Well, that year went quickly. This month, there is the COP28 hoopla, the ongoing El Niño and the speculation about the 2023 temperature ranking (which will not be that surprising). An open thread for climate topics…
Climate science from climate scientists...
UAH have posted November’s TLT anomaly at +0.91ºC, so no change on the ‘scorchyisimooooo!!!!’ of recent months. November’s anomaly didn’t quite top October’s +0.91ºC but did manage to push August’s +0.90ºC into third all-month highest anomaly. The last five months are now all in the top ten all-month anomaliy list with August at 5th (+0.69ºC) and July at 7th (+0.64ºC). Prior to 2023, the all-month record anomaly had been set by Feb 2016 with +0.70ºC now down in 4th with the warmest November being 2019 with an anomaly of +0.42ºC.
2023’s year-to-date average is thus more firmly in top spot, the year-to-date headroom having grown from +0.01ºC to +0.07ºC. It would now take a December anomaly of -0.58ºC to drop 2023 down from top spot in UAH TLT and that would be a record low December anomaly, the lowest on record being December 1979 at -0.48ºC.
…….. Jan-NovAve … Annual Ave ..Annual ranking
2023 .. +0.48ºC
2016 .. +0.41ºC … … … +0.39ºC … … … 1st
2020 .. +0.38ºC … … … +0.36ºC … … … 2nd
1998 .. +0.37ºC … … … +0.35ºC … … … 3rd
2019 .. +0.29ºC … … … +0.30ºC … … … 4th
2017 .. +0.26ºC … … … +0.26ºC … … … 5th
2010 .. +0.21ºC … … … +0.19ºC … … … 6th
2022 .. +0.19ºC … … … +0.17ºC … … … 7th
2021 .. +0.13ºC … … … +0.13ºC … … … 9th
2015 .. +0.12ºC … … … +0.14ºC … … … 8th
2002 .. +0.08ºC … … … +0.08ºC … … … 11th
Oh no it’s not the 0.5C above last year as X keeps on going on about or is that just NH ocean temps
MA Rodger; – “It would now take a December anomaly of -0.58ºC to drop 2023 down from top spot in UAH TLT and that would be a record low December anomaly, the lowest on record being December 1979 at -0.48ºC.”
I’d suggest that’s unlikely, as it seems the Earth System nudged the +2.0 °C global mean daily 2 m surface air temperature again on Dec 3, per a tweet by Prof Eliot Jacobson:
https://twitter.com/EliotJacobson/status/1731657206242914805
But perhaps you may wish to wait for Copernicus ECMWF to catch-up & confirm?
https://climate.copernicus.eu/global-temperature-exceeds-2degc-above-pre-industrial-average-17-november
Between 2000 and 2015 it was forecasted the 30-year average ΔT for the +1.5 °C global mean threshold would be reached around 2045. Now the estimate is 2034. And it will come closer fast in the months and years to come. See Leon Simons’ tweet on Dec 5:
https://twitter.com/LeonSimons8/status/1731700589937987647
Geoff Miell,
I don’t know why any sane commenter would raise the thought of the December 2023 anomaly being a record-breaking low value (in the record running since 1979). Any sensible reader would surely appreciate that the required Dec temperature to prevent 2023 becoming hottest-on-record was presented just to show how impossible such an outcome was. And with the first five days of the month a whole +0.5ºC above the previous highest-on-record for those days (according to the UoMaine Reanalyser), the rest of December would now require an anomaly of -1.04ºC. Months with such low anomalies did happen back in the 1860s if you delve into HadCRUT5. But I think today a renewal of the American Civil War is more likely than a repeat of those 1860s monthly anomalies.
And you add to your comment by repeating an assertion that the likely date of AGW of +1.5ºC will “come closer fast in the months and years to come.” I’d assume this is trying to say that the projection of May 2034 will come closer faster than the passage of time (and indeed it has moved to March 2034 with the Nov anomaly now arrived although the Copernicus page is yet to update). Yet the repeated assertion of an earlier+1.5ºC is not back by any reasoning and I note the projection has been as early as December 2033 in the past, So perhaps that reasoning should be given.
MA, love your information, so thanks. The update is much appreciated!
But I’ve got to say, sometimes your sentences drive me to distraction. I had to rewrite the last part of your first paragraph in my head to understand it at all–thus:
I, too, have a Anglocentric love for complex sentence structures. But I’ve learned through painful experience–even if I don’t always apply the lesson, or apply it successfully!–that you’ve got to be really meticulous with transitions and with maintaining the relations amongst clauses and referents. That is, you do, if you don’t want to confuse the living daylights out of your readers.
Remember, America is still strongly influenced by the way Hemingway wrote:
https://bookanalysis.com/ernest-hemingway/writing-style/
I hope you’ll forgive the candor!
TK has noticed that, in my rush to correct my earlier analysis, I made a similar mistake again.
I have total global latent heat flux density increasing from 88 watts per square meter to 99. This is an increase of 12.5%, not 29.2%. The immediate gross change in surface-emitted radiation is -11 W/m^2. With reradiation from the atmosphere, this becomes (after iteration) -9.5 W/m^2.
If τ(H2O) = 0.117 pH2O^0.348, and water vapor increases proportionally, as I expect, the greenhouse effect from water vapor increases from 161.05 W/m^2 to 167.76, for a net increase of 6.7 W/m^2. The overall net effect is therefore a decrease of 2.8 W/m^2, and the surface temperature declines from 286.81 K to 286.27 K, a net decrease of 0.54 K. If global warming is increasing at 0.18 K/decade, this will buy us three decades of stopped global warming. Qualitatively, MS, JCM, and TK were right and I was wrong.
Now all they have to do is double land evaporation globally–and then do it again 30 years later–and so on indefinitely into the future.
Or we could just cut our emissions and solve the problem permanently.
BPL, your giving the RC deniers even “the qualitative right” – may have been overstepping, e.g.:
– if I am not mistaken, you agreed with them that the water evaporated over continents would stay in place and not move over the oceans. Since air masses are not stationary – this is not justified and consequently underestimates the warming due to increased avg. humidity, shortening your 30 years
– since what they propose is to keep pumping CO2 into the air, this would result in a more acidified ocean, which would absorb a SMALLER fraction of human emitted CO2, hence the same emissions of Co2 would result in faster increase in atm. CO2 concentration and shorten your 30 years even further.
Probably one could go with a fine comb over your bare-bone model assumptions, but who has the time- the systemic error bars due to oversimplification are likely so big as to render any quantitative results (as your “30 years”) – questionable.
BPL: “Qualitatively, MS, JCM, and TK were right and I was wrong. Now all they have to do is double land evaporation globally–and then do it again 30 years later–and so on indefinitely into the future.
Or we could just cut our emissions and solve the problem permanently.”
Let’s see with which part of this answer they will choose to run with:
a) that doubling evaporation from all continents is technically, financially and environmentally unfeasible, that even if it were feasible, it would be only a temporary stop gap, and it would address only one of the symptoms, T, and not the cause (GHG emissions); (plus it would make the other symptom – ocean acidification – by removing the urgency and funds from reduction of CO2 emissions – worse)
OR
b) that they were right and you, and by extension all the climate scientists, are wrong.
Now which of the two it would be, The suspense is killing me … ;-)
in Re to
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2023/12/unforced-variations-dec-2023/#comment-816642
Dear Piotr,
I would like to address both of your points a) and b).
a) My basic question from the very start of this discussion is:
Why should I believe that the single anthropogenic cause of the observed climate change is increasing atmospheric concentartion of non-condensing greenhouse gases, when it is clear that humanity might have in parallel also significantly change the water cycle intensity that has a comparably important role in global climate regulation?
I do not think that 8 months of the previous discussion gave any answer on this crucial question. In this sense, your main objection (that fixing possible negative impacts of past human activities on continental water cycle does not address the right cause of the observed global warming) may not be correct.
b) I have not thought that you are a climate scientist. Are you?
It is my understanding that the evidence brought by Barton Paul’s thought experiment and his calculations are in accordance with general knowledge of a person skilled in climate science.
In other words, I do not think that the evidence provided by Barton Paul (that increasing water cycle intensity has a neat cooling effect and decreasing water cycle intensity has a neat warming effect, because possible changes in water vapour greenhouse effect do not compensate the effect of the changing latent heat flux) is anything new or in any sense contradictory to the mainstream climate science.
I only wonder why, in view of this general knowledge, human interferences with continental water cycle (and their possible role as one of the causes of the observed global climate change) have not been investigated yet as thoroughly as it has already been done with respect to human interferences with carbon cycle.
Greetings
Tomáš
Well, your premise there is wrong. As clearly shown in various IPCC reports–and, for that matter, in lengthy discussions on these very threads–both land use and aerosol emissions are also significant anthropogenic factors. And, actually, the IPCC has also been warning about the intensification of the hydrological cycle–the very thing behind observed regional increases in drought and also, paradoxically, global scale increases in extreme precipitation events.
It is of course true that the hydrological intensification has been seen more as effect of warming than cause of it. But the fact that we do see intensification on both sides of the evaporation/precipitation cycle does suggest that globally there is a strong tendency for the two to equilibrate, and over relatively short time scales.
Regional effects are, of course, another story because the biosphere gets involved. An example would be the feared conversion of Amazonia to grassland. And it seems clear that in that case at least, the potential is there for indirect global scale consequences, in the form of massive carbon emissions which would be warming feedbacks.
in Re to
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2023/12/unforced-variations-dec-2023/#comment-816777
Dear Kevin,
As you have not participated in early stages of this discussion in March-August 2023, I am not sure if you noted some quite technical aspects thereof.
First of all, it showed that also some regular participants in RC discussions believed that water cycle does not play a role in Earth surface temperature regulation, because they uncritically accepted the misinformation that heat absorbed on certain place by water evaporation must return back to Earth surface when the water vapour condenses and returns back as rain or other form of precipitation.
Further, the discussion showed that the equivalence between latent heat flux considered in various schemes of “global energy balance” and the annual global average of water precipitation is also not the common knowledge.
You possibly noted that the recent correction of calculations made earlier by Barton Paul clarified that a further objection against my questions as originally raised in this forum, namely that the cooling effect of the latent heat flux must be cancelled by water vapour greenhouse effect, is also incorrect.
I do not say that IPCC reports assert anything else. I only say that their executive summaries completely miss the possibility that human interference with water cycle could have contributed to global warming through latent heat flux reduction. As I am afraid that such advice may be incomplete and potentially misleading, I asked moderators if there is an evidence that this contribution was/is in fact negligible in comparison with the effect of the increased concentration of non-condensing greenhouse gases.
If you know the answer, please help. If you do not, would you mind joining my plea to moderators?
Greetings
Tomáš
TK: My understanding is that present “standard model” of the climate change is based on statistics showing average global temperature rise (all the hockey stick graphs discussed herein) and computational climate models more or less fitting this temperature rise with measurements of greenhouse gas concentrations and other “forcings” like aerosols.
BPL: No, that’s completely wrong. It’s based on radiation physics, and so are the models. Noe of it is fit to temperature statistics. Temperature statistics are used as a gauge to see how well the models perform, but any corrections are to make the physics more accurate. AOGCMs are not statistical models, and the physics preceded computer models by about 60 years.
Here you are right along with Aristoteles. Mr. McKinney. What goes up must come down!
Dear Tomáš,
I have read your reply with interest, and have had a look at Makarieva et al (2023).
You express the concern that the elimination of FF combustion might be inadequate as a response to the climate crisis, based on the statement by Makarieva et al that the global effect of anthropogenic evapotranspiration changes “could be large.” Note that this is a speculative argument–it’s “could be,” not “is.”
Moreover, their knowledge of climate model parameters appears to be very seriously out of date. I’m a layman, and so limited in both knowledge of the literature and ability to analyze it. However, I couldn’t help but notice that the citation on parameterization came from Ramanathan & Coakley (1978). I did not find it at all credible that a parameterization scheme from 1978 would survive ’til now, unchanged after 45 years of explosive improvement in computer science, atmospheric science in general, and numerical modeling in particular!
Therefore, I had a quick look for more recent papers offering information about convective parameterizations. The first result was imperfect, but still indicative: “Constraining Clouds and Convective Parameterizations in a Climate Model Using Paleoclimate Data,” Ramos et al (2022). It’s here, for anyone interested:
https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2021MS002893
It doesn’t explicitly have a comprehensive description of contemporary parameterizations; it’s concerned with experiments altering parameterizations in line with paleoclimate data, so I at least don’t dare assume that there can’t be convective parameters they did not consider. (They do say that the model considered, GISS E-2.1, “regularly” uses five tuning parameters, but that isn’t a tightly constraining statement unless you already know the context very well, which I don’t.)
However, the ones that they did address reveal that contemporary climate models are much more granular in their handling of convection than Ramanathan and Coakley were. Here’s a list of the 4 convective parameters they vary. (There are also 2 parameters affecting clouds):
1) rain re-evaporation above cloud base;
2) entrainment rate for plume (1 & 2);
3) convection adjustment time;
4) convective trigger (which modulates “the relative balance of stable layers against planetary boundary layer processes”).
All of these parameters have specific values which were varied among model runs, in consideration relative to the paleoclimate data. This is simply not a scheme compatible with the simple Ramanathan & Coakley formulation that Makarieva et al cite!
Backing away a bit from such detail, I’d comment that your characterization of convective parameterizations as “unjustified” is unsupported by Makarieva et al; a better characterization would be that the parameterizations are in their view inadequate–a very different thing. I don’t think anybody in climate modeling views parameterizations as anything but a “necessary evil.” They are justified by the necessity, and deplored for their inadequacy. (Which then everyone tries to characterize as closely as possible.) One can only approach the best that one can do as closely as one can.
Basically, Makarieva et al are arguing for the preservation of boreal forest, which is threatened primarily by resource extraction–not least, I think, for fossil fuel production. (And, FWIW, I think that is a very good thing to argue for.) They also propose an interesting research question, particularly when they argue for an alternate modeling paradigm which would focus more on the incorporation ecological homeostatic mechanisms. (But I suspect that their evident unfamiliarity with actual contemporary modeling techniques may vitiate the interest of such a proposal for those who have the expertise to build said models. Too bad.) But nowhere in the paper did they suggest that CO2 isn’t a primary driver of climate change, or that models are fundamentally wrong in respect to that fact. Basically, they say that evapotranspiration *could* potentially offer a larger offset to warming than is currently recognized. So I think you are seriously over-extending what they say in the paper.
My two cents–even if I’ve gone on for at least a dime’s worth of length.
In re to
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2023/12/unforced-variations-dec-2023/#comment-817206
and
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2023/12/unforced-variations-dec-2023/#comment-817326
Dear JCM,
Many thanks for your explanations, for useful references, and entire discussions during this year..
Merry Christmas!
Greetings
Tomáš
In Re to
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2023/12/unforced-variations-dec-2023/#comment-817276
Dear Kevin,
Thank you very much for your thorough review of the problem.
Your reply was very helpful.
Merry Christmas!
Greetings
Tomáš
Tomas Kalisz
“Why should I believe that the single anthropogenic cause of the observed climate change is increasing atmospheric concentartion of non-condensing greenhouse gases, when it is clear that humanity might have in parallel also significantly change the water cycle intensity that has a comparably important role in global climate regulation?”
“I do not think that 8 months of the previous discussion gave any answer on this crucial question. In this sense, your main objection (that fixing possible negative impacts of past human activities on continental water cycle does not address the right cause of the observed global warming) may not be correct.”
The IPCC acknowledge that greenhouse gases from the burning of fossil fuels are not the only cause of warming and that deforestation has upset the water cycle and is a factor in warming, but they have determined that the burning of fossil fuels is the main cause of the warming. I’ve seen nothing from you or anyone else to prove otherwise, in the way BPL laid out an organised set of calculations in 6 parts of whether a mass irrigation scheme would cool the surface. So while I take BPL and Piotr seriously, I find it hard to take people like you and JCM as seriously on your big claims about the science.
My objections to large scale mass irrigation projects intended to promote cooling are as follows
1) Although the irrigation projects cool the surface (the ground and a couple of metres of air above the ground) as far as I can tell the atmosphere as a whole still warms (?). However regardless of the veracity of that, the latent heat released higher up disturbs the circulatory system in problematic ways. There seem to be a lot of side effects you haven’t considered.
2) The mass irrigation schemes while intended to correct for alleged past loss of forests etc,etc and that is meant well, the irrigation schemes are completely impractical. They would cause massive depletion of aquifers and rivers (already very depleted) and cost trillions of dollars and suck resources away from building renewable energy.
Perhaps if your scheme was done very, very slowly over many hundreds of years it might work but this won’t do much to counter the rather rapid global warming we are experiencing.
3) The solutions dont solve the acidification of the oceans.
4) Your schemes seem to assume burning of fossil fuels continues. This creates a further range of problems.
So it all just seems crazy and all my instincts tell me its crazy. I do not have to analyse the science like BPL did and you should be doing to draw the conclusions in items 1 – 4. I have posted objections 1 – 4 previously on the UV thread about 6 months ago (in slightly different words I cant find my original comments). Nothing posted by anyone including you or BPL in his corrected posts, contradicts what I’ve said in items 1 – 4.
in Re to
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2023/12/unforced-variations-dec-2023/#comment-816803
Dear Nigel,
Thank you very much for your thoroughly prepared feedback.
I would like to correct only in one point:
I proposed the idea “make Sahara green (again :-))” rather as a potentially useful exercise, with the aim to show that latent heat flux indeed has a cooling effect on global mean surface temperature, and that human interferences with global water cycle might have contributed to the observed global warming.
You are aware of the important role that water cycle plays in Earth surface temperature regulation, and the even more vital role that it plays regionally. In this respect, I see as a risky approach that the executive summaries of the IPCC remain basically silent about human interferences therewith as a possible parallel cause of the observed climate change.
Rather than advocating for further fossil fuel use, I am afraid that focusing solely on decarbonization may not be enough for fixing the climate problem. I can imagine that if humanity indeed inflicted a significant disruption to the global water cycle (as some people assume), merely returning the high concentrations of greenhouse gases to their low preindustrial levels may not result in returning climate to its preindustrial state. In case that global warming is in fact multicausal, I am afraid that we will have to do more than remedy the only one cause of the whole set.
That is why I asked the question what we actually know about past water cycle intensity and human influence thereon. Further question that may be in my opinion very important pertains to the objection that present climate models may raise a false feeling that Earth climate is quite insensitive to changes in continental water cycle
https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/ffgc.2023.1150191/full ,
because all of them include so called “convective parametrization” that is (allegedly) in fact unjustified.
I think that previous discussion showed that these questions might be indeed relevant, however, it no way helped to answer them.
That is why I now repeat my plea to moderators for help, and in parallel ask other participants in this discussion for joining my plea – if they, similarly as me, cannot find a reply on their own.
Greetings
Tomáš
Tomas Kalisz
Thanks for that.
“I can imagine that if humanity indeed inflicted a significant disruption to the global water cycle (as some people assume), merely returning the high concentrations of greenhouse gases to their low preindustrial levels may not result in returning climate to its preindustrial state. In case that global warming is in fact multicausal, I am afraid that we will have to do more than remedy the only one cause of the whole set.”
I see no usefulness in trying to return earth to some sort of allegedly idyllic predindustrial climate, and I’m not that bothered by 1 degree of warming thus far. I’m worried that once we get above 2 degrees we risk rapid and dangerous climate change, which will not be good for human civilisation. I also dont particularly want to see numerous species made extinct.
I believe in the Obama doctrine of “dont do stupid stuff”. Heating the planet 3 degrees is stupid stuff. But trying to get the planet back to a pre industrial state also sounds like stupid stuff. Tolerating very high levels of financial or wealth inequality is stupid stuff. Trying to make everyone equal or near equal in a financial sense is also stupid stuff. I trust you get the picture. Sanity is mostly found between the extremes.
Just FYI, William Ruddiman believes humans have been warming the climate slightly, or at least countering a natural cooling trend, ever since farming emerged 10,000 years ago leading to land use changes particularly deforestation:
https://www.everand.com/book/232950867/Plows-Plagues-and-Petroleum-How-Humans-Took-Control-of-Climate
However I dont see any evidence that disrupting the water cycle is the main part of the warming problem. Plenty of evidence points at fossil fuels. I’m sure you are aware of it.
In Re to
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2023/12/unforced-variations-dec-2023/#comment-816863
Dear Nigel,
Many thanks for your reply.
My understanding is that present “standard model” of the climate change is based on statistics showing average global temperature rise (all the hockey stick graphs discussed herein) and computational climate models more or less fitting this temperature rise with measurements of greenhouse gas concentrations and other “forcings” like aerosols.
As I have not obtained any answer to my questions regarding our knowledge of past global water cycle intensity, I suppose that this knowledge is much more uncertain than that about past greenhouse gas levels, surface albedo, solar activity, etc.
If we do not have reliable data allowing us to calibrate / check the available models by modelling the past climate, we must hope that the physics of water cycle is treated in the models properly.
That is why the objection raised by Makarieva et al. with respect to convective parametrization may be crucial, and why I tried to ask the moderators what they think about this objection. I still hope that if not the moderators, someone else on this website will be able to tell me if this objection may be justified or not.
Greetings
Tomáš
…”and computational climate models more or less fitting this temperature rise with measurements of greenhouse gas concentrations and other “forcings” like aerosols.”
No,
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2008/11/faq-on-climate-models/
in Re to
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2023/12/unforced-variations-dec-2023/#comment-816937
and
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2023/12/unforced-variations-dec-2023/#comment-816927
Dear Patrick, dear Barton,
Thank you for your replies and to Patrick for the useful reference.
In view of your explanations, I would re-formulate my question as follows:
Do I understand correctly that if the objection raised by Makarieva et al is correct and the convective parametrisation used in present climate models in fact does fit only a specific hydrological conditions like a certain global water intensity, present climate models can be accurate unless this basic hydrological setup changes?
Or, in other words, do I understand correctly that climate sensitivity to various forcings like CO2, aerosols, or insolation, can change if a different hydrological regime (e.g. due to a significant change in water availability on land) changes the convective parametrization?
I asked primarily moderators, however, the question is, of course, directed also to all persons skilled in climate models in the public herein on Real Climate.
Greetings
Tomáš
P.S.
Perhaps could my questions be replied in an actualization of the article
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2008/11/faq-on-climate-models/
I suppose that since 2008, there was some progress in climate modelling, and perhaps further questions pertaining thereto appeared meanwhile. Replying them could be an opportunity to address the objection raised by Makarieva et al, too.
Would you join my plea for a such actualization of this article?
TK: Why should I believe that the single anthropogenic cause of the observed climate change is increasing atmospheric concentartion of non-condensing greenhouse gases, when it is clear that humanity might have in parallel also significantly change the water cycle intensity that has a comparably important role in global climate regulation?
BPL: Because we know from radiation physics that increasing the amount of greenhouse gases in a planetary atmosphere warms the surface. The theory of anthropogenic global warming was proposed years before we had adequate time series data for carbon dioxide, e.g. The prediction came first, the very high correlation between CO2 and temperature was found later.
If you have time series data for “the water cycle intensity,” I’d like to see it.
In response to:
“Now all they have to do is double land evaporation globally–and then do it again 30 years later–and so on indefinitely into the future. Or we could just cut our emissions and solve the problem permanently.”
I would caution any public board or committee against accepting this staff report. It’s a flawed piece of policy advice and a motion should be passed to finance restructuring or staff retraining on ethics and methods in science offering.
Under the pretext of admitting error, the multiple deception could go unnoticed. This is a liability.. At the very least(!) a point of order is to be logged in the minutes noting the following grievances:
1. Falsely Assuming the Problem Definition – That the present issues of hydrological and temperature extremes would be solved permanently based exclusively on an emission cut program…
2. Failure to Submit Assumptions and Short-cuts – specifically, a lack of transparency concerning: (a) The mixing of units of mass flux and atmospheric partial pressure of water vapor in proportional analysis; (b) failing to account for conventional feedback paradigms, such as the temperature state dependence of vapor pressure i.e. 7%/K; (c) the unphysical requirement of increasing continental relative humidity from 50% to practically 100% in the provided scenario; (d) breaching fundamental constraints in surface flux partitioning, and; (e) the complete omission of condensation and a failure to account for basic principles in the water cycle process.
3. Appearance of Extreme Bias in Advice Offered – a failure of competence (at best) or compromised personnel in breach of essential ethical obligations in scientific disclosure concerning matters of public interest.
4. Tacit Acceptance and Failure of Peer Review (in real climate science forums) – the failure of participants in the marketplace to submit comments which note the unphysical conjecture – this suggests systemic and structural issues in the discipline.
JCM: I would caution any public board or committee against accepting this staff report.
BPL: It’s not any kind of report. It’s an exercise in simple energy physics.
JCM: Under the pretext of admitting error, the multiple deception could go unnoticed.
BPL: WHAT deception? Be specific.
JCM: 1. Falsely Assuming the Problem Definition – That the present issues of hydrological and temperature extremes would be solved permanently based exclusively on an emission cut program…
BPL: Other actions could certianly help, but cutting emissions is the main goal, since emissions are the main problem.
JCM: 2. Failure to Submit Assumptions and Short-cuts – specifically, a lack of transparency concerning: (a) The mixing of units of mass flux and atmospheric partial pressure of water vapor in proportional analysis; (b) failing to account for conventional feedback paradigms, such as the temperature state dependence of vapor pressure i.e. 7%/K; (c) the unphysical requirement of increasing continental relative humidity from 50% to practically 100% in the provided scenario; (d) breaching fundamental constraints in surface flux partitioning, and; (e) the complete omission of condensation and a failure to account for basic principles in the water cycle process.
BPL: Well, you’re free to post a more accurate analysis. Go for it.
JCM: 3. Appearance of Extreme Bias in Advice Offered – a failure of competence (at best) or compromised personnel in breach of essential ethical obligations in scientific disclosure concerning matters of public interest.
BPL: Them’s fightin’ words, partner.
JCM: 4. Tacit Acceptance and Failure of Peer Review (in real climate science forums) – the failure of participants in the marketplace to submit comments which note the unphysical conjecture – this suggests systemic and structural issues in the discipline.
BPL: Why you think posts on an internet forum have anything to do with the health of the discipline escapes me.
JCM, all you have to do to prove me wrong is point out a specific mistake and show how it affects the outcome. Let’s see your math.
In other words, put up or STFU.
In response to STFU:
The range of shortcomings in the analysis did not appear to hinder your confidence in using it to draw strong conclusions. Is this how it’s normally done?
Notes are provided in the following link for students to explore the effects of water special effects using numerical models. It’s the culminating Lecture 26 in a series. The intent seems to expose students to open questions that are difficult to answer with simple models.
https://brian-rose.github.io/ClimateLaboratoryBook/courseware/water-water-everywhere.html#energy-budget-anomalies-at-toa-and-surface
I note in particular the revised surface budget showing a small net perturbation of only -5 W/m2 latent flux or so in a simplified GCM experiment. This after meddling with an evaporation efficiency parameter and allowing for the atmospheric transport of heat.
The result is a model-like precision of +4.94K difference.
That is strikingly sensitive, especially when considering alternative choices such as prescribing directly a 12% change in latent flux. It seems maybe too high? who knows? The lecturer is repeatedly talking about the clouds.
I’m more old fashioned and run my programs using tracts of land and allow nature to compute reality. The CPU unit is for data logging and telemetry using Hoboware. We have about 5000 acres under various programmes. We can sense the results either remotely or directly with our skin. There is a lot of pressure in that, considering it’s an inherently transparent process. Learning is rapid, however. Stubbornness and hubris would be mocked obviously because reality is plain for all to see. There is nowhere to hide. Similar methods cannot be applied to global climate, I know, but the spirit of it could. The spirit is to respect what is known and not known, and to be humble in that.
JCM
“The range of shortcomings in the analysis did not appear to hinder your confidence in using it to draw strong conclusions. Is this how it’s normally done?”
Your logic is backwards. Of course when anyone does an analysis they do it with confidence and will draw conclusions. Nothing wrong with that. At that stage they wont be aware if it has errors. BPL certainly stated what assumptions he was making and what they grey areas were.
When genuine defects are pointed out sensible people correct the analysis, which is what BPL did. He showed some considerable skills and considerable courage posting that analysis and admitting it had an error. He is the very model of how science should be done. I’m not sure what more you expect.
And you still haven’t done what he asked – and present an alternative better analysis. I doubt you could. A reference to a link with some notes is not an analysis and it wasn’t exactly definitive proof either.
Although I agree the water cycle is an important factor in climate. William Ruddiman argued we have been altering the climate ever since agriculture was invented 10,000 years ago, effectively disrupting the water cycle. But the evidence says fossil fuels are the main factor and its something we can change. Doubling the irrigation on the planet to try to cool the planet is CRAZY.
in response to: “At that stage they wont be aware if it has errors”.
Yes that is the basic issue considered by Earth science as far as I understand it. Aligning our conceptual logics and programs with the reality outside. Until then the subject is only half-baked. No amount of maths can replace that.
On maths, which deal with our thinking about physical and nonphysical logical relations, I have provided numerous example models in literature for many months, and also simple relations of my own to aid communication.
Real climate science pages have me now convinced (more than ever) that such an approach first and foremost is practically useless.
For example, I have shown using Eddington style relations and by coincidence applying BPL style optical thickness ~ 2 since long before, that the surface upward LW radiation (purely) is about double the outgoing TOA upward LW radiation. This gives a virtual surface LW up of 2 OLR.
But in reality it is only about 1.66666 OLR. Or, the 0.33333 OLR is missing from the radiative pure condition surface LW up.
Empirically 0.33333 OLR = ~80W/m2 missing from greenhouse G naught. This parameter is matching also the supposed latent flux and atmospheric transport.
Other obscure matches include the missing temperature change with height compared to the real averaged one from surface to tropopause. (1-0.33333) Dry Lapse = ~6.5 K/km. 0.33333 OLR is similar to the magnitude of atmospheric SW up too.
This I have been showing and conceding for quite some time using many types of examples. A quite sensitive relation to both optical depth and a parameter resembling the latent flux. These are quite essential boundary conditions.
But now, course notes and GCM math example scenario with runtime code from officialy accredited climate professional and background lecture means nothing here. Such a resource I couldn’t dare to match. And that is only half the problem.
What should be known is that exhibiting “courage” by conceding elemental errors in logics shown since many months offers no benefits for maths, sciences, or climates.
This I know for certain. It is a concept further half-baking the already half-baked contribution. In math: that is = quarter-baked.
Conversely: knowing and addressing directly the reality of the increasingly missing and unnaturally restrained landscape services ability, not for a lack of irrigation (of course!), offers many co-benefits as we know it outside. What is backwards and stupid is to feel threatened by that.
Thanks, Nigel. :D
BP, I’m still trying to figure out what kind of singularity you are describing in your analysis, considering your comment:
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2023/11/unforced-variations-nov-2023/#comment-815969
Quote:
z: could you maybe calculate what would happen if you decrease the water vapor in the atmosphere?
BPL: It would cool the surface.
End quote.
My impression is that this is a case of hagfish hookup.
https://diagrammonkey.wordpress.com/2019/10/09/hagfishing/
If you allow yourself to be sucked in to that game, it is highly likely that your bunches of equations are going to make as little sense as those of the other guy. Which is the point, as I keep pointing out, of what they are doing… to create confusion and doubt.
So here’s an opportunity to explain the physics in words. What is so special about this point in space and time that both increasing and decreasing water vapor will “cool the surface”?
Zebra: “ So here’s an opportunity to explain the physics in words. ”
You can certainly could use it, since you missed entirely what BPL attempted to do:
Z: What is so special about this point in space and time that both increasing and decreasing water vapor will “cool the surface”?”
There is NOTHING “ so special about this point in space and time
– the contradiction is in your head – it was YOU conflated the two different questions:
– Decreasing ONLY water vapour (=Zebra question) – would “cool the surface”.
– Decreasing water vapour AND clouds AND latent heat (=TK question)
may^* “warm the surface”
See? The disturbance in the cosmic space-time continuum – averted!
=====
^* “may warm” – under BPL greatly simplified model and under the imposed on him by TK unrealistic assumption (that air masses do not move – hence the increases in humidity over continents does not increase whatsoever the humidity over the ocean)
So, Piotr, sounds like you have adopted some alternate physics or Magic Iris version of reality.
You have a different kind of water vapor that doesn’t require latent heat?
And you have clouds that don’t require water vapor to form?
Maybe you and BPL can do a science fiction story on this.
zebra 4 DEC: So, Piotr, sounds like you have adopted some alternate physics or Magic Iris version of reality. You have a different kind of water vapor that doesn’t require latent heat
No, I haven’t, you did, here is the proof your original post from Nov.17:
Z: “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?”
If you mean BOTH the warming by latent heat and water vapour then:
– 1st, you would have asked about the decrease of “WATER in the atmosphere” which includes BOTH cooling by latent heat and warming by vapour. After all, you the Zebra, the very guy who goes on and on and on how crucial to ANY productive discussion is the precise and unambiguous formulation of used concepts and posed questions.
– 2nd and more important: BPL’s calculations for Tomas ALREADY INCLUDED not only the vapour, BUT ALSO latent heat.
So why would you ask to do them …. AGAIN??? What new insight you hoped for repeating the exercise?
That’s the difference between us – if something is too good to be true
I look first at myself – particularly if my adversary is somebody of BPL’s integrity – I ask myself “perhaps I have missed something, perhaps I expressed myself in such sloppy way that others misunderstood me”
You don’t. You go straight into the attack mode and how!
-Zebra to BPL: “ So here’s an opportunity to explain the physics in words. What is so special about this point in space and time that both increasing and decreasing water vapor will “cool the surface”?”
– Zebra to me: “ So, Piotr, sounds like you have adopted some alternate physics or Magic Iris version of reality.”
– Zebra to BPL and me: “ Maybe you and BPL can do a science fiction story on this”
Arrogance comes before the fall…
Piotr, you seem to be losing it even more than usual here.
First, re BPL, I would never doubt his integrity.
I said:
“If you allow yourself to be sucked in to that game, it is highly likely that your bunches of equations are going to make as little sense as those of the other guy. Which is the point, as I keep pointing out, of what they are doing… to create confusion and doubt.”
And here’s what Piotr says just a few comments down:
“What I didn’t – is that TK, having played you by suckering you into providing his completely unfeasible evaporation schemes a veneer of computational believability (after imposing on you unrealistic assumptions to help his scheme)”
Sounds like you are copying me, not disagreeing.
As to the physics stuff, I have no idea what you are trying to say:
Me: “what would happen if you decrease the water vapor in the atmosphere?”
You: “If you mean BOTH the warming by latent heat and water vapour then:
“– 1st, you would have asked about the decrease of “WATER in the atmosphere” which includes BOTH cooling by latent heat and warming by vapour.”
You sound as nutty as TK the Sealion. Heating, cooling, water, water vapor, up?, down?… take a breath and organize your thinking.
I asked a very simple question, and BP gave a very simple, direct answer…. “it would cool the surface”. (Which I recall you gleefully approved of at the time.)
So far, the question remains unanswered, just like with the trolls. How does increasing water vapor in the atmosphere have the same effect as decreasing water vapor in the atmosphere?
Perhaps it is possible, but you have to provide an explanation that uses physics, not rants.
zebra 7 DEC 2023:” Piotr, you seem to be losing it even more than usual here.
I’d double-check if you started agreeing with me.
Zebra: First, re BPL, I would never doubt his integrity
Empty words, when we have your posts to him. From the zebra’s mouth: ”
zebra to BPL, sarcastically: What is so special about this point in space and time that both increasing and decreasing water vapor will “cool the surface”?”
– I responded that zebra conflated two different discussions, hence the supposedly laughable contradiction – “this point in space and time cooling where both increasing and decreasing vapor – cools ”
– was only the product of his head
– Zebra responded with derision, toward me and the so-respected by him BPL:
” Piotr, sounds like you [by taking side of BPL] have adopted some alternate physics or Magic Iris version of reality. […] Maybe you and BPL can do a science fiction story on this”.
You certainly have a very peculiar way of showing your respect for BPL’s scientific arguments.
Piotr, I think I have pointed out before that you tend to be overconfident in your English language skill.
Integrity: The quality of being honest and having strong moral principles; moral uprightness.
“he is known to be a man of integrity”
Honest people with strong moral principles are not immune from making mistakes in physics, nor is there anything wrong with challenging them about it.
But for a scientist, not responding to such a challenge with a scientific counter-argument… rather than dodging the issue as you are doing… is questionable behavior. As I said, this is what we expect from denialists trolls; they never answer the question.
Zebra
“But for a scientist, not responding to such a challenge with a scientific counter-argument… rather than dodging the issue as you (Piotr) are doing… is questionable behavior.”
But Piotr is not dodging the issue of the effects of increasing and decreasing water vapour. He has quite clearly stated directly above ” I responded that zebra conflated two different discussions, hence the supposedly laughable contradiction – “this point in space and time cooling where both increasing and decreasing vapor – cools ”– was only the product of his head. ”
Piotr is clearly NOT dodging the issue. It is possible that Piotr is mistaken in his analysis of the issue, but I don’t think he is. From what I’ve read so far.
Zebra:” Piotr, I think I have pointed out before that you tend to be overconfident in your English language skill. “Integrity: The quality of being honest and having strong moral principles; moral uprightness.”
“Overconfident?” English is not my first language, so sometimes in the heat of the discussion I may not use the optimal word, but as long as it does not obscure my message, I don’t care.
Particularly, that the situation may not be as clear cut, as your patronizing tone would suggest – from the context, it should have been clear that I have meant “scientific integrity” – that BPL’s calculations are not deliberately misleading, and are anchored in his best understanding of science, and not some “science fiction”, “alternate physics” or “Magic Iris version of reality”, as you characterized my and BPL arguments.
But since you are such a nitpicker, such an anal-retentive (have I used these correctly?), then perhaps replace “integrity” with “credibility”:
Piotr: “That’s the difference between us – if something is too good to be true I look first at myself – particularly if my adversary is somebody of BPL’s [orig. integrity, now: credibility] – I ask myself “perhaps I have missed something, perhaps I expressed myself in such sloppy way that others misunderstood me”.
You don’t. You go straight into the attack mode:
“ So, Piotr, sounds like you have adopted some alternate physics or Magic Iris version of reality.[…] Maybe you and BPL can do a science fiction story on this”.
===
Zebra reads the above and “answers” this point (and the preceding , scientific ones) – with …. correcting me on the use of a word “integrity”.
Next, he turns around, and with a straight face, lectures … me on:
… ” dodging the issue” and “this is what we expect from denialists trolls“.
What would be a good English word for … that?
Yes, Hr Zebra, you are right.
Piotr needs som further training.
Piotr,
You still haven’t answered the question.
How is it possible that both increasing and decreasing water vapor has the same effect?
I think my characterization is pretty accurate…. it defies logic (and the consensus physics), so yes, it qualifies as the kind of crazy claims I hear from the trolls…. magic iris and so on.
Telling you and BPL that you have made a mistake is not an insult to your “scientific integrity”; science works all the time by people telling other people when they have made a mistake.
If you have an explanation based in physics, let’s hear it.
Carbomontanus 12 DEC:”Yes, Hr Zebra, you are right. Piotr needs som further training”
With friends like Carbo, who needs enemies.
Zebra Dec. 15: “ Piotr,You still haven’t answered the question.
How is it possible that both increasing and decreasing water vapor has the same effect?”
It’s not me, it’s you – I have answered your question already, e.g. Dec. 3 or Dec. 8 – it was you who either was unable to understand it, or unable to admit that you, so proud of your English and your communication skills, based your derision toward BPL and me on your own … inability to understand even a simple argument in English, Here is this argument:
Zebra: “What is so special about this point in space and time that both increasing and decreasing water vapor will “cool the surface”?”
Piotr Dec. 8: There is NOTHING “ so special about this point in space and time – the contradiction is in your head – it was YOU conflated the two different questions:
– Decreasing ONLY water vapour (=Zebra question) – would “cool the surface”.
– Decreasing water vapour AND clouds AND latent heat (=TK question)
may “warm the surface”
See? The disturbance in the cosmic space-time continuum – averted!
=========
Zebra response? Derision toward BPL and me:
So, Piotr, sounds like you have adopted some alternate physics or Magic Iris version of reality.[…] Maybe you and BPL can do a science fiction story on this”.
and then assuring the readers that characterizing the arguments of the opponents
as “ alternate physics or Magic Iris version of reality ” and “ science fiction story ” does … NOT whatsoever question the scientific integrity of those ridiculed by Zebra.
In Re to
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2023/12/unforced-variations-dec-2023/#comment-817118
Dear zebra,
I hope it is not impolite if I try answering your question to Piotr instead of him, or in parallel.
I think the paradox perceived by you vanishes as soon as you take into account that water vapour plays at least two different roles in Earth climate regulation:
(i) it can absorb longwave infrared radiation and thus contribute to the greenhouse effect, and
(ii) it continuously disappears from the atmosphere in form of precipitation, and is replenished by evaporation.
Whereas the greenhouse effect warms the surface, the latent heat flux caused by water cycle cools it.
It is my understanding that there is no physical reasoning for a tight coupling between both effects. At least the circumstance that geographical differences in water vapour residence time are significantly larger than corresponding differences in absolute air humidity suggests that the link between latent heat flux and absolute air humidity is quite weak.
If you accept that both mechanisms can act independently from each other, then it is no wonder that “increasing water vapour” may result both in surface cooling (if you increase water cycle intensity without substantially increasing absolute air humidity) as well as in surface heating (if you increase absolute air humidity without substantially increasing water cycle intensity).
