behind the El-Niño-boosted Feb 2016 (+1.36ºC) & March 2016 (+1.35ºC).
The months of 2023 are making quite a presence at the top of the ‘all-month’ anomaly rankings, now sitting in 1st (Sept), 3rd (Oct), 6th (Mar), 7th (Aug) & 8th (Jul), with both Jun (21st) and April (=30th) also well up the order. And with the UoMaine ReAnalyzer continuing to post record daily global SATs and even all-day-of-the-year records for the anomalies over the last four days (Oct 16th-19th run +1.2ºC, +1.3ºC, +1.3ºC, +1.2ºC when I see onting higher than +1.1ºC, previously on record). So chances are, we can expect November to be pushing for another highest ‘all-month’ anomaly.
With October’s GISTEMP arrived, there does seem to be a NH-SH variation appearing, with the NH being increasingly the reason for record-breaking 2023 months, the NH Oct anomaly being +1.9ºC, a massive +0.6ºC above the previous warmest Octs (2022 & 2021 =1st).
Ladies and gentlemen
On FAG-IDIOTs.
I am trying to translate the conscept “Fag- idiot” into English, where they seem to lack both the conscept and the word. That is put together from Fag and Idiot.
Faq, comes from Fach in German, ( probably by Hanseatic diffusion to scandinavia) that is a wooden frame of any kind and with a bottom meant to contain things. Especially in houses. where it comes recycled brickwork and when that is not available, mixed bullshit with clay straw and twigs into the Fach- work, wooden frameworks.
See Fachwerk= Masonry frame- work.
Das Fach! then suddenly also means the drawer or an open “box” mounted in further furnitures, where you can put and store away things and close it.
Further, in borrowed meaning it means what you call a trade, a craft, or a profession. Also called “Fag!.
But I tend to believe that this is recent meaning and comes from industrial segregation and strict political commercial isolation of operations, Anti- scientifric and canti- academic, obviously rather desired and furthered in recent time by monopoly- capitalism, heavily stinking of production secrets also.
See Adam Smiths obsolete recepy for “the wealth of nations”.
And there we have it, the routine working ROBOTic workers in the factory where the earth is flat within error- bars… who know and care for nothing outside of their strictly defined and segregated frames of reference.
Those and their grandchildren all the way make up the typical Fag- idiots today, the Frame- worker – idiots.
That is a mental, political and socio- cultural disease or disaster.
Example: “Good tools do good work, the shoemaker said, he ate the soup with his awl!”
Thus, the shoemaker said because he was an incorrigible FAG-IDIOT.
But common sense should have told him that the tool and the operation should be somehow phaenomenolotgically congruent. For broad soups better take and use broad spoons.
Then I hope that those who can get it will have got it,
I am asking for a good and deeply enough hurting , english or US American translation of “FAG-IDIOT!” that can be further used and applied wherever appliciable in the climate dispute.
Carbomontanus, Skriv tankene dine på det som er ditt første språk, og få dem deretter oversatt til engelsk av deepL, google-translate eller yandex-translate (eller andre tilsvarende).
Å prøve å analysere dine forsøk på å kjøre forbi det engelske språket er en resultatløs bestrebelse – du formidler ingen merkbar mening.
Vennligst bruk en oversetter!
Then I had a funny thought – what if he already is using a translator? :-)
Kalisz
Very frine thank you, so “Fagmann and Fagidiot will be understood in Praha.
In re to
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2023/11/unforced-variations-nov-2023/#comment-816232
and to
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2023/11/unforced-variations-nov-2023/#comment-816233
Hallo Carbomontanus,
Definitely. I am, however, afraid that Radge Havers’ reaction might be a sign that I overestimated the influence of German language on English.
Dear Radge,
I believe that Carbomontanus’ was not going to introduce a particularly rude insult not yet heard in this forum..
Greetings to both of you
Tom
TK,
“.. that I overestimated the influence of German language on English.”
Hard for me to say. I think German is colloquially more influential in some regions than others. And in some academic fields German is probably more influential than in every day speech.
When it comes to words, English is a fairly acquisitive language, all kinds of influences.
Influences (this article may be a little sketchy)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign-language_influences_in_English
English speaking world
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English-speaking_world
Sorry, for wandering OT.
I think that there’s a fairly strong influence of Germanic languages on English. Less so for modern German. I think I’d be hard-pressed to name a dozen German words that have been adopted into common English use since the start of the 19th century.
prl,
You may be hard-pressed but there are actually plenty of German words fed into English since 1800. A list of German words from here (the bottom section of the list of 52) yields only one that pre-dates 1800 in the Oxford Shorter English Dictionary, and that one only by 44 years. (neanderthal, spiel, verboten, wunderkind, poltergeist, doppelgänger ersatz, zeppelin, flak, rucksack, umlaut, kaput, quartz, hinterland, angst, gesundheit, schadenfreude)
And note the absence of the words ‘climate’ and ‘science’ from the list.
“Fagmann and Fagidiot”
Very professional science there Carbomontanus ….. Deep. Really mature. Not!
I see you have already retrograded back into a bossy arrogant little three year old again … just what the site needs. Not.
Jeg synes synd på de stakkars ansatte som snart må ta seg av det ustabile, utålelige rasistiske søppelet ditt på sykehjemmet slik vi er tvunget til her!
Ha litt respekt for andre mennesker og legg en sokk i den!
M A Rodgers: After I posted, I thought I perhaps should have said “twenty” rather than “a dozen”. Twenty would cover that list. It’s still a very small number compared to the number of words in English with much earlier Germanic roots.
I think it’s been done a bit to death now.
In Re to
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2023/11/unforced-variations-nov-2023/#comment-816184
Dear Carbomontanus,
I think that at least in science, English language absorbed some German words or converted them into compound terms like e.g. “Eigenvalue”.
