Arguments
Recent Comments
Prev 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 Next
Comments 3151 to 3200:
-
One Planet Only Forever at 09:19 AM on 14 October 2022Permitting: America’s next big climate conundrum
nigelj @2,
Thanks for pointing out the New York Times article.
For the benefit of others like me, who try to avoid on-line financial transactions, a similar presentation is available from the Footprint Coalition - Old coal plants are being resurrected as clean energy hubs
Indeed. Some action is happening to make use of some decommissioned fossil fuel sites. In some cases the use is limited to connection of off-shore renewable generation to the existing transmission infrastructure. But there are cases where the site was repurposed, or is planned to be, for renewable generation facilities on-site.
My question goes beyond the use of the site. It is about maximizing the use of existing transmission infrastructure for a location. That may require land adjacent to the fossil fuel power plant site to also be converted to renewable energy generation. And that adjacent development could have been brought into service in parallel with a phased reduction of operation of the fossil fuel facility.
Upon further reflection, Question 3 would include upgrading the existing transmission system and substations (potentially no major approval hurdles) to maximize renewable power transmission from an existing location.
-
nigelj at 06:32 AM on 14 October 2022No, a cherry-picked analysis doesn’t demonstrate that we’re not in a climate crisis
I'm not personally that into the collection of weather records as such, but I totally agree Bob Loblows posts were detailed, and in my view high quality. I was thinking myself that the excange between Bob and Eric was a model of how things should be done, with an emphasis on facts, and free of insults and crank science. So unlike a certain other largely unmoderated climate website. Sigh
-
michael sweet at 21:45 PM on 13 October 2022No, a cherry-picked analysis doesn’t demonstrate that we’re not in a climate crisis
Bob,
I like your detailed posts describing how weather data are collected, analized and corrected.
-
michael sweet at 21:43 PM on 13 October 2022Permitting: America’s next big climate conundrum
David-acct:
Your wild claim that more renewable penetration increases creates instability is completely false. Provide citations that support your claims. I note that the freeze in Texas and the ongoing crisis in Europe were both caused by fossil gas problems. Meanwhile, heat wave related crisis in California and Texas were resolved without blackouts because of strong renewable power production.
I like to cross check claims posted at SkS.
-
michael sweet at 21:34 PM on 13 October 2022Permitting: America’s next big climate conundrum
David-acct,
Everyone informed knows that no power plants ru all the time. In the USA the average capacity factor of coal plants was 40% in 2020. Nuclear plants in most countries have capacity factors less than 70%— and they don't count long term outages for major overhauls. Many fossil peaking power plants have capacity factors less than 20%.
Just not in for informational purposes. I like to cross check biased posts.
-
MA Rodger at 21:07 PM on 13 October 2022Temp record is unreliable
Wongfeihung1984 @527,
Proxy data of varying usefulness allows a global temperature record with reducing detail back 500 million years.
Widely known, the ice core data go back 100ky in the Arctic & 800k in the Antarctic while similar isotope dating methods in ocean sediments provide data back to, for instance in the graph above, the 65My of Zachos et al (2001), or the 5.3My of Lisiecki & Raymo (2005) which for most purposes can be converted into a global temperature record.
While generally 'reliable', such data-use is considered less than 'reliable' for some purposes so perhaps the 2,000ky record of Snyder (2016) which uses multiple proxies is likely the longest that could be properly termed 'reliable'. -
Jim Hunt at 19:08 PM on 13 October 2022Hurricane Ian: When the power grid goes out, could solar and batteries power your home?
Note that electric vehicle OEMs other than Ford have been offering production vehicle-to-home and vehicle-to-grid capable cars and vans for over a decade.
Nissan in Japan for example:
https://V2G.co.uk/2012/06/nissan-announce-leaf-to-home-power-supply-system/
Powerwalls on wheels! -
David-acct at 13:00 PM on 13 October 2022Permitting: America’s next big climate conundrum
Nigel and one planet - It would be logical to use the retired fossil fuel plants. However, there are logistical reasons why it is often impractical
first, the footprint per watts is substantially larger for solar (and wind), 10x-25x. So often there simply isnt enough available land for solar.
second, there is the cost of removing the existing plant. major reason why solar farms are build on raw land.
third, as renewable pentration increases, there problems of grid stability greatly increase.
