This month’s open thread for climate topics. Please stay vaguely on topic and do not abuse other commenters.
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315 Responses to "Unforced Variations: Oct 2024"
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Dharma says
That Other Hockey Stick!
https://substack.com/home/post/p-150553681
Don Williams says
1) Actually there is a lot of “compelling evidence” to back up Vilfredo Pareto’s observation that in every society a few people have most of the wealth, most of the power, and make most of the decisions.
2) The most prominent “Doomer” is Jem Bendell—author of the infamous “Deep Adaptation” paper. He spent a lot of years on sustainability programs and was invited to the Billionaire’s Prom at Davos a number of times. See the article on him in Wikipedia.
3) His experience in dealing with the people who matter is one of the reasons for his pessimism. He noted:
“My own conclusion that it is too late to prevent a breakdown in modern civilization in most countries within our lifetimes is not purely based on an assessment of climate science. It’s based on my view of society, politics, economics from having worked on probably 25 countries across five continents, worked in the intergovernmental sector of the U.N., been part of the World Economic Forum, working in senior management in environmental groups, being on boards of investment funds.”
4) Michael Mann attacked Bendell. Mann is an expert on climate science – but he is ignorant of many important things. Which is no disgrace – I am ignorant. Socrates said he was ignorant. The important thing is to recognize what you know – and what you don’t.
5) I dismiss slurs and ad hominems. I am interested in facts. Mainly so I can adapt. I hate to make you passionate guys sad but I highly doubt the Billionaires who go to the Sun Valley conference are lurking here waiting for our deep insights. And anyone who has worked in Democratic campaigns –as I have – knows of the contempt leaders like Nancy Pelosi have for mere “activists”.
6) Re Piotr’s homily “The Perfect is the Enemy of the Good” , in my experience the Enemy of the Good is Hypocrisy — who pretends to be Good’s friend so so he can slip the knife in at the opportune moment in exchange for a few crumbs from The Bad.
6) Does anyone here have Scope 1/Scope 2/ Scope 3 emissions data for the Chinese solar industry? You know –like what the SEC is demanding of US companies. If so, is the data Independently verified?
Dharma says
Thanks for sharing that Don and for saying what you did. Those are my sentiments too.
Dharma says
I’m very sad. As a mature student I went to university 15 years ago to do a masters in energy, environment, climate and human ecology as I thought I could help change the world we live in. The solutions we studied were basically the same as Jem highlights and run into all corners of how humans interact with our environment and the systems we have created. 15 years later nothing has changed apart from I can’t buy plastic straws anymore.
I’m tired, no one is interested and the direction our politicians and economies are taking us is not just the wrong way it’s the worst way. One reason people are in denial is because the problem is so huge and the solutions are so unfamiliar that we can’t comprehend them. Everything needs to change and changing tiny things takes a huge amount of effort. The laggards and denialists continue to take all our enthusiasm. Thank you Jem and others like young Gretta and Kevin Anderson for finding the energy to carry on talking about this.
Dharma says
Last Jem ref from 2018
We receive bits and pieces of news, often shared by friends on Facebook or Twitter, which make us worry for a few moments, before returning to busy daily life. We may think we have already integrated an awareness of climate change into our lives, by the career choice we made, or the way we shop, recycle or don’t eat meat. Most of us are not climate scientists anyway, there’s all kinds of other things to take care of, and we have bills to pay!
That was me, anyway, until this year. I decided to look more closely at the latest information from the range of sciences that give a perspective on our situation. The last time I studied climate closely was in 1994 when I was being taught climate science at Cambridge University. I do not claim to be an expert in any one climate-related field, but as a Professor who has worked and published in a range of disciplines, I have experience in assessing knowledge claims from various sources. In this summary I provide references as much as possible, so you can investigate further.
However, given that the IPCC has proven over the past decades to be woefully inaccurate in the cautiousness of its predictions, I now agree with some of the most eminent climate scientists that the IPCC cannot be looked to for telling us what the situation is. That is why I spent a few weeks returning to primary sources in academic journals and research institute reports, and piecing together a perspective myself. Given the long time span it takes for data to appear in academic journals, I often turn to the information direct from research institutes and their individual experts. The result of that process follows below.
https://jembendell.com/2018/03/22/a-summary-of-some-climate-science-in-2018/
Thanks. over to you.