Did this explanation help?
Greetings
Tomáš
Piotr,
You keep repeating the same words, just like your troll buddy… picking up bad habits.
“Decreasing water vapour AND clouds AND latent heat”
And to me, this makes no sense. How do you “decrease water vapor AND latent heat” ????
Water vapor contains the latent heat; the latent heat doesn’t exist as a separate entity.
What are you talking about??
Kalisz: It is my understanding that there is no physical reasoning for a tight coupling between both effects.
Then your understanding is …as much worth as your other “understandings” and “feelings” about science. The physical reason for coupling is relative humidity: if it is less than 100% – no condensation, i.e. only warming without cooling. So unless you have some giant chimney – you can’t decouple your evaporation schemes from increasing humidity in the air above that place, and horizontally – since you know that the air masses are not stationary but do move horizontally, right?
in Re to
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2023/12/unforced-variations-dec-2023/#comment-817289
Dear Piotr,
I do not think that without a giant chimney, more intense surface evaporation must be accompanied by an increase of average absolute humidity.
If the vapour flows and condenses quicker, it can have the same concentration and still the evaporation rate can change.
If relative humidity at the surface does somehow work ax the driver of this flow (I do not know – it appears, however, that you do suppose so), please consider that cooler land surface due to more intense latent heat flux may cause that cooler air may reach the desired high relative humidity near the surface without any substantial change in its absolute humidity.
Finally, I would like to remind you of my still unanswered question to you.
Why you think that Barton Paul underestimated vapour pressure increase accompanying the water cycle intensity increase assumed in his thought experiment, and why you suppose that lateral water vapour advection should result in higher global average water vapour concentration than his assumption?
Greetings
Tomáš
Zebra: Piotr, You keep repeating the same words, just like your troll buddy… picking up bad habits.
Having asked the same question over and over, you expected now … a different answer? ;-)
Zebra: “to me, this makes no sense. How do you “decrease water vapor AND latent heat”????
by reducing evaporation.
Zebra: “ Water vapor contains the latent heat; the latent heat doesn’t exist as a separate entity.
Thank you, Captain Obvious. Nobody claimed that “ the latent heat exists as a separate entity“. After 100s of post on the subject – this was a shorthand for the differences between the questions to BPL model – one by Tomas, the other by zebra:
=== earlier, this thread ====
Dec. 3, Zebra to BPL: “ What is so special about this point in space and time that both increasing and decreasing water vapor will “cool the surface”?”
Dec. 3, Piotr: There is NOTHING so special about this point in space and time – the contradiction is in your head – it was YOU who conflated the two different questions:
– Decreasing ONLY water vapour (=Zebra question) – would “cool the surface”.
– Decreasing water vapour AND clouds AND latent heat (=TK question)
may “warm the surface”
The disturbance in the cosmic space-time continuum – averted!
Dec 4. Zebra, with a bunch of zingers: “So, Piotr, sounds like you have adopted some alternate physics or Magic Iris version of reality.[…] Maybe you and BPL can do a science fiction story on this”.
===== Short summary:
– I point to my Dec. 3 answer
– Zebra: that I … don’t answer his question
– I point to my Dec. 3 answer
– Zebra: that I … don’t answer his question, again.
– I point to my Dec. 3 answer, again, and suggest that maybe he wasn’t able to understand it
-Zebra: “Piotr, You keep repeating the same words, just like your troll buddy… ” and then … proceeds to prove that he understood nothing of what I said
– I point to my Dec. 3 answer, again,
– Zebra … admits he was wrong, that the confusion started from his own ambiguous wording, that he misread the responses of BPL and me, and therefore the derisive paternalistic tone towards us was uncalled for, and he sincerely apologizes for that. Nah, just kidding … ;-)
@ Thomas Kalisz …
You are performing like an inferiour plumber from the Unions. ,, believe me.When will you enter Masterclass?
Havent you learnt in Public school physics from the CATETER by Desktop experiments in Brno Moravia allready how to distill Clivovita and Vodka?
If your teachers in those days were from the Party with P, that may have been a problem setback and drawback for you,……… but to be overcome later in life. We got them also here, they were a real problem.
They were dia- lectic materialists and national socialists and thus to be disqualified.
But I was priviliged there. Our special teacher of this was from Namdalen Namsos and had sawed off 4 fingers on his left hand but still could play Harmjonium for singing it rather in
the orthodox way in the classroom and was Glöckner- Sacristan in the church who allways stepped forward first and said the opening prayers on behalf of the people.
I have learnt quite a lot of basic elementary science from him and it showed later that he knew it, lagging only 15 years behind from the research Upstairs at the University. Beat that in rural public school..
But I allways controlled it by own experiments at home also. And we had the opportunity also to look after it for ourselves also out in Nature if it was true or not. thus able to disqualify, get away from and avoid perverse human alternatives.
The truth of things is not found down there in the slums. where even the heavens are flat and people are believing blindly in their own scriptures.
On things like heat and chill, evaporation and condensation and eventual NEPHELAI currents and convections with or without Turbo,…. Moravia also ought to be up to date. and to have enough examples.
Piotr, maybe you should have a cup of coffee and read your own words carefully.
quote:
There is NOTHING so special about this point in space and time – the contradiction is in your head – it was YOU who conflated the two different questions:
– Decreasing ONLY water vapour (=Zebra question) – would “cool the surface”.
– Decreasing water vapour AND clouds AND latent heat (=TK question)
may “warm the surface”
end quote
And;
quote:
Thank you, Captain Obvious. Nobody claimed that “ the latent heat exists as a separate entity“.
end quote
So, as I have asked multiple times in various forms, how is my question different?
How can we reduce water vapor without also reducing latent heat (and clouds as well)????
By your own statement, you can’t reduce “ONLY” water vapor.
If you don’t see how crazy you sound, maybe you really are crazy or somehow impaired.
in Re to
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2023/12/unforced-variations-dec-2023/#comment-816693
Dear Piotr,
Many thanks for providing this additional clarification!
I would only slightly correct your footnote:
The assumptions of the thought experiment made by Barton Paul were chosen exclusively by him and no way imposed from my side.
Additionally, I have a question.
Why do you think that horizontal distribution of the additional water vapour should in any respect influence the average global water vapour concentration which was taken as the basis for calculation of the respective greenhouse effect?
I think that it is quite obvious that any water vapour enrichment above ocean would have been compensated by a proportionate water vapour depletion above land in this case. For this reason, I do not see any deficiency in Barton Paul’s calculation of the global mean value.
I left so far aside (in my opinion fully justified) objection raised by JCM against the assumption of a proportional absolute humidity increase that Barton Paul supposes is necessary for the increased water cycle intensity. I share with JCM his suspicion that assuming any water vapour concentration increase as a necessary condition for water cycle intensity increase may not be correct.
Greetings
Tomáš
T.Kalisz: “ I share with JCM his suspicion that assuming any water vapour concentration increase as a necessary condition for water cycle intensity increase may not be correct.
You may also share with JCM the suspicion that the Moon is made of blue cheese – it would not make it so either: to not increase the vapor conc. -y WHILE evaporating many thousands(!) of km3 /yr you would have to do it in places with close to 100% humidity.
Yet these are precisely the places where it is MOST difficult to evaporate water – at humidity 100% evaporation = condensation.
Piotr
Here you are thoughtless again
On a fameous total lunar ecclipse at Tryvannstårnet Oslo with the astronomical society, I had a 50×70 refractor and saw really culinaric colours.
A fat pancake with a yellow banana travelling around its upper edge, and at sunrise where sunshine is about to come back again a large area of obviously fat and green roquefort. Beat that, and people will not believe that the moon is made of green roquefort.
And icy brilliant blue- white on the edge as the clear sun comes back again.
The field around it matters very much for your colour vision that adapts to most tricky situations. You can go into a room with red blue green or yellow light and read Donald Duck. That becomes rather normal after 10 minutes. Then go out and the very world will be silly.
The environment was white snow dark forests and deep violet sky with stars. Sodium yellow from the top of the tower, not to be looked at, but that made the nearby snow yellow. There the eclipsed moon stand out “Copper red on the violet night sky.”.
But with fully black around it through a 50x refractor, you clearly also see the burnt pancake at the lower end, the obviously yellow, more or less ripe banana mooving and….. the green fat roquefort landscape. up to Petersilium Jade green and ice blue right before sunrise.
This is vital. With sun in zenith under a green and only green broad leaves, you are still able to discriminate green yellow blue orange red and violet plums, and their grade of ripeness also. Donald comes normal in any situation as expected.. You adapt.
Thus judge your environmental reference situations also to which you adapt and balance for reference. .
Moral:
never ridicule those who discuss a green roquefort. They may tell the truth.
Some English suggested fullmoon meditations at Stonehenge. I said them “Why go all the way to Stonehenge for meditation? Here you have a frullmoon meditation on its most autentic with the very congregation around also. !”
Down to reality and back to facts and observe, I say. And tell the truth about it.
In Re to
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2023/12/unforced-variations-dec-2023/#comment-816964
Dear Piotr,
On December 2, you wrote in your reply to Barton Paul
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2023/12/unforced-variations-dec-2023/#comment-816642 :
“if I am not mistaken, you agreed with them that the water evaporated over continents would stay in place and not move over the oceans. Since air masses are not stationary – this is not justified and consequently underestimates the warming due to increased avg. humidity, shortening your 30 years”
It was my understanding that you assume that if water evaporated above continents moves over the oceans, it may cause an increase in the average global air humidity.
It appears that you have a suspicion that for this reason, Barton Paul’s correction of his calculation of the average air humidity is in fact erroneous and that the calculated increase 12.6 % is in fact underestimated. As I have not grasped the reasons for your assumption, I asked you for a more detailed explanation.
You do not have, of course, any obligation to answer my questions. I think, however, that for example Barton Paul himself could be also curious about reasons for your doubts.
Greetings
Tomáš
Hr Kalisz
I see your phantacies / understanding is converging onto something not too far away from the truth
Personally have some traing on it from chemistery where we are asked to discuss what happens if you mix A,B,C,D into a glass, fill up with water to one liter and stirr.
Anything can happen , all from nothing and up to blowup & detonation and why.
You are supposed to tell the truth of what will happen before anyone tries that. . You will get it to EXAMEN and furter in life thus better be trained and prepared on that..
The next training and exercise on my side is the electrical network when old and corroded enough with obsolete components and dilettants also have been on it for improovement and repair.
That is not quite unsimilar to the computer graph pictures that we are supposed to believe in, of the metabolisms (I would call it) of climate between heaven and earth by complex, coloured pictures. .
And on compicated electrical networks between Vcc and Gnd with resistors condensors transistors transformers and rectifying diodes and transducers, it is decisive to know Ohms law and Kirchoffs rule and Ørsteds & Maxwells principles….. but also be able to think both in terms of positive and of negative electromotoric potencials to Ground, Gnd.
That is being disputed in physical learning. Some teachers are very eager to rule out any “inferiour folkloristic old conscepts of negative pressure. But that eagerness is nothing but old supersticion namely HORROR VASCUUI. Overwon by Otto von Guericke.
As Vacuum or negative pressure can also be quantified so can also Chill. Not only heat.
For me that is quite natural. Just see, I am purchasing Ice and Chill in cubic feet here Something really weighty material that will cool in calories or joule pr mol or kg if heated across a melting or boiling point.
Also in borrowed meaning in politics and in psychiatry, a bitty of water over a special head will work wonder to chill the debate. That bitty of water being brought is latent chill flux. .
Then we also discuss Entropy S = Q/T. . Such as evaporation or condensation entropy.
And conscider the Carnot engine and cycle with the necessary hot reserve and the just as important chill reserve.
That is all orthodox physics and to be known.
The earths chill reserve is not that wet towel on the ground in bright sunshine. That tovel will soon get too hot because the earthly chill reserve does not get to there. Even the oceans would have dried up if it was not for the major chill reserve of the real climate. That reserve is not on the ground. But it should be obvious to everyone worldwide half of the time.
( It is BIG BANG! of course, a relativistic effect and phaenomenon)
In Re to
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2023/12/unforced-variations-dec-2023/#comment-817332
Dear Carbomontanus,
Many thanks for you kind words and for all discussions during the year 2023!
Merry Christmas!
Greetings
Tomáš
Zebra Dec. 24: Piotr, maybe you should have a cup of coffee and read your own words carefully.
Doctor heal thyself? I thought the word “shorthand” may be familiar to you:
Piotr Dec.23: “After 100s of post on the subject – this was a shorthand for the differences between the questions to BPL model – one by Tomas, the other by zebra:”
But since it obviously hasn’t , how about I add: “the effect of” to my so perplexing comparison? Like that:
” – Decreasing ONLY the effect of water vapour (=Zebra question) – would “cool the surface”
– “Decreasing “the effect of ” water vapour AND the effect of latent heat (=TK question)”may “warm the surface”
See, these are two different questions answered by BPL. And if two different questions have two different answers (first: “cool”, 2nd: “warm”) it is not the end of the reality as we know it, as your rhetoric:
– ” some alternate physics”
– “Magic Iris version of reality”
– “Maybe you and BPL can do a science fiction story on this
– If you don’t see how crazy you sound, maybe you really are crazy
or somehow impaired.”.
would imply.
In re to
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2023/12/unforced-variations-dec-2023/#comment-816604
Dear Barton Paul,
I highly appreciate your correction, thank you very much therefor!
Of course, it is impossible to increase latent heat flux repeatedly. JCM even questioned if the overall convective flux can be artificially increased at all, because he supposes that increasing the latent heat flux just changes the Bowen ratio.
Certainly, I see your result valuable, because it casts justified doubts on the frequently repeated (but never proven) assertion that greenhouse effect of water vapour must overturn the surface cooling caused by latent heat flux. On the other hand, it is clear that the model used in your example is very simple. In this light, I see your contribution just as a further evidence that the role of the water cycle in Earth climate regulation is indeed important.
Actually, when I initiated this debate 8 months ago, my goal was to learn if the state-of-art climate science offers any reasoning for an assertion that the sole anthropogenic “forcing” that has an influence on global climate are emissions of non-condensing greenhouse gases. This assertion occurred in Czech media, and came from authors of an official statement on climate change issued by Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic.
I originally hoped that moderators of this website simply confirm that the role of water cycle in global climate regulation is a standard part of climate science, is taught in textbooks and known to each student of this discipline. After discussions on this forum, I have rather a feeling that although the role of the water cycle is mentioned in textbooks, it is a rather neglected topics in education of the broad public with respect to climate and human influence thereon.
I have therefore an additional plea to you. I would be happy if the moderators issued an article clarifying the status of current understanding of the mainstream climate science to the role of latent heat flux in climate regulation, and answered questions raised in this respect. Could you join me with my plea to the moderators?
Greetings
Tomáš
P.S:
The pending questions are:
1) Your “preindustrial” global energy balance considers convective heat flux 112 W/m2, current estimates are rather about 106 W/m2. Should there be indeed a real decrease of several W/m2, then at least part of the observed global warming could be assigned thereto. If so, why should we believe that merely fixing the greenhouse gas emissions back to the preindustrial level should re-establish the preindustrial climate?
2) There is an objection
https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/ffgc.2023.1150191/full
that all available climate models use so called convective parametrization which allegedly does not fit with reality.
The authors of the article suggest that this circumstance causes insensitivity of the models to changes in water cycle intensity – that may, however, not fit with reality, too.
Is the objection raised in the article justified?
P.P.S:
It will be great if other participants of the discussion join this plea as well.
Piotr to BPL, Dec. 2:
” Let’s see with which part of this answer they will choose to run with:
a) that doubling evaporation from all continents is technically, financially and environmentally unfeasible, that even if it were feasible, it would only be a temporary stop gap, and it would address only one of the symptoms, T, and not the cause (GHG emissions)
OR
b) that they were right and you, and by extension all the climate scientists, are wrong.
Now which of the two it would be, The suspense is killing me … ;-)”
Well, we didn’t have to wait long:
JCM, Dec. 3, uses your humbleness (admission of the calculation error), as a proof of your …deceitfulness : “ [BPL hopes that] under the pretext of admitting error, the multiple deception could go unnoticed”
while his little friend, TK,Dec. 3, … uses your post as … a validation of his crazy deniers scheme:
TK “ Certainly, I see your result valuable, because it casts justified doubts [on the dismissal of the climate change deniers claims that we can fix the climate change with increasing evaporation instead of reducing GHG conc.] ”
_This_ I predicted. What I didn’t – is that TK, having played you by suckering you into providing his completely unfeasible evaporation schemes a veneer of computational believability (after imposing on you unrealistic assumptions to help his scheme), would then turn around, and try to use you … to do the same …. to the moderators of this group:
TK to BPL: “Could you join me with my plea to the moderators [to] issue an article clarifying the status of current understanding of the mainstream climate science to the role of latent heat flux in climate regulation, and answered questions raised [by the RC deniers] in this respect”
Either he is egomaniac ignoramus, who thinks his crazy ideas are so novel and so brilliant that they demand the answer of the some of world leading climate scientists, or he deliberately tries to waste the time of the moderators, akin to the nuisance requests of the code, original data, and other details used in a paper – with no intention to repeat independently the analysis, but only to waste the time of its authors with paperwork.
in Re to
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2023/12/unforced-variations-dec-2023/#comment-816695
Dear Piotr,
Thank you for your comment.
I do not fully understand your point. I think that the previous discussion showed quite clearly that the role of water cycle in Earth climate regulation is well known, and that in view of this knowledge, it is quite obvious that human interferences therewith might have had the same effect as increasing concentrations of non-condensing greenhouse gases.
In this light, I tried to ask the moderators why the prevailing focus in climate science research is on the latter. I think that it is a fully justified question. Why would you mind joining this plea, too?
Honestly, it is my feeling that the moderators of this website continuously invest lot of effort in debunking various false claims regarding climate science.
When it is possible for claims that were already (possibly repeatedly) debunked elsewhere, why should they not be willing to do so for allegedly false questions that, however, nobody from discussion participants on this website was capable to convincingly answer (or disprove as unjustified / false) yet?
Greetings
Tomáš
@ Thomasz Kalisz
You are still occupied with that human impact to the water- cycle..
That I believe is quite a political, surrealist denialist propagandistic delusion.
I see it as a part of the ABC, Anything But CO2- syndrom.
Resign on it
The forests and the green values must be defended by other and more valid arguments. else , that “battle” will also be lost.
Tomas Kalisz: I do not fully understand your point.
I am,,, shocked ;-)
Yes, it is well established that the natural (temperature-related) increase in evaporation causes net warming – see the moderator Gavin’s paper we discussed before.
Increasing evaporation that is NOT temp-related (say irrigation) – constrains somewhat the increase in absolute humidity, but astronomical volumes of water that would have to be evaporated make it the most expensive and the most destructive of the geoengineering “fixes”. Plus it shares with these other fixes the usual geoengineering problems: interfering with the Earth systems on the global and regional scale, without any knowledge of its consequences, requiring global political support (Russia joining the US and Ukraine at the table), the support cannot waiver, because if it does (because of regional negative consequence of the costs – the accumulated in the meantime GHGs would hit with the full strength, destroying species and ecosystems, since thanks to you – they would have no time for migration and/or adaptation = perhaps possible if the warming was gradual.
And as usually, by detracting the attention and money from CO2 reduction, would make the ocean acidification much worse.
So no, I don’t think the moderators should waste their valuable time to explain these things to you, when you refused again and again to listen, when you were told about that by others.
in Re to
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2023/12/unforced-variations-dec-2023/#comment-816695
Dear Piotr,
Of course that my thoughts may not deserve an attention of world leading climate scientists moderating this website.
My questions, however, included also a serious objection raised by much more qualified people
https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/ffgc.2023.1150191/full
with respect to climate models. It is still my understanding that these climate models form the very basis of present climate science.
In this respect, I think that answers of the world leading climate scientists to this objection could be instructive for a very broad public.
If you know the answer, please share it. If not, why should you mind joining my plea?
Greetings
Tomáš
T Kalisz: “My questions, however, included also a serious objection raised by much more qualified people: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/ffgc.2023.1150191/full”
This has nothing to do with your crazy schemes of doubling global evaporation by increased irrigation. And the article seems to be of the type – “We can’t prove that our idea is relevant to the climate modelling, but let us behave as if it was important and demand we are taken seriously“.
Tellingly, they chose for their publication NOT the climate modelling journal, but a … forest ecology journal, so the editors and the peer reviewers the editors call upon are not qualified to assess the relevance of this paper to the climate modelling. The authors admit as much:
“ Recognizing that for the ecological audience it could be difficult to assess the credibility of our quantitative estimates” ;-)
And since the word “humidity” shows only in their references – would I be correct that they haven’t accounted for the warming effect of increasing avg. humidity – i.e. the same effect you pooh-poohed in your crazy evaporation schemes?
In Re to
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2023/12/unforced-variations-dec-2023/#comment-817227
Dear Piotr,
Many thanks for your reply. I think that the core of the article by Makarieva et al was their advocacy against deforestation. Significant part of their arguments is so simple that I understood, however, the objection regarding convective parametrization in climate models is beyond my horizons – that is why I hoped in an expert answer to my question if this objection is indeed justified.
So far, I noted that Øyvind Seland expressed mild doubts,
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2023/12/unforced-variations-dec-2023/#comment-816885,
I am not aware of further comments.
As regards your objection that surface cooling effect of latent heat flux may be cancelled by increased greenhouse effect of water vapour, Barton Paul showed that even if you assume an increase in absolute air humidity that would have been proportional to the latent heat flux increase, the surface cooling effect should still prevail.
It appeared that you assume that there might be even bigger water vapour increase, I asked you why do you think so:
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2023/12/unforced-variations-dec-2023/#comment-817019
I tried to ask also directly Dr. Makarieva. She replied that if a latent heat flux enhancement enabled by improved water availability on land causes a global surface temperature decrease, this effect may be in fact further enhanced by weakening the greenhouse effect, due to decrease of the average global absolute air humidity. She asserts that the average air humidity depends mostly on the average surface temperature, not on the residence time of water vapour in the atmosphere.
Greetings
Tomáš
@ Tomas
yes a warmer average situation results in positive feedbacks such as increasing atmospheric water vapor content. In a cooler average situation the feedbacks work the opposite, such as decreasing atmospheric water vapor content. These are temperature controlled processes.
In terms of warming influences, continental desiccation is expected to increase temperature in theory and models. Lacking is a coherent ability to observe and quantify the human impacts to surface flux partitioning and natural aerosol emission.
Pattern effects of extreme case continental changes is illustrated here. With desert continents and less cloud, more solar is absorbed everywhere, including ocean.
https://agu.confex.com/data/abstract/agu/fm23/2/9/Paper_1251192_abstract_1101116_0.png
as a PS also, continental desertification is coupled-to and acting in addition to atmospheric trace gas concentration. My intention is not to dismiss that effect while making these arguments.
PPS
It occurred to me that Makarieva and co. may be best advised to refrain from criticizing atmospheric process parametrization and refocus on improving land surface atmosphere interaction products. It seems to me that GCM models do seem to respond to extreme land surface perturbation experiments, but that the reality outside is not yet appreciated in past and future earth system scenarios inputs.
TK: “Barton Paul showed that ”
I think you should stop relying on BPL’s set of equations, given the massive simplifications he had to do to reduce the global climate system
to a set of a dozen (?) of equations, so any QUANTATIVE comparisons have to be taken with a … ton of salt.
So it is a high time you give the BPL set of equations a rest, and look for a incomparably more realistic 3-D global model, with parametrization calibrated with observational data. Like the one used by Schmidt et al. 2010. So maybe, before you demand answers from him – you do you damn job, and read their paper first?
TK: “Makarieva asserts that the average air humidity depends mostly on the average surface temperature, not on the residence time of water vapour in the atmosphere.”
So … she let you down gently: since it was you, Shurly, and/or JCM who claimed that we don’t have to worry about your schemes increasing abs. humidity, because …. you will just shorten the residence time of vapour in air… Makarieva “asserts” otherwise.
As for her stating that cooling by increased latent heat flux may be amplified by additional cooling from lowering abs. humidity as a function of T, would be true ONLY if residence time was shortened (which she just said it is not). Increased evaporation WITHOUT shortened residence time,
would mean INCREASED, not decreased abs. humidity.
Now contrast this with reductions of CO2 emissions (since you proposed your scheme as a valid ALTERNATIVE to that),
1. it cools directly (lower GHG absorption)
2.it cools via lowering abs. humidity with lowering T (more spectacularly than in latent heat scheme – since the decrease in abs, humidity from lower temp. does not have to combat the increased evaporation from your latent scheme)
3. it cools by making ocean less acidic (less acidic ocean pick MORE surplus CO2 from air than the more acidic one, which then … amplifies p.1 and 2 ) – your latent scheme, by making GHG reductions less urgent – has the opposite effect
4. it address one of the major global ecological crises – ocean acidification – your scheme, again by making the CO2 emissions less urgent, encourages the opposite
5. And not only you make worse one of the existing major global ecological problems – you create also new ones – by proposing to evaporate ADDITIONAL many 1000s km3 of water, year after year.
Would this be an example of that … famous “human ingenuity” you asked us to wait for, and until then stop deploying the already tested technologies, because you have a feeling that they may be doing more bad than good, and therefore – why act now, when in the future, who knows – perhaps somebody somewhere would invent something better?
can I be reminded again what is the reason to fight against soil conservation?
Is it not sexy, or too rural and out of sight?
consider a small sample of multiple co-benefits:
1) securing stable soil carbon (organics) instead of rapidly eroding /oxidizing the stuff. That is, avoiding desertification.
2) improving soil moisture storage – for 1 gram organics secures 5-10x its mass in moisture. Moisture is co-related to desertification. Desertification = erosion of earth to rockflour.
3) securing nutrient availability and uptake via mycorrhizae; resilient productivity compared to rockflour
4) security against hydrological and temperature extremes
5) securing biodiverse wilderness (humates, microflora/fauna/ glomalin)
5) conservation of moisture regimes, cloud, and climates
It should be obvious that securing soils and fixing carbon there has many co-benefits. Set a goal, educate, and incentivize on that.
Step 1: net zero erosion
Step 2: restore soil genesis, perhaps 5 tons per hectare per year.
It’s deranged to actively fight against that. This is certain.
JCM: can I be reminded again what is the reason to fight against soil conservation?
BPL: Who in God’s name is against soil conservation???
Nobody in God’s name can be against soil conservation, this is certain!
however, what’s on display here exhibits misguided instruction and blatant falsehoods. A deception and phony-virtue which is warned against (genuinely) in Christian tradition:
“If the blind lead the blind, both will fall into a pit”
“Do not spread false reports”
“A truthful witness saves lives, but a false witness is deceitful”
“The Lord detests lying lips”
“If anyone thinks they are something when they are not, they deceive themselves”
Comments here are designed to undermine and diminish awareness of environment and its multi-pronged remediation. They embody only half-baked concepts manifested in the mind.
This unwitting dishonesty and lack of humility has permeated deep, and displays (vividly) a lack of insight or understanding. This is a reflection of broader attitudes – the harm from which cannot be understated.
is it really true that teaching on climates has gone so off the rails that Piotr and co. simply do not realize that terrestrial biosystems continue to be eroded in profound, direct, extensive, and unnatural ways? and that these lands are inextricably linked to climates?
We are already deep into that, it’s ongoing, and I think actually a renewed acceleration on that recently due to the appeal of tech sales promises (lazy) and bad teaching (inexcusable). Reality displaced in hearts, minds, and politics.
That latent flux already is missing, not something that never was and to be added in addition. can you see that?
this refusal can’t be blamed squarely on them, despite their persistent, impenetrable cognitive defences and deflections mustered to deny that. Passionate fanaticism is a powerful thing.
In Re to
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2023/12/unforced-variations-dec-2023/#comment-817353
Dear Piotr,
Makarieva has never said that residence time of water vapour in the atmosphere cannot change. Her works are just about influence of surface water availability on water vapour residence time in the atmosphere / water cycle intensity / latent heat flux.
As regards the work by Schmidt, I once highly appreciated your explanation to Zebra that this article deals with water vapour concentration which rises as a feedback to rising global average surface temperature, under assumption of unchanged water availability.
I think that it was you who explained to Zebra that isothermal increase of water cycle intensity due to increase of surface water availability is different from the case analyzed by Schmidt.
One difference between then and now: Originally, you highly appreciated the results of Barton Paul, because they by mistake supported your assertion that water vapour greenhouse effect must overturn the cooling effect of latent heat flux. Now, you advise not relying on simple models anymore.
Greetings
Tom
Kalisz
I share you interest in water, and my first question and objection to presentation of climate science at the university festival,, where CO2 was shown to as the problem , was “But, what about the clouds?”
Well, she said, that is another thing and does not act like the CO2! and cannot be treated the same way.
I never had it further explained so I had to find out for myself.
One thing is for certain , H2O in gas- form follows global temperature and acts together with CO2 and CH4 as a strong, positive feedback. . So that , if the effect of CO2 can be shown and prooved, then you can simply add to or multiply it quite a lot. by H2O invisible gas that is dark indeed in the infrared. and isolates to IR and absorbs allmost as well as a sheet of common clear soda glass.
This area plays quite a high role also for CO2 and climate denialists surrealists, quite a role for denying and minimizing the role of CO2, in different ways.
Which is not the way to take it. because, as Gavin Schmidt wrote “How many further sciences do you have to trash then, for defending such an argument!”
Because, we also have the obvious, negative feedbacks to earth temperature (and possible bathing- weather in Drøbak where I come from,) by cloudy weather and chill even with icy rain in between..
Again there is active surrealism in it, that of water chilling the situation by “evapo- transpirating” from the ground, based in the rumors of the cool, wet towel and you get too cold when your skirts are soaking wet in the dry winds. Even in sunshine.
That chill is not sprayed fountain fun water on the bathing suits in sunny Paris and Las Vegas in summer or in Central Park New York. It is chill and latent chill in bitties and barrels falling down from the heavens. worldwide carrying the chill of space efficiently with it in bitties and barrels and Kilo-calories per deg*liters down to earth.
This is also certain and obvious and I would think that you can accept it.
But I would like a better understanding and explaination on physical and on experimental level how those 2 obviously opposite and obviously stabilizing and thermostating effects of water are scaled together by non- linear frunctions over a wider range of global temperatures.
I repeat….
There I also have hope for the future and for humanity that Nature and water will save us and that it will not yet rush out over a tippingpoint like James Hansen has predicted for the earth, pointing at the ground temperatures on Venus where he found it and became a concerned scientist..
,
And I can sustain that the functions of water seems a bit ignored in the climate and ought to be better examined and explained.
Richard Lindzen has not won that debate and settled that science by his Iris- theory, because he showed careless of scientific seriousity there and can be disqualified because of that.
Does it help?
in Re to
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2023/12/unforced-variations-dec-2023/#comment-816719
and to
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2023/12/unforced-variations-dec-2023/#comment-816793
Dear Carbomontanus,
Many thanks for your feedback.
I just tried to remind the public here on the RC website that I repeatedly ask, although in various modifications, two quite simple questions:
1) The global water cycle works as an air conditioning that makes a colder temperature in a room (Earth) heated through its windows by Sun. There are claims that we have made this machine less efficient. The mainstream climate science, however, seems to suppose that the cooling machine gives a constant output and that the only parameter that we changed is the thickness of the walls.
Do we indeed know how the global water cycle intensity developed during the last millennia and centuries? Or do we know in with a sufficient accuracy only for last 30 or 20 years, if at all?
2) There is an objection that climate models that form a basis of state-of-art climate science are insensitive to changes in water cycle intensity
https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/ffgc.2023.1150191/full
and that the advice derived from their projections might be therefore misleading.
I have a feeling that nobody has answered these questions yet, therefore I ask the other participants if they would like to join my plea.
Unfortunately, I have not grasped from your reply if you do so (and would like to read an article on this topics in which the moderators reply to these question) or not.
Greetings
Tomáš
The objection to climate models in the Frontiers however build on model information that is not very state of the art but an approximation that was suggested in 1978 and I employed in early model versions, “While the numerical simulation is run, “whenever the radiative equilibrium lapse rate is greater than the critical lapse rate, the lapse rate is set equal to the critical lapse rate” (Ramanathan and Coakley, 1978).”
Note year of reference.
Now the calculated lapse rate may still be wrong, but this is not how convection works in the models.
“The temperature difference between the surface and the upper radiative layer ze (located between 500 and 400 mb”
This is the global average radiative layer certainly not the top. This will vary with wavelength and in particular for bandwidth for water vapor the layer is much higher.
It seems that the article suffers from a misunderstanding on the purpose of a global climate model. The main scientific purpose of a global model is to find the impact of any process whether it is change in solar radiation, CO2 or forest evaporation. CO2 is a very important use case since it has a large impact on the climate including biota.. Most of the parameterisations in climate models are also shared with weather forecast models. Not getting the temperature difference between forested grounds and bare grounds as shown by the picture in the article is not going to give you a good weather forecast either.
in Re to
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2023/12/unforced-variations-dec-2023/#comment-816885
Dear Øyvind,
I just posted a quite despondent reply to Radge Havers
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2023/12/unforced-variations-dec-2023/#comment-816918 ,
in despair that nobody gives a feedback to my questions regarding Makarieva et al.
Thereafter I noted your reply. Thank you very much therefor!
Do I understand correctly that the present climate models do not work with the approximation / parametrization criticized in the article anymore?
Or, in other words:
Is the objection raised in the article (that the present climate models are (by default, and falsely) insensitive to human changes in water cycle intensity that can be caused by humans (like deforestation / reforestation, irrigation, etc.)) in fact unjustified?
I am aware of a few articles describing relatively small effects in the mean global temperature that resulted from arbitrarily introduced changes in terrestrial vegetation or in water availability on land, see e.g. DeHertog et al https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-13-1305-2022
Should the objection by Makarieva et al still apply for present climate models used in such studies, their results would have been unreliable and of a questionable value. Should the state-of-art models not suffer from the objected deficiency anymore, the strong focus of the present climate science on radiative heat transport processes could have been justified.
That is why I asked my questions regarding this article herein.
Greetings
Tomáš
@ Kalisz
If you want t discuss a cooling airconditioning machin in a room instead, and heated through a window by the sun, then you must discuss liquid and vapour currents, and theheat exchangers where it isevaporatedand where it is condensed. And further set on permanence of matter in a closed system, Aristoteles: What goes up must come down/ what comes down must have gome up.
As vapour and liquids in theese cooling machine tubes go faster and faster, opposite to being broken and having stopped , then what can it be?
You have to guess that for yourself now, because if Itell you, you will not believe me.
Selling Las Vegas, and Hollywood fashion with wild west to people may have had its charm for a while now and it may have been prophitable..
But it is getting more and more boring as even southern Califoria seems to have been flooded by atmospheric rivers now. And russian helicopters in Donbas are being clogged by snow.
Sogndal is now being isolated exept from sea because all roads and bridges are clogged by
muddy and stony earthslides., They were hit by “an atmospheric river” again.
Why only believe in political sales promotion from Las Vegas?
Rasmus Benestad has just published more moist transatlantic turboconvectional threats to Florida.
As if the watercycles are broken? Quite on the contrary, they seem to run faster and faster in our days. If even that gets warmer and warmer, that must be given a true, physical explaination and that is rather easy.
Dear Thomas.
I am replying at this line due to technical issues.
>Do I understand correctly that the present climate models do not work with the approximation / >parametrization criticized in the article anymore?
Yes this is an outdated parameterisation and was not much used after 1995 or so.
A well known and much used parameterisation is based on the ideas of Tiedke(1989)
https://journals.ametsoc.org/view/journals/mwre/117/8/1520-0493_1989_117_1779_acmfsf_2_0_co_2.xml
Note in particular that parameterisations for weather forecast models and climate models build on the same principles. A weather forecast model using a defined redistribution of temperature as convective parameterisation would have serious problems with forecasting convective structures, e.g. tropical storms.
Best regards
Øyvind
in Re to
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2023/12/unforced-variations-dec-2023/#comment-817266
Dear Øyvind,
Many thanks for your reply. I am very grateful for the added reference.
You and Kevin McKinney were very generous. I think that references you both provided give hints that Makarieva et al likely do not know the state-of-art parametrization in climate models.
Merry Christmas!
Greetings
Tomáš
I also want to thank Kevin McKinney (
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2023/12/unforced-variations-dec-2023/#comment-817276
)
and Øyvind Seland (
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2023/12/unforced-variations-dec-2023/#comment-816885
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2023/12/unforced-variations-dec-2023/#comment-817266
)
for sharing this information.
MA Rodger 29 NOV 2023 AT 7:03 PM Thanks. This is unquantified from me due to time constraint but what I was mostly thinking of was Richard Lindzen’s Iris Effect and the accepted converse. What’s the deal on that now ? I hadn’t known about these human pollution reductions at all so I wasn’t up to speed. When I read A CERES of fortunate events 18 SEP 2022 BY GAVIN I instantly thought “Well that buries Lindzen’s Iris a few hundred feet deep” and adjusted upward by a large amount that I computed (very) approximately my +ve feedback cloud response to warming that I’ve been using for pondering climate sensitivity the last 10 years, but I hadn’t known about these human pollution reductions. Unless I missed something in all this recent pre-COP talks and text I didn’t notice discussion of apportioning between +ve cloud feedback (is there none ?) and simply reducing the cloud seeding humans have been doing, am I just not listening thoroughly ? It looks to me on the 2001-2015 that there’s an upward trend, not horizontal, in absorbed SWR. Why ? Is that all cleaner Chinese air + some early cleaner ship fuels or was there a slight +ve feedback cloud response to warming ? Is the Faustian Bargain reduction this century (less seeding) larger than stated because it’s been fighting Lindzen’s Iris, or is it smaller because it’s been supplementing +ve feedback cloud response to warming, or is cloud response to warming = 0.0000 w/m**2 ? References: Andrew Dessler for pattern effect of oceans on ocean clouds next few hundred years but presumably not relevant for a long time yet https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jlolDdnSHCE and Jennifer Kay (who I disliked saying LWR is re-emitted to surface) for +ve feedback cloud response to warming in some Models at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kE1VBCt8GLc at 13:36
The ribbon for COP-28’s most curious Blue Area pavilion goes to Pleistocene Park,.
Recalling George Church’s mammoth & ground sloth cloning project , it pitches a Russian oil oligarch’s plan to save the Earth by rewilding Siberia, in hope a full spectrum of ice age megafauna will graze down dark vegetation, and by raising ground albedo , lower rates of thawing and methane release.
https://vvattsupwiththat.blogspot.com/2023/12/one-mammoth-steppe-for-mankind.html
RS,
Love the graphics!! The Plasticine is priceless.
Barry E Finch,
The link again to that CERES graph showing the components of the EEI is here and I’ve uploaded a graphic showing the OSR & OLR wobbles 2002-22 along with what they look like plotted agains ERA5 SAT here [5/12/23].
And a recap on the longwave numbers I calculated in the Nov UV thread. The 2002-20 trend yielded -1.2Wm^-2/ºC (cooling) while the wobble size measured in at -2.8Wm^-2/ºC.
And further to that, if you run the NOAA AGGI through the same process, it yields +1.7Wm^-2/ºC which would be included in the trend number but not the wobble number. (Perhaps rather too neatly, this +1.7Wm^-2/ºC closes the ‘gap’.)
And there would presumably be a water vapour feedback hiding in both trend and wobble. Your Jennifer Kay video puts the water vapour feedback at +1.1Wm^-2/ºC which (again rather too neatly) would account for roughly the -3.7Wm^-2/ºC which physics tells us would fit the OLR/temp response of a planet of 255K.
The shortwave part of the CERES numbers are not so neat.
The global SO2 emissions are not prominently monitored anywhere I know of, but they are shown in decline. (For instance, Fioletov et al (2023) shows a 50% decline 2005-20.) So what does the shortwave CERES data show w.r.t. the SO2 aerosol forcing?
The CERES shortwave trend 2000-2022 is running at +3.4Wm^-2/ºC (warming). The wobbles are difficult as they go a bit odd in the period 2006-12 where they suddenly look to be acting as cooling agents. If the cooling wobbles 2006-12 were the norm rather than the exception, we could then be looking at a Linzden Iris Effect at work. But the majority of the period shows warming wobbles suggestive of a positive cloud feedback.
(If we ignore 2006-12), the size of the wobbles are somewhat larger than the OLR wobbles which suggests there is something less than +0.5Wm^-2/ºC (warming) hiding in the reducing albedo through the period that needs attributing, the part of the warming trend absent from the wobbles.
I would probably have boldly attributed it to the reducing SO2 and aerosols. But there is the 2006-12 period and also the Dessler ‘pattern’ of warming F(p) discussed in your first linked-video which may also need consideration here. A significant change in the global pattern of warming would surely impact the global-total of the temperature-induced cloud albedo. Likewise, the pattern of global SO2 emissions. It would be surprising if SO2 emissions from Europe in the 1970s have the same impact globally as the SO2 emissions from China today. Yet Dessler’s F(p) mechanism is a more likely candidate for creating a period like 2006-12 when the albedo warming wobbles somehow turn into cooling wobbles.
So there may still be a big boost to warming with reducing aerosols, that is bigger than to be expected from the global emissions figures. And the Dessler F(p) adds another consideration. So not a very neat situation.
A disturbing lecture on the perils of “climate change,” by Dr. Stefan Rahmstorf has recently appeared, via youtube — https://youtu.be/J2gkWsaQ-7A?si=1FM3AAwtAWPH4IHQ . As many of his assertions strike me as misleading, I feel a need to respond.