-
David-acct at 12:54 PM on 13 October 2022Permitting: America’s next big climate conundrum
As I previously stated, I like to cross check the data presented.
The article notes that 85% of new installation was from clean sources. Included in that 85% is solar. The LBNL states that 12.5Gw (ac on annual basis) was solar. Note that the 12.5Gw is name plate capacity. Actual average capacity was 24.8%. (information confirmed with joachim seel and mark bollinger of LBNL)
Just noting for informational purposes and honest assessment, that the installed green capacity is over stated
from paragraph 2 of the lbnl report. "A record of nearly 12.5 GWAC of new utility-scale PV capacity came online in 2021, bringing cumulative installed capacity to more than 51.3 GWAC across 44 states"
-
nigelj at 06:45 AM on 13 October 2022Permitting: America’s next big climate conundrum
OPOF @1. Good points / questions.
"3. Why aren't new generation facilities being built immediately adjacent to, or on the property of, the soon to be moth-balled power generation facilities (where the transmission infrastructure already exists)? Likely because the developed marketplace of popularity and profit resists that."
I remembered reading about this recently. Some progress is being made according to this commentary although its on already mothballed sites: "In a Twist, Old Coal Plants Help Deliver Renewable Power. Here’s How."
www.nytimes.com/2022/07/15/climate/coal-plants-renewable-energy.html
-
One Planet Only Forever at 05:58 AM on 13 October 2022Permitting: America’s next big climate conundrum
Great presentation of the magnitude and nature of the problem that developed in the USA. There are many points for people, especially those in leadership roles, to seriously ponder. I will highlight a few that I see.
1. There is a problem with the statement that "...some experts believe that climate advocacy in the U.S. may need to shift from a focus on stopping fossil fuel infrastructure to one that centers on enabling the clean energy infrastructure that will displace it." Wouldn't anyone deemed to be an expert on the topic understand that both things, discouraging and opposing fossil fuel development and encouraging and supporting renewable energy development, needed to be done from the beginning?
2. Why aren't the new generation facilities being built near the users, ideally being built within the developed areas of the users? Likely because the developed marketplace of popularity and profit resists that.
3. Why aren't new generation facilities being built immediately adjacent to, or on the property of, the soon to be moth-balled power generation facilities (where the transmission infrastructure already exists)? Likely because the developed marketplace of popularity and profit resists that.
4. Why isn't power system infrastructure and management throughout the USA already allowing home and business owners to set up their own generation units and be able to export excess to the grid or draw from the grid as needed (it has been 30 years since the need for change was undeniable)? Likely because the developed marketplace of popularity and profit resists that.
5. Why is the marketplace of popularity and profit not seen to be the major problem developer, and major resistance to correction, that it undeniably is?
6. The real obvious need is reducing the per-person demand for energy. Why is that seldom part of the discussed actions? Likely because the developed marketplace of popularity and profit resists that.
-
Bob Loblaw at 01:16 AM on 12 October 2022Temp record is unreliable
Wongfeihung1984:
Every method of calculating (from direct measurements of local temperatures) or estimating (via proxy, satellite, etc) global temperatures has uncertainties. "Reliable" is a subjective term, and is not very useful.
Each original source of a global temperature time series will have some sort of indication of uncertainty. You really need to pick a particular method, find the original source, and see what it says. Generally, uncertainty will increase as you go back in time, and as you move towards more local temperatures from fewer data sources.
The Tai-Chi link in my comment #526 includes this graphic, as an example, showing one standard deviation in the uncertainty:
-
Wongfeihung1984 at 01:06 AM on 12 October 2022Temp record is unreliable
Hi Eclectic, yeah, he's not a skeptic he's a denialist, you are right. And thank you for your comment, I'll be sure to pass it on to him.
I have a follow-up question: how far back can we have reliable temperature measurements ? 100 000 years ? 800 000 years?Best regards
-
Bob Loblaw at 04:28 AM on 11 October 2022No, a cherry-picked analysis doesn’t demonstrate that we’re not in a climate crisis
I just took a look at the CoCoRaHS site and its link to where you can buy the precipitation gauge. It is very similar to the "Type B" gauge that used to be the standard across Canada for manual rain gauges. I've emptied a few of those over the years....