Possibly, there is also an exact equivalent to German “Fachidiot”.
I think that in German, this word has a close relationship to the word “Fachmann”. “Fachmann” is usually used in sense “skilled person”, “skilled artisan”, “expert”. In plain Czech language, “fachman” is a good craftsman, or, more generally, anybody skilled in his field.
“Fachidiot”, on the other hand, focuses on the circumstance that a narrow specialization in certain “Fach” (field, branch, sector..of the industry, science..) may not only provide the respective person with a high skill in this specific field, but, in parallel, it may on the other hand constrain its general knowledge.
In other words, my understanding to the term “Fachidiot” is “a narrow specialist, with high social deficits”, or, simply, a specialist without any feeling of a broader context of his discipline.
Your explanation with wooden shelves was also very good in this regard. I just guess that perhaps the word Fachidiot might be indeed known and used also in English in its original form.
Greetings
Tomáš
Tomáš Kalisz:
That’s how I understand it, but German isn’t my first language.
The derivation of Fach is from an earlier Germanic word meaning something that divides space or water.
I’ve never heard it used in English. It’s one of those German compound nouns that has no simple translation into English, rather like Schadenfreude, which is used in English in its original form, and with more-or-less the German pronunciation.
Google Translate translates Fachidiot as “professional idiot”, which I don’t think really captures the intention of the word in German.
As Radge Havers points out, translating Fach to “fag” in English really, really doesn’t work at all, in any of the senses of “fag”. Perhaps Carbomontanus might stop trying to coin English neologisms.
@ prl
But perhaps also to all and everyone:
Let me not (yet) mention anything at all about pearls and swines
But I know an important principle of linguistics that rules universally , telling that
“The greater the empire (where I need not specify which empire ) the more poor and primitive is the imperial school investments in linguistic and gramatic education in the imperial center!”
Proof: . They only learn that “english is understood everywhere” and then read Charles Dickens for the rest.
Check up this by comparing several great imperial centers, Moskva, Madrid Peking, Paris,.. as many as you know about, and you will find a clear tendency..
Then compare this with the smaller and smallest empires, like Moravia, Noruegia, Hungaria, Islandia, even Holland and Helvetia.
It`s obvious why that is so.
The smaller and smallest empires have so few inhabitants that they cannot afford the print of schoolbooks and special trade and craft periodicals on any specialized subject. They publish and teach rather the basic generals quite much better, and then referre to foreign linguistic litterature and periodicals for the higher and detail detail studies.. Giving pupils and youngsters a quite much better learnings on grammars and semantics and general linguistics, and on how to find their ways aboad and in foreighn languages.
Old England, is a very old and fameous great imperial center where Downstairs cannot even understand Upstairs & vice versa,… due to minute difference of sociolects. I heard a Scotsman saying: “Bluddy britter, they can`t understand me talkin`”……
A lot of bluddy brittes are quite proud of that nowaday.
.New England is quite much better. They are bi- linguistic at least, with typical Riksmaal and Landsmaal like in old Norway. Their Riksmaal is cristal clear Harward dialect wheras Rhode Island Landsmaal is totally behind the barn allready. They tried me out on Landsmaal, smiling…so I answered in Norwegian, and then they spoke Riksmaal again.
(The normal human being in this world is tri- and quadro- linguistic rather fluently.)
I once counted up how many languages I have had to crack in order to get grown up and graduate., Then I take all 4 official scandinavian languages for one.
I counted 7 alltogether the trickiest was mideival scolastic Latin that I had to take by dictionary and some frenc grammar from high school, and …. eastern slovakian…. Well I had been 2 weeks in Praha.
And I am no philologist. But this is expected Science` levels of it.
Language problems is not Salonfähig.-> Stue- ren. ( Stue = livingroom, ren = clean) It is not “clean” it is snobbish vulgar ugly undignified.
Linguistic difficulties is something that you sshould not have got. and if you have got it, do not betray it and tell it around because being It is like being both broke and wet in your napkins and proud of your being able to mark Revier that way!.
It betrays your obvious lacks of manners and formation.
I) repeat…!
As there is allways a polish taxi- driver next by who can help you in Russian or Serbian or Moravian. That you shall have learnt in public school allready. You are not “sophisticated”.
Then we have the “Lingua Franca” the Pidgin- languages Mideival and old university Latin is a such one …. and hardly correct Cæsar Bello Gallico at all. But it is what works and not to be corrected and picked on by arbitrary provincial unqualified snob and “Fagidioti”
Kaisz an I are meeti8ng on a Pidgin- level.
==================000
I was over there in the states on the folks museum in “Connidicvt”.
And found The Swede, Professor of biochemistery standing on the museum lawn, damning and swearing so it was lightening all over the north american continent. “Dom e` så dumma här borta!” = They are so stupid over here! Repeatedly.
Are they really? I said, I pesonally find all varieties a high diversity over here.
Then took him down to earth on the museum lawn to show him proper Botanics along with Linnes system. Which is due swedish from Upstairs at the University of Uppsala. I found and showed him Veronica Malvaceae, Geranium, Compositae Plantago and so on. And just look around here. We clearly see Pinus Populus Salix Qvercus Acer Betula Sorbus,… Juniperus …everything, just by slightly different species. Because here we are on another continent but in the same tempered and coastal zone.
By good LATIN and in Linnes system, I showed him, we rule and instruct the world. But if we fall off from that, we loose the Empire!
The fameous Professor could breathe out and calm down. He was very upset because his finnish Nokia telephones did not work over there in the states.
That is the trick. Rather lift to Upstairs and use Linnaean systematics on it also over there in the states, then it clears up.
Which is also why “influenzers” and Trolls pick on that and will have it away first, in order to mark Revier and “further” rather their own and tribal racial national pure arena.