What’s especially striking at the outset is a series of graphs displaying what looks like a relatively stable climate since the last ice age, which then shoots up dramatically beginning in the late 19th century, due, as he implies, to the effects of rising CO2 levels. Completely omitted from these displays is any reference to either the Medieval warming period or the so-called “little ice age,” neither of which he attempts to account for. Nor does he acknowledge that CO2 levels during the considerable rise in temperatures during the first 40 years of the 20th century were not yet high enough to account for more than a fraction of that rise.
Nor does he make any reference to the period 1940 to 1979 — roughly 40 years — during which global temperatures declined to the point that many feared a coming ice age. As I’ve already argued in these threads, a 40 year period during which we find little to no trace of the warming predicted by “the physics” so often referenced by climate change advocates, strongly suggests that the prevailing theory has been falsified. If, as Arrhenius argued, rising CO2 levels would produce rising temperatures, we’d have seen some sign of such a rise during a period where CO2 levels were rising significantly — but no such rise is evident from the data. And attempts to explain away this evidence by invoking the cooling effects of industrial aerosols, fail to hold water. (For details see https://amoleintheground.blogspot.com/2021/03/thoughts-on-climate-change-part-10.html )
Rahmstorf conveniently ignores this period altogether, as though it did not matter, focusing instead on a much shorter period (of 20 years) when temperatures did in fact rise along with CO2 levels. This then becomes “proof” that the predictions were accurate. Never mind that the following 18 years or so saw temperatures rising only slightly while CO2 levels continued to soar (the so-called “hiatus”). While various explanations for this hiatus have been offered, Rahmstorf elects to simply ignore it. At this point I feel obligated to invoke one of the basic principles of science: extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.
I’ll have more to say on this topic in a future pose.
V: Completely omitted from these displays is any reference to either the Medieval warming period or the so-called “little ice age,” neither of which he attempts to account for. Nor does he acknowledge that CO2 levels during the considerable rise in temperatures during the first 40 years of the 20th century were not yet high enough to account for more than a fraction of that rise.
Nor does he make any reference to the period 1940 to 1979 — roughly 40 years — during which global temperatures declined to the point that many feared a coming ice age.
BPL: All those points, and all the other points you raised, have already been addressed in detail. “Asked and answered.” Quit trolling. It’s obnoxious.
Victor says 4 DEC 2023 AT 2:13 PM “I’ll have more to say on this topic in a future pose”. For 57 years I thought it was Flash Gordon (with Ming The Merciless) in 1954 at Saturday morning Minors of the ABC (Savoy East Acton) who was in the cave with the ceiling coming down and you had to wait until next Saturday.for the next exciting instalment. Now I phone my baby sister from Canada she says no it was Batman. For 57 years I’ve misinformed dozens of people about Flash Gordon.
Weaktor: “As many of his assertions strike me…”
Perhaps, but not nearly hard enough!
To all and everyone
On how to ruin the IPCC model of CO2 AGW
Notice what I have told to Thomas Kalisz d/o to his worries about “the water cycle” being forgotten and ignored by IPCC. “But,… what about the clouds?” being my very first spontaneous objection to them as they were selling CO2. on the University square 20 years ago…
I have further announced Aristophanes` Nephelai- “Thinkery” or thought fabric here repeatedly.
Greek comedies are to be taken for serious you see, , else no proper philosophy / science.
When the sun shines and warms you up again after bathing, you learn to hate those clouds coming and shading for the sun in early summer, They have a dramatic negative effect to the warmth of the sun in the bathing park.
So has also the wind when you are wet, So I soon learnt to find a sunny windshielded corner rather than a
stright flat sunny wall, and that is furher how to arrange microclimate 60 deg north for Vino and Tomatoes without any greenhouse. They have obviously known the same in Rheinland/ Mosel during the little ice age on where and how to build wine- terrasses. Wind- shielded and in south slopes against the sun.
If you further know botanics, that is where to find the tiniest local “niches” of relict, max holocene flora. Provided that the earth is not flat like a factory floor under greenhouse glass cower within error bars, which it is not..
But then the sun goes down and it also becomes autumn. Surrealism is then hiding the declines and blaminng CRU East Anglian University for hiding the decline. , announcing their “Climategate”.
What about the nights, what about the winters, that is half of the earth half of the time?
in Winter and at night, Nephelai rather isolates and warms us.
So the trick appears easy, on how to ruin the IPCC on CO2 AGW.
Find a cloudy heat and temperature rectifier and that it has been changing in recent decades, in that diurnal and annual swinging system, and you will have a very heavy and solid global temperature bias.
Think of any systematic effect or tendency that lets it clear up during day and cloud over during night , and clear up during summer and cloud over during winter, and that effect is changing just a little bit and unseen, ignored, forgotten, or hidden by the IPCC,
that successive “Unbalance” development during the last 120 years would ruin the validity of the very proclaimed Keelingcurve, and the Arrhenius Revelle Hansen Brundtland Al Gore Greta and Gavin Schmidt….. effect.
Simply by a minute tendency day and night summer and winter in the Nephelai.
The suggested effect need only to be responsible for about 1.5 deg till now, thus quite small also, since Nephelai are obviously so importand and so …. nebulous.
Given any such effect, that is to be shown, , Big Coal and big Oil could go on with business as usual.
It will also have a large impact on estimates of Delta T / Doubbling of CO2 in the atmosphere. thus valuable in any case. And it may also be opposite to what I have suggested thus another apocalyptic climate threat.
Tomáš Kalisz,
Hydrologic cycle, hydroclimatology, etc.
A little while back, you wrote:
Let me just suggest that instead of a dogged, piecemeal approach toward confirming your biases (which could go on forever) that you first consider buying some textbooks on the subject, including specifically about the hydrologic cycle. Read them carefully beginning to end with an open mind as if they might actually know what they’re talking about.
Jumping into the middle of a complex subject with which you are unfamiliar only leads to more confusion, at least in my experience.
I can’t remember, were you the one who claimed to be an intelligence analyst a while back? If so, let me turn it around. Here’s a poser for you; Should we worry about what would happen if analysts couldn’t distinguish the functions of intelligence from those of psyops? Is that a real thing, and could it ever be a problem? No need to answer. I put it out there as an exercise in perspective taking.
Thanks.
in Re to
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2023/12/unforced-variations-dec-2023/#comment-816781
Dear Radge,
My professional title is “senior patent engineer”, and to my activities belong searching and analysing technical intellectual property like patents and patent applications.
I hope I have never assigned this activity as “intelligence”. If so, I apologize for the confusion caused this way..
As regards my questions, please take them as a shortcut. If I read claims that continents are drying, what is wrong in asking the moderators if they could touch this topics and either prove or disprove the assertion that by changing latent heat flux (through changing hydrological regimes), the mankind contributed to the observed global warming?
I sought for the reply in IPCC reports but I have not found any clue. It is my feeling that these reports treat water cycle merely as a “feedback” and not as something what can shape the climate independently from other “forcings”.
And, finally, how should I find in textbooks the answer to my question whether or not the objection raised against use of the “convective parametrization” in climate models
https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/ffgc.2023.1150191/full
is unjustified and possibly devaluating the respective projections?
If you know the answers, please help. If you do not know them, would you mind joining my plea to moderators?
Greetings
Tom
@ Thomas Kalisz
This was a bit more clear from you.
Senior patent engineer analyzing technical intellectual property, … AHA!
And an assumed drying out of the continents due to human. activity.
“I sought for the reply in IPCC reports, but I have not found any clue. It is my feeling that theese reports treat water cycle merely as a “feedback”and not as something that can shape the climate independently from other things.”
“And finally, how should I find in textbooks the answer to my question whether or not the objection raised against use of the “conventional parametrization” in climate models.
( makarieva & al)
is unjustified and possibly devaluating the respective projections”.
Comment:
Ihave made no plea to the moderators, but I have told them that Me….Tooo! really would like some better analysis of ” NEPHELAI the foggy dews and chill even icy rains…… and lacks of the same, alltogether hydtrology limnology oceanography and glaciology.- classical meteorology
And I hope that they get it.
In the meantime I dig for myself to try and state the problem on solveable form and train on it and get prepared for answers when they eventually come.
As it looks now, the best I had was that CO2 gives about 20% of the greenhouse effect, CH4 5% and H2O gas and white clouds the reaining 75%, but that estimate is quite rough and only a first approximation., That I can hardly believe will keep linear proportional within a wider range of global temperatures.
Most importantthen is to try and find out whether the water- related positive feedback to CO2 and CH4 and N2O curves up……. or curves down…… on further CO2- caused global warming . And whether there also are any predictable dis- continuities in those functions
This is on gaseous level, and then we also have the sea currents that seem able to flip over and change in cathastrophical ways. also. as there are several dramatic dis- continuities andThunders in the NEPHELAI.. allready
Try state the problems and ask the questions on solvable form and respect the good answers.
The good answers from me, for instance who has settled such sciences before.
TK,
I think your approach is wrong.
a) You said it yourself, “As regards myself, I feel rather as a “doubting non-believer” than as a “denialist”, but I admit that others can see it differently.”
Again, confirmation bias. You’re not here in good faith.
b) At this point I think the old adage applies: You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make it drink.
c) I’m not going to sign on to a campaign to badger the moderators into following you down a rabbit hole.
in Re to
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2023/12/unforced-variations-dec-2023/#comment-816895
Dear Radge,
I hoped that they (the moderators or someone else on this website) perhaps help me switch from the “doubting non-believer” to a doubting believer.
In other words, I hoped that somebody shows me a reason why human interferences with water cycle likely had a negligible influence on global energy balance. That would have been a strong hint that present climate policies, based on the assumption that “only radiation matters”, might be basically right.
Unfortunately, it appears that I will not find such a person herein. Both my scepticism about policies relying on models with a doubtful basis as well as my hope that we can still find better solutions persist.
Anyway, many thanks for your kind replies.
Greetings
Tomáš
@ Radge Havers
“Psyops” , the study of it, and the study of possible defence against it being quite an art also here at the Real Climate website.
I have come to understand that at least.
It is the reason more and more of why I am here.
Carbomontanus says
6 Dec 2023 at 5:50 AM
“Psyops” ……………… I have come to understand that at least.
It is the reason more and more of why I am here.
Gawd help us, save us from crazies!
“But by far my personal favorite, what makes me truly love my job, is the absolute lunacy. You know the kind I mean: unsolicited rants, conspiracy theories, and insatiable comment trolls—the people with way too much free time who stalk the Internet looking for fights—the whole nine yards. Yes, I’ve discovered that I love the crazies.”
https://thejesuitpost.org/2014/03/come-at-me-bro-why-i-love-the-crazies/
Let me repeat: extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.
(Sorry for the amusing “Freudian typo” that follows. What came out as “pose” should have been “post.” Make of it what you will, folks. :-)
I will now continue with my review of Rahmstorf’s youtube lecture. According to him, the warming we’ve seen over the last few years must be anthropogenic because there is no other explanation he can think of — https://youtu.be/J2gkWsaQ-7A?si=yruWuK_O7EK9o3uW&t=615 Thus he concludes with absolute confidence that “humans have caused slightly more than 100% of the observed warming.” (Not sure how anything can be more than 100%, but . . .) This is, of course, the well known “argument from ignorance.” We don’t know a lot of things about the climate, which is in any case a chaotic system, thus especially difficult to explain. We don’t know what caused the little ice age, we don’t know what caused temperatures to rise over the first 40 years of the previous century, we don’t know what caused the rise over the last 20 years of that century and we don’t know what caused the so-called “hiatus” that followed.
He then goes on to defend the notorious “hockey stick” graph, forgetting to mention Mann’s little “trick” of “hiding the decline” by substituting actual temperature measurements for the sort of proxy data the rest of the graph is based on — data that showed a decline, thus calling his method into question.
Going on to consider the sea level evidence, Rahmstorf focuses on a claim by Bjorn Lomborg, calling attention to a drop in sea level. He correctly counters Lomborg by demonstrating that his claim is based on only an insignificant blip in the data — but neglects to address a more serious claim by climate scientists Fasulo, Nerem et al.: “Global mean sea level rise estimated from satellite altimetry provides a strong constraint on climate variability and change and is expected to accelerate as the rates of both ocean warming and cryospheric mass loss increase over time. In stark contrast to this expectation however, current altimeter products show the rate of sea level rise to have decreased from the first to second decades of the altimeter era.” — https://www.nature.com/articles/srep31245 The more fundamental problem lies in the fact that sea level is continually changing to the point that one can make a case for either decline or acceleration depending on which end points one chooses to base one’s measurements on. The graph provided by Rahmstorf shows a slight acceleration, which might easily reverse itself in future years. And by the way, let’s not forget that sea level rise is, preposterously enough, measured in millimeters.
Rahmstorf also neglects to mention that sea levels began to rise during a period when global temperatures, both atmospheric and oceanic, were declining. (For details see https://amoleintheground.blogspot.com/2021/11/thoughts-on-climate-change-part-12-what.html#more)
Weaktor,
You brought a cracked, empty water pistol to a thermonuclear conflict.
Ladbury
It is a sad situation really. of pearls and swines.
I am sitting here trying to work on another case where honest work of hand and spirit , on pioneering masterclass level was met with organized, snobbish, ignorant, trained, racketeers for the free market. .
A good question is who owns him / them and how does he draw out his cash.
They seemj clearly to have their training back in provincial pioneering communist cells., closed and privileged studies, Such KADREs are cheap to buy and worth gold to the Mafia, because of their cadaver- diciplinary training.
.
Nah! Flying monkeys work cheap
Thank you for informing me of Stefan’s video. I would have been unaware of it. I am sorry that you are unable to follow the science of the presentation. Previous experience shows that you miss much of it, and are impervious to explanation. There is no sense in discussing most of your points, when they have already been discussed with you in the past, to no effect.
However, I would like to remind you that you are the one making an extraordinary claim. It is an implicit claim that that regardless of known – and in some cases very long – delays in the response of both oceans and glaciers to climate forcing factors such as greenhouse gases, volcanoes, other aerosols, and solar fluctuations, that the results of those changes as reflected in surface temperatures and sea levels will always manifest themselves almost completely within a few years. When they don’t always, you then treat this as contrary evidence. As an example, read the rest of the Fasullo et. al. abstract about sea level that you partially quote.
The science has also passed you by on the “hockey stick.” It’s sticking up more than ever as time passes. The details are in the science literature, and some of the discussions on this site. You’re repeating old lies, and you really ought to know better by now.
The public climate debate – climate skepticism and denial video ….
well this is only addressing one of the minor side effects and a very unimportant one at that. It doesn’t matter in the least. Has no impact at all.
If Stephan had a magic wand and all the denial and skepticism disappeared overnight in a moment of enlightenment still nothing would change in regards to effective actions to address warming, climate change, environmental pollution and destruction or industry policy or govt policy …. or outcomes of COP meetings. Nothing.
The people who hold all the power, the mega wealthy owners of everything, and make the decisions are still there doing whatever they want globally. What are you going to do about them and the power they wield? [ and they aren’t the fossil fuel companies wielding all this power ]
The deniers aren’t the problem, they are. Who is going to take them on head on?
Re. the “notorious” hockey stick. Here is a 2020 Nature graphic showing it in all its notoriety!
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41597-020-0530-7/figures/3
From Kaufman, D., McKay, N., Routson, C. et al. Holocene global mean surface temperature, a multi-method reconstruction approach. Sci Data 7, 201 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41597-020-0530-7 (Article is open access)
Re: the “notorious” hockey stick 12K graph
It’s only +0.6C above 7000 yrs BP Average Temperature
The average person, ideologue, religious practitioner, business executive or billionaire is unlikely to get excited about that. Nor be at all interested in the COP28 gabfest.
Victor seems like a great example of someone who “cant see the wood for the trees”. For example missing the basic shape of the hockey stick and its significance by blathering on about things like the roman warm period, a small blip along the way.
“If someone can’t see the wood for the trees in British English, or can’t see the forest for the trees in American English, they are very involved in the details of something and so they do not notice what is important about the thing as a whole.” (Collins dictionary)
0 mW/m**2 Increase in geothermal heating power flux under Thwaites Glacier over the last 999 years
0 mW/m**2 Increase in geothermal heating power flux under Antarctica over the last 999 years
V: According to him, the warming we’ve seen over the last few years must be anthropogenic because there is no other explanation he can think of — https://youtu.be/J2gkWsaQ-7A?si=yruWuK_O7EK9o3uW&t=615 Thus he concludes with absolute confidence that “humans have caused slightly more than 100% of the observed warming.” (Not sure how anything can be more than 100%, but . . .) This is, of course, the well known “argument from ignorance.”
BPL: If he said that, he was wrong. The theory of anthropogenic global warming depends, first and foremost, on radiation physics. NOT on “whatever is left.” In fact, you are raising a straw man.
Victor 5 DEC 2023 AT 4:59 PM “with absolute confidence that “humans have caused slightly more than 100% of the observed warming.” (Not sure how anything can be more than 100%” Seriously though, are you seriously that dense or just jerking our chains for a laugh ? I’m intrigued now.
Fractional attribution to anthropogenic causes… best guess 110%
See discussion:
Gavin response to Curry
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2014/08/ipcc-attribution-statements-redux-a-response-to-judith-curry/
The Guardian
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/climate-consensus-97-per-cent/2014/sep/15/97-vs-3-how-much-global-warming-are-humans-causing#:~:text=It%27s%20not%20just%20“more%20than,re%20only%20responsible%20for%2050%25.
When 2 factors operate in different directions, this is easily possible. If one factor contributes, say, -50% to warming (i.e., actually cools the warming trend by .5x, another factor must warm things at 150% of it former value just to keep thinks even.
As for vic speaking to the notion of “arguments from ignorance” well he is an absolute past master at that particular argument form. what with his eyeball “significant’ correlations and other wonderful intellectual “tricks”.
I find much to laugh at in many of the ridiculous responses I get from the alarmists on this blog, yes. But the issue is far too serious for anyone to participate just for laughs. I persist in the hope that some element of critical thinking (or even common sense) might eventually take hold here, helping at least some of the participants to recognize that the “certainties” they take for granted are simply not supported by evidence. The world is poised at a very dangerous threshold these days. If we insist on going off on some sort of desperate crusade intended to “save the planet” we may very well lose the planet instead.
Victor: – “The world is poised at a very dangerous threshold these days. If we insist on going off on some sort of desperate crusade intended to “save the planet” we may very well lose the planet instead.”
There’s enough to know we/humanity are currently on a trajectory towards civilisation collapse before the end of this century.
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2023/11/science-denial-is-still-an-issue-ahead-of-cop28/#comment-816647
I’d suggest the window of opportunity to change the current trajectory towards civilisation collapse to a path to avoiding civilisation collapse is rapidly closing. Clock’s ticking!
But Weaktor, the only useful purpose you serve is laughter
Climate emergency solutions:
1. Abandon fossil fuels for anything. Have you tried to go one day without fossil fuels, at least for transportation? Then another, until all your transportation is fossil-free. No options? Ask for your local/national government for clean options. No response? Vote in climate solvers.
2. 100% clean renewable energy, find your country/state/city and ask for implementation by 2030. See above, if no answer.
https://thesolutionsproject.org/what-we-do/inspiring-action/why-clean-energy/
3. Become climate activists “If we are to create a liveable future, climate action must move from being something that others do to something that we all do.”
https://scientistrebellion.org/about-us/press/over-1000-academics-sign-our-letter/
4. Join lawsuits against any organization contributing to the climate emergency, from governments to companies. Does it work? Yes.
https://www.ourchildrenstrust.org/
5. Every single decision you make, small or big, has to evaluate its climate impact. Sorry, it’s a lot of work, but we have to fight for our children, everybody’s children and the children of all species.
6. Your solutions? Please share them with us.
I managed to go car free for a few years despite being 240 miles from the rest of my family and having a job 10 miles away that was not accessible by public transport. I had to find ways of working around the reduction in freedom ditching the car brought and had to accept there were things I could not practically do. The 20 mile round bike ride to work improved my fitness and I managed to keep going through the wettest and stormiest winter on record, the coldest December for 100 years and record breaking summer temperatures (UK). My car free life came to an end when I was nearly killed by a careless driver whilst cycling to work. I drive now but with a change of job I am working from home and commuting by bike and train so my annual car mileage is very low and I have an efficient vehicle.
I’ve tried voting for political parties with strong green policies in the UK but the FPTP system means it is futile. When you vote for a minority political party it makes it more likely one of the primary parties will gain power which is why people vote tactically, not necessarily for the party they agree with but for the party which has the best chance of beating the party they most dislike.
Climate activism: The best I achieved was becoming engaged with the local Transition group, and the one thing I learnt is that it is extremely difficult to near impossible to engage with the public on environmental awareness when you live in a politically right wing region.
One of the primary problems I have found is that once you have picked the low hanging fruit as far as reducing carbon footprint is concerned, going further involves taking on inconvenience, expense, effort and maybe increased personal risk (for example replacing car journeys with cycling) with not necessarily much, if any, tangible benefit. This makes it very difficult to lead by example and encourage others to follow. In addition, what I do ultimately will not make a blind bit of difference, I do what I do because I think it is the right thing to do based on the evidence and the science, but I am not going to kid myself that the members of the local bridge club are going to be inspired to take up cycling when I arrive at the club soaking wet because the UK’s weather is poor for three quarters of the year. Significant changes need to come from the top which will only happen when a sufficiently large percentage of the population want it that it becomes a potential election swinging issue. I do not have the power to inspire the population of my country, and very very very few people in history have ever managed it. Hence I am at a loss as to where we go from here, especially as the UK’s population seems to be getting ever more toxic as the years go on.
I do have solar panels and my utility provider does invest in renewable energy.
I have tried to reduce my food carbon footprint by renting an allotment which worked well for a few years, but since around 2018 the productivity fell off a cliff, maily I think due to frequent locked in weather patterns damaging my crops. This year alone we had one of the wettest March’s on record, one of the wettest July’s on record, one of the wettest October’s on record, the hottest June on record which coincided with a five week spell of minimal rain, and my crops were wrecked by molluscs in the wet weather and prolific weeds when I went on holiday for a week. Sometimes it is like anything you try and do to live a better life is like trying to comb your hair in a hurricane.
Anyway, that is the sum of my experiences and perception. Counter-arguments welcome.
” it is extremely difficult to near impossible to engage with the public on environmental awareness when you live in a politically right wing region.”
no, this is false. In fact, it could be exactly backwards. Rural folx tend to be politically right wing and also tend to know environment for what it is for real and directly.
This depends on the extent of political polarization and propaganda. In rural areas in the US, TVs tend to be glued to Faux News or other rightwing propaganda channels. Sinclair owns most of the local stations. People there get a 24/7 onslaught of rightwing, populist anti-science, anti-expert propaganda, Their identity is often tied up in belief in conspiracy theories. Good luck reasoning with such people.
yes I can see now why some might find it challenging to teach on awareness of environment to the fish and game club members, or at the open-mic section to the landowner association general assembly. Influence there is built from the bottom up and relies on a foundation of genuine respect and understanding. Agents for this role must be uniquely qualified and be actively engaged in the matters of interest to the local community.
JCM: “Rural folx tend to be politically right wing”:
That’s been my experience, as well.
“and also tend to know environment for what it is for real and directly.”
In my experience, all too often my rural neighbors know only the environment in reach of their five senses, along with the odd ache in the joints, and even then they tend to fool themselves. Too many are either ignorant or misinformed about humanity’s impact on the global environment.. There’s no doubt my engagement style could be improved, but my neighbor’s opinions about anthropogenic climate change are primarily determined by their cultural identification, and were before I came along. I affirm Adam’s observation. Even after the recent record extremes of heat, drought, wildfire, and flooding, I’m still reticent on the subject with my immediate neighbors, in the otherwise lovely and peaceful place we live..
re rural folx kerfuffle
I think this helps sort it out:
https://nicholasinstitute.duke.edu/sites/default/files/publications/understanding-rural-attitudes-toward-environment-conservation-america.pdf
However, the bubble in the silo:
https://www.aspeninstitute.org/news/revealing-rural-realities/
Conservative converge around Fox News as main source; not single source on the left
https://www.pewresearch.org/journalism/2014/10/21/section-1-media-sources-distinct-favorites-emerge-on-the-left-and-right/
and:
Why Being Anti-Science Is Now Part Of Many Rural Americans’ Identity
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/why-being-anti-science-is-now-part-of-many-rural-americans-identity/
——
Agitprop leading to people acting against their own self-interest?
Thank you for sharing your experience with us, Adam. I am glad you are safe after the irresponsible driver encounter. Thank you also for using solar energy and for everything you tried and continue to do, with more or less success. Happy to know that your utility provider invests in renewable energy. The future is electric and clean, at least for energy-mobility systems.
I am with the crowd that thinks the changes will be bottom-up and middle-out, as the top is mostly a follower, an incremental changer, a compromiser or worse, a reactionary. That does not mean that we w should stop voting, on the contrary, we need to be well-informed citizens and vote for every elected office, all the time. I lived in liberal places and in conservative places. Everywhere I found people who were engaged in change. It is even more impactful to talk to the political right, as there is a good chance that we might change the minds of the youngsters who work for them. At minimum, you force them to read climate science.
You might want to tell the bridge club members that the weather in UK will get much worse, so better cycle or walk to the club now, as there will be no club to go to, no village to live in safely and comfortably, if we don’t abandon fossil fuels, urgently. Take advantage of spending time with them and show some climate predictions charts.
I pester cum educate everybody I e-mail to with this signature, which I diligently update every week:
We are on the fast track to extinction.
We must abandon fossil fuels now.
Weekly average CO2 at Mauna Loa Nov 26, 2023 420.59 ppm
Target: 350 ppm
https://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/trends/weekly.html
It’s a tiny action, but I do get questions about it. Does it work? I or my children or my grandchild will know the day that trend is reversed.
in Re to
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2023/12/unforced-variations-dec-2023/#comment-816822
Dear Silvia,
I have an alternative idea, as I recently mentioned in my reply to Ned Kelly:
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2023/12/unforced-variations-dec-2023/#comment-816878
I think that most important thing in complex unpredictable environments is resilience and adaptability.
Human adaptability is huge, in my opinion mostly thank to our technical creativity.
Public discourse in early 21 century, however, seems to be shaped by assumptions that our environment is simple, predictable, everything can and shall be planned. In this planned solution outlined in various public strategies and policies for fighting the “climate emergency”, we have to rely on known technologies irrespective of their deficiencies.
Human creativity cannot be planned and therefore does not have a place in our engineered future.
My feeling is that these policies and strategies direct the creativity mostly to incremental improvements of well-known technologies but suffocate disruptive innovation that would otherwise bring new and substantially better solutions.
The only public support that is really needed is in my opinion support for proof-of-concept testing new, yet unproven technical ideas. This is a missing element in present policies and a crucial condition for identifying disruptive inventions.
Greetings
Tomáš
Killian says on 7 Dec.
Killian says on 14 Dec.
Killian says on 27 Nov.: “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.”
What changed???
What changed?
That I can tell you.
Nothing changed, because drunken sailors just can`t help it. Much whishes more, you see.
No! now I was ugly to him. Sorry…… Killian is doing his very best at any time.He is one of the regulars in tis tavern though, where all do their very best.
But Killian, for serious: I am very aware of that of “regeneratives” I am even proud of it being my faith and my lifestyle My Father learnt us about it. But, I approach it and do it in another way by other traditions and learnings.
“he “american way of life” came as a quite destructive change in many things,of better and more sustainable lifestyle.
.. That you must be aware of , that people may allready know and be highly trained and prepared. Avoid accusing and teaching against that.
The USA of today has got quite threatening problems caused by people out of step with reality making poor economy and poor health for themselves and for others..
Piotr says – What changed???
He wised up! Walked away. (smile)
Killian says on 27 Nov.: “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 says on 7 Dec.
Killian says on 14 Dec.
Piotr: What changed???
Ned Kelly: “He wised up! Walked away. (smile)”
walked away from … walking away?
Not entirely original, Paul Pukite’s proud exit a few months back – haven’t lasted two weeks either.
Why would I give up on blogs, Piotr? I’ve been posting to my own SciTech blog since 2004, mutating from =BlogSpot to WordPress along the way. I’ve even had a blog longer than RC by a few months. In contrast to the reliability of adding content to one’s own, it’s a bit frustrating to have comments disappear during moderation, which is why I also post them on Twitter/Threads etc.
Paul Pukite 26 Dec Why would I give up on blogs, Piotr?
Why would you ask me that, Paul? I didn’t tell you to give up on your blogs. I was talking about Killian’s and yours giving up on this site, RC:
KIllian:27 Nov.: “ 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.”
The higher you climb (“Complete waste of 15 years“), the harder the fall – back on RC on Dec.7, as if his Nov.27 post never happened. Complete waste of 15 years … no more?
This reminded me you (albeit not as contemptuous as Killian, then again, hardly anybody is):
“ Perhaps it’s not worth my time here, or as they used to say on the blogs GBCW [Good Bye Cruel World] Find me on Threads.net/PaulPukite ”.
To paraphrase a movie line : When you have to quit, quit. Don’t talk.
Or if you change your mind, at least acknowledge that – particularly when, as Killian, you justified your quitting by attacking others (“That’s why I don’t come here anymore. Complete waste of 15 years.”)
Correct. Got tired of wasting my time those who believe what allows them to protect their egos above all else.
Egos are such fragile things.
Killian, Dec, 31, “Correct. Got tired of wasting my time”
Nobody questioned your opinion on RC. but that you try to eat the cake (you CONTINUING posting here) AFTER you proudly declared how you are … above eating cakes and left RC in a huff:
Killian on 27 Nov.: “ 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: “Egos are such fragile things.”
And that’s with a stright face, from YOU? ;-) You, whose ego is founded on your belief that you are underappreciated prophet (Killian to Gavin and others: “ you never listen to me).
Piotr says
1 Jan 2024 at 11:40 AM
Oh do shut up Piotr. Killian can do and say whatever he wants. It’s none of your business.
You are the fool here who appears to not comprehend what Killian means, how natural a thing it is for anyone to say at times, and the one who refuses to accept it.
Stop being a child and shut it. You’re making a fool of yourself, not anyone else IMO.
Please go troll somewhere else.
WeChat perhaps?
“5. Every single decision you make, small or big, has to evaluate its climate impact. Sorry, it’s a lot of work, but we have to fight for our children, everybody’s children and the children of all species.”
While #1 of your set seems the most obvious, it really isn’t because this will never happen without a paradigm change and none of you want that. You want electrified BAU. But your assertion #5 is true: EVERY decision is an ecological decision. I said this in the fall of 2011 at a meeting intended to steer Occupy Detroit towards having a committee for sustainability and using that lens to filter the movement’s choices.
What, then, would paradigm change look like?
1. Make climate the central lens through which all public policy is discussed and created.
2. Make regenerative systems education mandatory at all grade levels, including universities.
3. Implement Regenerative Governance at all levels of society, but starting at the community level.
4. Declare total global Jubilee. With zero debt, all things become fundable.
5. Declare a global commons, or, more accurately, nested commons bio-regionally bound.
I agree with your list, Killian, thank you for sharing it and thank you for being part of Occupy Detroit.. I agree that what we need first and foremost is a paradigm change and a new value system. And we need to make complex, very difficult systemic changes, at all levels, from local to regional to global, to solve all the wicked problems we have created.
It is not true that I do not support the above or I don’t consider them critical. Nor that I want a fossil-free BAU. I am very much for a different economic model, one that is nested in and serves society/the commons, which is nested in nature, one that is sustainable in reality, not in theory.
What I want to see is progress on changes, as we clearly are running out of time. In my view, abandoning fossil fuels, the main cause of the climate emergency and multiple other crises, is not only a critical climate solution, but will contribute to the paradigm change you and I want, as fossils are everywhere, from energy to petrochemicals to financials to geopolitics.
There are always exceptions to the rule, Sylvia. :-) But having been on this site since, IIRC, 2007, and at least 2009, trust me, almost nobody here is interested in a regenerative future and the few that have been have been run off by constant bullying.
Except me, of course.
I disagree with you we need a change of values. That is an impossible pathway to global change; values simply are not universal. What we need is a risk-based approach that comes to understand the *practical* need for Ecological Engineering (my term for TEK/Permaculture-based approaches) and all that based on the First Principles of regenerative systems and societies.
All these things are about problem-solving, math, thermodynamics, physics. No ideology, no beliefs, no values: Just solve the problem.
I call the overall approach and resulting system Regenerative Governance.
K: almost nobody here is interested in a regenerative future and the few that have been have been run off by constant bullying.
BPL: Two lies in one sentence. Way to go, Killian.
Oh shut up Barton. You’re an annoying little ankle biter. A pest. You contribute nothing here (or anywhere). Your arrogant self-righteous attitude stinks. Just shut up.
A big YES to Silvia Leahu-Aluas and Killian – doing the best you can is good enough. Keep on being ‘you’.
Ned Kelly: “ A big YES to Silvia Leahu-Aluas and Killian – doing the best you can is good enough. Keep on being ‘you’.”
Mind you – that high praise comes from Ned Kelly, famous for his knowledge and for being an excellent judge of character, by his answer to falsifiable arguments by BPL, just before the praise for you:
“Oh shut up Barton. You’re an annoying little ankle biter. A pest. You contribute nothing here (or anywhere). Your arrogant self-righteous attitude stinks. Just shut up”
Ned Kelly
Couldn’t have said it better, Ned.
Thanks for the push. It’s getting harder to keep on keeping on with swimming against the tide because of the tipping point we are so clearly transgressing. I warned everyone this moment was coming. I warned them sensitivity was significantly higher. The regular posters here? Not one of them ever got on board with that now-fact: 4.8 is the new “Charney.”
And that spells all kinds of doom given accelerating rates of change. Also predicted. (I was warning about decade-scale doublings – See: Hansen, et al., IIRC – over a decade ago.)
I’m… tired.
More on Rahmstorf’s talk. After decrying the tendency of so many “deniers” to see the climate change movement as some sort of conspiracy, he proceeds to concoct a conspiracy of his own, i.e. an unholy alliance between the billionaires controlling the fossil fuel industry and those controlling the media, He’s convinced himself that the only thing preventing world governments from properly addressing climate change is all the billions poured into lobbying and misinformation by all these heartless billionaires. Of course he never actually says anything about the measures he sees as necessary if “we” are to save the planet.
As a scientist he should know that there is a lot more at stake than the profits of the oil industry and its allies. It’s not difficult to see how the measures now being demanded by all the zealots who’ve bought into the “climate change” paradigm would totally undermine not only the world “economy” but the survival of literally billions of innocent people who rely on fossil fuels and the industries that depend on them for their very existence. We are continually reminded of how better things would now be if only the proper measures had been taken years ago, but there are very good reasons why those measures weren’t taken, as any leader attempting to take such measures would have either been voted out of office or overthrown by a popular revolution.
Victor: – “As a scientist he should know that there is a lot more at stake than the profits of the oil industry and its allies.”
Yep. I have no doubts Stefan Rahmstorf does: It’s the collapse of human civilisation. See the Conclusions slide from his presentation from about time interval 1:06:09 (bold text my emphasis):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J2gkWsaQ-7A&t=3969s
Victor, did you miss that bit? It seems to me you have selective vision/hearing. But what can one expect from a climate science denier, a regurgitator of climate myths and ignorer of reality?
Victor: – “It’s not difficult to see how the measures now being demanded by all the zealots who’ve bought into the “climate change” paradigm would totally undermine not only the world “economy” but the survival of literally billions of innocent people who rely on fossil fuels and the industries that depend on them for their very existence.”
Global civilisation collapse means global economic collapse, and the consequent suffering and deaths of billions of people deriving from that.
“We have no evidence, whatsoever, that we can support in a dignified and responsible way, eight, soon to be 9 billion people in the world as we know it, at anything above 2 °Celsius.” – Professor Johan Rockström
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2023/11/science-denial-is-still-an-issue-ahead-of-cop28/#comment-816647
Victor: – “We are continually reminded of how better things would now be if only the proper measures had been taken years ago, but there are very good reasons why those measures weren’t taken, as any leader attempting to take such measures would have either been voted out of office or overthrown by a popular revolution.”
I’d suggest for most politicians, it’s about winning the next term of office, and doing the bidding of political donors.
For most politicians constrained by the political party system, short-term considerations trump longer-term issues.
The future is discounted for the now. Eventually, that future becomes the now.
The measures our leaders should have taken but haven’t are beginning to have dire consequences for millions of people already.
It will inevitably get worse, due to more detrimental climate changes already ‘in the pipeline’.
James Hansen, Pushker Kharecha and Makiko Sato published their latest communication on 7 Nov 2023 titled “A Miracle Will Occur” Is Not Sensible Climate Policy, including:
https://mailchi.mp/caa/a-miracle-will-occur-is-not-sensible-climate-policy
@Victor, well none of that has anything to do with the climate science, nor long term sustainable solutions of climate change impacts upon human and environmental health. (destruction whatever.)
It’s only idle talk of no import. a curiosity imo.
in Re to
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2023/12/unforced-variations-dec-2023/#comment-816878
Dear Victor,
Although I differ in many views from you, I agree that economy matters.
In my recent reply to Ned Kelly
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2023/12/unforced-variations-dec-2023/#comment-816878,
I proposed a compromise that might satisfy both the climate alarmists as well as their opponents:
A self-financed transition of the world economy to energy from renewable sources, driven purely by its economical advantages.
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2023/11/science-denial-is-still-an-issue-ahead-of-cop28/#comment-816892
Greetings
Tomáš
To all and everyone
Inklusive Thomas Kalisz,who is not as stupid as he looks like,
And to everyone else who might have got “evapotranspiration”and convectives contra IR radiatives by CO2 on PENSVM and on their brains.
That science is settled, and that matter is not dia- lectic . by Dia- lectic materialism run bythe KADREs contra- dictions carrying in it the truth and thus stating the scientific proofs, QED!
Also known as state- religious soviett socialism along with dia- lectic materialism also in the United States.
There is nothing that IPCC has not yet understood there.
(Even I have understood enough about it for practical purposes.)
Explaination:
I have the upper hand and the advantage over most of you all by having learnt how.
And by having been there up in the Isoterm- layer or Tropopause in a Lufthansa Jumbojet travelling along a great circle from Frankfurt to Boston, floating between 11.5 and 12 Km high and looking at the Barometer and the outdoor Themometer on a TV screen in the cabin most of the time
The outdoor temperature waving and floating between – 65 and even down to – 70 celsius beat that! At bright afternoon sunshine right against it. 45 deg north south of Island at autumnal eqvinox.
That is colder than midnight midwinter in Sibir.
From there and upwards, the temperature does not sink anymore, it rather rises a bit again upwards.
This phaenomenon, the cool side of the globe was discovered in 1905 by manned balloon. A sharp knick in the lapserate with quite encredibly low iso- term temperature.
You not even take cabin TV in Lufthansa for serious, but I looked at it and really wondered.
I had faint background memories different from Wolleyball, Marx and Lenin for thefactory floor where the earth is flatwithin error- bars and the heavens are just as flat………….. and thought back on “Atem der Erde” by Theo Løbsack in translation, where I had red of it before and decided on the spot “This must be given a true, physical explaination first, before we can discuss climate at all!”
(The cool side of the globe must be explained first. before you can take to global warming yes or no.)
And woke up next morning at Skywiew Motel in Rhode Island with solid jetlag, I went out to find the stars to see where I had come. And found Stella Polaris way down about 45 deg different from 60 deg, and Orion high up in the south with Lagopus fully visible under, Leo steep upcoming in the east and Venus in Leo.
I could conclude that the earth is round, as we went out northwest from Frankfurt and entered from northeast north of New Foundloand and in a swing and down to a town they called “Baaaaasten!” to my surprize, and not Boston.
Then went in and turned on the TV, I had no clock because I go after the stars, and there , Al Gore had got the Nobel Price during my night sleep. It was sunday morning early news.
Next conclusion was that I had to re- arrange my opinions about Al Gore.
Al Gore could behave in Oslo, He could perform as Pachauris obedient pudel. Pachauri,is easier. Rajendra Pachauri showed to be india on its very best, A washproof Maharajah. Strict, To the Point, and polite.
The case against Pachauri is dismissed by Indias supreme court now.
But it is about Lapserate that is found ever since by the worlds fleet of weather balloons with that knick in the tropopause- isoterm layer. That is consequently forgotten and hidden by the surrealists and denialists in their “scientific physics”,…..
The tropopause isoterm- layer is a physically distinct & physically real horizon above us, the cool side of the globe… our main radiator right to Big Bang or rather meangalactictemperature that is 20K think. ..
that envelops the very globe,….and is the field of the worlds fleet of civil and commercial long distance jet- airliners
At Airpressure 1/4 Bar.
It obviously takes very sublime turbo input air compressors to burn away kerosene at that speed in that thin air up there. But the airplaines glide obviously steadily exellently…. most economically…. economically on large wings in that thin air, at that speed.
Of lapserates there are 2 sorts, moist and dry lapserates. Moist is 6 deg/ Km and dry is 10 deg/ Km.
Explain, or you are not qualified for climate dispute. . Train on that first to qualify.
Vertical convection is told by the surrealists to cause the lapserates The opposite is true. The lapserate is the assymptotic zero in the atmosphere where vertical convections stagnates. and the hot air balloons float silently steadily. Where also no gliding airplane atristery by up and downgiong convections is possible.
So what makes and drives the vertical convectional evapotranspirational and condensational latent heat / chill exchanges up and down?
