This month’s open thread on climate topics. Please stay focused, minimize repetitive comments, and maintain a half-way decent level of decorum. Thanks!
Reader Interactions
196 Responses to "Unforced variations: June 2024"
Davidsays
From an article at phys.org on June 1st: “Researchers at the University of Virginia School of Engineering and Applied Science have figured out how to take a miracle material, one capable of extracting value from captured carbon dioxide, and do what no one else has: make it practical to fabricate for large-scale application. The breakthrough from chemical engineering assistant professor Gaurav “Gino” Giri’s lab group has implications for the cleanup of the greenhouse gas, a major contributor to the climate change dilemma. It could also help solve the world’s energy needs.“
As a chemist, I am quite embarrassed by chemists and chemical engineers who present various ways of reducing CO2 back to carbon or hydrocarbons as a possible measure against global warming caused by the increasing concentration of CO2 in Earth atmosphere.
The reason is the inherent inefficiency of all these complicated processes. Saving the valuable “clean” energy extracted from renewable energy sources this way equals wasting most of it as a useless reaction heat. Moreover, should the obtained carbon-based fuel be used for electricity production in conventional facilities that simply burn the fuel, conversion efficiency of the released heat to electricity is also maximally 50-60%.
I am afraid that if a technology for saving renewable energy has to bring a real benefit, it must be based on a direct electrochemical process, because only such processes enable the desired high energy conversion efficiency.
Greetings
Tomáš
Piotrsays
Tomas Kalisz: “If a technology for saving renewable energy has to bring a real benefit, it must be based on a direct electrochemical process, because only such processes enable the desired high energy conversion efficiency.”
The problem of these “wonder materials” that remove CO2 from air is more fundamental – it’s not efficiency of electrochemical process, but the fundament thermodynamics, and the question of scale.
Thermodynamics: the more oxidized is the carbon – the less Gibbs free energy it contains – that why to GET energy from fossil fuels we oxidize C (coal), CH4 (methane in natural gas), or hydrocarbons (in oil) – to CO2.
Therefore, the proposed partial reversal: CO2 -> CO requires input of energy – which until we have a 100% decarbonized electricity generation – means it will come directly, or indirectly, from additional fossil fuel burning, thus undermining claims of net CO2 mitigation.
CO is also not way to SEQUESTER atm. carbon, because either:
– it is to be stored as gas, the same way as CO2 – so no net advantage there
– nor can we count on channeling ENOUGH of this CO to the industrial uses of CO to make a difference: – the article listed by David states that:
“CO is a chemical that is valuable for manufacturing fuels, pharmaceuticals and other products”.
but these uses of C – are a tiny, tiny, fraction of the ~10 Gt of carbon emitted in form of CO2 each year – hence it will have completely NEGLIGIBLE effect on the global CO2 fluxes.
So it is just another miraculous technical fix, breathlessly promoted (“genius”; “wonder material, which could do wonders for the Earth) by the editor of phys.org/news who didn’t bother to do a back-of-the-envelope calculations to see how check the scales – how the industrial CO demand compares to the magnitude of global CO2 emissions.
Jonathan Davidsays
Very good comments on this. The problem of scale is almost incomprehensible. The STRATOS project of Occidental Petroleum is designed to be the largest scale carbon capture facility in the world. Designed to remove “up to” 500,000 “tonnes” (not clear if this refers to metric tonnes) of CO2 from the atmosphere per year. This would be a very impressive technical achievement. Unfortunately, the current rate of global emissions is almost 37 billion metric tonnes per year. So, assuming no confusion of units, STRATOS would capture about seven minutes worth of global emissions. Or expressed another way, 74000 such plants would be required to be built.
Barton Paul Levensonsays
JD,
Yes, “tonnes” are the metric ton.
prlsays
The difference between metric tons (tonnes) and short (US) tons is only about 10%. The difference between metric tonnes and long (imperial) tons is only about 1%.
For the purpose of your argument, the differences are pretty much irrelevant.
Thank you for clarifying your position to DAC. I am happy that we have the same opinion.
Best regards
Tomáš
Jonathan Davidsays
I should add too, that the total cost of the STRATOS plant is not supplied on Occidental’s website. However, given that BlackRock is supplying 550 billion dollars of investment capital, one could estimate the total cost to be at least 1 billion dollars (order of magnitude). Building 74000 STRATOS plants would then cost 74 trillion dollars. Current total US Federal income and corporate tax revenues are approximately 3 trillion dollars yearly which implies almost 25 years of current revenues to realize a project to capture 100 percent of current emissions.
Barton Paul Levensonsays
JD,
The cost per plant would come down with mass production.
You are, of course, right that the necessary investments would have been exorbitant.
Nevertheless, I would like to add still another remark, regarding to operational costs.
Websites of companies promoting DAC are extraordinarily humble with respect to information about energy consumption by their facilities. I am afraid that it is no way negligible, and that the “carbon footprint” of DAC can be significant, too.
Greetings
Tomáš
Piotrsays
Jonathan David: “ Building 74000 STRATOS plants would then cost 74 trillion dollars
and then there are the operational costs, which unlike building the things, have to be borne year after year… Plus the GHG emissions of building and operating 74000 STRATOS plants – probably we would have to build quite a few more to cover those…
Scale is the first question I ask when hearing about another geoengineering proposal.
The second question is: does the scheme address the root cause, air conc.of CO2, and its other than GW result – the ocean acidification.
In 74,000 STRATOS case – the answer is yes, but no so in the non-CO2 removal schemes:
– like spraying SO2 in the stratosphere or “lets amplify natural water cycle” proposals, like those of our Tomas Kalisz, which at the global scale not only are a … bit expensive (e.g. TK proposed to increase current global desalination rate … 1000-FOLD, and spraying the resulting water over 5mln km2 of Sahara, to approach, after 100s of year of such operations, a mere 0.3 K cooling), but also, unlike STRATOS, do nothing about the CO2 levels in the air, and the ocean acidification.
The third question is – what happens if we stop. For 74,000 STRATOS – the answer would be “we’d resume our heating from today’s level”. Not so for the albedo schemes (SO2 and water cycle) – under which CO2 continues to climb, or even climbs faster (since we removed the urgency of its mitigation by controlling the most noticeable symptom – warming). The moment you stop your SO2 or water cycle intervention – all the accumulated GHGs hit with the full strength – meaning that it is much hotter – and the heating rate is much faster – for ecosystems and human civilization to adapt (it takes a while for the tree line to migrate north, or for the new adaptations to the hotter world to evolve).
If I understood your post correctly, you assume that we should, in parallel, decrease the fossil fuel use and replace it with renewable energy sources, and build DAC plants which will, as soon as we achieve the “net zero” (anthropogenic CO2 emission fully consumed by natural processes), gradually decrease the atmospheric CO2 concentration. Am I right?
If so, could you add how quick the process should in your opinion be, and what should be the target CO2 atmospheric concentration which we have to achieve?
Thomas, Piotr can and very likely will answer for himself, but I’m pretty sure he is not in favor of DACS, based on the scale and economic issues previously laid out. But we’ll see if I’m correct.
You say you understand that Piotr’s desired scenario is that:
…we should, in parallel, decrease the fossil fuel use and replace it with renewable energy sources, and build DAC plants which will, as soon as we achieve the “net zero” (anthropogenic CO2 emission fully consumed by natural processes), gradually decrease the atmospheric CO2 concentration.
Speaking for myself now, the reason I wouldn’t want us to try that scenario is simple: the cost to build all those DACS plants is, per tonne of CO2, much greater–a couple of orders of magnitude, probably?–than the cost to build modern RE with battery (and some pumped hydro) storage. The boatloads of money going into DACS plants would then represent an “opportunity cost” far less than their value in accomplishing the desired end.
In other words, we’ll be better off just building the RE generation capacity and keeping the CO2 out of the atmosphere in the first place. In parallel, we let those natural processes do their work. They are currently absorbing roughly half of what we emit each year, and at no cost other than whatever chimerical profits we forgo by not tearing up yet another wild place.
Piotrsays
Re: Kevin McKinney 14 JUN
Thanks Kevin, that’s exactly my position. A ton of CO2 not emitted is as good for atm. CO2 conc. as a ton of CO2 absorbed by the DAC, at a fraction of the cost. Thus investing in the current DAC technology is counterproductive – it takes away resources from the energy conservation, renewable energy and storage – the shortage of the latter keeping the door open for the fossil fuel usage to make up for the periods of when demand > supply. i.e. where the storage and smart grid are not enough having more storage increases renewables penetration.
As you pointed out – to achieve a drop in CO2 concentration we don’t need DAC,
since even now only half of our current emissions stays in the atmosphere (more over longer time scale) – the other half taken up by the ocean, by increased plant growth in the boreal forests. and erosion of calcite and some calcium-silicate rocks. In other words, we don’t have to replace 100% of CO2 emissions to observe a drop in global Co2 concentration.
A caveat though – our current uptake of ~ 5Gt of C (i.e. ~ 50% of our our emissions)
is not symmetrical – won’t be as big on the Co2 way down as it was in the way up:
– The uptake by the surface ocean would reverse its sign – when atm Co2 increases ocean becomes undersaturated so it takes up CO2; however on the way down – it becomes oversaturated and releases CO2 into the air.
– fortunately the uptake by the deep ocean does not work that way – it is tied to timescale of the Thermohaline Circulation (THC, aka the Conveyor Belt) – the water in upwelling at the end of the Belt (Ind. Ocean, Pacific) “remembers” its last contact with atmosphere, depending on the location, may be several 100s, or >1000 yrs ago.
Things are further complicated by temp. increase
– the warmer surface ocean, the smaller its capacity to store extra atm Co2 in surface waters
– the warmer the surface ocean and the lower S due to more melt water – the slower the THC circulation and the smaller capacity to store extra atm Co2 in the deep ocean.
On land it may be more complicated – the Co2 part of the biol uptake would reverse (as plants growing better in higher Co2 would grow worse in lower Co2) but again the temperature, given its inertia, may continue to rise even as atm Co2 drops – and the longer-growing-season increase in the plant growth – it may still continue. On the other hand, continued warming probably accelerates bacterial decomposition that releases CO2 (or worse still: CH4) from the soils.
To sum up – we can have a drop in atm Co2 without “net-zero emissions” (and therefore without DAC):
reducing emissions by more than a half (between 50% and 100% – see above) should result in the DROP of atm. CO2 and in temp. stabilization (negative radiative forcing of the dropping atm Co2 compensating for the warming due to warming in the pipe-line (thermal inertia)).
John Pollacksays
Piotr, thanks for writing up the fundamental problems with the extravagant claims in the phys.org article.
On a less basic level, for any material or process to be described as a “miracle” reflects poorly on the quality of the publication, as you said. It suggests that the authors and/or publication itself have a financial interest in generating unjustified excitement Perhaps this article was intended for re-posting so that credulous readers would be motivated to invest in the process.
Piotrsays
John Pollack: Perhaps this article was intended for re-posting so that credulous readers would be motivated to invest in the process
either financial interest in the technology, or more prosaically – financial interest in the number of clicks on the story – the bane of our times – click-bait.
Killiansays
Any time one comes across some tech-based claims of solutions to this Perfect Storm of stupidity we have created for ourselves, listen to these.
Killian discusses teach-based responses to climate, et al. with Prof. Simon Michaux and Prof Steve Keen, heterodox economist: https://www.clubhouse.com/room/xoabL87o
The resources do not exist for the build-out of all the new and existing industries it would take. You can have one full generation of one or two of them, but can’t have one full generation of all of them.
If we were going to use a huge proportion of resources for any one industry, it should be to build out a comprehensive, globally-saturated recycling infrastructure. Then you can do SOME of the stuff everyone is stupidly cheerleading for.
John Masheysays
1) Materials science is an important area, with much potential.
2) But when breathless announcements happen, one needs to calibrate them versus the realities of actually getting to deployment at scale (D4 in post below).
3) Many years ago, I wrote a long comment about R&D processes, which Andy revkin promoted to a blog post. It was written in irritation at people who just thought throwing a lot of money at problems guaranteed breakthroughs,
whereas Bell Labs mantras were “never schedule breakthroughs” and “ship what works”.
Always ask “how far along in the stages described there is this thing?”
Also relevant is the effect sometimes called the “MIT grad student effect” (although substitute Stanford or other favorite engineering school…)
Q: what can you build in the lab with a bunch of MIT grad students?
A: anything … but you can only build one of it :-)
The same thing even applied to small groups of researchers at Bell Labs, but we had well-organized mechanisms for progressive commitment to expand research (R1/R2) that seemed promising, and people in development organizations whose jobs included watching Research for good stuff and moving it along.
Susan Andersonsays
Excellent, thanks for the reminder! I recently read Three Degrees Above Zero: Bell Labs in the Information Age (Jeremy Bernstein, 1984) which is unfortunately out of print. I understand part of the motivation was to provide a record the unusually creative culture which was felt to be under threat from the commercial shenanigans of the consent decree of AT&T/Bell. (The baby Bells became much worse predators imho (Verizon, Comcast et al.) in the end, lacking the larger view of the earlier organization.) There is also a New Yorker article of the same name which unfortunately is paywalled, a long chapter extract. Well worth finding and reading.
Jonathan Davidsays
There are so many aspects of the Bell Labs long-term-view culture that are completely alien to the venture capital funded quick-results mindset of today. As an anecdote, the minimum technical certification at Bell Labs was Member of Technical Staff which required a master’s degree. However, Bell Labs would hire bachelor’s degree holders under a program call One Year on Campus. Hires could choose to attend a list of high quality universities to complete their MS degree and would be hired by Bell Labs after doing so. Tuition and expenses were paid for by Bell Labs. Seems almost mythic in retrospect.
I think that technical creativity is one of most important human slills and strengths and that it has to be fostered and harnessed to deal with problems like economically feasible ebnergy transition.
In this respect, I think it may be important to ask why the favourable environments in many private companies like Bell Labs vanished. I am afraid that simply saying that the owners and managements become more greedy than before does not help to find a clue.
Personally, I admire e.g. excellent chemistry done by people like Walter Knoth and Carl Muetterties at Du Pont, or Karl Otto Christe at Rocketdyne. Sadly, most of this fantastic work has not found successors who would have continued. In some cases, the unique equipment created for this research does not exist anymore, and the extraordinary skill and experimental know-how in handling the unique materials, developed in this research, might have got lost.
I would like to share my hypothesis why the owners / managements gradually became much less generous and why finally prevailed an opinion that basic research has to be funded basically by public grants only. I think that practical results / new technologies / new products, originally expected as an automatic side effect of a such excellent basic reasearch, have not came – or came in much lower extent than expected, hardly justifying the generous investments that were made by the owners.
If so, we could ask: Why? Alternatively, we can ask: Under which circumstances could the original idea (that generous private support for basic research may materialize in commercially successful inventions, new products and technologies) perhaps perform better / well?
I do not have an answer, only a suspicion that there might have been an important fault in the setup. The companies assumed that they are clever enough to recognize commercial potential of new discoveries, and that they will be able to convert them into practically applicable inventions. This is, however, in my opinion something what has never worked well, and likely will never work. The companies like Du Pont might have been big, but still not big enough to find (for a sufficiently big portion of creations brought by their excellent scientists) further enthusiasts who would have found ways how to materialize these discoveries as viable solutions for practical problems and finally created new businesses.
On the other hand, I am not sure that publicly funded research creates more favourable conditions for excellence and that it is more efficient in further transformation of discoveries into inventions and practical solutions. What do you think?
Greetings
Tomáš
nigeljsays
Tomas Kalisz.
There might be a shortage of technical creativity in a few specific businesses, because they are badly managed. So you have human failings. You might have management that resents a bunch of guys doing blue sky research or creative projects because they arent guaranteed to deliver quick results.
But surely most managers realise by now that you need to let people be technically creative and in only loosely directed ways if you want to have great products to sell and be profitable long term? My point is it seems hard to believe this thinking is in decline and wheres the evidence its in decline?
It doesnt look like there is widespread or systemic lack of technical creativity. For example just look at all the amazing technology designed or invented in the last few years. Im not seeing any clear evidence of a general decline in technical creativity.
“The companies like Du Pont might have been big, but still not big enough to find (for a sufficiently big portion of creations brought by their excellent scientists) further enthusiasts who would have found ways how to materialize these discoveries as viable solutions for practical problems and finally created new businesses.”
Im not sure what to make of your statements and what you are getting at. Large companies do not operate as charities that would give away their inventions for other people to turn into viable products. There would have to be financial rewards and I suppose if a large company could find these it would already be involving smaller businesses.
If there was a shortage of technical creativity I agree I dont think throwing tax payers money at the problem would be the right approach. Its a cultural thing for the businesses to sort out. If they dont they will ultimately go bankrupt.
Although the way businesses are financed may be a factor in lack of technical creativity. For example if theres a lack of access to venture capital. Governmnets may be able to help improve that situation in terms of the regulatory environmnet as opposed to directly funding the business.
Of course governments can directly fund certain specific things. Businesses do some things sub optimally like blue sky research in the basic physical sciences, because it may not lead to profitable applications. Its really about improving our understanding of the world or to solve some problem facing society. Therefore governmnets have traditionally funded or carried out such research to help out. Climate research is a good example. If there has been a decline in such funding it would be a problem that could ultimately downgrade the possibilities of technical creativity that builds on basic research.
And some activities were once beyond the private sector such as sending rockets into space because of the massive costs and risks, and lack of business profitability so you had NASA to do the basic research and design and the associated technical creativity. And they obviously did it pretty well. Now private businesses like Spacex are doing this work as well because they are so big and can make money out of it. Just my two cents worth.
Thomas, I’m in partial agreement with your statement that:
I am afraid that simply saying that the owners and managements become more greedy than before does not help to find a clue.
IMO, that is because it misframes the issue a bit. The greedy behavior of so many companies is indeed a problem for research and obviously also for the environment. However, framing it as a quasi-quantitative change of psychological state on the part of “owners and managements” misleads us, in that it doesn’t afford much of an opening to enquire why there might be such a change in behavior.
As a cultural observer, I think that the change is in part due the Friedman Doctrine that corporations have only one ethical duty, which is to maximize profits for their shareholders. It’s become such a common position that it’s hard to realize that this idea was novel in the 1980s when Milton Friedman propounded it. But prior to that, owners and managements often felt that they had some sort of responsibility toward their employees and their communities. Henry Ford thought so, to cite one example. (I don’t mean to suggest Ford was a uniform paragon of virtue; there are valid criticisms one can level. But he did see values beyond Friedman’s prescription, however imperfectly he may have implemented them.
It probably sounds simplistic to suggest that that one doctrine could have such a profound social effect. But while there are no doubt other factors–globalization, say, or the inbuilt imperative for ever “more” that appears to characterize modern capitalism–having seen the doctrine so widely established that it’s often taken as axiomatic; and considering how useful ethical arguments can be in helping enable people to follow their worse impulses, simply by “proving” that their shameful wish is “really” the height of virtue.
In this connection, ponder the fact that the 80s had as a cliche the adage that “greed is good.” In more rarefied social strata, one might also cite Ayn Rand’s philosophy of Objectivism, which literally argued (and still argues) that altruism is evil, deriving capitalism as the highest ethical system–and note that no less an economic heavyweight than Alan Greenspan, for years head of the Federal Reserve, was a Rand acolyte.
I’m reminded of the doctrines invoked in the antebellum south about inherent racial superiority, the will of God in establishing it, and the ‘happiness’ afforded enslaved persons granted the highly dubious privilege of living in the ‘social condition best suited to their nature.’ Doctrine, encouraging evil behavior, which however is “convenient” for the people who profit therefrom.
I don’t know that such cases are “sufficient causes”, but given the historical recurrence of ideological self-justification, it’s hard to escape the suspicion that they are “necessary causes.” In any case, I think in this case the social shift is worth noting, at the very least.
Jonathan Davidsays
Tomas, I suspect, based on your response, that Bell Labs is not a good example to illustrate your point. Bell Labs was originally the engineering department of Western Electric. Western Electric provided a guaranteed source of ongoing revenue to the Labs until the 80s. Ultimately this was a result of the Bell System government sanctioned monopoly on phone service. This revenue stream allowed for more speculative projects including fundamental scientific research which might not have commercial applications for many years or ever.
So one might conclude from this that an R&D organization must be primarily a design and development organization providing marketable technology to yield a steady and adequate flow of revenue, a portion of which used to support research. The technology doesn’t have to be exciting or revolutionary just what improves the product.
One might think this would apply to a lot of companies, for example IBM or General Motors. There is one more piece which is important though. That is, corporate governance and structure must include real recognition (not “lip service”) of the fundamental importance of basic research, even long term projects that have no immediate market application. Tempered, of course, with the level of commitment possible based on general revenues. Unfortunately, as Kevin responded, Wall Street doesn’t see value in spending money on areas that won’t immediately boost sales. So many corporate R&D organizations were downsized or phased out in the 80s based on the Shareholder Value concept pushed by CEOs such as Jack Welch of General Electric.
I am neither economist nor sociologist, so I admit that Nigel can be right if he thinks that the history of Bell Labs’ fame and decline cannot be generalized, and that there may be other private companies that still create a similarly creative and inspiring environment as likely helped to Bell Labs’ fame. I mean an environment that is favourable not only for incremental innovation (that is undoubtedly part of daily business in any reasonably managed enterprise), but also for disruptive innovations that open completely new development directions and, finally, also completely new business opportunities.
My feeling that the Bell Labs history mentioned by Jonathan David and Susan Anderson might have been a symptom of a more generic trend arose from a comparison of some research topics that was e.g. Du Pont willing to support 50-70 years ago and topics that comparably big companies support today. I made this observation in my daily work as a patent engineer in the field of chemistry.
Nevertheless, I am aware that my insight is still nothing else than a random “point probe”. Conclusions based on a small random sample have, of course, a very limited value – a thorough research based on represesntative data can prove them as misleading.
I would therefore try to re-focus my question. Let us, for a while, desist from asking after reasons of Bell Labs’ decline, and ask rather after grounds of their successes.
What was actually so extraordinary in this environment?
Which elements of their working culture helped to achieve, on one hand, discoveries awarded by Nobel prizes, and, on the other hand, commercially successful new products and technologies?
And, if there are other. more recent examples of companies or other organizations with a such particularly favourable environment for both basic research as well as for disruptive technical innovation, can we see in their working culture the same or similar features as in Bell Labs?
True that PhDs are almost de facto requirements at places such as IBM TJ Watson and Bell Labs. But what happens also is that hiring is mostly from elite schools such as Stanford and MIT. The research groups tended to self select and so the stream of hires was from certain alma maters. I say this because when I was at IBM, colleagues were in awe that I managed to get hired without such a pedigree. Saying all that, technicians and lab support staff were from various backgrounds with many locals.
John Mashey said:
“But when breathless announcements happen, one needs to calibrate them versus the realities of actually getting to deployment at scale (D4 in post below).”
Not sure what the context of this is, but breathless announcements in materials science are met with patience. The research community realizes that controlled experiments are the final arbiter of whether an announcement has legs. See the high-Tc superconductor announcements in the last couple of years — they were dispatched as incorrect within a month or two after other scientists tried to replicate the findings through controlled experiments.
Note that this is not the case in climate sciences in general. Controlled experiments at scale are not possible in a lab environment and so a definitive response is also not possible. That’s why geoengineering of the atmosphere is rightfully fraught with concerns. It will be largely guesswork whether it succeeds and that’s also where Murphy’s Law rears it’s ugly head.
Also consider this in the context of the 2023 heatwave RC post https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/05/new-journal-nature-2023/ . No controlled experiments possible, though Hunga Tonga and aerosol reductions can be considered as uncontrolled experiments, as the controlled experiment version is not possible — i.e. take away the volcanic explosion and leave aerosols the same. That’s why climate science is challenging.
It’s also why in epidemiology, virus origin research is problematic. No controlled experiments are possible in retrospect, and can’t duplicate the conditions ever again. Yet, we should be thankful for the controlled experiments — i.e. clinical trials — that allowed a vaccine to be created within a few weeks.
Susan Andersonsays
Tomas, please find a copy of Three Degrees Above Zero and read it. Bell Labs was unique. Some other institutions here and there in the world have self-created that kind of environment, but it is rare. It was a work in progress as I explained above. I know dad worked at the Cavendish in Cambridge and Princeton University (he liked having students) but as a kind of GOM he got away with changing things to fit his and his colleagues’ needs and desires, and got a lot of help. I have a closetful of his awards and honorary degrees (one of my faves, Nepal!), and the impression that a creative group met in a wide variety of fine locations to share knowledge. We also spent nearly a year in Tokyo 1952-53. John Mashey knows way more about it than I do (daughter, not physicist).
A wrench in the works for understanding sea-level variability. RD Ray is a foremost tidal analysis expert at NASA and his team has determined that ocean stratification can encourage larger swings in sea-level, which was only apparent after years of data collection https://www.nature.com/articles/s43247-024-01432-5
Tides being zero=sum won’t impact secular trends but this can impact extremes :
“Whether or not more explicit handling of tidal changes in satellite gravimetry or altimetry processing is warranted remains to be assessed, but one can expect the matter to be reinforced by the ongoing and projected acceleration in upper-ocean warming. The most attractive target emerging from our work, however, is to revisit global projections of future extreme sea levels, which presently neglect changes in tides or consider them as a function of sea level rise alone.”
Davidsays
Following appears in E&E News Climate Wire (05/31/2024) concerning a temperature sensor network in development (if they can solicit sufficient funds of course) under the direction of Anthony Watts and the Heartland Institute. With comments by Dr. Gavin Schmidt including Gavin correctly (imo) pointing out that NOAA would most likely welcome this new network joining the existing cooperative network.
. https://www.eenews.net/articles/climate-denial-group-wants-to-subvert-noaa-data-with-its-own/
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What I find interesting is that Watts and Heartland did not respond to the E&E reporter’s attempts to contact them. Not surprising, but interesting. I am thinking about contacting Heartland myself about the fund raising effort and if they are planning for this new network of theirs to join the existing co-op, but as a conservative heretic in today’s Republican Party, I’m wondering if that would be welcome or wise ;-)
UAH has reported for May with a global TLT anomaly of +0.90ºC, still up at unprecedented ‘bananas’ levels (which Sept23-Apr24 all sat above +0,83ºC & averaged +0.92ºC) but down on the ‘schorchyisimo!!!’ +1.05ºC global anomaly last month. (The pre-‘bananas’ record anomaly was the usual suspect of Feb 2016 at +0.71ºC.)
The measured SAT anomalies for May will be interesting.
Susan Andersonsays
How do scientists know how much climate change affects a hurricane, a heat wave, a drought, and more?
The field of attribution science is 20 years old this year, and scientists’ ability to detect the fingerprints of climate change in extreme weather events is growing stronger. – https://yaleclimateconnections.org/2024/05/how-do-scientists-know-how-much-climate-change-affects-a-hurricane-a-heat-wave-a-drought-and-more/ – video here, worth spending the hour (& I don’t like long videos!) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c3O3znbIWyA
This is an important update on work on the new field of attribution science including Climate Central and others working in the field, with plentiful evidence. Here’s the featured video, moderated by Bob Henson, partner to Jeff Masters of Yale Climate Connections’s Eye on the Storm. They have been stalwarts in presenting expert weather and climate information in the context of real world development, and compiling statistics of the ongoing changes.
He claims, based on a video by a so-called reporter, that Ukraine “gave in perpetuity” 400 km2 of prime agricultural land to be used for a toxic waste dump. However, upon examination this story doesn’t seem to hold up very well:
(One might also pick at the conflation of “indeterminate lease”–which is what his source said–with “gives in perpetuity”–clearly not the same thing. But moving on.)
Ned adds that Black Rock has “bought up almost all the agricultural lands of Ukraine”–a claim which prompted the properly skeptical John Diehl, who noted that Ukraine’s surface area is close on the order of 600,000 km2, to ask for evidence. To which Ned responded with a flurry of links, which however included nothing about Black Rock specifically, and on the quantitative side had only one item, which stated that about 344,000 ha had been involved in “land agreements.”
So let’s do the math on that. John is right; Ukraine is about 600,000 km2. How does that compare with 344,000 ha? It’s an easy conversion, as it’s 100 ha to the square kilometer, so 3,440 km2. As a percentage of all of Ukraine, that works out to a skosh less than 0.6%. So, apparently Ned’s definition of “nearly all” is on the order of 1% or so. (It’s that high because “agricultural land” is only about 70% of Ukraine.) Not too good for old Ned, I’m afraid. But it gets worse, because toward the bottom of his Gish Gallop of citations there was a very interesting item. Quoting:
Kyiv Independent
16 January 2024
Ukrainian businesses can now legally buy land in Ukraine as of Jan. 1 as part of the second phase of a historic decision in March 2020 to lift a near 20-year moratorium on the sale of land.
Note that the putative grab by Black Rock would have fallen within that 20-year moratorium, rendering it impossible, and that with the reform only Ukrainian businesses are allowed to buy land. Turns out foreigners are still disqualified:
As you will see if you read the linked article, foreign companies can buy (and have bought) stakes in those Ukrainian companies. They can then have a measure of influence on its usage, and will certainly attempt to realize a profit therefrom. (Remember, this is maybe 1% of Ukraine’s farmlands, to date at least.)
That’s the ‘kernel of truth’ in Ned’s massive misrepresentation. To be sure, some people question whether even partial interest is a good idea; there’s concerns about small farmers, which I can readily believe have a reasonable foundation. But Ukrainian restrictions are much more stringent than many places; here in the US foreign firms can buy whatever land they like, in general. Same in Canada. And Chinese firms have been on an “ag” buying spree in Africa in recent years, as I understand it.
Which leads me to my last point. Ned also projected this as the energy future of the US:
…the RE replacements [will be] insufficient to meet demand and the Gas fields output plummets and they will eventually figure out the black outs and massively expensive but unreliable energy supply was predicated on the govt / corporate corruption nexus based on all these lies and outright fraud.
Well, that sentence is practically a crime against humanity just on grounds of English [mis]usage, but apart from that, it’s just another unsupported assertion–and one that flies in the face of evidence that I and others have previously presented to Ned. So far, unless I’ve missed a post somewhere–possible, though I doubt it–Ned has declined to provide any evidence to that point.
Which brings to mind, yet again, the words “these lies and outright fraud.” Now, there’s a Ned sentence I can get behind!
Ned Kellysays
Kevin McKinney says
4 Jun 2024 at 6:13 PM
Believe whatever you wish. Use whatever you can find on a search about a topic you have had no knowledge of before I raised it in a simple ‘comment’ here about the bigger issues at play in our world.
I know what I know. I have my sources. I am not fighting my comments and references being repeatedly deleted anymore. I simply do not care what any of you, or Gavin thinks.
Say whatever you want Kevin. Believe whatever you want.
It makes no difference to anything nor anyone.
Steven Emmersonsays
“What can be asserted without evidence can also be dismissed without evidence.” — Hitchen’s razor
Susan Andersonsays
Disgusting! You are here because of the generosity of Gavin Schmidt and other RealClimate hosts.
“I simply do not care what any of you, or Gavin thinks.” This is NOT YOUR SITE! You are not all knowing, in fact you demonstrate your bile at length almost every day. Shameful and shameless.
Please, RC mods, spare us all the continuation of this nastiness.
If it “makes no difference to anything or anyone,” then neither do your words. Which would then beg the question as to why you bother to supply them in such profusion?
But truthfully, your words shouldn’t matter, because you’ve repeatedly demonstrated that they are untrustworthy through your use of debunked sources and plain unsupported assertions. You don’t respect fact, and don’t appear to learn anything when your falsehoods are exposed as such–probably because you aren’t here to learn, but to push propaganda.
And that’s not what I “wish” to believe. It’s what the evidence of your record here on RC suggests.
and as a general plea to moderators, with respect to content repeatedly spread by Ned Kelly.
Dear Kevin,
Many thanks for dealing with this ugly topics and for your thorough analysis.
Dear Sirs,
I would like to add that I asked Ned Kelly several times to stop spreading Russian propaganda and disinformation supporting their war. The last time I tried to warn Ned Kelly that he is totally wrong was in my post of 26 May 2024 at 1:28 PM,
Obviously, all my efforts were unsuccessful. Therefore, I appreciate that Mr. McKinney supported my opinion that was simply based on my personal experience (with communist propaganda following the same patterns – I grew in former Czechoslovakia) by more objective evidence.
I would like to emphasize that Russia fights not only against Ukraine specifically but, generally and systematically, against any open society.
Personally, I feel the repeated publishing of such content as more tangential, offensive and abusive than anything else that I have ever read on this website.
I understand your adherence to principles of free speech. On the other hand, please be aware that as long as you tolerate such content on your website that you label as “moderated”, you approve it in some extent as publicly acceptable.
Could you perhaps, as a compromise, consider creating on Real Climate a new space, clearly labeled as “unmoderated”, whereto all further contributions by Ned Kelly (and perhaps a similar stuff, if it appears in the future again) would have been automatically forwarded?
Personally, I do not think that crank shaft and/or bore hole are appropriate for this purpose. Malicious propaganda is not crank, it is hhighly rational. It is not boring, it is dangerous.
This way, you would secure that potential gems comprised in Ned Kelly’s contributions will not get lost. They will stay accessible to the public, provided with a certain level of warning before possible poisoning by toxic admixtures.
Anyone who wants to further discuss with him will still have an opportunity to do so, with the only difference that it will proceed in this confinement, separated from other Real Climate stuff.
I will be really grateful if you take my plea into your consideration.
Thank you in advance and best regards
Tomáš Kalisz
Barton Paul Levensonsays
TK: I would like to add that I asked Ned Kelly several times to stop spreading Russian propaganda and disinformation supporting their war. . . . Personally, I feel the repeated publishing of such content as more tangential, offensive and abusive than anything else that I have ever read on this website.
BPL: I have to agree–this anti-Ukraine, pro-Russia stuff originates in Saint Petersburg, notably from the “Internet Research Agency” (officially dissolved 6/1/2023, but the hardware and software are still in use by much the same people). And what does it have to do with climate change?
The report states that the top three holders of Ukrainian farmland are large agribusiness companies owned by the Ukrainian oligarchy: Kernel Holding S.A., UkrLandFarming, and MHP S.E.. The holdings of these three corporations total over 1.3 million hectares. Fourth and fifth place are held by US based TNA Corporate Solutions LLC and NCH Capital. There is no mention of ownership of land by BlackRock.
It is true that BlackRock and JP Morgan are working with the Ukrainian government to set up a recovery fund to rebuild from the disastrous Russian invasion::
Presumably since Russia wants to own Ukraine for themselves they object to Western capital influence.
Also in the original reply by Ned Kelly is the fake quote supposedly by BlackRock CEO Larry Fink that Ukraine has “Too many cemeteries! Ukrainians, treat our land prudently, use crematoria. This is no longer your land. We took these risks into account when we concluded a contract with Zelenskyy and created the Ukraine Development Fund.”
This was debunked by the Ukrainian government here:
I would like to repeat my question if you indeed want to publish contributions supplied by Ned Kelly on web pages that you label as moderated / approved.
Sincerely
Tomáš Kalisz
Ned Kellysays
Levke Caesar: “Oceanic Slowdown: Decoding the AMOC”
Episode 124
May 22nd, 2024
Summary
On this episode, Nate is joined by climate physicist Levke Caesar for a comprehensive overview of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) and its connections to broader planetary systems. Amid a complex and heavily interconnected climate system, the AMOC is a powerful force for regulating temperature between the Northern and Southern Hemispheres along the Atlantic Ocean – yet it’s estimated to have slowed down by about 15% over the last few decades. What are the possible domino effects of this slowing oceanic powerhouse at a regional and global scale? How well do we understand what drives the AMOC, its cyclical patterns, and connections with other currents? More importantly, how does the AMOC interact with other biospheric mechanisms that have shaped our stable, life-supporting planetary home?
About Levke Caesar
Levke Caesar is a climate physicist at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, mainly known for her studies on the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) and its pivotal role in the climate system. Her research primarily focuses on the past, present, and future evolution of the AMOC and its intricate interactions within the North Atlantic region. Caesar’s seminal work on the historical evolution of the AMOC has been featured in prestigious journals such as Nature and Nature Geoscience, garnering hundreds of citations.
Since October 2023, she has assumed the role of scientific lead for the newly launched Planetary Boundary Science Initiative (PBScience) at PIK.
Including but not limited to: Caesar, L., S. Rahmstorf, A. Robinson, G. Feulner, and V. Saba. 2018. Observed fingerprint of a weakening Atlantic Ocean overturning circulation. Nature 556(7700):191–196, https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-018-0006-5.
Caesar, L., G.D. McCarthy, D.J.R. Thornalley, N. Cahill, and S. Rahmstorf. 2021. Current Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation weakest in last millennium. Nature Geoscience 14:118–120, https://doi.org/10.1038/s41561-021-00699-z.
Caesar, L., G.D. McCarthy, D.J.R. Thornalley, N. Cahill, and S. Rahmstorf. 2022. Reply to: Atlantic circulation change still uncertain. Nature Geoscience 15:168–170, https://doi.org/10.1038/s41561-022-00897-3.
Two points arise from this. One, that Ned Kelly, despite the atmospherics, is not as opposed to our hosts as he pretends or thinks he is; and two, he is not a climate science denier. If he’d stop trying to put good hardworking people at enmity with each other, particularly his hosts, most of his material only suffers from excess, especially of the spleen.
Radge Haverssays
SA,
Re: “…Ned Kelly, despite the atmospherics, is not as opposed to…”
I’ll have to disagree on this one. NK is a troll. it’s a ruse. What he’s opposed to is good faith.
Which brings me to point out that he seems to be making some headway in his attempts to divert comments to the topic of Ukraine. Vile? Yes, that’s the point. It’s hard to ignore.
Jonathan Davidsays
The Ukraine distraction was partially the result of a comment I posted referencing an article on climate based investment strategies of BlackRock Inc.
The article had nothing to do with Ukraine. NK raised that angle for no apparent reason in reply except possibly to show how “evil” BlackRock is.
He is clearly pro-development and is not an advocate of a rapid draw-down of fossil fuel use. He also seems to be quite dismissive of renewable energy. He frequently uses Russian propaganda memes but these may be simply for the purposes of disruption.
In general, his comments align with fossil fuel development interests. One should keep in mind that the playbook of fossil fuel companies such as Exxon has moved beyond simple “denialism”. See this, for example
Levke Caesar:
And if we find something that is, basically, disproving what we saw at first, then we have to find a new assumption. This has changed because there have been more and more publications that indicated an AMOC slowdown and none that showed the opposite. There are still some data where we are, okay, this is interesting,
we can’t completely claim that yet, but with that the consensus is definitely increasing.
I think one problem is also just the way the science community works as a whole. So it’s not that there’s one publication about something and everybody’s, oh yeah, now we’re going to believe that. It’s more like, oh, interesting. Now let’s wait a little bit, see what other research groups are publishing on that, test that. I mean, that’s good. That’s how we can make sure that We are not basically following some random group, but that we’re really getting to enhance our knowledge. But it also makes it a little bit slow and maybe, with regards to climate change, too slow.
Q: There’s, all sorts of different disciplines within the climate discipline itself. And how do you all meet at conferences and compare notes on things that you’re not experts in that someone else is, what’s your experience there?
Levke Caesar:
My experience is, that the different disciplines are too siloed, basically, so they don’t talk enough to each other.
And I think it’s not just a problem within the disciplines, but also with the way science is being done at the moment, that it’s really pressed towards publications. As a young researcher, I know basically I’m being measured by the amount of first author and second author publications that I have.
Because of that too many papers are being published and no one can read all of that. But to publish a paper, you have to find something new. And I think what we really have to do more is actually synthesizing the data that is out there, in the publications that are out there. Yeah.
Q: So tell me about your work. Where do you work? What do you do? And if you and your team are successful, what, do you hope to accomplish?
Levke Caesar:
Yeah, here I have to admit that basically, I kind of left the AMOC community, the like very small AMOC, not small, but the focused AMOC community. Because of the experience I made in the last years, that basically, the AMOC is a topic that is able to raise attention, maybe also because of this movie, The Day After Tomorrow, and at least in Europe, a lot of people know about the Gulf Stream and the importance, but there are so many things happening when we look at the increase in extreme weather events, when we look at floodings, and, I feel that the increase in fires, so many things related to climate change that happen on way faster timescales than the AMOC, and that have a big effect right now, that I basically went to my former institute, the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, and now work with Johann Rockström on the planetary boundary framework, which is highlighting, actually, this global approach, and this synthesizing approach, saying it’s not enough to just look at one thing special corner or area.
And, I mean, this is actually going further saying, okay, not just AMOC is enough, not even just climate change is enough to really have to look at the earth system and looking at all its components, looking at the biosphere integrity and basically how the biosphere is right now functioning in our favor, because that’s also taking up a lot of carbon, how it’s basically working in terms of the radiation budget.
And I just feel that we know so much that we can do that would improve the lives of so many people on earth in terms of, of course, reducing CO2, but also living more sustainable ways, like changing our diets towards more plant based food, that I just wanted to work on that, and I think the problem is in getting people to act.
That most want numbers and certainty, and we can’t give them 100 percent certainty yet, and we can’t give like the exact numbers, but we can give with 99.9 percent certainty of the direction that we have to go, and I just want to press that and, work on the science there.
Q: What do you care most about in the world, Levka?
Levke Caesar:
It’s probably a fair and honest world, so I, think that, this is what bugs me most about, I guess, this topic is that the main people who are causing the problems are not the ones that are suffering the most. And, that’s just not what I like. So it’s really this fairness.
Q: What Would You Do with a Magic Wand to change human and planetary futures if there was no personal risk to yourself?
Levke Caesar:
Kind of depends on the limit I mean if I could basically change the climate system the earth system back to a pre-industrial state And fix it in that way then I would. No matter what we do, we couldn’t change it as humans. That would, of course, be a safe way, although maybe we wouldn’t then learn.
I think if it comes to the human mind, as I said, I would really like us to be able to make the wisest decision, to be objective, look at the facts, and then decide what we do based on them and what we want to happen, and not based on this weird mix of emotions, fear, maybe favors. Yeah. So that I think would already bring us a very big step further towards a sustainable future.