Vulgars believe opposite, they smash around with their arbitrary native mother and her silly “Tounge” that it is so especially clear, to their conscepts.
But she is the worst wherever we find her and hear her mentioned in the world That woman hardly understands her own “talkin”. and how she is barking commanding and swearing.
Instead, lift to “high language”, to “Riksmaal” even to Good “LATIN and even greek, if necessary. Try rather Pi pnevma evreka tangens alpha,.. Theta epsilon,… namely the borrowed words that are common to several languages, the foreighn words by old and enlighted tradition Upstairs at the University of Uppsala and things clears up, people can possibly understand each other and relate.
Whereas “Plain English” Englischer Platt / london cockney by that silly mother with her etnical racial purification programs is sin against the holy spirit, unforgiveable .
Carbuncle,
OK. English evolved from germanic roots around a thousand years ago, and was strongly impacted by French when William of Normandy took over England in 1066 by poking King Harold in the eyeball with a pointed stick.
My OED has devoted about seven columns of dense text to fag and faggot. Origins of the various usages are obscure, but it seems mostly to have come into the English language via French. FWIW, in one of its many incarnations it can refer to a bundle of sticks. In another it’s a slur against homosexuals.
English is fairly rich in insults, and there is a long history of insult battles in the form of poetry from the Scotts to modern rap battles. not to mention pastimes such as the dozens. To my mind modern denizens of the mysterious land of Scotland have the funniest insults.
Shakespeare was a master. You can play along at one of many Shakespearean insult generators such as this:
https://www.generatormix.com/shakespearean-insult-generator
Re your comments, for non-native speakers an easy way to create your own insults is via the form of “dumb as a …”
Dumb as a post,
Dumb as as sack of door knobs,
etc.
That’s right, you’re welcome, you cockered long-tongued mangy-dog.
The Dictionary of Newfoundland English list additional definitions of the term including a stack, or ‘faggot’ of dried and salted fish (cod) and a term for a ‘saucy child’. I’ve heard both usages in everyday speech in rural areas (though the modern streaming media environment is fast wiping out quirky dialects).
Jgnfld
a stack->faggot of dried codfish,-… that may possibly make sense. We say Høystakk, haystack.
A Stack has a Staur or a Stokk Stick in the middle to store or stuck it higher and safer.
if Fag- entails some kind of systematic framework so the stack- sticks better together and that is called a “fagg- ot” , then perhaps you have found something, especially on New Foundland.
Stokkafisk from Lofoten is still sold as “Stoccavisso” in Italia. They have taken over the word directly.
But you can actually stock- stack- stuck bild up and store stoccavisso in Fag.
A next word that may be etymologically related is fathom and favn and fange namely what you can favne fathom around wit 2 arms …. of firewood or hey or even stoccavisso.
Then see Wikipedias discussion of Fathom.
Autentic Masterwork Fachwerk- Fagverk masonry was measured and controlled in fathoms yards alen feet and inches.
And why Fach in German becomes Fag in Norway but becomes Fack in Sweden, , there the Dutch may have interfered, . who say ch for g. van Gogh is spoke van chooch , and den Haag is den Haach. Sweden rather related to the eastern and Lübecker Hansa.
Oops, I should have said that English evolved around the sixth century in the current era, give or take.
…although, it looks as though ‘fag’ might derive from ‘flag’ in which case it may have entered English via one of the Germanic languages.
Carbomontanus. Somewhere above thread that I cant find now, you said something like that clouds or the water cycle would ultimately act as a negative feedback on global warming and would stop global warming. I do not see why this would necessarily happen. There is no guarantee the system would reach that sort of balance / equilibrium.
Could you explain how clouds or the water cycle would stop global warming, and when this would happen, and why at that point in time?
Note that so far, global warming has shown no signs of stopping, and has reduced the low level cumulus clouds that reflect heat which looks more like a positive feedback.
It has been characterized as simultaneously ‘damping or thermo-stating’ and ‘warmer wetter and wilder’ echoing old hollywood rumors and artistic dissonance.
Sea-creatures couldn’t possibly know that the marine surface is acting always at maximum thermodynamic limits and offers strict zero freedom to adapt and respond to unnatural direct continental desiccation.
The sea knows only the saturation vapor curves and surface air temperature (adjacent), and it obeys.
There is no response-ability there to bail out the landcrabs. This is essential to realize. It’s part of the feedback schemes already embedded into land-ocean temperature contrasts; it is embedded into respective curving vapor pressure disparities and transport mode.
Nigelj
It follows from the common property of H2O as “a condensing greenhouse gas”, first as a positive feedback to CO2 and CH4 but then when it has vapored enough, forming white clouds with the para- sol effect and further by icy and chill rain from above, that cools down the situation again when the summer has become warm enough.
Theese effects are real and fameous, but I cannot quantify and scale them.
Also to be mentioned is the sequence of sunshine temperature and moisture in the year summer and winter. By time delay in the monsune areas. That is also a reality, easily observeable and to be taken for serious.
The presence of water and moisture obviously damps the temperature swings day and night summer and winter. But whether there is a resultant and increasing netto cooling effect at higher temperatures and moistures in the air, that will “curve off” global warming, I do not know. But I tend to believe it from what happens allready in todays situation in several fameous natural forms. related to clouds winds sunshine and water.
But it may for instance first come in a much too hot climate for our conscepts.
The keye to it, Gavin Schmidts turning knob on the earth climate termostat still remains CO2, but there may be a next and a bit lazy turning knob rather by H2O higher up on the temperature scale. That is what I believe and suggest. And the weathers may be dramatic before that next knob sets in.