You can read more about Canada's manual precipitation standards (including a picture of the Type B) at this link.
-
Eric (skeptic) at 03:20 AM on 11 October 2022No, a cherry-picked analysis doesn’t demonstrate that we’re not in a climate crisis
Hi Bob, Just one note: I have the Cocorahs gauge and bought several more for friends. I don't participate yet because I am away too much right now to take daily readings. When that situation changes, I will start doing that.
I will read through those references about the instruments, recording and processing, thanks.
-
bbrowett at 02:37 AM on 11 October 2022Climate Change: They Lied
FUDG, Fear Uncertainty Doubt Greenwashing: Needs to be added to our lexicon. Updating the acronym Fear Uncertainty Doubt (FUD) for the Climate Emergency inaction period we are in we get Fear Uncertainty Doubt Greenwashing (FUDG) ... and yes I mean to imply the pun.
-
Bob Loblaw at 23:49 PM on 10 October 2022No, a cherry-picked analysis doesn’t demonstrate that we’re not in a climate crisis
Although all of this precipitation gauge discussion may seem to be getting off-topic, I think it gives an interesting perspective in the gory details of weather observations and the things that need to be considered in processing "raw" measurements for trend analysis.
The OP points out that the paper in question has cherry-picked a few analyses that failed to cover a lot of what has been looked at in the literature. Often, proper analysis of weather data needs to understand the intricacies of the measurements - how instruments and processing change over time, the strengths and weaknesses of different measurement technologies, etc. Is the measurement system in question capable of extracting the signal that the analysis is looking for?
If the analysis fails to understand exactly what the measurements represent, and treats a long time series of varying instruments and processing methods as if each reading is 100% reliable, then the analysis will be misleading - possibly misleading the person doing the analysis, let alone the reader.
Caveat emptor.
-
Bob Loblaw at 23:37 PM on 10 October 2022No, a cherry-picked analysis doesn’t demonstrate that we’re not in a climate crisis
Eric:
Ahhh, you're familiar with and participate in CoCoRaHS. That's good. That is an important volunteer network that helps fill in a lot of gaps in the North American precipitation monitoring network.
The 1-minute record precipitation value you link to is interesting. The paper chart system used in that measurement is very simlar to what you see in this Wikipedia image of a thermo-hygrograph:
The paper is mounted on a drum that rotates on a clock mechanism. The measurement system controls a pen that moves up and down. Since the pen follows an arc, the lines of equal time on the chart are curved. In the case of the Fischer-Porter precipitation gauge, full travel covers 6 inches of precipitation - but the mechanism is double-jointed: you get 0-6" on an upward arc, then 6-12" on a downward arc. In the chart image on your link, you can see the 1,2,3,4,5 - 7,8,9,10,11 markings on the left-most chart. Quite the mechanical design!
The link that I gave in comment #12 has further details on the recording of precipitation from the US Fischer-Porter network, including a mention of the 15-minute measurements. Although they talk of a "Fischer-Porter" network, most of the automated systems in the US have been using the Geonor T-200 gauges for quite a long time. MSC also makes extensive use of those gauges, but is replacing them with Ott Puvio2 gauges. Fischer-Porter also morphed into Belfort (which still makes gauges), so you'll see that name commonly, too.
The US and Canada have been moving to more frequent readings than 15-minutes, but as I mentioned the character of the gauges is that the noise makes it very hard to detect small precipitation amounts.
Here are a few references to processing of data from the US network:
Baker, B. C., R. Buckner, W. Collins, and M. Phillips, 2005a: Calculation of USCRN precipitation from Geonor weighing precipitation gauge. NOAA Tech. Note NCDC-USCRN-05-1, 27 pp.
Baker, B. C., L. Larson, E. May, H. Bogin, and B. Collins, 2005b: Final report: Operational testing of various precipitation sensors in support of the United States Climate Reference Network (USCRN). NOAA Tech. Note NCDC-USCRN-05-2, 69 pp.
Leeper, Ronald D., Michael A. Palecki, and Egg Davis, 2015: Methods to Calculate Precipitation from Weighing-Bucket Gauges with Redundant Depth Measurements. J. Atmos. Oceanic Technol., 32, 1179–1190.
As for tipping buckets: at least in Canada they do collect data at one-minute intervals, although that data is not automatically visible to the general public. It is used in the IDF curve analysis I linked to earlier.