Barton Paul Levenson says
D: given that the IPCC has proven over the past decades to be woefully inaccurate in the cautiousness of its predictions, I now agree with some of the most eminent climate scientists that the IPCC cannot be looked to for telling us what the situation is.
BPL: Thank you for that classic example of a non sequitur. The syllogism is:
Major premise: If an entity fails in prediction, then it must not grasp the present situation.
Minor premise: The IPCC fails in prediction.
Conclusion: It must not grasp the present situation.
Since the major premise is false, so is the conclusion.
Dharma says
One of many Jem Bendell bookmarks;
This is what a #RealGreenRevolution would include
Posted on November 4, 2021
So am I just being defeatist? No – otherwise I would not bother writing this 7-part essay on radical and transformative policy responses to our environmental predicament. There are many systemic policy innovations that could help humanity right now, but you won’t hear them from the professionals engaged in climate policy this month (@COP26).
That is because the professional classes, who are people with time to engage in the policy jamborees, have been schooled within the ideology of our time, which defers to existing power in a global capitalist system. I know because I am one of them. I lied to myself for decades as I tried to encourage significant reform through voluntary corporate sustainability initiatives.
What’s worse, we professionals working on public challenges are surrounded by people with an unacknowledged narcissism, where the motivation to feel ethical, smart, and contemporary, trumps any depth of inquiry into what might be going on and might be possible. It is a strange but silver lining of the terrifying climate news that more of us are being forced out of such patterns through a dark night of the soul. It means we can consider again what might work, rather than what has been just easy stuff to tell ourselves
https://jembendell.com/2021/11/04/this-is-what-a-realgreenrevolution-would-include/
on twitter use this mirror link https://nitter.poast.org/jembendell/with_replies
for example
Any journo who talks with Mann should ask him about his declaration in 2009 that if emissions weren’t coming down by 2020 then we’re definitely blasting past 2C. If they don’t then they seem less like journos than propagandists of establishment narratives
https://nitter.poast.org/jembendell/status/1799992237511921692#m
Maybe he misspoke? Maybe the data has been updated since and he has justifiably changed his scientific opinion, again? Who knows, no one can ask him such questions now. If you do he will block you instantly.
and one last classic observation-
I have come to see that although many international civil servants do important work on the ground in some countries, many of them in the headquarters are involved in a deadly charade, where their status, income, and emotional stability lead them to lie to themselves and to the public about our planetary predicament, its causes and what to do about it. This is exemplified by their continued lie that ‘sustainable development’ is possible, despite years of data now proving the critiques from decades ago that it was capitalist-friendly ideological tosh.
https://jembendell.com/2024/07/10/should-the-un-just-sod-off/
What to do when the whole system is rotten to the core? There’s very little anyone can do. Voting and activism no longer works to drive ethical systemic change.
Barton Paul Levenson says
D: Voting and activism no longer works to drive ethical systemic change.
BPL: Then don’t vote.
Dharma says
This has surely been forgotten by now, so if I may re-post it, I think it may help refocus the US-centric issues raised as critical vs criticized.
Don Williams says
14 Oct 2024 at 10:50 AM
1) The primary problem is Overconsumption – which is caused by multiple factors: overpopulation, high consumption per capita, war or interstate competition etc.
2) US Overconsumption could be greatly reduced without lowering living standards but powerful interests/propaganda will oppose that. People make money encouraging overconsumption – there is no profit (monetary or political) from reducing it. Well, aside from Ebay (encourage reuse of products) and early Amazon (reuse books).
3) Since we don’t have a global government, any population policy will have to be handled at the national level. Here in the USA it will be blocked by powerful financial interests. Re biodiversity, I doubt that we here in the USA will protect wildlife since we tolerate the hideous practices of factory farming – in part because prostitutes in our legislatures made it illegal to tell Americans the truth about how our food is produced. The primary advocates for wildlife seem to be the hunters and fishermen but the vast majority of voters are urban dwellers largely isolated from/indifferent to Nature.
4) High consumption per capita is caused by multiple factors: advertising encouraging people to buy a bunch of worthless crap, items which require high amounts of resources (e.g, automobiles, electronics, etc ) being designed with short life spans and designed to be difficult to maintain/repair. The New York fashion industry has a very big carbon footprint due to its culture of clothing having a short period of “fashion”. The purpose of this stupidity being to force the consumer to make frequent purchases in order to drive up sales volume/profits.