PS
Nigel
After having thought it more over I come to think that the negative feedback function of water by rain and clouds maybe even snow albedo, is not something higher in global temperature but because of massive liquid water inertia against beeing heated up for evaporation.
This thought is conscistent with both diurnal and annual time delay. Temperature follows radiation and moisture follow temperature.
Only in Las Vegas where there is no water nearby, , rascals believe othervice and are able to suggest artificial irrigation of Sahara to “repair the watercycle.”
For global climate we can think of warming up also the deeper oceans that mix with the surface layers.
But as there surely is such a chilling termostating effect in miniature allready, daily and annually in the monsunes, , we may further think in terms of the same on century scale.
The situation today, as far as i can see it is not so typical of higher global temperatures as to extreemly rapid and unbalanced globat. up- warming. DS.
A stabilizing water cycle effect can only be enhanced by increasing the area and/or duration of surface evaporation + transpiration.
In a forced warming case, a natural stabilizing effect is the increasing area (or duration) of open ocean associated with sea-ice extent decline.
Holding open water area fixed offers no additional stabilizing effect on temperature.
Conversely, closing open water area under forced cooling (and sea-ice advance) reduces moisture flux through atmosphere and slows the rate of cooling.
The climate stability dependence on sea-ice extent (and therefore temperature) is a battle between albedo and lapse rate, which are opposite in sign in terms of lambda.
Although the ocean area is large, its area is practically fixed in the climate states of interest for today. This suggests no capacity to increase climate stability.
Assuming a case of fixed area of open ocean, the remaining lever for climate stability is the area and duration of evapotranspiration from land.
Land warms faster than open ocean under net Force largely because of the local moisture limitation.
For land, the lifted condensation level is higher than over open ocean because the near surface relative humidity is lower.
The lifted condensation level (LCL) is that altitude above the surface at which the relative humidity achieves 100%. The vertical distance between surface and LCL depends on the local moisture limitation.
Initialized with a moisture limited case, a parcel of air must rise higher before saturation is reached compared to an unlimited case.
In considering the lapse rate, the temperature drop with height to the LCL follows the dry adiabatic rate (say 10K per km?). The moist adiabatic rate (say 6K per km?), and associated latent flux conversion to sensible heat, happens only above the LCL where condensation can occur in the free troposphere.
Below the condensation level the lapse rate is “dry” & rapid; Above the LCL is lapse rate is “moist” & slow (lesser). This critical inflection point on a column lapse can be visualized as roughly the cloud deck.
As should be obvious by now, the total column lapse rate (averaged) will be greater in the moisture limited cases. The inflection point is shifted higher in the sky. An alternative interpretation is that it will tend to be less cloudy on average.
Using a trace gas forcing, up in the free troposphere or tropopause or wherever up there, which can be thought to increase the potential temperature (or moist static energy) irrespective of surface properties, the resulting observed actual temperature will depend on the column lapse rate.
For this reason, and others, the temperature change with forcing is greater in moisture limited cases compared to unlimited case. In cases with Forcing + ongoing moisture suppression, the temperature change will appear even greater.
In the most simple alternative way, the partitioning of moist static energy in water limited cases is favoring the sensible heat (temperature) as opposed to the moistening flux.
https://brian-rose.github.io/ClimateLaboratoryBook/courseware/land-ocean-contrast.html
Carbomantanus.
Good points.
Clearly you are right that anthropogenic warming could in theory create more low level clouds which reflect heat and have negative feedback properties. But the prevailing wisdom is that the total additional water vapour added to the atmospheric system by warming is a net POSITIVE feedback (clouds and free water vapour). Therefore those additional low level clouds reflecting heat are at best meaning global warming is slightly less than it would have been.
In addition low level clouds are in fact REDUCING, and models expect they will reduce. So this is actually increasing the warming effect:
https://climateadaptationplatform.com/climate-changes-effect-on-clouds/#:~:text=One%20of%20the%20study%20authors,and%20heat%20%E2%80%93%20hence%20more%20warming.
So right now those low level clouds are breaking up and reducing. The clouds are breaking up due to changes in the convection and circulation I read a good explanation but cant find it now. Now its perhaps possible this process could reach a threshold and go into reverse but I haven’t seen any expert suggest this would happen. And it seems unlikely it would.
As you mention rainfall has a local cooling effect right at the surface but only right at the surface and its only when it rains. And you would obviously need a massive increase in rainfall for this to become a significant brake on global warming.
I certainly agree that IF the water cycle was to stop global warming it would only be after warming is already considerably higher than presently. However its just not clear how it would happen. I can see why you think it might happen. Because in many ways the earth is a self regulating system and water has various cooling properties.
But things can sometimes spin out of control, like the atmosphere of Venus and those processes only stopped getting worse when it reached the limits of the planets resource base! You could argue this was still a form of self regulation, but only after extreme temperatures were reached and the atmosphere was full of sulphuric acid clouds!
So the moral of the story is yes I guess its possible the water cycle could eventually stop earths global warming, but I’m not very sure that it will , and only after the earth gets very hot so its a bit academic.
And clearly irrigating the Sahara at massive scale is a bad solution. Totally impractical as various people have pointed out.
@ Nigelj
We must take this later, Its the end of the month.
It is important things here that I believe you havent understood.
Where I have the advandtage of thinking in terms of chill also and rather unravel the climate RE-BUS from its cool side. that must be realized and discussed first. The global cooling system with radiator is being disturbed by human industries.
Allthough not quite orthodox , it is no more worse than also to think in terms of vacuum, not just pressure, and in terms of both positive and negative electrical charge current.
What about negative loaded particle heat- current flow when it comes to hails for instance? and to chilling rain? That current goes downwards. And the chill source aqnd heat sink with a very high chilling -capacity is the tropopause.