The next time, well, given my, location, my job right now, it would really be about the link of the climate system towards the rest of the earth system, towards, with the land system, with species diversity, and how all of this is basically connected, but from a scientific point of view, so not from a spiritual point of view, Mother Earth,
but really, we see so much scientific evidence for that, and I would love to talk about that.
end quotes
Pete bestsays
Yes – deeply important science but the solutions are the same. Either use less carbon intensive energy sources, phase out fossil fuels, defeat the political system as it stands, ban things, eat less meat, change your lifestyle , etc
Great science but what it comes down too is the same. Lees carbon in a short time frame
Geoff Miellsays
Pete best: – “Lees carbon in a short time frame”
The four Rs: Reduce, Remove, Repair, Resilience
Roger Hallam tweeted on Jun 3:
After I found out about the Nazi concentration camps as a teenager, I was unable to understand why the Germans just let it happen.
This week a chief scientist writes that billions will die unless we stop the elites destroying our climate.
The Guardian published on 27 May 2024 an op-ed by Sir David King, founder and chair of the global Climate Crisis Advisory Group, headlined Humanity’s survival is still within our grasp – just. But only if we take these radical steps. His message included:
Reduce emissions, build resilience, repair ecosystems, remove greenhouse gases: these are the four Rs that can save us
Retired mathematician Prof Eliot Jacobson posted on Jun 4 a blog piece headlined Betting on the End of the World. It’s an explanation for his Over/Under graph (see https://x.com/EliotJacobson/status/1797629631409119435 ). It concludes with (bold text my emphasis):
These numbers are the betting lines that are vaild today. Just like betting on sports or Academy Awards, as more information comes to light, these numbers will be updated. But, today, if you want to make a fake-bet on a year’s GMST with a friend, colleague, family member, Twitter idiot denier, x-porn star or climate scientist, these are the 50/50 over/under lines the Climate Casino is offering.
And to be clear, this analysis shows the Paris limit of 1.5°C will officially be broken in 2027, and 2.0°C will be done and dusted in 2041. It shows nearly 2.4°C by 2050, with 2.0°C solidly in the rear-view mirror. These 50/50 predictions are f&%king nuts. The end of everything is no longer hyperbole. It is odds-on by 2050.
Let this sink in: we’re betting on the end of the world and the smart money is that it really is the end of the world.
Killian: “Regenerative Governance. There is no other way.”
That is plainly true, but how do you justify even a shred of optimism. The trajectory of the world we live in bears significant inertia. Regenerative Governance that is not a veneer requires organizations with cultures that consistently draw enlightened individuals of capacity, with selfless orientation, into positions of authority. Where do you see that? How could those cultures be created, sustained and reinforced? Serious question, if you have resources/links. And promulgated on a society-wide basis on a timeline relevant to the incipient climate-based disaster? More hopefully, the ideas you envision may grow from the rubble of the remains as humans find a better way.
JCMsays
Join me in celebrating world environment day today June 5th 2024! This year focuses on land restoration, halting desertification and building drought resilience under the slogan “Our land. Our future”. UNCCD reports up to 40 percent of the planet’s land is degraded and annual net loss of native ecologies continues unabated at >100 million ha / decade. This is a profound forcing to climates and puts our communities at risk. It’s hard to imagine denying or actively minimizing the consequences to realclimates due to an artificial fixation and overemphasis on the outputs of trace gas and aerosol forced model estimates.
Piotrsays
Re JCM (Jun 5)
Aaaa, a JCM in a sheep’s clothing – a diverter of the attention from the role of GHGs in climate change – tries to gain credibility by dressing up his GHG-denialism as …. a passionate and honest environmental concern:
JCM “Join me in celebrating world environment day today June 5th 2024!” and then he sheds his crocodile tears over “degraded and [lost] native ecologies“.
The tears are crocodilian, because the desertification and the resulting “ degradation and annual net loss of native ecologies are DRIVEN, to a large extent, by the climate change, and therefore by human emissions of GHGs driving this change – NOT by change … in the water cycle, which is primarily the RESULT, not the CAUSE, of the climate change.
JCM KNOWS is, yet he deliberately tries to pit the victims of the results of the AGW against the research into the drivers of AGW – by portraying the climate models as if they were … diverting resources from the dealing with desertification:
JCM Jun 5: “It’s hard to imagine denying or actively minimizing the consequences to realclimates due to an artificial fixation and overemphasis on the outputs of trace gas […] forced model estimates
If JCM, as many other GHG deniers, was also a COVID-sceptic – I could see him posting on the COVID vaccine forum (RealCOVID?) something along the lines:
It’s hard to imagine you denying or actively minimizing the consequences of COVID infections due to your artificial fixation and overemphasis on finding an effective vaccine against COVID”
Deniers of the world – unite! ;-)
JCMsays
I will keep this brief as I’m not interested in another painful shouting match with toxic divider Piotr.
To Piotr, I recommend getting a grip.
It is unequivocal that in recent decades land resources have been subject to massive degradation and loss due to global patterns of human domination. It’s outlined clearly in the reports associated with the UNCCD and the COPs + Assessment Reports that nobody has ever heard of, most recently COP15 and GLO2. That is direct obliteration of landscapes and annihilation of species. Given climate is highly sensitive to the selection of ecological types in terms of soil-water uptake, moisture and nutrient cycling, massive unnatural ecological disturbances represent a direct ongoing forcing with significant feedbacks in atmosphere. Adaptive ecosystems interact with climates and yet we continuously slash it back.
Humans have already transformed more than 70% of the Earth’s land area from a natural state, causing unparalleled environmental degradation and climate change. The Living Planet Index points to an average decrease of 68% in populations of mammals, birds, amphibians, reptiles, and fish between 1970 and 2016. For example, in the tropical Americas and abroad, the index declined by 94% primarily due to land use change, largely the conversion of grasslands, savannas, forests, and wetlands. Land conditions, including water retention and biomass productivity, are essential components of realclimates and sustainable communities.
That some exhibit stubborn prejudice and attempt to paint me as a generic denier of global issues is unsurprising, given that bad teaching and half-baked logics have recently come to dominate the environmental consciousness. Undeterred in the face of unbelievable stupidity, I remain steadfast in my dedication to environmental conservation and engage actively in remediation with a variety of stakeholders. I urge everyone to experience your catchments firsthand; use your senses rather than fixating exclusively on a curated perspective through a computer screen. Get involved with community environmental stewardship initiatives because no one else will do it for you. There is no option for dues-paying, financialization, or offsetting; it requires real work and unwavering dedication.
Piotrsays
JCM: “ It is unequivocal that in recent decades land resources have been subject to massive degradation and loss due to global patterns of human domination.
Nobody disputed that, Genius, so no need to post two screens breaking down the doors that nobody closed. My point was simple, I quote:
===
Piotr May 5: “the desertification” is DRIVEN, to a large extent, by the climate change, and therefore by human emissions of GHGs driving this change – NOT by [direct] change … in the water cycle, which is primarily the RESULT, not the CAUSE, of the climate change.
JCM KNOWS is, yet he deliberately tries to pit the victims of the results of the AGW against the research into the drivers of AGW – by portraying the climate models as if they were … diverting resources from the dealing with desertification::
JCM Jun 5: “It’s hard to imagine denying or actively minimizing the consequences to realclimates due to an artificial fixation and overemphasis on the outputs of trace gas […] forced model estimates
=== end of quote =====
Now kindly explain how your Jun6 “reply” tackles THAT.
In the meantime, feel free to lecture others on “ getting a grip“
Radge Haverssays
Looks like JCM is just going to circle back and double down on sloganeering.
Crank magnetism, perhaps. Ah, the allure of forbidden, stigmatized knowledge suppressed by the Powers That Be, of which Big Climate is supposedly a charter member (the irony!):
and asked you if you consider the content and style of such contributions systematically posted by Piotr as justified / deserving your kind approval.
I think that the situation with Piotr’s feedback to JCM’s recent post is quite similar.
Have JCM ever wrote about vaccination, COVID and stuff like this in his posts?
Are you really sure that many Piotr’s comments (particularly on anyone who once mentioned that human influence on climate may not consist exclusively in varying production of greenhouse gases and aerosols) are not repeating, tangential and/or abusive?
Best regards
Tomáš Kalisz
Piotrsays
Let’s sum up:
– Tomáš Kalisz has accused me of hatred toward him (“You hate me, don’t you?“) and dishonesty (“you twist and misinterpret what I said“. As the proof, he claimed: “ I have never proposed active water cycle management as an alternative to GHG mitigation.”
-To which, I reminded him of his own posts from May 30-31,2023, in which he proposed … precisely that: he wrote that increasing evaporation by “ ca 12750 km3 of water” would cancel the ENTIRE radiative forcing of surplus GHGs and may even “ REVERSE the sign of EEI – in other words, we might be able to COOL the Earth this way ” [i.e. without doing anything about GHGs – P.].
– Unable to admit accusing others based on his own lie, Tomas Kalisz tries now … to silence me by … denouncing me to site’s administrators:
“ A plea to moderators […] Are you really sure that many Piotr’s comments are not repeating, tangential and/or abusive?”
Best regards
Tomáš Kalisz”
===
Nice touch at the end – in Communist countries, people who denounced their opponents to the authority also had good manners – signed their denouncement letters with “Best regards“, “Well-wishing [name here]“, or at least “Concerned Citizen“. See also posts of TK, where he accuses me of hatred and lying, just after opening with “ Dear Piotr” and ending with “ Greetings“.
Good manners – a last refuge of a scoundrel?
Copernicus has posted the May ERA5 anomalies as expected, an 12th-in-a-row ‘scorchyisimo!!’ month and at +0.65ºC not much of a drop from April’s +0.70ºC.
In ERA5, May 2024 sits as the 12th highest global all-month SAT anomaly, all-but-one set in 2023/24 (Feb 2016 sits at 10th). It is the lowest anomaly since June 2023 (+0.53ºC) which began the run of ‘scorchyisimo!!’ months. (The Copernicus report does feature a year-on-year graph of anomalies Jun-May)
In terms of May anomalies, previous high May SAT anomalies run:-
2020 (+0.47ºC),
2016 (+0.41ºC),
2023 (+0.40ºC),
2017 (+0.37ºC),
2019 (+0.36ºC),
2021 (+0.36ºC),
2022 (+0.26ºC),
2018 (+0.25ºC).
The start of the year, containing 5 ‘scorchyisimo!!’ months evidently is the hottest on record with an average anomaly of +0.71ºC, ahead of 2016 (+0.56ºC), 2020 (+0.53ºC), 2017(+0.42ºC), 2019 (+0.36ºC), 2023 (+0.35ºC).
Thus for the full calendar year 2024 to drop below 2023 as warmest year, the remainder of 2024 (Jun-Dec) would have to average below +0.52ºC.
Excepting 2023, the highest Jun-Dec averages in ERA5 SAT run 2019 (+0.41ºC), 2020 (+0.36ºC), 2016 (+0.35ºC), 2021 (+0.34ºC), 2015 (+0.32ºC), 2022 (+0.31ºC).
Ned Kellysays
AS long as your have your numbers right. That’s the most important thing.
Juliansays
While browsing the Internet, I’ve found the following: https://press.uni-mainz.de/the-summer-of-2023-in-large-parts-of-the-northern-hemisphere-was-the-hottest-for-more-than-2000-years/
The researchers mentioned in the article used the tree ring data to arrive at the conclusion that “(…) the mean temperature in the period 1850 to 1900 was actually 0.24°C lower than had been presumed on the basis of the data collected at the time by meteorological stations”. I’m not an expert on the topic, but are the baselines wrong? I’m a bit sceptical about this, since I think I’m missing the bigger picture here – it can’t be that simple, can it?
The paper Esper et al (2024) ‘2023 summer warmth unparalleled over the past 2,000 years’ is getting quite a lot of coverage on-line. The paper does have a preview PDF.
Piotrsays
Julian, quoting Esper “ Our calculations show that the mean temperature in the period 1850 to 1900 was actually 0.24°C lower than had been presumed on the basis of the data collected at the time by meteorological stations,”
This implies that their calculations are true (“actually”) and meteorological data failed to live up to that truth (they “presumed” wrong).
I can’t comment on details their methods (MAR’s pdf preview does not open) – it seems they based the paper on the temperature proxies from trees (O-18 in tree rings?) Comparing proxies with direct measurements is always tricky and there is no guarantee the proxy data are more reliable than direct measurements – O-18 is affected also by other factors than temperature – you try to minimize it by calibrating O-18 temp with measured temp. but it implies assumption that the calibration at the current conditions (“June, July, and August of 2023”) is equally adequate for trees under different environmental conditions in 1850-1900, or even in the last 2000 years.
Finally – their measurements covered “ whole of Europe as well as large parts of North America and Asia ” – let’s say 50 mln km2 – that’s only 10% global area – so the “0.24C lower” there translates directly only to 0.024C lower GLOBALLY.
Therefore to make his findings relevant, Esper HAS to EXTRAPOLATE his “0.24C overestimation” to the remaining 90% of Earth. But I would argue such an extrapolation is … an act of faith:
– the presumable reason for the difference between the measured and proxy data between 1850 and 1900 is that inadequate meteo coverage at that time, i.e. the meteo network in Eurasia and N. America was a skewed-toward warmer places. But CAN YOU assume the same degree of skewing for Africa – i.e. that in 1850-1900 the warmest places in Africa (Sahara?) had … better meteo coverage than more liveable parts of the continent?
Further, most of the 90% of Earth not covered by Esper’s study – was the ocean – i.e. measurements on passing ships. i.e. very different pattern of meteo coverage than in Eurasia and N. America land. Given that can you still extrapolate the 0.24C skewing due to LAND meteo coverage onto the effect of a very different pattern of meteo measurements in the oceans?
Ned Kellysays
Well well well …… and the cock crowed three times ……….
Prof. Stefan Rahmstorf
@rahmstorf
6h
We are heading towards 3°C #globalwarming. What will it be like?
And how can we prevent it, with the help of nature-based solutions?
New book – open access! springerprofessional.de/3-de…
All chapters can be downloaded for free (including mine). https://nitter.poast.org/rahmstorf/status/1799023703482859753#m
Out of the mouths of babes – the truth is bad enough, he said. We can achieve 1.5C because we have Agency!!!
And how can we also fix the other 9 threats to our future AND stop a nuclear war starting because of Ukraine?
Ned Kellysays
The last 12 months have seen global temperatures at 1.63°C above pre-industrial levels,
It’s 2024 …..
And still people (including climate scientists) think it will still only hit 3C in 2100 …. 75 years of more warming from now.
ROTFLOL
I came for the real climate science but stayed for the humour and the never-ending verbal abuse.
Pete bestsays
Optimists can only point out to the masses that we have not crossed the threshold yet which we haven’t.
Killiansays
I get a kick out of this: We have been over it for a year, but haven’t passed it. I know, “It has to be for three years!!” Yeah, except when you’re in an entirely new regime you have to adjust the rules.
How many times over the last 15 years have I pointed out a new record or shift in climate/weather behavior indicated a potential regime shift and then seen it be the case? All while being constantly ridiculed with nobody ever admitting they were wrong in their analyses?
Meanwhile, Hansen suggests the shift might be permanent or, at best, there might be a very short pullback before breaching in the next two or three years? And he’s not the only one.
The constant, knee-jerk reticence on this site is a disservice. It’s one thing for scientists to do so, but quite another for the rest of you to still be engaging with the science this way.
Barton Paul Levensonsays
K: The constant, knee-jerk reticence on this site is a disservice. It’s one thing for scientists to do so, but quite another for the rest of you to still be engaging with the science this way.
While I jumped the gun a few months back with quickie comment saying Sahara Desert evaporation fights descending air (it doesn’t) still it seems to me that battling the Hadley Cell by planting vast sampling quantities beneath hot descending air and sprinkling with water non stop is like spitting into the wind, Fighting The Titan or Labour of Hercules. I invite checking whether Amazon Rainforest is somewhat closer to Persistent Low Pressure ITCZ-equator rising air and Sahara Desert is a bit further away and a bit closer to nominal 30N 30S Persistent High Pressure where the drier air fom the wet ocean ITCZ-equator rising air, with its water gone, and latent heat gone to LWR and sensible heat, pressurizes at around 9.8 degrees / km.
JCMsays
As a general rule, precipitation intensity tends to be higher over dry lands, but very infrequent. Conversely, precipitation intensity is lower and frequency is higher over wet lands.
For a landscape dominated by wet land, the local ET acts as a priming/trigger that favors the onset of condensation and flushes out the vapor. There the rate of ET is limited by the surface available radiation and vapor pressure deficits. Wet land regions tend to exhibit a higher rate of moisture recycling and a surface climate dominated by hydrothermodynamics.
Conversely, the limiting factor for ET in dry lands is the soil moisture. Lacking persistent priming of the atmosphere, cloud condensation and precipitation frequency is reduced, water vapor duration is high, and moisture convergence is limited.
Missing a cloud, the driving vertical temperature profile Ts – Tr is small and surface climates become increasingly controlled by radiation and greenhouse effects. Additionally, any perturbation in the surface hydrologies that further heats the air, for example, increasing proportion of sensible heat in turbulent flux, reduces the probability of cloud condensation.
In the context of tropical regimes, which tend to exhibit a wet season and dry season by the shifting ITCZ, soil moisture acts as an important precondition for the onset of the wet season. Lacking a local ET trigger for condensation, the wet season could be delayed (days, weeks, months?) even as large scale dynamics provide a more favorable condition (Nobre 2016). https://www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.1073/pnas.1605516113.
While the presence or absence of local ET might appear like spitting into the wind, it could mean the difference of weeks of dry season duration as the continental atmospheres remain hotter and unprimed with reduced precipitation efficiency* (*fraction of moisture flowing overhead that is precipitated out). Just as an unprimed pump results in binding and explosive pressure variations with audible turbulent extremes, a small initializing volume makes all the difference to smooth things out as the main flow comes through.
Riding just below condensation and dehumidification thresholds for long periods can be ameliorated by a continuous sprinkling-like fraction of mm/day ET to close the gap. Once the cloud forms, the dynamics associated with Ts – Tr fire suddenly at much greater efficiency. Recognizing that it’s incontrovertible that massive direct landscape perturbations have accumulated and greatly accelerated in the recent decades, the sensitivity of climates to seemingly small hydrological forcing appears somehow unresolved in global scale models.
Previously Benestad provided comments on related characteristics using the concept of precipitation area. There it is demonstrated that while precipitation area is decreasing, precipitation intensity is increasing along with temperature extremes. This provides a clue that water vapor duration must be increasing along with the atmospheric vapor priming gap; forced, in-part, by surface properties IMO. https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2023/07/area-based-global-hydro-climatological-indicators/.
On the other hand, there are publications wherein the authors used state-of-art climate models for studying which influence can have an increase in sensible heat flux above hot deserts like Sahara that could be caused by massive solar energy exploitation in such regions, and arrived at a prediction that it should, paradoxically, result in an annual precipitation increase.
That was the reason why I tried to find out if we have historical reconstructions of global and regional precipitation similar to reconstructions of global and regional temperature, and if such reconstructions serve as test bed calibration for new climate models.
Greetings
Tomáš
Barry E Finchsays
At https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OcdZvdSh9LQ&t=1721s Leon made an entirely-incorrect (edit: a 43% to 86% incorrect) statement at 22:09 to 22:43 based on the SST pictorial being shown (a lapse of logic or eye sight by Leon). Stated is “But here in 2020 from 2020 onwards” but no such thing is shown on the SST pictorial over Leon’s broad latitude range of 30N to 48N (initially I didn’t spot it at any latitude because I was distracted by what Leon was saying and his moving of the mouse cursor around, he was moving it around irrelevance for some reason). Here’s what I clearly saw instantly without measurement & calculation when I first saw it. I saw an 0.8 degrees anomaly (DA) contour at December 2019 with Leon moving the cursor on it for no reason at all as I simultaneously saw a glaringly-obvious (it was also a pretty red colour) similar warming over a latitude range, admittedly only ~half the size of 30N to 48N but probably more-rapid warming, from mid 2017 to mid 2018, and Dan Miller and everybody else viewing must surely have seen that, not just me, I would have thought. That at 2017 shows warming from 0.6 DA to 0.8 DA in 7 months but the warming after December 2019 warms from 0.8 DA to 1.1 DA in 21 months which is a slower rate of warming in 2020/2021 than happened 2017/2018, and Dan Miller and everybody else viewing should have instantly seen that (read my brief exchange with Dan Miller). That was my point. There’s another that clearly warms from 0.4 DA to 0.8 DA in about 2 years at latitudes ~20N-~31N at 2014-start to 2016-start.
———
However, what I didn’t see until I zoomed the Hansen et al Figure to 8x for my measuring, because I was focussed on Leon pointing out January 2020, was the small brown dot (1.1 DA contour) covering June-October 2020 and latitudes 40.5N to 43N, only 14% of the 30N-48N areal range indicated by Leon as having singularly-rapid warming in the record shown occurring “from 2020 onwards” (that’s why I edit “entirely-incorrect” to “43% to 86% incorrect” above). I am baffled as to why Leon stressed with mouse cursor the end of 2019, start of 2020, with its randomly-chosen, irrelevant 0.8 DA contour separating the randomly-chosen dark orange visual presentation 0.6-0.8 SST DA range from the randomly-chosen bright red 0.8-1.1 SST DA range instead of pointing only at, highlighting and discussing that 1.1 DA contour of width 40.5N to 43N and mentioning it specifically since that 1.1 DA contour is the sole basis for Leon’s assertion (though it’s limited to proof for 40.5N to 43N only). I find that Leon is correct, not inaccurate, for only the 40.5N to 43N latitude range, with SST increasing circa January 2020 at 0.39 degrees / year which is 50% greater than the 0.26 degrees / year circa January 2018, the fastest warming before 2020 that I measured and estimated in the poor-resolution Unfit-For-Purpose pictorial. I’ve tabled comparison from when I started measurement in January 2010 of the 9 most-rapid SST increases at the 43N latitude, which I chose to measure because it goes through the fastest-warming centre after 2019, and I also did a quicker, rougher measure for the 30N-48N outside the 40.5N to 43N fast-2020-warming range (so 30N-40.5N & 43N-48N) based on linear interpolation across the 0.8-1.1 SST DA range to the large 1.1 SST DA contour that starts August 2021 and continues warming (with unknown variations) to the end of record at January 2024, passing 1.3 SST DA at its centre part, rather than having a reversal in warming (with unknown variations) as happens at the 40.5N to 43N latitude range where cooling to below 1.1 SST DA is seen to occur at October 2020. Obviously, it was this large 1.1 SST DA contour that starts August 2021 that I used by eye, without measurement, when I first saw the video to conclude that Leon was entirely-incorrect to state that the coarse, low-resolution, pictorial showed singularly-rapid warming “from 2020 onwards”. The best that could be ESTIMATED at 30N-40.5N & 43N-48N where no SST DA contour is crossed from January 2020 to anywhere between August 2021 and end of record at January 2024.
———
Note that the shape of the 1.1 and 1.3 SST DA contours clearly indicates rapid rise over only a narrow central latitude range with increasingly-less-rapid warming to the north and to the south. Ironically, Leon argues against his point that reduced aerosols warmed the ocean at a high rate starting in January 2020, or even starting later, by indicating with the mouse pointer that very large area of ocean in the broad latitude range of 30N to 48N because shown at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NXDWpBlPCY8 at 9:49 is that a much smaller area of ocean at approximately latitudes 40N-42.5N has ~2.7x as much sulphate p.p.t.v. as the large area of 30N to 48N that Leon indicated . It seems that Leon simply didn’t study the pictorial he presented nor the other one I referenced so he didn’t know the relevant areas and quantities.
————
Highest Quarterly rates of increase of SST January 2010 to January 2024 at latitudes 40.5N-43N, and also demonstrating in a 2nd column that these high rates do not pertain to latitudes 30N-40.5N & 43N-48N, which is 86% of the 30N-48N range that Leon moves the mouse cursor around from September 2019 to 2024 as he states that singular SST increase began in 2020. As seen, the SST increase is singular in only 14% of Leon’s latitude band (singular rapid rise for 40.5N-43N). For 87% of Leon’s latitude band the SST DA rate of rise is only a fraction of SST DA rise rate from August 2017 or a few weeks earlier to March 2018 or a few weeks later.
40.5N 30N-40.5N
-43N & 43N-48N
2020 Jan 0.129 0.043
2020 Apr 0.129 0.043
2019 Oct 0.110 0.081
2018 Jan 0.086 0.086
2017 Oct 0.086 0.086
2021 Jul 0.063 0.049
2021 Oct 0.060 0.060
2022 Jan 0.060 0.060
2022 Apr 0.060 0.060
2018 Apr 0.057 0.057
So the singular Delta-SST Jan-Apr 2020 or thereabouts (but covering only 14% of Leons 30N-48N range) is indeed 50% higher warming rate than Oct 2017 to Jan 2018 or thereabouts. Note: the 2017/2018 covers 35.9N-46.3N which is only 57% of the 30N-48N range but I’ll not be measuring any more latitudes because my point is well made. The rapid SST increase shown Oct 2017 to Jan 2018 or thereabouts pertains to 57% of Leon’s 30N-48N range but the rapid Delta-SST January 2020 that Leon stresses covers on 14% of his 30N-48N and that is the issue.
————
To beat into the ground the issue of the low quality of this pictorial with only a sparse 5 contours, outside the High Arctic, for 2007-2024 at latitude 32.5N all that is known for January 2020 to January 2024 SST DA is that is that it’s always between 0.8 and 1.1 so it might for completely-random examples be 0.80 to 0.82 for 4 years, or it might be 1.09 for 47 months after rising from 0.80 to 1.09 in January 2020 and staying there … or absolutely any combination of monthly changes imaginable up & down always staying in the 0.8-1.1 SST DA range. It’s worthless. The coarse, low-resolution, pictorial isn’t Fit For Purpose. A better-quality pictorial with contour spacings of 0.05 SST DA or even perhaps 0.10 SST DA would have clarified the correctness or not of Leon’s strong assertion. The coarse, low-resolution, pictorial leaves too much to be estimated.
————
Note: The month dates shown are actually the centre months of a 12-month running average (14-month where I averaged for quarters) but that’ll be essentially that month as a trend of course.
————
Sea surface temperatures (SSTs) relative to 1951-1980 at latitude 43N
At latitudes At latitudes
40.5N-43N 30N-40.5N & 43N-48N
(measured at 43N) (measured at 40N APPROX)
SST Change SST Change
per per
Quarter Quarter
2017.5 0.58 0.032
2017.58 0.59 0.050
2017.67 0.60 0.068
2017.75 0.63 0.086
2017.83 0.66 0.086
2017.92 0.69 0.086
2018 0.71 0.086
2018.08 0.74 0.086
2018.17 0.77 0.071
2018.25 0.80 0.057
2018.33 0.81 0.043
2018.42 0.83 0.043
2018.5 0.84 0.029
2018.58 0.86 0.000
2018.67 0.86 -0.029
2018.75 0.84 -0.043
2018.83 0.83 -0.043
2018.92 0.81 -0.043
2019 0.80 -0.043
2019.08 0.79 -0.043
2019.17 0.77 -0.043
2019.25 0.76 -0.043 0.76 -0.043
2019.33 0.74 -0.043 0.74 -0.043
2019.42 0.73 -0.043 0.73 -0.043
2019.5 0.71 0.005 0.71 0.005
2019.58 0.70 0.052 0.70 0.052
2019.67 0.73 0.100 0.73 0.100
2019.75 0.77 0.110 0.77 0.081
2019.83 0.80 0.119 0.80 0.062
2019.92 0.84 0.129 0.81 0.043
2020 0.89 0.129 0.83 0.043
2020.08 0.93 0.129 0.84 0.043
2020.17 0.97 0.129 0.86 0.043
2020.25 1.01 0.129 0.87 0.043
2020.33 1.06 0.129 0.89 0.043
2020.42 1.10 0.107 0.90 0.043
2020.5 1.14 0.043 0.91 0.043
2020.58 1.16 -0.043 0.93 0.043
2020.67 1.14 -0.086 0.94 0.043
2020.75 1.10 -0.064 0.96 0.043
2020.83 1.08 0.000 0.97 0.043
2020.92 1.08 0.043 0.99 0.043
2021 1.10 0.021 1.00 0.043
2021.08 1.12 -0.021 1.01 0.043
2021.17 1.10 -0.064 1.03 0.043
2021.25 1.08 -0.043 1.04 0.043
2021.33 1.06 0.000 1.06 0.043
2021.42 1.06 0.043 1.07 0.043
2021.5 1.08 0.063 1.09 0.049
2021.58 1.10 0.061 1.10 0.054
2021.67 1.12 0.060 1.12 0.060
2021.75 1.14 0.060 1.14 0.060
2021.83 1.16 0.060 1.16 0.060
2021.92 1.18 0.060 1.18 0.060
2022 1.20 0.060 1.20 0.060
2022.08 1.22 0.060 1.22 0.060
2022.17 1.24 0.060 1.24 0.060
2022.25 1.26 0.060 1.26 0.060
2022.33 1.28 0.048 1.28 0.048
2022.42 1.30 0.036 1.30 0.036
2022.5 1.31 0.024 1.31 0.000
2022.58 1.32 0.024 1.32 0.000
The Antarctic Sea Ice through 2023 was exceptionally melty with the daily JAXA data showing that it hoovered-up 271 of the daily record low SIEs through the year (with the remainders surviving from previous years being 48 days in 2017, 41 days in 2016 and the last 6-days of December with the record low SIE set in 2022).
Prior to 2023, 2022 had set a new run of record low SIE from late June through to early August, this of course entirely eclipsed by the record-breaking run April-Nov 2023.
It appears that 2024 may also now be setting off on a melty period of its own, abet so far a lot less melty that 2023, having been setting a quite convincing run of second-places for the last 4 days.
Susan Andersonsays
You cannot roll up your sleeves while you’re wringing your hands
[unattributed quote]
Susan Andersonsays
You cannot roll up your sleeves when you are busy wringing your hands
[unattributed quote]
Karsten V. Johansensays
You can’t do neither when your arms are tied behind your back, and you are still trying to convince yourself that you are free – on the internet’s “social” media, even while being both drowned *and* hanged. And that’s the situation of mankind today. Man in general is a stupid animal, unfortunately equipped with the ability to tolerate anything except the reality.
GISTEMP has posted the May numbers for LOTI, the May anomaly given as +1.14ºC, down on April’s +1.33ºC and the lowest monthly anomaly since June last year’s +1.08ºC.
May 2023 is the hottest May on record. Previous hottest May anomalies run 2020 (+1.01ºC), 2015 (+0.95ºC), 2023 (+0.94ºC), 2017 (+0.91ºC), 2014 (+0.86ºC).
The May 2024 anomaly becomes the =21st highest all-month anomaly.
May 2024 is becomes the twelfth ‘scorchyisimo!!!’ month in a row in GISTEMP, this continuing the record length of run, and it will require a bit more drop thro’ June for that record run not to continue.
With the first five months of 2024 all being ‘scorchyisimo!!!’, the start of 2024 obviously remains hottest on record, Jan-May anomalies averaging +1.31ºC, ahead of 2016 (+1.19ºC), 2017 (+1.04ºC), 2023 (+1.00ºC).
A year-on-year graph of GISTEMP monthly anomalies can be found HERE graph 2c
For the full 2024 calendar year not to become hottest-on-record, the remaining months Jun-Dec would have to average below +1.08ºC. The warmest Jun-Dec anomaly (below the ‘bananas’ +1.30ºC of 2023) was the +0.98ºC of 2019.
Davidsays
Following story further expands on the plans outlined in Project 2025 to dismantle and privatize parts of NOAA:
. https://www.mediamatters.org/project-2025/project-2025-plans-dismantle-federal-agency-tracks-hurricanes
.
What a horrific possibility imo. Trump’s disdainful ignorance of climate science (or science in general), combined with the machinations of others who plan to use Trump’s willingness to step on those seen as enemies to reap piles of money, will not be a good thing. They just need Trump to break NOAA, and then they’ll pick up the some of the pieces and profit mightily. Consequences for the country and the world be damned.
Indeed. Their plan is in the context of today’s historical context precisely and literally evil.
Davidsays
Yeah, lots riding on the upcoming debate on June 27th. I wonder how much climate change will come up, let alone a more targeted question involving the proposed fate of NOAA if Trump wins. I’m not optimistic that either Tapper or Bash can ask sufficiently meaningful questions about climate change, let alone a NOAA specific one. I hope I’m wrong!
Barry E Finchsays
Regarding “overemphasis on the outputs of trace gas” JCM 5 JUN 2024 AT 8:24 AM I invite the audience to ponder for 5 seconds the meaning of “trace gas” wrt the so-called “greenhouse effect” in Earth’s troposphere (so not its obvious general meaning as per “trace minerals” etc). I find it literally precisely meaningless wrt that topic (as is 0.04%, obviously). I mean LITERALLY without any meaning. I calculate very approximately in 10 minutes that the infrared active molecules H2O gas & CO2 in the troposphere are about 1,000 times as many CO2 molecules in the troposphere as all of the molecules in the surface below that manufacture all the radiation that heads up from the surface within the CO2 absorption-manufacturing band, and that radiation is ~1.65 times as much power as all the Sun’s energy that Earth absorbs. I calculate very approximately there’s about 1,200 times as many H2O gas molecules in troposphere as all of the molecules in the surface below that manufacture all the radiation that heads up from the surface. I’ve not come across anything that clearly compares per-molecule LWR manufacture of H2O gas with H2O liquid but nonetheless order of ~1,200 times as much quantity seems like a starting point to ponder considering that if it manufactured equally per molecule then in the troposphere is manufactured something of the general scale of about 2,000 times as much quantity as all the Sun’s energy that Earth absorbs. Ponder that and decide what “trace gas” wrt This Specific Topic and ponder why on Earth anybody with an interest in the science would even use it.
“The Response of the Ocean Thermal Skin Layer to Variations in Incident Infrared Radiation” by Elizabeth W. Wong and Peter J. Minnett Nature Published online 6 APR 2018
Piotrsays
Barry E Finch 13 JUN: I find [the phrase] “trace gas” literally precisely meaningless wrt greenhouse effect
With regard to AGW – yes; with regard to identifying the intentions of the people using it – not. To distract from the urgency of the GHG mitigations – the deniers use their choice of words to minimize the importance of GHGs – if these are merely “trace gases” then their influence on the climate must be “trace” too, right?
And if so, then it does not matter whether the concentration of Co2 is 0.04% or 0.08%, twice the trace is still a trace. And if so – then we can use as much fossil fuels, as the fossil fuel lobbyists, and the rulers of Russia and Saudi Arabia, would like us to use.
And to make the message more palatable – deniers would often greenwash it – see our JCM opening his post with: “ Join me in celebrating world environment day today June 5th 2024! and then quickly getting from his deep and sincere environmental concerns to blaming desertification on … the climate scientists and their
“artificial fixation and overemphasis on the outputs of trace gas [in the AGW] models]” (c) JCM, June 5.
So in posts of the deniers, their use of:”trace gas” is quite useful – it’s their self-identifier. By their choice of words you shall know them …
Yes, that “trace gas” thing is a cheap rhetorical trick, whether by intention or… well, or something. Many’s the time I’ve had it pulled out and brandished at me. Then I get to explain patiently yet once again that it’s not the proportion of GHG, it’s the mass of GHG. Which, of course, the interlocutor will not accept, even the the logic involved is elementary. Thus do they validate Ladbury’s law, which states that much stupidity is willfull.
Radge Haverssays
Something I saw somewhere or other:
“Definition of Stupid;
Knowing the truth,
seeing the truth,
but still believing the lies.”
Which sent me down a rabbit hole…
“We are all born ignorant, but one must work hard to remain stupid.”
~ Benjamin Franklin
“I am patient with stupidity but not with those who are proud of it.”
~ Edith Sitwell
“Egotism is the anesthetic that dulls the pain of stupidity.”
~ Frank Leahy
“Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.”
~ MLK
“If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.” ~Tzu
Always argue from a position of strength, not one of weakness.
Julian 6 JUN 2024 AT 4:52 AM I don’t know whether the Osman et al 524 proxies reanalysis calculates temperature or calculates anomaly that is then aligned with the instrumental overlap on the assumption that instrumental is the superior but either way I suppose the Osman would have gone to mid 20th century. Osman shown at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CqtZdnpfgIc at 7:00 (explained at 5:55 on) looks to have 1810 to ~1900 or some such as ~0.10 degrees lower than the prior 800 years (I can’t see whether that’s.Instrumental, proxy or both) so the question arises as to why tree rings 1850-1900 would be used as the start of human-induced global warming if indeed the prior 800 years was warmer than 1850-1900. I don’t do Political, I’m not a Team Player (plus I’m strapped for cash so I can’t decide which deserts to irrigate, I could do my flower box), so that’s that for me.
——————
Cut’n’paste of my notes circa 2017 not necessarily much use.
I’ve been annoyed with Simon Fraser University (SFU) because they took this talk video Private a couple years back after being Public many years and I reviewed it now & then once a year or so.
“The Instrumental Temperature Record and What it Tells us About Climate Change” Francis Zwiers https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FQnt73zJ-S4 Simon Fraser University Mar 2, 2011
If I’d known they’d do that I’d have made a lot more detailed notes of what’s in it instead of these little place markers
——–
6:55 correlating accuracy with distance between stations. Turns out one every 2,800 km on land (Siberia) and one every 1,000 km in ocean (north Pacific) gives all the accuracy needed (provided they are read properly/accurately 3+ times per day and well sited of course) and shown on the plots for 1-year averages (if you want monthly averages then closer spacing is required). Surprised me how few are required but Phil Jones has said 100 temperature stations for all Earth would give the Global Mean Surface Temperature (GMST) to the +/- 0.01 degrees accuracy you see provided that they are read properly/accurately and all are well sited). Of course, there are actually 7,411 temperature stations on land and continuous from ships and the roaming non-stop 3,820 Argo floats.
12:05 how the error because of sparse land instrumental 19th century is figured out from 1850 AD. Using only the few stations that existed 1850-1860 from 1850 to 2010 calculate GMST and compare that with 1850 to 2010 using all ever-increasing stations that existed through the period. Difference is the uncertainty. Do same for 1860-1870, 1870-1880, 1880-1890, 1890-1900, 1900-1910, 1910-1920. You see how the errors decrease hugely from 1850 AD to 1920 AD. It’s like +/- 0.25 degrees circa 1850 AD and drops to <+/- 0.10 degrees error by 1920 AD (getting down to something like <+/- 0.01 degrees error by 1970 of course (technology). Although there's a very very slight possibility that the +1.06 degrees global warming since 1850-1900 AD might be as much as 0.25 degrees too low or 0.25 degrees too high, the odds are very highly in favour of it being within more like +0.96 to +1.16 degrees. That's how statistial uncertainties work, it's a bell curve.
18:00 Amos, Quebec 1910-1995 AD 1927 AD & (mostly) 1963 AD re-siting "artifacts" (false non-existent temperature change) shown, explained and correction shown to greatly *reduce* (not increase) the warming indicated from the incorrect +2.4 degrees 1910-1995 AD to a corrected +0.2 degrees 1910-1995 AD. The clever correction method is called "homogenization" (matching with other nearby stations to see whether it has anything odd and if so find out why).
20:52 "been done very carefully in Canada by the group at Environment Canada that's responsible for doing this work..".
21:26 Scatter chart of all thousands of adjustments (corrections) made to U.S. of America only records 1895-2007 AD showing very clearly that half were corrected upwards by 0.5 to 1.5 degrees and half were corrected downwards by 0.5 to 1.5 degrees, so the net change of thousands of adjustments 1895-2007 AD is definitely <0.01 degrees either way over 112 years. Summary at 23:33
25:06 Sea surface temperature (SST) global coverage pictorials 1830 AD to 2007 AD (177 years)
32:00 The bucket corrections (the only corrections ever made that amount to a global hill of beans, because they are in oceans).
nigeljsays
Very revealing study on the rapid growth of clean tech: “The Cleantech Revolution. It’s exponential, disruptive, and now, Bond et al., RMI. ”
Comments on the study from skepticalscience .com “The authors chart how the energy system is being disrupted by the exponential forces of renewables, electrification, and efficiency. The past decade has seen remarkable progress and growth in cleantech. Cleantech costs have fallen by up to 80 percent, while investment is up nearly 10 times and solar generation has risen 12 times. Meanwhile, electricity has grown to become the largest source of useful energy, and the deep force of efficiency has reduced energy demand by a fifth. As the drivers of change continue to overpower the barriers, cleantech will continue to grow up S-curves, pushing fossil fuel demand into terminal decline and pulling the Paris Agreement within our reach.” Refer:
Excellent presentation, Nigel. Thanks a bunch on that one! I’m trying to organize a lobbying campaign aimed at our SC state legislators, who think that building 9 GW of natgas capacity is a good idea. I think some of that info may help!
Davidsays
Interesting. Thank you Nigelj for sharing. I wonder if the presentation is intended for the general public? Not that RMI would probably care, but if it was my presentation, I’d scrap the image they use on the very first page. Awful what it conveys to my eyes. Also, the general public is not going to know what many of the acronyms used stand for or what they mean. As an example, I doubt more than 5% of the general public knows what an exajoule is a measurement of and how much energy that represents.
James Charlessays
“The problem with both visions of the future – and the spectrum of views between them – is a fundamental misunderstanding of the collapse which has begun to break over us. This is that each assumes the continuation of that part of industrial civilisation which is required to make their version of the future possible, even as the coming collapse wipes away ALL aspects of industrial civilisation. Most obviously, nobody had developed even an embryonic version of the renewable energy supply chain which is the essential first step to turning non-renewable renewable energy-harvesting technologies (NRREHTs) into the envisioned “renewables” upon which the promised techno-psychotic future is to be built. That is, until it is possible to mine the minerals, build the components, manufacture and transport the technologies without the use of fossil fuels at any stage in the process, then there is no such thing as “renewable energy” in the sense which the term is currently promoted. “ https://consciousnessofsheep.co.uk/2023/07/19/our-predicament-re-stated/?fbclid=IwAR3VlY4z4EV1kM6nTSv2FjmBAmvCEGjqqhiwuc1zQtSn3sIcGDGdqiNaN0Q
Geoff Miellsays
James Charles: – “That is, until it is possible to mine the minerals, build the components, manufacture and transport the technologies without the use of fossil fuels at any stage in the process, then there is no such thing as “renewable energy” in the sense which the term is currently promoted.”