Yes, that is radiative heat transfer driven by solar, in the given atmosphere. Impossible without oligo-atomic gases in the plaqnetary atmospheres..
===============000
I have often visited the surrealist tavern meetings in Oslo. . My first question to Prof. Emeritus Jan Erik Solheim theoretical astrohysics was: “The ground temperature on Venus?” knowing that it is the hottest potatoe in the very climate dispute., It is James Hansens royal thought and career..
“Oh yes, there is so high pressure there,… smile smile…”
was he answer.
Then I knew for first that unluckily, Solheim has a large hole in his head.
That is the fameous Zeller Nicolov delusion or “silliness” as Roy Spencer called it. Further Hans Jelbrings “Atmosfäriska effekten” and Dipl. Ing Heinz Thiemes classification of Bundeskanzlerin Angela Merkel from a position Upstairs at the railways in old Leipzig. “Religionøøøøøø!”he wrote. By exactly that argument that repeats among surrealists,
“Religionøøø, smile smile”.. from Upstairs did consequently end peoples careers in old Leipzig.
The argument is that the raising ground temperatures are diesel- pumped up by vertical convections
Wherefore those vertical convections are so popular and repeats coming back again in the climate dispute. It is denialist pensa coined by from Hans Jelbring and Zeller Nicolov.
But who drives that diesel pump comressor and cooler or Lindes heating and chilling and condensing machine in the climates?
So I took an adiabatic lighter with me from school. That compresses air 18-20 times by a fast slam on the knob. High enough to ignite “Tinder” or even loose cotton or paper fibers. Slam it fast, an it lightens, . showing adiabatic diesel ignition.
But compress the same slowly,….. that does not ignite at all, allthough pressure is the same. So pressure alone cannot do it.
What is the difference?
The difference is that of near- adiabatic and near-isoterm compression. Orderly educated and experienced engineers know that a diesel must be curbed up,fast enough in order to “ignite by compression”.. And Venus is old enough now to have become rather iso- term on its surface.
Something else must be heating it up different from steady “Pressure- smile smile…!” and vertical convectional diesling and pumping.
It is also silly engineering.unaquainted to desktop experiments and their true, physical explainations by valid choise of physical theories. And do not Hide the Decline,.. donot hide the heat leaks by too slow compression.
Permit me to take provincial theoretical astrophysics a bit further. as a warning example.
I showed Mr Solheim a grid spectroscope with adjustable slit in order to discuss for him and the audience the difference between thermal spectra from candles and incadescent lamps in the pizza tavern meeting, , and the spectra of modern fluorescent lamps that give dis- continuous molecular spectra.
That also are a premise for the eartly greenhouse effects.
And had a CD- disc also at hand to show it. Huyghens` grid spectroscopy.
Solheim looked minutely trough the disk and said “Yes, I see it, smile smile…” unaware that the CD disk is a reflection grid with paper on the opposite side and not a transmission grid. Lacking highscool of experimental
lab physics that shows and explains this. It is further basic astronomical instrumentation physics.. . ( First invented by Fraunhofer).
Warning conclusion.
I found another concerned scientist emeritus in the surrealist camp, systematically lacking even orderly legal highschool in several details, thus rather a typical example of Highschool and Diploma and professorship career cheating on the Privileged Party Quote. Party with P., the grand old one. Selling Hans Jelbrings Zeller Nicolovs and Heinz Thiemes convincing adiabatic vertical convection diesel pumping theory of climate and lapserate and CO2- less global warming, smile smile.
@ Dr Schmidt,
A re- cycled Diesel recommended by my son took me some time because I am grown up with low compression gasoline and sparkplugs.
But, Now I tackle the diesel after all, and it is obviously superiour as intended by Rudolf Diesel, it is Sciendceànswer to the problem.
. Solheim once knocked me down in anger with a diesel… for mentioning that of necessary dis- continuous molecular spectra different from continuous plancspectra, in front of the audience. adiabatic compression . that shall rule scientificfally for the climates on the planets in the solar system, rule out CO2 and save Big Coal. (=Zeller Nicolov)
But, after having slowly understood it, I see that I learnt it all in public school allready.
On practical adiabatic convection and compression:
You crank it up on the camshaft by open top valves to high and fast tours, the crankshaft then turns twice as fast with an especially heavy flywheel on it Then tilt over a small handle on the top, the air inlet valve lifter…………. ………..
“dumdumdumdumdumdumdum..” it says, quite consequently each time. A wonderful sound.
And need no start battery. Cunningly driven by finest fuel also, ,it hardly smokes and drinks anymore.
Surrealism in the climate on the other hand can give anyone troubble in life or when it really matters, such as on high sea when you have flat battey and have to crank a cold diesel by hand.
in Re to
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2023/12/unforced-variations-dec-2023/#comment-816899
Dear Carbomontanus,
Thank you very much for your kind words.
I am afraid, however, that you overestimated both my knowledge and intelect when you supposed that I am smart enough to grasp your point in the present post.
I looked on one article published by Zeller and Nicolov
https://tallbloke.files.wordpress.com/2022/11/ecs_universal_equations2.pdf
and the single conclusion that I was able to do was that they appear to assert that the only parameter relevant for mean surface temperature of planetary bodies with respect to their atmosphere is the surface atmospheric pressure.
It is my understanding that if so, their hypothesis would have disproved any relevance of both the greenhouse effect of non-condensing greenhouse gases, as well as of the water cycle intensity / latent heat flux size.
I noted an analysis of their article
https://climatechangediscussion.quora.com/Did-Nikolov-and-Zeller-prove-that-atmospheres-warm-planets-only-through-pressure-and-not-as-a-result-of-greenhouse-gases
I suppose there was also further highly qualified criticism revealing in more detail where they made a mistake (or mistakes).
Anyway, it appears quite obvious that their hypothesis had nothing to do with water cycle and its role in Earth climate regulation. In this respect, I really do not understand why you mentioned it at all.
Greetings
Tomáš
@ Thomas Kalisz
The better critics of Zeller Nicolov is given by Roy Spencer “Giving credit to Willis Eschenbach for setting the Zeller Nicolov silliness straight”
Found also at WUWT.
I was first of all discussing the lapserate and its causes d/o ,
The troposphere being heated from the bottom and cooled from the top by an extreemly low temperature,gaseous “isoterm- layer”. that must be understood as the primary physcal premise for any climate at all between heaven and earth and further round about all the way.
As you state it and steadily asks for it, you are trying to resolve the clilling water cycle and the climate from the wrong end discussing anything but a convectional cycle. especially that of water, by consequently hiding the declines all the way,hiding half of it.
There has been situations with less greenhouse gases in the air, called “snowball earth” with extreemly blue sky and brilliant sunshine all the days , and the very climate fallen down on earth.
It has partially fallen down in our days also, in inland Antarktis 3000 m high up with steady 70-80 celsius. minus. . There the CO2 cools the situation further draining all remaining summer warmth radiating it right to the heavens. because there hardly is any more remaining H2O vapours and clouds in the air. to warm them.
in Re to
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2023/12/unforced-variations-dec-2023/#comment-816961
Dear Carbomontanus,
Thank you for your reply. Honestly, I am still not completely sure what you mean by the “hidden half” of the water cycle that I perhaps still ignore.
I think that the chilling rain that you often mention is properly included n latent heat fluxes counted in global energy balances we are discussing. A flow of cold water downwards is the same as the flow of water vapour upwards, and the one cannot exist from the other one.
Or have you mean something completely different?
Greetings
Tomáš
Yes, Hr Kalisz,
If you have forgotten anything. You forgot what I wrote right above. “in Antarktis at night… with no more H2O water- cyclings in the air to warm them! There they set Guinness world records of chill at Vostok polar station.
Some peoples arguments are severely political and provincial you see. They sell Las Vegas and Death Walley and Southern California and their needs for more coolwater from Lake Mead on their luxury lawns and swimmingpools in the deserts.
Why do you not sell Moravia and Brno instead? I have suggested High Tatra for you to have a more vertical wiew, allthough that is Slovakia. But how often havent I mentioned uphill and downhill in Praha?
At the South Pole the winter temperature is around -80 ºC and as there is essential no water vapor the temperature is only held so high above the -160 ºC temperature that prevails in the nighttime on the moon is the atmospheric carbon dioxide. CO2 warms the surface, not cools.
No Mr.Benson
It is shownthat CO2 is actually cooling inland antarktis in the winters. The CO2 absorption spectral bands have become emission bands, as seen from above.
The negative GHE over Antarctica is seasonal not so widespread (as per fig 1 of Sejas et al (2018) ‘Unmasking the negative greenhouse effect over the Antarctic Plateau’) and specific to the South Pole, the GHE is positive through the coldest months (Jul, Aug, Sept) although not strongly so.
I’ve noticed the following on parts of the whole:
for a column of air over a permanently ice covered area, various unique conditions are arising. This climate type is dominated by a radiative-advective equilibrium condition.
The air aloft is generally optically thin, which diminishes its ability to emit radiation; As a consequence, the efficiency of atmospheric cooling is reduced.
Heat transported (imported) must be balanced by radiative cooling. This is always the case in colder places – including poleward, upwards, and also at night anywhere. That is a steady state constraint.
In icy regions the surface is quite free to radiate using its continuous spectra, using the optically thin atmosphere above. The consequence is the observed stable stratification and persistent temperature inversion there.
Limited radiative cooling aloft, while the surface radiates and cools freely in polar-style steady state inversion profile.
That is unique, considering making holes and revealing open water pins Ts to freezing at minimum; then the strong inversion is suddenly eliminated by 10s of degrees. That looks like a positive lapse rate feedback until the sea-ice is missing – and then no more.
The same can’t be said at the land-ice-pole. There the positive lapse rate effect cannot exist and Ts is never pinned to freezing at minimum.
Zooming out, the globe is usually considered in terms of a radiative-convective mode.
The atmosphere becomes comparatively optically thick with less difficulty cooling radiatively. The surface climates have a corresponding shift away from a radiation dominant regime to one of turbulent flux. The radiative connections in the sky, at night, and poleward become increasingly remote in space and time. That is whole-istic.
‘adiabatic vertical convection diesel pumping theory of climate”
No, this is a bogus guild-association tactic and should be disregarded as deceitful rhetoric. sham arts.
No, hr JCM.
It is the Zeller Nicolov, Hans Jelbring Dipl.Ing Heinz Thieme (technischer assessorupstairs in old Leipzig) and PSI- Scientific International paradigmatic discovery “along with the 2nd law” and “The Gas- Laws!…. The laws of Nature!” that IPCC has forgotten.
That paradigmatic Patent with P claims higher ground temperatures on the planetary surfaces by adiabatic compression of their respective atmosphere and no radiative greenhouse gas theories or models needed. QED!
@ Thomas Kalisz & al
I do not know how to adress it in red. So you must google Roy Spencer and find his website.
On that website a tiny white field for further searching and there you tip and enter Eschenbach.
Then it comes up. Zeller Nicolovs argument is simply against the conservation of energy, the 1.st law since the stefan bolzmann theory temperature of the eartyh is quite much higher than what can be thermally radiated from the sun given BIG BANG as the background environment and heat sink. Thus something must be radiating down in addition to the solar light. And that is the fameous “Back- Radiation” that Spencer has also discussed contra surrealism. .
Convectional “Latent” heat also going out, does make the Zeller Nicolov argument even worse / sillier.
I repeat… sillier.
Along with Roy Spencer.
I extra referre to WUWT and Roy Spencer because they are favourite GURUs for a lot of denialists- surrealists. Who obviously have dangerous betrayal and lack of dicipline in their own congregational closed camp.
140 mW/m**2 Estimated from pictorial average geothermal heating power flux under Thwaites Glacier (ref 1)
27 GW Geothermal heating power under Thwaites Glacier 192,000 km**2
800 GW Ocean water ice melting power under Thwaites Glacier East Ice Shelf (TEIS) and Central Tongue each ~42 km wide (ref 2)
2.6 Gt / year ice would be melted by ALL geothermal under Thwaites Glacier if all base area temperature >273K
96 Gt / year snow fall on Thwaites Glacier approx. using 500 mm / year w.e. (ref 3)
150 Gt / year Approximate ice & water discharge of Thwaites Glacier along its ~150 km front
ref 1: High geothermal heat flow beneath Thwaites Glacier in West Antarctica inferred from aeromagnetic data
Ricarda Dziadek, Fausto Ferraccioli & Karsten Gohl
Published: 18 August 2021 Communications Earth & Environment volume 2, Article number: 162 (2021)
ref 2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uBbgWsR4-aw at 10:48
ref 3: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_of_Antarctica
Barry E Finch 7 DEC 2023 AT 8:55 PM
2,550 mW/m**2 Earth’s energy budget imbalance (EEI) power flux going into ocean in 2023
THE ENTIRE OCEAN
140 mW/m**2 Average geothermal heating power flux under Thwaites Glacier VOLCANIC HOT SPOT
2,200 Gt / year snow fall on Antarctica
2,350 Gt / year ice & water discharge of Antarctica
2.6 Gt / year ice melted by ALL geothermal under Thwaites Glacier (1.35% of Antarctica) assuming >273K base throughout
193 Gt / year ice would be melted by ALL geothermal under Antarctica if it was all VOLCANIC HOT SPOT and assuming >273K base throughout
From November:
Ray Ladbury: “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.”
That’s quite a step to admit that, Ray. I appreciate you saying so.
It’s too bad nobody listened about the sensitivity… unless any of my communications to Hansen helped nudge him. Doubtful, but it would ease my mind a bit if it were so.
The old adage “A colder thing cannot heat warmer thing”, supposedly 2nd Law entropy quick explanation, is only correct when colder & warmer things are in the same state solid, liquid or gas. Thermometer doesn’t measure latent heat. Atlantic Ocean surface waters at 27 degrees can heat Sahara Desert far above 27 degrees by not just transferring its sensible heat but also the latent heat of H2O evaporation that greatly cools its water surface below what it would be for a solid surface in the tropics so must heat surfaces elsewhere (1st Law) or go to space via IR gas & cloud radiation in whatever proportions. I haven’t bought any text books, let alone read any, and Kevin Trenberth only said in passing 11 years ago the obvious that Sahara Desert is in negative energy balance (it’s too hot for the sunshine it absorbs, it very shiny, it gets heat imported.(Hadley Cell) but Kevin only said it in passing in his oceans talk (side note) so no detail as to the proportion of H2O liquid-gas-liquid latent heat is dumped at Sahara Desert. Might be tricky to cool a surface in the persistent-high-pressure Hadley Cell descending-air latitudes by wetting the ground to have evaporation and its latent heat fight the Hadley Cell by ascending and going back to the ITCZ and descending there.
There’s even more nuances re. colder things and warmer things. For example, a colder thing can make a warmer thing warmer than it would have been simply by its nearby presence. That is the essence of the old “three plate problem” in thermodynamics (i.e, (a) If you have a heated plate radiating at temp X and a nearby unheated plate what is the temp of the nearby plate? (b) If you introduce another plate between the two, the heated plate warms to X + some value and the other plate cools. Why or why not?) Hint: Yes, the heated plate warms further and the other plate cools. The middle plate essentially acts as insulation. The math takes a bit of skull sweat to work out but it’s easy enough now after a century and a half of work on such things.
You wouldn’t BELIEVE the number of students who flat out refuse to believe this based upon “knowing” a colder thing cannot warm a hotter thing without actually learning and internalizing the underlying theory and math. Pretty sure much of our denial crew here doesn’t even now.
jgnfld
This is an ongoing problem, perhaps even characterizing or betraying denialism and surrealism as such..
They never learnt about chemical reactions that go like A+B AB going both ways.
A + B becomes AB. but at the same time AB dissolves and diffuses back to A+ B
What rules then at balance is that [A] * [B] / [AB] = K. ,according to the law of mass action, Where K is further dependent of temperature.
All in all, all such reactions go both ways at the same time on the same path or road, without colloding and interfering , think of it in terms af an ant- road of particles with traffic going both ways at the same time without any troubble.
Thermal processes are of that same nature going both ways in the same field or room or chemical glass. only at higher and lower conscentrated mass- action.
The consequense of this is that anything in the universe heats up anything else at lightspeed in empty space. Such as the background radiation of 3K all around heats up the antennas by which we detect that background radiation at 3 K by antennas ar roomtemperature 300K, … heat up those antennas even a tiny little bit from what they else would have been.
The earth in its way reflects back a tiny mit of all solar light going out and heats up the sun still a little bit so that it shines even stronger than it would have done with the earth not being there in its way.
And this is not crazy ridiculous. On the contrary it is elementary reality and physics and easy to show in desktop experiments also. The “backi radiation” that heats up the hottest point or side still a little bit so that it is even a bit hotter and radiates even a bit stronger than it else would have done.
What, only decides the transfer or mooving of heat is the conductivity of the field, and not the temperature gradient at all unless temperature changes the material conductivity of the fielt in which heat is conducted.
What, is deeply mis- consceived is the militant Idea of a heat- wave being a conjugated military army front or a bulldozer linked up hand in hand shoulder by sholder- pushing and showeling the weaker heat back again and off the battlefield.
It superposes of course. The stronger light or radiowave does not showel and push back again the weaker light or radiosignal. It travels both ways and superposes, of course.
As also with sound. The stronger sound does not anihilate the weaker sound, it adds and superposes of course and makes it even noisier..
It takes denialism and surrealism to think furter in terms of closed conjugated heat armies lined up and showel bulldozers pushing the weaker heats and lights back on the battlefields of heat and light and waves. and patrticles. .
That fameous old delusion or supersticion is against the 1.st law allread and must re- educate..
Yes, the Earth does in fact warm the surface of the Sun a bit. (Try telling THAT truism to our denial crew here!)
That said, have you EVER tried to teach this fact to students or some member of the public who “absolutely knows” cold things cannot warm hot things? Many follow the math and verify through observation in lab. Many others simply refuse to believe what’s happening right in front of their faces because it flies in the face of their “knowledge”. I worked in a math/science lab once and saw many of crew #2.
Maybe a good ‘common sense’ example is that of clothes keeping a person warm. Would that get through to more people?
Carbo.
I have thought much the same.
.We discussed this on another website (skepticalscience.com) a year ago. because the denialists claim the greenhouse effect conflicts with thermodynamics law Which it doesn’t.
The thermodynamics law says energy can only flow from hot to cold and not cold to hot. I immediately wondered about two objects in a room at different temperatures that will radiate heat. I thought surely the heat radiated by the colder object towards the warmer object must be absorbed by the warmer object? It cant just bounce off can it?
And presumably the warmer object radiates a bit more energy to the colder object so there is no net heat gain in the warmer object. So the thermodynamic law presumably really means there can be no net heat gain moving from cold to hot.
And the thermodynamics law is a simplification that is talking about two objects in direct contact conducting energy one to the other. Clearly energy would move from the warmer to cooler object.
I may have it all wrong. I don’t have a physics or chemistry degree. Would welcome clarification from experts.. I’m still not 100% clear on the issue. Such lack of certainty irritates me.
in Re to
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2023/12/unforced-variations-dec-2023/#comment-817027
Dear Nigel,
I am curious which law(s) of thermodynamics were mentioned with respect to Earth and energy flows therein.
As far as I know, the laws of classical equilibrium thermodynamics apply in closed systems only, which is not the case of Earth.
Greetings
Tomáš
Yes, there are fluxes going both ways, and the net flux (radiant heat, and I believe for conduction and sensible heat convection; setting aside any relativistic effects that may make hot things look cold when they are near a black hole moving away from you as the space between expands etc.**) is from higher to colder temperature.
Entropy cannot be destroyed, only conserved at best or otherwise created (except for statistical fluctuations that tend to only become significant when the number of particles is small – eg. if there are only 2 molecules in a box, you’ve got a reasonable chance of finding them in the same half) – but it can be removed (by escape of heat). For a sensible or radiant heat flux (energy), entropy = energy / temperature. Solar radiation reaching the Earth has about the same temperature as the ‘surface’ from which it was emitted**; brightness temperature is conserved by refraction (the Planck function is dependent on (real part of) refractive index n, but is generally stated assuming Re(n)=1) and specular reflection, but not scattering. When absorbed at lower temperature material, entropy is gained. OLR has a lower temperature and carries additional entropy away.
Entropy also depends on the arrangement of material as well as the distribution of energy, and when processes are coupled, or the same process has multiple aspects, entropy may be reduced in one way while increased in another (eg. when two fluxes of radiation are considered separately). Hence, evaporative cooling and the wet-bulb temperature.
** It occurred to me that unless there is an extension to energy conservation that is an energy-space conservation, a perpetual motion machine could be made by reflection gravitational (not gravity) waves in a chamber with a beam of light changing direction via a mirror, synchronized to the gravitational (not gravity) waves – but how does one reflect such waves? Would perhaps work inside a black hole? Idk.
** You may often hear that it takes some many thousands or a million? Years for radiation generated in the Sun’s core to reach the ‘surface’ (photosphere) and then escape. But photons must be emitted from the ‘surface’ too (the gas is not completely ionized there***). The energies of photons adjust to the (plasma) material temperature via inelastic scattering, but you need a larger number of photons to nearly balance the energy of those highly energetic ones fresh from nuclear fusion … + whatever I haven’t accounted for because I’m no expert on fusion.
(***which is why I don’t think plasma is a phase. There is no phase transition from neutral gas to plasma; they can share a volume. It’s more like a chemical reaction.)
“Yes, the Earth does in fact warm the surface of the Sun a bit.” I tried to explain this once to a denier. This guy not only thought the GHE violated the 2nd law, he thought it violated the 1st! He accused me of having delusions of grandeur just for applying algebra to a physics formula (How dare I make use of a formula! I should have realized you are only supposed to look at and memorize them!)
** It occurred to me that unless there is an extension to energy conservation that is an energy-space conservation, a perpetual motion machine … no, of course the gravitational waves have energy and (?) presumably are doing work on the photons in this scenario(?)… what that means for cosmological redshift, idk.
patrick o twentyseven. Thank’s very much.
————————————
Tomas Kalisz
https://skepticalscience.com/Second-law-of-thermodynamics-greenhouse-theory.htm
Conduction heat transfer is based on energy transfer on the molecular level. It can be shown using conservation laws that, in an elastic collision, molecules with greater kinetic energy (the warmer object) will transfer energy to molecules of lower kinetic energy (the cooler object). This results in the hot-to-cold energy process.
Radiation heat transfer is a result of a completely different mechanism. Thermal radiation is part of the electromagnetic spectrum and follows different rules than does conduction. The net heat flow is still hot-to-cold. However, thermal radiation generated by the warmer object does not prevent radiation from the cooler object. Hence some amount of cold-to-hot heat flow can occur.
re Jonathan David – actually, since at LTE (or “LEDNLIE” (my own acronym) – Local Equilibrium Distribution of Non-Latent Internal Energy), molecules/etc. have a predictable energy distribution at a given temperature, I think energy is diffusing in both directions even in the case of conduction; heat flow by conduction is also a net flow of internal energy. Convection should also generally involve fluxes in both directions (unless some of the material is at 0 K, etc.)
re Tomáš Kalisz – large parts of the Earth are not in thermodynamic equilibrium; sufficiently small volumes – which can be approximated as isothermal, yet large enough to have statistically significant populations of particles, generally are, at least approximately in thermodynamic equilibrium, at least for non-latent internal energy distribution, ie most of the mass of the atmosphere and the rest of the Earth are ≈ at LEDNLIE …
(phase disequilibria, as well as chemical and nuclear disequilibrium states, and disequilibrium compositional gradients, often persist because of kinetic barriers
(martensite vs cementite vs graphite (ask a metallurgist),
cocoa butter (ask a chocolatier),
Kohler curve (cloud droplet formation),
Bergeron process (ice crystals and supercooled cloud droplets),
rapakivi texture in granite…,
coexistence of CH4 and O2 in the atmosphere,
coexistence of CO2 and Ca-silicate rocks,
coexistence of feldspathoids and quarts in sediments (?) – I’m guessing it could happen… ,
U-238, C-14, and other radioactive isotopes)
– but this often does not stop attainment of LEDNLIE, at least approximately),
and this means in particular that emission and absorption of thermal radiation will follow Planck’s law and Kirchoff’s law and absorptivity (from) = emissivity (toward) for a given location, time, direction, frequency, and if necessary, polarization (except … optical isolators?)
–
and so radiative fluxes, and convection and even conduction, and even evaporation, etc., tend to follow the familiar laws (zoom in on a cloud and you’ll see H2O vapor diffusing downgradient from supercooled cloud droplets to neighboring ice crystals, as one would expect).
and quarts in sediments
Quarts of what? a quart of quartz…
Oops!
Side note I forgot: Kevin Trenberth 11 years ago said he was unclear why SFU asked him to talk about the role of oceans since he’s an atmospheric physicist, and said oceanographers don’t like him saying it but “the most important thing about the oceans is that they’re wet”. He also grumbled about not having actually said he’d a lost a whole bunch of heat in the oceans. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SQOIHdlZngk I just now see it has my comment 10 years ago grumbling that scientists should be showing Earth’s energy budget imbalance (EEI) anomaly to the Public to explain the “greenhouse effect” in Earth’s troposphere and global warming and throwing in the GMST anomaly as a consequence afterthought (rather than doing it arse backwards and starting with GMST then adding rubbish about “the heat went into the ocean instead”). Only response I got on Skeptical Science (SKS) was a Straw Man bloke saying it wasn’t appropriate because a planet with no ocean can have a “greenhouse effect”. Sure explain Mars to the Public and pretend it’s Earth, help out Clowns like a “Guy McPherson” “of as little as 20% could cause a warming of as much as 1 degree, I’m talking in days or weeks”. Load of Clowns for 11 years now (I digressed from Kevin’s dry ocean humour, mean ocean dry humour).
I had no motor vehicle November 1996 to September 2004 when I needed one for work. I went ~77,000 km 1996-2004, almost all for fun. 2004-2017 I drove ~35,000 km for work and bicycled ~105,000 km 29 kph for trips <200 km and 24 kph for trips up to 316 km. Got too old in 2017 really collapsed. I've collided with 5 cars, one cement mixer truck & one boat trailer hit me in the back. I did 100 kph rolling down hill once. I could reach 66 kph sometimes until I turned 59 and my hair went grey in 2005. I went 220 to 316 km every Sunday for 30 weeks March 12 1999. Glory days
Adam Lea.
Regarding your passionate comments about your efforts to reduce your carbon footprint through lifestyle changes of cycling and growing food,etc,etc, and the problems you have encountered along the way, and the things you have continued doing and those you have stopped doing. I admire your efforts, and you get no criticism from me.
I have been down a similar road (excuse the pun). For example I don’t fly unless its a family emergency. I choose to drive a small car. However nothing will get me cycling everywhere at my age over 50, in our horrendous traffic and lunatic car drivers.
However most people have clearly made no efforts at these sorts of lifestyle changes, or they make only token efforts, even after 20 years of being asked to make changes, and despite growing climate impacts. Presumably because they find such things misery inducing and we have to respect that. I wont do things that are misery inducing either. One look at data on energy consumption and eating habits proves all this. Its hard to see why this would change in significant ways.
And the mass failure of people to significantly reduce their carbon footprints in those ways is why I’m dismissive of plans that we could solve the climate problem primarily by ambitious ‘simplification’ plans, and massive de-growth plans, and massive 90% cuts to energy consumption.
I just observe the evidence about peoples behaviour and the things that are actually changing significantly. .Isnt science about firstly observing the evidence? I don’t know what the de-growth people do. They seem completely out of touch with what the vast majority of people in developed countries are doing and are prepared to do. So while lifestyle changes of these sorts are helpful and a passionate minority are making significant changes, it seems unlikely they will scale up to be a big part of the mitigation of the climate problem.
Of course we will get some serious simplification and degrowth eventually, as a natural process as demographics change and certain materials become scarce, but that will be too late to help the climate problem.
Energy substitution plans such as renewable energy and electric transport have started to gain some significant traction. The data shows this. This seems like our only hope despite its imperfections.
Nigelj: I think along the same lines as you. I want to believe that we will address unsustainable living and climate change over the coming decades but in order to believe that I need to see evidence it is happening on a large scale, which I don’t see at the moment and it does induce some feelings of despair.
One of the fundamental problems as I see it is that the carbon intensive and unsustainable choices are the easiest, most comfortable and often cheapest. Using a bicycle instead of a car for transport involves exposure to poor weather and increased risk from motor vehicles although it can save money. Growing your own food on an allotment requires massively more time and effort than a ten minute walk to the local supermarket to buy it. I am staying with family over Christmas, close to a 500 mile round trip. It costs around £65 for the petrol to drive, this year the train ticket costs £117 (and last year I lost £80 because I bought a cheaper but non=refundable rail ticket and the trains on part of my route were not running due to severe weather a few days before, so I ended up driving), and of course there is the personal cost of reduced freedom of mobility through using a bicycle and puiblic transport instead of a car. If you are going to get punished in one way or the other for making more responsible choices then how can we expect people to make those choices in large enough numbers to make any difference? This is where we need an overhall of the whole system but how do we do that?
Adam Lea.
How do we get system change? Probably mostly very slowly because turning around complex societies is often like turning around a huge ship.
Or quickly if forced on us by dire circumstances in the immediate present, like has lead to various revolutions or the response to covid. This lead to rapid and temporary system change. Making it permanent is altogether much more challenging.
There are sometimes things governments can do by setting rules, having incentives or changing their operations. And we can lobby governments. Consumer pressure can clearly influence businesses.
One example. Many of our cities are designed around the car rather than bicycles. The main solution has been to create dedicated cycle lanes on existing streets. In New Zealand some local governmnets have created cycle lanes, due to public pressure. But its proven to be enormously problematic, because the car lobby fight back, many people have to use a car for work because of the distances involved, and cyclists often dont take much advantage of cycle lanes, leading to accusations that it was a waste of time which reduces motivation for further schemes.
Another example is is our reliance on industrial agriculture. We can obviously lobby people to consider alternatives, and in New Zealand a significant number of farmers are going some way to adopting regenerative agriculture due to having a better understanding of things and consumer pressure, with some importers requiring foods to meet certain standards.However regenerative agriculture, and home grown food, is not a panacea. There are downsides. Sri Lanka government mandated that farmers use organic farming, and it caused a catastophic drop in production and serious food shortages.
The common factor in these examples looks like the solutions sound great and have some value, but turn out to be problematic, have unintended consequnces, or they need to be implimented slowly so that there are not abrupt shocks and drops in production.
IMO we just dont have a convincing blue print for a realistic sustainable society. Although Im pretty sure it will include some things like zero carbon energy, extensive recycling and more soil friendly agriculture and smaller homes. Im pretty sure it wont include going completely without cars, and abandoning private ownership and adopting some form of socialism version 2.0, despite capitalisms obvious problems.
Grand master plans for entirely new or radically changed socio economic systems frequently backfire and people have grown suspicious of them. New ideas and changes are still required but need careful consideration of possible downsides. IMHO it will be either a sustainable society that is a practical, workable compromise, or it will be business as usual.
Nigelj:
You are right about the car lobby, very applicable to the UK where expansion of Ultra Low Emission Zones and 20 mph limits have been fiercely opposed, because everyone agrees that reducing pollution, congestion and deaths/serious injuries is a good thing unless it imposes any restriction on their driving at all. You are right that we can’t eliminate cars completely because even if everyone were to adapt their lifestyles to be able to live their lives using public transport or their leg muscles, there will always be a significant subset that cannot walk or cycle any great distance and would suffer severe restriction on mobility without a car.
You mention about cyclists not using cycle lanes much. That is because they are awful (both for inconvenience and safety) unless you are prepared to go at a maximum speed of 10 mph and are prepared to give way to every side road and private driveway, and don’t mind the facility disappearing as soon as it gets to a moderately complex junction. Cycle facilities exist so the local authority can tick a box, they are designed by people who haven’t ridden a bike since they were at primary school. When I cycle too and from my local railway station, I can reach 25 mph easily in places. Such speeds on a bicycle should only be done on the road. There is no way I am going to double the length of time of my journey and use the parallel cycle lane on the pavement which gives way to all the side roads and is populated by pedestrians with poor spatial awareness.
Ultimately we have a choice, transition our lives to use sustainable methods or carry on as normal and have it forced on us by natural limits. History shows that societies that took the latter path didn’t fare well.
Hi Guys, you are really just dancing around the problems. Passenger / car transport? Possibly 5% of total energy use if that.
If the whole world tomorrow went to 100% bicycles, EV public transport, electric trains, and EV cars and trucks this would not put a dint in Fossil Fuel use globally. It would be a small blip like Covid and then would continue to grow again.
What about all the Aviation and Bunker fuels for shipping? No alternative yet. Nothing is changing here.
Now Industrial level heat, including the 2000C they need to make Silicon Solar Panels, is near 20% of total energy use. Almost ALL of it is fossil fuel sources.
Then there’s all the energy needed for the four essential pillars of modern civilization which are:- steel, cement, plastics and ammonia…. for Fertilizers etc, (as per Vaclav Smil and others) None of these are possible (economically possible) without using fossil energy…. without Coal Oil or Gas ,,, only a few experimental alternatives unproven at scale.
There are some “industrial” uses that could be taken up by High Temp Nuclear Reactors but again the scale is not yet there to achieve a switch and all the RE proponents scream blue murder over the “dangers” of Nuclear energy ….. which is more than extreme is just totally irrational and unscientific – China is at least trying to rapidly develop these possibilities with Nuclear – including residential heating, hydrogen production from water, and some industrial applications beyond reliable Electricity production.
What about all the massive exponential increases in Electricity consumption for services and IT Cloud computing, social media, phones, apps, computers, Google and AI applications?
But this is where we are. Stuck. Going no where fast except over the proverbial Cliff.
I repeat what I said to Nigel (?) we have NO choices open to us to transition our lives to use sustainable methods. None that will make a difference even if we all did them.
WE have no power over those who make the major decisions – the Choices – of how our societies currently operate. None at all. Voting makes no difference and never will.
The only real solution involves massive economic de-growth and de-industrialization and the end to self-indulgent over-Consumption in the west – but that is not going to happen either.
So we’re stuck. The writing is on the wall and it’s going to get ugly. Unless your mega-rich. Even for them eventually there’s the issue of finding food and clean water and medical care.
Happy New Year
NK: Passenger / car transport? Possibly 5% of total energy use if that.
BPL: All transportation, US: 29% of emissions,
“Houston, we have a Data problem!”
Dear Barton Paul Levenson 28 Dec 2023 at 5:35 AM,
Emissions are not Energy use
The USA is not the World.
I assume reference links to quoted data/facts are not important to you Barton. I will follow your lead there.
Globally Total Transportation CO2 emissions are ~20% or less, not 29%, so some say.
Shares of final world transport energy use? – Private passenger vehicles historically ~46% of the total transportation.
Passenger or personal mobility-related fuel consumption
accounted for 61% of total world transportation energy
consumption in 2012.
Is it 46% or 61% of total transport energy Barton?
Is it 5%, or 10% or 15% of total global energy consumption Barton?
Is it ~10% of total global emissions Barton, or something else?
We can play stats all day at 20 paces and still get no where.
Does Passenger include airlines and trains and buses or only private cars and taxis?
Does it include Light vehicles like delivery vans and mini buses for nursing homes?
What are these number for 2022?
What was the world energy consumption in 2012 or 2022 in quadrillion Btu – any idea?
Or should we use Gtoe instead?
Whose numbers / data are the correct ones – Irena, IEA, EIA, UN, BP, IPCC, COP28, Hansen et al, or Barton Paul Levenson’s Pot Luck search results?
2022 Energy Consumption by Fuel – Global (14.4 Gtoe) Fraction
Fossil Fuels 81.8% of the Total consumption. Renewables barely 7.5% after 30 years of Trillions USD invested in development, government subsidies and tax breaks.
Natural Gas did much better in it’s first 30 years of life without any such Govt subsidies.
http://www.columbia.edu/~mhs119/EnergyConsump/EConsump_Globe+Top20.pdf
Figure 8-2. World transportation sector delivered
energy consumption by energy source, 2010–40
(quadrillion Btu) page 127 …. see Graph bottom right
https://www.eia.gov/outlooks/ieo/pdf/transportation.pdf
– is that good enough for your standards? Prove it is correct then. :-)
Then tell us how much is the light/passenger vehicle share was each year?
Come on don’t just throw one single number from one country at the wall and hope it sticks. Prove it is correct Barton. Man up. Go fishing. And see if you can discover where the 5% number comes from. And then tell me if it is true, or 10% is true, or 12% or 29%.
While you’re at it, continue to totally ignore all the references, all the known facts and the entire context involved and the several points being made which are far more important than 5%, or 10% or 29% of a melting McDonalds ice cream cake.
How do “we” decide whose source data numbers (and UNITS) are acceptable for both of us, and provide the Data Format in a way easily understood and comparable across domains, and time and space, Barton? :-)
Moving along now ….. Happy New Year.
PS I forgot one highlight:
Emissions are not Energy use
The USA is not the World.
and
“Passenger/car transport” is not All Transportation Barton.
Ned said:
I think you’ll find the data say otherwise. Shipping can’t come close to taking up the slack from light transportation:
https://cen.acs.org/environment/greenhouse-gases/shipping-industry-looks-green-fuels/100/i8
“The shipping industry uses more than 300 million tons of fossil fuels every year, roughly 5% of global oil production,” says Camille Bourgeon, a specialist in air pollution and energy efficiency in the marine environment at the IMO. In 2018, global shipping activity emitted roughly 1.05 billion t of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, accounting for about 2.9% of the total global anthropogenic CO2 emissions for that year, according to the IMO’s 2020 greenhouse gas study.”
Kevin McKinney says
29 Dec 2023 at 3:28 PM
Ned said:
If the whole world tomorrow went to 100% bicycles, EV public transport, electric trains, and EV cars and trucks this would not put a dint in Fossil Fuel use globally.
Kevin said:
I think you’ll find the data say otherwise.
Aah but Keven the data says no such an <b<otherwise thing. Please point me to the Data which captures a whole world with “100% bicycles, EV public transport, electric trains, and EV cars and trucks”. There is no such Data, there is no such a world. imo, you’re possibly not being truthful nor cognitively aware. I’m not sure which.
In my view to see such a world one needs to posit it into hypothetical existence to observe and think about all the interconnected implications of such a world based on human and energy use history up to this point.
Need a hint? What do humans normally do Kevin …. there is no Data for such a world. Only theory. You have to conjure one up and ponder on it. Forget the Data. It’s irrelevant. Does not apply here. Because it does not exist. Only your mind exists.
So again – What would happen with fossil fuel use globally if such a world came into existence? It’s a toughie. Tell me the answer next year! If you can find one. (smile)
Happy New Year.
NK: Globally Total Transportation CO2 emissions are ~20% or less, not 29%, so some say.
BPL: That’s not 5%, is it? I was closer than you were.
NK: “Passenger/car transport” is not All Transportation Barton.
BPL: No kidding, really? And I didn’t even say it was.
BTW, progress is being made in electrifying buses, trucks, and railroads. So your statement is both wrong and irrelevant at the same time! Nice own goal.
Barton Paul Levenson says
30 Dec 2023 at 8:52 AM
NK: Globally Total Transportation CO2 emissions are ~20% or less, not 29%, so some say.
BPL: That’s not 5%, is it? I was closer than you were.
You’re such a funny man. Can’t help yourself?
I said 5% of global energy my ref is Berman ….. not for total transportation CO2 emissions in the USA, but energy for passenger cars only
Your 29% was for all Transport emissions in the United States. And I already showed you this was the case … My long comment was play with you …. and you still can’t see it. :-)
You can’t even tell when you have doubled down with 3 own goals.
My suggestion is give it up …. even I feel embarrassed for you now.
But hey, don’t let me stop you. Carry on, Doesn’t bother me one bit.
“The most difficult subjects can be explained to the most slow-witted man if he has not formed any idea of them already; but the simplest thing cannot be made clear to the most intelligent man if he is firmly persuaded that he knows already, without a shadow of doubt, what is laid before him.”
Leo Tolstoi
NK: I said 5% of global energy my ref is Berman ….. not for total transportation CO2 emissions in the USA, but energy for passenger cars only . . . Your 29% was for all Transport emissions in the United States. And I already showed you this was the case … My long comment was play with you …. and you still can’t see it. :-) . . . You can’t even tell when you have doubled down with 3 own goals.
BPL: My response was entirely to the point. You were saying that EVs could only account for 5% of emissions and therefore EVs were irrelevant. Your 5% figure, being based on passenger cars alone, ignored EVs in trucking and transportation, and electrification of railways, etc., etc. You cherry-picked passenger cars because it was a small number. There was no reason to isolate passenger cars from transportation or from electrification of transportation. You were being misleading and I called you on it. Deal with it, buster.
Ned said:
That’s “Kevin,” but at least it’s a detail that doesn’t matter.
“<b<otherwise"?
Why, the data you yourself provide, saying that transport is “~20%” of global emissions. If I reduce an object to 80% or 85% of its previous size, that’s one hell of a dent.
If you’re being “cognitively aware,” Ned, then presumably you know how subtraction works. (Pro tip: it doesn’t need to involve future data.)
Tomas Kalisz
Your comments up thread.
While I agree that renewables are not the perfect solution, they are at least a proven technical solution.
And while I agree that government subsidies for things like renewable energy (wind and solar power, I assume this is what you mean) are not the ideal approach because subsidies can get addictive, and governments tend to start to micromanage things, other options like carbon taxes are not politically popular. We have to have some way of speeding up the transition to renewables.