And for dissolving clouds in recent years, rather think in terms of sulphur and sulphate- aerosols. Vanishing clouds will not be a result of CO2 and global warming then, and we get rid of a paradox.
In Re to
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2023/11/unforced-variations-nov-2023/#comment-816186
Dear Barton Paul,
A remark to the question whether or not there is (or might be) a clear distinction between science and politics.
The idea (that such distinction does hardly exist today and perhaps may have never existed) is not mine. I read it in an article by Czech sociologist Zdeněk Konopásek, a co-author of the book “Anthropocene” that I already mentioned in this forum with respect to Amazonian black soils.
I think that although science is a quite unique method of exploration of the world around us, in the phase of its involvement in making conclusions what is actually going on around us and making practical decisions, there might be indeed an unavoidable interference with politics.
That was at least my understanding to the article I read, and I must admit that as I was not able to disprove this idea, I have adopted it. I am afraid that scientists making a practical advice or promoting any specific decision and believing that they still do science live in potentially dangerous illusion that they are somehow different from other players in this field.
I said “potentially dangerous”, because in such situations, people tend to believe that they are better informed and therefore more insightful than others, and often forget that the decision to be made may comprise lot of aspects that are completely outside their own expertise and insight.
I think that it may be beneficial if scientists actively involved in hot discussions about climate change mitigation policies take themselves as politicians.
If they are not willing to do so ourselves, I would recommend that the public perceives them the same way as it perceives other politicians. I do not believe that there is a substantial difference, and that assuming an opposite may be false and potentially harmful.
Greetings
Tomáš
Perhaps in some respects, Tomas, but I suspect that scientists who advocate for policy are in general pretty aware of when they are advocating and when they are researching. (E.g., I’m quite certain that when Dr. James Hansen put himself in a position to be arrested for protesting against coal combustion, he was very well aware that he was not engaged in climate research. And I suspect further that he’d much rather have been doing climate research, as well.)
So I disagree with your conclusion. If a researcher advocates for a policy, that does not, in my view, mean that they should be labeled merely as a “politician.” After all, all citizens in a democracy are entitled to political speech. If an autoworker or a manufacturing CEO speaks on industrial policy, do we pretend that they don’t have particular interests and (one hopes) expertise relevant to the topic, and implicitly dismiss them as ‘just another politician?’ No–to answer my own rhetorical question–we do not. Nor should we in the case of researchers who also advocate.
A couple of comments. Science is a human activity–so, of course it is political. The politics of science, though, revolve around which scientists and studies are most useful and convincing. It is only when politicians poke their nose into the science and try to put their thumbs on the scales that science becomes political in the sense that you are suggesting. Whether it is “Drill. Baby, Drill” or Lysenkoism, politics distorts the science and tries to elevate third-rate researchers to prominence merely because their conclusions are convenient to the party.
Two corrections:
My last sentence had to read: ..and I am afraid that assuming an opposite may be false and potentially harmful.
The last sentence in the fourth paragraph had rather end with words ..other players in decision making / politics.
Dr. James Hansen, former Director of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, and Adjunct Professor at Columbia University’s Earth Institute, joined Paul Beckwith in a discussion about his recent work, as shown in the YouTube video titled Dr. James E. Hansen in Conversation with Paul Beckwith, duration 0:43:12. This video was recorded on 13 Nov 2023, and published on 26 Nov 2023.
The video notes include:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WTWUJ8Lvl-U
Geoff Miell 26 NOV 2023 Not discussed in the brief wide-ranging chat you linked were the reasons for the prior 4 large variations in the EEI since 1984 (some smaller ones also) that are linked in MA Rodger’s Reply 7 NOV 2023 AT 10:03 to mine (with a Jason Box video link) of 8:18 both of which have references to plots of EEI, mine back to 2001 and MA Rodger’s back to 1984. Obviously, understanding these prior excursions in which EEI went down, or up, by amounts similar to (presumably less than though) the last ~8 months and then reversed and went up, or down, again would be very useful in determining what portion of this recent exceptional EEI increase is actually exceptional. James mentions the 1 w/m**2 and MA Rodger’s link has a big temporary excursion from 1994 to 2002 (I’m inferring that’s before the period of improved data) and, more relevant to now, from December 2007 to June 2010 an EEI increase of 1.09 w/m**2 following by an EEI decrease of 1.22 w/m**2. I’m thinking that a typical person in early 2009 would think “The EEI is exponentially increasing and will likely be 22 w/m**2 in 1`1 years” but it didn’t and it wasn’t. I’m not making any specific assertion about these last ~8 months, I don’t have enough information, but I’m saying that much careful analysis is required before stating quantities of this & that and making predictions with any confidence.
Barry E Finch: – “James mentions the 1 w/m**2 and MA Rodger’s link has a big temporary excursion from 1994 to 2002 (I’m inferring that’s before the period of improved data)…”
I’d suggest you view the segment presented by Norman G Loeb on the Status of Satellite Measurements of Earth’s Energy Imbalance, from time interval 0:42:19 in the YouTube video titled An Intimate Conversation with Leading Climate Scientists To Discuss New Research on Global Warming (included in the video notes of the referred video linked to in my previous comment).
According to Norman Loeb, CERES is the only dedicated satellite record in the world for EEI. The CERES data began from year-2000.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NXDWpBlPCY8
Barry E Finch: – “I’m thinking that a typical person in early 2009 would think “The EEI is exponentially increasing and will likely be 22 w/m**2 in 1`1 years” but it didn’t and it wasn’t.”
I’d suggest your argument is a STRAW MAN!!!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straw_man
Barry E Finch: – “I don’t have enough information, but I’m saying that much careful analysis is required before stating quantities of this & that and making predictions with any confidence.”