In other words:
Until renewables can be replicated at every single step of their life-cycle using renewable energy, they are not sustainable. There are critical issues of scale, resource availability, and timing that I think are not being honestly acknowledged.
You raise a salient point. Once civilization collapses, it most likely cannot build up to the same level again. All the easily available fossil fuels are gone and so are most of the easily available metals–plus you need metals to make the mining equipment to get the metals. The most we could achieve would most likely be antiquity or medieval technology, based on stone and wood–at least until 100 million years had gone by so more resources had been brought to the surface.
It is a good point. Though I wonder if there might not be alternate paths of development, should the scientific method (in some form) survive, and should some present knowledge be preserved in reasonably accessible form. For example, while direct genetic modification such as gene splicing is dependent upon the industrial machine, I wonder if we might not turn toward biologically-based technologies in some form? There’d be a lot of indigenous knowledge ripe for revival as praxis, and who knows how it might fertilize with contemporary biological and ecological knowledge in the blender of a civilizational crisis?
zebrasays
“once civilization collapses”
Which can mean anything you want it to mean.
Are you saying “civilization will collapse” but the population will remain the same or continue to grow? There will not be starvation, disease, warfare… ?
I would suggest that if the population were to decline rapidly, there would be more than enough resources available to build and maintain a civilized, technological society.
What would be missing? Come on, folks, give some examples.
James Charlessays
“Jan says:
June 6, 2023 at 5:47 pm
The common denominator of most ideas, Great Reset, Simplifying the Economy, is to squeeze-out people that have no choice. The idea is that when oil production declines there will still be enough for 50% or 25% or 1% of the populace or for NATO or for the BRICSS.
As the economy is interconnected, squeezing-out leads to economic decline, to an end of availability, to an end of finance and to an end of effects of scale, but what is more it leads to an end of very specialized products and services. No one constructs a smartphone for 50 oilworkers only, writes complex software, maintains an airline, so that specialists can continue work.
Resources ‘hide’ deeper into the ground as they are exploited, the first pieces of coal can be picked by hand, for the second meters chisels are needed, for the next ropes, then tiny railways and lamps, when digging deeper air has to be controlled, communication is needed. Workers can’t walk to their working place down in the mines because it takes too much time. Eventually exploitation stops because production becomes too complex.
A lot of modern tools for energy production rely on products for the mainstream, satellites or transatlantic cables.
As far as I understand, when lower complexity hits the mainstream the specialists and oil producers soon will follow. It would be possible to use ancient technology but the resources that can successfully be produced with ancient technology is already gone.
That’s why I bet on the cliff model.
Now, how steep is this cliff? It depends on the storage they have, and that’s probably different in every area.
If they cannot keep up water supply in the large cities: 3 days. If they have storage of gasoline and grain, they may be able to go longer.
Food production requires to respect the rhythms of nature. Not possible to sow in August and come over the winter. If there is storage enough to wait for the next spring, all gets better.
It does NOT mean extinction of mankind. There are people that go with their cattle or goats to the mountains and survive – if the mainstream lets them… Or they hunt in the Canadian or Russian forests.
Of course there are ways out of the predicament, some we have discussed here. Perhaps not for all 8 bio but for 30%. No need for manslaughter if we reduce reproduction voluntarily in time.
But these ideas have to be tried out before the tipping point and maybe a few tries are needed. Deployment also needs time.
That’s why I see mainstream ideas that are prone to failure counterproductive. It is a mental thing. And one of sloth.”? https://ourfiniteworld.com/2023/06/02/models-hide-the-shortcomings-of-wind-and-solar/#comments
“Gail Tverberg says:
June 4, 2023 at 6:09 pm
The bottom 90% represent the workers of the world, unfortunately. Getting along without them would be difficult. Who would mine the minerals of the world? Who would pick up the trash? Who would pick the crops that need to be picked?” ? https://ourfiniteworld.com/2023/06/02/models-hide-the-shortcomings-of-wind-and-solar/comment-page-2/#comments
Barton Paul Levensonsays
z: Are you saying “civilization will collapse” but the population will remain the same or continue to grow? There will not be starvation, disease, warfare… ?
BPL: No. How does that possibly follow from anything I said?
zebrasays
BPL (and James Charles),
BP, the JC quotes I found incoherent, but what you said seems to coincide somewhat because you suggest that things would be “lacking”. That’s why I asked for examples.
My point is that the relationship between resource consumption and technology, and population, is not at all linear.
The global population in 1900 was 1.6B, today it is 8B. It makes no sense to me to suggest that if we returned to that population level, there would be a shortage of materials to maintain a modern society. And (if I understand the JC quotes correctly) the suggestion in those that this would be an insufficient population to maintain such a society is likewise incorrect.
Of course, the transition to such a number might be very much as Radge Havers describes: Some parts of the world would revert to a more primitive condition, but absent nuclear or biological war, the breakdown would not result in the loss of technology everywhere.
Again, what would be lacking in my thought experiment? The US would have a population of 66 million. I would suggest energy consumption per capita would be a small fraction of what it is now, and there would be an enormous amount of material available to be recycled. And even if you couldn’t make solar panels, you could do just fine with hydro and biofuels.
What would be lacking?
Barton Paul Levensonsays
z: The global population in 1900 was 1.6B, today it is 8B. It makes no sense to me to suggest that if we returned to that population level, there would be a shortage of materials to maintain a modern society.
BPL: But the resources wouldn’t be smaller and therefore adequate for a smaller population, they would be entirely gone. It’s not that a recovering civilization of 1.6 billion, or even 1.6 million, would have some easily available fossil fuels and workable metals. They would have none. Zero. Zip.
You can only get so much rebar from pulling down buildings, and without coal you can’t work it again. Maybe something could be done with solar concentrators, but again, you’d need metals (shiny ones) to build the solar concentrators. Thus I am not sanguine that an industrial civilization could be rebuilt if this one fails. They would have to create an entirely different type of technology, based on minerals and whatever plants and animals survived the mass extinction.
nigeljsays
BPL makes the point that by the time we get to a population of 1.6 billion or less all the resources will be gone. This is a good point. I remember pointing out to Zebra several years ago that while I agree a smaller population world is desirable and has obvious benefits, a small population world may still be short of some things.
I found that studies show an optimal global population is 2 billion people. An online calculator showed it would be year 2300 before we get to 2 billion people assuming a fertility rate this century of 1.5. And even as population shrinks per capita consumption would probably increase. Thats a huge amount of consumption still in the pipeline.
Im not a resource limits pessimist, but its kind of obvious that even a small population world would be short of some materials. How do we mitigate that? The simplification idea is that we should reduce our consumption right now to leave materials for future generations, but the prevailing system relies on high levels of consumption and complex technology and even small reductions in consumption in recessions are painful and cause unemployment. So people are unlikely to want to change that system. We seem locked into a system with quite high consumption levels.
Tomáš Kaliszsays
In Re to Barton Paul Levenson, 23 JUN 2024 AT 1:32 PM,
at least as regards coal, I do not think that resources are depleted substantially.
Greetings
Tomáš
zebrasays
BPL,
My original comment started with pointing out that your “once civilization collapses” is undefined. If you meant… “once a magic hyperspace iris opens and instantly whisks away all fossil fuels and existing metals (in any form) to another planet”… you should have said that.
But let’s take a more realistic approach, and consider “collapse” as an initially painful transition to a new paradigm, with rapidly declining population, but not loss of knowledge and technology everywhere. (Maybe because of climate and migration, disease, war, whatever.
My point, which you seem to ignore, is that non-linear relationship between population and need for resources. You like numbers, and I gave you an example, but you don’t seem to have worked out some obvious consequences.
If the US population is 66M, you could, for example, have 33M on each coast. Apply your sci-fi imagination to that. How could you possibly run out of metal? What would happen to all the steel and copper lying around in flyover country? Even after you reprocess it using hydro and other electricity sources, it doesn’t just vanish.
And, again, you need much much much less per capita!. I would argue, conservatively, that dividing the existing population by 5 you should divide the per capita value by 5 as well. Probably much more.
So you have a very very long period in which you can make a transition to a new (civilized and technical) paradigm. And as Kevin suggests, there is ample room for development of biology-based solutions for various needs and wants.
I will stop there… you can let me know what you still think would be lacking.
A lengthy sub-thread already, so I’m going to start by tagging BPL’s relevant post. The comment was “you can only get so much rebar from pulling down buildings, and without coal you can’t work it.” Not really; you need carbon, but it doesn’t have to be coal (or coke):
Charcoal is already used extensively for steel production in Brazil due to poor regional coal resources.
But apparently there are economic barriers to charcoal use in steelmaking in other parts of the world. So CSIRO is on that, having built a demo plant a couple of years ago, and last year signing MOUs with a corporate partner to commercialize their technology.
Zebra says: “If the US population is 66M, you could, for example, have 33M on each coast. Apply your sci-fi imagination to that. How could you possibly run out of metal? What would happen to all the steel and copper lying around in flyover country? Even after you reprocess it using hydro and other electricity sources, it doesn’t just vanish.”
This is a bit naieve. Some metals like steel and copper will just by lying around in unused bridges etc,etc, and easy enough to recycle. But by the time we get to the USA having a populatioon of 100 million people specialist and less common metals ( eg: antimony, bismuth, gold, molybdenum, rhenium and zinc) will be buried in landfill and will be very difficult and expensive to find and resuse. There could be serious problems.
Playing devils advocate a bit because clearly a smaller population will have less resource problems than a large population.
I do not think that steelmaking using charcoal is a sustainable solution even for one tenth of today world population. Biomass production from a square area is, in fact, quite low.
It is 300 years ago when replacement of wood in steelmaking, glass production and heating with coal saved central Europe, including my country, from a complete deforestation.
I think that “biomass” should not be taken just as a “harmless” form of energy or “carbon”, because there is in fact an incomparably higher value hidden in it, which becomes mostly destroyed if we carbonize or burn it. Therefore, I quite doubt if the research directed to replacement of coal with wood / charcoal in industries is really based on a sound idea and supported with a sound knowledge of the relationships in Earth ecosystem.
Greetings
Tomáš
Barton Paul Levensonsays
z: How could you possibly run out of metal? What would happen to all the steel and copper lying around in flyover country?
BPL: It would be nearly impossible to rework it into anything useful without a functioning metal reclamation technology. If we want to prevent the collapse, we might start using more recycled metals as soon as possible. If we wait till after the collapse, it will be unlikely that we can start one.
zebrasays
BPL,
There you go again with “after the collapse”, which you haven’t described at all.
We already have the technology to recycle all metals (except maybe stuff like depleted uranium, which is, you know, depleted). The fact that we don’t recycle everything is a result of economics, not technology. This is easy enough to look up.
Now, unlike you, I have described my “post-apocalyptic” world… one in which the associated reduction in population results in a non-linear reduction in the need for those metals. But perhaps the math is too difficult for you and other folks on RC to handle?
I say that if you have a population in the US of 66 million, the level of consumption of energy and materials would be 4% of what it is now. And it is the current level of consumption that dictates our choices of how we get what we need.
Again, I suggest you apply your sci-fi imagination and some math, and you will see that it would be possible to go a very long time, while developing new (probably biological) approaches to maintaining a technological standard of living.
nigeljsays
Zebra “I say that if you have a population in the US of 66 million, the level of consumption of energy and materials would be 4% of what it is now.
Its possible that in a smaller population America everyone would live in the south where its cheaper to heat houses in winter, and perhaps working from home will be more commonplace and will reduce energy use, and presumably appliances will be more energy efficient. But its all speculation, and Jevons paradox says that when we make energy use more efficient total energy use stays the same or increases. For example people just increase their travel or the size of their homes.
Presumably we will be able to make the same sorts of products with less materials. But this is all speculative and does not follow just from a shrinking population and its impossible to quantify. Anyones guess could be right. And something like Jevons paradox looks like it might apply. People may just buy more products. So Zebras claims dont sound convincing, and hes hasn’t provided any reasoned explanation, details or maths or evidence.
Barton Paul Levensonsays
z: I suggest you apply your sci-fi imagination and some math, and you will see that it would be possible to go a very long time, while developing new (probably biological) approaches to maintaining a technological standard of living.
BPL: I suggest you stop living in a fantasy world, but that’s not going to happen, either.
BTW, I am tired of the references to my being a science fiction writer, as if that disqualified me from discussing science. I get this from global warming deniers all the time, who look up the Wikipedia article about me and only read the first paragraph. Allow me to remind you that a fairly large number of scientifically educated people also wrote science fiction, including Fred Hoyle (astrophysics), Isaac Asimov (chemistry), Carl Sagan (planetary astronomy), and Geoff Landis (planetary astronomy). People who write science fiction, or even those who read it, are likely, on average, to know more science than people who don’t. I assume the latter includes you, given your attitude toward the whole thing.
Tomas, you are forgetting the original context in your recent comment, which otherwise is a point well-taken. We weren’t talking about a sustainable solution for “even a tenth of today’s population,” but about possible metallurgical technologies in a post-collapse world.
zebrasays
BPL,
Actually, as should be obvious, I thought you might be better qualified to address the question than many because you have imagination, as well as (I thought, from your previous efforts) the willingness to apply your science/math background.
But you seem reluctant to go beyond just repeating “after the collapse” without describing what you think that would actually be like, or how my proposition is incorrect.
zebrasays
Kevin M,
“Tomas, you are forgetting the original context in your recent comment, which otherwise is a point well-taken. We weren’t talking about a sustainable solution for “even a tenth of today’s population,” but about possible metallurgical technologies in a post-collapse world.”
Kevin, if you had a tenth of today’s population, there would be more than enough trees and other bio-material to contribute even as a renewable energy source, as well as component source for various chemical processes.
I am not sure if it does make much sense to discuss how to re-start the society “from the scratch” after a quick total collapse, wherein basically all links of the original society would have been destroyed and sharing and exploiting previous knowledge would have became basically impossible.
I would rather ask how we can manage a satisfying / functioning economy if a world population stops growing and start decreasing.
Keeping the previously collected knowledge, the ability to exploit it, as well as the ability to improve and further develop it may be crucial for economy adaptation to this unprecedented change.
Greetings
Tomáš
Radge Haverssays
No crystal balls here, but I suspect we’d see increased conflict and more failing states with some brighter spots here and there. Look around you, then imagine a similar world that’s more ungovernable and a whole lot crappier.
There are a few problems with this thesis. One is the assumption that anyone actually knows what “the coming collapse” will look like. Or–let’s be honest–whether “collapse” is even going to be the appropriate term. The second is the incorrect assertion that there is no “embryonic” form of a circular economy in prospect. In fact, it’s being constructed around us. Methods for recycling all sorts of clean tech are being devised and deployed, as are the markets that will [re]-distribute the recycled materials. Electrification, which increases efficiency and diminishes FF use, is proceeding, notably in transportation but also in industry. And the third problem is the false premise that it’s an all-or-nothing proposition.
The last Friday, I went to the “Lange Nacht der Wissenschaften” in Dresden, Germany, and have seen recycled reinforcing fibres from old rotor blades of decommissioned wind turbines.
The fibres were isolated by depolymerization of the polymer composite matrix in supercritical water. It appears that this method not only enables reuse of the precious high-strength fibres but may also open a way towards recycling the respective monomers.
I do not see a reason why the desired new facilities for renewable energy exploitation could not be built basically using energy from already available renewable sources. Furthermore, lot of already common materials needed therefor, such as steel, Al, glass, silicates etc can be recycled from decommissioned old equipment that served for fossil fuel exploitation and from other obsolete technologies / facilities that became useless.
In this sense, I do not think that arguments about generic infeasibility of world economy transition to renewable energy and circular resource exploitation are well-supported and convincing.
Greetings
Tomáš
nigeljsays
From James Charles link: “The idea being that, as our complex civilisation breaks down, we will be forced to return to a far simpler economy, where most people revert to roles within agriculture and food production. ”
IMO such a scenario is possible for numerous reasons, from resource scarcity to nuclear war to an asteroid impact and climate change (unmitigated). But theres no convincing evidence resource scarcity will force us all to resort to basic farming in the short term. This is something that is more likely to develop slowly. Especially if population does shrink as Zebra mentions.
And dont underestimate the ability of complex society to survive and technology to find a way through either. Technology is more adaptable than people realise.
In the meantime we have to make a decision on what to do about the climate problem. This is doubly important because it would make simple non industrial farming even more difficult. Renewables is one decent option even if it strains the worlds resources, and some progess is being made. There is no point suggesting other pie in the sky fantasies that almost nobody will accept.
A nice instance of that embryonic circular economy, indeed.
Barry E Finchsays
https://climatecasino.net/2024/06/betting-on-the-end-of-the-world/ has a “graph of the running 365-day GMST, from 1941 to the present day showing an average of 1.63°C over the last 365 days (I am using Copernicus ERA5 data, and all the analysis I present is based on this data)” and 1.63C June 1, 2024. NOAA has average of monthly averages June 2023 through May 2024 as +1.31 relative to 20th Century and I measured a few years ago that 0.20 is added to convert “relative to 20th Century” to 1850-1900, so that’s +1.51 from the 1850-1900 base line for NOAA. Does anybody have information on that, such as what I’m misunderstanding or calculating wrong, or whether it’s known that NOAA is a largish 0.12 below Copernicus ERA5 data ?
Geoff Miellsays
Barry E Finch: – “Does anybody have information on that, such as what I’m misunderstanding or calculating wrong, or whether it’s known that NOAA is a largish 0.12 below Copernicus ERA5 data ?”
Per the website Paris Agreement Temperature Index, re the major global mean surface temperature (GMST) datasets:
* Berkeley Earth is the warmest with the current longer-term GMST anomaly at +1.39 °C (relative to 1850-1900 baseline);
* Copernicus-ERA5 & HadCRUT are in the middle: +1.33 °C (Copernicus-ERA5), & +1.31 °C (HadCRUT)
* NOAA / GISSTemp both run coldest: +1.23 °C
* The difference means about 0.17 °C difference in “The Climate” that these datasets report. https://parisagreementtemperatureindex.com/climate-reporting-why-so-many-different-values/
Carbon Brief published on 13 Jun 2024 an analysis by Zeke Hausfather headlined Analysis: What record global heat means for breaching the 1.5C warming limit. The takeaways include:
• The current longer-term composite global mean surface temperature (GMST) anomaly (relative to the 1850-1900 baseline) is +1.30 °C (Berkeley Earth dataset is warmest at +1.41 °C, NOAA GlobalTemp is coolest at +1.22 °C).
Barry E Finch,
The author of the graph showing the +1.63ºC ERA5 anomaly for the 365-day period to-1/6/24 using a 1850-1900 anomaly base is the blunderful Eliot Jacobson, someone I tend to ignore due to his bold track record of errors. In calculating the 1850-1900 anomaly base, it does make a big difference which data set you use. What Jacobson used is not clear – obviously not ERA5 which only provides post-1941 data.
As NOAA is now published to May 2024, the equivalent 12-month anomaly can be calculated using NOAA alone. The NOAA data gives the 1850-1900 anomaly at -0.174ºC relative to the 1901-2000 anomaly base used by the NOAA data and their 6/2023-5/2024 anomaly averages at +1.311ºC.
Thus NOAA data yields +1.49ºC.
BEST & HadCRUT5 have yet to report for May 2024 but their 1850-1900 averages relative to 1901-2000 are significantly lower than -0.174ºC (and lower than even your -0.20ºC assessment). They sit at -0.32ºC and -0.36ºC respectively and using the HadCRUT data to set to derive a 1991-2020 anomaly base (as per used by ERA5) and the ERA5 data for 365-day period to-1/6/24 would yield a value +1.65ºC. The BEST data yields +1.72ºC. And using the same for NOAA yields +1.55ºC.
This suggests Jacobson was using HadCRUT5 data.
Juliansays
>blunderful Eliot Jacobson, someone I tend to ignore due to his bold track record of errors.
May I ask you to elaborate on that, please? I thought what he was doing is rather simple and not prone to errors, i.e. putting data on graphs.
Julian,
In this particular instance, Eliot Jacobson is taking EAR5 re-analysis data 1941-to-date and plotting it on a graph but the anomaly base he uses is 1850-1900 which requires different data to establish and the choice of which data set to use for the anomaly base does make a significant difference. Jacobson is silent on that choice.
Such a lapse is a minor one for Jacobson who happily will shoot off heaps of stuff with little consideration as to it being correct or relevant. Or so I have found repeatedly in the past.
Having myself generally been ignoring Jacobson for some time, it’s probably easier to show a recent example rather than search for past blunders.
This Jacobson twitterisation of 19/6/24 is apparently saying we’re all doomed because the El Niño is over and tropical SAT are not dropping, a graphic of 13th June temperatures for the years 1940-to-date from ERA5 19 presented illustrating the point. This is not a good use of data.
As to the conclusion he attempts to establish, I don’t see the evidence. NINO3/4 is cooling pretty-much as you would expect for this point in the ENSO cycle. The Tropics SAT data he uses shows no great change from the cooling to be seen in 2016 & 1998. And that 13th June data he does use shows a pretty convincing linear rise in SAT 1975-to-date (+0.17ºC/decade+/-0.04 – 2sd) with the 13/6/24 value sitting above that linear rise by +0.33ºC, about the same amount as 13/6/98 (+0.36ºC) although far more than 13/6/16 (+0.08ºC).
But why would anyone attempt to use single day data in this manner? They would have to be a tiny bit deranged.
Juliansays
>But why would anyone attempt to use single day data in this manner? They would have to be a tiny bit deranged.
Hard not to agree to be honest. Frankly, I’ve never seen someone do something like that (i.e. using datum from a single day for a proof).
Thank you for your explanation.
FWIW, Julian, I have–but those doing so were to be numbered among the “usual suspects” of denialdom. Just one of their little parlor tricks.
Don Williamssays
1) The Green Party suffered massive losses in the recent EU elections –as did their liberal allies in France. Reps in EU Parliament dropped from 71 to 53?. Share of vote in Germany fell to 12% down from past 20.5 percent and their share of vote in France fell to 5% , down from 13% circa 2019.
. https://www.yahoo.com/news/green-parties-suffer-eu-poll-123634387.html
3) Michael Mann’s criticism of Jem Bendell’s gloomy forecast failed to address how the global warming problem is one of foreign relations, economics and political science — not just of climate science.
Mal Adaptedsays
I don’t track the Green Party or pretty much any EU politics, but you’re quite right about global warming being in the foreign relations, economics, political science, and other overlapping classes of phenomena that are largely outside the domain of physical climate science. Prof. Mann is constrained to speak from within his own expertise. Nonetheless, the existence of the overlapping domains confronts all of us, even if we’re expert in nothing but our own appetites. The “tragedy of the commons” is a term of economic art, for the “free” (a necessary simplification) market’s propensity to socialize every transaction cost it can get away with. If the upward trend of global heat content is to be capped, it will be by collective intervention in energy markets at all scales, to take the profit out of transferring fossil carbon to the atmosphere. All collective action, of course, is in the political domain, within which the power of concentrated capital is notorious. International cooperation to date is predictably slow and halting, but many countries are taking unilateral action. The USA, for its part, managed to enact the IRA of 2022, 34 years after Jim Hansen’s announcement to the world.
The basic science, of course, has been settled for decades. The delay in decarbonizing the US economy is down to the power of fossil carbon producers and investors to thwart collective intervention in their profit streams. The global trend nonetheless appears positive, although not guaranteed to reach full carbon-neutrality before significant economic damage occurs. We could sure use some expert advice! While we’re waiting for that, the most impactful private, voluntary action US voters can take is to vote for Democrats in every election, at least until a Republican candidate defies party discipline and publicly supports collective disinvestment in fossil carbon. With profits from the sale of oil and gas alone currently in the $trillions annually, it doesn’t take an expert to predict an uphill struggle on all scales.
Well-said. The situation could be worse, but it could also be one hell of a lot better. And yes, in the US, anyone seriously concerned about climate should consistently vote Democratic. I don’t relish the recommendation–I’m a Democrat, but yearn for the possibility of voting R when IMO my party needs what I regard as a corrective signal–but that can’t happen for me while the GOP has essentially made climate denial a shibboleth, part of the tribal identity that can hardly be questioned at all.
nigeljsays
Kevin. Something new and related: “The choice could not be more stark’: How Trump and Biden compare on climate change”
Gotta disagree with the suggestion offered by Kevin McKinney and Mal Adapted to vote only for Democrats. There are Republicans who believe AGW is a real deal. I was curious as to the actual numbers for the current Congress (118th) and found that 149 members (all Republicans) are deniers. 110 in the House and 39 in the Senate according to Red Green Blue org. This tracks fairly closely with the findings by Center for American Progress for the previous 117th of 139 members. That’s roughly a 50-50 percent split in the House Republicans and 20-80 in the Senate.
Of course, this doesn’t explain the cowardice of congressional Republicans who have often not voted their beliefs on the issue for what I assume is fear of Trump and his mouthpieces on radio, tv, and social media. That certainly is one big issue.
That said, what I don’t understand is why advocates for action and people who can explain the ever growing amount of scientific knowledge are so seldom heard on conservative media? Is it solely or even predominantly because they somehow aren’t allowed the opportunity to debate and discuss the matter by conservative media’s gatekeepers? I wonder sometimes if it’s not actually more than just that.
Radge Haverssays
David,
This may be drifting off topic so I’ll be as brief as possible: In view of the Republican War on Science, the politics of gridlock, and how the Republican Party has essentially devolved into the Party of Trump, you might want to consider not enabling cynical cult members willing to march in authoritarian lockstep. Regardless of what they may think privately about this or that, climate is not a priority.
Actions speak louder than words, and the words are shouting.
Jonathan Davidsays
David, So who would you suggest is good candidate on AGW issues among the Republicans? Particularly, any Republican member of government that supports climate initiatives. Since these are generally submitted by Democrats, this would be a highly contrarian Republican in today’s political world. Or perhaps Republicans that have themselves submitted alternative proposals? It would be interesting to know if there are such individuals. Personally, I don’t know if there are any such but I don’t follow politics closely enough to know.
Ray Ladburysays
Unfortunately, one must look not just at the party’s candidate, but also at their leadership. All one does at this point by voting for Republicans is empower the fascist wing of the party, which is in ascendency. Voting for Republicans is voting for inaction on climate, for increases in wealth inequality and for an authoritarian, Christian nationalist policies. It doesn’t matter what the candidate believes. The leadership will thwart any decent policies.
David, here’s the problem. Even if your GOP member isn’t a denier themselves, they will vote party line most of the time, and effectively obstruct needed action. And actually, look at the proposals and policies being advocated. If you just look at the top line, developments like this look pretty good:
But then you find out what they are actually working for. I’ve heard them advocate for “balance” in the energy mix, which is just a code for more irresponsible and dangerous delay in phasing out fossil fuels.
Check out how the leader of the GOP climate caucus dismisses responsibility at the national level–you know, the one he’s supposedly responsible for as a Federal legislator–in order to deflect it down toward individuals, and laterally toward other nations:
Or something like this, in which adaptation is praised and mitigation of the cause of the problem completely ignored:
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, a loyalist of former President Donald Trump who is eyeing his own 2024 presidential run, just signed legislation to prepare the state for rising sea levels and more severe storms that won overwhelming support in the GOP-controlled Legislature.
DeSantis notably did not talk much about climate change around the bill, nor does it address carbon emissions, but that may have helped depolarize the issue.
Of course, after that DeSantis removed all remaining mentions of climate change in state agencies and changed state energy policy to eliminate any stated ambition to move away from fossil fuel use. Some “climate change hero!”
No, the only time it makes sense to vote for a GOP candidate, if you care about climate, is in the GOP primaries, if you are in a thoroughly red jurisdiction. Then it makes total sense to vote for someone like Curtis over someone like, say, Louis Gomert or MTG. That’s fairly easy here in SC, where we don’t have partisan registration, so there’s little penalty for crossover voting. Heck, I can imagine voting for Lindsay Graham–who has explicitly stated that climate change is real and problematic–in a GOP primary on such a basis, if the situation were right–or rather, wrong. But in most states you need to commit to GOP registration if that’s what you are going to do.
Mal Adaptedsays
David, I don’t doubt there are Republicans who privately acknowledge the need for collective action to take the profit out of selling fossil carbon. It’s their public stance that counts. If they’re in the US Senate or House of Representatives, they submit to party discipline when voting their seats, or they don’t get re-elected. The most significant climate-change legislation in 35 years, the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022, passed both houses on bare Democratic majorities. The House vote was 220 Democratic Yeas against 1 Democratic and 212 Republican Nays. In the Senate it was 50 Democratic Yeas against 50 Republican Nays, with the tie broken by the Vice President. Belaboring the point: Not a single Republican voted Yea in either house!
The IRA is hardly an ideal, or final, decarbonization measure. That’s beside the point. The point is that in the current state of US politics, it’s not a choice between this or that decarbonization policy, but between some policy under Democratic control; and no policy, with a return to official climate-science denial, under the GOP. I know how I’ll vote.
Boksays
Just a flyby. A negative maybe not fully appreciated by the climate people. I’ve wanted to mention this before but since at the moment I’m sitting in my car next to a van that’s keeping his engine running for some strange reason while he texts on his phone it reminded me that I’ve noticed a lot of people like to sit in their cars and text while keeping their engines running. Why? I don’t get it. How much is all this thoughtlessness adding to the Co2? And that’s just in my one area…
zebrasays
Bok, let’s begin with a better question: Why are *you* sitting in your car reading RC and commenting on your phone (with the engine off, I assume)?
Are you at a stop light? In a parking lot? On a ferry?
To be honest, I can see some logic for the people you observe if they have heat or AC running, and of course everyone thinks they are going to be on their phone for “just a minute”… until they get sucked in.
What I find really strange is leaving the engine on when they go into a store, and it isn’t particularly warm or cold out. It must be a very conscious decision.
Piotrsays
Bok: 15 Jun – I’m sitting in my car next to a van that’s keeping his engine running for some strange reason while he texts on his phone and probably complains bitterly about the prices of gas and in place that have them – about carbon taxes.
You would think that it would be a no-brainer, a low hanging fruit – cutting down on idling reduce both your GHG and toxic pollutions. The relevance of the former is obvious, the latter also saves the society health care costs (exposure to fumes not only causes respiratory diseases and cancer, but even have been linked to the earlier onset of dementia). And in the process you saving the costs of gas, money on care maintenance, since you reduce wear on your vehicle. And with reduced demand for gas – the prices oil may drop, so you reduce your financial support for the regimes in Russia or in the Gulf States.
All it takes is to turn the key off, yet what I see everyday – living next to a school -parents idling their cars for half an hour while waiting to pick their kids at lunch and at then again at closing time. And that despite the big signs “No-idling zone” posted on the school, and the fact that their exhaust enters the schools, thus affecting the quality of air their kids breath. And there is no enforcement of the no-idling zones – I don’t think in my jurisdiction the police can even give you a ticket for extensive idling. Then you have the proliferation of drive-throughs, where nobody switches their engine while waiting in line, as well as people waiting for their partner to do shopping …
And then the drivers of school-buses and people who drive their company’s cars – who don’t have even the financial incentives to switch off their engines, since somebody else pays for the gas… I have seen school busses idling for an hour, and opening the doors, I guess because it was getting too hot inside…
Boksays
Hi Piotr. Yes, I used to think that diesel trucks that never turn off their engines were the worst. I think that’s changed.
I drive a small fuel economy car (a hybrid) in the course of my delivery job. It saves the expense of lots of customers driving their big gas guzzling suvs to pick their stuff up. But I’ve just noticed that a lot of people seem to keep their engines inexplicably running. If it’s the air conditioner why not just row down the window? Sitting and idling for long periods is also not good for cars. They tend to overheat fairly quickly..
I of course do not do that too as a previous commenter implied. This happens in parking lots. Just wondering. Seems like a waste of gas for one thing. En masse not good for the climate.
Here in the south, most of the time from April to November, if you are parked in the sun, it’s going to become uncomfortably hot in minutes, and potentially lethally hot within the hour. That’s no hyperbole; every year there are several tragic instances where a sleep-deprived parent forgets they brought the baby to the grocery store this time, leaves them in the car, and harms or loses a child. (And most often their liberty, too, as they get charged with child endangerment and/or negligent homicide/involuntary manslaughter. There’s intense stigma attached, so marriages end over these incidents, as well.) It can happen elsewhere, of course, but here it’s pretty consistent for the majority of the year, and possible in any month.
As to those diesels running endlessly, I think fuel prices as well as less tolerance for pollution have indeed made a difference. But it’s still ‘a thing’, especially in the case of “reefer” trucks carrying perishable foods; they need to power the compressors for refrigeration.
Boksays
Hi Kevin. I know that that is a problem. Of course. But that’s an entirely different issue. A parent should never ever leave a child that can’t get out of a car in it. I completely agree with you.
What I’m talking about is where the car’s owner is just sitting in their car and texting. Idling his or her engine for no reason. I’m seeing lots of it. Long periods of time. Maybe they have the phone plugged into the cigarette lighter for power because they don’t want to wear down the phone? If it’s for air conditioning why not just park in the shade and row one or for flow two windows down?
As for diesels, I’m not referring to food trucks. They have to do that afaik. But if you look you’ll notice that not turning off the engine (except at night) is pretty common for all regular diesel trucks and semi non-food delivery trucks too, and combined there’s many more of those than there are of food delivery trucks on the road. I asked someone who drives one once why he did it and he said something about giving him more power or something like that.
zebrasays
Bok, this is a pretty good thread on your question:
Scroll down to “Powder Hound”, who gives some good technical detail.
Also, you said you had a hybrid, so I assume your gas engine turns off automatically most of the time. That’s one of the features people often forget as an advantage even with non-plug-in cars.
Oh, I’m largely in agreement with you, Bok. But very often there is surprisingly little shade to be found–I know, because I consistently search for it. (So do a whole lot of other drivers, too, which means there is often intense competition for those few, coveted spots.) So, if you are staying in the car for whatever reason, very often the AC really is needed.
I have noticed what you mention–that is, the aversion to turning off diesels in general. Not sure what drives it. In this respect, I recall the days when I worked as a radio technician for CN Rail; on the night shift someone (often me) would have to drive downtown to the GO Transit rail facility. You’d find most of the locomotives idling, and they’d stay that way for hours. It was a bit of an olefactory experience, and a tactile one, too, as all those particulates do settle out onto every horizontal surface. Clearly, this was an intentional choice, and I have to believe that there was some rationale, as the amounts of fuel being consumed had to be very considerable. It was burning money, and the policymakers had to know it; there must have been at least a perceived benefit.
Most engine wear occurs at startup when oil pressure is low and internal parts are not yet well lubed. Startup is hard on an engine. Idling is not.
Also thermal cycling is hard on engines, less wear occurs when internal temps are steady than when there are frequent warm up/cool down cycles.
Nigeljsays
People idling their cars might be engaging in conspicuous consumption. They think they are so cool and rich they don’t have to worry about the costs or they want to appear that way.
Adam Leasays
Same in my part of the UK, people get in their car, switch the engine on then spend 5-10 minutes faffing around, or they pull up outside my house and sit there idling for several minutes. Why not just switch it off or leave the engine off until you are ready to move? It is ridiculous in a country where the cost of energy (and living in general) is notably high that people can be this thoughtless, clearly they are wealthy enough that were unaffected by huge energy price inflation last year.
JCMsays
The amnesia and repeated misunderstanding surrounding the term trace gas is nonsense, I think. I frequently invoke radiative-convective principles, notably in celebration of Manabe67 with McKinney in March, and similarly with Havers and others kind enough to engage constructively. Influential contemporary literature from Ramanathan to Schmidt consistently use this terminology, in addition to major institutions. I see no reason to cease usage in the context of my specific interests. Distinguishing the effects of trace gas and other factors of change on realclimates does not represent a prejudicial attack against the culture of action on trace gas issues. However, as true stewards, amateur observers, and phony environmentalists continue to falter in realizing the “Decade on Ecosystem Restoration”, for which we are now practically half way through, https://www.unep.org/explore-topics/ecosystems-and-biodiversity/what-we-do/decade-ecosystem-restoration, or the 5 June 2024 World Environment Day “Our Land, Our Future”, it is completely reasonable to propose that an artificial fixation on trace gas and aerosol forced models does represent an overemphasis on such products. I stand by that, and no amount of clumsy character attacks will change my position.
Barton Paul Levensonsays
JCM: it is completely reasonable to propose that an artificial fixation on trace gas and aerosol forced models does represent an overemphasis on such products.
BPL: Except that there is no fixation on trace gas; climate scientists study many things besides carbon dioxide; and the emphasis is deserved since “trace gases” are driving almost all of the present warming, with land use a distant second. What is not justified is constantly insinuating that the whole field is wrong because they don’t concentrate more on your preferred, wrong explanation of what is going on.
Steven R Emmersonsays
What’s “artificial” about it?
nigeljsays
JCM.
You appear to be a genuine environmentalist / conservationist doing good work in the community. Keep that up. But your use of the term trace gas doesnt help your cause and just antagonises people and makes them suspicious.
You said: “Influential contemporary literature from Ramanathan to Schmidt consistently use this terminology ( the trace gas CO2) , in addition to major institutions. ”
Scientists might use the term trace gas in the context of discussing the influence of CO2 on warming compared to other gases, but they dont use it all the time. You use the term trace gas in ALL your discussions on this website regardless of context! Its superfluous terminology so its inefficient use of words. Nobody else does it in the comments section, apart from denialists seeking to minimise the impact of CO2.
Therefore you are either being foolish, or you are a denialist or have some other ulterior motives or you are trolling. This makes me a bit suspicious of everything you say.
You said: “it is completely reasonable to propose that an artificial fixation on trace gas and aerosol forced models does represent an overemphasis on such products.”
You can propose all you like that there is an artificial fixation on CO2, but you have not produced one single piece of hard evidence of this and that CO2 is not the main cause of anthropogenic warming. And given Co2 is the main problem, and warming is a huge problem it obviously has to take priority. As such it may mean fewer government funds go into other causes of warming such as land use degradation, and into general non climate related ecosystem restoration.
However in my local area government continues to subsidise plenty of ecosystem restoration work, and other environmental work including work that is not climate related. And you havent provided hard evidence that general environmental projects are being neglected. And we wouldn’t want ALL resources going into reducing emissions because some other issues are very serious as well. So I would suggest you are probably worrying about nothing.
Jonathan Davidsays
Nigelj, It is not impossible for the beliefs of individuals to include both environmentalism and AGW denial. For example, in the US, there is a tradition of environmentalism among the white Christian evangelical community, an important societal group.
This tradition was quite significant from the early 1970s up until the early 1990s. These philosophies have been described as “theologically based, eco-friendly philosophies that can be described as Christian environmental stewardship.” [Neall Pogue The Nature of the Religious Right]
Unfortunately: “On the twentieth anniversary of Earth Day in 1990, members of this conservative evangelical community tried to turn their eco-friendly philosophies into action. Yet this attempt was overwhelmed by a growing number in the leadership who made anti-environmentalism the accepted position through public ridicule, conspiracy theories, and cherry-picked science.” [Pogue]
So AGW denial emerged as a dominant trend among this group which persists to this day.
Nevertheless, the importance of land maintenance and the local environment remains an important concern among the rural and farming communities in the US. So it’s not at all surprising that there are individuals today that hold such beliefs.
JCMsays
To nigelj,
Thank you for the very good feedback. I must caution, however, that mentioning functional ecologies and their unparalleled perturbation outside the context of trace gas often raises automatic suspicion; this I know for certain. Nonetheless, I’m open to recommendations for alternative terms besides trace gas forcing/feedback if this is somehow perceived as a provocation among observers.
Climates are embedded within ecologies, so I don’t fully understand what you mean by a “non-climate related ecosystem restoration.” Are you referring to projects outside the scope of ClimateSmart™ initiatives, which focus on major and minor trace gases?
Most importantly, i’m interested to hear more about the abundant local area government initiatives for conservation you mentioned. In my professional work across 3 continents, I can guarantee that is really quite exceptional. Recently, the World Food Programme’s regional director for Berlin appeared on CBS News, reminding that direct land degradation continues unabated at a rate equal in area to four football fields per second, with projections indicating 95% land degradation by 2050. It’s notable that your local council is a rare exception and their unpopular progressive efforts must be showcased. How are they doing it?
Candidly, I believe the alleged antagonism over the term “trace gas” is unfounded and serves as an excuse to avoid engaging in constructive dialogue on the most complex issues surrounding climates. As an alternative perspective, I suggest going outside, squatting down, and pressing your hand into the soil. While lawn or stones may obstruct you, try to get down in there and feel the soil with your fingertips. Think about what you sense and feel. This can help rediscover a tangible connection with the Earth, which is often missing in people. Additionally, I recognize that many participants on these pages represent the most rigid armchair trace gasivists, and I’m careful to remind myself that the sick distortions and hostile engagements should not be taken as representative of the entire cause.
Recently, Jasper & Denissen and co. discussed interesting correlations between Ecosystem Limitation Index (ELI) trends, soil moisture, evaporative fraction, and temperature excess trends within the context of CMIP6 projections. They reaffirm the well-known principle that moisture limitation impacts surface flux partitioning, temperature, and climates. However, J&D are cautious, ensuring everyone is comfortable by noting that “as correlations cannot distinguish the direction of causality, we stress that hotter temperature extremes can in turn further dry out terrestrial vegetation, thereby increasing water limitation.” Now we can all relax! yes? https://esd.copernicus.org/articles/15/717/2024/
Besides confirming that unnatural temperature excess is correlated with ecological decay, the most interesting bit in J&D is that “while the correlation between ELI and heat wave temperatures is robust across models, we find substantial differences between individual models in terms of the strength of this link.”
The intermodel spread in temperature excess trends per decade related to the ecological limitation index is striking. This discrepancy could be partly attributed to the acknowledged absence of data, the unpredictable nature of scenario development, and the known lack of coherent hydrological parameters across models. Regardless, significant trends per decade in the order of 0.05K/dc along with increasing ELI reveals a robust relation, along with the apparent compensating errors that somehow keep the GMST climatology on track across models. In fact, the supplemental shows remarkable effects 0-1K global temperature excess since 1980 depending on ecosystem decay rates, and regional excess up to 3K. It is obvious how the ELI, soil moisture, EF (and other factors) have significant variability across models, even though there can only be one reality. https://esd.copernicus.org/articles/15/717/2024/esd-15-717-2024-supplement.pdf
Although the term “trace gasivists” sounds funny, I would rather desist from dividing the audience like this.