Your idea that the government restrict their subsidies for only new research into novel, innovative solutions has a number of glaring problems. 1) there is no guarantee such a thing exists. 2) It is unlikely there would be a magic bullet solution that is much better than renewables.3) We are fast running out of time for putting current solutions “on hold” and dreaming up something completely new.
in Re to
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2023/12/unforced-variations-dec-2023/#comment-817030
Dear Nigel,
I do not see any substantial problem in renewable energy sources. Oppositely, I believe that they are a suitable and feasible solution for fossil fuel replacement.
The major problem I see in current climate policies are attempts to enable this transition by an utterly non-economical “brute force” approach based on further subsidies for a business that is already profitable.
These policies strive to overcome decreasing profitability with increasing percentage of renewables in the overall energy mix, which is caused by their intermittency and necessity to build either a largely excessive “overcapacity” with commensurately low average utilization rate, or excessive “backup sources” with equally poor utilization rate.
This is in my opinion a totally false approach promoted by respective industrial lobbies and politicians linked thereto. The much more effective approach is commercialization of already available but yet unexploited technical solutions that may enable maximal utilization rate of new production facilities based on renewable energy sources.
This economically effective and therefore much more sustainable approach is effectively prevented and hampered by present climate policies, I am afraid.
Greetings
Tom
P.S.
The “sodium economy” is only one example of new inventive solutions that do indeed work but have very hard time to push through in present settings of a subsidy-based economy.
Tomas Kalisz
“The major problem I see in current climate policies are attempts to enable this transition by an utterly non-economical “brute force” approach based on further subsidies for a business that is already profitable.”
Yes and no. While renewables are profitable, and are being used to replace end of life and uneconomic coal plant, and so renewables do not need subsidies in that sense, we do need some way of speeding up the transition to renewables, so that newer coal plant gets replaced. If you don’t like subsidies for incentivising that, I assume you would endorse some other policy such as carbon taxes or cap and trade schemes? Or what?
“These policies strive to overcome decreasing profitability with increasing percentage of renewables in the overall energy mix, which is caused by their intermittency and necessity to build either a largely excessive “overcapacity” with commensurately low average utilization rate, or excessive “backup sources” with equally poor utilization rate.”
Given the renewables intermittency issue, something has to be done to counter this! It’s either going to be overbuilding the wind and solar resource, storage, or gas backup or some combination, all of which will be idle some of the time. Published peer reviewed research by Mark Z Jacobson leans towards predominantly an overbuild of the resource, and finds it is economic if done right. You should google his work.
“This is in my opinion a totally false approach promoted by respective industrial lobbies and politicians linked thereto. The much more effective approach is commercialization of already available but yet unexploited technical solutions that may enable maximal utilization rate of new production facilities based on renewable energy sources….The “sodium economy” is only one example of new inventive solutions that do indeed work but have very hard time to push through in present settings of a subsidy-based economy.”
I assume then you promote this sodium based storage rather than overbuilding the resource or relying on existing storage options like pumped hydro or lithium batteries. I do agree governmnets should provide support for a wide range of storage options including novel options, but as I previously stated, I seem to recall that sodium storage systems are hard to make stable due to the high reactivity of sodium. Surely the corporate sector would have considerd “the sodium economy”? Why do you think they have ignored it? Where is your evidence that it is significantly superior to the existing technologies? How long would it take to develop? (we dont have a lot of time)
In Re to
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2023/12/unforced-variations-dec-2023/#comment-817198
Dear Nigel,
Thank you very much for your feedback.
I appreciate analyses published by Mark Z. Jacobson. He, for example, shows very clearly that many measures actively pushed by governments, like DAC (direct air capture of CO2 from the atmosphere) are a total economical nonsense.
It is mostly due natural constraints that cannot be overcome by scale-up. market development, etc. Gold is expensive because it is rare and rather diluted in its natural ores. A good gold ore contains a few grams Au in a ton of rock – in other words, a few ppm. If we would like to extract carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, wherein it recently occurs in concentration about 400 ppm, we could roughly estimate that one ton of CO2 extracted from the air may have a comparable price as 1 kg gold. Even if gold may have a special price due its special properties and costs for extracting the ton of atmospheric CO2 could be in fact equivalent to the price of 10 g gold only, extracting 1 billion tons CO2 from the ambient air will be still worth of 10 000 t gold.
Taking this into account, policies promoting development of hydrocarbon “electrofuels” made from atmospheric CO2, to make automobiles equipped with internal combustion engines “green”, may be quite questionable. Nevertheless, automobile industry supports them.
In view of this example, do you still believe that industry is lead by people who actively seek for reasonable technical solutions? Personally, I am rather afraid that most of them will resist the idea of electricity storage in sodium until there are a few large sodium-fuelled power plants supplying in winter and/or in longer calm periods cheap electricity from huge sodium tanks filled during periods of cheap electricity oversupply.
Then everybody suddenly makes up his/her mind, and sodium power plants fuelled with cheap sodium imported from regions with abundant cheap electricity may emerge very quickly.
This is how I see the society and economy work.
Greetings
Tomáš
P.S.
With sodium as electricity storage medium, you can achieve a price for 1 kWh of storage capacity as low as a few USD / Euro.
Everything else what is available now has natural constraints that make it significantly more expensive. Present commercially available energy storage technology thus can hardly ever enable competitiveness of renewable energy sources with fossil fuels.
Tomáš Kalisz says
19 Dec 2023 at 5:21 AM
With sodium as electricity storage medium, you can achieve a price for 1 kWh of storage capacity as low as a few USD / Euro.
The question I’d recommend asking, if it;s such a great idea and is cheap and effective (as in works as needed) then why is it not already the preferred option and thousands of these already built and operating just in the USA, or China now?
China has just launched their first “sodium battery” EV btw. It’s being referred to as another version a LFP kind of battery ….. not as dynamic as lithium, but cheaper more stable reliable, less power etc.
I’m skeptical it turns out as great as the PR makes it sound like. People in the energy and electricity industries are not stupid. They’re rational.
Victor: – “As a scientist he should know that there is a lot more at stake than the profits of the oil industry and its allies.”
Yep. I have no doubts Stefan Rahmstorf does: It’s the collapse of human civilisation. See the Conclusions slide from his presentation from about time interval 1:06:09 (bold text my emphasis):
Conclusions
Global warming through fossil energy use and deforestation has been documented for decades and threatens the continuation of civilisation as we know it.
V: Well it seems as if we have two choices:
1. Cease burning fossil fuels to promote the continuation of civilisation as we know it.
2. Continue burning fossil fuels to preserve the continuation of civilisation as we know it.
Number 1 is based on assumptions about what MIGHT happen in the future. Number 2 is based on facts, rooted in present experience.
We don’t know what might happen to global temperatures if we cease burning fossil fuels. We DO know what WILL happen to the world economy if we cease burning fossil fuels.
I vote for number 2.
For those who may be wondering what Victor is on about, see my comments at:
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2023/12/unforced-variations-dec-2023/#comment-816913
I’ve noticed when responses to Victor’s comments are apparently too inconvenient for Victor’s ideological narrative then Victor usually responds by starting a new conversation thread away from the actual comment (NOT by replying directly below the actual comment). I think that’s deliberate – it makes it more difficult (for others) to keep track of the thread of discussion.
But what can one expect from a climate science denier, a regurgitator of climate myths and ignorer of reality?
Victor: – “Number 1 is based on assumptions about what MIGHT happen in the future. Number 2 is based on facts, rooted in present experience.”
Number 1 is based on observations.
The Earth’s Energy Imbalance (EEI) is at a record high level.
https://twitter.com/LeonSimons8/status/1732749203758022871
https://twitter.com/LeonSimons8/status/1732751332195406003
With an accelerating EEI, the Earth System warming rate will accelerate (at least +0.27 °C per decade) – see Figure 24:
https://academic.oup.com/view-large/figure/423296595/kgad008f24.tif
The Earth System will inevitably continue to warm while ever there is a net energy gain state. As the planet continues to warm more locations will become increasingly hotter and unlivable – see the gif animation showing the expanding areas of the globe (in purple) that would be considered no longer habitable (MATs ≥ 29 °C):
https://twitter.com/rahmstorf/status/1661450321766371329
Meanwhile, records keep being re-adjusted/updated:
* Highest global average atmospheric concentrations of CO₂, CH₄, NO₂;
https://gml.noaa.gov/ccgg/trends/global.html
https://gml.noaa.gov/ccgg/trends_ch4/
https://gml.noaa.gov/ccgg/trends_n2o/
* Total fossil CO₂ emissions, projected to reach 36.8 billon tonnes for full year-2023;
https://globalcarbonbudget.org/fossil-co2-emissions-at-record-high-in-2023/
* Highest global daily 2 m surface temperature anomaly (>2 °C, 17-18 Nov 2023);
https://climate.copernicus.eu/global-temperature-exceeds-2degc-above-pre-industrial-average-17-november
* Hottest year globally (2023 so far) & months (Jul, Aug, Sep, Oct, Nov, so far);
https://climate.copernicus.eu/record-warm-november-consolidates-2023-warmest-year
* Highest global daily average sea surface temperatures;
https://climatereanalyzer.org/clim/sst_daily/
* Lowest daily Antarctic sea ice extent (currently dipped again below the 2016 curve);
https://zacklabe.com/antarctic-sea-ice-extentconcentration/
Victor: – “We don’t know what might happen to global temperatures if we cease burning fossil fuels.”
Yep, “we” do. Even if we/humanity cease burning fossil fuels ASAP, there’s enough GHGs in the atmosphere now to drive the Earth System to overshoot the +1.5 °C global mean warming threshold, likely before 2030, and +2.0 °C global mean warming threshold, likely before 2050.
https://gml.noaa.gov/aggi/
https://twitter.com/EliotJacobson/status/1733629769915457578
The paleo-historical record provides an imperfect analogue of what has happened previously when GHGs were at similar levels.
https://academic.oup.com/view-large/figure/423296495/kgad008f6.tif
https://skepticalscience.com/print.php?n=2845
Victor: – “I vote for number 2.”
I’d suggest you are voting for civilisation collapse.
It’s sheer folly to assume one can predict future climate conditions based on current trends. This was precisely the error prompting so many to predict a coming ice age back in the 1970’s. While it’s true that CO2 levels continue to rise, they were rising at a similar rate from the 1940s through 70s, while temperatures were falling. A similar “hiatus” was evident during the first 15 years of the present century, while CO2 levels were soaring. The notion that we absolutely positively HAVE to cease burning fossil fuels based on the dire predictions of certain “experts” with an agenda wouldn’t be so dangerous if the fossil fuels in question weren’t such an integral part of modern civilization.
Victor: – “It’s sheer folly to assume one can predict future climate conditions based on current trends.”
I’d suggest this is about risk management, Victor – avoiding at all costs an unmanageable catastrophe: civilisation collapse and the suffering and deaths of billions of people.
James Hansen, Makiko Sato and Reto Ruedy included in their 14 Dec 2023 communication titled Global Warming Acceleration: El Nino Measuring Stick Looks Good:
See the Hansen et al. (2023) paper, Figure 25 at:
https://academic.oup.com/view-large/figure/423296599/kgad008f25.tif
And:
https://mailchi.mp/caa/global-warming-acceleration-el-nino-measuring-stick-looks-good
Victor, it seems to me you are waiting for unequivocal indications of danger/catastrophe. I’d suggest by then it will be too late to change the warming trajectory and human civilisation is ‘locked-in’ to collapse well before the end of this century. Is that what you want, Victor? Do you have children/grandchildren, Victor? Is that what you want for them?
Victor: – “While it’s true that CO2 levels continue to rise, they were rising at a similar rate from the 1940s through 70s, while temperatures were falling.”
I seem to recall we’ve been through this before, Victor. Rising anthropogenic aerosol emissions provided a cooling effect.
https://twitter.com/LeonSimons8/status/1711664194829873513
Victor: – “A similar “hiatus” was evident during the first 15 years of the present century, while CO2 levels were soaring.”
I seem to recall we’ve been through this before too. What “hiatus”, Victor?
https://academic.oup.com/view-large/figure/423296595/kgad008f24.tif
But what can one expect from a climate science denier, a regurgitator of climate myths and ignorer of reality?
Victor: – “The notion that we absolutely positively HAVE to cease burning fossil fuels based on the dire predictions of certain “experts”…”
…based on many lines of inquiry pointing in the same direction, including the paleo-historical record of what has happened previously when GHGs were at similar levels – see my previous comment above that you seem to have conveniently ignored.
Victor: – “…wouldn’t be so dangerous if the fossil fuels in question weren’t such an integral part of modern civilization.”
Indeed, that’s the dilemma! Fossil fuels have undeniably enabled a rapid progress in human civilisation, from coal and methane gas developments since the late 1700s and crude oil developments since around 1859, but the waste products and ‘fugitive emissions’ (i.e. CO₂, CH₄, NO₂) dumped into the atmosphere in the past and continuing to be emitted and accumulating in the atmosphere at record high levels, are now an existential threat to the very same civilisation.
V: It’s sheer folly to assume one can predict future climate conditions based on current trends.
BPL: No one is doing that. The projections (not predictions) are predicated on following the physics.
Victor is apparently worried (judging by his present and past comments) that if we stop using fossil fuels and use substitute fuels instead, the costs will be too high and so the economy will collapse. I’m much less pessimistic for the following reasons.
Firstly wind and solar power has started to gain significant traction and its costs have fallen dramatically such that its competitive with coal fired power (google the Lazard International Energy Analysis). Yes storage will increasingly become required, but it looks increasingly like it wont be cost prohibitive.
Secondly while electric cars are still about twice the cost of comparable sized ICE cars, the price trajectory has all been one way, downwards and there is very good reason that this will continue. until we reach price parity or something close. And government subsidies in some markets have made prices much the same as ICE cars (eg Norway) and uptake has been incredible.
Thirdly the energy transition is phased in so things have time to adapt.
We have not seen excessive strain on the economy and peoples lives and it increasingly looks like a full energy transition will be manageable even at a faster pace. Yes there have still been problems with renewables as you get with most new technology but nothing unmanageable. The opponents cherry pick problems, and miss the big picture that renewables are generating plenty of power locally, and are often now the preferred option of generating companies, even without government subsidies. Plenty of storage options are being used to deal with intermittency issues.
Therefore it makes sense to pursue this energy substitution transition and see where it leads. And to pursue it faster than we have thus far. Obviously if costs were to become prohibitive for unforseen reasons we can re-evaluate our approach. However I increasingly doubt that they will. The worst possible approach is to bury our heads in the sand and do nothing.
Nope. Number 1 is based upon solid physics, the essential outlines of which have been known for nearly 170 years now, which have been seriously tested for 118 of those years, and tested and examined with great energy and diligence for at least 30 years. The macro-observational experience of that last 30 year span is also consistent with the established, and thoroughly tested, theory. Therefore, we can have very high confidence as to what will happen to GMST (and related metrics) upon the cessation of FF combustion.
This isn’t so much a false premise as a poorly-formed one. No doubt, if all FF combustion ceased tomorrow there would be massive economic catastrophe. But not only is nobody calling for that outcome, there would be no practical way of implementing it even if every political body at every jurisdictional level in every place having a polity at all agreed with that goal. It’s just a strawman, and one of epic proportions.
So, the real question as to “what happens” economically, which is what I take to be V’s worry, is highly sensitive to the details of when, and how, such cessation is carried out. (This should of course be trivially obviously to all concerned, but V is quite gifted when it comes to overlooking the obvious–at least, if it’s “inconvenient” to his ideological position.)
Here are some possible economic/social outcomes V is overlooking:
–Nations will become, on average, much more energy independent, allowing them to tell (for example) the Saudis what to do and where to go, if they so choose;
–Energy will become more affordable, on average; the virtuous circle of RE deployment has already brought LCOE for wind and solar down below the cost of simply operating extant coal capacity. This calculus is currently being affecting by high interest rates, but that is not going to drive costs over the long term, as rates will come down again, and the ‘virtuous circle’ is still spinning.
–Cancer and asthma rates will drop significantly in many places, eliminating a negative externality via increasing labor productivity. Toxic emissions from FF combustion are currently a multibillion dollar drag on the economy, via their burden on public health, as demonstrated by a number of studies in various places, including China and the US.
–And yes, GMST will begin to drop.
Just a small sample, OTTOMH.
Talk about GIGO–with completely false premises, it’s no wonder that the conclusion is crap as well.
Weaktor: “I vote for number 2.”
Not surprising, as “number 2” is a euphemism for the type of thought that went into your argument.
Nice snark.
But put that way, who could vote against number 2? (See the ‘parable of the body parts’ which concludes with consideration of which one is ‘boss.’)
Me 8 DEC 2023 9:49 AM My logic about evaporative heating & cooling within the Hadley Cell was wrong wrt evaporative cooling circa 30NS because the moisture-laden air would return from circa 30NS towards equator in low-level winds so reversing the effect of increased condensive(?) heating (portion of ITCZ evaporation latent heat delivered to surface circa 30NS) would require applying water equalling the (I infer) increase since 1924 CE in condensive surface heating circa 30NS (the portion not radiated to space and not delivered elsewhere), leaving increased sensible heat off the ITCZ ocean and increased solar SWR absorption at surface since 1924 CE, if any, due to decreased cloud cover circa 30NS, if any, to be compensated for by additional application of surface water (irrigation).
Dear all,
Do you think that a discussion forum with 80 hour-long waiting for moderation still makes a sense?
It is my feeling that the moderators do not read all posts anyway. If so, perhaps it could be better if all new contributions were published automatically in a certain time interval, e.g. each 12 or 8 hours.
Has anybody a different opinion?
Greetings
Tomáš
Tomáš Kalisz says
13 Dec 2023 at 5:26 PM
It’s an obvious problem but you’re wasting your time even mentioning it.
You’re on the wrong site if you’re expecting “common sense” to appear. :-)
Tomas,
I would point out that
1) all of the folks doing moderation on this site have important day jobs, and that part of those day jobs is looking at what was happening at COP28
2) The website has been going strong for over 20 years with the same moderation structure.
3) The moderation here is pretty light–but if you care to look in the Borehole and Crankshaft, you will see that we are indeed being spared a whole lot of flak from complete nutjobs.
Tomáš Kalisz,
Perhaps those who are less hasty and spend a little time considering the science involved in their commenting (RC being a forum for discussion of climate science not for chitty-chatty nonsense) do not find the speed of moderation quite so challenging.
To all and everyone.
It takes time here to get on with a discussion.
I would like to help Thomas Kalisz further on with the rumors of the broken water cycle and the cooling evapotranspitrations that must be repaired, and its independence of CO2, that can rather be ignored first.
Hr. Kalisz: Gavin Schidt has become quite fameous for aving coined the conscept of condensing and non- condencins greenhouse gases and CO2 as the turning knob of the earthly climate thermostat.
Along with Moravia,…. Mee Tooo would also like especially to have NEPHELAI,….. that is a strongly condensing, highly molecular greenhouse gas aerosol……. better discussed
I repeat….!
Because I come to think that those NEPHELAI is where H2O changes in a dis- continuous way from a positive….. into a negative feedback to the warming and backradiating effects of CO2 and CH4.
By 2 material macromolecular phase- shifts. with its own and very fascinating physics.
It is natural & quantum mechanical, dis- continuous macro- conjugated natural material effects.
That gives water some of its most fameous and obvious thermo-static propertie with high latent heats at the phase- shifts and different optical properties also..
I never saw it well and complete, systematically discussed.
The skies clearing up in recent decades seems to be a fact, and it is contra- intuitive to global warming and the vapour pressure curve of water,
The natural way that follows daily and annually delayed in time is that temperature follows daylight, and mosture & cloud and rains follows and cools down again max temperature. So if that is not in order anymore, it is no broken water cycles, but lacks of aerosols drop condenstation nuclei in the atmosphere , another macro- conjugated quantum mechanicalo and dis- continuous material effect. Mainly due to lack of SO2 by shrubbing of exhaust gases.
The aerosol and SO2- effects show clearly in the global temperature curves at large volcanic erruptions.
Then I believe we can have a better “take” on it.
I also see Makarieva from St Petersburg getting Pepper.
She definitely needs better help than CO2 & climate surrealism and denialism. and rumors of broken watercycles causing the global warmings.
on “lacks of aerosols drop condensation nuclei in the atmosphere”
yes this is becoming much more interesting and returns full-circle to many months ago.
Consider that pumping water vapor into the air is no latent flux, and does not consider steady state flows of heat and mass through systems; read TR Oke.
That is the conversion of latent to thermal energy by condensation above the LCL, the associated dehumidification, and the required balanced radiative cooling (to space). Non equilibrium thermodynamics; read Kleidon
Tomas may remember Robert Fajber and his “heat tags” in contemplating the atmospheric heat transport and remoteness of his source and destination tracking “tags”. That is the nature of latent flux.
The covariance between continental desiccation and the missing condensation should not be considered mere coincidence. Since many months ago the threads have taken several giant leaps backwards in efforts to hammer home half-baked defences. The time may be approaching to go beyond that.
In Re to
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2023/12/unforced-variations-dec-2023/#comment-817086
Dear Carbomontanus,
Thank you very much for your feedback.
This is just the question I strived and strive to ask, both the moderators as well as the public herein:
There are objections that water cycle intensity (which could / can be changed by various human activities, independently from the changes in the atmospheric concentration of non-condensing greenhouse gases) may be among factors defining Earth sensitivity to the “CO2 turning knob”.
Why should the water cycle (and possible human interferences therewith) NOT be important? I imagine it as an analogy to a powerful air conditioning that can also define sensitivity of temperature in a room to changes in heating intensity therein.
I am really sorry that I have not grasped from your explanations yet (if you think so) why you think that the water cycle intensity cannot play this role in Earth climate, or (if you think so) why you think that mankind could not / cannot interfere therewith.
Greetings
Tomáš
@ Thomas Kalisz and everyone
“There are objections that water cycle intensity (which could/ can be changed by various human activities independently from the changes in the atmospheric concentration of non- condensing greenhouse gases) may be among factors defining earth sensitivity to the CO2 turning knob”
Yes indeed, but I find that quite obvious and trivial.
And it seems to me that orderly climate science is also well aware of it.
The meteorologists have even become quite good at it in recent years by satelite photo and local weather- radar
We must also use our cameras on clouds and other heavenly pnevmatic phaenomena, and learn their names in LATIN. Else the UFOs and “Alians” will come and take us. .
NEPHELAI ( I strongly recommend to you all that neo- logism from Greek) seems to be the main reason why quantification of climate sensitivity to CO2 the delta Deg/ doubbling has remained quite …………”nebulous”……….. with error- bars between 1.2 and 4.5 deg, and an assumed mean at about 3 deg.
But hardly because of “the broken water cycle”. That suggestion or political model theory is a still more confusing explaination and idea about it.
We say “It is laying in the fogs..” when things are unsettled and diffuse. That is quite common and natural.
=================000
I come to remember that there is still another myth or tragical -comedy about it. The idea of Bøyg and in definitum Bøygen.
Kalisz may get it etymologically from Prager and Wiener- deutsch. verbum Biegen and noun Bogen. Something bent or curved , a slimy crooky large serpent in the way for travellers out in the foggy heathers and wilderness .
Also in Moravia, I know.
In French wikipedia so that Levenson and Gavin Schmidt also can get it “Le grande Courbe d`Etnedal,” a very good translation.
That is a fameous scene, described by Henrik Ibsen in Peer Gynt.
It is still a conscept here, “To meet Bøygen”. running into somening large foggy untoucheable slimy, moist, indefinite…… and crooky dull and dark… on your way…..
Bøygen is not broken and cannot be taken on hr. Kalisz. That is the problem for many.
Some have the view that total annihilation of 50% of Earth, and 90% in the lower-mid latitudes, is meaningless to climate related observables.
The harm caused by actively enforcing this view cannot be under-stated. It is complete nonsense! Although, I think this enforcement mentality really does stem from good intentions. THis is usually the way.
The sudden regime shift away from one of pedogenesis to one of net erosion is without precedent in the 500 million year history of Earth. That is a profound change which should not be diminished.
While some may congratulate themselves for half-baked logics and stupidity on paper, the real work continues outside. There is no shame in that – and it is inevitable that more will come to this realization sooner or later.
in Re to
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2023/12/unforced-variations-dec-2023/#comment-817140
Dear JCM,
Do you mean that 50% of soils on the entire Earth land are damaged?
Greetings
Tom
on 50%;
yes – the missing earth. highly eroded landscapes. the wilderness deficit below grade. Billions of hectares x hundreds of tons.
totally invisible to spaceborne spectroradiometer and not discussed in popular climate science journals. unknown on these pages and considered unreal and inconsequential.
In re to
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2023/12/unforced-variations-dec-2023/#comment-817206
and
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2023/12/unforced-variations-dec-2023/#comment-817326
Dear JCM,
Many thanks for your explanations, for useful references, and entire discussions during this year..
Merry Christmas!
Greetings
Tomáš
in re to
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2023/12/unforced-variations-dec-2023/#comment-817086
Dear Carbomontanus,
As regards your specific point
” it is no broken water cycles, but lacks of aerosols drop condenstation nuclei in the atmosphere “,
I agree that aerosols definitely play an important role in Earth climate regulation.
On one hand, they can directly scatter and reflect ongoing shortwave radiation. On the other hand, they can influence fog and cloud formation and thus influence both incoming solar radiation ongoing as well as outgoing infrred radiation fluxes indirectly. And, third, I can imagine that their nucleation effect may also influence the water cycle intensity and thus the level of global latent heat flux. At a given availability of water for evaporation on the surface, more aresols may perhaps enable a shorter residence time of water vapour in the atmosphere.
Moreover, I can imagine that also aerosols may interfere with other “forcings” in both directions. For example, I think that they can on one hand increase precipitation, on the other hand, this mechanism may also help effectively decrease the aerosol level in the atmosphere.
I do not know – I just ask how well we do understand these complex relationships and their interferences in global climate regulation.
Greetings
Tomáš
@ Thomas Kalisz
You are right at last.
As a local poet Frederik Stabel put it :
“There is more between heaven and earth than in most other places”
SANN! (=AMEN)
Sometime in the last year (I think), there was a video from a professor that stated the most recent warming trend put the rate of warming now at 0.5C/decade. Being of the mind the only sane risk analysis is to assume the 3,4,5 and 6 sigma case, I posted that video here and stated we we likely looking at 5C by the end of the century. The Usual Suspects, of course, did what usual suspects do downplaying the possibility.
Hansen is now echoing the same rate of increase. of 0.49C/decade.
Y’all better learn to think regeneratively before it’s too late. I keep being right (have yet to be wrong) over a 15-year period. You can be suicidally angry I point this out – even though you know I do so because it is essentially my CV as a climate activist, not ego – or you can start asking how to understand the ecosystem in such a way so as to be able to understand what is germane and what is not.
I won’t be alive in 2100, or even 2050, but I know (haven’t been wrong yet) what’s coming and it’s not a place I want my son to exist in.
Cheers
There was a comment on a WaPo article that showed a noisy graphic of global temps from 2005 to 2022 saying there was “no correlation”. and I agree there certainly is noise in the temp record. However, I went to the cited sources and calculated the R and darned if the trend during that interval didn’t come out to be almost exactly .5, it was even statistically significant at the .02 level! Shades of our very own vic!
Such is the “logic” of denialists. Their science uses every bit of the skill that Tobacco Institute “scientists” exhibited. “Nothing to see here” is their mantra.
@ Killian and jgnfld says ….
Yes, we are screwed. Anyone denying or putting down James Hansen are fools. Many unfortunately are climate scientists. Who have all forgotten that they do NOT define reality. Reality will define us and we are as a species totally ——-ked!
Hopefully some humorous soul will nail a sign on the UNFCCC, the IPCC and NASA-GISS front office doors
“Hansen was right you idiots!” :-)
Indeed, Wish I were in the U.S.
It’s one thing to quit smoking. Another entirely to wreck an industry that just about everyone on Earth depends on — for heat, light, food, transportation, construction (including the construction of solar panels and wind turbines), not to mention jobs. And yes I’ve seen all sorts of utopian schemes cooked up by well intentioned but naïve folks who assume based on sheer ignorance that the leaders of the world can somehow manage to cobble some sort of agreement together that would somehow offset the loss of fossil fuels with the creation of sustainable technologies of limited scope, dependent on fossil fuels for their production.
Bottom line: you can’t save the world by destroying it.
Weaktor,
When you post exaggerated crap like this, it makes me wonder if you are even capable of honest, intelligent argument. No one is talking about destroying the economy. They are talking about replacing an outdated technology–burning fossil fuels–with a modern, cheaper, cleaner alternative, not only resulting in a sustainable economy, but also in improved health for everyone.
Bottom line: You can’t make your point if you are too cowardly to engage those who disagree with it.
Ray Ladbury says
No, EVERYONE is talking about destroying the economy …. because the ENTIRE Global Economy is based upon cheap plentiful fossil fuels – and nothing else.
Remove FF and the Economy as it is collapses as a direct result. Like a rock falling under the force of Gravity.
The Economy and Society has ALWAYS been BASED ON Fossil Fuels since they discovered Coal – that coal burns for heating and cooking, and then it makes steel and alloys, and then they saw that a steam engine can to do WORK better and cheaper than a watermill / windmill.
There is NO modern, cheaper, cleaner alternative that can result in a sustainable economy – NONE.
Only Nuclear has the ability to replace most energy needs of FF but they still cannot replace METHANE use in Agriculture, nor PLASTICS from OIL ….. what does one do with all the left over pollutant gases, diesel and gasoline and bitumen left over after the “plastics” components is refined from the Oil?
Will they “Burn” it off into the atmosphere?
Besides which, no one is going to stop supplying oil, coal and gas to the world.
Not until the Climate Impacts stop them from doing so, as the whole system starts collapsing around us (or rather our descendants.)
What has happened in Germany with it’s loss of Cheap Abundant Gas is a microcosm of what is coming to the entire western world soon enough. Covid was another example of what’s coming – economic collapse and social isolation and dysfunctional impotent Governmance
The global economic collapse is coming and nothing will stop it – RE won’t fix anything.
Starvation and dysfunction will be the order of the day in the western world as the “fake civilization” collapses into a heap of death and destruction and a dog eat dog world and neighbourhood.
Stop kidding yourselves with delusional fantasies. Or don’t.
I don’t care either way actually. It is what it is. Opinions, ideology, and beliefs are irrelevant.
The die were long cast in this game.
.
Hr N.Kelly
Whats rather facing the collapse here now is the united states, As the russians are rather especially brought up with and aquainted to / specialists of driving on the rim /flat tyred.
NK: EVERYONE is talking about destroying the economy …. because the ENTIRE Global Economy is based upon cheap plentiful fossil fuels – and nothing else. . . . Remove FF and the Economy as it is collapses as a direct result. Like a rock falling under the force of Gravity.
BPL: Nonsense. An increasing portion of human artificial energy generation is coming from other sources. Fossil fuels only account for 60% of electric generation now, and transportation and industry are undergoing electrification. Don’t spread lies.
Re. “wrecking the economy”
I still well remember Tobacco Institute propaganda on how reducing tobacco consumption would “wreck the industry” of the Deep South. (many refs here: https://www.industrydocuments.ucsf.edu/tobacco )
And the how dealing with acid raid would “wreck the economy”. And how dealing with HFCs would “wreck the economy”. And how banning asbestos would “wreck the economy”. H’mmm…I’m sensing a pattern.
Argument by analogy won’t work for you in this instance. While the examples you provide may be apt within their own domain, the sort of precipitous drawdown of fossil fuel consumption now being demanded WOULD in fact wreck the economy. IF it would even be possible, which thank God it isn’t.
Weaktor,
The argument that the transition being proposed is too rapid is probably the most disingenuous you’ve come up with yet–and that is some stiff competition. It is precisely because imbeciles like you have insisted for over 40 years that there is no problem that now we do not have time for a gradual transition.
During the Carter Administration, there were solar panels on the Whitehouse–and then the Drill, Baby, Drill contingent took them down and sold the country to the oil and coal barons. I would write more about this, Weaktor, but my thoughts toward you and your like require language that is unsuitable for polite company.
Oh…I get it. THIS time I’m not lying. Really, truly. The other times I was excited..
V: the sort of precipitous drawdown of fossil fuel consumption now being demanded WOULD in fact wreck the economy.
BPL: Nobody is calling for a drawdown that fast. Stop making stuff up. It’s too easy for people to check, and then you look silly.
V: It’s one thing to quit smoking. Another entirely to wreck an industry that just about everyone on Earth depends on
BPL: Phasing it out. Not wrecking it. Did automobiles wreck the buggy industry? Did oil wreck the whale oil industry? Did PCs wreck the typewriter industry? All three went out of business (except for specialized exceptions), but nobody applied a wrecking ball. They didn’t have to.
The idea that civilization will grind to a halt without fossil fuels is industry propaganda. They said the same thing about the Clean Air Act.
What’s being insisted on is not a phase-out, but a radical transition from fossil fuels to renewables “very rapidly,” to quote climate activist Kevin Anderson. The transition from horses to automobiles took place over many years, as did the transition away from whale oil. A truly gradual phase-out of fossil fuels might conceivably work (though it would be almost impossible to manage effectively) but that’s NOT what is being demanded.
Barton Paul Levenson :
The idea that (global) civilization will grind to a halt without CHEAP EASY TO GET fossil fuels is THE REALITY.
The “Economy” and along with it “Society” will collapse. Only pockets with military arms will survive. And the self-sufficient in the “wilderness” far away from the crazies with all the guns.
It will be a two punch knock out – the increasing climate impacts will themselves cumulatively destroy the fossil fuel industry…… Together they will destroy the current VERY UNCIVILIZED “Civilization”
RE replacing FF will never happen at scale. First Agriculture collapses followed by all the dominoes falling in a row.
Dystopian doesn’t even begin to describe what’s coming down the pipeline.
Victor
“What’s being insisted on is not a phase-out, but a radical transition from fossil fuels to renewables “very rapidly,” to quote climate activist Kevin Anderson. The transition from horses to automobiles took place over many years.”
I had a very quick look at this issue out of curiosity. Kevin Anderson thinks we can transition from fossil fuels to renewables in about the next 17 years therefore by 2040. But he does not dictate global climate policy. Instead, countries have signed up to the Paris Accords which require the transition from fossil fuels to renewables to be mostly complete in the next 27 years by 2050 (to keep warming under 2 degrees) but ideally faster.
The first wind farm was built in the 1980s, but we started the process of building renewables in earnest around 2000. So we have a 50 year time frame effectively for the transition. Things always start a bit slowly and tend to follow an exponential curve.
The transition from horses to cars was actually quite rapid. Huge progress was made in just 10 – 20 years in many places like America with cars mostly replacing horses. However one source says it took 50 years for a complete transition including substitiution of things like tractors for horse drawn ploughs. This source is generally looking at a very complete transition and is claiming other sources are hyping things, but lets use it anyway so we are not cherry picking the most favourable analysis.
The result is the planned transition from fossil fuels to renewables at 50 years is exactly the same as the actual 50 year transition from horses to cars! Sources:
https://thetyee.ca/News/2013/03/06/Horse-Dung-Big-Shift/
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-motor-vehicle-1917-slide-show/
https://www.thenewsherald.com/2011/01/05/history-from-horse-to-horsepower/
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/took-13-years-cars-replace-horses-new-york-virtual-reality-marris
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wind_farm#:~:text=The%20capacity%20of%20the%20world's,New%20Hampshire%20in%20December%201980.
Quite something eh?
Ned Kelly
Thought provoking. I like these points of view. But I disagee to some extent.
“The idea that (global) civilization will grind to a halt without CHEAP EASY TO GET fossil fuels is THE REALITY..”
Isnt that what you want? Degrowth?
But I dont think society will grind to a halt. Renewables are now lower cost than fossil fuels. A transition looks plausible to me. Just my opinion of course. It will probably slow down rates of economic growth but they are slowing anyway with a certain inevitability.
Even if we run into difficulties building enough renewables, the alterntive plans have a whole lot of problems!
“It will be a two punch knock out – the increasing climate impacts will themselves cumulatively destroy the fossil fuel industry…”
Its rather hard to see how several degrees of warming, SLR (sea level rise), and flooding would “destroy” the fossil fuels industry. The drilling platforms and processing plant are frequently inland or well above existing sea level, and could be moved or modified anyway. Industrial plant can be protected with air conditioning, etc,etc.
The main threats of SLR are to our coastal cities because moving that quantity of urban infrastructure will be very costly. Then there are serious threats to agriculture (as NK mentions) and biodiversity, etcetera.
V: What’s being insisted on is not a phase-out, but a radical transition from fossil fuels to renewables “very rapidly,” to quote climate activist Kevin Anderson.
BPL: As fast as possible, no faster. It’s already happening, thank God.
NK: The idea that (global) civilization will grind to a halt without CHEAP EASY TO GET fossil fuels is THE REALITY.
BPL: Even if you type it in ALL CAPS, it still isn’t true.
Victor said:
Pish, tosh, and twaddle. For instance, Canada just announced a measure to eliminate gas cars by…. 2035. How long did the ‘whale oil transition’ take? Sez here… [searches]… fifteen years or so.
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/economy/this-post-is-hopelessly-long-w
And the transition to BEVs has already started. As has the transition to wind and solar with storage. (In fact, that’s latter has been meaningfully underway for about two decades now.)
Yet another unsupported assertion. How much “management” would be needed, exactly, and why would that level be “almost impossible” to supply? Until I see actual evidence, I’m going to put that assertion in the same barrel with the Oil Drum claim from some years back that more than 5% penetration of wind or solar would result in a hopelessly unstable grid.
We’re aiming for net zero by 2050, officially; so just how long would this “transition” have to stretch to be a “phase-out?” More than 26 years, apparently.
(IOW, “beg to differ.”)
Uh vic…You do know cars replaced horses for everyday transport in less than 20 years, right?
Kevin, don’t whine. You used a useless term. WTF is “reasonable?”
I have long told you, and you know I have yet to be wrong, we need an 80% overall reduction in consumption and -95+ in the U.S.
Net per capita energy is THE metric for any civilization. When it falls, bad things happen. When it falls a lot, very bad things happen.
The current economic system goes into a Great Depression at -20 ~ -30.
Think, FFS.
K: we need an 80% overall reduction in consumption and -95+ in the U.S.
BPL: Good luck with that.
Not sure what “limited scope” is even intended to convey, but the fact is that RE can scale more than adequately to meet reasonable demand levels. (Of course, endless growth will exceed “reasonable” at some point, however “reasonable” may be defined–but that’s another issue. See “Galactic-scale energy” on the ‘Do the Math” blog.)
However, the “dependent on FF” is completely wrong. That FF are currently used in the production of RE products does not imply at all that they must be used. There is nothing in the entire RE production chain that actually requires the use of FF. Heavy excavation and processing equipment can be, and in some places already is, powered by electricity. Manufacturing processes can be powered by, and in many instances already are, powered by electricity. Fabrication is already largely powered by electricity. Transportation is increasingly powered by electricity.
V’s argument is analogous to someone in 1900 pointing to a mine packing out iron ore by steam train and concluding that internal combustion technology was therefore “dependent” upon steam. It’s the triumph of rationalizing over rationality; Jonathan Swift would be saying “I told you so!”
Kevin McKinney says
“RE can scale more than adequately to meet reasonable demand levels..”
Fantasy Fiction Delusional Disconnected from Reality Science Geology Logic Sanity and Physics
Nice name-calling, Ned.
Not really a substitute for evidence, though.
Ned Kelly claims renewables cant scale up enough to meet reasonable demands for energy, (using rather frenetic trolling language). He mentions various things but gives no details as follows:
No evidence is is provided that that renewables conflict with the principles of logic. The claim sounds completely implausible.
Its not clear what he means by conflicting with the laws of physics, but perhaps he means the EROI issue but opinions vary on this issue. It may mean we have to prioritise the energy grid and cut back wasteful expenditure (like the military).
Ned Kelly mentions geology and is presumably concerned about availability of resources and its a reasonable point to raise. However properly peer reviewed science by Mark Jacobson shows the world has enough mineral reserves to scale up renewables. While rich deposits of minerals are limited in quantity past pessimistic estimates have consistently proven to be wrong.
Some countries already get about 40% of their energy from wind power (for example) so it can definitely scale up locally.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wind_power_by_country
Renewables face considerable challenges, but the alternatives look worse. Burning fossil fuels is altering the climate in dangerous ways. Geoengineering is high risk. We will run out of fossil fuels eventually anyway leaving us NO CHOICE but to find alternatives. Trying to quickly develop a very low energy use, simple living society would be impractical, could cause mass unemployment due to the huge demand contraction, and would be unlikely to gain traction with the public at large.
If we hit problems scaling up renewables, for example the supply of minerals, we can deal with the problems as they occur. We might find Ned Kelly is proven at least partly right and the size of the grid is limited and we have to make do with less energy than previously, but not to the extent of a very low energy use society. This would be bearable and is something we could adapt to, over time, and it would produce some level of simplification. We could also counter much of the problem of a smaller grid by being less wasteful.
The bottom line is developing new forms of energy looks like the most plausible option overall, but we must obviously minimise any negative environmental impacts caused by mining and processing.
Killian: – “Hansen is now echoing the same rate of increase. of 0.49C/decade.”