Um… Barry, are you suggesting James Hansen et al. re their peer-reviewed Nov 2023 published scientific paper titled Global warming in the pipeline haven’t already done “much careful analysis”? Have you had any peer-reviewed scientific papers published, Barry? What relevant competencies do you have to judge their work?
ICYMI/FYI, the Hansen et al. paper includes:
https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfclm/kgad008
I’d suggest you read the Hansen et al.>/i> (2023) paper.
Meanwhile:
1. North Atlantic SSTs are still at record high levels…
https://twitter.com/LeonSimons8/status/1729163421491356153
2. Global mean daily 2 m SATs are still at record high levels…
https://twitter.com/EliotJacobson/status/1729142916390731881
3. SH sea ice extent has been at record lows until recently and is still at near record lows…
https://climatereanalyzer.org/clim/seaice/
4. The planet’s remaining ice sheets are losing overall mass at an accelerating rate…
https://nsidc.org/ice-sheets-today/analyses/introducing-ice-sheets-today
How many warning signs do you want to continue to deny/ignore?
Barry E Finch,
The wobbles in EEI you are considering can be confusing by go up as well as down. On the climate tracker EEI web-page, the pre-CERES data is likely wobbly due to the El Chichón and Mt Pinatubo eruptions of 1984 & 1991 respectively resulting in negative (cooling) EEI wobbles.
The big 2007-10 positive (warming) wobble in the post-2001 CERES data is due to the albedo for once adding to an outward IR wobble when usually the albedo and outward IR wobbles work if anything tend to work against each other. See this graphic of the different components of the CERES data.
The outward IR is seemingly reacting to the global temperature with the wobbles showing something like a 2.8Wm^-2/ºC(SAT) and the trend in outward IR relative to SAT running at 1.2Wm*-2/ºC.
So…. regarding climate sensitivity… the Hansen, et al., preprint is now in print and the new climate sensitivity is… drumroll…………. 4.8C!
Yeah… told ya so.
But you still won’t listen, will you.
Nope.
That’s why I don’t come here anymore. Complete waste of 15 years. You can contact me via Patreon if any of you want to better understand the risks and solutions.
KIllian: “That’s why I don’t come here anymore. Complete waste of 15 years.”
And it took you … 15 years to figure it out that it is not your cup of cake? No adulation of the Great Killian,
who could see what others failed, and only the ungratefully hard questions about your claims?
I could have said that it was nice to know you, but that would be a lie.
Hr Killian
I shall not mention drunken sailors this time, but since you are leaving now, pleace take it especially from me that the idea of terrapreta may have its values in tropical rainforest with extreeme rains and highly kaolinized soils where the very humus with frogs & salamandris is up in the treetops.
When that falls down it rots especially fast, all minerals are set free and must be taken up in a hurry and recycled to the treetops.
Chop that down and burn it, and the very reserve of soluble mineral plant nutriciants will rush into the river and to sea and you can drive on waggons and lorries of NPK & Dolomite & NH4NO3 fertillizer to have any crop at all. And that is going to cost.
Here where I live there are glaciofluvial sediments and marine clays that came up by landrising, no Kaolin at all, and no soil older than 10 000 years. Kaolin is found where there has been pissing and raining for 10 000 000 years. Here you can uncover sheere humus- free mineral soil with bulldozers good enough for making concrete, and thick forests of Violoncello size will grow up on it in 120 years with no human help and added fertillizers & humus at all.
In Eiffel Germany there is fresh volcanic ashes less than a million years old with the worlds best wineyards and fruitgardens but they must piss on it every 7th year to have that winery with potassium tartrate sediment in the bottles sustainable.
That culture has been sustainable for 2000 years now.
The nordic way with NPK & Dolomite and artificial watering was exported to Egypt and Sahara and gave Salty ground disaster. . They must make and open their own agricultural highschool and university.
As you must also in Las Vegas and southern Califorhia, and furtherresign on teaching the world on moral and systemjatics. But New England is rather quite similar to Scandinavia of the sameold tectonic plate, , better than old England. .
Moral:
The Earth is round with tectonic plate moovements, with Köppen climate zones, and a system of Milancovic- cycles,due to the moon, so you better ask there.
I burn twigs and choisest wreckwood with pleasure, it is quite a privilege. But not on the ackers because that sterilizes it for 10 years. We burn it in the stove for heating and bring finest ashes back to the garden together with rubbish and piss 0n it. There are meter thick sediments of that culture in western norwegian terrasses wher the soil is too stony and steep. But most exellent for fruit trees right in the wilderness. Quite traditional in England also is sea- compost wherever available.
Moral 2
Simply see that your Microfauna is in order and see that highest natural predator is present and thrives. , Then you hardly need terrapreta exept on sheere kaolin in the rainforests.
Moral 3
Avoid medication and recommendations of the same by obscure patent medicines however “natural”, without anamnesis and diagnosis. for the individual case.
Not an entire waste. You did help me understand that increased simplicity must play a role in any future sustainable society. That I don’t agree with you entirely does not mean you haven’t influenced my thinking. Best of luck to you. I understand your frustration.
Oh wow there’s an erudite discussion of faggots such as at Radge Havers 23 NOV 2023. Way too nostalgic. In 1964 at University College of Swansea (Tokyo Melody, Donovan Catch The Wind) we very much favoured Welsh faggots (sounds weirdly like an economy-combo ethnic-social slur now) us 3 students surviving each on 5 quid p.w. Scholarship Grant for the BSc courses were living at Ben & Carol Jones’ Boarding House (completely ordinary tiny row house) with 6 healthy fried Welsh faggots, heaps of mash & processed peas we cooked ourselves for most daily lunches Carol included breakfast & tea). The Davies (other 2 students, not related at all) called it “a tangling dinner” in a gourmet appreciation sort-of tone.