It does not mean that I do not have concerns that scientists may tend to overestimate effects they understand well, and underestimate effects and/or mechanisms that remain explored poorly. I only think that focusing on one element or aspect only may not help much.
To be more specific, I have a feeling that there is not only too strong focus on greenhouse gases, or, if we take into account the fierce discussions about (possibly) underestimated role of aerosols, too strong focus on radiative energy transport. We could look around even broader. Then, it may appear that there is an obsession with temperature (rise), whereas there seems to be little concern about precipitation – which in my opinion is an equally important feature of Earth climate as temperature.
To be even more specific, there is lot of dispute how catastrophic is the the supposed warming acceleration due to reduced aerosol pollution from desulfurized shipping fuel. Neverheless, in the central Europe where I do live, the last “scorchyssimo” year was relatively pleasant in comparison with long dry (and in summers, extraordinarily hot) seasons experienced in the years before, due to more abundant and more regular rain.
I am aware that local perspective may be misleading, that is why I repeat my question if the climate science knows how the trends in global precipitation look like. I could, however, imagine that if the decreased aerosol pollution is indeed the suspected cause of the observed “scorchyssimo” temperatures, it may be, in parallel, also the cause of the restart of the rainfall supply to my region. I would be great if the hosts of this website could say that this is a regional effect only, or, oppositely, that there is indeed a positive change in a global desiccation trend. Unfortunately, it appears that we know (almost) everything about temperature, but not so much about precipitation yet.
Greetings
Tomáš
JCMsays
Trace gasivism is a comment on politics and communication, not aimed at science. ESMs appear fully capable to recognize that unnaturally dead continents exhibit dramatic climate differences compared to natural ones, including extreme anomalies in hydrology and temperature.
It’s not particularly controversial, and it’s entirely relevant to understand at any scale of analysis. Those who refuse, minimize, or downplay these issues seem just as peculiar to me as outright deniers of greenhouse effects. The ad homs against me are political statements that prompt a political style response, such as funny label words.
Back to the relevant topic:
As an analogy, temperature variations in the Niño region, which represents perhaps 5% of Earth total area, has local and remote impacts at global scale including temperature and rainfall patterns. That is not in the least controversial. Dismissing the influence of relatively small proportional areas on planetary change, patterns, and energy balance is nonsense.
Now having highly degraded vast swaths of the continents (the majority of lands), in the range of 10% of Earth total area over the past 50 years, it’s perfectly reasonable to infer substantial local and perhaps even globally relevant climate impact.
This transformation is double the size of the Niño region oscillation zone and has undergone drastic relentlessly accumulating energetic changes over the past 50 years. As previously discussed, ESMs are fully equipped to demonstrate this given appropriate inputs, and it’s also demonstrated with analytical approaches.
The proxies are everywhere: pollinator insects 50% decline since 1970, birds 30%-50% decline, 50% wetlands lost since 1970, topsoil, natural forest. It’s going downhill at a relentless pace during our lifetimes. Everything. Compounding degradation directly by our machines, biocides, development patterns, and ignorance.
Coupled to that in a direct in a tangible way is flood and drought severity, fire weather, temperature extremes, precipitation intensity, crop failure, invasive species; it goes on and on. The landscape is inexorable from anything we experience in our environments, including climate observables. 50% of lands, 10% of total Earth area radically transformed. In previous centuries humans were literally barely scratching the surface; it is only since 20th century that we have been capable to exert such brute force at scale.
Ongoing at a rate of 100 million ha per year, the realized ecological destruction continues unabated. This is not controversial. No amount of posturing and spin comes even close to acknowledging the scale of the issue.
From paleo studies of climates over the arc of the holocene to comparing pre-industrial to modern day, the state of the land is essential to interpreting Earth system process and our place in it.
WRT JCM’s comment, here, let me repeat myself: I fully recognize that anthropogenic climate change via the augmentation of GHG mixing ratios is not the be-all and end-all of environmental degradation, and solving it, should we achieve such a result, will not be sufficient. The restoration of natural habitats globally is also needed, as is reining in our toxic pollution.
However, food fights over which is the greater need are not particularly productive, especially given the fact that changing the current paradigm to mitigate GHG emissions will, in many though not all cases, have co-benefits in other aspects of the problem. One salient example would be the elimination of new coal ash heaps and ponds–a serious threat to wildlife now, and in cases of gross containment failure also to downstream humans and agriculture.
JCMsays
I fully support ending efforts to drag me into unproductive arguments.
The trigger word was “trace-gas,” which led to a month-long circus fixating on one aspect of Barry’s comment from 13 June (Thanks a lot Barry!).
The subsequent repeated endorsements of bizarre contributions — introducing themes of Koch denialist rhetoric, COVID/vaccine denial, QAnon, MAGA-hat wearing, or the interests of Russia and Saudi Arabia in response to me — derail dialogue and are frankly nuts. It’s a snowball effect, with many jumping on the bandwagon; an unwitting reflex? Avoid normalizing this behavior. That is all total nonsense. In all likelihood my values and those of others here are practically the same if that’s important to you.
Repeating the original premise and making a distinction of trace-gas: impeding terrestrial moisture and nutrient cycling increases temperature and water vapor greenhouse effects. It is well known on these pages by now that this is counterintuitive, but by and large, it seems to be accepted. This is typically placed in the realm of lambda or the net radiative feedback parameter. Needless to say, this value is by far the greatest unknown, not least because it is not a physical constant to be discovered and refined. It is tightly bound to the changing state of the system.
Recognizing that atmospheric temperatures, clouds, water vapor, etc., are linked to functional ecologies and their unnatural limitations should not be controversial. However, don’t expect to find these in radiative forcing accounting schematics. Ultimately, human continental pillaging should be accounted for primarily as the evolving cloud-feedback (increasing shortwave absorption).
In this view, the fashionable framing, particularly among skeptics, that the discussion must only involve a debate of “natural causes” versus human emission of major and minor trace gases is totally misplaced. I don’t think the feedback-free radiative forcing from anthropogenic emissions is in debate, and Manabe (1967) gave an equilibrium sensitivity of 2.4K or something with assumptions such fixed relative humidity and average cloud cover.
Therefore, in addition to anthro gas concentrations and natural things, an additional topic that goes missing is the human disruption of the ecology. Most profoundly, the invisible stuff below grade undetectable by spaceborne spectroradiometer. Previously I have endorsed efforts to improve mapping and monitoring of change for input to ESMs. That is a PITA because it involves directly probing and sensing and actually going outside.
Lacking meaningful responses, it falls back to toxic and lazy character attacks here. I have reiterated and clarified this several times, and I would prefer more meaningful engagements in the future.
Needless to say, conserving terrestrial moisture and nutrient cycling processes brings significant and direct co-benefits to our communities.
Hue Nuesays
JCM-
repeated endorsements of bizarre contributions — introducing themes of Koch denialist rhetoric, COVID/vaccine denial, QAnon, MAGA-hat wearing, or the interests of Russia and Saudi Arabia in response to me — derail dialogue and are frankly nuts.
Lacking meaningful responses, it falls back to toxic and lazy character attacks here.
==============
Yes. I agree with JCM.
nigeljsays
JCM
“I’m open to recommendations for alternative terms besides trace gas forcing/feedback if this is somehow perceived as a provocation among observers.”
Just “CO2” or “the greenhouse gas CO2” would be quite sufficient. Everyone knows what is meant by such terms by now.
“Climates are embedded within ecologies, so I don’t fully understand what you mean by a “non-climate related ecosystem restoration.”
I didn’t say that. I said “However in my local area government continues to subsidise plenty of ecosystem restoration work, and OTHER environmental work including work that is not climate related.” Meaning they fund non climate related work like walking tracks. Of course everything in the natural world and what we do to it, ultimately has some link to climate but this work has minimal effect on climate. Sorry I could have been clearer on what I meant.
“Most importantly, i’m interested to hear more about the abundant local area government initiatives for conservation you mentioned.”
The New Zealand government has multiple environmental agencies. One is the Department of Conservation. It is tax payer funded. It carries out environmental work and also funds private sector environmental projects. The following links gives an idea of the scope of its work and projects being undertaken.
Obviously its a huge subject and I dont have a list of references in my head or system but hopefully that source gives some idea.
Is their work abundant? The Department of conservation annual budget is around $700 million. Total government spending is about $60 billion per year. I dont know how this compares with other countries but intuitively I get the sense our Department of Conservation is reasonably well funded and it clearly does plenty of good work. Of course its not ideally enough given the problems out there still unresolved.
Unfortunately the country also has big problems with degraded rivers due to nitrate and bacterial pollution due high stocking rates of dairy cattle. About half the countries rivers are too risky for swimming. However this is beyond the scope of the department of conservations work. They tend to mainly deal with conservation land issues rather than private sector farmland.
Moderately good progess has been made reducing bacterial counts by planting trees and building fences, to keep stock away from rivers, but nitrate runoff remain a huge problem. The government has passed laws setting water quality standards, and requring a clean up and has helped fund some of the clean up. However IMO the laws are not all that strong and progerss has been slow. Refer:
I see that I did say non climate related ecosystem restoration work in another
paragraph a term which doesn’t make sense.. my bad.
JCMsays
To nigelj,
the rich integration of Maori principles into the vision statement of the Department of Conservation in NZ is really a wonderful thing. Admittedly most regions are not so sophisticated, even ones with ample opportunity like the so-called Canada.
Often lost in the dusty pages is the acknowledged recommendation to incorporate indigenous and local knowledge into climate mitigation by IPCC. Realistically we know this virtue is easy enough to print, but not actually adopted in practice. Instead, the focus is on taking part on election day once every few years and contributing a few mouse clicks to develop personal investment portolios in support of techno-innovation. This approach naturally leads to disempowered individuals who lack daily constructive outlets for their primary concerns, resulting in bizarre and counterproductive virtual activities as their only form of participation and belonging.
The recognition that biotic effects cannot be distinct from thermodynamics is perhaps not explicitly outlined in the traditional teaching of Maori or other First Nations, but rather this wisdom is embedded inherently. It is foundational that if the land is well, the people will thrive. That is simultaneously simple to understand and complex to compute.
However, it’s not so far-fetched computationally that evolution, biodiversification, and resilience are natural consequences of thermodynamic process, the freedom of which constrains the maximum rate of energy and nutrient cycling through systems. Consequently, the planetary rates of radiative heating and cooling must be influenced in part by biological states as the associated cycling must deplete the observable intensity of the greenhouse effect (more or less). The variation of net radiative feedback lambda and climate stability simply cannot be distinct from the state of the ecology.
I can confidently say that compartmentalizing climates, biodiversity, and land degradation into separate institutions, literature streams, and COPs is nonsense. I am not alone in this view. Additionally, teachings that range from Alex Epstein’s climate “mastery” through fossil fuels to an exclusive focus on anthropogenic CO2 emission as a framework to manage global change are equally misplaced. Both extremes ignore the reality already present in the wisdom of traditional teachings.
Barton Paul Levensonsays
JCM: teachings that range from Alex Epstein’s climate “mastery” through fossil fuels to an exclusive focus on anthropogenic CO2 emission as a framework to manage global change are equally misplaced.
BPL: The idea that there is an exclusive focus on CO2 is something you have consistently maintained, and it has been consistently pointed out to you that there is no such focus. Quit trolling.
JCM says “the so-called Canada.” I have no idea what’s meant by that; it’s the name of the nation, and while it’s probably rooted in a misunderstanding, it’s a misunderstanding that goes back the the days of Samuel de Champlain (born 13 August 1567 – 25 December 1635.) So, please just spare us the pointless rhetorical flourishes.
Also, I suspect the so-called JCM may not be up on indigenous affairs in Canada.
JCM: many participants on these pages represent the most rigid armchair trace gasivists
BPL: You are sounding more and more like a creationist or a Flat Earther.
Mal Adaptedsays
Warning: long. If tl;dr, skip to the last line. JCM has piqued my interest. I’m a little late to the trace-gas fest, but JCM appears to be saying that anthropogenic greenhouse enhancement is a result not only of the economically-driven transfer of geologic carbon to the atmosphere by the gigatonnes annually, but of the impaired re-uptake capacity of the biosphere. With respect, JCM, do I have that correctly?
But then there’s language like this:
Additionally, I recognize that many participants on these pages represent the most rigid armchair trace gasivists, and I’m careful to remind myself that the sick distortions and hostile engagements should not be taken as representative of the entire cause.
In a subsequent comment, you write:
I must caution, however, that mentioning functional ecologies and their unparalleled perturbation outside the context of trace gas often raises automatic suspicion; this I know for certain. Nonetheless, I’m open to recommendations for alternative terms besides trace gas forcing/feedback if this is somehow perceived as a provocation among observers.
Speaking only for myself, I don’t represent any cause but biodiversity conservation: to the extent it’s anthropogenic, trying to slow down the sixth Great Extinction in the history of life. I pursued a geeky childhood fascination with “Natural History” as far as obtaining an MS in Environmental Science and enrolling in a PhD program in Ecology and Evolution, before I found an easier way to make a living. I vividly recall the outrage I felt at age seven, when I learned that humans had caused the extinction of magnificent creatures such as passenger pigeons and great auks. Now in my 8th decade, childish fury has given way to rueful recognition that the human population hasn’t been sustainable on Earth since the mid-Holocene, when widespread adoption of cereal agriculture began to free our numbers from ancient ecological constraints.
Starting about 9000 years ago, each new hectare of ground brought under cultivation displaced uncounted plants and animals from their homes, drastically simplifying the fluxes of nutrients and energy through that ground in order to divert greater shares into human biomass. The resulting annual food surpluses allowed local carrying capacities to be exceeded, and as populations rose, more and more land had to be brought into cultivation. As soon as annual food surpluses were being stored, they were being fought over; and as populations grew, so did armies. The strong, ambitious men who led them required the farmers they subjugated to grow easily stored and transported food, such as grains and pulses, that their armies could march on. In the ensuing millennia, the vast majority of people born lived briefly, malnourished and under the whip; those who didn’t, eventually gave way to the sheer numbers of others who did. This is why Jared Diamond called agriculture The Worst Mistake in the History of
the Human Race (nicely formatted).
From my perspective, the ongoing anthropogenic Great Extinction is the “Tragedy of the Commons” on the largest possible stage. There’s no shortage of economic externalities urgently needing mitigation! Yet only in the last few centuries have humanistic ideas like “socialized cost” governed societies. Because we all have ambitions to live well, and the concept of “socialized cost” is gleefully exploited by the profit-motivated in the global marketplace, pretty much everything done for “the benefit of all humanity” has been at the expense of most other species. I’ve long since concluded that while I live, I consume resources and socialize costs, so the best way for me to mitigate my impact is to die, childless. Like all humans, little of my behavior is actually determined by “rational” decision making, so I (self-evidently) haven’t followed through on the first part. TBH, I’m not childless for unselfish reasons, either!
But something unexpected happened as I grew older: the “Population Bomb” showed itself to be self-limiting. Ironically, Garrett Hardin’s chosen example of the term he introduced to economicsas requiring “mutual coercion, mutually agreed upon”, turned out not to be one of them, simply because women voluntarily had fewer children when they had the choice! Sure enough, our population appears to be topping out. In the simple heuristic model “I=PAT”, then, P is stabilizing, and any additional aggregate impact (I) will be due to rising per-capita income (A), exacerbated or mitigated by technology (T).
RC regulars have seen all this before. Where am I going with it? Yes, it’s our total impact on the biosphere that is unsustainable. But: anthropogenic climate change, specifically, is not only our biggest, most all encompassing “environmental” impact ever: it’s critically sensitive to the technology of energy generation. All common-pool resource tragedies arise because the “free” market socializes every transaction cost it can get away with. The societies in which the market for energy is embedded, can collectively intervene to drive decarbonization of their entire economies, thus bringing an end to the otherwise inexorable rise in atmospheric greenhouse gases, and to the resulting global warming trend. Whether those gases are “trace” or not is surely irrelevant, as their radiative physics is understood at the quantum level.
I’m all in favor of restoring the biosphere’s trace gas uptake capacity, but my personal focus in these pages is to cheer on the eventual abolition of fossil carbon emissions by the nascent green vortex of market responses to collective intervention, that’s now driving down the Levelized Cost of new electricity from solar and land-based wind power below that for any fossil-fuel option. It follows that my political interest is in preserving and extending Democratic Party control of the US government, until decarbonization is a done deal.
Unfortunately, the power of concentrated fossil-fuel profits, now at all time highs, has corrupted collective decision-making in the US for decades. Like many regular commenters on RC, I’m weary unto death of confronting deceptive denialist rhetoric that’s ultimately informed by the Koch club’s intense interest in holding off collective intervention in its cash flows. Again with respect, JCM: I suggest you own the language you used in your first and subsequent comments, that might have set off a few reflexively hostile responses.
If anybody’s read this far, thanks for your indulgence! Lastly:
starts off so well, then gets even better before spinning out of control going all toxic, delusional, schizophrenic and paranoid to the nth degree. a pity.
nigeljsays
Mal Adapted.
A long rant but well written. Regarding Jared Diamonds assertion that inventing agriculture was the biggest mistake humans made because it lead to all sorts of problems particularly industrial society and its downsides.I disagree with him. Industrial society causes some problems we have to mitigate, but it helped lead to the development of that amazing thing called science , and it lead to the possibility we might be able to stop an asteroid strike on the planet, and the possibility of colonising other planets and star systems .
Even the unintended experiment of anthropogenic global warming has already apparently stopped another ice age, although we have to urgently stop burning fossil fuels. These things taken together have the potental to greatly improve the long term survivability of the human species.
Mal Adaptedsays
Thanks, Kevin and Nigel. And “Watt a Pity” too, even though it’s not clear what is meant by “spinning out of control”. Is it my last paragraph? If WaP thinks I’m “delusional, schizophrenic, and paranoid to the nth degree”, I assure them that was hardly my worst! Or is it the 2nd-to-last paragraph? Is it just that WaP is a Republican? The venerable GOP wasn’t always the Anti-Science Party, but as recently as the 1970s (when I started voting), it became associated with laissez-faire economics to the point where any collective intervention in the US economy was unacceptable. By the mid-90s they were openly cooperating with tobacco and fossil fuel producers and investors to protect their profits. John McCain nonetheless helped craft a bipartisan emissions cap-and-trade bill, that failed a cloture vote in 2008. The influence of fossil fuel profits is largely responsible for the GOP’s doubling down on climate-change denial since then, as abundantly documented in the public record. One wonders whether WaP thinks the NYTimes is “delusional, schizophrenic, and paranoid to the nth degree” too. If so, I’m off the hook to respond further, because if it’s in the NYTimes, it’s in the public record, and WaP can argue with the NYT’s editors, not me! The fact remains that no Republican candidate after McCain has stepped off the party’s anti-climate-science plank and publicly supported any serious decarbonization policy, then been voted into office.
I don’t wish to make unfounded assumptions about WaP’s political opinions, however. Perhaps they can be persuaded to elaborate on their comment, for my benefit if no one else’s. I mean, there’s terse, and then there’s cryptic!
If “Watt” means this bit by his descriptor “all toxic, delusional, schizophrenic and paranoid to the nth degree”:
Unfortunately, the power of concentrated fossil-fuel profits, now at all time highs, has corrupted collective decision-making in the US for decades. Like many regular commenters on RC, I’m weary unto death of confronting deceptive denialist rhetoric that’s ultimately informed by the Koch club’s intense interest in holding off collective intervention in its cash flows.
…then I would gently suggest that his model of reality needs a bit of recalibrating. An excellent start would be Jane Mayer’s Dark Money, though there are other good books on the topic. Then machinations of the Kochs and their allies to prevent or stall climate mitigation action are now part of the public record. Well, some of them, at least. I strongly suspect there’s still more to be revealed. Mal’s “paranoid” description is mere matter of fact–most unfortunately.
Mal Adaptedsays
Kevin:
An excellent start would be Jane Mayer’s Dark Money, though there are other good books on the topic. Then machinations of the Kochs and their allies to prevent or stall climate mitigation action are now part of the public record.
If there is any lingering uncertainty that the Koch brothers are the primary sponsors of climate-change doubt in the United States, it ought to be put to rest by the publication of “Kochland: The Secret History of Koch Industries and Corporate Power in America,” by the business reporter Christopher Leonard. This seven-hundred-and-four-page tome doesn’t break much new political ground, but it shows the extraordinary behind-the-scenes influence that Charles and David Koch have exerted to cripple government action on climate change.
I haven’t read “Kochland”, because I’m afraid I’d throw it down in disgust, and because I’m already quite willing to believe any accusation against the Kochs and their carbon capitalist allies. The public record keeps growing. One can’t really call Mayer or Leonard conspiracy theorists; if political collusion by fossil fuel producers and investors is a conspiracy, it’s not a very good one, because It’s not a secret, and thanks in part to decades of Koch club influence on SCOTUS appointments, it’s not illegal. The bespoke efforts of a thriving disinformation industry, nurtured by the long investment campaign, have served to shield the improper influence from public scrutiny by misdirection (“Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain”) and all the other tools of denialist propaganda, like labeling principled, disciplined investigative journalists like these two, inter alia, as “delusional, schizophrenic and paranoid to the nth degree.”
Mal Adaptedsays
Nigel, Diamond’s perspective is of course just one way to look at the broad sweep of history. Again speaking for myself, I enjoy my Western lifestyle of comparative ease and luxury all the more for knowing how fortunate I was to be the son of a college professor in the USA in the latter half of the 20th century CE. But it’s undeniable that agriculture not only enabled my relatively good fortune: it was also the origin of humanity’s present estrangement from the Earth our mother, as our populations grew and we simplified ever more ground for food production, killing or chasing away all but a favored few of the other species who shared the planet as we evolved, with the evicted ones now our relentless competitors. And it led to our estrangement from each other, as we fought over subsistence resources, divergent illusions about our place in the cosmos, or simply the narcissistic motives of competing charismatic leaders. From the perspective of a paleolithic forager, living in reasonably secure comfort with a small, mostly genetically-related band of others occupying a productive but uncrowded habitat, an unquantifiable price has been paid in aggregate for my personal comfort and convenience. Both our judgements would be subjective!
Piotrsays
JCM: The amnesia and repeated misunderstanding surrounding the term trace gas is nonsense, Influential contemporary literature from Ramanathan to Schmidt consistently use this terminology,”
That’s like a white supremacist defending his frequent use of the N-word by the fact that some Blacks use it toward other Blacks.
The fact Gavin and others have used it in their communications with other scientists, does not justify its use by the deniers of the role of GHG – who use the very same word toward the general public hoping that the the word alone to make the role GHGs emissions look inconsequential, a merely a “trace” in the big picture.
On which side of the divide you fall – you made it abundantly clear, when you shed your crocodile tears on environmental degradation only to blame it on:
“ denying or actively minimizing the consequences to realclimates due to an artificial fixation and overemphasis on the outputs of trace gas and aerosol forced model estimates.
And to the actual climate scientists who might read it – my suggestion is: don’t use it – “ trace gasses ” in the climate science arena is poorly, if ever, defined term that does not offer any new insight, yet is open to misunderstanding by the public, and is prone to deliberate misrepresentation by the fossil fuel lobby, their paid trolls and their useful idiots, who use the very same phrase to negate the role, and the urgency of the mitigation, of the GHGs.
They may be “ trace gasses</i" but their influence on the climate and the future of the civilization – anything but "trace“.
I started to try to post a list of greenhouse gases from here (references include Gavin Schmidt and James Hansen, among others). But it would be better to go over there and look at the full chart, which puts all the quantities in perspective: IPCC list of greenhouse gases with lifetime, 100-year global warming potential, concentrations in the troposphere and radiative forcings. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenhouse_gas
There is a wealth of information in the rest of that article.
Let’s all take the complexities of what does what to which as part of the scientific process. Basic scientific curiosity and skepticism is part of said process.
If all of us could stop snipping at each other, despite the comfort that finding somebody/anybody to blame provides (I too have PTSD from the world of danger we’re in), I believe it would help.
Susan Andersonsays
This is not as OT as it looks. I’ve set John Oliver (whose expertise is always impressive) to start at 7 minutes in, to cover Project 2025 (of course you can start at the beginning, but this is the meat of it). Since part of his plan is to get rid of NOAA, it might be worth a look at how much expertise is going into executing the dangerous replacement of expertise with loyalty across the board: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GX8x0W0Ev_M&t=420s
The RSS TLT numbers have been posted for March to May (although at time of writing not into the graphical data).
As per UAH TLT, the RSS TLT April anomaly (+1.43ºC) was the highest on record with March’s anomaly (+1.26ºC) the 5th highest, below February (+1.36ºC), Oct 2023 (+1.31ºC) & a shade below Feb 2016 (+1.26ºC). May’s anomaly (+1.16ºC) sits 9th highest.
As the highest May anomaly, May 2024 becomes the 11th “scorchyisimo!!!” month in a row in RSS TLT. This is one month shorter that the SAT run of “scorchyisimo!!!” months although the ‘headroom’ above previous monthly records remains big within the TLT data while SAT ‘headroom’ is shown a third the size of the “bananas” of last year.
The first half of June 2024 is shown in the ERA5 daily numbers at ClimatePulse continuing with sizeable ‘headroom’ (+0.15ºC) and this relative to just last year. A “scorchyisimo!!” June 2024 may well be appearing.
——————— — — —
For the rest of these, it helps to know about PV:
PV = potential vorticity = a measure of (intrinsic/spin/local, ie each bit of fluid relative to its own center) angular momentum of fluid, which is conserved following the motion of the fluid in an inviscid (frictionless), adiabatic (= isentropic = reversable = no net radiant, conductive/diffusive or (in this context) latent heating, no diffusion/mixing (or unmixing) – did I miss anything?) process.
Clarification: Note that the following section works assuming constant density of a layer – more generally, replace “height” with mass path (ie kg per m²)
If we define the height of the column as the distance between between two values of potential temperature (θ), as in the figure above, the height of the column is directly related to the horizontal distribution of mass and the potential vorticity can be represented as the ratio of the vorticity to the height of the column. Since the potential vorticity stays constant, there is always a relationship between the vorticity and the height of the column to keep the ratio the same: increase the height of the column, which stretches it thin, and the rotation increases; decrease the height of the column, which squashes it wide, and the rotation decreases. Having a specific definition for potential vorticity allows us to quantify this association and understand the exact relationship between column height and rate of rotation.
This is the “potential” part of potential vorticity: the wider the column, the more potential to increase vorticity if the column is stretched. If you want to look directly at rotation, you look at vorticity; if you want to look at the potential for rotation, you look at potential vorticity. We consider why you might want to do that in section 4.
“EAPS53600 S20 Lec16 Transformed Eulerian Mean theory recorded” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OKJC48JB4bs
TEM – if I’m not mistaken the residual (zonal mean, meridional-overturning) circulation of TEM is, or is similar to, the zonal mean meridional-overturning circulation in isentropic coordinates (ø,θ). Yes?
PS ~ 12? yr ago, I was trying to reason through mechanisms of variability, and I stated something about storm-track activity (baroclinic waves/eddies / frontal synoptic-scale extratropical cyclones) causing enhanced thermal gradients on its edges by mixing within its zone. …
(AFAIK this might happen in some conditions but I’ve gotten the impression that there is a tendency for storm-track activity to maintain its baroclinic zone by radiating waves and thereby taking APE from farther afield)
… – I think I stated it as if it were fact, though, which I shouldn’t have done. Sorry.
Boksays
Hmm, well leaving aside the various rationalizations for why diesel drivers idle their engines (the main point seems to be to keep the engine warm, but there are lots of these vehicles in areas where the weather already warm, so…). Anyway a side point that I won’t argue with them about.
The thrust of the comment is that the idling of gasoline powered car and truck engines represents an often non-necessary use of fossil fuels. Adam Lea gives just one example of where this happens. I see it happening all the time, and that’s just in my one small area. On a world wide scale we’re running carbon engines much longer than we otherwise would had the cell phone not been invented. So it’s use has added another unforeseen wrinkle to vehicle emissions. That should be added in. But I guess it already is by just looking at the increased total consumption of FF.
Silvia Leahu-Aluassays
Exceptional good news from Hawaii: “The Settlement Agreement in Navahine v. HDOT confirms that youth have constitutional rights to a clean and healthful environment and that the state of Hawaiʻi has an obligation to protect youth’s interest in a stable climate.”
We are letting the children solve the crises created by us, their parents and grandparents and many generations before them. They take the burden with courage, determination and convincing arguments from their own lives. They fight with all means necessary, including legal. Here is another significant win and a first constitutional climate settlement of its kind in the world. Learn more and please support them:
I am very proud of and grateful to them, I hope you are too. They prove that despite too many barriers to solving the climate emergency, from the fossil industry that refuses to accept the reality that their time is up and they have done enough damage to the biosphere, to reactionary or lukewarm politics, to the people who are incapable of shrinking their footprint within planetary boundaries although they can afford it, etc., we can win this if we are determined.
I think we can confidently call June 2024 as the 13th-in-a-row month setting a record high global SAT, certainly with the ERA5 numbers.
The present “scorchyisimo!!!” for June is June 2023 that in ERA5 sits at +0.532ºC. As of 21st June, the daily ERA5 numbers at ClimatePulse” average +0.71ºC. To prevent June 2024 taking the top hotspot would require the remaining 22nd-30th June to average less than +0.11ºC. Such a low 9-day average was last seen fleetingly in late 2022 and before that in Feb 2021 and the sudden drop required from the most recent daily anomalies (+0.53ºC) would be unprecedented.
New climate sensitivity paper out and YIKES! The work looks pretty solid, but I’m sure it will get shredded here and elsewhere. Problem? More of these high ESS and ECS findings seem to be coming out all the time.
Next, we calculate ECS, i.e., fast climate feedback and the quantity generally used in policy discussions. Given that our record spans 15.0 to 0.3 Ma, during which there is large variability in ice sheet coverage, we additionally consider radiative forcing due to land ice change (ΔRLI) based on earlier work55,62,63, with results shown in Fig. 4. ECS was determined by a linear regression of ΔSST versus ΔRCO2+LI and is estimated to be 11.6 °C (per CO2 doubling) for NH high latitudes, 8.6 °C for the mid-latitudes, and 5.0 °C for the tropics, with respective values in K/Wm-2 and r2 values shown in Table 1. When we again weigh each sensitivity by the percent-area for the Earth, our global average ECS is 7.2 °C per doubling of CO2, much higher than the most recent IPCC estimates of 2.3 to 4.5 °C6 and consistent with some of the latest state-of-the-art models which suggest ca. 5.2 °C64.
This seems to moderate their findings to realistically be closer to the 5.2C of other “hot” models. Regardless, as ever, it’s all about risk so even if this is high – even if all the “hot” models are ultimately wrong – we should act as if they are correct until *proven* wrong.
It should be noted that our ECS is not the same as the ECS used by the IPCC, given that it represents specific climate sensitivity S[CO2,LI] (i.e., ESS corrected for potential slow land ice feedback) and does not consider changes in other greenhouse gases (e.g., methane), paleogeography, nor solar luminosity; we are currently unable to conduct these additional considerations65. The impact of additional methane and water would bring down ECS, which likely explains why paleo ECS is generally higher than modern models.
I really would be interested in Stefan’s view as a paleo-climate researcher on this paper. Does it actually mean IPCC estimates are too low, or is it rather an apples to oranges comparison…
Hue Nuesays
“We calculate average Earth system sensitivity and equilibrium climate sensitivity, resulting in 13.9 °C and 7.2 °C per doubling of pCO2, respectively.”
Witkowski et al (2024) tells us CO2 decreased from 650ppm to 280ppm over the last 15My, somewhat more than a halving of CO2 levels. That doesn’t sound controversial.
The 280ppm is the interglacial value.
So, if ESS is calculated using SST to be 13.9°C per CO2-doubling, was the world 15Mya ~16°C warmer than recent interglacials? That does appear controversial.
John Pollacksays
I am also in favor of putting a lot of weight on geological evidence for paleoclimate. Of course, the boundary conditions are somewhat different from 15 million years ago, especially ice sheets and an open Atlantic/Pacific connection where the Isthmus of Panama now lies. Anything that varies too far from history is likely to be wrong for one reason or another.
And that paleo-climatology does consistently give results for ESS which are a lot lower than the Witkowski et al (2024) finding. A grown-up paper in such a situation would make that situation very clear. Hönisch et al (2023) [PDF here] puts it thus:-
In summary, the Cenozoic compilation confirms a strong link between CO2 and GMST across timescales from 500 kyr to tens of Myr, with ESS[CO2] generally within the range of 5-8°C – patterns consistent with most prior work, and considerably higher than the present-day ECS of ~3°C.
They continue by explaining the problems of inferring such ESS values would apply to today’s climate.
HouseDaddysays
Getting High on X
Eau de Musk
@magpiewdc
Jun 25
If the world has warmed ~1.3C since mid-1800s but up to a degree of warming is being masked by aerosols, then the world has warmed considerably more than 1.3C. If the IPCC consensus of ~0.5C is accepted, then the world warmed 1.8C, not 1.3C. Why not say so? What am I missing?
Zeke Hausfather
@hausfath
Jun 25
Well, other short-lived climate pollutants like CH4 also contribute to ~0.5C warming. So yes, if you get rid of aerosols but keep CH4 you’d end up around 1.8C, but its not an inevitable outcome.
CO2 is the only warming we are stuck with for millennia to come.
Eau de Musk
@magpiewdc
Jun 25
We’re not NECESSARILY committed to >1.5C IF we cut CH4 emissions that have risen 15% since mid-2000s & cut N2O emissions that have risen 40% since 1980. But there’s a snowball’s chance in hell of that happening. Barring a miracle, we’ve already breached 1.5C. We should say so.
Zeke Hausfather
@hausfath
18h
Replying to @magpiewdc
Sure, 1.5C is deader than a doornail. But we are not at 1.8C today!
Jun 26, 2024 · 5:31 PM UTC
House Daddysays
Collapse is happening right now.
@KevinClimate says:
The last thing the high emitters in our society like you want to do is to make changes to your lifestyles. But they will have to make rapid changes and they won’t make it voluntarily. We need regulation that drives rapid social change in our lifestyles and norms or the entire system is going to spin out of control into social chaos and destruction.
“Being impacted by 2, 3 or 4 degrees of climate warming will be utterly devastating. There isn’t a non-radical way out of this. There would have been if we started in 1990. we chose not to. We chose not to in 2000, in 2010 and in 2020. So radical change is inevitable now.”
“To give a flavour of what we’re talking about: we shouldn’t be building really huge houses anymore. No more second homes. No more business or first class flights and far fewer flights. 75% of all flights are made by just 15% of the population.”
— Prof. Kevin Anderson
Rational logical acceptance of the coming COLLAPSE is NOT about giving up. It’s not about doom or being a doomer or antisceine or anything like that. It’s about accepting that Collapse is happening already. So that we can stop holding on to the world that was, to enable us to let it go and to begin the planning of a Managed Retreat to the world that soon will be.
nigeljsays
Mal Adapted
Regarding Watt a Pity’s comment: “starts off so well, then gets even better before spinning out of control going all toxic, delusional, schizophrenic and paranoid to the nth degree. a pity.”
What a Pity might be alluding to the idea that we shouldn’t blame fossil fuels companies for the climate problem because its really the publics fault for not reducing their carbon footprints and stopping fossil fuels use. So the public are essentially scapegoating fossil fules companies. There seems like an element of truth in this – but the fossil fuels companies have spread denialism about the science, and are certainly to blame for that. . I read the book Dark money a couple of years ago a real eye opener. The denialist nonsense has probably had a profound effect on people demotivating the public from reducing their carbon footprints.
Political lobbying is also out of control and a problem as you mention but is a feature of the system as a whole.
And people will only stop using fossil fuels if there are viable energy alternatives. We cannot expect people to live like stone age people.
And Watt a Pity might also be alluding to the idea that the capitalist free market even with appropriate governmnet rules and interventions is not the solution to climate change or anything else, because capitalism is doomed to failure and is unjust. Personally i find capitalism a frustrating system but nobody has come up with anything better that doesnt look like socialism version 2.0. Attempts at socialism at large scale havent worked very well. Although and Scandinavian countries combine selected elements of capitalism and socialism with good results.
Overall I think we are stuck with capitalism and just have to improve how it works. I agree with your views on the tragedy of the commons problem and the need to better regulate markets and make polluters pay a price.
Secondly regarding your latest comments on Jared Diamond and your comments “But it’s undeniable that agriculture not only enabled my relatively good fortune: it was also the origin of humanity’s present estrangement from the Earth our mother, as our populations grew and we simplified ever more ground for food production, killing or chasing away all but a favored few of the other species who shared the planet….. (etcetera)”
I agree totally with your post We have paid a huge price for our comforts. We utterly transformed the surface of the planet and we are causing fundamental and alarming problems like the decline of pollinating insects and other biodiverity loss. We have astounding and unhealthy levels of income and wealth inequality as you mentioned.
However Hunter gatherer society is not perfect either. Going back to that lifestyle or close to it would seem to be turining our back on science and technology and seems like a retrograde step.
Humans love to experiment, its in our DNA, and so were probably never going to stay as hunter gatherers. We should not feel guilty for that. This is probably the basic reason for the invention of farming although Jared Diamonds explanations of how we geot locked into farming sound credible.
We have an industrial culture and we probably have to make it as sustainable as possible. There are all sorts of things can do, and some have already done (reductions in aerosol pollution and acid rain ) but theres a long way to go and many people that resent any controls on their behaviour.
nigeljsays
Mal Adapted. Regarding my comment: “However Hunter gatherer society is not perfect either. Going back to that lifestyle or close to it would seem to be turining our back on science and technology and seems like a retrograde step.” I know you werent suggesting we adopt a hunter gatherer lifesyle, and I should have said that for clarity.
This year’s Atlantic Hurricane season was looking like a late-starter with short-lived Tropical Storm Alberto the sole arrival as June drew to a close. The usual delivery by the close of June was a handful of Tropical Storms not a solitary short-lived one.
And given the predictions were for 2024 being well above average activity, the absence of multiple Tropical Storms was beginning to look a tad awkward.
Then Beryl started its run across the Atlantic.
The usual timetable for the Atlantic hurricanes is the first hurricane forms in July/August and the first major hurricane August/September.
The formation of Hurricane Beryl on 29th June isn’t breaking the record for ‘Earliest Hurricane’ (Hurricane Chris in 2012 formed on 21st June and going back into the last century there were early hurricanes formed in early June in the Caribbean Alex1994 – June 4 & Alberto1982 – June 3.) but Beryl’s present predicted rapid development into a major hurricane before June end or soon after is would be (this based on storm records since 1980), the earliest major hurricane formations being Dennis(2005) July 6, Bertha(2008) July 7 & Bertha(1996) July 9.
From an article at phys.org on June 1st: “Researchers at the University of Virginia School of Engineering and Applied Science have figured out how to take a miracle material, one capable of extracting value from captured carbon dioxide, and do what no one else has: make it practical to fabricate for large-scale application. The breakthrough from chemical engineering assistant professor Gaurav “Gino” Giri’s lab group has implications for the cleanup of the greenhouse gas, a major contributor to the climate change dilemma. It could also help solve the world’s energy needs.“
Links to the phys.org story and the findings published in American Chemical Society journal Applied Materials and Interfaces are below:
.
https://phys.org/news/2024-06-genius-scale-material-earth.html
.
https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acsami.3c12011
In Re to David, 2 Jun 2024 at 4:48 AM,
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/06/unforced-variations-june-2024/#comment-822531
Dear David,
As a chemist, I am quite embarrassed by chemists and chemical engineers who present various ways of reducing CO2 back to carbon or hydrocarbons as a possible measure against global warming caused by the increasing concentration of CO2 in Earth atmosphere.
The reason is the inherent inefficiency of all these complicated processes. Saving the valuable “clean” energy extracted from renewable energy sources this way equals wasting most of it as a useless reaction heat. Moreover, should the obtained carbon-based fuel be used for electricity production in conventional facilities that simply burn the fuel, conversion efficiency of the released heat to electricity is also maximally 50-60%.
I am afraid that if a technology for saving renewable energy has to bring a real benefit, it must be based on a direct electrochemical process, because only such processes enable the desired high energy conversion efficiency.
Greetings
Tomáš
Tomas Kalisz: “If a technology for saving renewable energy has to bring a real benefit, it must be based on a direct electrochemical process, because only such processes enable the desired high energy conversion efficiency.”
The problem of these “wonder materials” that remove CO2 from air is more fundamental – it’s not efficiency of electrochemical process, but the fundament thermodynamics, and the question of scale.
Thermodynamics: the more oxidized is the carbon – the less Gibbs free energy it contains – that why to GET energy from fossil fuels we oxidize C (coal), CH4 (methane in natural gas), or hydrocarbons (in oil) – to CO2.
Therefore, the proposed partial reversal: CO2 -> CO requires input of energy – which until we have a 100% decarbonized electricity generation – means it will come directly, or indirectly, from additional fossil fuel burning, thus undermining claims of net CO2 mitigation.
CO is also not way to SEQUESTER atm. carbon, because either:
– it is to be stored as gas, the same way as CO2 – so no net advantage there
– nor can we count on channeling ENOUGH of this CO to the industrial uses of CO to make a difference: – the article listed by David states that:
“CO is a chemical that is valuable for manufacturing fuels, pharmaceuticals and other products”.
but these uses of C – are a tiny, tiny, fraction of the ~10 Gt of carbon emitted in form of CO2 each year – hence it will have completely NEGLIGIBLE effect on the global CO2 fluxes.
So it is just another miraculous technical fix, breathlessly promoted (“genius”; “wonder material, which could do wonders for the Earth) by the editor of phys.org/news who didn’t bother to do a back-of-the-envelope calculations to see how check the scales – how the industrial CO demand compares to the magnitude of global CO2 emissions.
Very good comments on this. The problem of scale is almost incomprehensible. The STRATOS project of Occidental Petroleum is designed to be the largest scale carbon capture facility in the world. Designed to remove “up to” 500,000 “tonnes” (not clear if this refers to metric tonnes) of CO2 from the atmosphere per year. This would be a very impressive technical achievement. Unfortunately, the current rate of global emissions is almost 37 billion metric tonnes per year. So, assuming no confusion of units, STRATOS would capture about seven minutes worth of global emissions. Or expressed another way, 74000 such plants would be required to be built.