Is he now? On 14 Dec 2023, James Hansen, Makiko Sato and Reto Ruedy published their communication titled Global Warming Acceleration: El Nino Measuring Stick Looks Good, beginning with:
I interpret the global warming rate of 0.49°C/decade referred is under the influence of the current El Niño, which implies to me this rate is a short-term temporary warming spike. The Nov 14 Hansen, Sato and Ruedy communication continues with:
https://mailchi.mp/caa/global-warming-acceleration-el-nino-measuring-stick-looks-good
Fig. 1 in the Nov 14 communication shows the 1970-2010 best linear fit global mean warming rate at +0.18 °C/decade. Per reference {5}, within the Hansen et al. (2023) paper Global warming in the pipeline, Figure 24 indicates the yellow triangle is bounded by the warming rates post-2010 of +0.27 and +0.36 °C/decade, ending at year-2050.
https://academic.oup.com/view-large/figure/423296595/kgad008f24.tif
The upper bound warming rate of +0.36 °C/decade is not, as you put it, Killian, the “same rate of increase. of 0.49C/decade.”
But if we/humanity continue pumping more GHGs into the atmosphere, and continue reducing aerosols, then I’d suggest the EEI will continue to increase, and the Earth System rate of warming will continue to accelerate. The Nov 14 Hansen, Sato and Ruedy communication also warns:
You are misinterpreting. It is stated exceptionally clearly: “but a good measuring stick is provided by warming between successive large El Ninos.”
The reasoning is clear: Picking any other point forces you to do some fun (ahem…) math to deal with the ENs, but since the ENs are part of the overall system, they sit within a baseline of warming, no? They’re using the largest ENs over a 26-year period. That’s certainly long enough and certainly *only* the current EN. Given ENs clearly goose the system, acting as a booster to climate change, you may actually get a **more accurate** measurement of the rate of change because blending them into the overall trend, or doing what science often does and discarding them to get at the underlying trend would likely underestimate the rate at which extremes are driving change. (That the extremes should be paid far more attention has been another point I have hammered on for a looong time.)
If one consistently uses the ENs you have a consistent measuring stick that is simplified vs the typical approach. It would be similar to measuring only the highest point of the tides each day, week, or month to measure SLR. What matters is that the approach is consistent.
Besides, this now makes two different sets of scientists from two different institutions with the same finding. Looks like a trend getting underway,
@ Killian re ENs
They are not worth speaking to. Find people who are.
Here they will die of heat stroke searching for attribution and accuracy of “scientific claims”.
Fools. One and all.
So accurate! It’s just too funny to see the laypersons on this site engaging in scientific reticence that even climate scientists would be side-eyeing.
LOL
Killian: – “Looks like a trend getting underway,”
The data is indicating an acceleration in the rate of warming. I’d suggest the misinterpretations lie in the longer-term changed rate of warming.
Reiterating the first sentence of the Dec 14 Hansen, Sato and Ruedy communication (bold text my emphasis):
I’d suggest that statement is based upon Figure 25 in the Hansen et al. (2023) paper, where the 12-month running mean of the EEI (based on CERES data) is normalized to 0.71 W/m² mean for Jul 2005–Jun 2015 (blue bar), increasing to 1.36 W/m² for Jan 2020–??? 2023 (red bar).
https://academic.oup.com/view-large/figure/423296599/kgad008f25.tif
That’s the first clue.
The latest CERES data to Oct 2023 indicates planet Earth is now absorbing 2.2 W/m² more heat from the sun than it did the first decade of this century. This is why 2023 is so hot, and the short-term warming rate has risen substantially!
https://twitter.com/LeonSimons8/status/1736755773240115596
The second clue is the yellow triangle in Figure 1 of the latest communication. Reiterating their statement:
https://mailchi.mp/caa/global-warming-acceleration-el-nino-measuring-stick-looks-good
Killian, why did Hansen, Sato and Ruedy bother to have the yellow triangle in Figure 1, bounded by the warming rates post-2010 of +0.27 and +0.36 °C/decade, ending at year-2050, if this is no longer relevant for their longer-term warming rate projections?
RE: CERES 2023 Earth Energy Imbalance of about 2 W/m2
At that presently transient heat flux, and with global surface area of 5.1 x 10 E14, that is about one Quadrillion Watts of heating, mostly into the oceans and cryosphere.
With increasing Radiative Forcing (due to “emissions” of GHG), presently above 4 W/m2, that level of EEI will be constant in a short period., and increasing Congratulations everyone.
We are cooking the books ($7 trillion of annual “subsidies” etc. etc.) and cooking ourselves in acid, (as well as permanent indebtedness). Are we not impressive? This is how to design global political-economy for planetary self-annihilation. Who came up with this scheme? Oh yes, we know.
Killian said “You are misinterpreting. It is stated exceptionally clearly: “but a good measuring stick is provided by warming between successive large El Ninos.”
Hanson said “The first six months of the current El Nino are 0.39°C warmer than the same six months of the 2015-16 El Nino, a global warming rate of 0.49°C/decade, consistent with expectation of a large acceleration of global warming. ” In other words, he is noting there has been an acceleration of warming. He did not state we can project that trend forwards, and he says “projections are +0.27 and +0.36 °C/decade, ending at year-2050”. This is presumably based on a wider consideration of the science. In recent decades its been 0.18 per decade.
Its a basic principle of science that ten years is too short to determine a new trend and project such a thing forwards, because 10 years could be too strongly influenced by natural variability, like the so called pause after 1998 (a near flat period of about 10 years). Such is the danger of picking short trends and assuming it is the new norm. Temperatures recently have been influences by the Tongan volcano as well as reduced industrial aerosols from China.
Hansons forward projections of 0.27 – 0.36 are contested by other scientists, but he has a good record on predicting temperatures particularly in the USA. Not quite so good with predicting SLR.
AND ACCELERATING.
He said the TREND is the lower number. Acceleration will raise the trend line.
And he has stated 3C, and even higher numbers, are possible this century.
Pay attention.
Better yet, just be quiet. You are of as little use as you ever were.
Killian.
The warming trend is obviously accelerating, because the rate of warming this decade (0.49) using Hansen’s interpretation is higher than the previous decade (0.18) as I stated. Hence we have an acceleration. The last year 2023 is also almost certainly warmer than the previous year.
But I seem to have to repeat this. As I also stated, (slightly amended) “Its a basic principle of science that ten years is too short to determine a new trend (or rate of acceleration) AND project such a thing forwards and assume its the new norm, (0.49 deg c) because 10 years could be too strongly influenced by natural variability,.One historic example: the so called pause after 1998 (a near flat period of about 10 years) which did not become the new norm. Such is the danger of picking short periods of ten years and assuming it is the new norm.
Temperatures recently have been influenced by the Tongan volcano as well as reduced industrial aerosols from China.. Therefore the recent ten year decadal trend has been strongly influenced by 1)natural variability. and 2) an abrupt change in human aerosols. This is why Hansen comes up with a different number for the FUTURE predictions (0.27 – 0.36). Perhaps YOU should pay attention to Hansen .
Hansen stating 3 degrees or more this is possible this century is old news. The IPCC has long projected anything up to 5 degrees is possible.
I have always thought warming will be somewhere towards the upper range of IPCC projections. However we simply don’t know exactly how much and probably never will because its impossible to be 100% sure of ECS, because we cant put the planet in a laboratory. Most published science says ECS is around 3 degrees. Hansen is an outlier just as the low climate sensitivity studies are outliers.
Hansen may prove be right but we dont know for sure. Nobody can possibly know for sure for the reasons I explained. I would suggest its all immaterial because anything above low climate sensitivity of 1.5 degrees is a serious concern.
Geoff Miell,
Hansen et al’s 14/12/23 piece ‘Global Warming Acceleration: El Nino Measuring Stick Looks Good’ is predicting an AGW rate of +0.3ºC/decade(+/-0.05ºC) post-2010, this an acceleration relative to the +0.18ºC/decade measured pre-2010. The +0.49ºC/decade is but a roughly calculated value, thus allegedly demonstrating an apparent strongly accelerated AGW rate is in progress as per their prediction.
The paper also argues for the immanent arrival of +1.5ºC above pre-industrial temperatures. Based on GISTEMP LOTI, the argument is put that the 12-month rolling average global temperature by May 2024 will “eliminate any doubt about global warming acceleration” with post-El Niño temperatures continuing higher than +1.5ºC above pre-industrial.
Myself, I’m not sure of this ‘elimination of any doubt’ as the recent “gobsmackingly bananas”*** temperatures still do require attributing and that may show some transitory effect rather than some more-permanent effect at work.
(***The UoMaine Reanalyser [now using ERA5 daily global anomalies] shows the ‘bananas’ kicking in big time [and thus lending weight to a stronger acceleration of AGW] from July 2023 with anomalies stuck entirely above +1.0ºC since early August. That is until the last two data points 10/12/23 & 11/12/23. So thinks – having thus ended a 161-day run of ‘ above +1.0ºC’ anomalies, those daily anomalies might be worth keeping an eye on.)
Hansen et al also show a projected peak for the 12-month ave in their Fig 1. This is shown as +1.60ºC to +1.65ºC above a 1880-1920 base which would be +1.33ºC to +1.38ºC for the LOTI 1951-80 anomaly base.
If the coming peak 12-month average LOTI were in the projected range of Hansen et al, coming months would need to see 12-month averages climbing from the latest +1.12ºC. Past El Niños have seen this average rise +0.2ºC (by 12-month to Aug or Sept) and such a rise would for 2024 reach the lowest part of Hansen et al’s projected range. Yet the +0.2ºC resulted from strong El Niños (at a strength which isn’t looking likely) which leaves us the continued “bananas” if the world is to reach that +1.33ºC to +1.38ºC 12-month average range. (With the “bananas,” the last three months having average +1.42ºC.)
MA Rodger,
ICYMI/FYI:
1. Berkeley Earth (BE) published on Dec 19 their November 2023 Temperature Update by Robert Rohde. It seems BE calculate a 99% chance that the full year 2023 will exceed +1.5 °C. There’s also a discussion on the causes of the recent warmth and on the El Niño outlook. Year-to-date, 15.0% of the Earth’s surface has experienced average temperatures that are a local record high. In addition, none of the Earth’s surface has been record cold year-to-date.
https://berkeleyearth.org/november-2023-temperature-update/
2. The latest ERA5 data point for global surface temperatures (Dec 15) was +1.62 °C above the IPCC’s 1850-1900 baseline, per a tweet by Prof Eliot Jacobson on Dec 22.
https://twitter.com/EliotJacobson/status/1737896409897271410
3. Leon Simons tweeted on Dec 19:
https://twitter.com/LeonSimons8/status/1736755773240115596
I’d suggest while the EEI remains high, then “gobsmackingly bananas” temperatures will continue…
Geoff Miell,
We could indulge ourselves with another serving of talking past each other. Or not.
Hansen was the subject you had raised but apparently not any more. And my own thoughts on the ERA5 dailys doesn’t seem to whet your appetite. So what are you commenting on?
☻ Concerning the BEST monthly update, I thought it a little late, especially with the absent October version.
Predictions for the 2023 calendar year, I note these BEST monthly updates have been a little lax with their use of monthly anomaly bases so perhaps they can get it right for the full year. And their caution with this warmest year on record is evident within the blog. Apparently 2023 will only “almost certainly be the warmest year” because the last couple of weeks may see a giant meteor strike or a super volcano erupt. It seems we live in times of worrying uncertainty.
☻ Concerning Jacobson, I do recall telling you not to trust the analysis of that particular fool. And I am not at all interested in continually explaining what is wrong with the stuff he presents.
☻ This Leon Simons is not the best of communicators. And I think his graphic of ‘Globally Absorbed Solar Radiation’ looks a bit ‘Trumpian’ in nature (I note a previous version of the graphic looks mainly correct) while his jabber about 2023 temperature attribution is as bananas as the 2023 temperatures. Do note that the 2023 temperatures would require forcing far in excess of <1Wm^-2 which is the underlying logic of Simons' message.
So, Geoff Miell, do note – When I press a button labelled reply, I do actually present a reply.
..
But perhaps more germane to the underlying issue – the bananas 2023 temperatures…..
I mentioned above the ERA5 dailys presented by the UoMaine Climate Reanalyser engine have been showing numbers which may be worth keeping an eye on as they suggest something afoot with the bananas.
While this ‘keeping-an-eye’ may continue to be worth it, I have identified a significant amount of the recent fall (about half) in the ERA5 daily temperature anomalies show by UoMaine (which had drawn my attention) is actually due to their chosen anomaly base (1979-2000) which results in a strong annual signal being left in the data. Most significantly in this annual signal, Oct & Nov have been warming quicker than other months. So the phenomenon I was seeing, the fall in the anomaly thro’ December, is thus half-explained. Half but not all.
I’ve plotted out those UoMaine numbers as is on the white graph posted from 15/12/23 here. The anomaly base used for all the plotted data is the same 1979-2000 so there remains a drop in the anomalies from Nov into Dec (which over these full months averages a drop of 0.084ºC) that is not part of any banana phenomenon.
I would mention that a sudden +0.2ºC-or-so suddenly appearing in global temperature anomalies would be due to something very strong (and so also conspicuous) or be due to some unforced variation. Such variation could be now appearing and thus may soon disappear. Or it may have crept up on us and is only now being noticed as it disappears with a rush.
But one mad thought occurred prior to correcting that posted white graph for the UoMaine anomal base. Is the global temperature impact (and particularly the NH temp impact) of El Niño arriving earlier and with more force? The yellow graph presented below the white one shows NOAA NH temperature profiles thro the 1998, the 2010 and the 2016 El Niños. The 1998 & 2010 El Niños have NH peak anomalies not greatly different to the SH peaks but 2016 NH peak has distinct banana flavour to it, being significantly higher than the SH peak and arriving some months earlier. So is crazy thought – is our 2023 bananas temperature the latest version of the same thing?
So I intend to keep these two graphics updated and see what we shall see.
MA Rodger (at 27 DEC 2023 AT 5:28 AM): – “We could indulge ourselves with another serving of talking past each other. Or not.
Hansen was the subject you had raised but apparently not any more.”
You stated in your earlier comment (at 18 DEC 2023 AT 9:58 AM): “Myself, I’m not sure of this ‘elimination of any doubt’ as the recent “gobsmackingly bananas”*** temperatures still do require attributing and that may show some transitory effect rather than some more-permanent effect at work.”
That’s what I was responding to. Why do you feel the need to get snarky about it, MA Rodger?
MA Rodger (at 27 DEC 2023 AT 5:28 AM): – “☻ Concerning the BEST monthly update, I thought it a little late, especially with the absent October version.”
Perhaps COP28 prevented the “absent October version”? Perhaps someone was ill? Whatever? Does it matter? I’d suggest we should be thankful that the BEST November 2023 update is now available.
MA Rodger (at 27 DEC 2023 AT 5:28 AM): – “Apparently 2023 will only “almost certainly be the warmest year” because the last couple of weeks may see a giant meteor strike or a super volcano erupt.”
Can you categorically state now (NOT in the new year 2024) that there won’t be a super volcanic eruption event, or giant meteor strike (or nuclear war) before the end of 2023, MA Rodger? I’d suggest it’s still possible, but highly unlikely. I’d suggest Robert Rohde is being prudent/’reticent’. Are you disparaging him for that?
MA Rodger (at 27 DEC 2023 AT 5:28 AM): – “☻ Concerning Jacobson, I do recall telling you not to trust the analysis of that particular fool. And I am not at all interested in continually explaining what is wrong with the stuff he presents.”
Is there a problem with Jacobson’s graph included with his tweet, or not, MA Rodger?
https://twitter.com/EliotJacobson/status/1737896409897271410
It looks to me like the data in Jacobson’s graph is very similar to the Copernicus graph (up to where data ends at 18 Nov 2023).
https://climate.copernicus.eu/sites/default/files/custom-uploads/Page%20Uploads/2%C2%B0C/era5_daily_sfc_temp_global_anomalies_ref1850-1900_1940-2023_dark.png
MA Rodger, are the people at Copernicus fools too? I think not. Show me where the data is incorrect, and refrain from ad hominem.
MA Rodger (at 27 DEC 2023 AT 5:28 AM): – “☻ This Leon Simons is not the best of communicators. And I think his graphic of ‘Globally Absorbed Solar Radiation’ looks a bit ‘Trumpian’ in nature (I note a previous version of the graphic looks mainly correct) while his jabber about 2023 temperature attribution is as bananas as the 2023 temperatures.”
Again, show me where the data is incorrect, and refrain from ad hominem.
MA Rodger (at 27 DEC 2023 AT 5:28 AM): – “But perhaps more germane to the underlying issue – the bananas 2023 temperatures…..”
I’d suggest it’s all very well to be “keeping an eye on” the ERA5 dailys presented by the UoMaine Climate Reanalyser engine. But what’s driving the anomaly? That’s the issue Hansen & colleagues have been exploring, referred in my earlier comment.
I reiterate my earlier comment to you:
Do you disagree with my statement, MA Rodger?
Leon Simons tweeted on Dec 28 (including two graphs):
https://twitter.com/LeonSimons8/status/1740084178421416299
MA Rodger, it seems to me your snarks/ad hominem are attempting to distract from your apparent inability to satisfactorily attribute the observed warming rate. It seems to me you are reluctant to give any credit for data presentation and/or attributions to Hansen, Simons, BEST and even Jacobson. Perhaps you should reflect on why?
Geoff Miell,
My apologies. I did not notice the daft suggestion you made at the end of your previous comment, or if I did I felt it too ridiculous to bother with. Mind its message is not a million miles away from the quoted rant of Leon Simons that preceded it.
Indeed, I would suggest that if the EEI were actually as Leon Simons tells us, the reason for “why is 2023 so F*cking hot,” then there may be some merit in suggesting as you do that “while the EEI remains high, then “gobsmackingly bananas” temperatures will continue.”
So there is a question. Is the EEI the reason for the bananas global temperatures of 2023?
Examine the EEI as presented in the ClimateChangeTracker!
The last few months have seen exceptionally high levels of EEI averaging 1.90Wm^-2. This compares with the preceding 12 months which averaged 1.44Wm^-2. So what would we expect from an increase in EEI of 0.46Wm^-2 over a period of 5 months or so? Would it deliver a +0.2ºC boost to global temperatures to send them all bananas?
The conventional wisdom suggests a forcing of +0.46Wm^-2 would result in an equilibrium temperature increase of perhaps +0.4ºC but only after a century or so. Mind it would initially warm more quickly, so +0.2ºC after a decade, and this roughly a linear rise. So that would be +0.02ºC after a year or +0.01ºC after six months. In this, I don’t see any bananas.
So if the reason for the bananas is not the EEI, why would anybody insist that “while the EEI remains high, then “gobsmackingly bananas” temperatures will continue”?
Of course, the approx +0.2ºC that constitutes the bananas can be construed as but a pygmy clinging to the scalp of the AGW giant but it is the pygmy-bananas being discussed here not the AGW giant. Perhaps you and those crazy folk you reference are confused (or being used confusingly) on that particular score.
…
As for the bulk of your comment that precedes that daft suggestion at the end, this is pretty-much all unbelievable pedantry.
I will pick as an exemplar of this pedantry, your insistence that the BEST monthly update “is being prudent/’reticent’” over the potential threat of a super volcano or a giant meteor strike before the bells at Hogmanay and your ridiculous challenge that I cannot “categorically state now (NOT in the new year 2024) that there won’t be a super volcanic eruption event, or giant meteor strike (or nuclear war) before the end of 2023,”
According to the WorldOMeter population clock, there are 8,081,858,450-&-counting souls on this planet. How many of them are making decisions that are only relevant for a world unaffected by such catastrophic events arriving in the next four days? And how many are fixated by the chance of this potential catastrophe?
So going by the overwhelming bulk of humanity, to say such an event won’t happen is a darn sight more sensible, indeed less insane than considering that it may possibly happen.
And if it were possible, would there not be some prior period of indication?
But then I recall your particular style of pedantry criticising me for my stating that it WILL take a UAH TLT Dec 2023 anomaly of -0.58ºC (which would be a record low for Dec, breaking a record set before there was 44 years of AGW) or colder to prevent 2023 becoming top warmest year on record, you suggesting such a drop in temperature was “unlikely” (which was the point I was making, very very unlikely) and that maybe I was wanting to wait for the full year’s data to arrive to confirm. My response then as now was to suggest that your suggestion was insane, so entirely unbelievable pedantry.
Geoff Miell,
Welcome to Real Climate. Are you having fun yet?
Please embrace the new Physics term known as “Trumpian” – a new age is dawning in Science – and you have come to the right place to see it unfurled in all it’s glory. :-)
And so Geoff, what have you learned thus far? That’s always a good sound way to look at things here. What are you learning from this experience …… an excellent question indeed.
Good speed oh traveler from afar. Enjoy the ride but do remember to get out of the roller coaster. It is not a ride built to last forever.
Killian, no insects no humans .. at least not the current batch of evolutionary humans on this rock.
I always knew you were right. So was I. Doesn’t matter. It is what it is. Teach and prepare help your son, the rest don’t deserve any help. Time is of the essence now.
Sadly, without the rest on board, we will all lose… everything.
“I always knew you were right. ”
Facts are what they are, no? If one lets themselves see them. But, what a fool believes… no wise man [can] reason away….
The Doobie Brothers – What A Fool Believes
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qKYQNtF11eg
These Musicians use science properly. :-)
I have not seen any Berkeley Earth updates for a couple of months, but I observed Copernicus’ latest update, and the graph is at
https://climate.copernicus.eu/sites/default/files/inline-images/era5_monthly_sfc_temp_global_anomalies_ref1991-2020_all_months_1940-2023.png
I also see that NASA GISSTEMP has been updated to show both November 2023 and climatological year 2023’s anolalies. see here
https://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/tabledata_v4/GLB.Ts+dSST.txt
With the persistence of La Nina conditions from July 2020 to January 2023, I had expected a strong El Nino by the end of this year, with 2024 setting a new world temperature record. But it has become increasingly clear that this year will easily surpass 2016 as the warmest year.. What I find really astonishing is the June to August monthly anomaly of 1.15 C beating out the previous record (2022) by 0.21 C and September to November’s figure of 1.42 C beating out 2015’s average by 0.42 C. I suspect that, if there are any more downwelling Kelvin waves in the Pacific, the first half of 2024 will also set new temperature records, and may do so without more WPWP water being sent eastward.
Whist I don’t expect these huge anomalies to be maintained, I do wonder whether we will see temperatures as low as 2015 again. I remember well the spin that “global warming ended in 1998,” though we have not seen a year that cool in the last decade or more according to NASA GISSTEMP. Barring a supervolcano or a cometary/asteroid strike, I do not expect to see a yearly anomaly as low as 1998 (0.61 C) in my lifetime. (I’m in my 70s.) Even 2021’s 0.84 C may be an optimistic wish.
Syd Bridges: – “But it has become increasingly clear that this year will easily surpass 2016 as the warmest year..”
Undoubtedly…
Per C3S, the global mean surface temperature for the period Jan-Nov 2023 is the highest on record, at +1.46 °C above the 1850-1900 pre-industrial average, and 0.13 °C higher than the eleven-month average for 2016, currently the warmest calendar year on record.
https://climate.copernicus.eu/surface-air-temperature-november-2023
Per Prof Eliot Jacobson, global mean surface temperature monthly deviations from the IPCC’s 1850-1900 baseline for the year 2023 are shown at:
https://twitter.com/EliotJacobson/status/1735658781986693145
Syd Bridges: – “Whist I don’t expect these huge anomalies to be maintained, I do wonder whether we will see temperatures as low as 2015 again.”
Not while the Earth’s Energy Imbalance (EEI) is in a net energy gain state, currently at a record high level, per CERES.
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2023/12/unforced-variations-dec-2023/#comment-817138
https://twitter.com/EliotJacobson/status/1736525591749468332
Syd Bridges: – “Barring a supervolcano or a cometary/asteroid strike, I do not expect to see a yearly anomaly as low as 1998 (0.61 C) in my lifetime. (I’m in my 70s.) Even 2021’s 0.84 C may be an optimistic wish.”
A super-volcanic eruption event, or substantial comet/asteroid strike event, or multiple nuclear weapons airburst events (of the order of 100 ‘Hiroshima’-magnitude detonations) depending on locations and volumes of dust/soot ejected to high altitudes, would provide a temporary cooling effect.
The Earth System is currently on an accelerating warming trajectory…
https://twitter.com/EliotJacobson/status/1733629769915457578
To change that trajectory requires:
1. Reducing GHG emissions to zero at emergency speed;
2. Removing carbon by drawdown to return atmospheric conditions to the Holocene zone; and
3. The urgent research to identify safe interventions that protect and repair vital systems and, in the shorter term, aim to prevent warming reaching a level that triggers a cascade of calamitous tipping points that are irreversible on human timescales.
https://www.climatecodered.org/2023/06/three-climate-interventions-reduce.html
Geoff Miell says
To change that trajectory requires:
1. Reducing GHG emissions to zero at emergency speed;
2. Removing carbon by drawdown to return atmospheric conditions to the Holocene zone; and
3. The urgent research to identify safe interventions that protect and repair vital systems …….
Seriously?
Ignoring the Cause [ as if it does not exist ] will never be a solution. Such “ideas” are insane put forward by ignorant fools who do not know what they are doing or what the problem is, let alone how to solve it.
iow more of the same …… no better than the IPCC …. totally useless and counter-productive!
Ned Kelly: – “Seriously?”
Ned, is this your (non) solution? –
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2023/12/unforced-variations-dec-2023/#comment-817245
It seems to me you’ve already written off human civilisation, and condemned billions of lives to future suffering and untimely deaths. Not helpful!
In the YouTube video titled Climate Emergency: Is 1.5º really safe?, published 12 Jun 2019, duration 0:45:36, David Spratt provides a straightforward presentation about the most important issues that threaten our society, economy and way of life. From time interval 0:25:28, David Spratt says:
“If we do what I’ve just talked about, we’ll get out of this; I have no doubt. But I think we need to be aware of people who are becoming over apocalyptic about this, because the ones that I’ve seen, and I won’t name them, I think, are not scientifically literate or consistent. They’ll say: ‘Ooh, it’s all doom, it’s all gone, all bad, but maybe we’ll get out of it’; within two pages. That’s not a consistent position. That’s really, that’s really not helpful. I think a lot of the preaching the apocalypse reflects a personal despair, at times. Ah, things like telling people to put their money under the bed and store some food, um, is, it’s not even silly. It’s not serious. If you want to go into survival mode, the three things you need are: community; tools; and knowledge. Not money, which will devalue and become worthless in a few tins which will rust. Sorry; if we’re really going to have a serious discussion about survivalism, let’s have a serious one, but not this stuff. And if you really believe that the end is near, and there’s nothing you can do about it, don’t go and bloody whisper in the ears of people who want to do things, because it just disables them. I’m sorry, it’s just not helpful. I was on the, on the platform, a couple of years ago with somebody, on a debate and um, they said to me: ‘you know, we’re all f’d, and there’s nothing we can do about it’; not quietly, and I turned to him and said: “Well, why are you on this platform?’ And it’s a really serious question. If you think that, just, go and shut-up, because you’re not helping anybody else. You’re really not.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KyLgCr3Drh4
Right, so David Spratt has all the answers, and knows inside out what’s wrong with everyone else. Way cool. Can he walk on water too? (smile)
I’ll stick with my own well informed evidence based rational thinking, considered thoughts, and opinions thanks very much Geoff. I’ll leave to your holy faith in David Spratt.
Geoff Miell,
I got around to watching that section of David Pratts talk. He is NOT talking about me, nor referring to people like me. Nor about the things I am pointing out, and pointing people to.
There are no similarities between me what he’s talking about.
If you think he is, you’re flat out wrong.
Spratt then says immediately after your QUOTE:
“Of course if we keep on going down the current path this will become an
Existential threat, existential and human civilization as we know it will come
to an end there’s no doubt about that. Even 3 degrees could be chaotic.
But an existential threat to human civilization is not the same as an existential
threat to human species”
OK so if David Spratt says that, it;s just fine and dandy to you?
There’s no doubt about that, he says.
I agree with him. Is that a problem?
Not about the 3 degrees avg global Temp increase – no the Earth will I believe be in a constant state of disasters almost everywhere long before +3C arrives.
Today’s modern civilization (if you can call it civilized?) will be long gone by then.
But let’s wait and see shall we? :-)
“…will become.”
So cute.
Sorry, clarification to my comment above re
” Geoff Miell says -To change that trajectory requires:….”
That was not *Geoff Miell* saying that, he was merely sharing the information others provided:
see his post https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2023/12/unforced-variations-dec-2023/#comment-817207
So apologies to Geoff for any confusion there ….
Mayeb an analogy would help?
To say something like this is a solution — “Reducing GHG emissions to zero at emergency speed; and 2. Removing carbon from the atmosphere …”
is equivalent to saying : The Solution for Someone with Depression is they need to Be Happy instead. That is NOT a solution – that is a goal.
Reducing GHG emissions is a GOAL NOT A SOLUTION …. the solution is HOW to reduce GHG emissions fast enough and large enough on a SUSTAINABLE GLOBAL SCALE to meet the GOAL of climate stability vs ongoing Warming.
The 1.5C and 2C paris yardsticks aren’t even GOALS ….. the whole UNFCCC is not fit for purpose.
No one has a solution where multiple systems solutions are required to be implemented no one is discussing any of them. EVs are not a solution nor are Renewable energy deployments … eg manufacturing solar panels increases GHG gases. RE has NOT replaced FF energy demand, RE has been supplementing increased global energy demand instead.
Everything is ass up and backwards. Because the 1% and Billionaires are driving everything off the cliff to suicide. IT digital tech is massively increasing energy demand. The Systems are running on automatic — and not being addressed.
I am not “condemning billions of lives to future suffering and untimely deaths” they are all already doing it themselves without my help. Everyone here and all the climate scientists – everyone – are doing it for themselves by refusing to accept real solution shave not been developed and have not been applied by anyone anywhere.
Jeez, don’t blame me, it’s not my fault. Try blaming the pleonexia of the control freaks who rule this world instead and the people who refuse to take them on and remove them from power.
I’m sane. Humanity isn’t.
Ned Kelly (at 23 DEC 2023 AT 3:01 AM): – “I am not “condemning billions of lives to future suffering and untimely deaths” they are all already doing it themselves without my help.”
It looks like it to me when you state: “The global economic collapse is coming and nothing will stop it – RE won’t fix anything.”
It seems to me you are engaging in the macabre, already condemning humanity to a path of doom and destruction. Also, you state”
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2023/12/unforced-variations-dec-2023/#comment-817358
What’s there to smile about, Ned? I think you need professional help…
It seems to me the real problem holding many people back is attitude.
See/hear David Spratt talking about how fast we can move by referring to the examples of wartime expenditures by the US, UK, Germany and Japan during WW2. David Spratt says from time interval 0:22:14;
“How fast can we move? Well, as fast as we want to, in a way. We have the economic capacity to address… Look, I mean, we spent 20 trillion on the, on the GFC, keeping banks alive. I mean, George Monbiot said it would be sad if we can save the banks but not the planet. We have the economic capacity. We have many of the solutions. I mean, renewables are now just wiping out fossil fuel energy systems because they’re cheaper. It’s not primarily an economic or a, or a technical issue; it’s a political, cultural and social issue, and the community I think increasingly the last coupe of years, we’re seeing a real change in climate politics, away from the old climate policymaking, to things like the Green New Deal, the, the school strikes, Greta, ah, the climate emergency mobilization, XR, a new, I think, honesty about the problem; what’s got to be done.
How fast can we move? I know war’s not a great analogy, but here’s a little table of the proportion of economies that were spent on the war between 1939 and 1944. So, in 1943, the United States spent 42 per cent of its economy on the war. In the UK, it was 55. In Germany, it was 70 per cent. In Japan, it was 43 per cent. So, in Germany, two-thirds of production was for the war effort. I mean, we can’t put one per cent, two per cent of our production into climate solutions at the moment. I mean, this is insane. And our proposition is we, if we move this fast to build a machine to kill people, why we can’t move this fast to address the climate crisis, so it doesn’t kill a lot more? And that’s the question I think you should put to politicians. Why are you so keen to build capacity to kill people, and not to stop them getting killed?”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KyLgCr3Drh4
NK: EVs are not a solution nor are Renewable energy deployments … eg manufacturing solar panels increases GHG gases.
BPL: Every 500 MW of wind or solar installed is another big coal plant that doesn’t have to be built.
Ned Kelly, Dec. 23 “ Mayeb an analogy would help?”
Only if it fairly represents the relationship which it is supposed to explain.
Otherwise, it becomes a strawman argument.
Your analogy: “The Solution for Someone with Depression is they need to Be Happy instead.” does not seem to be an analogy to
“Reducing GHG emissions to zero at emergency speed ”
If not an analogy then a strawman, needed to rant against “ the 1% and Billionaires” (sounds like a good name for a 1960s revival band).
The underpinning of your argument is:
a) ideological perfectionism: disparaging the current and future reductions in GHG emissions in favour of the utopian perfect solution – the world that magically reverses the history-long tendency of power accumulating in the hands of the few.
b) all-or-nothingness – “RE has NOT replaced FF energy demand” – first – yet, second – because it has not been supported and implemented it could have been, third – what would have been the emissions without RE? fourth – What’s your solution? Do you have a realistic plan for world revolution?
@ all and everyone including Thomas Kalisz
About watercycles and their intensities and whether they can be broken or not.
One thing is for sure Hr Kalisz, here where I live, there has been raining more and more and more and more as long as I can remember. As I do not live in Las Vegas or in Hollywood..
But there is also another important tendency to be known.. Drought is a relation between water and temperature. If for instance temperature goes up but rain on that spot or in that land does not follow up, but remains constant, , then there will be drought. No watercycles are broken then.
What is rather obvious instead is that weather patterns may have changed. That is the way I have learnt to understand it and to discuss it. The meteorological institute was now and then asked officially and for serious : “Where is the winter? ….. Where is the rain?…
And answered for serious with a smile: ” The winter is here, but it is not right here….. the rain is here.. but it is not right here.. smile smile.”
For everyone to understand. It was the truth, and the best they could say of it.
Another situation that was often the case, that was drought summers and disasters for the crops. The meteorologists were asked and even given the blames. But could actually explain it very well. ” It rains strongly now, but now it rains out at sea,, out in the Atlantic, and not here where it is needed.
The same will be true now and then for the very Eurasian continent and the very USA. And for Moravia.
Moral:
That very conscept , that very model theory of a water cycle being broken is quite a misleading theory and not a good way to state the problem and ask the question on solvable form. You will not have good answers to that conscept or that model.
Again we have a so called “atmospheric river” hitting Sogndal western Norway now in December I read 100 mm in 2 days with warning of earthslides and snow avalanches. It will give quite a lot of hydroelectric power next year if snow falls in that tempo up in the mountains. The same happens even in California and Sierra Nevada, but quite more rare. And I did write you about another “Atmospheric river” with rain and flood cathastrophy here, last August. It had been drought and then suddenly ” There aint no Vltava in Ma vlast” so enormeously large that it can suddenly drown everything around here in that tempo. And it has definitely not evapotranspirated” from the local tempered mixed taiga- forests that were dangerously dry.
Those “atmospheric rivers” are a new conscept.
I see them on the Nullschool global atmospheric wind pattern maps. that I can really recommend. They look like what Vilhelm Bjerknes called “The discontinuity front ” in the mooving cyclons at the polar front, where all the praralell isobars suddenly break over in another direction. Seemingly a cold windblowing in,…. under a large volume of warm and moist air that evaporated for weeks from the warm summer seas.
Weather patterns may break. the weathers may be dis- continuous. I can accept that as tones in the wind instruments may break and enter a next modul.
Better forget that of broken watercycles. .
Discontinuities of water is gas to liquid, liquid to ice, and gas to ice. Clouds and nebulous state may perhaps also be regarded and discussed as an aggregational state ( even electrostatic plasmatic state with dramatic electric discharges) Theese states are limited by sharp discontinuities- , they can be “broken”
But this entails the opposite of what is claimed The water cycle able to go trough all theese agregational states is perhaps unable to enter the breakpoint and discontinuity conditions. The watercycle is not breaking fast enough and often enough.
Many useful works were presented at AGU23 in the GC41M – The Global Water Cycle: Coupling and Exchanges Between the Ocean, Land, Cryosphere, and Atmosphere I Poster Session https://agu.confex.com/agu/fm23/meetingapp.cgi/Session/213674
Selected works include many essential arguments which are usually resisted and refused on these threads for unknown reason. This helps to know more clearly that the evasion here is not representative of what’s happening actually outside or in the scholarly poster abstractions of reality in the forgotten back halls. Influential commenters here are unknowingly misrepresenting or uninformed on their passion subject owing to extreme bias and bad teaching.
https://agu.confex.com/agu/fm23/meetingapp.cgi/Paper/1251192 Marysa M Lague et al.
GC41M-1279 “SwampLand vs. Desertland: using the extreme end-cases of possible terrestrial evaporation to explore the role of evapotranspiration from land in the global climate system”
There suppressing ET increases temperature, increases atmospheric water vapor, decreases low cloud, and increases water vapor residence time. Conversely, restoring ET decreases temperature, decreases atmospheric water vapor, increases low cloud, and decreases water vapor residence time. A 10% change in latent flux is associated with about 2K temperature difference. That is really quite a natural and easygoing way to consider it. .
https://agu.confex.com/agu/fm23/meetingapp.cgi/Paper/1344602 Pinhsin Hu et al.
GC41M-1267 Plant Trait Diversity Stabilizes Climate in a Wet and Cool State via Maximizing Terrestrial Water Recycling
There it is discussed that free ecosystems tend to dynamically adjust to and also modify climates. Terrestrial climates converge toward wetter and cooler states with increasing ecosystem diversity by securing more soil water which enhances ET. Evidently unnaturally constraining ecological “freedom” as it pertains to soil moisture has adverse impacts to climates. This is more advanced under the tutelage of Kleidon.
There are many other works, including that from Fajber et al. that are useful and worthwhile to know too. These are all based really on elemental water cycling mechanisms that are introduced in grade school concepts but discussed with more sophistication in the higher grades at AGU.
Ecosystems Hr JCM
I am perhaps the one who better knows about it by not living downtown in Detroyt city, Las Vegas, in Hollywood or elsewhere in paved and artificially drained lands where the eartyh is flat like a peoples republic or a factory floor within error- bars With models and statistics
I have looked into your references Hr JCM
Where they / you “hide the declines!” a fameous most dis- qualifying sin or error in climate. research and science
They / you show immune to half of the time and half of the situation, the declines. The evenings the autumns, the nights, and the winters. You are hiding all those declines. in order to sell your alternative.from the factory floor where the earth is flattened within error bars. and where the fameous uneducated industrial workers historical and necessary leading scientific role can possibly be in charge.
Ye blind believers in the scriptures, desert walkers, and flat earthers and even flat heaveners. Ye invaders and immigrants from alian side.
If only King Donald Grozny could build a magnificant peace wall and iron cufrtain against that wherever the earth is flat enough an maybe even flatten the earth for it.
Regarding the hiding of declines: that is simply not the case. No amount of divisive rhetoric is making a point on the subject; there is nothing there for a constructive response. Offered only is evasive and theatrical maneuvers lacking substance or clarity. Extreme bias displayed on multiple fronts and again recycling the methods of prejudice and hate tried on older threads. Geographic and social isolation with an antiquated worldview that is increasingly met with resistance and shame under normal circumstances. Such an approach is perceived as obviously lazy and miserable! revealing more about firmly closed minds and tribal instincts than genuine awareness and wisdom.
Are you feeling pointed at and describing yourself here, Genosse?
Genosse JCM
Your style of argumentation is betraying experience and learnings on pioneering CCCP and NSDAP- level.
Elon Musk & other hyper-oligarchs and some nutty physicists now blabbering that the world is “almost for sure” a data-simulation show where we are. They have moved several steps up from the old climate denialism, and are now denying the reality completely – except for their money of course… The AI-nonsense is spiralling exponentially from the US oligarchy out among the ranks of tyrants all around the world, which is sinking into a quagmire of war-ridden barbarism, a growing chaos of intersecting and manipulating intrigues from from the commanding heights and confusion. The lunatics will soon be taking over the asylum via the internet-nonsense-“debates” and trumpist terrorism. The result is neo-fascist and oligarchic crackpot/celebrity madness dominating the public sphere and gradually overwhelming the remaining ruins of democracy, first in the USA and Russia (where it is already ruling).
Time to wake up from the sectarian “debates” about subtleties.
KVJ, RE:: “The lunatics will soon be taking over the asylum”
In America, and most Saxon-Anglo governments, that happened many decades ago. Right after atomic bombs were used by America (unnecessarily), the “Anthropocene” began circa 1950, along with thermonuclear bomb testing on other territories (eg. Bikini). After that decade’s militarization of government, President Eisenhower warned in 1960 about a “military-industrial-(Congressional) complex,” and hanging ourselves on a “Cross of Iron.” Then the US Supremes allowed laws that said 1) corporations are people and 2) money is speech, in the 1970’s. And off industrialization went on a rampage of globalized, fossil and fissile, corporate-fascism. All of it supported by institutionalized theocracy which fraudulently asserts that two underground forms of matter are “forms of energy..” These are represented by elements U and C, you see. Thus, establishing not only a condition of potential cataclysm (WWiii) but an ongoing self-imposed real one of thermonuclear derivation and proportions due to trapping radiation from a star. These trappings (of heat radiation) are now in gigantic proportions when compared to the geologically resent delicate balance of living nature. Contamination of several trillion tons of carbonic acid gas and other GHG so far by mostly the West, and rising, and fools say to “go nuclear.”
It seems technocratic lunatics have been running the show since the previous “American Century.”
Peace, and thanks.