This is just info (or not depending on whether everybody already knew all that) At 11:41 to 16:28 at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z_-8u86R3Yc from the PALEOSENS project analyses we see that 27 of the 38 paleo-climate proxy analyses are in the range 0.57 to 1.28 degrees per w/m**2 for “equilibrium climate sensitivity (ECS)” which is after the 2,000 years of ocean >99% balancing. For CO2*2 type metric climate sensitivity that would be 2.1 to 4.7 degrees so centred on 3.4 degrees. Then there’s Eelco Rohling presenting 18 paleo-climate proxy analyses in the range of 2.6 to 4.8 degrees for CO2*2 and asking “next slide please Jim” (presumably James Hansen sitting next to him and 1 of the 3 scientists at the presentation desk) at 19:43 at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KTTlAAiwgwM so the 4.8 degrees that you say Jim has decided on as most likely was there as the high end of the paleo-climate proxy analyses for +12 years. James Hansen has changed his mind a bit because I know for a remembered fact that he said his “best guess” was 2.8 degrees in early 2013 when I started looking at this Global Warmage thing and I was then for a few years using that in GoogleyTubes (BertyTubes back then) replies to bods quoting Richard Lindzen’s 1.6 degrees with Iris Effect feature and Roy Spencer’s 1.2 degrees with whatever is his analysis that I’ve never fathomed but I suspect he looked around and said “troposphere looks cool, I’ve got a good feeling about 1.2”. Cut’n’paste of mine from early 2013: “As example (but highly plausible) value for illustration only, if “final” (exc. natural periodic vagaries) Dr. Hansen “best estimate” average surface temperature +2.8 degrees C is required in order to balance in & out TOA radiation then it seems logical that “Global Warming” will stop when the oceans are ~+2.8 degrees C warmer than a hundred years ago, or whatever is the base line for this. I read currently the deepest 80% ocean is 2-6 degrees with avge. ~4.4 and that substantial mixing takes centuries. If so, deepest 80% increases from present 4.4 to ~7.2 degrees and that is a significant rise vis-a-vis the melt-freeze point of water on this Celsius scale. I think (unless there’s some science that shows deepest ocean does not get warm when the surface stays warms for millenia) that is one of the most significant points that a layperson might understand”. I found out a lot more accurate about ocean since but then I’ve now forgotten it all again.
I’m learning, and helping family and friends to learn — so I prepared some quotes about James Hansen’s recent public work — mostly from the transcript at
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NXDWpBlPCY8 . I included screenshots.
[At 2.5 minutes] the climate on our remarkable home planet is characterized by delayed response and amplifying feedbacks, which is a recipe to lock in intergenerational injustice. So we climate scientists have an obligation to explain this situation clearly as best we can, especially to young people — and to include the policy implications — because if we don’t include these implications, people who have a special financial interest will make their own conclusions.
…
[Background: James Hansen wrote, on Nov. 10, 2023 at http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/: “Factors that alter Earth’s energy balance [EEI] are called climate forcings. There are two large human-made climate forcings: changes of atmospheric greenhouse gases (GHGs) and changes of aerosols. GHGs reduce heat radiation to space; thus, an increase of GHGs causes a positive energy imbalance, more energy coming in than going out, which causes warming. Aerosols reflect sunlight to space, which is a negative contribution to EEI that causes cooling.”
Aerosols are fine particles in the air: “Key aerosol groups include sulfates, organic carbon, black carbon, nitrates, mineral dust, and sea salt, they usually clump together to form a complex mixture.” ( en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aerosol )
CLOUDS can form around aerosols. Generally, aerosols have a cooling effect. Unfortunately, NASA & other agencies don’t monitor/measure them. Climate models have been wrongly underestimating their sensitivity/importance (freely download Jessica Tierney and Matthew Osman’s research at Univ. of Arizona: pubs.aip.org/physicstoday/article/75/1/14/2842415/24-000-years-of-climate-change-mappedA-numerical). Furthermore, in the past decade, we’ve reduced aerosols in “cleaning up pollution”; thus we’ve reduced their cooling effect. 70% of the planet is ocean; thus we can’t SEE this newly decreased cloud cover over the oceans.]
[At 8 minutes] Aerosols are fine airborne particulates. They are a health hazard, killing several million people per year. Aerosols also cool the climate by reflecting sunlight to space, their main effect being as condensation nuclei for cloud drops. They slightly increase cloud cover and make clouds a bit brighter. Humanity made a Faustian bargain by offsetting a substantial but uncertain fraction of greenhouse gas warming with aerosol cooling. Now, as we want to reduce all the chronic health effects of aerosols, our first Faustian payment is due: the payment is ACCELERATION OF GLOBAL WARMING.
China reduced its aerosols in the past 15 years; and aerosols from ships decreased [starting] in 2015 and especially in 2020 as Leon will describe in a few minutes, so we expect the post-2010 global warming rate to increase at least 50%, which is the lower edge of the yellow area. If we are right, the 12-month running mean temperature will rise above the yellow region by next spring as the current El Nino peaks. The mean temperature for the rest of this decade will be at least 1.5° Celsius warming; and 2° Celsius [i.e., 3 ½ degrees Fahrenheit] global warming will be reached within 20 years.