JD,
Yes, “tonnes” are the metric ton.
The difference between metric tons (tonnes) and short (US) tons is only about 10%. The difference between metric tonnes and long (imperial) tons is only about 1%.
For the purpose of your argument, the differences are pretty much irrelevant.
In Re to Piotr, 20 JUN 2024 AT 3:14 PM,
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/06/unforced-variations-june-2024/#comment-822849
Dear Piotr,
Thank you for clarifying your position to DAC. I am happy that we have the same opinion.
Best regards
Tomáš
I should add too, that the total cost of the STRATOS plant is not supplied on Occidental’s website. However, given that BlackRock is supplying 550 billion dollars of investment capital, one could estimate the total cost to be at least 1 billion dollars (order of magnitude). Building 74000 STRATOS plants would then cost 74 trillion dollars. Current total US Federal income and corporate tax revenues are approximately 3 trillion dollars yearly which implies almost 25 years of current revenues to realize a project to capture 100 percent of current emissions.
JD,
The cost per plant would come down with mass production.
In Re to Jonathan David, 3 JUN 2024 AT 9:34 AM,
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/06/unforced-variations-june-2024/#comment-822547
Dear Jonathan,
You are, of course, right that the necessary investments would have been exorbitant.
Nevertheless, I would like to add still another remark, regarding to operational costs.
Websites of companies promoting DAC are extraordinarily humble with respect to information about energy consumption by their facilities. I am afraid that it is no way negligible, and that the “carbon footprint” of DAC can be significant, too.
Greetings
Tomáš
Jonathan David: “ Building 74000 STRATOS plants would then cost 74 trillion dollars
and then there are the operational costs, which unlike building the things, have to be borne year after year… Plus the GHG emissions of building and operating 74000 STRATOS plants – probably we would have to build quite a few more to cover those…
Scale is the first question I ask when hearing about another geoengineering proposal.
The second question is: does the scheme address the root cause, air conc.of CO2, and its other than GW result – the ocean acidification.
In 74,000 STRATOS case – the answer is yes, but no so in the non-CO2 removal schemes:
– like spraying SO2 in the stratosphere or “lets amplify natural water cycle” proposals, like those of our Tomas Kalisz, which at the global scale not only are a … bit expensive (e.g. TK proposed to increase current global desalination rate … 1000-FOLD, and spraying the resulting water over 5mln km2 of Sahara, to approach, after 100s of year of such operations, a mere 0.3 K cooling), but also, unlike STRATOS, do nothing about the CO2 levels in the air, and the ocean acidification.
The third question is – what happens if we stop. For 74,000 STRATOS – the answer would be “we’d resume our heating from today’s level”. Not so for the albedo schemes (SO2 and water cycle) – under which CO2 continues to climb, or even climbs faster (since we removed the urgency of its mitigation by controlling the most noticeable symptom – warming). The moment you stop your SO2 or water cycle intervention – all the accumulated GHGs hit with the full strength – meaning that it is much hotter – and the heating rate is much faster – for ecosystems and human civilization to adapt (it takes a while for the tree line to migrate north, or for the new adaptations to the hotter world to evolve).
In Re to Piotr, 4 JUN 2024 AT 9:42 PM,
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/06/unforced-variations-june-2024/#comment-822569
Dear Piotr,
If I understood your post correctly, you assume that we should, in parallel, decrease the fossil fuel use and replace it with renewable energy sources, and build DAC plants which will, as soon as we achieve the “net zero” (anthropogenic CO2 emission fully consumed by natural processes), gradually decrease the atmospheric CO2 concentration. Am I right?
If so, could you add how quick the process should in your opinion be, and what should be the target CO2 atmospheric concentration which we have to achieve?
Thank you in advance and greetings
Tomáš
Thomas, Piotr can and very likely will answer for himself, but I’m pretty sure he is not in favor of DACS, based on the scale and economic issues previously laid out. But we’ll see if I’m correct.
You say you understand that Piotr’s desired scenario is that:
Speaking for myself now, the reason I wouldn’t want us to try that scenario is simple: the cost to build all those DACS plants is, per tonne of CO2, much greater–a couple of orders of magnitude, probably?–than the cost to build modern RE with battery (and some pumped hydro) storage. The boatloads of money going into DACS plants would then represent an “opportunity cost” far less than their value in accomplishing the desired end.
In other words, we’ll be better off just building the RE generation capacity and keeping the CO2 out of the atmosphere in the first place. In parallel, we let those natural processes do their work. They are currently absorbing roughly half of what we emit each year, and at no cost other than whatever chimerical profits we forgo by not tearing up yet another wild place.
Re: Kevin McKinney 14 JUN
Thanks Kevin, that’s exactly my position. A ton of CO2 not emitted is as good for atm. CO2 conc. as a ton of CO2 absorbed by the DAC, at a fraction of the cost. Thus investing in the current DAC technology is counterproductive – it takes away resources from the energy conservation, renewable energy and storage – the shortage of the latter keeping the door open for the fossil fuel usage to make up for the periods of when demand > supply. i.e. where the storage and smart grid are not enough having more storage increases renewables penetration.
As you pointed out – to achieve a drop in CO2 concentration we don’t need DAC,
since even now only half of our current emissions stays in the atmosphere (more over longer time scale) – the other half taken up by the ocean, by increased plant growth in the boreal forests. and erosion of calcite and some calcium-silicate rocks. In other words, we don’t have to replace 100% of CO2 emissions to observe a drop in global Co2 concentration.
A caveat though – our current uptake of ~ 5Gt of C (i.e. ~ 50% of our our emissions)
is not symmetrical – won’t be as big on the Co2 way down as it was in the way up:
– The uptake by the surface ocean would reverse its sign – when atm Co2 increases ocean becomes undersaturated so it takes up CO2; however on the way down – it becomes oversaturated and releases CO2 into the air.
– fortunately the uptake by the deep ocean does not work that way – it is tied to timescale of the Thermohaline Circulation (THC, aka the Conveyor Belt) – the water in upwelling at the end of the Belt (Ind. Ocean, Pacific) “remembers” its last contact with atmosphere, depending on the location, may be several 100s, or >1000 yrs ago.
Things are further complicated by temp. increase
– the warmer surface ocean, the smaller its capacity to store extra atm Co2 in surface waters
– the warmer the surface ocean and the lower S due to more melt water – the slower the THC circulation and the smaller capacity to store extra atm Co2 in the deep ocean.
On land it may be more complicated – the Co2 part of the biol uptake would reverse (as plants growing better in higher Co2 would grow worse in lower Co2) but again the temperature, given its inertia, may continue to rise even as atm Co2 drops – and the longer-growing-season increase in the plant growth – it may still continue. On the other hand, continued warming probably accelerates bacterial decomposition that releases CO2 (or worse still: CH4) from the soils.
To sum up – we can have a drop in atm Co2 without “net-zero emissions” (and therefore without DAC):
reducing emissions by more than a half (between 50% and 100% – see above) should result in the DROP of atm. CO2 and in temp. stabilization (negative radiative forcing of the dropping atm Co2 compensating for the warming due to warming in the pipe-line (thermal inertia)).
Piotr, thanks for writing up the fundamental problems with the extravagant claims in the phys.org article.
On a less basic level, for any material or process to be described as a “miracle” reflects poorly on the quality of the publication, as you said. It suggests that the authors and/or publication itself have a financial interest in generating unjustified excitement Perhaps this article was intended for re-posting so that credulous readers would be motivated to invest in the process.
John Pollack: Perhaps this article was intended for re-posting so that credulous readers would be motivated to invest in the process
either financial interest in the technology, or more prosaically – financial interest in the number of clicks on the story – the bane of our times – click-bait.
Any time one comes across some tech-based claims of solutions to this Perfect Storm of stupidity we have created for ourselves, listen to these.
Killian interviews Prof Simon Michaux, materials scientist: https://www.clubhouse.com/room/M14OJAaR
Killian discusses teach-based responses to climate, et al. with Prof. Simon Michaux and Prof Steve Keen, heterodox economist:
https://www.clubhouse.com/room/xoabL87o
The resources do not exist for the build-out of all the new and existing industries it would take. You can have one full generation of one or two of them, but can’t have one full generation of all of them.
If we were going to use a huge proportion of resources for any one industry, it should be to build out a comprehensive, globally-saturated recycling infrastructure. Then you can do SOME of the stuff everyone is stupidly cheerleading for.
1) Materials science is an important area, with much potential.
2) But when breathless announcements happen, one needs to calibrate them versus the realities of actually getting to deployment at scale (D4 in post below).
3) Many years ago, I wrote a long comment about R&D processes, which Andy revkin promoted to a blog post. It was written in irritation at people who just thought throwing a lot of money at problems guaranteed breakthroughs,
whereas Bell Labs mantras were “never schedule breakthroughs” and “ship what works”.
https://archive.nytimes.com/dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/12/12/r2-d2-and-other-lessons-from-bell-labs/
Always ask “how far along in the stages described there is this thing?”
Also relevant is the effect sometimes called the “MIT grad student effect” (although substitute Stanford or other favorite engineering school…)
Q: what can you build in the lab with a bunch of MIT grad students?
A: anything … but you can only build one of it :-)
The same thing even applied to small groups of researchers at Bell Labs, but we had well-organized mechanisms for progressive commitment to expand research (R1/R2) that seemed promising, and people in development organizations whose jobs included watching Research for good stuff and moving it along.
Excellent, thanks for the reminder! I recently read Three Degrees Above Zero: Bell Labs in the Information Age (Jeremy Bernstein, 1984) which is unfortunately out of print. I understand part of the motivation was to provide a record the unusually creative culture which was felt to be under threat from the commercial shenanigans of the consent decree of AT&T/Bell. (The baby Bells became much worse predators imho (Verizon, Comcast et al.) in the end, lacking the larger view of the earlier organization.) There is also a New Yorker article of the same name which unfortunately is paywalled, a long chapter extract. Well worth finding and reading.
There are so many aspects of the Bell Labs long-term-view culture that are completely alien to the venture capital funded quick-results mindset of today. As an anecdote, the minimum technical certification at Bell Labs was Member of Technical Staff which required a master’s degree. However, Bell Labs would hire bachelor’s degree holders under a program call One Year on Campus. Hires could choose to attend a list of high quality universities to complete their MS degree and would be hired by Bell Labs after doing so. Tuition and expenses were paid for by Bell Labs. Seems almost mythic in retrospect.
In Re to Jonathan David, 12 JUN 2024 AT 7:09 AM,
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/06/unforced-variations-june-2024/#comment-822732
and Susan Anderson, 4 JUN 2024 AT 10:25 AM,
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/06/unforced-variations-june-2024/#comment-822556
Dear Jonathan, dear Susan,
I think that technical creativity is one of most important human slills and strengths and that it has to be fostered and harnessed to deal with problems like economically feasible ebnergy transition.
In this respect, I think it may be important to ask why the favourable environments in many private companies like Bell Labs vanished. I am afraid that simply saying that the owners and managements become more greedy than before does not help to find a clue.
Personally, I admire e.g. excellent chemistry done by people like Walter Knoth and Carl Muetterties at Du Pont, or Karl Otto Christe at Rocketdyne. Sadly, most of this fantastic work has not found successors who would have continued. In some cases, the unique equipment created for this research does not exist anymore, and the extraordinary skill and experimental know-how in handling the unique materials, developed in this research, might have got lost.
I would like to share my hypothesis why the owners / managements gradually became much less generous and why finally prevailed an opinion that basic research has to be funded basically by public grants only. I think that practical results / new technologies / new products, originally expected as an automatic side effect of a such excellent basic reasearch, have not came – or came in much lower extent than expected, hardly justifying the generous investments that were made by the owners.
If so, we could ask: Why? Alternatively, we can ask: Under which circumstances could the original idea (that generous private support for basic research may materialize in commercially successful inventions, new products and technologies) perhaps perform better / well?
I do not have an answer, only a suspicion that there might have been an important fault in the setup. The companies assumed that they are clever enough to recognize commercial potential of new discoveries, and that they will be able to convert them into practically applicable inventions. This is, however, in my opinion something what has never worked well, and likely will never work. The companies like Du Pont might have been big, but still not big enough to find (for a sufficiently big portion of creations brought by their excellent scientists) further enthusiasts who would have found ways how to materialize these discoveries as viable solutions for practical problems and finally created new businesses.
On the other hand, I am not sure that publicly funded research creates more favourable conditions for excellence and that it is more efficient in further transformation of discoveries into inventions and practical solutions. What do you think?
Greetings
Tomáš
Tomas Kalisz.
There might be a shortage of technical creativity in a few specific businesses, because they are badly managed. So you have human failings. You might have management that resents a bunch of guys doing blue sky research or creative projects because they arent guaranteed to deliver quick results.
But surely most managers realise by now that you need to let people be technically creative and in only loosely directed ways if you want to have great products to sell and be profitable long term? My point is it seems hard to believe this thinking is in decline and wheres the evidence its in decline?
It doesnt look like there is widespread or systemic lack of technical creativity. For example just look at all the amazing technology designed or invented in the last few years. Im not seeing any clear evidence of a general decline in technical creativity.
“The companies like Du Pont might have been big, but still not big enough to find (for a sufficiently big portion of creations brought by their excellent scientists) further enthusiasts who would have found ways how to materialize these discoveries as viable solutions for practical problems and finally created new businesses.”
Im not sure what to make of your statements and what you are getting at. Large companies do not operate as charities that would give away their inventions for other people to turn into viable products. There would have to be financial rewards and I suppose if a large company could find these it would already be involving smaller businesses.
If there was a shortage of technical creativity I agree I dont think throwing tax payers money at the problem would be the right approach. Its a cultural thing for the businesses to sort out. If they dont they will ultimately go bankrupt.
Although the way businesses are financed may be a factor in lack of technical creativity. For example if theres a lack of access to venture capital. Governmnets may be able to help improve that situation in terms of the regulatory environmnet as opposed to directly funding the business.
Of course governments can directly fund certain specific things. Businesses do some things sub optimally like blue sky research in the basic physical sciences, because it may not lead to profitable applications. Its really about improving our understanding of the world or to solve some problem facing society. Therefore governmnets have traditionally funded or carried out such research to help out. Climate research is a good example. If there has been a decline in such funding it would be a problem that could ultimately downgrade the possibilities of technical creativity that builds on basic research.
And some activities were once beyond the private sector such as sending rockets into space because of the massive costs and risks, and lack of business profitability so you had NASA to do the basic research and design and the associated technical creativity. And they obviously did it pretty well. Now private businesses like Spacex are doing this work as well because they are so big and can make money out of it. Just my two cents worth.
Thomas, I’m in partial agreement with your statement that:
IMO, that is because it misframes the issue a bit. The greedy behavior of so many companies is indeed a problem for research and obviously also for the environment. However, framing it as a quasi-quantitative change of psychological state on the part of “owners and managements” misleads us, in that it doesn’t afford much of an opening to enquire why there might be such a change in behavior.
As a cultural observer, I think that the change is in part due the Friedman Doctrine that corporations have only one ethical duty, which is to maximize profits for their shareholders. It’s become such a common position that it’s hard to realize that this idea was novel in the 1980s when Milton Friedman propounded it. But prior to that, owners and managements often felt that they had some sort of responsibility toward their employees and their communities. Henry Ford thought so, to cite one example. (I don’t mean to suggest Ford was a uniform paragon of virtue; there are valid criticisms one can level. But he did see values beyond Friedman’s prescription, however imperfectly he may have implemented them.
It probably sounds simplistic to suggest that that one doctrine could have such a profound social effect. But while there are no doubt other factors–globalization, say, or the inbuilt imperative for ever “more” that appears to characterize modern capitalism–having seen the doctrine so widely established that it’s often taken as axiomatic; and considering how useful ethical arguments can be in helping enable people to follow their worse impulses, simply by “proving” that their shameful wish is “really” the height of virtue.
In this connection, ponder the fact that the 80s had as a cliche the adage that “greed is good.” In more rarefied social strata, one might also cite Ayn Rand’s philosophy of Objectivism, which literally argued (and still argues) that altruism is evil, deriving capitalism as the highest ethical system–and note that no less an economic heavyweight than Alan Greenspan, for years head of the Federal Reserve, was a Rand acolyte.
Friedman wasn’t, but nonetheless has significant parallels. This brief release will perhaps be indicative: https://www.cmc.edu/athenaeum/ayn-rand-milton-friedman-and-ethics-capitalism
I’m reminded of the doctrines invoked in the antebellum south about inherent racial superiority, the will of God in establishing it, and the ‘happiness’ afforded enslaved persons granted the highly dubious privilege of living in the ‘social condition best suited to their nature.’ Doctrine, encouraging evil behavior, which however is “convenient” for the people who profit therefrom.
I don’t know that such cases are “sufficient causes”, but given the historical recurrence of ideological self-justification, it’s hard to escape the suspicion that they are “necessary causes.” In any case, I think in this case the social shift is worth noting, at the very least.
Tomas, I suspect, based on your response, that Bell Labs is not a good example to illustrate your point. Bell Labs was originally the engineering department of Western Electric. Western Electric provided a guaranteed source of ongoing revenue to the Labs until the 80s. Ultimately this was a result of the Bell System government sanctioned monopoly on phone service. This revenue stream allowed for more speculative projects including fundamental scientific research which might not have commercial applications for many years or ever.
So one might conclude from this that an R&D organization must be primarily a design and development organization providing marketable technology to yield a steady and adequate flow of revenue, a portion of which used to support research. The technology doesn’t have to be exciting or revolutionary just what improves the product.
One might think this would apply to a lot of companies, for example IBM or General Motors. There is one more piece which is important though. That is, corporate governance and structure must include real recognition (not “lip service”) of the fundamental importance of basic research, even long term projects that have no immediate market application. Tempered, of course, with the level of commitment possible based on general revenues. Unfortunately, as Kevin responded, Wall Street doesn’t see value in spending money on areas that won’t immediately boost sales. So many corporate R&D organizations were downsized or phased out in the 80s based on the Shareholder Value concept pushed by CEOs such as Jack Welch of General Electric.
In Re to nigelj, 14 JUN 2024 AT 3:20 PM,
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/06/unforced-variations-june-2024/#comment-822766
and Kevin McKinney, 14 JUN 2024 AT 3:59 PM,
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/06/unforced-variations-june-2024/#comment-822768
Dear Nigel, dear Kevin,
Many thanks for your feedback.
I am neither economist nor sociologist, so I admit that Nigel can be right if he thinks that the history of Bell Labs’ fame and decline cannot be generalized, and that there may be other private companies that still create a similarly creative and inspiring environment as likely helped to Bell Labs’ fame. I mean an environment that is favourable not only for incremental innovation (that is undoubtedly part of daily business in any reasonably managed enterprise), but also for disruptive innovations that open completely new development directions and, finally, also completely new business opportunities.
My feeling that the Bell Labs history mentioned by Jonathan David and Susan Anderson might have been a symptom of a more generic trend arose from a comparison of some research topics that was e.g. Du Pont willing to support 50-70 years ago and topics that comparably big companies support today. I made this observation in my daily work as a patent engineer in the field of chemistry.
Nevertheless, I am aware that my insight is still nothing else than a random “point probe”. Conclusions based on a small random sample have, of course, a very limited value – a thorough research based on represesntative data can prove them as misleading.
I would therefore try to re-focus my question. Let us, for a while, desist from asking after reasons of Bell Labs’ decline, and ask rather after grounds of their successes.
What was actually so extraordinary in this environment?
Which elements of their working culture helped to achieve, on one hand, discoveries awarded by Nobel prizes, and, on the other hand, commercially successful new products and technologies?
And, if there are other. more recent examples of companies or other organizations with a such particularly favourable environment for both basic research as well as for disruptive technical innovation, can we see in their working culture the same or similar features as in Bell Labs?
Greetings
Tomáš
True that PhDs are almost de facto requirements at places such as IBM TJ Watson and Bell Labs. But what happens also is that hiring is mostly from elite schools such as Stanford and MIT. The research groups tended to self select and so the stream of hires was from certain alma maters. I say this because when I was at IBM, colleagues were in awe that I managed to get hired without such a pedigree. Saying all that, technicians and lab support staff were from various backgrounds with many locals.
John Mashey said:
Not sure what the context of this is, but breathless announcements in materials science are met with patience. The research community realizes that controlled experiments are the final arbiter of whether an announcement has legs. See the high-Tc superconductor announcements in the last couple of years — they were dispatched as incorrect within a month or two after other scientists tried to replicate the findings through controlled experiments.
Note that this is not the case in climate sciences in general. Controlled experiments at scale are not possible in a lab environment and so a definitive response is also not possible. That’s why geoengineering of the atmosphere is rightfully fraught with concerns. It will be largely guesswork whether it succeeds and that’s also where Murphy’s Law rears it’s ugly head.
Also consider this in the context of the 2023 heatwave RC post https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/05/new-journal-nature-2023/ . No controlled experiments possible, though Hunga Tonga and aerosol reductions can be considered as uncontrolled experiments, as the controlled experiment version is not possible — i.e. take away the volcanic explosion and leave aerosols the same. That’s why climate science is challenging.
It’s also why in epidemiology, virus origin research is problematic. No controlled experiments are possible in retrospect, and can’t duplicate the conditions ever again. Yet, we should be thankful for the controlled experiments — i.e. clinical trials — that allowed a vaccine to be created within a few weeks.
Tomas, please find a copy of Three Degrees Above Zero and read it. Bell Labs was unique. Some other institutions here and there in the world have self-created that kind of environment, but it is rare. It was a work in progress as I explained above. I know dad worked at the Cavendish in Cambridge and Princeton University (he liked having students) but as a kind of GOM he got away with changing things to fit his and his colleagues’ needs and desires, and got a lot of help. I have a closetful of his awards and honorary degrees (one of my faves, Nepal!), and the impression that a creative group met in a wide variety of fine locations to share knowledge. We also spent nearly a year in Tokyo 1952-53. John Mashey knows way more about it than I do (daughter, not physicist).
A wrench in the works for understanding sea-level variability. RD Ray is a foremost tidal analysis expert at NASA and his team has determined that ocean stratification can encourage larger swings in sea-level, which was only apparent after years of data collection
https://www.nature.com/articles/s43247-024-01432-5
Tides being zero=sum won’t impact secular trends but this can impact extremes :
Following appears in E&E News Climate Wire (05/31/2024) concerning a temperature sensor network in development (if they can solicit sufficient funds of course) under the direction of Anthony Watts and the Heartland Institute. With comments by Dr. Gavin Schmidt including Gavin correctly (imo) pointing out that NOAA would most likely welcome this new network joining the existing cooperative network.
.
https://www.eenews.net/articles/climate-denial-group-wants-to-subvert-noaa-data-with-its-own/
.
.
What I find interesting is that Watts and Heartland did not respond to the E&E reporter’s attempts to contact them. Not surprising, but interesting. I am thinking about contacting Heartland myself about the fund raising effort and if they are planning for this new network of theirs to join the existing co-op, but as a conservative heretic in today’s Republican Party, I’m wondering if that would be welcome or wise ;-)
UAH has reported for May with a global TLT anomaly of +0.90ºC, still up at unprecedented ‘bananas’ levels (which Sept23-Apr24 all sat above +0,83ºC & averaged +0.92ºC) but down on the ‘schorchyisimo!!!’ +1.05ºC global anomaly last month. (The pre-‘bananas’ record anomaly was the usual suspect of Feb 2016 at +0.71ºC.)
The SAT CFSR re-analysis is showing big drops in the May anomaly, a bigger drop than expected in the yet-to-be-posted Copernicus ERA5 SAT re-analysis.
The measured SAT anomalies for May will be interesting.
How do scientists know how much climate change affects a hurricane, a heat wave, a drought, and more?
The field of attribution science is 20 years old this year, and scientists’ ability to detect the fingerprints of climate change in extreme weather events is growing stronger. – https://yaleclimateconnections.org/2024/05/how-do-scientists-know-how-much-climate-change-affects-a-hurricane-a-heat-wave-a-drought-and-more/ – video here, worth spending the hour (& I don’t like long videos!)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c3O3znbIWyA
This is an important update on work on the new field of attribution science including Climate Central and others working in the field, with plentiful evidence. Here’s the featured video, moderated by Bob Henson, partner to Jeff Masters of Yale Climate Connections’s Eye on the Storm. They have been stalwarts in presenting expert weather and climate information in the context of real world development, and compiling statistics of the ongoing changes.
Some of the resources for the above:
First attribution paper published in Nature in 2004: https://www.nature.com/articles/nature03089
World Weather Attribution:
https://www.worldweatherattribution.org/
Climate Matters: https://www.climatecentral.org/climate-matters
Climate Shift Index map: csi.climatecentral.org
Climate Shift Index: https://www.climatecentral.org/climate-shift-index
“classic bell curve”:
https://www.climatecentral.org/graphic/introducing-the-climate-shift-index
Open-access primer on attribution science:
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2590332220302475
Recent WWA study on the Panama Canal:
https://www.worldweatherattribution.org/low-water-levels-in-panama-canal-due-to-increasing-demand-exacerbated-by-el-nino-event/
(Gavin, please delete the previous version of this post, including its busted HTML code!)
Ned’s fibbing–or charitably, just being credulous–again, here:
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/04/unforced-variations-may-2024/#comment-821783
He claims, based on a video by a so-called reporter, that Ukraine “gave in perpetuity” 400 km2 of prime agricultural land to be used for a toxic waste dump. However, upon examination this story doesn’t seem to hold up very well:
https://www.euronews.com/my-europe/2023/12/12/did-the-ukrainian-government-plan-to-sell-plots-of-land-off-to-george-soross-family
(One might also pick at the conflation of “indeterminate lease”–which is what his source said–with “gives in perpetuity”–clearly not the same thing. But moving on.)
Ned adds that Black Rock has “bought up almost all the agricultural lands of Ukraine”–a claim which prompted the properly skeptical John Diehl, who noted that Ukraine’s surface area is close on the order of 600,000 km2, to ask for evidence. To which Ned responded with a flurry of links, which however included nothing about Black Rock specifically, and on the quantitative side had only one item, which stated that about 344,000 ha had been involved in “land agreements.”
So let’s do the math on that. John is right; Ukraine is about 600,000 km2. How does that compare with 344,000 ha? It’s an easy conversion, as it’s 100 ha to the square kilometer, so 3,440 km2. As a percentage of all of Ukraine, that works out to a skosh less than 0.6%. So, apparently Ned’s definition of “nearly all” is on the order of 1% or so. (It’s that high because “agricultural land” is only about 70% of Ukraine.) Not too good for old Ned, I’m afraid. But it gets worse, because toward the bottom of his Gish Gallop of citations there was a very interesting item. Quoting:
Note that the putative grab by Black Rock would have fallen within that 20-year moratorium, rendering it impossible, and that with the reform only Ukrainian businesses are allowed to buy land. Turns out foreigners are still disqualified:
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/factcheck/2022/09/13/fact-check-ukraines-president-did-not-sell-farmland-us-companies/7942775001/
As you will see if you read the linked article, foreign companies can buy (and have bought) stakes in those Ukrainian companies. They can then have a measure of influence on its usage, and will certainly attempt to realize a profit therefrom. (Remember, this is maybe 1% of Ukraine’s farmlands, to date at least.)
That’s the ‘kernel of truth’ in Ned’s massive misrepresentation. To be sure, some people question whether even partial interest is a good idea; there’s concerns about small farmers, which I can readily believe have a reasonable foundation. But Ukrainian restrictions are much more stringent than many places; here in the US foreign firms can buy whatever land they like, in general. Same in Canada. And Chinese firms have been on an “ag” buying spree in Africa in recent years, as I understand it.
Which leads me to my last point. Ned also projected this as the energy future of the US:
Well, that sentence is practically a crime against humanity just on grounds of English [mis]usage, but apart from that, it’s just another unsupported assertion–and one that flies in the face of evidence that I and others have previously presented to Ned. So far, unless I’ve missed a post somewhere–possible, though I doubt it–Ned has declined to provide any evidence to that point.
Which brings to mind, yet again, the words “these lies and outright fraud.” Now, there’s a Ned sentence I can get behind!
Kevin McKinney says
4 Jun 2024 at 6:13 PM
Believe whatever you wish. Use whatever you can find on a search about a topic you have had no knowledge of before I raised it in a simple ‘comment’ here about the bigger issues at play in our world.
I know what I know. I have my sources. I am not fighting my comments and references being repeatedly deleted anymore. I simply do not care what any of you, or Gavin thinks.
Say whatever you want Kevin. Believe whatever you want.
It makes no difference to anything nor anyone.
“What can be asserted without evidence can also be dismissed without evidence.” — Hitchen’s razor
Disgusting! You are here because of the generosity of Gavin Schmidt and other RealClimate hosts.
“I simply do not care what any of you, or Gavin thinks.” This is NOT YOUR SITE! You are not all knowing, in fact you demonstrate your bile at length almost every day. Shameful and shameless.
Please, RC mods, spare us all the continuation of this nastiness.
If it “makes no difference to anything or anyone,” then neither do your words. Which would then beg the question as to why you bother to supply them in such profusion?
But truthfully, your words shouldn’t matter, because you’ve repeatedly demonstrated that they are untrustworthy through your use of debunked sources and plain unsupported assertions. You don’t respect fact, and don’t appear to learn anything when your falsehoods are exposed as such–probably because you aren’t here to learn, but to push propaganda.
And that’s not what I “wish” to believe. It’s what the evidence of your record here on RC suggests.
In Re to Kevin McKinney, 4 Jun 2024 at 6:13 PM,
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/06/unforced-variations-june-2024/#comment-822562
and as a general plea to moderators, with respect to content repeatedly spread by Ned Kelly.
Dear Kevin,
Many thanks for dealing with this ugly topics and for your thorough analysis.
Dear Sirs,
I would like to add that I asked Ned Kelly several times to stop spreading Russian propaganda and disinformation supporting their war. The last time I tried to warn Ned Kelly that he is totally wrong was in my post of 26 May 2024 at 1:28 PM,
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/04/much-ado-about-acceleration/comment-page-2/#comment-822411.
Obviously, all my efforts were unsuccessful. Therefore, I appreciate that Mr. McKinney supported my opinion that was simply based on my personal experience (with communist propaganda following the same patterns – I grew in former Czechoslovakia) by more objective evidence.
I would like to emphasize that Russia fights not only against Ukraine specifically but, generally and systematically, against any open society.
Personally, I feel the repeated publishing of such content as more tangential, offensive and abusive than anything else that I have ever read on this website.
I understand your adherence to principles of free speech. On the other hand, please be aware that as long as you tolerate such content on your website that you label as “moderated”, you approve it in some extent as publicly acceptable.
Could you perhaps, as a compromise, consider creating on Real Climate a new space, clearly labeled as “unmoderated”, whereto all further contributions by Ned Kelly (and perhaps a similar stuff, if it appears in the future again) would have been automatically forwarded?
Personally, I do not think that crank shaft and/or bore hole are appropriate for this purpose. Malicious propaganda is not crank, it is hhighly rational. It is not boring, it is dangerous.
This way, you would secure that potential gems comprised in Ned Kelly’s contributions will not get lost. They will stay accessible to the public, provided with a certain level of warning before possible poisoning by toxic admixtures.
Anyone who wants to further discuss with him will still have an opportunity to do so, with the only difference that it will proceed in this confinement, separated from other Real Climate stuff.
I will be really grateful if you take my plea into your consideration.
Thank you in advance and best regards
Tomáš Kalisz
TK: I would like to add that I asked Ned Kelly several times to stop spreading Russian propaganda and disinformation supporting their war. . . . Personally, I feel the repeated publishing of such content as more tangential, offensive and abusive than anything else that I have ever read on this website.
BPL: I have to agree–this anti-Ukraine, pro-Russia stuff originates in Saint Petersburg, notably from the “Internet Research Agency” (officially dissolved 6/1/2023, but the hardware and software are still in use by much the same people). And what does it have to do with climate change?
Yep.
For those interested, an interesting link is here:
https://reliefweb.int/report/ukraine/war-and-theft-takeover-ukraines-agricultural-land
The report states that the top three holders of Ukrainian farmland are large agribusiness companies owned by the Ukrainian oligarchy: Kernel Holding S.A., UkrLandFarming, and MHP S.E.. The holdings of these three corporations total over 1.3 million hectares. Fourth and fifth place are held by US based TNA Corporate Solutions LLC and NCH Capital. There is no mention of ownership of land by BlackRock.
It is true that BlackRock and JP Morgan are working with the Ukrainian government to set up a recovery fund to rebuild from the disastrous Russian invasion::
https://www.reuters.com/business/finance/ukraine-reconstruction-bank-guided-by-blackrock-jpmorgan-ready-action-this-year-2024-01-16/
It is somewhat amusing that this seems to be disliked by the government of the Russian Federation:
https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/international/world-news/kyiv-has-sold-ukraine-to-blackrock-russia-lambasts-ukraine-for-taking-support-from-us/videoshow/106731755.cms
Presumably since Russia wants to own Ukraine for themselves they object to Western capital influence.
Also in the original reply by Ned Kelly is the fake quote supposedly by BlackRock CEO Larry Fink that Ukraine has “Too many cemeteries! Ukrainians, treat our land prudently, use crematoria. This is no longer your land. We took these risks into account when we concluded a contract with Zelenskyy and created the Ukraine Development Fund.”
This was debunked by the Ukrainian government here:
https://spravdi.gov.ua/en/traitor-kyva-publishes-a-post-that-ukraine-had-an-owner-who-demands-that-the-fallen-soldiers-be-cremated/
in Re to Jonathan David, 5 Jun 2024 at 5:25 PM,
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/06/unforced-variations-june-2024/#comment-822588
with a repeated plea to moderators.
Dear Jonathan,
Thank you for your contribution. I think that publicly denigrating victims of violence is shameful.
Doing so systematically is worse than shameful.
Dear Sirs,
Refering to my post of 5 Jun 2024 at 6:41 AM,
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/06/unforced-variations-june-2024/#comment-822588 ,
I would like to repeat my question if you indeed want to publish contributions supplied by Ned Kelly on web pages that you label as moderated / approved.
Sincerely
Tomáš Kalisz
Levke Caesar: “Oceanic Slowdown: Decoding the AMOC”
Episode 124
May 22nd, 2024
Summary
On this episode, Nate is joined by climate physicist Levke Caesar for a comprehensive overview of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) and its connections to broader planetary systems. Amid a complex and heavily interconnected climate system, the AMOC is a powerful force for regulating temperature between the Northern and Southern Hemispheres along the Atlantic Ocean – yet it’s estimated to have slowed down by about 15% over the last few decades. What are the possible domino effects of this slowing oceanic powerhouse at a regional and global scale? How well do we understand what drives the AMOC, its cyclical patterns, and connections with other currents? More importantly, how does the AMOC interact with other biospheric mechanisms that have shaped our stable, life-supporting planetary home?
About Levke Caesar
Levke Caesar is a climate physicist at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, mainly known for her studies on the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) and its pivotal role in the climate system. Her research primarily focuses on the past, present, and future evolution of the AMOC and its intricate interactions within the North Atlantic region. Caesar’s seminal work on the historical evolution of the AMOC has been featured in prestigious journals such as Nature and Nature Geoscience, garnering hundreds of citations.
Since October 2023, she has assumed the role of scientific lead for the newly launched Planetary Boundary Science Initiative (PBScience) at PIK.
https://www.thegreatsimplification.com/episode/124-levke-caesar
I find multiple citations of Levke Caesar in Stefan Rahmstorf’s publication here: https://tos.org/oceanography/article/is-the-atlantic-overturning-circulation-approaching-a-tipping-point
Including but not limited to: Caesar, L., S. Rahmstorf, A. Robinson, G. Feulner, and V. Saba. 2018. Observed fingerprint of a weakening Atlantic Ocean overturning circulation. Nature 556(7700):191–196, https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-018-0006-5.
Caesar, L., G.D. McCarthy, D.J.R. Thornalley, N. Cahill, and S. Rahmstorf. 2021. Current Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation weakest in last millennium. Nature Geoscience 14:118–120, https://doi.org/10.1038/s41561-021-00699-z.
Caesar, L., G.D. McCarthy, D.J.R. Thornalley, N. Cahill, and S. Rahmstorf. 2022. Reply to: Atlantic circulation change still uncertain. Nature Geoscience 15:168–170, https://doi.org/10.1038/s41561-022-00897-3.
Two points arise from this. One, that Ned Kelly, despite the atmospherics, is not as opposed to our hosts as he pretends or thinks he is; and two, he is not a climate science denier. If he’d stop trying to put good hardworking people at enmity with each other, particularly his hosts, most of his material only suffers from excess, especially of the spleen.
SA,
Re: “…Ned Kelly, despite the atmospherics, is not as opposed to…”
I’ll have to disagree on this one. NK is a troll. it’s a ruse. What he’s opposed to is good faith.
Which brings me to point out that he seems to be making some headway in his attempts to divert comments to the topic of Ukraine. Vile? Yes, that’s the point. It’s hard to ignore.
The Ukraine distraction was partially the result of a comment I posted referencing an article on climate based investment strategies of BlackRock Inc.
https://jacobin.com/2022/04/blackrock-climate-crisis-finance-fossil-green-esg-investments
The article had nothing to do with Ukraine. NK raised that angle for no apparent reason in reply except possibly to show how “evil” BlackRock is.
He is clearly pro-development and is not an advocate of a rapid draw-down of fossil fuel use. He also seems to be quite dismissive of renewable energy. He frequently uses Russian propaganda memes but these may be simply for the purposes of disruption.
In general, his comments align with fossil fuel development interests. One should keep in mind that the playbook of fossil fuel companies such as Exxon has moved beyond simple “denialism”. See this, for example
https://unearthed.greenpeace.org/2021/06/30/exxon-climate-change-undercover/
I found Levke to be an excellent communicator of complex scientific findings and about her work.
https://youtu.be/YCxBvjyQBJA?si=8PMiXwkfVhwfVRdV&t=3745
Levke Caesar:
And if we find something that is, basically, disproving what we saw at first, then we have to find a new assumption. This has changed because there have been more and more publications that indicated an AMOC slowdown and none that showed the opposite. There are still some data where we are, okay, this is interesting,
we can’t completely claim that yet, but with that the consensus is definitely increasing.
I think one problem is also just the way the science community works as a whole. So it’s not that there’s one publication about something and everybody’s, oh yeah, now we’re going to believe that. It’s more like, oh, interesting. Now let’s wait a little bit, see what other research groups are publishing on that, test that. I mean, that’s good. That’s how we can make sure that We are not basically following some random group, but that we’re really getting to enhance our knowledge. But it also makes it a little bit slow and maybe, with regards to climate change, too slow.
Q: There’s, all sorts of different disciplines within the climate discipline itself. And how do you all meet at conferences and compare notes on things that you’re not experts in that someone else is, what’s your experience there?
Levke Caesar:
My experience is, that the different disciplines are too siloed, basically, so they don’t talk enough to each other.
And I think it’s not just a problem within the disciplines, but also with the way science is being done at the moment, that it’s really pressed towards publications. As a young researcher, I know basically I’m being measured by the amount of first author and second author publications that I have.
Because of that too many papers are being published and no one can read all of that. But to publish a paper, you have to find something new. And I think what we really have to do more is actually synthesizing the data that is out there, in the publications that are out there. Yeah.
Q: So tell me about your work. Where do you work? What do you do? And if you and your team are successful, what, do you hope to accomplish?
Levke Caesar:
Yeah, here I have to admit that basically, I kind of left the AMOC community, the like very small AMOC, not small, but the focused AMOC community. Because of the experience I made in the last years, that basically, the AMOC is a topic that is able to raise attention, maybe also because of this movie, The Day After Tomorrow, and at least in Europe, a lot of people know about the Gulf Stream and the importance, but there are so many things happening when we look at the increase in extreme weather events, when we look at floodings, and, I feel that the increase in fires, so many things related to climate change that happen on way faster timescales than the AMOC, and that have a big effect right now, that I basically went to my former institute, the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, and now work with Johann Rockström on the planetary boundary framework, which is highlighting, actually, this global approach, and this synthesizing approach, saying it’s not enough to just look at one thing special corner or area.
And, I mean, this is actually going further saying, okay, not just AMOC is enough, not even just climate change is enough to really have to look at the earth system and looking at all its components, looking at the biosphere integrity and basically how the biosphere is right now functioning in our favor, because that’s also taking up a lot of carbon, how it’s basically working in terms of the radiation budget.
And I just feel that we know so much that we can do that would improve the lives of so many people on earth in terms of, of course, reducing CO2, but also living more sustainable ways, like changing our diets towards more plant based food, that I just wanted to work on that, and I think the problem is in getting people to act.
That most want numbers and certainty, and we can’t give them 100 percent certainty yet, and we can’t give like the exact numbers, but we can give with 99.9 percent certainty of the direction that we have to go, and I just want to press that and, work on the science there.
Q: What do you care most about in the world, Levka?
Levke Caesar:
It’s probably a fair and honest world, so I, think that, this is what bugs me most about, I guess, this topic is that the main people who are causing the problems are not the ones that are suffering the most. And, that’s just not what I like. So it’s really this fairness.
Q: What Would You Do with a Magic Wand to change human and planetary futures if there was no personal risk to yourself?
Levke Caesar:
Kind of depends on the limit I mean if I could basically change the climate system the earth system back to a pre-industrial state And fix it in that way then I would. No matter what we do, we couldn’t change it as humans. That would, of course, be a safe way, although maybe we wouldn’t then learn.
I think if it comes to the human mind, as I said, I would really like us to be able to make the wisest decision, to be objective, look at the facts, and then decide what we do based on them and what we want to happen, and not based on this weird mix of emotions, fear, maybe favors. Yeah. So that I think would already bring us a very big step further towards a sustainable future.