In case one pair of eyes catches this and it helps them:
this Aussie farmer. He is farming without tractors or rototillers . The best example I have found for zero fossil fuel farming. Here is an index of former articles.
https://zeroinputagriculture.wordpress.com/2020/07/10/index-post-july-2020/
Shane Simonsen, He now publishes on sub stack but there is a wealth of information in these older articles. His sub stack is worth a subscription.
“ Posted byzeroinputagricultureSeptember 15, 2019Posted inUncategorized
Zero input agriculture is in many ways a reaction to the realisation of how the awesome power of industrialisation dominates even the most sincere efforts to decouple from it. People who keep chickens are almost all merely turning grain produced by diesel powered machines and chemical fertilisers into eggs. Without that artificial support the birds would barely survive let alone produce. Those who raise their own vegetables usually rely on imported manure, mulch and irrigation water, all produced, harvested and transported on the back of a completely fossil fuel dependent system. Without this support the harvest would be meagre at best. Hobby farming, just like industrial farming, is a way to turn cheap fossil fuels into a small amount of food. For many decades people of industrialised nations have had a creeping sense of dread that the current system cannot last but most attempts seem to fall into the temptation for quick and easy answers, which inevitably means consuming even more fossil fuels. Zero input agriculture is my attempt to face this issue head on and try to develop systems that really could support humans without ongoing industrial inputs.”
Nongenosuicidal agri-culture is a substantial pillar of the solution (carbon cycle repair). Alas right now it is still part of the problem, with no insight in sight. (Exceptions like Vandana Shiva or Bruce Steele confirm my verdict.)
Quote
“My basic assumption when talking about agriculture is that there’s more to it than just agriculture. That you can’t disconnect one part of a society from all the other parts and just look at the results and that alone.” ~ Wendell Berry against Earl Butz, 1977
https://www.agrariantrust.org/butzs-law-of-economics/
Are you looking for some likeminded alternative creative thinking people and evidence based solutions for your community and yourself … how to reason your way into a sustainable future while the world around you implodes into total dysfunction and global wars? https://www.thegreatsimplification.com/
Traditional subsistence farming is low productivity but environmentally sustainable. Industrial farming is high productivity but harsh on the environment. Therefore to get to a useful system with no or few industrial inputs, and without mass starvation is a huge challenge. Will need to be phased in slowly, perhaps maintain some low / reduced level of industrial inputs, and rely on genetics to increase crop yields to offset loss of industrial fertilisers and pesticides.
Systemic Themes for 2024 | Frankly #51
Nate Hagens — end of year 15 minutes
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xgMv73iabjQ
Touches on Hansen’s recent output sulfates masking warming etc and bad news ahead
a couple of folks passing by may find it useful what Nate offers. doesn’t really matter one way or the other. best of luck to all and merry xmas happy new year to everyone as well …. I think it’s been the worst year of my life.
Ned and Killian,
There are a number of ongoing trends that seem to threaten the current profit-based economy. These effects might seem to have some potential in slowing exponential economic growth and possibly reduce impacts on climate change and pollution. Some examples:
Peak oil and resource depletion
De-globalization and disruption of global supply chains
Declining population in major economies such as Italy, Japan and China.
Any thoughts on these?
Jonathan David wrote: “peak oil”
Peak oil will only be a problem if we are very, VERY stupid. Why? Two reasons:
1. The greenhouse gas emissions from burning fossil fuels at anything resembling current rates for even a few more years will destroy civilization long before peak oil becomes a problem. So peak oil is moot.
2. Sunlight alone provides orders of magnitude more energy in one year, EVERY YEAR, than ALL the energy in ALL the fossil fuels on Earth. And the technology for harvesting, storing and distributing that abundant, ubiquitous supply of FREE energy is already powerful, mature and inexpensive, and getting more powerful and cheaper by the day. Wind power is a similarly vast resource. The peak oil theorists who asserted that fossil fuels provided a uniquely “high-quality” source of energy that could not be replicated by renewable energy were simply wrong.
Civilization faces many problems but an energy shortage is not one of them. A renewable energy future is a future of abundant, cheap energy for people everywhere. (If, of course, we phase out fossil fuels quickly enough to salvage any kind of future at all.)
SecularAnimist:
1) burning fossil fuels at current rates for a few more years is a given, in fact a few more decades is obviously what will happen – therefore your expectation of “will destroy civilization” is guaranteed.
2) Your “Sunlight alone provides …” comment, even if true, is meaningless and irrelevant to everything.
3) You are playing with words about “free energy” – again it amounts to being meaningless commentary – here I’ll show you why that is so–
“And the technology for harvesting, (mining), storing and distributing that abundant, ubiquitous supply of FREE WOOD COAL GAS & OIL ENERGY is already powerful, mature and inexpensive, and getting more powerful and cheaper by the day. — OIL price today as CHEAP as Oil was in the 70s before the Arab Oil embargo. Oil today is cheaper than it was when Standard Oil was founded.
4) WOOD COAL GAS & OIL is simply stored sunlight. So was Whale Oil. So are Candles.
5) WOOD COAL GAS & OIL and all other forms of ENERGY EXTRACTION TECHNOLOGY produces WASTE products and Pollution of some kind. Wind and Solar included. What and how much and how “bad” that might be is “debatable/arguable” and a Value / Moral Judgement.
6) Middle Ages Water Mills and Windmills were also FREE and CHEAP ENERGY sources that required Technology to EXTRACT the potential Energy and turn it into “useful work”.
7) The primary difference between Wood and FF energy and Water, Wind and Sunlight is that the Energy was already being Stored by Nature in a particular physical and very useful Form.
8) Take away all the fancy technology of today the only thing Humans needed was a Match to light it. :-)
9) A secondary important difference is that there is a limit to the amount of Fossil fuels available into the future.
10) Peak Oil may have already been achieved before Covid – time will tell. It is an economic reality that a shortage of a mere 1 million barrels of Oil supply below the Market Demand will push up the Price of Oil significantly and instantaneously. (~approx. 10% or more)
Lastly:
11) AS Oil supply drops further below Demand the Price of Oil and all it’s byproducts will exponentially rise and cause immediately economic problems, and global supply chain problems, and extremely serious Finance problems and Food Supply problems globally.
AS time goes on the crisis will get worse and harder to manage. The gap between the Have’s and the Have Nots of “Oil” will expand and cause global and social conflicts unless that ENERGY Supply Gap and critical Chemicals/Plastics Supply Gap from decreasing Oil supply is solved.
Stupid has nothing to do with it. It is what it is, and it is very close to coming into play long before the climate shifts onto chaos, or civilization is destroyed. Peak Oil may in fact become one of the biggest triggers to civilization and society chaos and collapse to hit us – especially in the western world where the reliance on OIL is massive and absolutely critical to all aspects of life and the economy of all OECD nations.
The ONLY reason Peak Oil predictions failed was because of the massive growth in the new Oil / Gas extraction method from Shale in the USA. That supply is already being depleted and will mostly disappear in the 2030s, the Permian basin (Texas region) being the last to dry up.
To say the least, the future of Oil ongoing Oil supply is extremely bleak. Peak Oil is moments away.
Hr.Animist
Have you thought of birdshit on those solar panels and the expenses of cleaning them?
For serious, Hr Animist. I see at which speed wildlife and pristine jungle is growing up on sheere rock, on car roofs and on pure glass cower and glazed tiles here where I live.
It is quite decorative but are you going to spray Glyfosat and Sulphit andstone- cosmetics on it and use nylon- brushes and vacuum cleaners, shaving blades and barber soaps??
Will you have freshwater enough for keeping it clean in Sahara and in Nevada and Arizona?
Has Killian perhaps any suggestion to this on how rather to do it the permacultural way?
Jonathan David says There are a number of ongoing trends that seem to threaten the current profit-based economy.
There sure are Jonathon. Peak oil and resource depletion directly impacts the future capacity of renewable energy technology and manufacturing plant to provide an alternative source of sustainable usable COST EFFECTIVE energy and physical “work” outcomes for society, business and individuals.
The economic impacts of peak oil and resource depletion are obvious albeit almost totally ignored by society and governments. It is definitely ignored by the IPCC and the UNFCCC / COP systems that is for certain; along with the UN sustainable development goals — which are imo based on fantasies, but that’s another story.
De-globalization and disruption of global supply chains especially around energy supply and Food/Agriculture are huge looming crises coming our way. At the same time climate chaos increases.
These SYSTEMIC implications are not being taken seriously by anyone – certainly not climate sc9entists — but while these are not in their domain they should be taken into account in presenting viable AGW/Energy solutions and scenarios going forward – but they don’t.
This is why the 1.5C and Net zero by 2050 is a fiction that is not in any way grounded in reality – yet everyone in climate science/ipcc believes in it anyway.
I think the problems already in the pipeline are so serious and are going to be so extreme that population shifts re aging will be very minor issues to deal with, almost irrelevant. The other thing major coming is the varying degrees in disruptions and instabilities and impacts between nations and the global north and south will be huge. Different societies will be dealing with very different issues albeit all kind of interconnected — it will become every man for himself kind of day.
These are only top of mind things …. I have had many thoughts about these matters and find there are few out there able to provide insights and critical thinking about them.
Nate Hagens is a good source to tap into https://www.thegreatsimplification.com/ and https://read.realityblind.world/view/975731937/ii/
At least he and his guests address real issues.
What do you think the big issues are Jonathon?
Do you believe anyone is telling you the truth about what is here and coming?
Hi Ned,
Personally, my belief is that the concept of perpetual exponential economic growth as the basis for the measure of a successful economy is fundamentally flawed and must be eventually abandoned. My hope is that some of the crises facing the world economy today might help to enable a transition to an economy based on a different paradigm. There is no doubt that this will be a painful transition but perhaps necessary for long term survival.
Would be really nice to see Jonathon. Fingers crossed something unexpected and surprising arrives in time. Best to you.
More solutions, since we have identified the problems a long time ago, we are experiencing the threatening consequences of continuing to talk about the problems, how this or that solution does not work, how nothing will change at scale and/or in time, etc.
1. The 15-minute city, where residents are about 15 minutes away from essential places, parks, schools, healthcare, food, (ideally) work by walking, biking, taking public transportation, :
See O’Fallon Illinois
https://www.ofallon.org/system/files/uploads/strategic_plan.pdf
See concept https://www.moreno-web.net/
2. Plant, adopt, maintain a tree or a forest:
https://arboricupovesti.ro/
3. Fossil free agriculture (I bet those who say it cannot be done or it’s a hobby have never turned a pile of hay with human power, I did!)
https://www.lantmannen.com/farming-of-the-future/climate-and-nature/fossil-free-food-value-chain/
See also the 10000 years of agriculture before the fossil fuels took it over, not that we need to go back to the Middle Ages or worse, but we can re-discover, re-imagine, modernize old methods and technologies
4. to be added by you, not what does not work or you don’t believe or want it to work, but what does. Also, no insults.
I have not done much of it, but once had an acker for ourselves in my parents garden.
Where I found that keeping that acker of potatoes and leguminosæ alternating with traditional methods was less work than keeping the same area during the summer with gasoline driven lawnmoover.
But it is a matter of lifestyle and of knowledge, where enough people including also the children must be involved. That is traditional indeed.
Further, a rather more prophitable way with less work is to let the “Weeds” grow up doing rather botanics on it as an arboretum and treat it as a forest.
We now need the grandchildren to climb up and take the cherries and the apples and to cut it a bit each year and we harvested our own wild christmas tree also this year, that have become quite expensive.
I am giving away my traditional homemade “cherrypicker” to my grandson for christmas as he has also shown quite good at climbing and rescuing apples and flying machines from the high trees.
Strawberries, there you hardly needa whole acker. We set on wild spreading Fragaria vesca in the “lawn” that together with a few native blueberries make very exotic derserts wih cream and decorated highcakes each year. And do not have to buy industrial sweets and candies for the same.
For second christmas day we will serve our own raspberries that are just as exotic. And high nut cale with apple pouree. , our choisest wild apples having come up from seeds. in our “lawn”.
So if one can set on botanics rather than on monocultural lawnmoovers , you save a lot of money,
work, effort and disappointments.
I also keep my wife under steady control by that more sustainable lifestyle. as she was brought up in
her own flowergarden.
Quite surprizingly, orderly women worthy of our attension, show frappingly well aquainted to open herds as if they were selected to that all through stoneage that took 1 million years at least., time enough even for women to learn. , and begin commanding and ordering as soon as I lit a fire in the wilderness demanding it rather their way.
I believe that women rather than men invented pottery and the bronse and the iron age after all this.
Beers and wines were invented in jugs and barrels trying to keep it for christmas.
Pancakes and cornflakes were invented by women in stoneage on flat stones at the fire. from milled……. nuts seeds dried wild apples, egs dried fish and bones with rasins and honey, bark and peppers. . . The christmas cakes. The typical christmas Marci-Pane found worldwide.
NOAA oisst2.1_world2_sst_19th Dec
Record SST on steroids, even before el nino began this year.
The new normal has arrived? The Future is Now.
———————
and more on Hansen’s latest … +1.5C by 2027 (ex-El Nino) I hear now. and 2C in the 2030s.
https://news.climate.columbia.edu/2023/11/03/world-temperatures-will-blow-past-paris-goals-this-decade-asserts-new-study/
and https://mailchi.mp/caa/global-warming-acceleration-el-nino-measuring-stick-looks-good
———————
also fwiw also from those “outlier/radical/extremists” @ Columbia
A massive new review of ancient atmospheric carbon-dioxide levels and corresponding temperatures lays out a daunting picture of where the Earth’s climate may be headed. The study covers geologic records spanning the past 66 million years, putting present-day concentrations into context with deep time. Among other things, it indicates that the last time atmospheric carbon dioxide consistently reached today’s human-driven levels was 14 million years ago—much longer ago than some existing assessments indicate. It asserts that long-term climate is highly sensitive to greenhouse gas, with cascading effects that may evolve over many millennia.
The study was assembled over seven years by a consortium of more than 80 researchers from 16 nations. It appears today in the journal Science. […]
Mainstream estimates indicate that on scales of decades to centuries, every doubling of atmospheric CO2 will drive average global temperatures 1.5 to 4.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 to 8.1 Fahrenheit) higher. However, at least one recent widely read study argues that the current consensus underestimates planetary sensitivity, putting it at 3.6 to 6 C degrees of warming per doubling. […]
Then they calculated a new 66-million-year curve of CO2 versus temperatures based on all the evidence so far, coming to a consensus on what they call “earth system sensitivity.” By this measure, they say, a doubling of CO2 is predicted to warm the planet a whopping 5 to 8 degrees C. […]
Temperatures and atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide over the past 66 million years. Bottom numbers indicate millions of years in the past; right-hand numbers, carbon dioxide in parts per million. Hotter colors indicate distinct periods of higher temperatures; deeper blues, lower ones. The solid zigzagging line charts contemporaneous carbon dioxide levels; shaded area around it reflects uncertainty in the curve. (Adapted from CenCO2PIP, Science 2023)
The giant caveat: Earth system sensitivity describes climate changes over hundreds of thousands of years, not the decades and centuries that are immediately relevant to humans. The authors say that over long periods, increases in temperature may emerge from intertwined Earth processes that go beyond the immediate greenhouse effect created by CO2 in the air. These include melting of polar ice sheets, which would reduce the Earth’s ability to reflect solar energy; changes in terrestrial plant cover; and changes in clouds and atmospheric aerosols that could either heighten or lower temperatures.
“If you want us to tell you what the temperature will be in the year 2100, this does not tell you that. But it does have a bearing on present climate policy,” said coauthor Dana Royer, a paleoclimatologist at Wesleyan University. “It strengthens what we already thought we knew. It also tells us that there are sluggish, cascading effects that will last for thousands of years.” […]
The consortium has now evolved into a larger project that aims to chart how CO2 and climate have evolved over the entire Phanerozoic eon, from 540 million years ago to present.
VIA https://skepticalscience.com/66-million.html
I wonder if there’s enough time left for them to complete such a larger project before everything goes to hell?
I don’t go chasing these things anymore, I think of it as being Climate Porn … it’s all the same over and over and over again. It serves no real purpose, but a small section of humanity seem to get off on it all the time….. while ignoring the clear and obvious cause/s and solution/s (which isn’t being obsessed with Carbon Tunnel Vision and fossil fuel companies or countries.)
But I did think this was a significant shift that I saw today. So there you go. Enjoy.
Ned Kelly
“I don’t go chasing these things anymore, (studies like Earth System Sensitivity research study) I think of it as being Climate Porn … it’s all the same over and over and over again. It serves no real purpose, but a small section of humanity seem to get off on it all the time….. ”
IMO science generally serves at least two very valuable purposes 1) Understanding of our world and The Earth System study is a good example 2) Scientific research has lead to numerous practical applications of value. Some scientific studies seem like a pointless use of available money but that shouldn’t detract from the overall value of most research and the general scientific mission.
Presumably scientists enjoy their work. Some laypeople enjoy reading about the science, and its hard to see a problem with that unless other obligations get neglected. There are far worse things to “get off on” than writing scientific studies or reading them.
“while ignoring the clear and obvious cause/s and solution/s ( of global warming) (which isn’t being obsessed with Carbon Tunnel Vision and fossil fuel companies or countries.)”
In the past you seem to have suggested that the causes of global warming / climate change are industrial society, capitalism and rich capitalists (?) While they are factors, surely the primary cause of global warming is burning fossil fuels? This happens under socialist systems as well. Capitalism and socialism has clearly amplified the warming, but really its organised industry at scale which is doing the amplification, along with complicated psychological issues where the human need to display status is done through conspicuous consumption.
I tend to agree that blaming fossil fuels companies or countries isn’t that helpful but neither is blaming rich capitalists. Its all a form of scapegoating. We are mostly all part of the problem although high income people do have higher carbon footprints.
There is a need for a debate on whether capitalism in its present form is a sustainable system for the future . Its certainly a causal factor in a lot of problems, however the alternatives such as socialism at large scale haven’t worked. I’m not sure what the solution is, but we could reduce harm with stronger laws around preventing pollution, deforestation, and carbon pricing etc, etc.
Its not clear what you mean by obvious solutions, because above page you seem to think we are doomed and that nothing would work. Surely the obvious solution is a new zero carbon energy grid and transport system?
Other possible solutions include geoengineering, CCS (carbon capture and storage) and reduced consumption of energy. All seem to have some value at small scale but look very problematic as the main solutions.
To mitigate climate change purely or mainly with energy reduction would require massive reductions in the use of energy over just a couple of decades. IMO this could cause a lot of pain, total dysfunction of society and frightening levels of unemployment as demand is sucked out of the system.
There may be value in a simple living society, but it appears to be something that would need to be phased in slowly, so the system could adjust without severe dislocations.. Joseph Tainter is an anthropologist who has written extensively on such issues.
In response to Nigel,
1) While they are factors, surely the primary cause of global warming is burning fossil fuels?
only scientifically re CO2 GHGs are concerned. But CO2 is not a “cause” because it is not an “actor”, CO2 has no power to make decisions. How can it be a ’cause”?
2) Blaming GHGs as the cause of AGW is like blaming Axe Heads for the destruction of rain forests and timberlands. So the Govts all passed a laws banning axe heads to save the forests, and then they made 15 foot long toothed saws with wooden handles on each end — aha — the Saws caused the forests destruction! So the Govts banned Saws, then some bright spark inventor with wealthy equity financiers began marketing their new Chainsaw products, and so the Govts passed new Laws to bann chainsaws ……. see the pattern? I hope so.
3) The cause is the self-fulfilling system / nature of the Economic Superorganism. It runs on automatic. You me have no control over this superorgainsm we are simply part of it, cogs in the wheel.
4) But there are people who have the power to make decisions, who are directly tied into this System, who ensure the System keeps running no matter what happens …. they make the financial decisions about Axes, Saws and Chainsaws
5) While a powerless segment of the world are trying to shut down coal fired power stations in a forlorn hope to reduce GHG emissions another elite clique of mega wealthy who run the Economic Surperorganism are making decisions to build huge Datacentres and Cloud Computers that are increasing Energy Deamnd at a rate 10 times or more of the reduction in Coal fored powerstations in the First World, global north.
6) You and I and our Governments have absolutely NO ROLE in those decisions to increase Energy Demand through the roof. None. Those decisions happen Systemically and Automatically behind closed doors, 24/7, non-stop.
7) Or the decisions make to build 2 million Telsas a year for no good reason which pushes the fossil fuel energy demand which is 85% of most western electricity grids through the roof as well. And therefore GHG emissions from mining to marketing to Tesla Apps.
8) So what caused what? Who made the decisions? Who decided they were the best decisions to make? And who decided to give them all this power over the entire world, over us and the Living Biosphere?
Blaming Fossil fuel companies and saying they caused this problem is just dumb. FF suppliers are juts another Cog in the Global Economic Superorganism.
They have NO CHOICE in the decisions they make. None.
Same as you and I. We have no choice over WHO we get to Vote for. We have no choice over what decisions are made at COP meetings. We have no choice over what kind of Transport is available to use or buy for our own use. None. We have no choice over anything.
The global mega wealthy powerful elites do. And only they do.
So who decides that non-stop Economic Growth is an Imperative?
And finally what causes GHG emissions, AGW and Climate Change?
It’s not a trick question. (smile)
NK: CO2 is not a “cause” because it is not an “actor”, CO2 has no power to make decisions. How can it be a ’cause”?
BPL: Fallacy of equivocation,
Levenson
It is common inferiour learnings about causality.
Of Causa Formale, Materiale, Efficiens, and Finale.
There has been silliness on it also in the history of swcience and philosophy.
An increase in electricity demand that “at a rate 10 times or more of the reduction in Coal fored powerstations in the First World?”
No sign of such a thing in the US data:
https://www.eia.gov/totalenergy/data/browser/index.php?tbl=T07.01#/?f=M
Or maybe Tesla building “which pushes the fossil fuel energy demand which is 85% of most western electricity grids through the roof as well?” Well, we already saw that electric demand isn’t up. Maybe elsewhere in the system.
Hmm. Petroleum consumption has been steady for two decades now, even as population and wealth have both grown:
https://www.eia.gov/totalenergy/data/browser/index.php?tbl=T03.01#/?f=M
Natgas, maybe?
https://www.eia.gov/totalenergy/data/browser/index.php?tbl=T04.01#/?f=M
Well, that’s definitely up, markedly so since 2015 (though most of that growth comes at the expense of coal which is much dirtier.)
How about emissions?
https://www.eia.gov/totalenergy/data/browser/index.php?tbl=T11.01#/?f=M
Nope. No dramatic rise there–though I wish they’d give an overall total. But I bet the EPA has that:
https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/inventory-us-greenhouse-gas-emissions-and-sinks
Yep. Emissions down a bunch. Generation down a lot, transportation down a little, transportation probably down a tiny tad, or maybe flat like ag, commercial and residential sectors.
Kevin McKinney says:
“An increase in electricity demand that “at a rate 10 times or more of the reduction in Coal fored powerstations in the First World?”
Why do you this? I didn’t say that, or mean it.
I wrote “energy demand” and then you wrote “electricity demand”.
Are you Barton’s twin? :-)
Is it you don’t agree or understand what was said so you change it something you want it to be?
Why are you posting US data? It’s not the “first world”? I have no idea what all the rest of your comments / links is supposed to be about. Sorry. Very strange to me. Oh well.
This is as good a place as any to bring up the funding imbalance climate-change denialism enjoys over pro-mitigation advocacy in the public sphere. I just came across a 2015 report in PNAS, Corporate funding and ideological polarization about climate change. Abstract:
Drawing on large-scale computational data and methods, this research demonstrates how polarization efforts are influenced by a patterned network of political and financial actors. These dynamics, which have been notoriously difficult to quantify, are illustrated here with a computational analysis of climate change politics in the United States. The comprehensive data include all individual and organizational actors in the climate change countermovement (164 organizations), as well as all written and verbal texts produced by this network between 1993–2013 (40,785 texts,more than 39 million words). Two main findings emerge. First, that organizations with corporate funding were more likely to have written and disseminated texts meant to polarize the climate change issue. Second, and more importantly, that corporate funding influences the actual thematic content of these polarization efforts, and the discursive prevalence of that thematic content over time. These findings provide new, and comprehensive, confirmation of dynamics long thought to be at the root of climate change politics and discourse. Beyond the specifics of climate change, this paper has important implications for understanding ideological polarization more generally, and the increasing role of private funding in determining why certain polarizing themes are created and amplified. Lastly, the paper suggests that future studies build on the novel approach taken here that integrates large-scale textual analysis with social networks.
No more false equivalence, please, Russell!
2023 was the year governments looked at the climate crisis – and decided to persecute the activists:
https://uk.yahoo.com/news/2023-governments-looked-climate-crisis-121021885.html
Would it help if I had said: “Mark my words!”
(smile)
Sometimes the truth is a bitter medicine. But a bitter medicine that saves the patient is always better than a sugar-coated poison.
You are not the truthteller, ned Kelly, ,and you are asking for rather bitter medicines. as politeness hardly bites on you.
It wouldn’t make what you are saying anymore correct. Human beings find it very difficult to envision things changing from the status quo. It is why people succumb to tulip frenzies and miss bargains when the stock market is down.
The idea that human civilization can only exist due to cheap fossil fuel energy is a fallacy. We can see this from the fact that fossil fuels themselves displaced technologies and research efforts. There was a time when no respectable house would light its lamps with anything but whale oil. There was a time when Interstate highways were inconceivable, because the idea of traveling more than 50 miles in a day was unheard of. There was a time when the railways were the pinnacle of technological accomplishment.
And before oil became the dominant transportation fuel, card burned wood in boilers and there was a nascent electric vehicle industry. Disruptive change is always inconceivable until it happens.
This is not to say that all change is equally possible–we now have communication devices that the dwarf the capabilities envisioned by Star Trek, while space travel is still stuck mainly in Low Earth Orbit and flying cars are nowhere to be found. As it turns out microelectronics wound up being easy, while space travel and flying cars are hard. There is an underlying reason for this–microelectronics have followed Moore’s Law since the 1970s, through the era of Dennard scaling of CMOS technology and even beyond. Space flight follows no such law–it will always be difficult and expensive to rocket things into orbit.
As it turns out, energy technology follows a similar “law”–Rosenfeld’s Law, which states that year on year, it takes 1% less energy to generate each dollar of GDP. That may not sound like much, but it is an exponential trend, and if we are smart about things, the trend can probably be accelerated. Moreover, we are starting to see real development in renewable technologies.
So, when you tell us to “Mark your words,” it is indicative more of your own ego than of any deep understanding of energy and the economy. The fact of the matter is that even if it weren’t for climate change, we’d need to move to a sustainable energy economy–fossil fuels are finite and being depleted rapidly. Your conception of civilization is inherently doomed to failure–it is only a matter of when. Saying “I told you so” among the smoldering ruins will provide little comfort. This is not a bet you want to win–nor is there reason to think your winning it is inevitable.
Ray Ladbury says — “it is indicative more of your own ego”
Nope. Step away from the mirror. :-)
Read what I wrote exactly as I wrote it.
Go view read my references now displayed, then stop – and think about it holistically and logically.
I am not the issue.
Hey, Carbomontanus – Bite me! (smile)
In re to
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2023/12/unforced-variations-dec-2023/#comment-817206
and
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2023/12/unforced-variations-dec-2023/#comment-817326
Dear JCM,
Many thanks for your explanations, for useful references, and entire discussions during this year..
Merry Christmas!
Greetings
Tomáš
Do you have a spare 2 hours over the holidays? Then try this on for size:
“The Complex History of Energy and Geopolitics” | The Great Simplification #98
On this episode, political economist Helen Thompson and Nate discuss how energy and geopolitics have interconnected over the past century, building to the entangled political relationships we see around us today. The dynamics of power on a global scale are complex – stemming from access to energy, financial control, military strength, credibility/trust, and much more – yet we can understand these a bit better by learning the history that shaped them. How have geologic provinces of energy dense carbon created inherent hot spots on the geopolitical playing field? How has the global monetary system and debt evolved to strengthen the power of a select few countries and how difficult is it to break from this system? Do our leaders have the capability/knowledge to connect energy and geopolitical policy in order to guide us through a future of declining energy availability?
About Helen Thompson
Helen Thompson is Professor of Political Economy at Cambridge since 1994. Her current research concentrates on the political economy of energy and the long history of the democratic, economic, and geopolitical disruptions of the twenty-first century. She is a regular panelist on Talking Politics and a columnist for the New Statesman. She is a co-presenter of UnHerd’s podcast, These Times and recently published Disorder: Hard Times in the 21st Century.
https://www.thegreatsimplification.com/episode/98-helen-thompson
and /or on YT
27,142 views 16 Nov 2023 The Great Simplification – with Nate Hagens
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FQbdNXQcT3E
——
How about 3 hours spare? This is probably the best ever episode Nate has done ….
Daniel Schmachtenberger: “Artificial Intelligence and The Superorganism”
Episode 71
https://www.thegreatsimplification.com/episode/71-daniel-schmachtenberger
On this episode, Daniel Schmachtenberger returns to discuss a surprisingly overlooked risk to our global systems and planetary stability: artificial intelligence. Through a systems perspective, Daniel and Nate piece together the biophysical history that has led humans to this point, heading towards (and beyond) numerous planetary boundaries and facing geopolitical risks all with existential consequences. How does artificial intelligence, not only add to these risks, but accelerate the entire dynamic of the metacrisis? What is the role of intelligence vs wisdom on our current global pathway, and can we change course? Does artificial intelligence have a role to play in creating a more stable system or will it be the tipping point that drives our current one out of control?
About Daniel Schmachtenberger
Daniel Schmachtenberger is a founding member of The Consilience Project, aimed at improving public sensemaking and dialogue.
The throughline of his interests has to do with ways of improving the health and development of individuals and society, with a virtuous relationship between the two as a goal.
Towards these ends, he’s had particular interest in the topics of catastrophic and existential risk, civilization and institutional decay and collapse as well as progress, collective action problems, social organization theories, and the relevant domains in philosophy and science.
YT 165K views 7 months ago
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_P8PLHvZygo
You want to know what the future holds for you and the world at large – no matter where you live?
I can tell one thing that is guaranteed at this point.
FAR LESS ENERGY WILL BE AVAILABLE – AND IT WILL KEEP ON SHRINKING – STARTING NOW.
So what kind of world would that begin to look like, and how would you survive within it?
Ned Kelly
“I can tell one thing that is guaranteed at this point. FAR LESS ENERGY WILL BE AVAILABLE – AND IT WILL KEEP ON SHRINKING – STARTING NOW….So what kind of world would that begin to look like, and how would you survive within it? ”
This would most probably be at least partly true if we continue to rely on fossil fuels. Once they are burned they are gone, and they are a very limited resource. We would probably hit severe problems next century. We may have already hit peak oil. Plenty of evidence easily googled. And in fact because of the fossils fuels issue renewables are inevitable.
Its not likely to be true with renewables. Mark Jacobson has written peer reviewed studies demonstrating that renewables can provide more than enough energy at scale and that the world has enough resources to build them and this power source should last for many centuries, although obviously it cannot go on literally forever. Who really cares about “forever” anyway.
The energy for renewables is the sun and the materials used for renewables can be recycled many times over. Fusion power has had some recent breakthroughs as well and the components can be recycled.
Wind power is providing good levels of electricity generation in several countries already hitting 20% – 40% of electricity generation. This doesn’t fit your narrative.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wind_power_by_country
Of course its POSSIBLE we will run into problems opening enough mines quickly enough or finding enough resources. Good quality deposits of minerals are not common. Its POSSIBLE we will have to do with somewhat less energy than we are used to. We would have to simplify our lifestyles and make do with less travel, more working from home, prioritising heat pumps, smaller homes. Its obvious surely? Smart, educated, practical people will survive and thrive. In fact everyone should do ok.
The problem I have is with simplification plans like Killians, that suggest we solve climate change by DELIBERATELY making MASSIVE reductions to our energy use especially over relatively short time frames of a couple of decades. This looks like it would definitely cause problems, like mass unemployment as huge levels of demand is sucked out of the system.
Nigel, you raise many issues, concerns, entrenched beliefs, social norms, but one quick point: Mark Jacobson is not your friend. :-)
My factual provable point remains — far less energy will be available. People won’t believe it, but that’s not my responsibility or problem. It is what it is. I’ll leave people here with these two items which fairly address the concerns and confusion / misinformation being raised:
Substituting Renewable Energy for Fossil Fuels is a Doomsday Stratagem (Art Berman again)
There is no energy transition, no paradigm shift or green revolution. The popular idea that fossil fuels can be and are being replaced by renewable energy is false. New energy sources have always been additive with no empirical evidence for replacement of one energy source by another.
Renewable energy requires materials that use fossil energy for their extraction, transport, manufacture, and distribution. The four essential pillars of modern civilization are steel, cement, plastic and ammonia. None of these are possible without fossil energy. Energy substitution is a doomsday stratagem that condemns civilization to its status quo path of growth & biophysical destruction. No amount of non-fossil energy will make a difference unless we lower total energy consumption & accept its consequence of no Growth and/or De-Growth – Economic, Consumption, Energy and Population combined.
Climate change is a big problem but it is a SUBSET of the larger problem of Biophysical Overshoot. We have exceeded the carrying capacity of the planet. Continued economic and material growth based on renewable energy does not begin to resolve that fundamental reality. It’s time to get honest. (Endless unbridled uncontrolled) GROWTH is the core of the human predicament.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2lW3D3hs1WU&t=1171s
The Green Transition will not work as planned, what might we do instead? – Professor Simon Michaux
Sustainable Minerals Institute – UQ Australia – 3rd NOV 2023
Professor Simon Michaux discusses how current thinking will not help us, and if we change that thinking, there are solution vectors if we chose to see them. [Ambitious Pie in the Sky very unlikely to be adopted by the entrenched System as it is. Maybe once things begin falling apart these ideas might be seen for what they are – sane, rational, and scientifically evidence based approaches for a last ditch effort to minmise some of the harm to some of the people that is already in the pipeline..
https://youtu.be/YbnXMv19Hck?si=PbDhnB4ploQeuxIE&t=78
imo Nate Hagens @ https://www.thegreatsimplification.com and @ https://read.realityblind.world/view/975731937/ and these two are not the only ones talking sense based on reality and scientific knowledge instead of emotionally based fantasy which is where the IPCC ‘theories’ and the UNFCCC / COP systems operate in.
There is an entire world out there of professional scientists and experts who actually know what they’re talking about and offer genuine critical insights into our collective predicament. Vaclav Smil is another one.
Ned Kelly
“My factual provable point remains — far less energy will be available. ”
It’s not a fact. It’s an evidence free assertion (Im assuming you mean the next few centuries not millions of years into the future ). Nobody can make such a definitive assertion because nobody has a crystal ball into the future, or knows exactly how many economically recoverable resources the planet has, because we don’t have the remote sensing technology to know.
The evidence we DO have suggests we most probably have enough materials for a complete energy transition with plenty of energy (Jacobson). Fusion power might revolutionise everything. The sun will most likely be shining for millions of years. Even if we do run low on energy, and cant complete the energy transition 100% we will have reduced the warming problem.
“There is no energy transition, no paradigm shift or green revolution. The popular idea that fossil fuels can be and are being replaced by renewable energy is false. New energy sources have always been additive with no empirical evidence for replacement of one energy source by another.”
Evidence free assertions. Renewables are growing according to the IEA data. They have not reduced total fossil fuels output yet, but they have stopped it growing as much as anticipated by the IPCC, and as such have and most likely already stopped 4-5 degrees of warming (this website did an article analysing this a couple of years ago). Renewables are also following an exponential growth curve like other new technology but are still in the early stages of that growth curve.
“Renewable energy requires materials that use fossil energy for their extraction, transport, manufacture, and distribution. ”
Right now they do, but this will eventually change as renewables become dominant.
“The four essential pillars of modern civilization are steel, cement, plastic and ammonia. None of these are possible without fossil energy. ”
I disagree. Its makes no difference to the manufacture of steel, cement plastics or ammonia, manufacture whether the electricity is generated by fossil fuels or renewables. Its the same electricity.
Fossil fuels are required as a base ingredient in those processes. There are processes to stop the blast furnace procedure relying on coking coal and its emissions. Refer.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidrvetter/2021/08/19/how-sweden-delivered-the-worlds-first-fossil-fuel-free-steel/?sh=4049f5546b55
https://www.ssab.com/en/fossil-free-steel
Ammonia manufacture requires a process converting methane to ammonia and we may have to rely on this. It is not a huge source of greenhouse emissions and it is one we may have to offset with carbon sequestration. There are solutions like this people are conveniently ignoring.
“Energy substitution is a doomsday stratagem that condemns civilization to its status quo path of growth & biophysical destruction. No amount of non-fossil energy will make a difference unless we lower total energy consumption & accept its consequence of no Growth and/or De-Growth – Economic, Consumption, Energy and Population combined.”
Renewables have already made a difference to climate change projections. Some economic de-growth would be helpful but its a rate of change issue. Too much too fast would obviously crash our civilisation and cause massive unemployment. either way de-growth is a a separate issue to the method we generate power.
“Climate change is a big problem but it is a SUBSET of the larger problem of Biophysical Overshoot. We have exceeded the carrying capacity of the planet. Continued economic and material growth based on renewable energy does not begin to resolve that fundamental reality. It’s time to get honest. (Endless unbridled uncontrolled) GROWTH is the core of the human predicament.”
Yes sure agreed that climate change is a subset of a larger problem, but this forum is about climate change. We have to have a solution to climate change that works within current socio-economic system, because revolutionisng that system is unlikely to happen fast – if it happens at all.
Renewables look like our best bet. They are compatible in the longer term with high growth and zero growth or de-growth economies. The style of economy is our decision and is a separate issue from the energy source. Surely this is self evident. Renewables may generate economic growth sort term.
Clearly high rates of economic growth can’t go on forever. It should also be noted that the rate of economic growth in developed countries has already decreased since the 1950s and is likely to continue to fall due to natural processes related to demographic and resources!!!
“The Green Transition will not work as planned, what might we do instead? – Professor Simon Michaux”
Purely his view and his analysis. He looks at existing mines and argues they will not meet the needs for renewables, without considering new mines could be opened and that minerals can be economically extracted from sea water and geothermal brines and the resource is huge. I could post dozens of links.
“imo Nate Hagens @ https://www.thegreatsimplification.com and @ https://read.realityblind.world/view/975731937/ ”
Nate is worth listening to IMO. I’m not opposed to a workable form of simplification, but some forms don’t sound workable.
“There is an entire world out there of professional scientists and experts who actually know what they’re talking about and offer genuine critical insights into our collective predicament. Vaclav Smil is another one.”
Just because these guys go against the mainstream, doesn’t necessarily mean they are right. Just saying :)
On levelized kg CO2 eq / kWh for ‘clean’ – cleaner energy – yes it is an issue but as the share of cleaner energy supply increases, the cleaner energy gets cleaner. It will be harder to replace fossil fuels for some parts of the supply/manufacturing steps/etc. But at some point it should be possible to make renewable carbon, if necessary, to make the steel, Si, etc. (PS I think the reduction of SiO2 to Si is actually a small part of the input (?)). EROEIs are good.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_return_on_investment#Application_to_various_technologies
With policies to protect the climate and other aspects/parts of the environment, and labor, consumer safety, society in general, etc., the market should be incentivized to make things work out as best they can (noting additional public policies may be needed to guide this because real markets may not be ideal even if externalities are accounted for(?)) – if it turns out we can’t mine enough without destroying too much, or recycle enough to maintain supplies and avoid turning the oceans to plastic (you know what I mean), etc, then we’ll find out. A tax on carbon will work it’s way into prices for clean energy to the extent they need fossil fuels and deforestation/etc… and if it turns out that the energy can’t be clean enough, then energy will be more expensive and people will use less; etc. And…
(here’s the tricky part because people sometimes just have babies regardless – we need education and empowerment for girls/women, etc… (for this reason and just because it’s good))
…via expenses, population will/should be encouraged to shrink if we can’t maintain the economy at size.
It seems like you have good understanding of key issues there patrick. and where the barriers are too. would a global one child policy help, if it could be implemented? I heard someone suggested that voluntary euthanasia for people after they turn 60 should be option …. the most extreme idea I have heard so far.
a carbon tax should have been applied 3 decades ago imo, but we missed the bus. COP 28 seemed like another fizzer. and I think the UK reneged on all the key things they said they’d do at Glasgow cop when Boris was still PM. I’m not expecting more than this anymore. Best to you, thanks.
re my https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2023/12/unforced-variations-dec-2023/#comment-817440 …“if it turns out we can’t mine enough without destroying too much, or recycle enough to maintain supplies and avoid turning the oceans to plastic (you know what I mean), etc, then we’ll find out. ”…
Probably doesn’t convey what I meant. Obviously we shouldn’t wait for disaster before trying to prevent it; proactive public policy on pollution/poisons (and nanotech and A.I.) makes sense…
Basically I just mean that it doesn’t make sense to me to prescribe a priori the size of the economy; rather, we should have policies and encourage behaviors entailing: being nice and respectful to ourselves, each other, pets, livestock, other beings in general, the environment (so it will be nice to us), etc. in a sustainable way, and let the economy adjust to that.
My own guess is that the biggest challenge to achieving a steady-state economy (or degrowth, or linear, logarithmic, or asymptotic growth) is that people have come to expect exponential-ish growth. People will have to be told and prepared for the (at some uncertain date and final size) end of growth (at least Earth-bound – not that growing into Space is easy, as Ray Ladbury noted above
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2023/12/unforced-variations-dec-2023/#comment-817406 ).