5) USA energy consumption would be reduced enormously if our cities/housing/job centers were designed to provide everyone with a 10 minute commute via walking, biking or public transport. ( How many people want to go back to the office after working at home during the Covid lockdowns? ) Similarly, homes with geothermal HVAC and solar roofs could be energy independent – the obstacle is large capital investment up front which takes a while to pay for itself and so we have the slow arterial bleeding of eternal power bills.
6) Our suburbs — which consume enormous amounts of land, oil and commuting time — were the result of President Eisenhower’s Project East River – the plan to use Interstates and federal highway money to disperse the US population and industry so it would be less vulnerable to nuclear attack. (Blast pressure diminishes rapidly with distance – radius cubed.) An early Cold War policy which is gaining renewed interest
Unlike you, not everyone will take “deliberately raising the global mortality rate, off the table.”
Nigelj says
Dharma, ok that does sum the situation up quite well. Over consumption is indeed the core issue behind our huge environmental footprint, but I would suggest our use of fossil fules as opposed to other alternatives is the core issue behind the warming problem specifically. The energy source should at least be the main focus of change, because its going to be easier changing the energy source than changing consumption habits..
Another reason for suburban sprawl might be just because rising incomes meant large numbers of people could afford a nice house on its own section and a car. Many countries have urban sprawl.
I think the walkable city is a good idea, and hopefully things go that way, but trillions of dollars of infrastrcuture are essentially designed around the car, so changing things like this is a long term 100 year (?) project, and so wont do much to curb climate change. And this all assumes enough people get behind the idea.
A walkable city requires things like bicycle lanes on roads, reduced car parks, building many small supermarkets closer to where people live, building high density living, etcetera. New Zealand has tried some of these things recently with dedicated bicycle lanes and permitting four floor apartments within established suburbs, and its getting a lot of resistance. from car owners, as well as special interest groups. Again this suggests change will be a slow process.
This is why I tend to look at the things that might make more of a difference over the next 30 years particularly like renewables. They obviously have an environmental footprint, but if we could get our consumption levels down a bit that would minimise this. Where I differ from some commenters on this website is that thier very ambitious plans to reduce consumption are just impractical.
Population growth is slowing anyway due to the demographic transition, and the global fertility rate has dropped a lot, and experts say global population looks like it will shrink later this century. Although we cannot be sure of this.
A smaller global population would obviously greaty help reduce consumption and environmental problems although this assumes per capita consumption doesn’t increase alarmingly. So I suspect its still going to require a change in values related to how much people individually consume. I can see per capita consumption maybe levelling off and dropping a bit but not hugely.
Its assumed that the main driver in the slowing population growth has been increasing incomes, and better education etc,etc, however a moderarly low income African Country (cant recall which) did an experiment where free contraception was provided in one region and the fertility rate dropped sharply. This seems to show that the key factors in low fertility rate are 1) just mildly improving incomes, 2)cheap easily available contraceptives and 3) better womens rights. There is lots governments can do to improve availability of contraceptives and better womens rights. This would help speed up the drop in fertility rate without coercive government policies.
It would be good if the UN had a population policy and some goals, but its probably not going to happen because familiy size is a sensitive social issue, like religion, and so the UN wont go near it
Ron R. says
Nigel, But thanks for the constructive polite comments.
Of course. :-) I think people choose the weak parties not because they agree with them but because they don’t want to divide the vote and thereby ensure the other party wins. Both parties are really sucky about environmental issues but the left is a little bit better.
Nigelj says
Ron R., yes fair points. After hitting submit I realised you were probably referring to politics in America which is a presidential system where the only real choice is Dems and Republicans and anything else is a bit of a wasted vote. So In that sense your arguments are quite strong. New Zealand has a partliamentary democracy and MMP (mixed member proportional representation) which is very different. You get coalition governments of multiple parties, so voting for for a small party like the greens isnt necessarily a wasted vote.. Many commonwealth countries have a parliamentary democracy.
Dharma says
I really dislike fake news and PR advertising spin, don’t like Musk or X, but there is always the exception to the rule.