The next time, well, given my, location, my job right now, it would really be about the link of the climate system towards the rest of the earth system, towards, with the land system, with species diversity, and how all of this is basically connected, but from a scientific point of view, so not from a spiritual point of view, Mother Earth,
but really, we see so much scientific evidence for that, and I would love to talk about that.
end quotes
Yes – deeply important science but the solutions are the same. Either use less carbon intensive energy sources, phase out fossil fuels, defeat the political system as it stands, ban things, eat less meat, change your lifestyle , etc
Great science but what it comes down too is the same. Lees carbon in a short time frame
Pete best: – “Lees carbon in a short time frame”
The four Rs: Reduce, Remove, Repair, Resilience
Roger Hallam tweeted on Jun 3:
https://x.com/RogerHallamCS21/status/1797285263481196937
The Guardian published on 27 May 2024 an op-ed by Sir David King, founder and chair of the global Climate Crisis Advisory Group, headlined Humanity’s survival is still within our grasp – just. But only if we take these radical steps. His message included:
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/article/2024/may/27/humanity-survival-emissions-resilience-ecosystems-greenhouse-gases
Retired mathematician Prof Eliot Jacobson posted on Jun 4 a blog piece headlined Betting on the End of the World. It’s an explanation for his Over/Under graph (see https://x.com/EliotJacobson/status/1797629631409119435 ). It concludes with (bold text my emphasis):
https://climatecasino.net/2024/06/betting-on-the-end-of-the-world/
Regenerative Governance. There is no other way.
Ask me about it.
Killian: “Regenerative Governance. There is no other way.”
That is plainly true, but how do you justify even a shred of optimism. The trajectory of the world we live in bears significant inertia. Regenerative Governance that is not a veneer requires organizations with cultures that consistently draw enlightened individuals of capacity, with selfless orientation, into positions of authority. Where do you see that? How could those cultures be created, sustained and reinforced? Serious question, if you have resources/links. And promulgated on a society-wide basis on a timeline relevant to the incipient climate-based disaster? More hopefully, the ideas you envision may grow from the rubble of the remains as humans find a better way.
Join me in celebrating world environment day today June 5th 2024! This year focuses on land restoration, halting desertification and building drought resilience under the slogan “Our land. Our future”. UNCCD reports up to 40 percent of the planet’s land is degraded and annual net loss of native ecologies continues unabated at >100 million ha / decade. This is a profound forcing to climates and puts our communities at risk. It’s hard to imagine denying or actively minimizing the consequences to realclimates due to an artificial fixation and overemphasis on the outputs of trace gas and aerosol forced model estimates.
Re JCM (Jun 5)
Aaaa, a JCM in a sheep’s clothing – a diverter of the attention from the role of GHGs in climate change – tries to gain credibility by dressing up his GHG-denialism as …. a passionate and honest environmental concern:
JCM “Join me in celebrating world environment day today June 5th 2024!” and then he sheds his crocodile tears over “degraded and [lost] native ecologies“.
The tears are crocodilian, because the desertification and the resulting “ degradation and annual net loss of native ecologies are DRIVEN, to a large extent, by the climate change, and therefore by human emissions of GHGs driving this change – NOT by change … in the water cycle, which is primarily the RESULT, not the CAUSE, of the climate change.
JCM KNOWS is, yet he deliberately tries to pit the victims of the results of the AGW against the research into the drivers of AGW – by portraying the climate models as if they were … diverting resources from the dealing with desertification:
JCM Jun 5: “It’s hard to imagine denying or actively minimizing the consequences to realclimates due to an artificial fixation and overemphasis on the outputs of trace gas […] forced model estimates
If JCM, as many other GHG deniers, was also a COVID-sceptic – I could see him posting on the COVID vaccine forum (RealCOVID?) something along the lines:
It’s hard to imagine you denying or actively minimizing the consequences of COVID infections due to your artificial fixation and overemphasis on finding an effective vaccine against COVID”
Deniers of the world – unite! ;-)
I will keep this brief as I’m not interested in another painful shouting match with toxic divider Piotr.
To Piotr, I recommend getting a grip.
It is unequivocal that in recent decades land resources have been subject to massive degradation and loss due to global patterns of human domination. It’s outlined clearly in the reports associated with the UNCCD and the COPs + Assessment Reports that nobody has ever heard of, most recently COP15 and GLO2. That is direct obliteration of landscapes and annihilation of species. Given climate is highly sensitive to the selection of ecological types in terms of soil-water uptake, moisture and nutrient cycling, massive unnatural ecological disturbances represent a direct ongoing forcing with significant feedbacks in atmosphere. Adaptive ecosystems interact with climates and yet we continuously slash it back.
Humans have already transformed more than 70% of the Earth’s land area from a natural state, causing unparalleled environmental degradation and climate change. The Living Planet Index points to an average decrease of 68% in populations of mammals, birds, amphibians, reptiles, and fish between 1970 and 2016. For example, in the tropical Americas and abroad, the index declined by 94% primarily due to land use change, largely the conversion of grasslands, savannas, forests, and wetlands. Land conditions, including water retention and biomass productivity, are essential components of realclimates and sustainable communities.
That some exhibit stubborn prejudice and attempt to paint me as a generic denier of global issues is unsurprising, given that bad teaching and half-baked logics have recently come to dominate the environmental consciousness. Undeterred in the face of unbelievable stupidity, I remain steadfast in my dedication to environmental conservation and engage actively in remediation with a variety of stakeholders. I urge everyone to experience your catchments firsthand; use your senses rather than fixating exclusively on a curated perspective through a computer screen. Get involved with community environmental stewardship initiatives because no one else will do it for you. There is no option for dues-paying, financialization, or offsetting; it requires real work and unwavering dedication.
JCM: “ It is unequivocal that in recent decades land resources have been subject to massive degradation and loss due to global patterns of human domination.
Nobody disputed that, Genius, so no need to post two screens breaking down the doors that nobody closed. My point was simple, I quote:
===
Piotr May 5: “the desertification” is DRIVEN, to a large extent, by the climate change, and therefore by human emissions of GHGs driving this change – NOT by [direct] change … in the water cycle, which is primarily the RESULT, not the CAUSE, of the climate change.
JCM KNOWS is, yet he deliberately tries to pit the victims of the results of the AGW against the research into the drivers of AGW – by portraying the climate models as if they were … diverting resources from the dealing with desertification::
JCM Jun 5: “It’s hard to imagine denying or actively minimizing the consequences to realclimates due to an artificial fixation and overemphasis on the outputs of trace gas […] forced model estimates
=== end of quote =====
Now kindly explain how your Jun6 “reply” tackles THAT.
In the meantime, feel free to lecture others on “ getting a grip“
Looks like JCM is just going to circle back and double down on sloganeering.
Crank magnetism, perhaps. Ah, the allure of forbidden, stigmatized knowledge suppressed by the Powers That Be, of which Big Climate is supposedly a charter member (the irony!):
What QAnon supporters, butthole sunners and New Age spiritualists have in common
https://theconversation.com/what-qanon-supporters-butthole-sunners-and-new-age-spiritualists-have-in-common-228857
(the article is better than it sounds)
A plea to moderators with respect to recent posts by JCM, 5 Jun 2024 at 8:24 AM,
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/06/unforced-variations-june-2024/#comment-822581
and Piotr, 5 Jun 2024 at 1:26 PM,
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/06/unforced-variations-june-2024/#comment-822583
Dear Sirs,
in a yet unpublished post of yesterday, I suggested to compare
my post of 1 Jun 2024 at 2:35 PM,
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/05/new-journal-nature-2023/#comment-822527
with Piotr’s posts of 4 Jun 2024 at 7:57 PM,
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/05/new-journal-nature-2023/#comment-822565
and 31 May 2024 at 8:42 PM,
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/04/unforced-variations-may-2024/#comment-822514
and asked you if you consider the content and style of such contributions systematically posted by Piotr as justified / deserving your kind approval.
I think that the situation with Piotr’s feedback to JCM’s recent post is quite similar.
Have JCM ever wrote about vaccination, COVID and stuff like this in his posts?
Are you really sure that many Piotr’s comments (particularly on anyone who once mentioned that human influence on climate may not consist exclusively in varying production of greenhouse gases and aerosols) are not repeating, tangential and/or abusive?
Best regards
Tomáš Kalisz
Let’s sum up:
– Tomáš Kalisz has accused me of hatred toward him (“You hate me, don’t you?“) and dishonesty (“you twist and misinterpret what I said“. As the proof, he claimed: “ I have never proposed active water cycle management as an alternative to GHG mitigation.”
-To which, I reminded him of his own posts from May 30-31,2023, in which he proposed … precisely that: he wrote that increasing evaporation by “ ca 12750 km3 of water” would cancel the ENTIRE radiative forcing of surplus GHGs and may even “ REVERSE the sign of EEI – in other words, we might be able to COOL the Earth this way ” [i.e. without doing anything about GHGs – P.].
– Unable to admit accusing others based on his own lie, Tomas Kalisz tries now … to silence me by … denouncing me to site’s administrators:
“ A plea to moderators […] Are you really sure that many Piotr’s comments are not repeating, tangential and/or abusive?”
Best regards
Tomáš Kalisz”
===
Nice touch at the end – in Communist countries, people who denounced their opponents to the authority also had good manners – signed their denouncement letters with “Best regards“, “Well-wishing [name here]“, or at least “Concerned Citizen“. See also posts of TK, where he accuses me of hatred and lying, just after opening with “ Dear Piotr” and ending with “ Greetings“.
Good manners – a last refuge of a scoundrel?
Copernicus has posted the May ERA5 anomalies as expected, an 12th-in-a-row ‘scorchyisimo!!’ month and at +0.65ºC not much of a drop from April’s +0.70ºC.
In ERA5, May 2024 sits as the 12th highest global all-month SAT anomaly, all-but-one set in 2023/24 (Feb 2016 sits at 10th). It is the lowest anomaly since June 2023 (+0.53ºC) which began the run of ‘scorchyisimo!!’ months. (The Copernicus report does feature a year-on-year graph of anomalies Jun-May)
In terms of May anomalies, previous high May SAT anomalies run:-
2020 (+0.47ºC),
2016 (+0.41ºC),
2023 (+0.40ºC),
2017 (+0.37ºC),
2019 (+0.36ºC),
2021 (+0.36ºC),
2022 (+0.26ºC),
2018 (+0.25ºC).
The start of the year, containing 5 ‘scorchyisimo!!’ months evidently is the hottest on record with an average anomaly of +0.71ºC, ahead of 2016 (+0.56ºC), 2020 (+0.53ºC), 2017(+0.42ºC), 2019 (+0.36ºC), 2023 (+0.35ºC).
Thus for the full calendar year 2024 to drop below 2023 as warmest year, the remainder of 2024 (Jun-Dec) would have to average below +0.52ºC.
Excepting 2023, the highest Jun-Dec averages in ERA5 SAT run 2019 (+0.41ºC), 2020 (+0.36ºC), 2016 (+0.35ºC), 2021 (+0.34ºC), 2015 (+0.32ºC), 2022 (+0.31ºC).
AS long as your have your numbers right. That’s the most important thing.
While browsing the Internet, I’ve found the following:
https://press.uni-mainz.de/the-summer-of-2023-in-large-parts-of-the-northern-hemisphere-was-the-hottest-for-more-than-2000-years/
The researchers mentioned in the article used the tree ring data to arrive at the conclusion that “(…) the mean temperature in the period 1850 to 1900 was actually 0.24°C lower than had been presumed on the basis of the data collected at the time by meteorological stations”. I’m not an expert on the topic, but are the baselines wrong? I’m a bit sceptical about this, since I think I’m missing the bigger picture here – it can’t be that simple, can it?
The paper Esper et al (2024) ‘2023 summer warmth unparalleled over the past 2,000 years’ is getting quite a lot of coverage on-line. The paper does have a preview PDF.
Julian, quoting Esper “ Our calculations show that the mean temperature in the period 1850 to 1900 was actually 0.24°C lower than had been presumed on the basis of the data collected at the time by meteorological stations,”
This implies that their calculations are true (“actually”) and meteorological data failed to live up to that truth (they “presumed” wrong).
I can’t comment on details their methods (MAR’s pdf preview does not open) – it seems they based the paper on the temperature proxies from trees (O-18 in tree rings?) Comparing proxies with direct measurements is always tricky and there is no guarantee the proxy data are more reliable than direct measurements – O-18 is affected also by other factors than temperature – you try to minimize it by calibrating O-18 temp with measured temp. but it implies assumption that the calibration at the current conditions (“June, July, and August of 2023”) is equally adequate for trees under different environmental conditions in 1850-1900, or even in the last 2000 years.
Finally – their measurements covered “ whole of Europe as well as large parts of North America and Asia ” – let’s say 50 mln km2 – that’s only 10% global area – so the “0.24C lower” there translates directly only to 0.024C lower GLOBALLY.
Therefore to make his findings relevant, Esper HAS to EXTRAPOLATE his “0.24C overestimation” to the remaining 90% of Earth. But I would argue such an extrapolation is … an act of faith:
– the presumable reason for the difference between the measured and proxy data between 1850 and 1900 is that inadequate meteo coverage at that time, i.e. the meteo network in Eurasia and N. America was a skewed-toward warmer places. But CAN YOU assume the same degree of skewing for Africa – i.e. that in 1850-1900 the warmest places in Africa (Sahara?) had … better meteo coverage than more liveable parts of the continent?
Further, most of the 90% of Earth not covered by Esper’s study – was the ocean – i.e. measurements on passing ships. i.e. very different pattern of meteo coverage than in Eurasia and N. America land. Given that can you still extrapolate the 0.24C skewing due to LAND meteo coverage onto the effect of a very different pattern of meteo measurements in the oceans?
Well well well …… and the cock crowed three times ……….
Prof. Stefan Rahmstorf
@rahmstorf
6h
We are heading towards 3°C #globalwarming. What will it be like?
And how can we prevent it, with the help of nature-based solutions?
New book – open access! springerprofessional.de/3-de…
All chapters can be downloaded for free (including mine).
https://nitter.poast.org/rahmstorf/status/1799023703482859753#m
Out of the mouths of babes – the truth is bad enough, he said. We can achieve 1.5C because we have Agency!!!
And how can we also fix the other 9 threats to our future AND stop a nuclear war starting because of Ukraine?
The last 12 months have seen global temperatures at 1.63°C above pre-industrial levels,
It’s 2024 …..
And still people (including climate scientists) think it will still only hit 3C in 2100 …. 75 years of more warming from now.
ROTFLOL
I came for the real climate science but stayed for the humour and the never-ending verbal abuse.
Optimists can only point out to the masses that we have not crossed the threshold yet which we haven’t.
I get a kick out of this: We have been over it for a year, but haven’t passed it. I know, “It has to be for three years!!” Yeah, except when you’re in an entirely new regime you have to adjust the rules.
How many times over the last 15 years have I pointed out a new record or shift in climate/weather behavior indicated a potential regime shift and then seen it be the case? All while being constantly ridiculed with nobody ever admitting they were wrong in their analyses?
Meanwhile, Hansen suggests the shift might be permanent or, at best, there might be a very short pullback before breaching in the next two or three years? And he’s not the only one.
The constant, knee-jerk reticence on this site is a disservice. It’s one thing for scientists to do so, but quite another for the rest of you to still be engaging with the science this way.
K: The constant, knee-jerk reticence on this site is a disservice. It’s one thing for scientists to do so, but quite another for the rest of you to still be engaging with the science this way.
BPL: If only we were all like Killian!
Heaven forfend!
good lord whatna thot.
While I jumped the gun a few months back with quickie comment saying Sahara Desert evaporation fights descending air (it doesn’t) still it seems to me that battling the Hadley Cell by planting vast sampling quantities beneath hot descending air and sprinkling with water non stop is like spitting into the wind, Fighting The Titan or Labour of Hercules. I invite checking whether Amazon Rainforest is somewhat closer to Persistent Low Pressure ITCZ-equator rising air and Sahara Desert is a bit further away and a bit closer to nominal 30N 30S Persistent High Pressure where the drier air fom the wet ocean ITCZ-equator rising air, with its water gone, and latent heat gone to LWR and sensible heat, pressurizes at around 9.8 degrees / km.
As a general rule, precipitation intensity tends to be higher over dry lands, but very infrequent. Conversely, precipitation intensity is lower and frequency is higher over wet lands.
Moisture for precipitation is provided both locally by evaporation and non-locally by large-scale convergence (Trenberth, 1999)
https://journals.ametsoc.org/view/journals/clim/12/5/1520-0442_1999_012_1368_amrroa_2.0.co_2.xml
For a landscape dominated by wet land, the local ET acts as a priming/trigger that favors the onset of condensation and flushes out the vapor. There the rate of ET is limited by the surface available radiation and vapor pressure deficits. Wet land regions tend to exhibit a higher rate of moisture recycling and a surface climate dominated by hydrothermodynamics.
Conversely, the limiting factor for ET in dry lands is the soil moisture. Lacking persistent priming of the atmosphere, cloud condensation and precipitation frequency is reduced, water vapor duration is high, and moisture convergence is limited.
Missing a cloud, the driving vertical temperature profile Ts – Tr is small and surface climates become increasingly controlled by radiation and greenhouse effects. Additionally, any perturbation in the surface hydrologies that further heats the air, for example, increasing proportion of sensible heat in turbulent flux, reduces the probability of cloud condensation.
In the context of tropical regimes, which tend to exhibit a wet season and dry season by the shifting ITCZ, soil moisture acts as an important precondition for the onset of the wet season. Lacking a local ET trigger for condensation, the wet season could be delayed (days, weeks, months?) even as large scale dynamics provide a more favorable condition (Nobre 2016). https://www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.1073/pnas.1605516113.
While the presence or absence of local ET might appear like spitting into the wind, it could mean the difference of weeks of dry season duration as the continental atmospheres remain hotter and unprimed with reduced precipitation efficiency* (*fraction of moisture flowing overhead that is precipitated out). Just as an unprimed pump results in binding and explosive pressure variations with audible turbulent extremes, a small initializing volume makes all the difference to smooth things out as the main flow comes through.
Riding just below condensation and dehumidification thresholds for long periods can be ameliorated by a continuous sprinkling-like fraction of mm/day ET to close the gap. Once the cloud forms, the dynamics associated with Ts – Tr fire suddenly at much greater efficiency. Recognizing that it’s incontrovertible that massive direct landscape perturbations have accumulated and greatly accelerated in the recent decades, the sensitivity of climates to seemingly small hydrological forcing appears somehow unresolved in global scale models.
Previously Benestad provided comments on related characteristics using the concept of precipitation area. There it is demonstrated that while precipitation area is decreasing, precipitation intensity is increasing along with temperature extremes. This provides a clue that water vapor duration must be increasing along with the atmospheric vapor priming gap; forced, in-part, by surface properties IMO. https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2023/07/area-based-global-hydro-climatological-indicators/.
In Re to JCM, 9 JUN 2024 AT 3:34 PM,
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/06/unforced-variations-june-2024/#comment-822679
Dear JCM,
On the other hand, there are publications wherein the authors used state-of-art climate models for studying which influence can have an increase in sensible heat flux above hot deserts like Sahara that could be caused by massive solar energy exploitation in such regions, and arrived at a prediction that it should, paradoxically, result in an annual precipitation increase.
That was the reason why I tried to find out if we have historical reconstructions of global and regional precipitation similar to reconstructions of global and regional temperature, and if such reconstructions serve as test bed calibration for new climate models.
Greetings
Tomáš
At https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OcdZvdSh9LQ&t=1721s Leon made an entirely-incorrect (edit: a 43% to 86% incorrect) statement at 22:09 to 22:43 based on the SST pictorial being shown (a lapse of logic or eye sight by Leon). Stated is “But here in 2020 from 2020 onwards” but no such thing is shown on the SST pictorial over Leon’s broad latitude range of 30N to 48N (initially I didn’t spot it at any latitude because I was distracted by what Leon was saying and his moving of the mouse cursor around, he was moving it around irrelevance for some reason). Here’s what I clearly saw instantly without measurement & calculation when I first saw it. I saw an 0.8 degrees anomaly (DA) contour at December 2019 with Leon moving the cursor on it for no reason at all as I simultaneously saw a glaringly-obvious (it was also a pretty red colour) similar warming over a latitude range, admittedly only ~half the size of 30N to 48N but probably more-rapid warming, from mid 2017 to mid 2018, and Dan Miller and everybody else viewing must surely have seen that, not just me, I would have thought. That at 2017 shows warming from 0.6 DA to 0.8 DA in 7 months but the warming after December 2019 warms from 0.8 DA to 1.1 DA in 21 months which is a slower rate of warming in 2020/2021 than happened 2017/2018, and Dan Miller and everybody else viewing should have instantly seen that (read my brief exchange with Dan Miller). That was my point. There’s another that clearly warms from 0.4 DA to 0.8 DA in about 2 years at latitudes ~20N-~31N at 2014-start to 2016-start.
———
However, what I didn’t see until I zoomed the Hansen et al Figure to 8x for my measuring, because I was focussed on Leon pointing out January 2020, was the small brown dot (1.1 DA contour) covering June-October 2020 and latitudes 40.5N to 43N, only 14% of the 30N-48N areal range indicated by Leon as having singularly-rapid warming in the record shown occurring “from 2020 onwards” (that’s why I edit “entirely-incorrect” to “43% to 86% incorrect” above). I am baffled as to why Leon stressed with mouse cursor the end of 2019, start of 2020, with its randomly-chosen, irrelevant 0.8 DA contour separating the randomly-chosen dark orange visual presentation 0.6-0.8 SST DA range from the randomly-chosen bright red 0.8-1.1 SST DA range instead of pointing only at, highlighting and discussing that 1.1 DA contour of width 40.5N to 43N and mentioning it specifically since that 1.1 DA contour is the sole basis for Leon’s assertion (though it’s limited to proof for 40.5N to 43N only). I find that Leon is correct, not inaccurate, for only the 40.5N to 43N latitude range, with SST increasing circa January 2020 at 0.39 degrees / year which is 50% greater than the 0.26 degrees / year circa January 2018, the fastest warming before 2020 that I measured and estimated in the poor-resolution Unfit-For-Purpose pictorial. I’ve tabled comparison from when I started measurement in January 2010 of the 9 most-rapid SST increases at the 43N latitude, which I chose to measure because it goes through the fastest-warming centre after 2019, and I also did a quicker, rougher measure for the 30N-48N outside the 40.5N to 43N fast-2020-warming range (so 30N-40.5N & 43N-48N) based on linear interpolation across the 0.8-1.1 SST DA range to the large 1.1 SST DA contour that starts August 2021 and continues warming (with unknown variations) to the end of record at January 2024, passing 1.3 SST DA at its centre part, rather than having a reversal in warming (with unknown variations) as happens at the 40.5N to 43N latitude range where cooling to below 1.1 SST DA is seen to occur at October 2020. Obviously, it was this large 1.1 SST DA contour that starts August 2021 that I used by eye, without measurement, when I first saw the video to conclude that Leon was entirely-incorrect to state that the coarse, low-resolution, pictorial showed singularly-rapid warming “from 2020 onwards”. The best that could be ESTIMATED at 30N-40.5N & 43N-48N where no SST DA contour is crossed from January 2020 to anywhere between August 2021 and end of record at January 2024.
———
Note that the shape of the 1.1 and 1.3 SST DA contours clearly indicates rapid rise over only a narrow central latitude range with increasingly-less-rapid warming to the north and to the south. Ironically, Leon argues against his point that reduced aerosols warmed the ocean at a high rate starting in January 2020, or even starting later, by indicating with the mouse pointer that very large area of ocean in the broad latitude range of 30N to 48N because shown at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NXDWpBlPCY8 at 9:49 is that a much smaller area of ocean at approximately latitudes 40N-42.5N has ~2.7x as much sulphate p.p.t.v. as the large area of 30N to 48N that Leon indicated . It seems that Leon simply didn’t study the pictorial he presented nor the other one I referenced so he didn’t know the relevant areas and quantities.
————
Highest Quarterly rates of increase of SST January 2010 to January 2024 at latitudes 40.5N-43N, and also demonstrating in a 2nd column that these high rates do not pertain to latitudes 30N-40.5N & 43N-48N, which is 86% of the 30N-48N range that Leon moves the mouse cursor around from September 2019 to 2024 as he states that singular SST increase began in 2020. As seen, the SST increase is singular in only 14% of Leon’s latitude band (singular rapid rise for 40.5N-43N). For 87% of Leon’s latitude band the SST DA rate of rise is only a fraction of SST DA rise rate from August 2017 or a few weeks earlier to March 2018 or a few weeks later.
40.5N 30N-40.5N
-43N & 43N-48N
2020 Jan 0.129 0.043
2020 Apr 0.129 0.043
2019 Oct 0.110 0.081
2018 Jan 0.086 0.086
2017 Oct 0.086 0.086
2021 Jul 0.063 0.049
2021 Oct 0.060 0.060
2022 Jan 0.060 0.060
2022 Apr 0.060 0.060
2018 Apr 0.057 0.057
So the singular Delta-SST Jan-Apr 2020 or thereabouts (but covering only 14% of Leons 30N-48N range) is indeed 50% higher warming rate than Oct 2017 to Jan 2018 or thereabouts. Note: the 2017/2018 covers 35.9N-46.3N which is only 57% of the 30N-48N range but I’ll not be measuring any more latitudes because my point is well made. The rapid SST increase shown Oct 2017 to Jan 2018 or thereabouts pertains to 57% of Leon’s 30N-48N range but the rapid Delta-SST January 2020 that Leon stresses covers on 14% of his 30N-48N and that is the issue.
————
To beat into the ground the issue of the low quality of this pictorial with only a sparse 5 contours, outside the High Arctic, for 2007-2024 at latitude 32.5N all that is known for January 2020 to January 2024 SST DA is that is that it’s always between 0.8 and 1.1 so it might for completely-random examples be 0.80 to 0.82 for 4 years, or it might be 1.09 for 47 months after rising from 0.80 to 1.09 in January 2020 and staying there … or absolutely any combination of monthly changes imaginable up & down always staying in the 0.8-1.1 SST DA range. It’s worthless. The coarse, low-resolution, pictorial isn’t Fit For Purpose. A better-quality pictorial with contour spacings of 0.05 SST DA or even perhaps 0.10 SST DA would have clarified the correctness or not of Leon’s strong assertion. The coarse, low-resolution, pictorial leaves too much to be estimated.
————
Note: The month dates shown are actually the centre months of a 12-month running average (14-month where I averaged for quarters) but that’ll be essentially that month as a trend of course.
————
Sea surface temperatures (SSTs) relative to 1951-1980 at latitude 43N
At latitudes At latitudes
40.5N-43N 30N-40.5N & 43N-48N
(measured at 43N) (measured at 40N APPROX)
SST Change SST Change
per per
Quarter Quarter
2017.5 0.58 0.032
2017.58 0.59 0.050
2017.67 0.60 0.068
2017.75 0.63 0.086
2017.83 0.66 0.086
2017.92 0.69 0.086
2018 0.71 0.086
2018.08 0.74 0.086
2018.17 0.77 0.071
2018.25 0.80 0.057
2018.33 0.81 0.043
2018.42 0.83 0.043
2018.5 0.84 0.029
2018.58 0.86 0.000
2018.67 0.86 -0.029
2018.75 0.84 -0.043
2018.83 0.83 -0.043
2018.92 0.81 -0.043
2019 0.80 -0.043
2019.08 0.79 -0.043
2019.17 0.77 -0.043
2019.25 0.76 -0.043 0.76 -0.043
2019.33 0.74 -0.043 0.74 -0.043
2019.42 0.73 -0.043 0.73 -0.043
2019.5 0.71 0.005 0.71 0.005
2019.58 0.70 0.052 0.70 0.052
2019.67 0.73 0.100 0.73 0.100
2019.75 0.77 0.110 0.77 0.081
2019.83 0.80 0.119 0.80 0.062
2019.92 0.84 0.129 0.81 0.043
2020 0.89 0.129 0.83 0.043
2020.08 0.93 0.129 0.84 0.043
2020.17 0.97 0.129 0.86 0.043
2020.25 1.01 0.129 0.87 0.043
2020.33 1.06 0.129 0.89 0.043
2020.42 1.10 0.107 0.90 0.043
2020.5 1.14 0.043 0.91 0.043
2020.58 1.16 -0.043 0.93 0.043
2020.67 1.14 -0.086 0.94 0.043
2020.75 1.10 -0.064 0.96 0.043
2020.83 1.08 0.000 0.97 0.043
2020.92 1.08 0.043 0.99 0.043
2021 1.10 0.021 1.00 0.043
2021.08 1.12 -0.021 1.01 0.043
2021.17 1.10 -0.064 1.03 0.043
2021.25 1.08 -0.043 1.04 0.043
2021.33 1.06 0.000 1.06 0.043
2021.42 1.06 0.043 1.07 0.043
2021.5 1.08 0.063 1.09 0.049
2021.58 1.10 0.061 1.10 0.054
2021.67 1.12 0.060 1.12 0.060
2021.75 1.14 0.060 1.14 0.060
2021.83 1.16 0.060 1.16 0.060
2021.92 1.18 0.060 1.18 0.060
2022 1.20 0.060 1.20 0.060
2022.08 1.22 0.060 1.22 0.060
2022.17 1.24 0.060 1.24 0.060
2022.25 1.26 0.060 1.26 0.060
2022.33 1.28 0.048 1.28 0.048
2022.42 1.30 0.036 1.30 0.036
2022.5 1.31 0.024 1.31 0.000
2022.58 1.32 0.024 1.32 0.000
The Antarctic Sea Ice through 2023 was exceptionally melty with the daily JAXA data showing that it hoovered-up 271 of the daily record low SIEs through the year (with the remainders surviving from previous years being 48 days in 2017, 41 days in 2016 and the last 6-days of December with the record low SIE set in 2022).
Prior to 2023, 2022 had set a new run of record low SIE from late June through to early August, this of course entirely eclipsed by the record-breaking run April-Nov 2023.
It appears that 2024 may also now be setting off on a melty period of its own, abet so far a lot less melty that 2023, having been setting a quite convincing run of second-places for the last 4 days.
You cannot roll up your sleeves while you’re wringing your hands
[unattributed quote]
You cannot roll up your sleeves when you are busy wringing your hands
[unattributed quote]
You can’t do neither when your arms are tied behind your back, and you are still trying to convince yourself that you are free – on the internet’s “social” media, even while being both drowned *and* hanged. And that’s the situation of mankind today. Man in general is a stupid animal, unfortunately equipped with the ability to tolerate anything except the reality.
GISTEMP has posted the May numbers for LOTI, the May anomaly given as +1.14ºC, down on April’s +1.33ºC and the lowest monthly anomaly since June last year’s +1.08ºC.
May 2023 is the hottest May on record. Previous hottest May anomalies run 2020 (+1.01ºC), 2015 (+0.95ºC), 2023 (+0.94ºC), 2017 (+0.91ºC), 2014 (+0.86ºC).
The May 2024 anomaly becomes the =21st highest all-month anomaly.
May 2024 is becomes the twelfth ‘scorchyisimo!!!’ month in a row in GISTEMP, this continuing the record length of run, and it will require a bit more drop thro’ June for that record run not to continue.
With the first five months of 2024 all being ‘scorchyisimo!!!’, the start of 2024 obviously remains hottest on record, Jan-May anomalies averaging +1.31ºC, ahead of 2016 (+1.19ºC), 2017 (+1.04ºC), 2023 (+1.00ºC).
A year-on-year graph of GISTEMP monthly anomalies can be found HERE graph 2c
For the full 2024 calendar year not to become hottest-on-record, the remaining months Jun-Dec would have to average below +1.08ºC. The warmest Jun-Dec anomaly (below the ‘bananas’ +1.30ºC of 2023) was the +0.98ºC of 2019.
Following story further expands on the plans outlined in Project 2025 to dismantle and privatize parts of NOAA:
.
https://www.mediamatters.org/project-2025/project-2025-plans-dismantle-federal-agency-tracks-hurricanes
.
What a horrific possibility imo. Trump’s disdainful ignorance of climate science (or science in general), combined with the machinations of others who plan to use Trump’s willingness to step on those seen as enemies to reap piles of money, will not be a good thing. They just need Trump to break NOAA, and then they’ll pick up the some of the pieces and profit mightily. Consequences for the country and the world be damned.
Indeed. Their plan is in the context of today’s historical context precisely and literally evil.
Yeah, lots riding on the upcoming debate on June 27th. I wonder how much climate change will come up, let alone a more targeted question involving the proposed fate of NOAA if Trump wins. I’m not optimistic that either Tapper or Bash can ask sufficiently meaningful questions about climate change, let alone a NOAA specific one. I hope I’m wrong!
Regarding “overemphasis on the outputs of trace gas” JCM 5 JUN 2024 AT 8:24 AM I invite the audience to ponder for 5 seconds the meaning of “trace gas” wrt the so-called “greenhouse effect” in Earth’s troposphere (so not its obvious general meaning as per “trace minerals” etc). I find it literally precisely meaningless wrt that topic (as is 0.04%, obviously). I mean LITERALLY without any meaning. I calculate very approximately in 10 minutes that the infrared active molecules H2O gas & CO2 in the troposphere are about 1,000 times as many CO2 molecules in the troposphere as all of the molecules in the surface below that manufacture all the radiation that heads up from the surface within the CO2 absorption-manufacturing band, and that radiation is ~1.65 times as much power as all the Sun’s energy that Earth absorbs. I calculate very approximately there’s about 1,200 times as many H2O gas molecules in troposphere as all of the molecules in the surface below that manufacture all the radiation that heads up from the surface. I’ve not come across anything that clearly compares per-molecule LWR manufacture of H2O gas with H2O liquid but nonetheless order of ~1,200 times as much quantity seems like a starting point to ponder considering that if it manufactured equally per molecule then in the troposphere is manufactured something of the general scale of about 2,000 times as much quantity as all the Sun’s energy that Earth absorbs. Ponder that and decide what “trace gas” wrt This Specific Topic and ponder why on Earth anybody with an interest in the science would even use it.
“The Response of the Ocean Thermal Skin Layer to Variations in Incident Infrared Radiation” by Elizabeth W. Wong and Peter J. Minnett Nature Published online 6 APR 2018
Barry E Finch 13 JUN: I find [the phrase] “trace gas” literally precisely meaningless wrt greenhouse effect
With regard to AGW – yes; with regard to identifying the intentions of the people using it – not. To distract from the urgency of the GHG mitigations – the deniers use their choice of words to minimize the importance of GHGs – if these are merely “trace gases” then their influence on the climate must be “trace” too, right?
And if so, then it does not matter whether the concentration of Co2 is 0.04% or 0.08%, twice the trace is still a trace. And if so – then we can use as much fossil fuels, as the fossil fuel lobbyists, and the rulers of Russia and Saudi Arabia, would like us to use.
And to make the message more palatable – deniers would often greenwash it – see our JCM opening his post with: “ Join me in celebrating world environment day today June 5th 2024! and then quickly getting from his deep and sincere environmental concerns to blaming desertification on … the climate scientists and their
“artificial fixation and overemphasis on the outputs of trace gas [in the AGW] models]” (c) JCM, June 5.
So in posts of the deniers, their use of:”trace gas” is quite useful – it’s their self-identifier. By their choice of words you shall know them …
Yes, that “trace gas” thing is a cheap rhetorical trick, whether by intention or… well, or something. Many’s the time I’ve had it pulled out and brandished at me. Then I get to explain patiently yet once again that it’s not the proportion of GHG, it’s the mass of GHG. Which, of course, the interlocutor will not accept, even the the logic involved is elementary. Thus do they validate Ladbury’s law, which states that much stupidity is willfull.
Something I saw somewhere or other:
“Definition of Stupid;
Knowing the truth,
seeing the truth,
but still believing the lies.”
Which sent me down a rabbit hole…
“We are all born ignorant, but one must work hard to remain stupid.”
~ Benjamin Franklin
“I am patient with stupidity but not with those who are proud of it.”
~ Edith Sitwell
“Egotism is the anesthetic that dulls the pain of stupidity.”
~ Frank Leahy
“Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.”
~ MLK
“If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.” ~Tzu
Always argue from a position of strength, not one of weakness.
Delicious rhetoric!
Julian 6 JUN 2024 AT 4:52 AM I don’t know whether the Osman et al 524 proxies reanalysis calculates temperature or calculates anomaly that is then aligned with the instrumental overlap on the assumption that instrumental is the superior but either way I suppose the Osman would have gone to mid 20th century. Osman shown at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CqtZdnpfgIc at 7:00 (explained at 5:55 on) looks to have 1810 to ~1900 or some such as ~0.10 degrees lower than the prior 800 years (I can’t see whether that’s.Instrumental, proxy or both) so the question arises as to why tree rings 1850-1900 would be used as the start of human-induced global warming if indeed the prior 800 years was warmer than 1850-1900. I don’t do Political, I’m not a Team Player (plus I’m strapped for cash so I can’t decide which deserts to irrigate, I could do my flower box), so that’s that for me.
——————
Cut’n’paste of my notes circa 2017 not necessarily much use.
I’ve been annoyed with Simon Fraser University (SFU) because they took this talk video Private a couple years back after being Public many years and I reviewed it now & then once a year or so.
“The Instrumental Temperature Record and What it Tells us About Climate Change” Francis Zwiers
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FQnt73zJ-S4 Simon Fraser University Mar 2, 2011
If I’d known they’d do that I’d have made a lot more detailed notes of what’s in it instead of these little place markers
——–
6:55 correlating accuracy with distance between stations. Turns out one every 2,800 km on land (Siberia) and one every 1,000 km in ocean (north Pacific) gives all the accuracy needed (provided they are read properly/accurately 3+ times per day and well sited of course) and shown on the plots for 1-year averages (if you want monthly averages then closer spacing is required). Surprised me how few are required but Phil Jones has said 100 temperature stations for all Earth would give the Global Mean Surface Temperature (GMST) to the +/- 0.01 degrees accuracy you see provided that they are read properly/accurately and all are well sited). Of course, there are actually 7,411 temperature stations on land and continuous from ships and the roaming non-stop 3,820 Argo floats.
12:05 how the error because of sparse land instrumental 19th century is figured out from 1850 AD. Using only the few stations that existed 1850-1860 from 1850 to 2010 calculate GMST and compare that with 1850 to 2010 using all ever-increasing stations that existed through the period. Difference is the uncertainty. Do same for 1860-1870, 1870-1880, 1880-1890, 1890-1900, 1900-1910, 1910-1920. You see how the errors decrease hugely from 1850 AD to 1920 AD. It’s like +/- 0.25 degrees circa 1850 AD and drops to <+/- 0.10 degrees error by 1920 AD (getting down to something like <+/- 0.01 degrees error by 1970 of course (technology). Although there's a very very slight possibility that the +1.06 degrees global warming since 1850-1900 AD might be as much as 0.25 degrees too low or 0.25 degrees too high, the odds are very highly in favour of it being within more like +0.96 to +1.16 degrees. That's how statistial uncertainties work, it's a bell curve.
18:00 Amos, Quebec 1910-1995 AD 1927 AD & (mostly) 1963 AD re-siting "artifacts" (false non-existent temperature change) shown, explained and correction shown to greatly *reduce* (not increase) the warming indicated from the incorrect +2.4 degrees 1910-1995 AD to a corrected +0.2 degrees 1910-1995 AD. The clever correction method is called "homogenization" (matching with other nearby stations to see whether it has anything odd and if so find out why).
20:52 "been done very carefully in Canada by the group at Environment Canada that's responsible for doing this work..".
21:26 Scatter chart of all thousands of adjustments (corrections) made to U.S. of America only records 1895-2007 AD showing very clearly that half were corrected upwards by 0.5 to 1.5 degrees and half were corrected downwards by 0.5 to 1.5 degrees, so the net change of thousands of adjustments 1895-2007 AD is definitely <0.01 degrees either way over 112 years. Summary at 23:33
25:06 Sea surface temperature (SST) global coverage pictorials 1830 AD to 2007 AD (177 years)
32:00 The bucket corrections (the only corrections ever made that amount to a global hill of beans, because they are in oceans).
Very revealing study on the rapid growth of clean tech: “The Cleantech Revolution. It’s exponential, disruptive, and now, Bond et al., RMI. ”
Comments on the study from skepticalscience .com “The authors chart how the energy system is being disrupted by the exponential forces of renewables, electrification, and efficiency. The past decade has seen remarkable progress and growth in cleantech. Cleantech costs have fallen by up to 80 percent, while investment is up nearly 10 times and solar generation has risen 12 times. Meanwhile, electricity has grown to become the largest source of useful energy, and the deep force of efficiency has reduced energy demand by a fifth. As the drivers of change continue to overpower the barriers, cleantech will continue to grow up S-curves, pushing fossil fuel demand into terminal decline and pulling the Paris Agreement within our reach.” Refer:
https://skepticalscience.com/new_research_2024_24.html
Original study:
https://rmi.org/wp-content/uploads/dlm_uploads/2024/06/RMI-Cleantech-Revolution-pdf.pdf
Note particularly the graph which documents how the pessimists have been proven wrong time and time again.
Excellent presentation, Nigel. Thanks a bunch on that one! I’m trying to organize a lobbying campaign aimed at our SC state legislators, who think that building 9 GW of natgas capacity is a good idea. I think some of that info may help!
Interesting. Thank you Nigelj for sharing. I wonder if the presentation is intended for the general public? Not that RMI would probably care, but if it was my presentation, I’d scrap the image they use on the very first page. Awful what it conveys to my eyes. Also, the general public is not going to know what many of the acronyms used stand for or what they mean. As an example, I doubt more than 5% of the general public knows what an exajoule is a measurement of and how much energy that represents.
“The problem with both visions of the future – and the spectrum of views between them – is a fundamental misunderstanding of the collapse which has begun to break over us. This is that each assumes the continuation of that part of industrial civilisation which is required to make their version of the future possible, even as the coming collapse wipes away ALL aspects of industrial civilisation. Most obviously, nobody had developed even an embryonic version of the renewable energy supply chain which is the essential first step to turning non-renewable renewable energy-harvesting technologies (NRREHTs) into the envisioned “renewables” upon which the promised techno-psychotic future is to be built. That is, until it is possible to mine the minerals, build the components, manufacture and transport the technologies without the use of fossil fuels at any stage in the process, then there is no such thing as “renewable energy” in the sense which the term is currently promoted. “
https://consciousnessofsheep.co.uk/2023/07/19/our-predicament-re-stated/?fbclid=IwAR3VlY4z4EV1kM6nTSv2FjmBAmvCEGjqqhiwuc1zQtSn3sIcGDGdqiNaN0Q
James Charles: – “That is, until it is possible to mine the minerals, build the components, manufacture and transport the technologies without the use of fossil fuels at any stage in the process, then there is no such thing as “renewable energy” in the sense which the term is currently promoted.”