I think growth in various forms (expansion of physical territory at one point in time) has been used as an ‘opiate of the masses’, to ease class and perhaps racial tensions (I have read that racism itself was used to ease class tensions), so when growth, at least per capita, stops, … well maybe we should try to stop racism/etc. and get more egalitarian.
Got a quick 9 minutes?
Lisi Krall on the Sociality of Humans …. the Annual Cycle of Grains, the Dawn of Agriculture, Sedentary living, to grow and store grain surplus, created hierarchy and inequality and that created a feedback loop on the imperative to increase the Surplus even more and so out of that comes Patriarchy and other Power systems, iow agriculture and the human technology that grew around that generated a self-fulfilling circular dynamic in human society or Sociality of Human Systems which continues to this day,
And yes, Fossil Fuels, that cheap abundant energy and all today’s technology, is all part of this ancient changes that began 10,000 years ago at the dawn of the Holocene period …… iow it was created out of climate change at the end of the last glacial maximum.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K01u8MBbsPI
So here we are: Now, whatcha gonna do about that? :-)
Or does it? While there are a few pockets still of high fertility–I’m looking at you, Nigeria!–birth rates are way down, all across the world, basically. Population decline is becoming quite problematic in some countries (famously, Japan). Sure seems that *something* has changed in a very significant department.
The truth is out there everywhere ….. one needs to simply look out for it and use critical thinking skills and drop the ingrained belief systems full of Lies.
How Economics Overpowers Culture (and Common Sense and the Truth) | with Lisi Krall
10,000 years ago, homo sapiens began farming a grain surplus. This surplus led to the creation of societal and cultural hierarchies which divorced our species from our long relationship with the natural world. This week’s guest, Lisi Krall, argues that our current economic system of fossil-fuelled capitalism is an interpretation of that same system—and we must repair our relationship to the more-than-human world if we are to change the system. But it is a momentous challenge. One, she argues, we must not think culture alone can overcome.
Lisi Krall is a Professor of Economics at the State University of New York Cortland where she researches political economy, human ecology, and the evolution of economic systems. She’s also the author of Bitter Harvest: An Inquiry Into The War Between Economy And Earth.
She explains how systems self-propagate, evolve and dominate culture, arguing acts of local resistance are key to building a sustainable world, and WARNS AGAINST projects like the GREEN NEW DEAL which she claims is the status quo BAU MASQUERADING AS THE SOLUTION.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0kKGgcxmJ-c
NOT that anyone really should need Lisa or a video on YT to work out the GND is 100% fake BS, right?
[ seems like no one else is adding much of usefulness here, so I figured I’d fill the void over the holiday season ]
Oh, in case you missed the obvious …
Replacing cheap abundant fossil-fuelled capitalism with cheap abundant renewable energy-fuelled capitalism is NOT the solution to anything – bar Billionaires getting richer more powerful and you getting poorer and eventually starving to death.
Doh! It’s is obvious right? (smile)
Ned Kelly
“Replacing cheap abundant fossil-fuelled capitalism with cheap abundant renewable energy-fuelled capitalism is NOT the solution to anything – bar Billionaires getting richer more powerful and you getting poorer and eventually starving to death.”
Renewables might not solve every problem in society and they cant be expected to do that, , but they have a decent chance of helping to solve the climate problem. For evidence refer to the IPCC reports.
Ironically if we don’t replace fossil fuels with renewables, people will starve to death, – either directly from climate change, (which you have acknowledged yourself!) or when fossil fuels run out, or from some crazy plan to solve climate change with massive cuts to energy consumption.
We cant solve the very real problems of extreme financial inequality by our energy policy, or by tearing apart industrial society.
Think – it – through.
Nigel, I agree with your “Think – it – through” plea. Return to sender. (smile)
Replace fossil fuels with renewables, and people will starve to death anyway – either directly from climate change or when renewables fail to prove the needs of society and agriculture, industry and transportation and ………
The reality is: Massive cuts to energy consumption are unavoidable.
The only question left is what are you and everyone else going to do about that as it happens?
Because Nigel (and others) that very thing is about to begin at any moment now. It has already started in Germany and that nation is being turned into a basket case where once it appeared as if they had their act together, when in truth they never actually did. This is only the beginning of what the west will look like going forward. It will be far worse when the US suddenly begins to run out of shale oil and gas. First no more exports to Germany or Asia, then no more for the homeland either. Renewable energy (wind/solar/hydro/biomass) cannot and will not fill the gaps.
Arthur Berman: “Shale Oil and the Slurping Sound”
| The Great Simplification #101 December 13th, 2023
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qqTh2nBEcCs
Increase the speed to x1.25/x1.5 makes it easier / faster.
The past few years of continued growth in OIL Supply have been obtained by using “a larger straw”, merely delaying the inevitability of the depletion of a finite resource. Art presents recent data on well productivity in US shale plays indicating we are much closer to ‘the slurping sound’. Where do we go when economically viable oil isn’t available anymore – and will we have the prudence to make the cultural shifts necessary before we have no other options? Have we now passed ‘peak oil’?
PDF Transcript and Refs https://www.thegreatsimplification.com/episode/101-art-berman
eg ½-⅔ of all remaining oil reserves are within a few hundred miles of Israel
eg 1:15:39 – Why is the U.S. experiment unlikely to be repeated as a global extension of oil supply in the coming decade/s?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qqTh2nBEcCs&t=4539s
One small piece of the world wide jigsaw puzzle we live in.
Ned Kelly
“Replace fossil fuels with renewables, and people will starve to death anyway – either directly from climate change or when renewables fail to prove the needs of society and agriculture, industry and transportation and …”
Evidence free assertion. The best evidence we have suggests we have a good probability of making an orderly energy transition without people starving to death (Mark Jacobson is one example).
Renewables seem better overall than continuing to burn fossil fuels – because we know with good certainty we will run out of fossil fuel resources (which you mention yourself) and this really would cause food supply issues.
We don’t have an ideal answer to the energy issue and probably never will. Renewables seem like the best overall solution right now.
“The reality is: Massive cuts to energy consumption are unavoidable.”
Just an evidence free assertion.
“Because Nigel (and others) that very thing is about to begin at any moment now. It has already started in Germany and that nation is being turned into a basket case …”
Just because Germany has made some bad decisions regarding renewables and nuclear power doesn’t mean everyone is. Nobody said it would be easy anyway. The de- growth solutions you seem to prefer would not be easy either. During the 1930s depression a big reduction in economic output caused 25% unemployment.
“The past few years of continued growth in OIL Supply have been obtained by using “a larger straw”, merely delaying the inevitability of the depletion of a finite resource”
Correct. But this is just another reason to transition to alternative fuels.
“The Great Simplification #101 December 13th, 2023”
Some form of simplification and reduced consumption seems inevitable as resources become more scarce. It will be forced upon us. But its really hard to know how much and when, and population trajectories will be a big influence.
The problem is deliberative forms of simplification. Because how would you persuade people? And if the simplification plan is too ambitious, it could could cause our civilisation to crash badly with high unemployment due to hugely reduced demand. It could be worse than the problems its trying to solve.
Aaah the great challenge of the energy blind.
it’s a central question and the answer to that question is that if you want to limit energy
use, reduce total energy consumption in the global north, and you want to offer enough
energy for the impoverished masses, both words operative impoverished masses, to
escape their impoverishment there’s only one way that can happen and that is that the
top energy consumers – everyone who posts to this forum and those that own and run
it – have to consume a heck of a lot less energy in order to enable that – TINA – there is
no alternative to this equation for a livable planet on which to survive.
Renewable energy proponents, US energy policy and EVs being a saviour, and net zero
heroics the whole point is that renewable energy as as it’s talked about in the sort of
mass public discourse and on forums like this is NOT to lower our energy demands
and help us to realize the need for limits in all levels of material Consumption – NO
instead it’s intended to allow this non-stop expansionary system to go on Ad infinitum
and this EXTREMELY ILLOGICAL UNSCIENTIFIC NARRATIVE does not recognize the
profound challenge that we have that is that we as a Species are confronting limits to
growth and urgent need to confront these limits immediately through systemic
changes to how we live as a species.
Just planting seeds ….. all we hear from folks like M Mann or Secular Animist or Tomas
instead is the urgent need to shut down all the evil fossil fuel companies AS IF that is
the whole solution – to cut emissions by shifting to renewable energy – when it isn’t a
solution at all – it’s calling for more of the same from renewables instead, It’s calling
for the endlessly increasing consumption of energy, of materials, of production and
endless growth – that is simply BAU all over the world — it’s a road to hell not sanity
and not scientific nor is it reason or moral. It’s criminal, it’s irresponsible, unethical and
it’s immoral.
But that’s where we are after 35 years of the IPCC and 30 years of the UNFCCC system.
Both are bullshit and not fit for purpose.
Ned, I have a stock answer for people with lots of information and a declaration of the Final Solution:
“Sounds good, so what’s your plan?”
I often use it, for example, with people who say that all we have to do in the USA is build hundreds of nuclear plants. So far, over decades, I’ve yet get an answer… I don’t mean a “bad” answer, but just crickets, because of the. obvious obstacles to getting it done.
Now, I have pointed out, again over decades… that “limits to growth” is a necessity, But I have also offered a solution… a desired end-state… as well as empirical observations of how it might be achieved.
What I have observed is that there are conditions under which fertility rates drop precipitously…. see Japan, Russia, South Korea, China, and many others. And this is observed to be very difficult to reverse despite the efforts of governments.
What is obvious about this trend is that it is driven not by “moral, ethical”, blah blah blah concerns, but by individual, rational, self-interest. I doubt very much that the women in those countries who are “on strike” have been convinced by you or Killian or anyone else to avoid or limit reproduction. They are just looking out for themselves.
So, when I point out that if you achieve a stable population which is small relative to the resource base, you will eliminate many of the problems you are addressing, I also suggest that this is potentially a self-stable state. You don’t need to produce lots of male babies to fight wars for control of the good hunting grounds, and it makes no sense to figure out how to extract oil and gas from the Arctic, or practice industrial agriculture, and on and on…. all that stuff is not a matter of “bad morals”; it follows logically from a psychological/hierarchical structure that developed to make territoriality more successful.
And yes, decline of population will not happen overnight (well, excluding the existing catastrophic risks), but this is an actual path forward that needs to be promoted as much as possible in conjunction with other transitions. If you think it is necessary, rather, to eliminate the psychological/hierarchical structure that I mentioned in a much shorter term, then I have a question:
“Sounds great, what’s your plan?”
Dear Zebra ,
First do me a favour and yourself at the very same time — Reply with a COPY/PASTE of what you imagine was my *** declaration of the Final Solution *** — I do not recall declaring one.
You’d be better off reviewing the material I recommended and getting your head around Reality Blind and the economic superorganism, as mentioned. Cross checking the numbers for annual total energy consumption growth up to this year would be a useful yardstick to be truly knowledgeable about. Rather than merely worrying about the rhetoric. It’s passe.
And good luck! :-)
PS Zebra,
I believe and accept that “decline of population will happen” automatically.
It’s systemically built into exponential growth and limits to growth. It’s inescapable. No need to do anything about it, because it is a natural OUTCOME of XYZ, and not a SOLUTION or ACTION to be implemented.
It is already playing out across all species populations with many driven to extinction with more to follow. This is surely obvious to all, is it not? No one can stop this – it’s on automatic – it’s far too late now.
Cheers
Ned Kelly.
Almost nobody who participates in this website has said or implied that the only thing we need to do is replace fossil fuels with renewables, and replace ICE cars with Evs. We should also reduce our consumption of energy and materials and consider our diet, and recycle more things, etc, etc. That is in the IPCC set of solutions. I haven’t heard Mann suggest otherwise.
I choose to drive a small car and walk and get buses where possible. These are small things but they are something. And yes obviously high income earners need to do this proportionately more than poor people.
However not building renewables, and instead making MASSIVE and rapid cuts to energy consumption as a primary solution to the climate problem, is not a realistic option. As I stated above thread, this would cause massive pain, and it would almost certainly cause the collapse of society, and severe unemployment as demand is sucked out of the system, (like the 1930s depression) and is extremely unlikely to be adopted by the general public.
So we are in a complicated situation that can’t be solved with your slogans, shouting and ALL CAPS. and mixing in together of energy and social factors. The irony is that even a non capitalist, low consumption, simple living society will need some energy, and burning wood won’t work, not with 7 billion plus people. There aren’t any better options right now than renewables.
nigelj – where did I say anything would be or could be solved?
You are not paying attention nor hearing what is being said, and shared.
I recommend instead, you go see the items I have recommended, and think carefully and deeply about that, and then leave me out of it, because it’s got nothing to do with me. So then you can stop all the hyper-reactive hand-waving, because you’re wasting your energy and wasting space. :-)
Do as you wilt. I don’t care, really.
Nigelj:
I agree that transitioning away from fossil fuel energy sources is essential and not the only solution but there needs to be big changes to our hierachal structures as well. The major problem with capitalism as it stands is that externalised costs do not appear on the balance sheet so can be ignored. If currency was linked to ecological footprint and sustainability, so that activities that had a higher social or ecological cost were the most expensive, I suspect big business would find ways to transition to sustainability.
One problem now is that even if we decide we are going to move away from fossil fuels, there is the problem of monetary cost. Who pays for the cost of retrofitting all the old buildings in industrialised countries with heat pumps and solar panels? People at the bottom end of the income bracket who have to choose between heating and eating certainly aren’t. How are you going to make developers build carbon neutral homes when they are trying to build as many houses on a plot of land for as cheaply as possible, and flog them off at the highest price possible? If private motor cars are to be all electric, is there sufficient capacity in the national power grids to support this? How do people charge their cars if they live in a block of flats which have fewer car parking spaces than residents, or who live in terraced housing with no driveway where their front door opens out onto the pavement? You can say bump up the renewable electricity generation, but what happens when you get a stagnant weather pattern bringing anticyclonic gloom for 2-3 weeks at a time, will the solar panels and wind turbines be able to cope with demand?
In Re to
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2023/12/unforced-variations-dec-2023/#comment-817503
Dear Adam,
I agree to you that economy matters. In my understanding, we have to become as smart as possible and seek ways how to make desirable transitions economically beneficial.
I do not think that it can and should be done by public subsidies for arbitrarily selected technologies. We rather need incentives for testing new, yet commercially unavailable technologies having potential to become economically competitive with fossil fuels and others hardly sustainable solutions for energy supply.
Make the green transition beneficial / profitable, and you have it completed within 15 years worldwide.
Greetings
Tom
Adam Lea says
“The major problem with capitalism as it stands is that externalised costs do not appear on the balance sheet so can be ignored. If currency was linked to ecological footprint and sustainability, so that activities that had a higher social or ecological cost were the most expensive….”
This is theoretically true, it’s an old canard. I think a better term might have been Nature’s Price, on Nature’s Value to account for the true value of what humans extract from their world. The question is, who does that Price get paid to? And it’s more than merely “Capitalism” at issue here, it’s the nation States and Governments and how Debt and Finance plays into these two monoliths.
Now take Oil – barrel of Oil provides 4.5 years of human energy output. iow the energy a human would expend digging holes for 4.5 years. What’s the true value / or basic wage of an unskilled worker employed digging holes for 4.5 years? It varies from nation to nation, right?
In the US that’s about $140,000 on a basic wage of $15 per hour. That’s the Value of the “work” that the Energy in one barrel of oil can do. Today’s price is $73 per barrel plus transportation and refining costs. This is why they call fossil fuels cheap.
Then one can consider Nature’s Price/Value of a mature Tree, of all the Fish and Crustaceans in the Sea, the price of rich Soils for agriculture and pastures, the Price of Grass for livestock, the price of water, the price of Iron Ore, of Bauxite, of Lithium, of Copper oxide and all the other minerals gold and precious gems in their natural state.
Put the true Price Value onto Oil and the other fossil fuels and bioservices provided by Nature and the the whole Capitalist and Government edifices collapse to the ground immediately.
Nothing is sustainable at the True Price of things.
For all kinds fo reasons not worth repeating Tomas’ ideal of “Make the green transition beneficial / profitable, and you have it completed within 15 years worldwide.” is a pipe dream.
WE already had 30+ years of this pipe dream going no where and achieving nothing at all. Because it is impossible under our current global systems. A complete paradigm shift is required to something else entirely. This shift will not be, CANNOT BE, voluntary but instead forced upon humanity by extreme trauma and massive loss of life.
Which I suggest is going to be the impacts from simultaneous catastrophic climate change impacts sporadically across the world steadily increasing in frequency coupled with massive sudden Energy shocks in lack of Supply not meeting Demand … initially sporadically in several nations, which will however be reflected in Global Energy Prices and then across various regions (those lacking in local access), again steadily increasing in frequency until the lack of energy and impossibly high price increases produces mass traumas.
In the near future, year after year, slowly at first and then suddenly, the US is going to lose it’s capacity to produce 12 million bpd of Oil production from it’s shale oil plays. Some this decade almost all the rest in the following decade.
The breakdown in energy supply will create havoc no matter what the source of supply is, nor how that shortfall comes about. It might be from a lack of wind and solar outputs, or drought causing hydro supply shortages, or extreme weather destroying wind and solar infrastructure, or oil and gas wells drying up, wild weather shutting down the Tar sands operations or offshore wells for months on end, Or wars.
eg in today’s stable world a simple shortfall of 1 million barrels of Oil a day (~1% shortfall) immediately produces a 10% spike in global Oil prices. Similar effects have been seen with the Gas shortfall in Germany, which is an excellent template for the effects of future extraordinary destabilizing events impacting energy supplies.
The loss of the Shale Oil in the US will be at least a 10% shortfall in supply at the same time even the Saudis output will continue to fall dramatically. New record oil prices are going to be repeatedly broken.
This will impact all sections of the global economy including the costs and constraints of building renewable energy alternatives, the cost of mining, and the ability to make cost effective Hydrogen and maintain agricultural output. Everything will be impacted.
Everything. The future cost of even running climate models will become astronomical at a time governments are going bust.
I’m with Art Berman and Co –
“I think it’s time to get honest about the human predicament, and not everybody wants to do that, but that’s my message to you.”
Why on earth would anyone make the selection “arbitrary?” There is, after all, such a thing as rational evaluation and selection.
Maybe you missed the memo, but we are now at a point where “commercially unavailable technologies” aren’t going to cut it. We are past the point that that is of any great use. We rather need to deploy technologies at scale NOW. The good news is that we have them!
Perhaps there’s another memo you missed, but modern renewable energy is already outcompeting fossil fuels in most places–or can be made to do so by lowering barriers such as fossil fuel subsidies or institutional or regulatory barriers to capital investments in RE and related tech.
Again:
https://www.lazard.com/media/nltb551p/lazards-lcoeplus-april-2023.pdf
Historically, there are several ways to address issues of financing and incentives. The simplest is by fiat; regulatory authorities simply require thus and such to be included (or excluded). For example, some US cities are banning natgas appliances in new residential construction (and some GOP-led state governments are trying to keep the cities from doing so.)
Then there is the Pigovian taxation route: Canada’s carbon tax is an example of that.
Similarly, carbon markets. Here’s the latest on China’s:
https://www.gulftoday.ae/opinion/2023/11/29/china-offers-incentives-to-curb-carbon-emissions
All of these share the feature of connecting carbon in helpful ways to the money economy (i.e., in some way internalizing the cost of mitigation.)
These are practical problems which secondarily (but still significantly) involve costs. And like all practical problems, solutions will vary according to local conditions. Capacity is obviously a matter of planning and investment; I don’t think it’s apt to be problematic for the system to cope with. As to charging, solutions will vary, as I said, but one could be to improve transit and/or access to transit; another could be to create local combined parking/charging capacity. (This might even work with the transit aspect.) Yet another solution could be increased utilization of transportation as a service, shrinking the total auto fleet but increasing utilization.
Well, they aren’t going to be the only thing going. There will be various forms of storage, and in the near term, it’s a grand use for natgas plants. Their emissions aren’t going to be nearly as significant if they only run a few weeks in the year. Of course, that does get us back to costs, as they can’t make money on their pure output in such a scenario; they’d have to be remunerated as a form of insurance, I suspect.
In re to
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2023/12/unforced-variations-dec-2023/#comment-817536 ,
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2023/12/unforced-variations-dec-2023/#comment-817539
and
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2023/12/unforced-variations-dec-2023/#comment-817538
Dear Kevin,
Unfortunately, without a really cheap electricity storage, renewable energy sources are not yet economically competitive with fossil fuels in electricity production. Otherwise, they would have already replaced them.
The reason for persistence of fossil fuel usage in electricity production is an absence of a such cheap electricity storage technology – no commercially available electricity storage method has sufficiently low cost for 1 kWh of storage capacity and sufficiently high storage efficiency in parallel.
At least one method with the desired parameters is, however, known. It is electricity storage in metallic sodium:
https://www.orgpad.com/s/5BfLP-cxj-7
My goal is therefore its commercialization.
Unfortunately, subsidies for arbitrarily chosen alternatives, such as electricity storage in “green” hydrogen or in so called “electrofuels”, that in fact do not have the necessary technical potential, so far effectively divert interest of industry from sodium storage.
Instead of its development to commercial maturity, they waste public money in “development” of techniques that have unavoidable natural constraints preventing them from the desired low cost and/or high efficiency.
If you are in a hurry, a seemingly short direct way through a swamp may not be quicker than a longer way around.
Greetings
Tomáš
In Re to
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2023/12/unforced-variations-dec-2023/#comment-817536
and two preceding posts.
Dear Kevin,
In addition to my yesterday reply to this recent series of your posts, I would like to refer also to my slightly older reply to Nigel:
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2023/12/unforced-variations-dec-2023/#comment-817263
Greetings and all the best in the year 2024!
Tomáš
@Geoff Miell above
Does David Spratt lead a political party? Does he lead a nation’s Government?
Does he have a seat at the COP 28 meeting and a Vote?
No, no and no.
David Spratt is a nobody with zero power and no reach in the community to make an ounce of difference.
David Spratt has zero credible support from the public nor the Wealthy Global Elite and their peons who already run the world and make all the decisions. See COP 28 and all the ones that came before it.
——————–
Barton Paul Levenson says
24 Dec 2023 at 8:12 AM
I realise it’s challenging for you by do try harder to follow along here:
NK: EVs are not a solution nor are Renewable energy deployments … eg manufacturing solar panels increases GHG gases.
BPL: Every 500 MW of wind or solar installed is another big coal plant that doesn’t have to be built.
NK: No my dear BPL. It actually goes like this:
Every 500 MW of ENERGY that is not required because Economic Growth was quelled, and/or global Degrowth strategies were deployed, and/or CONSUMPTION is curtailed is another 500 MW Wind Farm, and Solar Plant, and or Coal fired plant and or Gas plant that doesn’t have to be built….. and doesn’t have to run everyday for 25 plus years.
Every CAR that is not needed is another EV Car, another Hybrid Car, or another ICE car plus another 25 tonnes of IRON ORE that doesn’t need to be mined or transported to the Coal Fired Steel Furnaces…….. and another several thousand MWh of Electricity not needing to be produced and/or another thousands of gallons of Petrol not needed to be burnt.
Please try to follow along. (smile)
Barton Paul Levenson and millions of others need to learn that Renewables has not OFFSET a single ton of Coal, a barrel of Oil or a cm of Gas consumption ever.
What Renewables do, what Nuclear did, and what Hydro has done is supplement the Growth of Total Energy Demand which has kept on growing non stop for 250 plus years.
Go check the facts.
RE expansion in wind solar biomass or hydro in the nordic, germany, europe, american countries they might cl;aim that that “caused” the closure of Coal fired powerstations in those countries but the fact is the offshoring of manufacturing and industry had already caused to opening of 2, 3 or more Coal fired / fossil fuel power stations and FF industrial heat in China, Asia, India and soon also in Africa ….. total global energy has continuously increased …… the only temporary blip being the GFC and Covid.
The same applies to the past and current expansion of Nuclear energy supply. It does NOT, and has not offset increasing Fossil Fuel consumption.
Go check the historical Facts!
However with the looming global Peak Oil scenario, and the looming reduction in Shale Gas supplies soon Fossil Fuel production will no longer be able to keep up with the increasing demand – and nor will RE or nuclear be able to fill that shortfall.
This lack of total energy supply is going to completely change the dynamics as prices go through the roof and energy shortages of various become the norm. In this scenarios Transportation, Agriculture (fertilisers), Electricity supply, Manufacturing, Finances, and national economies are going become increasingly unstable and eventually crash.
Until then the self-sustaining system of growth and energy consumption on steroids – The Economic Superorganism – will continue feeding on all the energy it can find – unabated.
Cheers
Happy New Year
NK: Barton Paul Levenson and millions of others need to learn that Renewables has not OFFSET a single ton of Coal, a barrel of Oil or a cm of Gas consumption ever.
BPL: Why should I “learn” something that isn’t true?
You might want to check these historical facts, too, while you are at it:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_in_Uruguay
Looks to me like quite a lot of thermal generation got nixed by renewables there.
You’re not wrong that we need to change the way we do things; technological substitution doesn’t address, for example, the plastic pollution crisis–or habitat loss, for another. It’s indisputable that at some point, growth must stop at the planetary level.
But you don’t wave a wand and transform society, which means that we’re going to be dealing with many aspects of the status quo for some time yet. By all means, talk about degrowth strategies and a truly sustainable society. What would it look like, and how do you think we can get there? And do you really think that it’s plausible that this can be done rapidly enough to avoid catastrophic amounts of warming? (On that last, I haven’t so far seen anything that persuades me that we can afford not to mitigate emissions within the framework of the status quo–even if at the same time, we work toward a more completely sustainable world.)
Kevin McKinney & Barton Paul Levenson and others interested in the notion contained in
“Renewables has not OFFSET a single ton of Coal, a barrel of Oil or a cm of Gas consumption ever.”
Preemptively accurate and verifiable research data was already provided by me to match your expected denials / disbelief / rationalizations and cognitive dissonance issues (which we all have at times) or whatever caused personal discomfort.
Global accumulated data applies to Global Warming and Global Climate Change – scientifically I operate from a Global Perspective – any exceptions only prove the Rule – Context matters and that’s my context for my ‘statement’ as given.
SEE my post on page 2.
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2023/12/unforced-variations-dec-2023/comment-page-2/#comment-817454
If you’d like more specific or more compelling Scientific Data that supports my position and previous posts here, please request it.
And replies for Kevin-
1) “growth must stop at the planetary level.” – yes, including growth of fossil fuel supply and consumption. And growth of population, the global economy, and energy use. TINA, all must stop, and will stop growing.
2) “you don’t wave a wand and transform society” – Correct. My point exactly. Net Zero (IPCC/COP +1.5C, the RE transition etc etc) is a failure because of this truth, this simple fact of life.
3) (degrowth strategies, sustainable society) – “do you really think that it’s plausible that this can be done rapidly enough to avoid catastrophic amounts of warming?”
– NO, absolutely not. This is my whole ‘point’ in several comments and refs based on the scientific expert research, the recent history, and logic. Not only that but it will not be done nor even attempted. That’s the real kicker.
4) “I haven’t so far seen anything that persuades me that we can afford not to mitigate emissions within the framework of the status quo…”
You are again correct, and I agree. However nothing is being done. Look at the definition – Mitigation is the >>>> reduction <<<>>> reduction <<<< of its harmful effects.
Go look at any Global GHG/CO2 historical emissions graph, in Units or Atmospheric PPM and you will not miss the scientific fact that there has been Zero Mitigation of GHGs since the IPCC, the COP system, (and this website) were formed.
Which should tell you, and everyone else, there has been Zero Mitigation to date. None. Nada. Zip. Ziltch. And that significant unsavory scientific fact is also part of my 'whole' point. :-)
Nothing has been done, nothing is being done, nothing will be done in the future. People are going to die. Civilization and societies all over the world are going to collapse like dominoes falling. 'Catastrophe' is not a strong enough word to describe what is coming. And what is already here now upon us.
Nothing can or will persuade me to sugarcoat this reality. The idea or the belief that somehow somebody's going to figure out something and that's going to save us — wow — if that was going to happen it already would have and you'd be looking at it right now.
The world already knows that's not going to happen. At the very least they need to finally wake up to that fact. There is no hope. It's going to be really really bad. People are going to die. It's inescapable. Drop the denial and the fantasy. Stop lying to ourselves and each other. No body is to blame. No body is guilty. Then act accordingly.
Correction above in comments to Kevin – sorry –
“Mitigation is the **reduction** of something harmful, or the **reduction** of its harmful effects.”
Ned, you sound like someone who has been talking to yourself and other likeminded people that you have forgotten how to explain anything to anyone outside your own group,.
Your view of alternate energy sources is skewed at best. The issue is not that increasing supply via nukes or renewables increases demand, but rather that the demand for cheap energy is nearly insatiable. Energy, according to physics, is the ability to do work–and we have a huge amount of work to do. Build it, and of course they will come.
That is why we have to make fossil fuels economically unviable by ensuring that their true, full cost (including environmental damage) is reflected in the price. Failure to do so results in a market for energy–particularly fossil fuels–that is not efficient.
The troika of supply, demand and cost is a model–but it is a useful model in most economic situations.
Ray, RE :”That is why we have to make fossil fuels economically unviable by ensuring that their true, full cost (including environmental damage) is reflected in the price.”
Since WWI it has been the agenda of policy to Publicly Finance fossil fuels (and climate chaos) by massive multi-dimensional schemes, generally classified as direct subsidies, indirect subsidies and “externalities” (i.e. socialized present and future costs). Much of this is in the national code, the Tax Code. Present global “subsidies” are roughly indicated by the IEA and IMF etc. to be $7 trillion per year and rising (depending on how social cost is quantified beyond the annual fiscal accounting)..
Thus, we already have a “price on carbon.”. It is a NEGATIVE price, instituted by Congressional economic laws that favor that behavior. Eliminate those numerous governmental direct subsidies and indirect subsidies (eg. tax avoidance, low royalties, militarism, etc.) and we might even see the substantial decline of this fraudulent industry. Add in the many $trillions of identifiable “externalities” (as you rightly suggest) on an annual basis and that would be that, due to economic infeasibility.
Yet, the trend is the opposite, with “externalities” sky high and fossil-dependent militarism marching across the world (another socialized cost). So, how would “we” accomplish this?
“Barton Paul Levenson and millions of others need to learn that Renewables has not OFFSET a single ton of Coal, a barrel of Oil or a cm of Gas consumption ever. ”
I don’t agree. I would assert the growth of energy demand would have happened regardless of whether renewables were incorporated into the energy mix, and what renewables have done is replaced the equivalent in fossil fuels. The problem is the growth of energy demand has been so rapid that renewables integration is not happening fast enough to keep up with increasing demand, hence fossil fuel emissions are still increasing. Without renewables they would be increasing even faster.
What we need is a change of mindset on an international scale which involves realizing that consumption and having the latest model of anything ultimately means nothing as far as quality of life is concerned, and reducing consumption will have both individual and collective benefits. This will help to reduce energy consumption and demand. Doing this creates the problem that reducing consumption en-mass will result in closure of industry and job losses, so how do you assist the people who are now unemployed, which is the sort of thing NigelJ is getting at when he talks about rapid simplification likely leading to economic crashes, mass unemployment and hardship.
Adam Lea,
You don’t need to agree. But it would help if you were aware that the RE deployments plus EV development, the last say 15 years has specifically increased Fossil Fuel demand across the entire economy and the globe.
“so how do you assist….” is becoming stuck on the same merrygoround that Nigel rides on. :-)
Really it is only going to take you in circles.
Yes “we need a change of mindset” (and values about our materialist society and drives) … and you already know that is not going to happen. So far, 30 years, is a no go.
Because that won’t come until there is a paradigm shift in the global economic superorganism / the global meta-system, that is running on automatic where Growth is the essential prerequisite ingredient or everything stop and collapses upon itself. (It’s a financial system thing as well)
Which means that you cannot “reduce energy consumption and demand” until that meta-system is switched off — it runs on automatic, like a self-fulfilling prophecy, or like a perpetual motion machine except it definitely needs an an external energy source or it stops dead in it’s tracks and collapses in on itself.
and “so how do you assist the people who are now unemployed, which is the sort of thing Nigelji is getting at “ …… yes indeed HOW?
That is the very question those refs have posed ….. and the answer is you cannot – people are going to die. See? And worse.
NK: the RE deployments plus EV development, the last say 15 years has specifically increased Fossil Fuel demand across the entire economy and the globe.
BPL: No, they have not. What a stupid thing to say.
Barton Paul Levenson plays being an ignorant unknowing Denier while throwing insults about.
BPL: No, they have not. What a stupid thing to say.
2 Jan 2024 at 9:01 AM
Not stupid. True. Factual. And Wise.
RE Wind Solar, Battery and EV for materials mining resources, in manufacturing and production, for transport, are very high consumers of fossil energy globally. Solar panels for example in using extremely high heat for silicon applications.
Every single energy portal and industry body consistently shows increased Global Fossil Fuel demand (supply and consumption) the last 15 years since the GFC ended.
The fossil fuel energy required for all RE deployments plus Battery, EV development has contributed to that increasing demand significantly. Simply look at the global production of these systems the last 15 years which has been their the highest period of growth ever.
A Proven Fact. A logical obvious fact for those with the intelligence to understand it.
Like 1+1=2. The record breaking growth of RE and EVs has significantly added to the ongoing growth of global fossil fuel consumption the last 15 years.
That is a Fact.
Those who are not blinded by their own ideological thought patterns, or their cognitive dissonance and self-imposed uninformed ignorance can see this Fact is true. Anyone slightly connected with climate science data, RE Wind and solar manufacturing and deployment, manufacturing of EVs and new battery tech, and energy industry knows this, or should know this, for a fact.
Nuance: The only narrowing in consumption has been a minor drop in the most recent years of Coal during this 15 cycle. This varies from nation to nation, some coal use has significantly increased. Any decrease in Coal consumption has been offset by the growth in Oil and Gas consumption/use.
(Grin)
What is a MetaCrisis?
See above ^^^^^^
Ned Kelly 26 DEC: “Piotr says a lot about Ned Kelly”
You are too kind – I made two falsifiable points about the implications of your argument (much shorter than your post).
If you didn’t like my points, you could have falsified them or … shoot the messenger. You chose:
“ always ignore people like you P. (smile). You’re just a waste of time. Learn to think properly. Then learn to read and not be such a jerk all the time.
Since you offered no falsifiable proof, only patronizing and contemptuous opinions about me – what can be asserted without evidence can also be dismissed without evidence. Hitchens’s razor, you know.
Piotr says a lot about Ned Kelly
25 Dec 2023 at 2:53 PM
And asks – What’s your solution?
A: First, to always ignore people like you P. (smile)
You’re just a waste of time. Learn to think properly. Then learn to read and not be such a jerk all the time.
Better still go live with Carbomontanus in Norway … you belong together; a marriage made in heaven.
Etnical entreprizes also. The way that Puttler is arranging at the moment on behalf of his Moscovia- vision.
Ned Kelly.
Almost nobody who participates in this website has said or implied that the only thing we need to do is replace fossil fuels with renewables, and replace ICE cars with Evs. We should also reduce our consumption of energy and materials and consider our diet, and recycle more things, etc, etc. That is in the IPCC set of solutions. I haven’t heard Mann suggest otherwise.
I choose to drive a small car and walk and get buses where possible. These are small things but they are something. And yes obviously high income earners need to do this proportionately more than poor people.
However not building renewables, and instead making MASSIVE and rapid cuts to energy consumption as a primary solution to the climate problem, is not a realistic option. As I stated above thread, this would cause massive pain, and it would almost certainly cause the collapse of society, and severe unemployment as demand is sucked out of the system, (like the 1930s depression) and is extremely unlikely to be adopted by the general public.
So we are in a complicated situation that can’t be solved with your slogans, shouting and ALL CAPS. and mixing in together of energy and social factors. The irony is that even a non capitalist, low consumption, simple living society will need some energy, and burning wood won’t work, not with 7 billion plus people. There aren’t any better options right now than renewables.
nigelj says – nobody who participates in this website
Nigel, I’m not arguing with anyone on this website, nor accusing them of anything like you *imagine* I am.
I am speaking to the TOPIC I chose, and am discussing and providing misc pieces of information on – as posted above.
There’s no need to assume it is all about you. Or assume anything I have said is personal or about this *website*. Because that’s just silly.
Though Carbo is an exception to this rule and predates my recent sharing of some excellent info here.
Ned Kelly
“Nigel, I’m not arguing with anyone on this website, nor accusing them of anything like you *imagine* I am.”
Not so. You made these comments on dec 24th and they appear to be your own words. No link or source was stated.
“Renewable energy proponents”, US energy policy and EVs being a saviour, and net zero
heroics the whole point is that renewable energy as as it’s talked about in the sort of
mass public discourse and on forums like this is NOT to lower our energy demands
and help us to realize the need for limits in all levels of material Consumption – NO
instead it’s intended to allow this non-stop expansionary system to go on Ad infinitum…”Just planting seeds ….. all we hear from folks like M Mann or Secular Animist or Tomas
instead is the urgent need to shut down all the evil fossil fuel companies AS IF that is
the whole solution – to cut emissions by shifting to renewable energy – when it isn’t a
solution at all –”
Clearly some people on this website are renewable energy proponents.
Your comments were a reasonable point of view anyway. I just thought it was a bit of a generalisation.
#2 reply
Nigel – “However not building renewables ….”
Well I never suggested such a strategy, did someone else?
I believe you’re missing the obvious. No pain no gain. Massive reductions in consumption and in energy use is going to happen by choice or be forced upon us, or even both at the same time.
You may as well get used. You have no choice anyway. As I said above. The PUBLIC do not get a choice here … so your Fears are in fact a Prediction of what’s is on our collective doorsteps – and it is going to be much much harder on the wealthy west than anywhwere else.
quoting nigel: ** is not a realistic option. As I stated above thread, this would cause massive pain, and it would almost certainly cause the collapse of society, and severe unemployment as demand is sucked out of the system, (like the 1930s depression) and is extremely unlikely to be adopted by the general public. **
Far worse in fact. You don’t actually have any Options left. It;s already too late. The recommendation is to act accordingly. :-)
I hope this is clearer now. Is it?
Ned Kelly says
“Well I never suggested such a strategy (not building renewables), did someone else?”
You wrote several posts with allegations about how hopeless renewables are so I jumped to the conclusion you thought it was pointless building them! Silly me :)
“I believe you’re missing the obvious. No pain no gain.”
Ok, but we have to be very sure we are opting for a sensible solution and not making things even worse for society as a whole.
“Massive reductions in consumption and in energy use is going to happen by choice or be forced upon us, or even both at the same time.'”
IMO the probability that the general public, apart from a small minority, would CHOOSE massive reductions in consumption looks like about zero. The addiction to consumerism is strong, the psychological drivers are strong, and consumerism does bring a certain quality of life for example overseas travel. And there are other ways of mitigating many of the problems of over consumption.
IMO we may see some modest voluntary reductions to consumption – but that’s about all. However that may at least stop the problem getting worse.
Whether huge reductions in consumption are forced on us by our political leaders seems unlikely. They have the same addiction to consumption and it would get them voted out of power very fast.
Whether other circumstances such as resource scarcity force us to make massive reductions in consumption is hard to determine. As previously stated we don’t have a definitive knowledge of the earths economically usable mineral resources, fusion power might become a reality, and it also depends on whether global population shrinks and how fast, and it depends on what time frame you mean.
FWIW I would say that due to resource scarcity we will be forced to make a modest towards moderate reduction in consumption in coming decades to a few centuries. This is based on most likely growth trajectories and mineral reserves analysis (avoiding the pessimistic and wildly optimistic views).
“You may as well get used. You have no choice anyway. As I said above. The PUBLIC do not get a choice here … so your Fears are in fact a Prediction of what’s is on our collective doorsteps – and it is going to be much much harder on the wealthy west than anywhere else.”
The wealthy business elite certainly have significant and worrying behind the scenes influence. (Have been reading a sociology text out of interest) . Just remember they are not all bad people and it seems unlikely they would forcibly reduce the consumption of the masses, thus destroying the very market they rely on.
“I hope this is clearer now. Is it?”
Yes a bit clearer. You agree (paraphrasing) that big deliberate ( or otherwise) reductions in consumption would cause a total collapse of society and you claim it is already beginning and judging by other comments you made earlier people should consider running for the hills and live a simple, self sufficient, survivalist, low consuming lifestyle in the country.
I’m not that sure its going to be as bad as you say, but I respect your solution / lifestyle preference. Have considered that sort of thing myself in my younger days. But if everyone jumped ship like that it might hasten the collapse of the remains of the existing system, which would cause pain for even more people.
Nigelj: I think Ned Kelly is right on at least one thing. The current way of living in Western societies is unsustainable, this can be directly verified by observing levels of consumption and waste against replenishment of natural resources. By definition, an unsustainable system has to cease, there is literally no other alternative. Having established that our current way of life has to change, we can either do it voluntarily or have it forced on us by either dictatorship or collapse. If we do it voluntarily, there is a remote chance we can transition at a slow enough rate to avoid catastrophic economic consequences but fast enough to avoid the potential worst consequences. If we wait until it is forced on us, history shows that civilisations that have done this fared very badly.
The question is do we have enough time left to take option 1, or are the consequences of option 2 now unavoidable? I would hope option 1 is still possible, otherwise we might as well just party on now and not think about tomorrow if catastrophe in one form or another is inevitable.