Ford CEO Jim Farley: “I drive a Xiaomi (SU7). We flew it from Shanghai to Chicago. I’ve been driving it for 6 month now, and I don’t want to give it up”
Unfortunately for average Americans, that’s not possible because 100% tariffs on Chinese EVs batteries and RE equipment and infrastructure.
https://x.com/CarlZha/status/1848973647291289914#m
Dharma says
A new paper to make Mr Rodger very happy
The 2023 global warming spike was driven by the El Niño–Southern Oscillation
Abstract
Global-mean surface temperature rapidly increased 0.29 ± 0.04 K from 2022 to 2023. Such a large interannual global warming spike is not unprecedented in the observational record, with a previous instance occurring in 1976–1977. However, why such large global warming spikes occur is unknown, and the rapid global warming of 2023 has led to concerns that it could have been externally driven. Here we show that climate models that are subject only to internal variability can generate such spikes, but they are an uncommon occurrence (p = 1.6 % ± 0.1 %). However, when a prolonged La Niña immediately precedes an El Niño in the simulations, as occurred in nature in 1976–1977 and 2022–2023, such spikes become much more common (p = 10.3 % ± 0.4 %). Furthermore, we find that nearly all simulated spikes (p = 88.5 % ± 0.3 %) are associated with El Niño occurring that year. Thus, our results underscore the importance of the El Niño–Southern Oscillation in driving the occurrence of global warming spikes such as the one in 2023, without needing to invoke anthropogenic forcing, such as changes in atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases or aerosols, as an explanation.
How to cite.
Raghuraman, S. P., Soden, B., Clement, A., Vecchi, G., Menemenlis, S., and Yang, W.: The 2023 global warming spike was driven by the El Niño–Southern Oscillation, Atmos. Chem. Phys., 24, 11275–11283, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-11275-2024, 2024.
David says
For reference (Gavin added the preprint last month to the RC post covering 2023 matter) :
.
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/05/new-journal-nature-2023/
.
And as FYI, one of several excellent comments by MARodger on 2023:
.
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2024/09/unforced-variations-sep-2024/#comment-824486
Dharma says
Followed by a 2014 paper to ignore or laugh about
Long-run evolution of the global economy: 1. Physical basis
Timothy J. Garrett
The link of physical to economic quantities comes from a prior result that establishes a fixed relationship between rates of global energy consumption and a historical accumulation of global economic wealth. What follows are nonequilibrium prognostic expressions for how wealth, energy consumption, and the Gross World Product (GWP) grow with time. This paper shows that the key components that determine whether civilization “innovates” itself toward faster economic growth include energy reserve discovery, improvements to human and infrastructure longevity, and reductions in the amount of energy required to extract raw materials. Growth slows due to a combination of prior growth, energy reserve depletion, and a “fraying” of civilization networks due to natural disasters. Theoretical and numerical arguments suggest that when growth rates approach zero, civilization becomes fragile to such externalities as natural disasters, and the risk is for an accelerating collapse.
Summary
Linking physical to economic quantities comes from a fixed relationship between rates of global energy consumption and historical accumulation of global economic wealth. When growth rates approach zero, civilization becomes fragile to externalities, such as natural disasters, and is at risk for accelerating collapse.
Key Points
Global economic wealth is tied to rates of primary energy consumption
Rates of economic growth depend on past growth, resource availability, and decay
Human and climate systems can be coupled using essentially the same physics
https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/2013ef000171
Ray Ladbury says
While the above argument has been made extensively, it certainly cannot be said that all energy consumption equates to higher levels of well being or prosperity. I would contend that much of the energy being consumed now is wasted. I would include in such waste–at least for now–the massive consumption associated with AI, which isn’t really improving anyone’s life for now.
I would also ask if you are familiar with Rosenfeld’s Law? This was postulated by Art Rosenfeld and is an empirically derived observation that energy needed to generate $1 in GDP growth has decreased by about 1% per year over time. I note this here because of the similarity to Moore’s Law, which illustrates the potential power in such trends.
Moore’s law was originally underlain by Dennard scaling of CMOS, but that has not been true since ~2005, and Moore’s law still persists. It goes a long way toward demonstrating that we can capitalize on such trends and even accelerate them through intensive researrch and development.
If we could undertake similar efforts wrt Rosenfeld’s Law, we might be able to significantly improve well being while actually decreasing energy consumption.
patrick o twentyseven says
Happy News: Photovoltaic materials research:
(2024) “Lead-free inverted perovskite solar cells without transparent conducting oxides may achieve 30% efficiency”
Emiliano Bellini
https://www.pv-magazine.com/2024/05/27/lead-free-inverted-perovskite-solar-cells-without-transparent-conducting-oxides-may-achieve-30-efficiency/
Diagram shows thickness of layers between Al and glass is 1.44 μm.