-
Eclectic at 13:02 PM on 10 October 2022No, a cherry-picked analysis doesn’t demonstrate that we’re not in a climate crisis
The lead article is also duplicated on ATTP (andthentheresphysics.wordpress.com)
of October 7, 2022.
More than 100 responses at ATTP ~ for those readers with an idle hour, seeking entertainment.
Lots of good comments: from Bob Loblaw, Dikranmarsupial, as well as the deft Willard, and others.
Moderator Response:[BL] The direct link to the post at ATTP is this.
-
Eric (skeptic) at 04:58 AM on 10 October 2022No, a cherry-picked analysis doesn’t demonstrate that we’re not in a climate crisis
Thanks Bob. Your information brought to mind an old link I saved: wmo.asu.edu/content/world-greatest-one-minute-rainfall. The weighing gauge pen jumped 1.34 inches in less than a minute according to that summary. When I thought about the motor pulling paper from the spool I thought what if the motor stops, then restarts? Then the trace would show an artificial jump. Presumably they analyzed the 50 minute interval to determine that the motor didn't have any hiccups, that the paper didn't bind, etc. Also I'm not sure if the motor is turned on and off to move the paper each minute or if it is always on and geared down to move the paper very slowly.
In any case it brings up another point about the short duration rainfalls. Tipping bucket gauges have to be read and ASOS reads every minute. However I believe they only send cumulative amounts at 5 or 15 minute intervals. That may vary and they may or may not retain the one minute readings internally. In any case to beat the world's one minute rainfall record we need one minute resolution.
I have a Rainwise tipping bucket gauge and with an 8 inch diameter I consider it barely adequate for rainfall accuracy (I stand out in the rain to check it against my Cocorahs guage). There are many smaller diameter buckets on the market and I would consider them potentially inaccurate. So while there may be more collection points now they may not be accurate. The second problem is time resolution. I collect measurements once a minute and save them. The measurements fall off the queue after about a day. I could save them permanently but if there's an extreme rainfall I copy the data before I lose the measurements.
The bottom line is that it may be difficult to beat old records made by weighing gauges simply because technology has gotten cheaper and less accurate (IMO).
-
One Planet Only Forever at 04:09 AM on 10 October 20222022 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #37
Eagle the Greek,
My initial reaction to your comment was to ask for clarification, and specific examples, regarding your belief that "Both side of the argument have big misunderstandings".
But, upon further consideration of your entire comment from the perspective of the pursuit of increased awareness and improved understanding of how to sustainably improve things for the future of humanity, I wish to provide the following context as the reasonable common sense basis for your response.
Human activity can undeniably influence the environment of this planet on a local and global scale. But it is unlikely that humans will even learn enough to accurately control the results of human development impacts. The environment, local and global, is amazingly complex. It was not just made for humans to do whatever they wish with. The best that can be hoped for from humans, with their ability for thoughtfulness, is increased awareness and improved understanding of unsustainable harmful activity governing leadership actions to limit the harm done by people who have developed a liking for 'other interests' which keeps them from helpfully self-governing, keeps them from learning to be less harmful and more helpful members of global humanity.
Human actions add up. So everyone needs to be helped to limit harm done. Being a better person would also involve being more helpful to others, not just less harmful, to help develop a sustainable improving future for all of global humanity. Admittedly that may require some supposedly higher status humans to lose some developed perceptions of superiority.
Human actions can be negative or positive from the perspective of developing sustainable ways of living and sustainable improvements. And it is undeniable that a lot of negative (harmful unsustainable) activity has developed, especially by the supposedly more advanced portion of the global population.
With that understanding as the context, please elaborate on your belief that there are "big misunderstandings" on both sides of the CO2 debate, understanding that CO2 impacts are not the only human activities causing rapid ∆T. The response also needs to be consistent with the awareness and understanding of all the other harmful unsustainable impacts of human activity which includes many other harmful impacts of fossil fuel use, not just the increase of CO2 levels.
And, of course, a reasonable response would also be consistent with the understanding that fossil fuels are not renewable. Future generations will have to live without benefiting from burning them. And an challenging perspective is that human impacts causing slight global warming may be helpful in the future by limiting the changes of the next natural glaciation event. That next glaciation is expected to be at least 50,000 years away (lots of studies indicate that approximate date. But some studies have indicated that the warming impact to date is delaying the onset of the next glaciation to be about 100,000 years from now.