——————
[Background: “Factors that alter Earth’s energy balance are called climate forcings. There are two large human-made climate forcings: changes of atmospheric greenhouse gases (GHGs) and changes of aerosols. GHGs reduce heat radiation to space; thus, an increase of GHGs causes a positive energy imbalance, more energy coming in than going out, which causes warming. Aerosols reflect sunlight to space, which is a negative contribution to EEI that causes cooling. ” …”rather small changes of clouds can have a large impact on EEI. [We conclude in Pipeline that cloud changes are the feedback that increases what would otherwise be a planetary sensitivity of 2.4°C for 2×CO2 to the empirically-derived real-world sensitivity of 4.8°C for 2×CO2. Similarly, it does not take much cloud change to produce the ~1 W/m2 increase of absorbed solar radiation “… Nov. 10, 2023 at http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/ ]
The “Pipeline” article (50 pgs) is free in pdf at this URL: academic.oup.com/oocc/article/3/1/kgad008/7335889 . The editorial there is important also! I quote the editor: “the high value [of equilibrium climate sensitivity, ECS] inferred by Hansen et al. is intriguing: it suggests that past climate changes may indicate larger implications of modern climate change than we had estimated before. This elevates ‘high impact, low probability’ impacts toward the ‘high impact, high probability’ level, and this is enough reason to publish the new estimates. It should make everyone sit up and take notice. … The Hansen et al. re-evaluation of paleo-information suggests that … continued work on the climate models is warranted to ensure that emissions reduction and mitigation targets are not systematically set too low.” ]
[At 11 minutes] On global average, the solar radiation absorbed by Earth has increased about one watt per meter square.
This increase of absorbed solar radiation is the reason that Earth’s energy imbalance has almost doubled since 2015. When I gave a TED Talk, more than a decade ago, Earth’s energy imbalance was about 6/10 of a watt per square meter, which is equivalent to 400,000 Hiroshima atomic bombs per day — that much energy being poured mostly into the ocean. That imbalance has now doubled; that’s why global warming will accelerate, that’s why global melting will accelerate.
[At 11:50 minutes] Let’s look at the absorbed solar radiation again. If this is not noise, and I don’t think it is noise, this one-watt increase is a BFD — a Big !** Deal! Let’s compare it with greenhouse gas climate forcings. The greenhouse gas climate forcing (on the next chart) has increased about 0.045 watt per meter squared per year, which is almost half a watt per decade. So the one-watt increase of absorbed solar radiation is equivalent to more than a 20-year increase of greenhouse gases at their current high rate of increase. That’s why I can say with confidence that global warming will now accelerate. …
——————————————–
[At 15.5 minutes] As I said, most of today’s emissions are from emerging economies [including China], which want to increase their living standards, so the task is to reduce the carbon intensity of global energy to near zero — but we reduced it only from 0.8 to 0.7 in the past half century! It’s not plausible for it to go to near zero by midcentury. Sweden did well by decarbonizing its electricity — in part, by building nuclear power plants.
Now my last chart on the fundamental required actions: NONE of these are occurring!
A rising carbon fee is the fastest, most effective way to affect all uses of fossil fuels, but the fossil fuel industry has prevented it.
Instead of East-West cooperation, our politics and special interests have led to a focus on economic and military hegemony, which is foolish because we are all in the same boat, and we’ll sink together if we don’t work together. I don’t think that anyone asks young people if this confrontational approach is the kind of world they wish to aim for.
The 1.5 degree limit is deader than a doornail, and the two-degree limit [i.e., 3 ½ degrees Fahrenheit] can be rescued only with the help of purposeful actions to affect earth’s energy balance. We will need to cool off Earth to save our coastlines — coastal cities worldwide and lowlands, while also addressing the other problems caused by global warming.
Now, it will take several years for socialization of what is needed, for the public to understand — which will be aided by the increasing problems that they will see from global warming. That several years will provide the time that young people need to understand this matter — and specifically the fact that, I believe, a political party that takes NO money from special interests is probably an essential part of the solution. Young people should not underestimate their political clout.
————————
[At 19 ½ minutes] … the planet is now out of balance by an incredible amount — more than it ever has been — you know it’s doubled, so you’ve got a huge amount of incoming energy — that’s what causes the temperature change. So 1.5 degrees [i.e., 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit] is going to be occurring in the next several months, and averaged over the next several years will be at least that level. If there’s more energy coming in than going out, the planet is going to get warmer; and we’re already at that level! and so far as two degrees is concerned, you can see that the attempts to make a plan for how you could stay under two degrees [i.e., 3 ½ degrees Fahrenheit] — we’re shooting way over that. And that was without considering the effect of this additional imbalance caused by aerosols being reduced. …
We can do it, we will HAVE to do it, but it’s going to require the combination of reducing emissions as rapidly as possible — but also if we’re going to avoid Antarctic –well, I shouldn’t go into the details, but if we’re going to keep sea level close to where it is, we actually have to COOL the planet. We can’t allow it to continue to be out of balance the way it is now, because it’s melting the ice shelves, and we’re going to lose the West Antarctic ice sheet if we don’t COOL the planet off.
Jane, huge kudos to you… well done. You’re wonderful, keep at it.
I have a point however about what Hansen said, as part fo his public outreach … I love and admire Hnasen, the guy is a saint. No doubt.
But this here explanation – learning moment — [Background: James Hansen wrote, on Nov. 10, 2023 at http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/: “Factors that alter Earth’s energy balance [EEI] are called climate forcings. There are two large human-made climate forcings: changes of atmospheric greenhouse gases (GHGs) and changes of aerosols. GHGs reduce heat radiation to space; thus, an increase of GHGs causes a positive energy imbalance, more energy coming in than going out, which causes warming. Aerosols reflect sunlight to space, which is a negative contribution to EEI that causes cooling.” —
It simply makes me want to cry…. or is it scream!
As an exercise in public communication it is a disgrace. For over 33 years since Rio this is what has been happening. Climate scientists may as well be speaking Klingon to the world.
And it’s not as if they haven’t been repeatedly told about this massive and critical problem that leads to failure. Oh well. I guess it just wasn’t meant to be. All that time effort and commitment by millions, all for nothing, because this is still the best, the best like Hansen, can do.
TK,
I’ve prepared a correction to my last post, but I’m going to wait until the December unforced variations comes up to post it.
-BPL