(2024) “Machine learning accelerates discovery of solar-cell perovskites”
Nik Papageorgiou, Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne
https://phys.org/news/2024-05-machine-discovery-solar-cell-perovskites.html
ref: “High-Quality Data Enabling Universality of Band Gap Descriptor and Discovery of Photovoltaic Perovskites”
Haiyuan Wang, Runhai Ouyang, Wei Chen, Alfredo Pasquarello
https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/jacs.4c03507
(emph. Mine):
(2024) “Discovery of the Zintl-phosphide BaCd2P2 as a long carrier lifetime and stable solar absorber”
Zhenkun Yuan, et al.
https://www.cell.com/joule/abstract/S2542-4351(24)00100-4?uuid=uuid%3Ab62240c9-95b3-4bb9-8396-ad34b87e4c59
in “Summary” (emph. Mine):
Doctor Jane Foster: : … “If It’s Color We Need, Let’s Bring The Rainbow.” Improving the efficiency by making better use of solar energy’s spectrum
5 ways (that I can think of):
1. In CPV, concentrating different parts of the spectrum onto different cells/devices
2. Multiple layers of luminescent concentrator (basically like the first concept, but can concentrate diffuse light)
3. Tandem/Multijunction cells
4. Producing multiple electron-hole pairs from higher-energy photons
5. Using lower-energy photons to produce single electron-hole pairs
3. “New tandem solar cells break efficiency record—they could eventually supercharge how we get energy from the sun”
3. “ Solar energy development could reduce need for solar farms”
3. (2024) “Researchers build selenium–silicon tandem solar cell that could improve efficiency to 40%”
Bob Yirka
https://techxplore.com/news/2024-04-seleniumsilicon-tandem-solar-cell-efficiency.html
(fig. a indicates parallel connection? (series connection requires each layer supplies the same current, requiring band gap energies’ spacing to be tuned to the spectrum to maximize efficiency))
5. (2024) “Chemically tuned intermediate band states in atomically thin CuxGeSe/SnS quantum material for photovoltaic applications”
Srihari M. Kastuar, Chinedu E. Ekuma
https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.adl6752
(~150? nm Au; Fig.3; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gold 19.283 Mg/m³; ~ 3 g Au /m² ? All necessary?)
See also https://techxplore.com/news/2024-04-quantum-material-efficiency-solar-cells.html
patrick o twentyseven says
Solar Panel/Module recycling:
https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/technology/what-happens-when-solar-panels-die/ar-AA1rHEeY?ocid=msedgntp&pc=U531&cvid=5bf5dfd83994458a98ac558b63683c7a&ei=23
(a lot of good info here)
…
(emph. Mine):
See also:
https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/companies/startup-develops-method-to-safely-recycle-99-of-used-solar-panels-a-small-mine-of-precious-elements/ar-BB1qkIh3?ocid=msedgntp&pc=U531&cvid=5d44c68c40884091a50c1228eaa67c63&ei=24
https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/other/scientists-develop-innovative-method-to-derive-valuable-materials-from-old-solar-cells-potential-to-have-a-significant-influence-on-the-circular-economy/ar-AA1rqbCf?ocid=msedgdhp&pc=U531&cvid=feece95dfa9644fa824d7b273980ecf8&ei=9
https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/technology/scientists-discover-game-changing-method-to-recycle-solar-panels-using-less-energy-paving-the-way-to-a-circular-economy/ar-BB1pOYTn?ocid=msedgdhp&pc=U531&cvid=d8bfb19d3ec54ac8d0838ee769b255a4&ei=7
“Undecided with Matt Ferrell”: “What REALLY happens to used Solar Panels?” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FCtEWveySsA
Barry E Finch says
David 21 Oct 2024 at 3:20 AM There’s too many years of overlap in the random linear fits to GAST in “A recent surge in global warming is not detectable yet”: by Claudie Beaulieu, Colin Gallagher, Rebecca Killick, Robert Lund & Xueheng Shi
The RHS intersect point has 2 very-different linear trends for ~2003-~2013 which is too long and too much difference. I was careful in April 2013 Nino. EMSO neutral & La Nina, as follows below (cut’n’paste I’ve been banging on about since 2014). I know these people are Statistician Doctors and I’m a plumber but IMO it’s poor quality for these reasons, linear fits to a time series with gaps in it and/or much overlap with a huge choice of trends for the same year is poor quality. I’m sticking with my old ……
+0.25 degrees 2020-2030
+0.31 degrees 2030-2040
+0.37 degrees 2040-2050
+0.43 degrees 2050-2060
so a total of +1.36 degrees above 2020 by 2060
That’s with +2.4 ppmv/year CO2 maintained throughout and CH4 increasing at recent rates
That’s assuming humans don’t do a huge cleanup of their aerosols air pollution.