In other words:
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/04/unforced-variations-may-2024/#comment-822058
And if I recall correctly, I’ve stated something similar in earlier threads at this blog.
I’ve stated similar points at least as far back as 20 Oct 2020 elsewhere.
https://johnquiggin.com/2020/10/19/too-cheap-to-meter-2/#comment-229219
You raise a salient point. Once civilization collapses, it most likely cannot build up to the same level again. All the easily available fossil fuels are gone and so are most of the easily available metals–plus you need metals to make the mining equipment to get the metals. The most we could achieve would most likely be antiquity or medieval technology, based on stone and wood–at least until 100 million years had gone by so more resources had been brought to the surface.
It is a good point. Though I wonder if there might not be alternate paths of development, should the scientific method (in some form) survive, and should some present knowledge be preserved in reasonably accessible form. For example, while direct genetic modification such as gene splicing is dependent upon the industrial machine, I wonder if we might not turn toward biologically-based technologies in some form? There’d be a lot of indigenous knowledge ripe for revival as praxis, and who knows how it might fertilize with contemporary biological and ecological knowledge in the blender of a civilizational crisis?
“once civilization collapses”
Which can mean anything you want it to mean.
Are you saying “civilization will collapse” but the population will remain the same or continue to grow? There will not be starvation, disease, warfare… ?
I would suggest that if the population were to decline rapidly, there would be more than enough resources available to build and maintain a civilized, technological society.
What would be missing? Come on, folks, give some examples.
“Jan says:
June 6, 2023 at 5:47 pm
The common denominator of most ideas, Great Reset, Simplifying the Economy, is to squeeze-out people that have no choice. The idea is that when oil production declines there will still be enough for 50% or 25% or 1% of the populace or for NATO or for the BRICSS.
As the economy is interconnected, squeezing-out leads to economic decline, to an end of availability, to an end of finance and to an end of effects of scale, but what is more it leads to an end of very specialized products and services. No one constructs a smartphone for 50 oilworkers only, writes complex software, maintains an airline, so that specialists can continue work.
Resources ‘hide’ deeper into the ground as they are exploited, the first pieces of coal can be picked by hand, for the second meters chisels are needed, for the next ropes, then tiny railways and lamps, when digging deeper air has to be controlled, communication is needed. Workers can’t walk to their working place down in the mines because it takes too much time. Eventually exploitation stops because production becomes too complex.
A lot of modern tools for energy production rely on products for the mainstream, satellites or transatlantic cables.
As far as I understand, when lower complexity hits the mainstream the specialists and oil producers soon will follow. It would be possible to use ancient technology but the resources that can successfully be produced with ancient technology is already gone.
That’s why I bet on the cliff model.
Now, how steep is this cliff? It depends on the storage they have, and that’s probably different in every area.
If they cannot keep up water supply in the large cities: 3 days. If they have storage of gasoline and grain, they may be able to go longer.
Food production requires to respect the rhythms of nature. Not possible to sow in August and come over the winter. If there is storage enough to wait for the next spring, all gets better.
It does NOT mean extinction of mankind. There are people that go with their cattle or goats to the mountains and survive – if the mainstream lets them… Or they hunt in the Canadian or Russian forests.
Of course there are ways out of the predicament, some we have discussed here. Perhaps not for all 8 bio but for 30%. No need for manslaughter if we reduce reproduction voluntarily in time.
But these ideas have to be tried out before the tipping point and maybe a few tries are needed. Deployment also needs time.
That’s why I see mainstream ideas that are prone to failure counterproductive. It is a mental thing. And one of sloth.”?
https://ourfiniteworld.com/2023/06/02/models-hide-the-shortcomings-of-wind-and-solar/#comments
“Gail Tverberg says:
June 4, 2023 at 6:09 pm
The bottom 90% represent the workers of the world, unfortunately. Getting along without them would be difficult. Who would mine the minerals of the world? Who would pick up the trash? Who would pick the crops that need to be picked?” ?
https://ourfiniteworld.com/2023/06/02/models-hide-the-shortcomings-of-wind-and-solar/comment-page-2/#comments
z: Are you saying “civilization will collapse” but the population will remain the same or continue to grow? There will not be starvation, disease, warfare… ?
BPL: No. How does that possibly follow from anything I said?
BPL (and James Charles),
BP, the JC quotes I found incoherent, but what you said seems to coincide somewhat because you suggest that things would be “lacking”. That’s why I asked for examples.
My point is that the relationship between resource consumption and technology, and population, is not at all linear.
The global population in 1900 was 1.6B, today it is 8B. It makes no sense to me to suggest that if we returned to that population level, there would be a shortage of materials to maintain a modern society. And (if I understand the JC quotes correctly) the suggestion in those that this would be an insufficient population to maintain such a society is likewise incorrect.
Of course, the transition to such a number might be very much as Radge Havers describes: Some parts of the world would revert to a more primitive condition, but absent nuclear or biological war, the breakdown would not result in the loss of technology everywhere.
Again, what would be lacking in my thought experiment? The US would have a population of 66 million. I would suggest energy consumption per capita would be a small fraction of what it is now, and there would be an enormous amount of material available to be recycled. And even if you couldn’t make solar panels, you could do just fine with hydro and biofuels.
What would be lacking?
z: The global population in 1900 was 1.6B, today it is 8B. It makes no sense to me to suggest that if we returned to that population level, there would be a shortage of materials to maintain a modern society.
BPL: But the resources wouldn’t be smaller and therefore adequate for a smaller population, they would be entirely gone. It’s not that a recovering civilization of 1.6 billion, or even 1.6 million, would have some easily available fossil fuels and workable metals. They would have none. Zero. Zip.
You can only get so much rebar from pulling down buildings, and without coal you can’t work it again. Maybe something could be done with solar concentrators, but again, you’d need metals (shiny ones) to build the solar concentrators. Thus I am not sanguine that an industrial civilization could be rebuilt if this one fails. They would have to create an entirely different type of technology, based on minerals and whatever plants and animals survived the mass extinction.
BPL makes the point that by the time we get to a population of 1.6 billion or less all the resources will be gone. This is a good point. I remember pointing out to Zebra several years ago that while I agree a smaller population world is desirable and has obvious benefits, a small population world may still be short of some things.
I found that studies show an optimal global population is 2 billion people. An online calculator showed it would be year 2300 before we get to 2 billion people assuming a fertility rate this century of 1.5. And even as population shrinks per capita consumption would probably increase. Thats a huge amount of consumption still in the pipeline.
Im not a resource limits pessimist, but its kind of obvious that even a small population world would be short of some materials. How do we mitigate that? The simplification idea is that we should reduce our consumption right now to leave materials for future generations, but the prevailing system relies on high levels of consumption and complex technology and even small reductions in consumption in recessions are painful and cause unemployment. So people are unlikely to want to change that system. We seem locked into a system with quite high consumption levels.
In Re to Barton Paul Levenson, 23 JUN 2024 AT 1:32 PM,
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/06/unforced-variations-june-2024/#comment-822893
Dear Barton Paul,
at least as regards coal, I do not think that resources are depleted substantially.
Greetings
Tomáš
BPL,
My original comment started with pointing out that your “once civilization collapses” is undefined. If you meant… “once a magic hyperspace iris opens and instantly whisks away all fossil fuels and existing metals (in any form) to another planet”… you should have said that.
But let’s take a more realistic approach, and consider “collapse” as an initially painful transition to a new paradigm, with rapidly declining population, but not loss of knowledge and technology everywhere. (Maybe because of climate and migration, disease, war, whatever.
My point, which you seem to ignore, is that non-linear relationship between population and need for resources. You like numbers, and I gave you an example, but you don’t seem to have worked out some obvious consequences.
If the US population is 66M, you could, for example, have 33M on each coast. Apply your sci-fi imagination to that. How could you possibly run out of metal? What would happen to all the steel and copper lying around in flyover country? Even after you reprocess it using hydro and other electricity sources, it doesn’t just vanish.
And, again, you need much much much less per capita!. I would argue, conservatively, that dividing the existing population by 5 you should divide the per capita value by 5 as well. Probably much more.
So you have a very very long period in which you can make a transition to a new (civilized and technical) paradigm. And as Kevin suggests, there is ample room for development of biology-based solutions for various needs and wants.
I will stop there… you can let me know what you still think would be lacking.
A lengthy sub-thread already, so I’m going to start by tagging BPL’s relevant post. The comment was “you can only get so much rebar from pulling down buildings, and without coal you can’t work it.” Not really; you need carbon, but it doesn’t have to be coal (or coke):
But apparently there are economic barriers to charcoal use in steelmaking in other parts of the world. So CSIRO is on that, having built a demo plant a couple of years ago, and last year signing MOUs with a corporate partner to commercialize their technology.
https://www.csiro.au/en/news/All/News/2023/May/Pyrochar-and-CSIRO-collaborate-to-decarbonise-steelmaking
Zebra says: “If the US population is 66M, you could, for example, have 33M on each coast. Apply your sci-fi imagination to that. How could you possibly run out of metal? What would happen to all the steel and copper lying around in flyover country? Even after you reprocess it using hydro and other electricity sources, it doesn’t just vanish.”
This is a bit naieve. Some metals like steel and copper will just by lying around in unused bridges etc,etc, and easy enough to recycle. But by the time we get to the USA having a populatioon of 100 million people specialist and less common metals ( eg: antimony, bismuth, gold, molybdenum, rhenium and zinc) will be buried in landfill and will be very difficult and expensive to find and resuse. There could be serious problems.
Playing devils advocate a bit because clearly a smaller population will have less resource problems than a large population.
In Re to Kevin McKinney, 24 JUN 2024 AT 2:11 PM,
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/06/unforced-variations-june-2024/#comment-822910
Dear Kevin,
I do not think that steelmaking using charcoal is a sustainable solution even for one tenth of today world population. Biomass production from a square area is, in fact, quite low.
It is 300 years ago when replacement of wood in steelmaking, glass production and heating with coal saved central Europe, including my country, from a complete deforestation.
I think that “biomass” should not be taken just as a “harmless” form of energy or “carbon”, because there is in fact an incomparably higher value hidden in it, which becomes mostly destroyed if we carbonize or burn it. Therefore, I quite doubt if the research directed to replacement of coal with wood / charcoal in industries is really based on a sound idea and supported with a sound knowledge of the relationships in Earth ecosystem.
Greetings
Tomáš
z: How could you possibly run out of metal? What would happen to all the steel and copper lying around in flyover country?
BPL: It would be nearly impossible to rework it into anything useful without a functioning metal reclamation technology. If we want to prevent the collapse, we might start using more recycled metals as soon as possible. If we wait till after the collapse, it will be unlikely that we can start one.
BPL,
There you go again with “after the collapse”, which you haven’t described at all.
We already have the technology to recycle all metals (except maybe stuff like depleted uranium, which is, you know, depleted). The fact that we don’t recycle everything is a result of economics, not technology. This is easy enough to look up.
Now, unlike you, I have described my “post-apocalyptic” world… one in which the associated reduction in population results in a non-linear reduction in the need for those metals. But perhaps the math is too difficult for you and other folks on RC to handle?
I say that if you have a population in the US of 66 million, the level of consumption of energy and materials would be 4% of what it is now. And it is the current level of consumption that dictates our choices of how we get what we need.
Again, I suggest you apply your sci-fi imagination and some math, and you will see that it would be possible to go a very long time, while developing new (probably biological) approaches to maintaining a technological standard of living.
Zebra “I say that if you have a population in the US of 66 million, the level of consumption of energy and materials would be 4% of what it is now.
Its possible that in a smaller population America everyone would live in the south where its cheaper to heat houses in winter, and perhaps working from home will be more commonplace and will reduce energy use, and presumably appliances will be more energy efficient. But its all speculation, and Jevons paradox says that when we make energy use more efficient total energy use stays the same or increases. For example people just increase their travel or the size of their homes.
Presumably we will be able to make the same sorts of products with less materials. But this is all speculative and does not follow just from a shrinking population and its impossible to quantify. Anyones guess could be right. And something like Jevons paradox looks like it might apply. People may just buy more products. So Zebras claims dont sound convincing, and hes hasn’t provided any reasoned explanation, details or maths or evidence.
z: I suggest you apply your sci-fi imagination and some math, and you will see that it would be possible to go a very long time, while developing new (probably biological) approaches to maintaining a technological standard of living.
BPL: I suggest you stop living in a fantasy world, but that’s not going to happen, either.
BTW, I am tired of the references to my being a science fiction writer, as if that disqualified me from discussing science. I get this from global warming deniers all the time, who look up the Wikipedia article about me and only read the first paragraph. Allow me to remind you that a fairly large number of scientifically educated people also wrote science fiction, including Fred Hoyle (astrophysics), Isaac Asimov (chemistry), Carl Sagan (planetary astronomy), and Geoff Landis (planetary astronomy). People who write science fiction, or even those who read it, are likely, on average, to know more science than people who don’t. I assume the latter includes you, given your attitude toward the whole thing.
Tomas, you are forgetting the original context in your recent comment, which otherwise is a point well-taken. We weren’t talking about a sustainable solution for “even a tenth of today’s population,” but about possible metallurgical technologies in a post-collapse world.
BPL,
Actually, as should be obvious, I thought you might be better qualified to address the question than many because you have imagination, as well as (I thought, from your previous efforts) the willingness to apply your science/math background.
But you seem reluctant to go beyond just repeating “after the collapse” without describing what you think that would actually be like, or how my proposition is incorrect.
Kevin M,
“Tomas, you are forgetting the original context in your recent comment, which otherwise is a point well-taken. We weren’t talking about a sustainable solution for “even a tenth of today’s population,” but about possible metallurgical technologies in a post-collapse world.”
Kevin, if you had a tenth of today’s population, there would be more than enough trees and other bio-material to contribute even as a renewable energy source, as well as component source for various chemical processes.
Yes, sustainably. Do the math.
In Re to Kevin McKinney, 29 JUN 2024 AT 1:04 PM,
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/06/unforced-variations-june-2024/#comment-822959
and zebra, 30 JUN 2024 AT 5:03 AM,
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/06/unforced-variations-june-2024/#comment-822963
Dear Kevin, dear zebra,
Thank you for your comments.
I am not sure if it does make much sense to discuss how to re-start the society “from the scratch” after a quick total collapse, wherein basically all links of the original society would have been destroyed and sharing and exploiting previous knowledge would have became basically impossible.
I would rather ask how we can manage a satisfying / functioning economy if a world population stops growing and start decreasing.
Keeping the previously collected knowledge, the ability to exploit it, as well as the ability to improve and further develop it may be crucial for economy adaptation to this unprecedented change.
Greetings
Tomáš
No crystal balls here, but I suspect we’d see increased conflict and more failing states with some brighter spots here and there. Look around you, then imagine a similar world that’s more ungovernable and a whole lot crappier.
There are a few problems with this thesis. One is the assumption that anyone actually knows what “the coming collapse” will look like. Or–let’s be honest–whether “collapse” is even going to be the appropriate term. The second is the incorrect assertion that there is no “embryonic” form of a circular economy in prospect. In fact, it’s being constructed around us. Methods for recycling all sorts of clean tech are being devised and deployed, as are the markets that will [re]-distribute the recycled materials. Electrification, which increases efficiency and diminishes FF use, is proceeding, notably in transportation but also in industry. And the third problem is the false premise that it’s an all-or-nothing proposition.
In Re to Kevin McKinney, 21 JUN 2024 AT 10:43 AM,
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/06/unforced-variations-june-2024/#comment-822857
Dear Kevin,
Thank you for your remarks.
The last Friday, I went to the “Lange Nacht der Wissenschaften” in Dresden, Germany, and have seen recycled reinforcing fibres from old rotor blades of decommissioned wind turbines.
The fibres were isolated by depolymerization of the polymer composite matrix in supercritical water. It appears that this method not only enables reuse of the precious high-strength fibres but may also open a way towards recycling the respective monomers.
I do not see a reason why the desired new facilities for renewable energy exploitation could not be built basically using energy from already available renewable sources. Furthermore, lot of already common materials needed therefor, such as steel, Al, glass, silicates etc can be recycled from decommissioned old equipment that served for fossil fuel exploitation and from other obsolete technologies / facilities that became useless.
In this sense, I do not think that arguments about generic infeasibility of world economy transition to renewable energy and circular resource exploitation are well-supported and convincing.
Greetings
Tomáš
From James Charles link: “The idea being that, as our complex civilisation breaks down, we will be forced to return to a far simpler economy, where most people revert to roles within agriculture and food production. ”
IMO such a scenario is possible for numerous reasons, from resource scarcity to nuclear war to an asteroid impact and climate change (unmitigated). But theres no convincing evidence resource scarcity will force us all to resort to basic farming in the short term. This is something that is more likely to develop slowly. Especially if population does shrink as Zebra mentions.
And dont underestimate the ability of complex society to survive and technology to find a way through either. Technology is more adaptable than people realise.
In the meantime we have to make a decision on what to do about the climate problem. This is doubly important because it would make simple non industrial farming even more difficult. Renewables is one decent option even if it strains the worlds resources, and some progess is being made. There is no point suggesting other pie in the sky fantasies that almost nobody will accept.
A nice instance of that embryonic circular economy, indeed.
https://climatecasino.net/2024/06/betting-on-the-end-of-the-world/ has a “graph of the running 365-day GMST, from 1941 to the present day showing an average of 1.63°C over the last 365 days (I am using Copernicus ERA5 data, and all the analysis I present is based on this data)” and 1.63C June 1, 2024. NOAA has average of monthly averages June 2023 through May 2024 as +1.31 relative to 20th Century and I measured a few years ago that 0.20 is added to convert “relative to 20th Century” to 1850-1900, so that’s +1.51 from the 1850-1900 base line for NOAA. Does anybody have information on that, such as what I’m misunderstanding or calculating wrong, or whether it’s known that NOAA is a largish 0.12 below Copernicus ERA5 data ?
Barry E Finch: – “Does anybody have information on that, such as what I’m misunderstanding or calculating wrong, or whether it’s known that NOAA is a largish 0.12 below Copernicus ERA5 data ?”
Per the website Paris Agreement Temperature Index, re the major global mean surface temperature (GMST) datasets:
* Berkeley Earth is the warmest with the current longer-term GMST anomaly at +1.39 °C (relative to 1850-1900 baseline);
* Copernicus-ERA5 & HadCRUT are in the middle: +1.33 °C (Copernicus-ERA5), & +1.31 °C (HadCRUT)
* NOAA / GISSTemp both run coldest: +1.23 °C
* The difference means about 0.17 °C difference in “The Climate” that these datasets report.
https://parisagreementtemperatureindex.com/climate-reporting-why-so-many-different-values/
Carbon Brief published on 13 Jun 2024 an analysis by Zeke Hausfather headlined Analysis: What record global heat means for breaching the 1.5C warming limit. The takeaways include:
• The current longer-term composite global mean surface temperature (GMST) anomaly (relative to the 1850-1900 baseline) is +1.30 °C (Berkeley Earth dataset is warmest at +1.41 °C, NOAA GlobalTemp is coolest at +1.22 °C).
• Projected year of longer-term GMST +1.5 °C breach:
Dataset _ _ _ _ _ 50th percentile _ _ 5th percentile _ _ 95th percentile
Composite _ _ _ _ _ 2030 _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ 2028 _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ 2036
Berkeley Earth _ _ _ 2027 _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ 2025 _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ 2031
HadCRUT5 _ _ _ _ _ 2030 _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ 2028 _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ 2036
NASA GISTEMP _ _ _2032 _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ 2029 _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ 2040
NOAA GlobalTemp _2033 _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ 2030 _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ 2041
• Projected year of longer-term GMST +2.0 °C breach:
Dataset _ _ _ _ _ 50th percentile _ _ 5th percentile _ _ 95th percentile
Composite _ _ _ _ _ 2048 _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ 2040 _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ 2062
Berkeley Earth _ _ _ 2045 _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ 2037 _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ 2056
HadCRUT5 _ _ _ _ _ 2048 _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ 2040 _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ 2062
NASA GISTEMP _ _ _2050 _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ 2041 _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ 2067
NOAA GlobalTemp _2051 _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ 2042 _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ 2068
• For this analysis, Carbon Brief selected a 30-year window for removing natural variability, though a 20-year window would have given nearly identical results.
https://www.carbonbrief.org/analysis-what-record-global-heat-means-for-breaching-the-1-5c-warming-limit/
Key points to consider:
* What’s the baseline/zero reference period? 1850-1900 (De-facto IPCC standard) or other?
* What dataset? NOAA, GISSTemp, Berkeley Earth, Copernicus, HadCRUT?
* What ‘current’ time average? Daily, Monthly, running 365-day, calendar year, running 15-year, running 20-year, running 30-year?
Barry E Finch,
The author of the graph showing the +1.63ºC ERA5 anomaly for the 365-day period to-1/6/24 using a 1850-1900 anomaly base is the blunderful Eliot Jacobson, someone I tend to ignore due to his bold track record of errors. In calculating the 1850-1900 anomaly base, it does make a big difference which data set you use. What Jacobson used is not clear – obviously not ERA5 which only provides post-1941 data.
As NOAA is now published to May 2024, the equivalent 12-month anomaly can be calculated using NOAA alone. The NOAA data gives the 1850-1900 anomaly at -0.174ºC relative to the 1901-2000 anomaly base used by the NOAA data and their 6/2023-5/2024 anomaly averages at +1.311ºC.
Thus NOAA data yields +1.49ºC.
BEST & HadCRUT5 have yet to report for May 2024 but their 1850-1900 averages relative to 1901-2000 are significantly lower than -0.174ºC (and lower than even your -0.20ºC assessment). They sit at -0.32ºC and -0.36ºC respectively and using the HadCRUT data to set to derive a 1991-2020 anomaly base (as per used by ERA5) and the ERA5 data for 365-day period to-1/6/24 would yield a value +1.65ºC. The BEST data yields +1.72ºC. And using the same for NOAA yields +1.55ºC.
This suggests Jacobson was using HadCRUT5 data.
>blunderful Eliot Jacobson, someone I tend to ignore due to his bold track record of errors.
May I ask you to elaborate on that, please? I thought what he was doing is rather simple and not prone to errors, i.e. putting data on graphs.
Julian,
In this particular instance, Eliot Jacobson is taking EAR5 re-analysis data 1941-to-date and plotting it on a graph but the anomaly base he uses is 1850-1900 which requires different data to establish and the choice of which data set to use for the anomaly base does make a significant difference. Jacobson is silent on that choice.
Such a lapse is a minor one for Jacobson who happily will shoot off heaps of stuff with little consideration as to it being correct or relevant. Or so I have found repeatedly in the past.
Having myself generally been ignoring Jacobson for some time, it’s probably easier to show a recent example rather than search for past blunders.
This Jacobson twitterisation of 19/6/24 is apparently saying we’re all doomed because the El Niño is over and tropical SAT are not dropping, a graphic of 13th June temperatures for the years 1940-to-date from ERA5 19 presented illustrating the point. This is not a good use of data.
As to the conclusion he attempts to establish, I don’t see the evidence. NINO3/4 is cooling pretty-much as you would expect for this point in the ENSO cycle. The Tropics SAT data he uses shows no great change from the cooling to be seen in 2016 & 1998. And that 13th June data he does use shows a pretty convincing linear rise in SAT 1975-to-date (+0.17ºC/decade+/-0.04 – 2sd) with the 13/6/24 value sitting above that linear rise by +0.33ºC, about the same amount as 13/6/98 (+0.36ºC) although far more than 13/6/16 (+0.08ºC).
But why would anyone attempt to use single day data in this manner? They would have to be a tiny bit deranged.
>But why would anyone attempt to use single day data in this manner? They would have to be a tiny bit deranged.
Hard not to agree to be honest. Frankly, I’ve never seen someone do something like that (i.e. using datum from a single day for a proof).
Thank you for your explanation.
FWIW, Julian, I have–but those doing so were to be numbered among the “usual suspects” of denialdom. Just one of their little parlor tricks.
1) The Green Party suffered massive losses in the recent EU elections –as did their liberal allies in France. Reps in EU Parliament dropped from 71 to 53?. Share of vote in Germany fell to 12% down from past 20.5 percent and their share of vote in France fell to 5% , down from 13% circa 2019.
.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/green-parties-suffer-eu-poll-123634387.html
2) Fortune mag argues that puts EU’s Green Plan at risk –not so much by it being formally repealed as by the difficulty in getting actual measures funded. and in getting additional measures to reduce GHG by 2040 passed,
https://fortune.com/europe/2024/06/11/europe-landmark-green-deal-at-risk-eu-elections-slash-green-mep-headcount-by-25/
3) Michael Mann’s criticism of Jem Bendell’s gloomy forecast failed to address how the global warming problem is one of foreign relations, economics and political science — not just of climate science.
I don’t track the Green Party or pretty much any EU politics, but you’re quite right about global warming being in the foreign relations, economics, political science, and other overlapping classes of phenomena that are largely outside the domain of physical climate science. Prof. Mann is constrained to speak from within his own expertise. Nonetheless, the existence of the overlapping domains confronts all of us, even if we’re expert in nothing but our own appetites. The “tragedy of the commons” is a term of economic art, for the “free” (a necessary simplification) market’s propensity to socialize every transaction cost it can get away with. If the upward trend of global heat content is to be capped, it will be by collective intervention in energy markets at all scales, to take the profit out of transferring fossil carbon to the atmosphere. All collective action, of course, is in the political domain, within which the power of concentrated capital is notorious. International cooperation to date is predictably slow and halting, but many countries are taking unilateral action. The USA, for its part, managed to enact the IRA of 2022, 34 years after Jim Hansen’s announcement to the world.
The basic science, of course, has been settled for decades. The delay in decarbonizing the US economy is down to the power of fossil carbon producers and investors to thwart collective intervention in their profit streams. The global trend nonetheless appears positive, although not guaranteed to reach full carbon-neutrality before significant economic damage occurs. We could sure use some expert advice! While we’re waiting for that, the most impactful private, voluntary action US voters can take is to vote for Democrats in every election, at least until a Republican candidate defies party discipline and publicly supports collective disinvestment in fossil carbon. With profits from the sale of oil and gas alone currently in the $trillions annually, it doesn’t take an expert to predict an uphill struggle on all scales.
Well-said. The situation could be worse, but it could also be one hell of a lot better. And yes, in the US, anyone seriously concerned about climate should consistently vote Democratic. I don’t relish the recommendation–I’m a Democrat, but yearn for the possibility of voting R when IMO my party needs what I regard as a corrective signal–but that can’t happen for me while the GOP has essentially made climate denial a shibboleth, part of the tribal identity that can hardly be questioned at all.
Kevin. Something new and related: “The choice could not be more stark’: How Trump and Biden compare on climate change”
https://skepticalscience.com/stark-biden-trump-climate.html
Thanks, nigel! Shared!
Gotta disagree with the suggestion offered by Kevin McKinney and Mal Adapted to vote only for Democrats. There are Republicans who believe AGW is a real deal. I was curious as to the actual numbers for the current Congress (118th) and found that 149 members (all Republicans) are deniers. 110 in the House and 39 in the Senate according to Red Green Blue org. This tracks fairly closely with the findings by Center for American Progress for the previous 117th of 139 members. That’s roughly a 50-50 percent split in the House Republicans and 20-80 in the Senate.
Of course, this doesn’t explain the cowardice of congressional Republicans who have often not voted their beliefs on the issue for what I assume is fear of Trump and his mouthpieces on radio, tv, and social media. That certainly is one big issue.
That said, what I don’t understand is why advocates for action and people who can explain the ever growing amount of scientific knowledge are so seldom heard on conservative media? Is it solely or even predominantly because they somehow aren’t allowed the opportunity to debate and discuss the matter by conservative media’s gatekeepers? I wonder sometimes if it’s not actually more than just that.
David,
This may be drifting off topic so I’ll be as brief as possible: In view of the Republican War on Science, the politics of gridlock, and how the Republican Party has essentially devolved into the Party of Trump, you might want to consider not enabling cynical cult members willing to march in authoritarian lockstep. Regardless of what they may think privately about this or that, climate is not a priority.
Actions speak louder than words, and the words are shouting.
David, So who would you suggest is good candidate on AGW issues among the Republicans? Particularly, any Republican member of government that supports climate initiatives. Since these are generally submitted by Democrats, this would be a highly contrarian Republican in today’s political world. Or perhaps Republicans that have themselves submitted alternative proposals? It would be interesting to know if there are such individuals. Personally, I don’t know if there are any such but I don’t follow politics closely enough to know.
Unfortunately, one must look not just at the party’s candidate, but also at their leadership. All one does at this point by voting for Republicans is empower the fascist wing of the party, which is in ascendency. Voting for Republicans is voting for inaction on climate, for increases in wealth inequality and for an authoritarian, Christian nationalist policies. It doesn’t matter what the candidate believes. The leadership will thwart any decent policies.
David, here’s the problem. Even if your GOP member isn’t a denier themselves, they will vote party line most of the time, and effectively obstruct needed action. And actually, look at the proposals and policies being advocated. If you just look at the top line, developments like this look pretty good:
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/lawmakers-launch-republicans-only-climate-change-caucus-rcna1257
But then you find out what they are actually working for. I’ve heard them advocate for “balance” in the energy mix, which is just a code for more irresponsible and dangerous delay in phasing out fossil fuels.
Check out how the leader of the GOP climate caucus dismisses responsibility at the national level–you know, the one he’s supposedly responsible for as a Federal legislator–in order to deflect it down toward individuals, and laterally toward other nations:
https://www.npr.org/2021/06/26/1010606292/rep-john-curtis-on-hopes-for-the-new-conservative-climate-caucus
Or something like this, in which adaptation is praised and mitigation of the cause of the problem completely ignored:
Of course, after that DeSantis removed all remaining mentions of climate change in state agencies and changed state energy policy to eliminate any stated ambition to move away from fossil fuel use. Some “climate change hero!”
No, the only time it makes sense to vote for a GOP candidate, if you care about climate, is in the GOP primaries, if you are in a thoroughly red jurisdiction. Then it makes total sense to vote for someone like Curtis over someone like, say, Louis Gomert or MTG. That’s fairly easy here in SC, where we don’t have partisan registration, so there’s little penalty for crossover voting. Heck, I can imagine voting for Lindsay Graham–who has explicitly stated that climate change is real and problematic–in a GOP primary on such a basis, if the situation were right–or rather, wrong. But in most states you need to commit to GOP registration if that’s what you are going to do.
David, I don’t doubt there are Republicans who privately acknowledge the need for collective action to take the profit out of selling fossil carbon. It’s their public stance that counts. If they’re in the US Senate or House of Representatives, they submit to party discipline when voting their seats, or they don’t get re-elected. The most significant climate-change legislation in 35 years, the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022, passed both houses on bare Democratic majorities. The House vote was 220 Democratic Yeas against 1 Democratic and 212 Republican Nays. In the Senate it was 50 Democratic Yeas against 50 Republican Nays, with the tie broken by the Vice President. Belaboring the point: Not a single Republican voted Yea in either house!
The IRA is hardly an ideal, or final, decarbonization measure. That’s beside the point. The point is that in the current state of US politics, it’s not a choice between this or that decarbonization policy, but between some policy under Democratic control; and no policy, with a return to official climate-science denial, under the GOP. I know how I’ll vote.
Just a flyby. A negative maybe not fully appreciated by the climate people. I’ve wanted to mention this before but since at the moment I’m sitting in my car next to a van that’s keeping his engine running for some strange reason while he texts on his phone it reminded me that I’ve noticed a lot of people like to sit in their cars and text while keeping their engines running. Why? I don’t get it. How much is all this thoughtlessness adding to the Co2? And that’s just in my one area…
Bok, let’s begin with a better question: Why are *you* sitting in your car reading RC and commenting on your phone (with the engine off, I assume)?
Are you at a stop light? In a parking lot? On a ferry?
To be honest, I can see some logic for the people you observe if they have heat or AC running, and of course everyone thinks they are going to be on their phone for “just a minute”… until they get sucked in.
What I find really strange is leaving the engine on when they go into a store, and it isn’t particularly warm or cold out. It must be a very conscious decision.
Bok: 15 Jun – I’m sitting in my car next to a van that’s keeping his engine running for some strange reason while he texts on his phone and probably complains bitterly about the prices of gas and in place that have them – about carbon taxes.
You would think that it would be a no-brainer, a low hanging fruit – cutting down on idling reduce both your GHG and toxic pollutions. The relevance of the former is obvious, the latter also saves the society health care costs (exposure to fumes not only causes respiratory diseases and cancer, but even have been linked to the earlier onset of dementia). And in the process you saving the costs of gas, money on care maintenance, since you reduce wear on your vehicle. And with reduced demand for gas – the prices oil may drop, so you reduce your financial support for the regimes in Russia or in the Gulf States.
All it takes is to turn the key off, yet what I see everyday – living next to a school -parents idling their cars for half an hour while waiting to pick their kids at lunch and at then again at closing time. And that despite the big signs “No-idling zone” posted on the school, and the fact that their exhaust enters the schools, thus affecting the quality of air their kids breath. And there is no enforcement of the no-idling zones – I don’t think in my jurisdiction the police can even give you a ticket for extensive idling. Then you have the proliferation of drive-throughs, where nobody switches their engine while waiting in line, as well as people waiting for their partner to do shopping …
And then the drivers of school-buses and people who drive their company’s cars – who don’t have even the financial incentives to switch off their engines, since somebody else pays for the gas… I have seen school busses idling for an hour, and opening the doors, I guess because it was getting too hot inside…
Hi Piotr. Yes, I used to think that diesel trucks that never turn off their engines were the worst. I think that’s changed.
I drive a small fuel economy car (a hybrid) in the course of my delivery job. It saves the expense of lots of customers driving their big gas guzzling suvs to pick their stuff up. But I’ve just noticed that a lot of people seem to keep their engines inexplicably running. If it’s the air conditioner why not just row down the window? Sitting and idling for long periods is also not good for cars. They tend to overheat fairly quickly..
I of course do not do that too as a previous commenter implied. This happens in parking lots. Just wondering. Seems like a waste of gas for one thing. En masse not good for the climate.
Here in the south, most of the time from April to November, if you are parked in the sun, it’s going to become uncomfortably hot in minutes, and potentially lethally hot within the hour. That’s no hyperbole; every year there are several tragic instances where a sleep-deprived parent forgets they brought the baby to the grocery store this time, leaves them in the car, and harms or loses a child. (And most often their liberty, too, as they get charged with child endangerment and/or negligent homicide/involuntary manslaughter. There’s intense stigma attached, so marriages end over these incidents, as well.) It can happen elsewhere, of course, but here it’s pretty consistent for the majority of the year, and possible in any month.
As to those diesels running endlessly, I think fuel prices as well as less tolerance for pollution have indeed made a difference. But it’s still ‘a thing’, especially in the case of “reefer” trucks carrying perishable foods; they need to power the compressors for refrigeration.
Hi Kevin. I know that that is a problem. Of course. But that’s an entirely different issue. A parent should never ever leave a child that can’t get out of a car in it. I completely agree with you.
What I’m talking about is where the car’s owner is just sitting in their car and texting. Idling his or her engine for no reason. I’m seeing lots of it. Long periods of time. Maybe they have the phone plugged into the cigarette lighter for power because they don’t want to wear down the phone? If it’s for air conditioning why not just park in the shade and row one or for flow two windows down?
As for diesels, I’m not referring to food trucks. They have to do that afaik. But if you look you’ll notice that not turning off the engine (except at night) is pretty common for all regular diesel trucks and semi non-food delivery trucks too, and combined there’s many more of those than there are of food delivery trucks on the road. I asked someone who drives one once why he did it and he said something about giving him more power or something like that.
Bok, this is a pretty good thread on your question:
https://forums.tdiclub.com/index.php?threads/why-does-everyone-leave-their-diesel-running.94989/
Scroll down to “Powder Hound”, who gives some good technical detail.
Also, you said you had a hybrid, so I assume your gas engine turns off automatically most of the time. That’s one of the features people often forget as an advantage even with non-plug-in cars.
Oh, I’m largely in agreement with you, Bok. But very often there is surprisingly little shade to be found–I know, because I consistently search for it. (So do a whole lot of other drivers, too, which means there is often intense competition for those few, coveted spots.) So, if you are staying in the car for whatever reason, very often the AC really is needed.
I have noticed what you mention–that is, the aversion to turning off diesels in general. Not sure what drives it. In this respect, I recall the days when I worked as a radio technician for CN Rail; on the night shift someone (often me) would have to drive downtown to the GO Transit rail facility. You’d find most of the locomotives idling, and they’d stay that way for hours. It was a bit of an olefactory experience, and a tactile one, too, as all those particulates do settle out onto every horizontal surface. Clearly, this was an intentional choice, and I have to believe that there was some rationale, as the amounts of fuel being consumed had to be very considerable. It was burning money, and the policymakers had to know it; there must have been at least a perceived benefit.
Thanks, zebra. Highlight post for me:
People idling their cars might be engaging in conspicuous consumption. They think they are so cool and rich they don’t have to worry about the costs or they want to appear that way.
Same in my part of the UK, people get in their car, switch the engine on then spend 5-10 minutes faffing around, or they pull up outside my house and sit there idling for several minutes. Why not just switch it off or leave the engine off until you are ready to move? It is ridiculous in a country where the cost of energy (and living in general) is notably high that people can be this thoughtless, clearly they are wealthy enough that were unaffected by huge energy price inflation last year.
The amnesia and repeated misunderstanding surrounding the term trace gas is nonsense, I think. I frequently invoke radiative-convective principles, notably in celebration of Manabe67 with McKinney in March, and similarly with Havers and others kind enough to engage constructively. Influential contemporary literature from Ramanathan to Schmidt consistently use this terminology, in addition to major institutions. I see no reason to cease usage in the context of my specific interests. Distinguishing the effects of trace gas and other factors of change on realclimates does not represent a prejudicial attack against the culture of action on trace gas issues. However, as true stewards, amateur observers, and phony environmentalists continue to falter in realizing the “Decade on Ecosystem Restoration”, for which we are now practically half way through, https://www.unep.org/explore-topics/ecosystems-and-biodiversity/what-we-do/decade-ecosystem-restoration, or the 5 June 2024 World Environment Day “Our Land, Our Future”, it is completely reasonable to propose that an artificial fixation on trace gas and aerosol forced models does represent an overemphasis on such products. I stand by that, and no amount of clumsy character attacks will change my position.
JCM: it is completely reasonable to propose that an artificial fixation on trace gas and aerosol forced models does represent an overemphasis on such products.
BPL: Except that there is no fixation on trace gas; climate scientists study many things besides carbon dioxide; and the emphasis is deserved since “trace gases” are driving almost all of the present warming, with land use a distant second. What is not justified is constantly insinuating that the whole field is wrong because they don’t concentrate more on your preferred, wrong explanation of what is going on.
What’s “artificial” about it?
JCM.
You appear to be a genuine environmentalist / conservationist doing good work in the community. Keep that up. But your use of the term trace gas doesnt help your cause and just antagonises people and makes them suspicious.
You said: “Influential contemporary literature from Ramanathan to Schmidt consistently use this terminology ( the trace gas CO2) , in addition to major institutions. ”
Scientists might use the term trace gas in the context of discussing the influence of CO2 on warming compared to other gases, but they dont use it all the time. You use the term trace gas in ALL your discussions on this website regardless of context! Its superfluous terminology so its inefficient use of words. Nobody else does it in the comments section, apart from denialists seeking to minimise the impact of CO2.
Therefore you are either being foolish, or you are a denialist or have some other ulterior motives or you are trolling. This makes me a bit suspicious of everything you say.
You said: “it is completely reasonable to propose that an artificial fixation on trace gas and aerosol forced models does represent an overemphasis on such products.”
You can propose all you like that there is an artificial fixation on CO2, but you have not produced one single piece of hard evidence of this and that CO2 is not the main cause of anthropogenic warming. And given Co2 is the main problem, and warming is a huge problem it obviously has to take priority. As such it may mean fewer government funds go into other causes of warming such as land use degradation, and into general non climate related ecosystem restoration.
However in my local area government continues to subsidise plenty of ecosystem restoration work, and other environmental work including work that is not climate related. And you havent provided hard evidence that general environmental projects are being neglected. And we wouldn’t want ALL resources going into reducing emissions because some other issues are very serious as well. So I would suggest you are probably worrying about nothing.
Nigelj, It is not impossible for the beliefs of individuals to include both environmentalism and AGW denial. For example, in the US, there is a tradition of environmentalism among the white Christian evangelical community, an important societal group.
https://theconversation.com/how-evangelicals-moved-from-supporting-environmental-stewardship-to-climate-skepticism-196727
This tradition was quite significant from the early 1970s up until the early 1990s. These philosophies have been described as “theologically based, eco-friendly philosophies that can be described as Christian environmental stewardship.” [Neall Pogue The Nature of the Religious Right]
Unfortunately: “On the twentieth anniversary of Earth Day in 1990, members of this conservative evangelical community tried to turn their eco-friendly philosophies into action. Yet this attempt was overwhelmed by a growing number in the leadership who made anti-environmentalism the accepted position through public ridicule, conspiracy theories, and cherry-picked science.” [Pogue]
So AGW denial emerged as a dominant trend among this group which persists to this day.
https://www.pewresearch.org/science/2015/10/22/religion-and-views-on-climate-and-energy-issues/
Nevertheless, the importance of land maintenance and the local environment remains an important concern among the rural and farming communities in the US. So it’s not at all surprising that there are individuals today that hold such beliefs.
To nigelj,
Thank you for the very good feedback. I must caution, however, that mentioning functional ecologies and their unparalleled perturbation outside the context of trace gas often raises automatic suspicion; this I know for certain. Nonetheless, I’m open to recommendations for alternative terms besides trace gas forcing/feedback if this is somehow perceived as a provocation among observers.
Climates are embedded within ecologies, so I don’t fully understand what you mean by a “non-climate related ecosystem restoration.” Are you referring to projects outside the scope of ClimateSmart™ initiatives, which focus on major and minor trace gases?
Most importantly, i’m interested to hear more about the abundant local area government initiatives for conservation you mentioned. In my professional work across 3 continents, I can guarantee that is really quite exceptional. Recently, the World Food Programme’s regional director for Berlin appeared on CBS News, reminding that direct land degradation continues unabated at a rate equal in area to four football fields per second, with projections indicating 95% land degradation by 2050. It’s notable that your local council is a rare exception and their unpopular progressive efforts must be showcased. How are they doing it?