It would be great if lots of easy to access fossil fuels were available at that time for humans to cautiously limit the challenges of that next natural glaciation. And the other benefits of rapidly ending fossil fuel use to leave the stuff for those distant future generations are the reduced harm done today and to generations in the more immediate future.
-
Bob Loblaw at 23:38 PM on 9 October 2022No, a cherry-picked analysis doesn’t demonstrate that we’re not in a climate crisis
Eric. Thank you for the updated links.
In your second link, which allows searching for stations, the top title is a link to this web page that give an indication of the instrumentation that is used to collect this data. On that page we see (emphasis added):
The Cooperative Observer Program (COOP) Hourly Precipitation Data (HPD) consists of quality controlled precipitation amounts, which are measurements of hourly accumulation of precipitation, including rain and snow for approximately 2,000 observing stations around the country, and several U.S. territories in the Caribbean and Pacific from the National Weather Service (NWS) Fischer-Porter Network.
The Fischer-Porter is a weighing-type automated precipitation gauge. You can read a little bit about it here. Old data will have been on the paper coded tapes described in that link, but a lot of more recent data (last 30 years) will have been "modified for remote transmission" (interpretation: modified for electronic readouts).
Weighing gauges in general are poor at determining small amounts of precipitation over short intervals. The noise characteristics are not good. The gauge just tells you "this is how much weight I have now", and you need to process that into a change in weight over time to determine precipitation amounts. That can be done externally using the raw weights, but modern gauges may have internal electronics that will do the processing - for better or for worse. You have a classic "signal to noise" ratio problem with small changes.
Weighing gauges should be more reliable for heavier rainfall amounts, but they are still a limiting technology. There are many other brands of weighing gauges, too - Geonor, Pluvio and Pluvio2 are ones that I have worked with. They are generally better at cumulative rainfall estimates over longer periods of time. (One of their advantages is that they collect snow as well as rain.)
Short term rainfall intensity data are more commonly collected using tipping bucket technology, which can provide one-minute rainfall intensity data. Tipping buckets have problems at high rainfall rates, and are not so good for long-term cumulative amounts, so many automated stations (virtually all at Canadian automated stations) will have both types.
Intensity-Duration-Frequency curves are a standard part of precipitation analysis. They are needed for engineering design (drainage design) and are useful for many hydrological and ecological purposes. You can read more about the Canadian methodology and results by following the links on this page.
Any precipitation gauge will have issues with "capture efficiency" at high winds. Winds cause turbulence around the gauge, which general causes the gauge to under-collect. Much more important for snow, but still a factor with rain. Most automated weighing gauges will be installed with some sort of wind shield to help with this. Tipping buckets are usualy mounted close to the surface, where wind is less of a factor. Getting data that have been adjusted for wind capture efficiency is often very difficult.
Changes in instrumentation (which automated gauge, what wind shielding, how the data are processed) will be inportant in looking at trends.
And none of that helps much with the problems of localized storms passing between recording stations.
-
Eric (skeptic) at 11:15 AM on 9 October 2022No, a cherry-picked analysis doesn’t demonstrate that we’re not in a climate crisis
Bob, here's an example of one of the files I used www.ncei.noaa.gov/data/coop-hourly-precipitation/v2/access/USC00010957.csv. for Boaz, AL. It is a daily report but it contains hourly amounts, IIRC hundredths of an inch as an integer. I got to the list of stations using a search: www.ncei.noaa.gov/access/search/data-search/coop-hourly-precipitation?dataTypes=HR00Val. Sorry my link above was not the hourly precipitation search result that I intended to show.
Yes, I am careful using temperature readings from sources like that where they typically had late afternoon readings which easily double counted high temperatures in the decades before the 1960's or 1970's (cutover to electronic or different ToD varies by station).
-
Bob Loblaw at 06:13 AM on 9 October 2022No, a cherry-picked analysis doesn’t demonstrate that we’re not in a climate crisis
Eric:
From the first paragraph of the link to the COOP web page you provide (emphasis added):
COOP data usually consist of daily maximum and minimum temperatures, snowfall, snow depth, and 24-hour precipitation totals.