……until the record is long enough to clarify that my projection is rubbish and then I’ll claim I don’t remember what you’re talking about, the same as everybody else does.
—————-
+0.13 degrees / decade: UAH lower troposphere 1979-2017
+0.17 degrees / decade: RSS lower troposphere 1979-2017
+0.165 degrees / decade: Surface La Nina & ENSO-neutral years 1970-2014 (me from GISTEMP)
+0.20 degrees / decade: Surface El Nino years 1966-1995 (me from GISTEMP)
+0.23 degrees / decade: Surface El Nino years 1995-2014 (me from GISTEMP, high uncertainty, sparse & varied data points)
+0.18 degrees / decade: Surface average 1966-2014 (GISTEMP)
+0.11 degrees / decade: Ocean surface 1966-2014 (GISTEMP)
+0.047 degrees / decade: Ocean 0-300M depth 1966-2010 89 / 432 = 0.206 (me from various, Hadley, ORAS4, talk plots etc.)
+0.030 degrees / decade: Ocean 300-700M depth 1966-2010 76 / 576 = 0.132 (me from various, Hadley, ORAS4, talk plots etc.)
+0.033 degrees / decade: Ocean 0-700M depth 1955-2010 Sid Levitus
+0.026 degrees / decade: Ocean 700-1000M depth 1966-2010 (me from various, Hadley, ORAS4, talk plots etc.)
+0.15 degrees total increase: Ocean 0-1000M depth (me from various, Hadley, ORAS4, Matthew England talk plots etc.)
+0.009 degrees / decade: Ocean 700-2000M depth 1966-2010 77 / 1872 = 0.0411 (me from various, Hadley, ORAS4, talk plots etc.)
Note the +0.23 degrees / decade for El Nino years since 1995 and only +0.165 degrees / decade for La Nina & ENSO-neutral years. A big difference.
—————-
Quote: “Atlantic warming turbocharges Pacific trade winds Date:August 3, 2014 Source:University of New South Wales. New research has found rapid warming of the Atlantic Ocean, likely caused by global warming, has turbocharged Pacific Equatorial trade winds. Currently the winds are at a level never before seen on observed records, which extend back to the 1860s. The increase in these winds has caused eastern tropical Pacific cooling, amplified the Californian drought, accelerated sea level rise three times faster than the global average in the Western Pacific and has slowed the rise of global average surface temperatures since 2001. It may even be responsible for making El Nino events less common over the past decade due to its cooling impact on ocean surface temperatures in the eastern Pacific. “We were surprised to find the main cause of the Pacific climate trends of the past 20 years had its origin in the Atlantic Ocean,” said co-lead author Dr Shayne McGregor from the ARC Centre of Excellence for Climate System Science (ARCCSS) atthe University of New South Wales.”
—————-
Quote: “The record-breaking increase in Pacific Equatorial trade winds over the past 20 years had, until now, baffled researchers. Originally, this trade wind intensification was considered to be a response to Pacific decadal variability. However, the strength of the winds was much more powerful than expected due to the changes in Pacific sea surface temperature. Another riddle was that previous research indicated that under global warming scenarios Pacific Equatorial Trade winds would slow down over the coming century. The solution was found in the rapid warming of the Atlantic Ocean basin, which has created unexpected pressure differences between the Atlantic and Pacific. This has produced wind anomalies that have given Pacific Equatorial trade winds an additional big push. “The rapid warming of the Atlantic Ocean created high pressure zones in the upper atmosphere over that basin and low pressure zones close to the surface of the ocean,” says Professor Axel Timmermann, co-lead and corresponding author from the University of Hawaii. “The rising air parcels, over the Atlantic eventually sink over the eastern tropical Pacific, thus creating higher surface pressure there. The enormous pressure see-saw with high pressure in the Pacific and low pressure in the Atlantic gave the Pacific trade winds an extra kick, amplifying their strength. It’s like giving a playground roundabout an extra push as it spins past.” Many climate models appear to have underestimated the magnitude of the coupling between the two ocean basins, which may explain why they struggled to produce the recent increase in Pacific Equatorial trade wind trends. While active, the stronger Equatorial trade winds have caused far greater overturning of ocean water in the West Pacific, pushing more atmospheric heat into the ocean, as shown by co-author and ARCCSS Chief Investigator Professor Matthew England earlier this year. This increased overturning appears to explain much of the recent slowdown in the rise of global average surface temperatures. Importantly, the researchers don’t expect the current pressure difference between the two ocean basins to last. When it does end, they expect to see some rapid changes, including a sudden acceleration of global average surface temperatures. “It will be difficult to predict when the Pacific cooling trend and its contribution to the global hiatus in surface temperatures will come to an end,” Professor England says.”