Candidly, I believe the alleged antagonism over the term “trace gas” is unfounded and serves as an excuse to avoid engaging in constructive dialogue on the most complex issues surrounding climates. As an alternative perspective, I suggest going outside, squatting down, and pressing your hand into the soil. While lawn or stones may obstruct you, try to get down in there and feel the soil with your fingertips. Think about what you sense and feel. This can help rediscover a tangible connection with the Earth, which is often missing in people. Additionally, I recognize that many participants on these pages represent the most rigid armchair trace gasivists, and I’m careful to remind myself that the sick distortions and hostile engagements should not be taken as representative of the entire cause.
Recently, Jasper & Denissen and co. discussed interesting correlations between Ecosystem Limitation Index (ELI) trends, soil moisture, evaporative fraction, and temperature excess trends within the context of CMIP6 projections. They reaffirm the well-known principle that moisture limitation impacts surface flux partitioning, temperature, and climates. However, J&D are cautious, ensuring everyone is comfortable by noting that “as correlations cannot distinguish the direction of causality, we stress that hotter temperature extremes can in turn further dry out terrestrial vegetation, thereby increasing water limitation.” Now we can all relax! yes? https://esd.copernicus.org/articles/15/717/2024/
Besides confirming that unnatural temperature excess is correlated with ecological decay, the most interesting bit in J&D is that “while the correlation between ELI and heat wave temperatures is robust across models, we find substantial differences between individual models in terms of the strength of this link.”
The intermodel spread in temperature excess trends per decade related to the ecological limitation index is striking. This discrepancy could be partly attributed to the acknowledged absence of data, the unpredictable nature of scenario development, and the known lack of coherent hydrological parameters across models. Regardless, significant trends per decade in the order of 0.05K/dc along with increasing ELI reveals a robust relation, along with the apparent compensating errors that somehow keep the GMST climatology on track across models. In fact, the supplemental shows remarkable effects 0-1K global temperature excess since 1980 depending on ecosystem decay rates, and regional excess up to 3K. It is obvious how the ELI, soil moisture, EF (and other factors) have significant variability across models, even though there can only be one reality. https://esd.copernicus.org/articles/15/717/2024/esd-15-717-2024-supplement.pdf
correction: Denissen & Teuling and co. oops!
In Re to JCM, 20 JUN 2024 AT 2:19 PM,
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/06/unforced-variations-june-2024/#comment-822848
Dear JCM,
Although the term “trace gasivists” sounds funny, I would rather desist from dividing the audience like this.
It does not mean that I do not have concerns that scientists may tend to overestimate effects they understand well, and underestimate effects and/or mechanisms that remain explored poorly. I only think that focusing on one element or aspect only may not help much.
To be more specific, I have a feeling that there is not only too strong focus on greenhouse gases, or, if we take into account the fierce discussions about (possibly) underestimated role of aerosols, too strong focus on radiative energy transport. We could look around even broader. Then, it may appear that there is an obsession with temperature (rise), whereas there seems to be little concern about precipitation – which in my opinion is an equally important feature of Earth climate as temperature.
To be even more specific, there is lot of dispute how catastrophic is the the supposed warming acceleration due to reduced aerosol pollution from desulfurized shipping fuel. Neverheless, in the central Europe where I do live, the last “scorchyssimo” year was relatively pleasant in comparison with long dry (and in summers, extraordinarily hot) seasons experienced in the years before, due to more abundant and more regular rain.
I am aware that local perspective may be misleading, that is why I repeat my question if the climate science knows how the trends in global precipitation look like. I could, however, imagine that if the decreased aerosol pollution is indeed the suspected cause of the observed “scorchyssimo” temperatures, it may be, in parallel, also the cause of the restart of the rainfall supply to my region. I would be great if the hosts of this website could say that this is a regional effect only, or, oppositely, that there is indeed a positive change in a global desiccation trend. Unfortunately, it appears that we know (almost) everything about temperature, but not so much about precipitation yet.
Greetings
Tomáš
Trace gasivism is a comment on politics and communication, not aimed at science. ESMs appear fully capable to recognize that unnaturally dead continents exhibit dramatic climate differences compared to natural ones, including extreme anomalies in hydrology and temperature.
It’s not particularly controversial, and it’s entirely relevant to understand at any scale of analysis. Those who refuse, minimize, or downplay these issues seem just as peculiar to me as outright deniers of greenhouse effects. The ad homs against me are political statements that prompt a political style response, such as funny label words.
Back to the relevant topic:
As an analogy, temperature variations in the Niño region, which represents perhaps 5% of Earth total area, has local and remote impacts at global scale including temperature and rainfall patterns. That is not in the least controversial. Dismissing the influence of relatively small proportional areas on planetary change, patterns, and energy balance is nonsense.
Now having highly degraded vast swaths of the continents (the majority of lands), in the range of 10% of Earth total area over the past 50 years, it’s perfectly reasonable to infer substantial local and perhaps even globally relevant climate impact.
This transformation is double the size of the Niño region oscillation zone and has undergone drastic relentlessly accumulating energetic changes over the past 50 years. As previously discussed, ESMs are fully equipped to demonstrate this given appropriate inputs, and it’s also demonstrated with analytical approaches.
The proxies are everywhere: pollinator insects 50% decline since 1970, birds 30%-50% decline, 50% wetlands lost since 1970, topsoil, natural forest. It’s going downhill at a relentless pace during our lifetimes. Everything. Compounding degradation directly by our machines, biocides, development patterns, and ignorance.
Coupled to that in a direct in a tangible way is flood and drought severity, fire weather, temperature extremes, precipitation intensity, crop failure, invasive species; it goes on and on. The landscape is inexorable from anything we experience in our environments, including climate observables. 50% of lands, 10% of total Earth area radically transformed. In previous centuries humans were literally barely scratching the surface; it is only since 20th century that we have been capable to exert such brute force at scale.
Ongoing at a rate of 100 million ha per year, the realized ecological destruction continues unabated. This is not controversial. No amount of posturing and spin comes even close to acknowledging the scale of the issue.
From paleo studies of climates over the arc of the holocene to comparing pre-industrial to modern day, the state of the land is essential to interpreting Earth system process and our place in it.
WRT JCM’s comment, here, let me repeat myself: I fully recognize that anthropogenic climate change via the augmentation of GHG mixing ratios is not the be-all and end-all of environmental degradation, and solving it, should we achieve such a result, will not be sufficient. The restoration of natural habitats globally is also needed, as is reining in our toxic pollution.
However, food fights over which is the greater need are not particularly productive, especially given the fact that changing the current paradigm to mitigate GHG emissions will, in many though not all cases, have co-benefits in other aspects of the problem. One salient example would be the elimination of new coal ash heaps and ponds–a serious threat to wildlife now, and in cases of gross containment failure also to downstream humans and agriculture.
I fully support ending efforts to drag me into unproductive arguments.
The trigger word was “trace-gas,” which led to a month-long circus fixating on one aspect of Barry’s comment from 13 June (Thanks a lot Barry!).
The subsequent repeated endorsements of bizarre contributions — introducing themes of Koch denialist rhetoric, COVID/vaccine denial, QAnon, MAGA-hat wearing, or the interests of Russia and Saudi Arabia in response to me — derail dialogue and are frankly nuts. It’s a snowball effect, with many jumping on the bandwagon; an unwitting reflex? Avoid normalizing this behavior. That is all total nonsense. In all likelihood my values and those of others here are practically the same if that’s important to you.
Repeating the original premise and making a distinction of trace-gas: impeding terrestrial moisture and nutrient cycling increases temperature and water vapor greenhouse effects. It is well known on these pages by now that this is counterintuitive, but by and large, it seems to be accepted. This is typically placed in the realm of lambda or the net radiative feedback parameter. Needless to say, this value is by far the greatest unknown, not least because it is not a physical constant to be discovered and refined. It is tightly bound to the changing state of the system.
The language of trace-gas and fast-feedbacks is used in teaching climate change by the page hosts here https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2022/07/the-cos2-problem-in-six-easy-steps-2022-update/
Recognizing that atmospheric temperatures, clouds, water vapor, etc., are linked to functional ecologies and their unnatural limitations should not be controversial. However, don’t expect to find these in radiative forcing accounting schematics. Ultimately, human continental pillaging should be accounted for primarily as the evolving cloud-feedback (increasing shortwave absorption).
In this view, the fashionable framing, particularly among skeptics, that the discussion must only involve a debate of “natural causes” versus human emission of major and minor trace gases is totally misplaced. I don’t think the feedback-free radiative forcing from anthropogenic emissions is in debate, and Manabe (1967) gave an equilibrium sensitivity of 2.4K or something with assumptions such fixed relative humidity and average cloud cover.
Therefore, in addition to anthro gas concentrations and natural things, an additional topic that goes missing is the human disruption of the ecology. Most profoundly, the invisible stuff below grade undetectable by spaceborne spectroradiometer. Previously I have endorsed efforts to improve mapping and monitoring of change for input to ESMs. That is a PITA because it involves directly probing and sensing and actually going outside.
Lacking meaningful responses, it falls back to toxic and lazy character attacks here. I have reiterated and clarified this several times, and I would prefer more meaningful engagements in the future.
Needless to say, conserving terrestrial moisture and nutrient cycling processes brings significant and direct co-benefits to our communities.
JCM-
repeated endorsements of bizarre contributions — introducing themes of Koch denialist rhetoric, COVID/vaccine denial, QAnon, MAGA-hat wearing, or the interests of Russia and Saudi Arabia in response to me — derail dialogue and are frankly nuts.
That is all total nonsense.
a month-long circus fixating on one aspect
The language of trace-gas and fast-feedbacks is used in teaching climate change by the page hosts here https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2022/07/the-cos2-problem-in-six-easy-steps-2022-update/
Lacking meaningful responses, it falls back to toxic and lazy character attacks here.
==============
Yes. I agree with JCM.
JCM
“I’m open to recommendations for alternative terms besides trace gas forcing/feedback if this is somehow perceived as a provocation among observers.”
Just “CO2” or “the greenhouse gas CO2” would be quite sufficient. Everyone knows what is meant by such terms by now.
“Climates are embedded within ecologies, so I don’t fully understand what you mean by a “non-climate related ecosystem restoration.”
I didn’t say that. I said “However in my local area government continues to subsidise plenty of ecosystem restoration work, and OTHER environmental work including work that is not climate related.” Meaning they fund non climate related work like walking tracks. Of course everything in the natural world and what we do to it, ultimately has some link to climate but this work has minimal effect on climate. Sorry I could have been clearer on what I meant.
“Most importantly, i’m interested to hear more about the abundant local area government initiatives for conservation you mentioned.”
The New Zealand government has multiple environmental agencies. One is the Department of Conservation. It is tax payer funded. It carries out environmental work and also funds private sector environmental projects. The following links gives an idea of the scope of its work and projects being undertaken.
https://www.doc.govt.nz/about-us/our-role/
https://www.doc.govt.nz/our-work/#:~:text=We%20run%20programmes%20to%20protect,to%20engage%20with%20these%20treasures.
Obviously its a huge subject and I dont have a list of references in my head or system but hopefully that source gives some idea.
Is their work abundant? The Department of conservation annual budget is around $700 million. Total government spending is about $60 billion per year. I dont know how this compares with other countries but intuitively I get the sense our Department of Conservation is reasonably well funded and it clearly does plenty of good work. Of course its not ideally enough given the problems out there still unresolved.
Unfortunately the country also has big problems with degraded rivers due to nitrate and bacterial pollution due high stocking rates of dairy cattle. About half the countries rivers are too risky for swimming. However this is beyond the scope of the department of conservations work. They tend to mainly deal with conservation land issues rather than private sector farmland.
Moderately good progess has been made reducing bacterial counts by planting trees and building fences, to keep stock away from rivers, but nitrate runoff remain a huge problem. The government has passed laws setting water quality standards, and requring a clean up and has helped fund some of the clean up. However IMO the laws are not all that strong and progerss has been slow. Refer:
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/121652598/government-pumps-700m-into-cleaning-up-waterways#:~:text=The%20Government%20is%20pumping%20%24700,New%20Zealand's%20rivers%20and%20lakes.
I see that I did say non climate related ecosystem restoration work in another
paragraph a term which doesn’t make sense.. my bad.
To nigelj,
the rich integration of Maori principles into the vision statement of the Department of Conservation in NZ is really a wonderful thing. Admittedly most regions are not so sophisticated, even ones with ample opportunity like the so-called Canada.
Often lost in the dusty pages is the acknowledged recommendation to incorporate indigenous and local knowledge into climate mitigation by IPCC. Realistically we know this virtue is easy enough to print, but not actually adopted in practice. Instead, the focus is on taking part on election day once every few years and contributing a few mouse clicks to develop personal investment portolios in support of techno-innovation. This approach naturally leads to disempowered individuals who lack daily constructive outlets for their primary concerns, resulting in bizarre and counterproductive virtual activities as their only form of participation and belonging.
The recognition that biotic effects cannot be distinct from thermodynamics is perhaps not explicitly outlined in the traditional teaching of Maori or other First Nations, but rather this wisdom is embedded inherently. It is foundational that if the land is well, the people will thrive. That is simultaneously simple to understand and complex to compute.
However, it’s not so far-fetched computationally that evolution, biodiversification, and resilience are natural consequences of thermodynamic process, the freedom of which constrains the maximum rate of energy and nutrient cycling through systems. Consequently, the planetary rates of radiative heating and cooling must be influenced in part by biological states as the associated cycling must deplete the observable intensity of the greenhouse effect (more or less). The variation of net radiative feedback lambda and climate stability simply cannot be distinct from the state of the ecology.
I can confidently say that compartmentalizing climates, biodiversity, and land degradation into separate institutions, literature streams, and COPs is nonsense. I am not alone in this view. Additionally, teachings that range from Alex Epstein’s climate “mastery” through fossil fuels to an exclusive focus on anthropogenic CO2 emission as a framework to manage global change are equally misplaced. Both extremes ignore the reality already present in the wisdom of traditional teachings.
JCM: teachings that range from Alex Epstein’s climate “mastery” through fossil fuels to an exclusive focus on anthropogenic CO2 emission as a framework to manage global change are equally misplaced.
BPL: The idea that there is an exclusive focus on CO2 is something you have consistently maintained, and it has been consistently pointed out to you that there is no such focus. Quit trolling.
JCM says “the so-called Canada.” I have no idea what’s meant by that; it’s the name of the nation, and while it’s probably rooted in a misunderstanding, it’s a misunderstanding that goes back the the days of Samuel de Champlain (born 13 August 1567 – 25 December 1635.) So, please just spare us the pointless rhetorical flourishes.
Also, I suspect the so-called JCM may not be up on indigenous affairs in Canada.
Viz.:
https://www.canada.ca/en/environment-climate-change/services/climate-change/indigenous-partnership.html
JCM: many participants on these pages represent the most rigid armchair trace gasivists
BPL: You are sounding more and more like a creationist or a Flat Earther.
Warning: long. If tl;dr, skip to the last line. JCM has piqued my interest. I’m a little late to the trace-gas fest, but JCM appears to be saying that anthropogenic greenhouse enhancement is a result not only of the economically-driven transfer of geologic carbon to the atmosphere by the gigatonnes annually, but of the impaired re-uptake capacity of the biosphere. With respect, JCM, do I have that correctly?
But then there’s language like this:
In a subsequent comment, you write:
Speaking only for myself, I don’t represent any cause but biodiversity conservation: to the extent it’s anthropogenic, trying to slow down the sixth Great Extinction in the history of life. I pursued a geeky childhood fascination with “Natural History” as far as obtaining an MS in Environmental Science and enrolling in a PhD program in Ecology and Evolution, before I found an easier way to make a living. I vividly recall the outrage I felt at age seven, when I learned that humans had caused the extinction of magnificent creatures such as passenger pigeons and great auks. Now in my 8th decade, childish fury has given way to rueful recognition that the human population hasn’t been sustainable on Earth since the mid-Holocene, when widespread adoption of cereal agriculture began to free our numbers from ancient ecological constraints.
Starting about 9000 years ago, each new hectare of ground brought under cultivation displaced uncounted plants and animals from their homes, drastically simplifying the fluxes of nutrients and energy through that ground in order to divert greater shares into human biomass. The resulting annual food surpluses allowed local carrying capacities to be exceeded, and as populations rose, more and more land had to be brought into cultivation. As soon as annual food surpluses were being stored, they were being fought over; and as populations grew, so did armies. The strong, ambitious men who led them required the farmers they subjugated to grow easily stored and transported food, such as grains and pulses, that their armies could march on. In the ensuing millennia, the vast majority of people born lived briefly, malnourished and under the whip; those who didn’t, eventually gave way to the sheer numbers of others who did. This is why Jared Diamond called agriculture The Worst Mistake in the History of
the Human Race (nicely formatted).
From my perspective, the ongoing anthropogenic Great Extinction is the “Tragedy of the Commons” on the largest possible stage. There’s no shortage of economic externalities urgently needing mitigation! Yet only in the last few centuries have humanistic ideas like “socialized cost” governed societies. Because we all have ambitions to live well, and the concept of “socialized cost” is gleefully exploited by the profit-motivated in the global marketplace, pretty much everything done for “the benefit of all humanity” has been at the expense of most other species. I’ve long since concluded that while I live, I consume resources and socialize costs, so the best way for me to mitigate my impact is to die, childless. Like all humans, little of my behavior is actually determined by “rational” decision making, so I (self-evidently) haven’t followed through on the first part. TBH, I’m not childless for unselfish reasons, either!
But something unexpected happened as I grew older: the “Population Bomb” showed itself to be self-limiting. Ironically, Garrett Hardin’s chosen example of the term he introduced to economicsas requiring “mutual coercion, mutually agreed upon”, turned out not to be one of them, simply because women voluntarily had fewer children when they had the choice! Sure enough, our population appears to be topping out. In the simple heuristic model “I=PAT”, then, P is stabilizing, and any additional aggregate impact (I) will be due to rising per-capita income (A), exacerbated or mitigated by technology (T).
RC regulars have seen all this before. Where am I going with it? Yes, it’s our total impact on the biosphere that is unsustainable. But: anthropogenic climate change, specifically, is not only our biggest, most all encompassing “environmental” impact ever: it’s critically sensitive to the technology of energy generation. All common-pool resource tragedies arise because the “free” market socializes every transaction cost it can get away with. The societies in which the market for energy is embedded, can collectively intervene to drive decarbonization of their entire economies, thus bringing an end to the otherwise inexorable rise in atmospheric greenhouse gases, and to the resulting global warming trend. Whether those gases are “trace” or not is surely irrelevant, as their radiative physics is understood at the quantum level.
I’m all in favor of restoring the biosphere’s trace gas uptake capacity, but my personal focus in these pages is to cheer on the eventual abolition of fossil carbon emissions by the nascent green vortex of market responses to collective intervention, that’s now driving down the Levelized Cost of new electricity from solar and land-based wind power below that for any fossil-fuel option. It follows that my political interest is in preserving and extending Democratic Party control of the US government, until decarbonization is a done deal.
Unfortunately, the power of concentrated fossil-fuel profits, now at all time highs, has corrupted collective decision-making in the US for decades. Like many regular commenters on RC, I’m weary unto death of confronting deceptive denialist rhetoric that’s ultimately informed by the Koch club’s intense interest in holding off collective intervention in its cash flows. Again with respect, JCM: I suggest you own the language you used in your first and subsequent comments, that might have set off a few reflexively hostile responses.
If anybody’s read this far, thanks for your indulgence! Lastly:
Please vote Democratic this November!
Well-said, and well-argued. IMIHO, of course.
starts off so well, then gets even better before spinning out of control going all toxic, delusional, schizophrenic and paranoid to the nth degree. a pity.
Mal Adapted.
A long rant but well written. Regarding Jared Diamonds assertion that inventing agriculture was the biggest mistake humans made because it lead to all sorts of problems particularly industrial society and its downsides.I disagree with him. Industrial society causes some problems we have to mitigate, but it helped lead to the development of that amazing thing called science , and it lead to the possibility we might be able to stop an asteroid strike on the planet, and the possibility of colonising other planets and star systems .
Even the unintended experiment of anthropogenic global warming has already apparently stopped another ice age, although we have to urgently stop burning fossil fuels. These things taken together have the potental to greatly improve the long term survivability of the human species.
Thanks, Kevin and Nigel. And “Watt a Pity” too, even though it’s not clear what is meant by “spinning out of control”. Is it my last paragraph? If WaP thinks I’m “delusional, schizophrenic, and paranoid to the nth degree”, I assure them that was hardly my worst! Or is it the 2nd-to-last paragraph? Is it just that WaP is a Republican? The venerable GOP wasn’t always the Anti-Science Party, but as recently as the 1970s (when I started voting), it became associated with laissez-faire economics to the point where any collective intervention in the US economy was unacceptable. By the mid-90s they were openly cooperating with tobacco and fossil fuel producers and investors to protect their profits. John McCain nonetheless helped craft a bipartisan emissions cap-and-trade bill, that failed a cloture vote in 2008. The influence of fossil fuel profits is largely responsible for the GOP’s doubling down on climate-change denial since then, as abundantly documented in the public record. One wonders whether WaP thinks the NYTimes is “delusional, schizophrenic, and paranoid to the nth degree” too. If so, I’m off the hook to respond further, because if it’s in the NYTimes, it’s in the public record, and WaP can argue with the NYT’s editors, not me! The fact remains that no Republican candidate after McCain has stepped off the party’s anti-climate-science plank and publicly supported any serious decarbonization policy, then been voted into office.
I don’t wish to make unfounded assumptions about WaP’s political opinions, however. Perhaps they can be persuaded to elaborate on their comment, for my benefit if no one else’s. I mean, there’s terse, and then there’s cryptic!
If “Watt” means this bit by his descriptor “all toxic, delusional, schizophrenic and paranoid to the nth degree”:
…then I would gently suggest that his model of reality needs a bit of recalibrating. An excellent start would be Jane Mayer’s Dark Money, though there are other good books on the topic. Then machinations of the Kochs and their allies to prevent or stall climate mitigation action are now part of the public record. Well, some of them, at least. I strongly suspect there’s still more to be revealed. Mal’s “paranoid” description is mere matter of fact–most unfortunately.
Kevin:
Mayer herself commented in 2019 on a book about the Kochs titled Kochland: The Secret History of Koch Industries and Corporate Power in America. Mayer’s comment, in its entirety, was:
I haven’t read “Kochland”, because I’m afraid I’d throw it down in disgust, and because I’m already quite willing to believe any accusation against the Kochs and their carbon capitalist allies. The public record keeps growing. One can’t really call Mayer or Leonard conspiracy theorists; if political collusion by fossil fuel producers and investors is a conspiracy, it’s not a very good one, because It’s not a secret, and thanks in part to decades of Koch club influence on SCOTUS appointments, it’s not illegal. The bespoke efforts of a thriving disinformation industry, nurtured by the long investment campaign, have served to shield the improper influence from public scrutiny by misdirection (“Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain”) and all the other tools of denialist propaganda, like labeling principled, disciplined investigative journalists like these two, inter alia, as “delusional, schizophrenic and paranoid to the nth degree.”
Nigel, Diamond’s perspective is of course just one way to look at the broad sweep of history. Again speaking for myself, I enjoy my Western lifestyle of comparative ease and luxury all the more for knowing how fortunate I was to be the son of a college professor in the USA in the latter half of the 20th century CE. But it’s undeniable that agriculture not only enabled my relatively good fortune: it was also the origin of humanity’s present estrangement from the Earth our mother, as our populations grew and we simplified ever more ground for food production, killing or chasing away all but a favored few of the other species who shared the planet as we evolved, with the evicted ones now our relentless competitors. And it led to our estrangement from each other, as we fought over subsistence resources, divergent illusions about our place in the cosmos, or simply the narcissistic motives of competing charismatic leaders. From the perspective of a paleolithic forager, living in reasonably secure comfort with a small, mostly genetically-related band of others occupying a productive but uncrowded habitat, an unquantifiable price has been paid in aggregate for my personal comfort and convenience. Both our judgements would be subjective!
JCM: The amnesia and repeated misunderstanding surrounding the term trace gas is nonsense, Influential contemporary literature from Ramanathan to Schmidt consistently use this terminology,”
That’s like a white supremacist defending his frequent use of the N-word by the fact that some Blacks use it toward other Blacks.
The fact Gavin and others have used it in their communications with other scientists, does not justify its use by the deniers of the role of GHG – who use the very same word toward the general public hoping that the the word alone to make the role GHGs emissions look inconsequential, a merely a “trace” in the big picture.
On which side of the divide you fall – you made it abundantly clear, when you shed your crocodile tears on environmental degradation only to blame it on:
“ denying or actively minimizing the consequences to realclimates due to an artificial fixation and overemphasis on the outputs of trace gas and aerosol forced model estimates.
And to the actual climate scientists who might read it – my suggestion is: don’t use it – “ trace gasses ” in the climate science arena is poorly, if ever, defined term that does not offer any new insight, yet is open to misunderstanding by the public, and is prone to deliberate misrepresentation by the fossil fuel lobby, their paid trolls and their useful idiots, who use the very same phrase to negate the role, and the urgency of the mitigation, of the GHGs.
They may be “ trace gasses</i" but their influence on the climate and the future of the civilization – anything but "trace“.
Yep. Exactly right.
Back to basics:
How does CO2 trap heat?
So essentially, CO2 behaves as a heating element, catching infrared photons and transferring that energy off to oxygen and nitrogen, which can’t catch infrared energy themselves.
https://www.climate.gov/news-features/understanding-climate/climate-change-atmospheric-carbon-dioxide
I started to try to post a list of greenhouse gases from here (references include Gavin Schmidt and James Hansen, among others). But it would be better to go over there and look at the full chart, which puts all the quantities in perspective: IPCC list of greenhouse gases with lifetime, 100-year global warming potential, concentrations in the troposphere and radiative forcings.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenhouse_gas
There is a wealth of information in the rest of that article.
Let’s all take the complexities of what does what to which as part of the scientific process. Basic scientific curiosity and skepticism is part of said process.
If all of us could stop snipping at each other, despite the comfort that finding somebody/anybody to blame provides (I too have PTSD from the world of danger we’re in), I believe it would help.
This is not as OT as it looks. I’ve set John Oliver (whose expertise is always impressive) to start at 7 minutes in, to cover Project 2025 (of course you can start at the beginning, but this is the meat of it). Since part of his plan is to get rid of NOAA, it might be worth a look at how much expertise is going into executing the dangerous replacement of expertise with loyalty across the board:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GX8x0W0Ev_M&t=420s
Thanks for that, Susan. I think I’ll share it, too.
The RSS TLT numbers have been posted for March to May (although at time of writing not into the graphical data).
As per UAH TLT, the RSS TLT April anomaly (+1.43ºC) was the highest on record with March’s anomaly (+1.26ºC) the 5th highest, below February (+1.36ºC), Oct 2023 (+1.31ºC) & a shade below Feb 2016 (+1.26ºC). May’s anomaly (+1.16ºC) sits 9th highest.
As the highest May anomaly, May 2024 becomes the 11th “scorchyisimo!!!” month in a row in RSS TLT. This is one month shorter that the SAT run of “scorchyisimo!!!” months although the ‘headroom’ above previous monthly records remains big within the TLT data while SAT ‘headroom’ is shown a third the size of the “bananas” of last year.
Aveage ‘headroom’ above previous record monthly global anomalies
_____________ … RSS TLT … GISS SAT … ERA4 SAT
Ave Jul-Dec 23 … … +0.35ºC … … +0.28ºC … … +0.36ºC
Ave Jan-May 24… … +0.26ºC … … +0.10ºC … … +0.13ºC
The first half of June 2024 is shown in the ERA5 daily numbers at ClimatePulse continuing with sizeable ‘headroom’ (+0.15ºC) and this relative to just last year. A “scorchyisimo!!” June 2024 may well be appearing.
re my https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/04/unforced-variations-apr-2024/comment-page-2/#comment-821248 –… “if the experts were to get together and make a series of youtube videos about this, I’d watch them.”
Jackpot!/Bingo!:
————–
https://www.youtube.com/@danchavas6477 :
“EAPS53600 S20 Lec11 Hadley cell theory recorded” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k-2RnQo2TSU
…
——————— — — —
For the rest of these, it helps to know about PV:
PV = potential vorticity = a measure of (intrinsic/spin/local, ie each bit of fluid relative to its own center) angular momentum of fluid, which is conserved following the motion of the fluid in an inviscid (frictionless), adiabatic (= isentropic = reversable = no net radiant, conductive/diffusive or (in this context) latent heating, no diffusion/mixing (or unmixing) – did I miss anything?) process.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Potential_vorticity
https://www.atmos.illinois.edu/~snesbitt/ATMS505/stuff/12%20IPV.pdf
θ = https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Potential_temperature (constant on isentropic surface)
ρ_θ (I believe that’s the notation) = https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Potential_density (constant on isopycnal surface)
https://storm.uml.edu/~metweb/newBlog/wordpress/2019/01/30/a-brief-introduction-to-potential-vorticity-with-no-equations/ (I only briefly skimmed this, but looks good – see figs.):
Clarification: Note that the following section works assuming constant density of a layer – more generally, replace “height” with mass path (ie kg per m²)
——–
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vorticity , https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vorticity#Examples – see figs.
Vorticity = curl of velocity
For solid-body rotation, vorticity = 2∙angular velocity.
Absolute vorticity = vorticity in inertial frame = relative vorticity + planetary vorticity
**there’s a technical detail in PV I might come back to later**
…
“EAPS53600 S20 Lec15 Wave Mean Flow Interaction theory recordedEPFlux” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ATnBxP6elts
“EAPS53600 S20 Lec16 Transformed Eulerian Mean theory recorded” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OKJC48JB4bs
TEM – if I’m not mistaken the residual (zonal mean, meridional-overturning) circulation of TEM is, or is similar to, the zonal mean meridional-overturning circulation in isentropic coordinates (ø,θ). Yes?
“EAPS53600 S20 Lec17 Jet Formation Surface Winds Ferrel Cell theory recorded” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jcbvg8oI2O8
“EAPS53600 S20 Lec18 Stratosphere Brewer-Dobson theory recorded” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B31I_4mz6XM
“EAPS53600 S20 Lec19 Rhines scale Sverdrup Balance Gross Moist Stability theory minis recorded” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nnx_R6ekM8s
…
— — — — — — — — — — —
“Eddy mean-flow interactions (Erik van Sebille)”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r5VdxZT8xWI
— — — — — — — — — — —
PS ~ 12? yr ago, I was trying to reason through mechanisms of variability, and I stated something about storm-track activity (baroclinic waves/eddies / frontal synoptic-scale extratropical cyclones) causing enhanced thermal gradients on its edges by mixing within its zone. …
(AFAIK this might happen in some conditions but I’ve gotten the impression that there is a tendency for storm-track activity to maintain its baroclinic zone by radiating waves and thereby taking APE from farther afield)
… – I think I stated it as if it were fact, though, which I shouldn’t have done. Sorry.
Hmm, well leaving aside the various rationalizations for why diesel drivers idle their engines (the main point seems to be to keep the engine warm, but there are lots of these vehicles in areas where the weather already warm, so…). Anyway a side point that I won’t argue with them about.
The thrust of the comment is that the idling of gasoline powered car and truck engines represents an often non-necessary use of fossil fuels. Adam Lea gives just one example of where this happens. I see it happening all the time, and that’s just in my one small area. On a world wide scale we’re running carbon engines much longer than we otherwise would had the cell phone not been invented. So it’s use has added another unforeseen wrinkle to vehicle emissions. That should be added in. But I guess it already is by just looking at the increased total consumption of FF.
Exceptional good news from Hawaii: “The Settlement Agreement in Navahine v. HDOT confirms that youth have constitutional rights to a clean and healthful environment and that the state of Hawaiʻi has an obligation to protect youth’s interest in a stable climate.”
We are letting the children solve the crises created by us, their parents and grandparents and many generations before them. They take the burden with courage, determination and convincing arguments from their own lives. They fight with all means necessary, including legal. Here is another significant win and a first constitutional climate settlement of its kind in the world. Learn more and please support them:
https://navahinevhawaiidot.ourchildrenstrust.org/
I am very proud of and grateful to them, I hope you are too. They prove that despite too many barriers to solving the climate emergency, from the fossil industry that refuses to accept the reality that their time is up and they have done enough damage to the biosphere, to reactionary or lukewarm politics, to the people who are incapable of shrinking their footprint within planetary boundaries although they can afford it, etc., we can win this if we are determined.
I think we can confidently call June 2024 as the 13th-in-a-row month setting a record high global SAT, certainly with the ERA5 numbers.
The present “scorchyisimo!!!” for June is June 2023 that in ERA5 sits at +0.532ºC. As of 21st June, the daily ERA5 numbers at ClimatePulse” average +0.71ºC. To prevent June 2024 taking the top hotspot would require the remaining 22nd-30th June to average less than +0.11ºC. Such a low 9-day average was last seen fleetingly in late 2022 and before that in Feb 2021 and the sudden drop required from the most recent daily anomalies (+0.53ºC) would be unprecedented.
New climate sensitivity paper out and YIKES! The work looks pretty solid, but I’m sure it will get shredded here and elsewhere. Problem? More of these high ESS and ECS findings seem to be coming out all the time.
Next, we calculate ECS, i.e., fast climate feedback and the quantity generally used in policy discussions. Given that our record spans 15.0 to 0.3 Ma, during which there is large variability in ice sheet coverage, we additionally consider radiative forcing due to land ice change (ΔRLI) based on earlier work55,62,63, with results shown in Fig. 4. ECS was determined by a linear regression of ΔSST versus ΔRCO2+LI and is estimated to be 11.6 °C (per CO2 doubling) for NH high latitudes, 8.6 °C for the mid-latitudes, and 5.0 °C for the tropics, with respective values in K/Wm-2 and r2 values shown in Table 1. When we again weigh each sensitivity by the percent-area for the Earth, our global average ECS is 7.2 °C per doubling of CO2, much higher than the most recent IPCC estimates of 2.3 to 4.5 °C6 and consistent with some of the latest state-of-the-art models which suggest ca. 5.2 °C64.
This seems to moderate their findings to realistically be closer to the 5.2C of other “hot” models. Regardless, as ever, it’s all about risk so even if this is high – even if all the “hot” models are ultimately wrong – we should act as if they are correct until *proven* wrong.
It should be noted that our ECS is not the same as the ECS used by the IPCC, given that it represents specific climate sensitivity S[CO2,LI] (i.e., ESS corrected for potential slow land ice feedback) and does not consider changes in other greenhouse gases (e.g., methane), paleogeography, nor solar luminosity; we are currently unable to conduct these additional considerations65. The impact of additional methane and water would bring down ECS, which likely explains why paleo ECS is generally higher than modern models.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-024-47676-9
I really would be interested in Stefan’s view as a paleo-climate researcher on this paper. Does it actually mean IPCC estimates are too low, or is it rather an apples to oranges comparison…
“We calculate average Earth system sensitivity and equilibrium climate sensitivity, resulting in 13.9 °C and 7.2 °C per doubling of pCO2, respectively.”
Published: 18 June 2024
Continuous sterane and phytane δ13C record reveals a substantial pCO2 decline since the mid-Miocene
Caitlyn R. Witkowski et al. (2024), @NatureComms
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-024-47676-9
Witkowski et al (2024) tells us CO2 decreased from 650ppm to 280ppm over the last 15My, somewhat more than a halving of CO2 levels. That doesn’t sound controversial.
The 280ppm is the interglacial value.
So, if ESS is calculated using SST to be 13.9°C per CO2-doubling, was the world 15Mya ~16°C warmer than recent interglacials? That does appear controversial.
I am also in favor of putting a lot of weight on geological evidence for paleoclimate. Of course, the boundary conditions are somewhat different from 15 million years ago, especially ice sheets and an open Atlantic/Pacific connection where the Isthmus of Panama now lies. Anything that varies too far from history is likely to be wrong for one reason or another.
And that paleo-climatology does consistently give results for ESS which are a lot lower than the Witkowski et al (2024) finding. A grown-up paper in such a situation would make that situation very clear.
Hönisch et al (2023) [PDF here] puts it thus:-
They continue by explaining the problems of inferring such ESS values would apply to today’s climate.
Getting High on X
Eau de Musk
@magpiewdc
Jun 25
If the world has warmed ~1.3C since mid-1800s but up to a degree of warming is being masked by aerosols, then the world has warmed considerably more than 1.3C. If the IPCC consensus of ~0.5C is accepted, then the world warmed 1.8C, not 1.3C. Why not say so? What am I missing?
Zeke Hausfather
@hausfath
Jun 25
Well, other short-lived climate pollutants like CH4 also contribute to ~0.5C warming. So yes, if you get rid of aerosols but keep CH4 you’d end up around 1.8C, but its not an inevitable outcome.
CO2 is the only warming we are stuck with for millennia to come.
Eau de Musk
@magpiewdc
Jun 25
We’re not NECESSARILY committed to >1.5C IF we cut CH4 emissions that have risen 15% since mid-2000s & cut N2O emissions that have risen 40% since 1980. But there’s a snowball’s chance in hell of that happening. Barring a miracle, we’ve already breached 1.5C. We should say so.
Zeke Hausfather
@hausfath
18h
Replying to @magpiewdc
Sure, 1.5C is deader than a doornail. But we are not at 1.8C today!
Jun 26, 2024 · 5:31 PM UTC
Collapse is happening right now.
@KevinClimate says:
The last thing the high emitters in our society like you want to do is to make changes to your lifestyles. But they will have to make rapid changes and they won’t make it voluntarily. We need regulation that drives rapid social change in our lifestyles and norms or the entire system is going to spin out of control into social chaos and destruction.
“Being impacted by 2, 3 or 4 degrees of climate warming will be utterly devastating. There isn’t a non-radical way out of this. There would have been if we started in 1990. we chose not to. We chose not to in 2000, in 2010 and in 2020. So radical change is inevitable now.”
“To give a flavour of what we’re talking about: we shouldn’t be building really huge houses anymore. No more second homes. No more business or first class flights and far fewer flights. 75% of all flights are made by just 15% of the population.”
— Prof. Kevin Anderson
Rational logical acceptance of the coming COLLAPSE is NOT about giving up. It’s not about doom or being a doomer or antisceine or anything like that. It’s about accepting that Collapse is happening already. So that we can stop holding on to the world that was, to enable us to let it go and to begin the planning of a Managed Retreat to the world that soon will be.
Mal Adapted
Regarding Watt a Pity’s comment: “starts off so well, then gets even better before spinning out of control going all toxic, delusional, schizophrenic and paranoid to the nth degree. a pity.”
What a Pity might be alluding to the idea that we shouldn’t blame fossil fuels companies for the climate problem because its really the publics fault for not reducing their carbon footprints and stopping fossil fuels use. So the public are essentially scapegoating fossil fules companies. There seems like an element of truth in this – but the fossil fuels companies have spread denialism about the science, and are certainly to blame for that. . I read the book Dark money a couple of years ago a real eye opener. The denialist nonsense has probably had a profound effect on people demotivating the public from reducing their carbon footprints.
Political lobbying is also out of control and a problem as you mention but is a feature of the system as a whole.
And people will only stop using fossil fuels if there are viable energy alternatives. We cannot expect people to live like stone age people.
And Watt a Pity might also be alluding to the idea that the capitalist free market even with appropriate governmnet rules and interventions is not the solution to climate change or anything else, because capitalism is doomed to failure and is unjust. Personally i find capitalism a frustrating system but nobody has come up with anything better that doesnt look like socialism version 2.0. Attempts at socialism at large scale havent worked very well. Although and Scandinavian countries combine selected elements of capitalism and socialism with good results.
Overall I think we are stuck with capitalism and just have to improve how it works. I agree with your views on the tragedy of the commons problem and the need to better regulate markets and make polluters pay a price.
Secondly regarding your latest comments on Jared Diamond and your comments “But it’s undeniable that agriculture not only enabled my relatively good fortune: it was also the origin of humanity’s present estrangement from the Earth our mother, as our populations grew and we simplified ever more ground for food production, killing or chasing away all but a favored few of the other species who shared the planet….. (etcetera)”
I agree totally with your post We have paid a huge price for our comforts. We utterly transformed the surface of the planet and we are causing fundamental and alarming problems like the decline of pollinating insects and other biodiverity loss. We have astounding and unhealthy levels of income and wealth inequality as you mentioned.
However Hunter gatherer society is not perfect either. Going back to that lifestyle or close to it would seem to be turining our back on science and technology and seems like a retrograde step.
Humans love to experiment, its in our DNA, and so were probably never going to stay as hunter gatherers. We should not feel guilty for that. This is probably the basic reason for the invention of farming although Jared Diamonds explanations of how we geot locked into farming sound credible.
We have an industrial culture and we probably have to make it as sustainable as possible. There are all sorts of things can do, and some have already done (reductions in aerosol pollution and acid rain ) but theres a long way to go and many people that resent any controls on their behaviour.
Mal Adapted. Regarding my comment: “However Hunter gatherer society is not perfect either. Going back to that lifestyle or close to it would seem to be turining our back on science and technology and seems like a retrograde step.” I know you werent suggesting we adopt a hunter gatherer lifesyle, and I should have said that for clarity.
This year’s Atlantic Hurricane season was looking like a late-starter with short-lived Tropical Storm Alberto the sole arrival as June drew to a close. The usual delivery by the close of June was a handful of Tropical Storms not a solitary short-lived one.
And given the predictions were for 2024 being well above average activity, the absence of multiple Tropical Storms was beginning to look a tad awkward.
Then Beryl started its run across the Atlantic.
The usual timetable for the Atlantic hurricanes is the first hurricane forms in July/August and the first major hurricane August/September.
The formation of Hurricane Beryl on 29th June isn’t breaking the record for ‘Earliest Hurricane’ (Hurricane Chris in 2012 formed on 21st June and going back into the last century there were early hurricanes formed in early June in the Caribbean Alex1994 – June 4 & Alberto1982 – June 3.) but Beryl’s present predicted rapid development into a major hurricane before June end or soon after is would be (this based on storm records since 1980), the earliest major hurricane formations being Dennis(2005) July 6, Bertha(2008) July 7 & Bertha(1996) July 9.