Next question:
How did your analysis determine 1-hour and 6-hour totals from that data?
Hint: the COOP network involves manual reading of data. Temperature from a max/min thermometer (once per day), and precipitation total from a rain gauge that sits and collects rainfall for 24 hours, and is emptied manually and the quantity measured (once per day).
Side note: this is the network that requires the time of day adjustment for temperature trends.
-
Eric (skeptic) at 05:09 AM on 9 October 2022No, a cherry-picked analysis doesn’t demonstrate that we’re not in a climate crisis
Bob, there were 577 stations with reasonable coverage since 1950. There were more stations with sparse coverage which I ignored. I also ignored stations with < 70 years of coverage. They all start with USC and USW, then a station number. The data is described and available here Cooperative Observer Network (COOP). While it doesn't mean there is scientific value to the data, I certainly appreciate the efforts of thousands of observers manually entering data every hour or more often in some cases, and others who transcribed it.
As we've discussed before you believe the way to analyze global warming influences is to look at changes in the distribution over time. I prefer to leave out most of the data for rainfall since I am only interested in one thing: the maximum amount of rain in the interval annually (and annually by month). Why I want that trend is simple, that amount is what creates the largest runoff. I fully agree that distributions will show changes skewing in various ways to higher amounts of rainfall in some subset of events determined to be extreme.
In many cases they will use the top 0.1% of events. But with roughly 100 rainfall events per year, that's just one event per 10 years. However they can look at numerous stations over a region (as few as 10) to get the same number of data points as I use.
One Planet, I agree. Counts are only a subset of available data. The data includes TOR_F_SCALE, TOR_LENGTH, TOR_WIDTH, property damage estimates, and a variety of text. Not all events will have all the fields and the text varies greatly. But a careful analysis would use as much as possible. I would also look more thoroughly for seasonal changes because there are some (November increases in particular) even if annual counts are down. The tornado data also comes from the NCEI (formerly NCDC). Storm Events Database
Hurricane data is IBTRACS from here International Best Track Archive for Climate Stewardship (IBTrACS)
-
Bob Loblaw at 03:43 AM on 9 October 2022From the eMail bag: A Review of a paper by Ellis and Palmer
The albedo argument of Ellis and Palmer is an odd one. They explicitly state in their section 3.2 that they think it is incorrect to consider the albedo effect as a global one. In discussing the common approach to albedo feedback amounts, and comparing it to the CO2 feedback, they state:
The strength of the albedo feedback was calculated as being in the same range, or about 3 W/m2 over the full interglacial cycle (Hansen et al., 2012, Fig. 5c and p12). This figure was derived by equating albedo with sea levels, and therefore with ice extent, which spreads the albedo effect out across the entire globe in a similar fashion to the calculation for CO2. But this is likely to be an erroneous procedure.
They go on to argue that their localized "one day, one latitude" calculation of radiative effects is the proper one to use. They conclude one paragraph with:
As Fig. 3 clearly demonstrates, interglacials are only ever triggered by Great Summer insolation increases in the northern hemisphere and never by increases in insolation during the southern Great Summer, so why spread the influence of albedo across the entire globe?
To put it simply, the change in local or regional albedo represents one part of global albedo. To address the question of how much solar radiation the globe absorbs (which is the proper question for looking at global climate), you need to consider all of the globe - each latitude, each day, and each individual surface cover. The contribution of a single location is directly proportional to the area it covers - as a fraction of the total area of the planet.
Global changes in global albedo, caused by large white ice sheets replacing dark forests (or the reverse), is an important feedback. When climate science speaks "albedo feedback", it is this large scale issue that they mean, not Ellis and Palmer's local microclimate one.
The Rapp et al unpublished paper that MA Rodger refers to is an interesting side note. It still focuses on albedo and high-latitude insolation. It at least considers the entire year, not just the summer solstice, but it's efforts at modelling still are extremely simplistic - empirical fits between ice volume and variations in solar input. No actual climate model to provide precipitation inputs or melt processes, or glacier dynamics models to accumulate ice and move it from zones of accumulation to zones of melt.