—————-
Recent intensification of wind-driven circulation in the Pacific and the ongoing warming hiatus
Nature Climate Change 4, 222–227 (2014) doi:10.1038/nclimate2106 Received 11 September 2013 Accepted 18 December 2013 Published online 09 February 2014 Corrected online 14 February 2014
Matthew H. England, Shayne McGregor, Paul Spence, Gerald A. Meehl, Axel Timmermann, Wenju Cai, Alex Sen Gupta, Michael J. McPhaden, Ariaan Purich & Agus Santoso
“Here we show that a pronounced strengthening in Pacific trade winds over the past two decades—unprecedented in observations/reanalysis data and not captured by climate models—is sufficient to account for the cooling of the tropical Pacific and a substantial slowdown in surface warming through increased subsurface ocean heat uptake.”
In early 2013 when my studying started a Skeptical Science (SKS) bloke suggested working out ENSO adjustments to GMST for a few decades but instead I plotted GMST annual points 1966-2013 with separate symbols for El Nino, La Nina & ENSO-neutral with big volcanoes to exclude them and ran 3 separate trends by eye ball through those 3 ENSO types. There was no doubt that La Nina & ENSO-neutral were warming at the same rate but El Nino was “pulling away”, warming faster, than La Nina & ENSO-neutral and this “pulling away” maybe increased in 1995 but El Ninos come in too much variation and not enough years sampled to be certain. My trends eye balled from 1995 are at the end of this comment. The +0.23 for El Ninos 1995-2013 has low accuracy confidence. The +0.165 degrees / decade for La Nina & ENSO-neutral years have high accuracy confidence, good clean fits. 12 months later I came across a wind speed plot for Pacific Equatorial easterly trade winds showing that they’d increased a huge 30% (1 metre / second faster) from 1995 to 2014 though they’d been non varying for many decades before that, so now I knew why my El Nino “pulling away” from 12 months earlier was almost cartainly correct but not the underlying cause. Some months later I came across the underlying cause from scientists quoted below and their new published paper. I say it’s a classic Power Amplifier and it all started 1995. Equatorial Pacific Ocean is 2.8 times as wide as Equatorial Atlantic Ocean and that’s practically the definition of the basis of a Power Amplifier —- apply a relatively small signal (Atlantic) to the base and get a huger signal (Pacific) through the collector-emitter pair. Circa 2015 I saw a Kevin Trenberth talk about warming with GMST global pictorial and it clearly showed the vast eastern tropical Pacific Ocean having COOLED from 1982 to 2014 while practically everywhere else except 2 small Cold Blobs had warmed. That clinched it. It’s obvious what has happened. Pacific Equatorial Ocean easterly trade winds had increased a huge 30% (1 metre / second faster) from 1995 to 2014 due to warming Atlantic Ocean surface, a Power Amplifier.
patrick o twentyseven says
https://ourworldindata.org/energy-production-consumption
183,230 TWh was the global primary energy consumption in 2023. (1st graph) this ≈ 20.92 TW average
https://ourworldindata.org/electricity-mix
29479.05 TWh was global electricity produced in 2023; ≈ 3.365 TWe
200,000 TWhe ≈ 22.83 TWe would provide 10 billion people with 2.283 kW each. I think that would eliminate a lot of poverty! Worthy goal, obviously.
(US per capita electricity generation ≈ 1.427 kWe; 8.793 kW is US primary energy use* per capita * (I’m guessing this does not account for (net) embodied energy of (net) imports) )
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/per-capita-electricity-source-stacked?country=OWID_WRL~CHN~IND~USA~JPN~DEU~GBR~BRA~FRA~CAN~SWE~ZAF~AUS