The Rapp et al paper also seems to be rather confused about CO2 as a feedback vs. CO2 as a forcing. They argue against a straw man: that mainstream climate science thinks that CO2 is supposed to force the glacial/interglacial cycles. (It does not.) CO2 is one feedback. The overall CO2 level influences whether climate will respond to Milankovitch cycles by producing glacial/interglacial cycles, but it does not cause the individual glacial/interglacial periods. A world at 200 ppm CO2, a world at 300 ppm CO2, and a world at 450 ppm CO2 will not respond to orbital changes in solar insolation in exactly the same way.
-
One Planet Only Forever at 02:30 AM on 9 October 2022No, a cherry-picked analysis doesn’t demonstrate that we’re not in a climate crisis
Eric,
I suspect that a simple 'tornado count' of each intensity level is not the best measure of tornado activity. A better measure would be the sum of the length of tornado impact, either in time or physical distance travelled, for each intensity level.
That probably also applies to cyclones. The total duration or distance of each level of intensity would be more meaningful than a simple count. And, of course, the measure has to be of all cyclones, not just the Atlantic ones called hurricanes, and definitely not just the cyclones that make landfall on USA territory. And Tropical Storm level cyclones also need to be part of the evaluation, especially the magnitude of rain fall from them.
-
MA Rodger at 00:49 AM on 9 October 2022From the eMail bag: A Review of a paper by Ellis and Palmer
One criticism of Ellis & Palmer (2016) that can be hurled with some confidence is that it has not exactly set the literature alight since it was published six long years ago. That tends to suggest it presents a badly failed hypothesis.
I note one of the citations listed by Google Scholar is for a later unpublished work co-authored by Ellis (evidently 2019 or later) which doen't make such a big thing about this CO2-dust mechanism, although it does continue to stress that CO2 was not the main driver of the ice-age cycles, which most would agree with.
One of the factors working against the grand assertion of Ellis & Palmer (2016), that CO2 leads to reduced plant-growth and thus more dust & lower albedo; one factor is the switch of ice-age period from 40k to 100k. This switch is usually explained by the dust during the earlier 40k phase being diminished as the bare plantless lands close-by glaciated areas were being scoured clean of any dust-generating soils by prior glaciations, scoured back to the bedrock. If this dust is alternatively explained by reduced CO2 suppressing plant-growth, the 40k-100k transition requires a new explanation. And given this requirement the apparent silence by Ellis & Palmer (2016) on the matter is entirely wrong.
-
Bob Loblaw at 23:41 PM on 8 October 2022No, a cherry-picked analysis doesn’t demonstrate that we’re not in a climate crisis
Eric:
What source of rainfall data did you use in your U.S. analysis? How did you determine the frequencies?
Analsysis of rainfall data suffers from three major complications:
- The observing network is very sparse. It is capable of providing a pretty good representation of regional temperatures that change relatively slowly over moderate distances, but precipitation (especially short-term localized storms such as thunderstorms) often slips between the gaps and gets missed.
- Records from individual stations are often lacking in detection of extreme events, so determining a "100-year storm" is not as simple as looking at the biggest storm in a 100-year record.
- Relatively few stations have rainfall data at sub-hourly time resolution. The instrumentation that can provide data at this time scale is usually different from what is often used at hourly or 6-hour time scales.
The solution to these problems involves looking at many stations over a region, and fitting statistical distributions to the records. The statistical distributions are then used to derive estimates of 5-minute, 1-hour, 6-hour, etc. duration extreme events.
There is also rainfall data available from radar systems. An example of a system that incorporates station precipitation gauge values with radar and model estimates can be seen here:
https://centreau.org/en/events-news/events/introduction-to-the-canadian-precipitation-analysis-capa/
-
Bob Loblaw at 23:20 PM on 8 October 2022From the eMail bag: A Review of a paper by Ellis and Palmer
nigel:
You have to read the paper to try to follow the logic (as such) of their argument about CO2 and temperature. It is rather convoluted.
Section 2 of their paper discusses the Milankovitch cycles, and introduces their "see - huge difference in input of energy on summer solstice at 65N" calculation. They use this to argue that albedo reductions due to dust on snow are the real feedback factor explaining how Milankovitch cycles can grow or melt a continental glacier.
In section 3, they do their bogus comparison between the dust-albedo feedback and CO2 radiative effects.
In section 4, they expand on the dust albedo factors.
In section 5, they give their hypothesis how low CO2 leads to reductions in vegetation cover, and how this is what leads to high dust concentrations that accumulate on the ice/snow of the glaciers. It's this last step that allows low albedo that allows the increased solar input (again, summer solstice at 65N) of the Milankovitch cycles to trigger deglaciation.
At the end of it all, they are basically saying that nothing else makes much difference as Milankovitch cycles go through their many wiggles, until vegetation gets so low and albedo of the snow and ice gets low enough so that a high in the 65N summer solstice Milankovitch cycle can finally melt a continent worth of ice.
It's all hanging together by a very thin thread, and their "analysis" is sadly lacking in any sort of model that actually incorporates anything of global/regional climate, the carbon cycle, and glacial dynamics and accumulation/melt.
-
Eric (skeptic) at 23:14 PM on 8 October 2022No, a cherry-picked analysis doesn’t demonstrate that we’re not in a climate crisis
Clausius-Clapeyron means that with global warming the atmosphere can hold more water vapor. Whether it does hold more water vapor depends on a surprisingly complex set of factors. Drought intensification is a simpler case. C-C means there almost always be more evaporation and will often (not always) be more transpiration.
Short term rainfall is a much more complex case. I have found no trend in US 1 hour to 6 hour rainfalls in 500+ stations over 70 years. However as rainfalls get progressively longer (6 instead of 1) there are consistently more increasing trends and fewer declining trends. That's also why we almost never see a new 1 or 5 or 10 minute rainfall record. C-C has essentially zero influence at the very short term. But C-C definitely has more influence at the longer durations which is why we see new 24 hour (and longer) all-time records being set like with Harvey. But Harvey brings up an important point, the water vapor has to come from somewhere and it came a warmer gulf of Mexico. That much is quite obvious.
There are changes in regional tornado climatology. I have yet to do that analysis and it will be a bit difficult with relatively rare events. But overall in the US EF-3 and EF-4 tornadoes are declining, EF-5 are statistically flat. There are flat statistics for winter and generally declining statistics for warmer months, but fewer declines 1990-present than 1950-present. In short, complicated and dependent on time periods affected by natural cycles. Easy to cherry pick.
My Atlantic hurricane analysis found a notable uptick in >= 120 knot storms. I set that threshold to avoid the small numbers problems using categories. RI is interesting, someone needs to write a paper with a new definition because the old definition (>= 30 knots increase in 24 hours) is true for 60% of Atlantic hurricanes. The increase in RI from warmer oceans shows up most strongly at >= 40 knots in 24 hours. Ian met that threshold. But there's also an increase in rapid weakening over water. Over land weakening is expected and I exclude all such cases. Globally Ryan Maue's data shows fewer hurricanes but the average hurricane in stronger. Also have to be careful not to cherry pick intervals.
Overall I agree with the article above that there are many other impacts that need to be considered. That's particularly true if we are going to decide how to rationally spend money on impact mitigation.
-
nigelj at 08:07 AM on 8 October 2022From the eMail bag: A Review of a paper by Ellis and Palmer
Something obvious seems to have been missed here. The paper says that increased CO2 leads to more greening of the planet and thus less dust on the ice sheets, and so a cooling effect (parpahrasing). But we have had increased CO2 and increased greening of the planet and a warming effect. Doesn't this failure of their prediction kill their idea dead, all other things being equal?
-
nigelj at 07:59 AM on 8 October 2022No, a cherry-picked analysis doesn’t demonstrate that we’re not in a climate crisis
Sea level rise appears to be following a quadratic (parabolic) curve. Perhaps this is not surprising because steadly increasing and accumulating CO2 levels in the atmophere and known positive feedbacks causing the warming trend, would be consistent with a parabolic function, and not so much a linear or exponential function. But if antarctic ice sheets physically destabilise that could be a local exponential function.
-
Bob Loblaw at 04:09 AM on 8 October 2022No, a cherry-picked analysis doesn’t demonstrate that we’re not in a climate crisis
To pick a nit, I think your trajectory after jumping off a cliff is best described by an elliptical function, with the centre of the earth as one of the focii. You are launching yourself into orbit - albeit a short one once the earth gets in the way.
Next best approximation is a parabola, and that probably fits an exponential increase in vertical speed to a pretty high accuracy.
The one thing it definitely is not, is linear. That very rapidly becomes obvious.
But then, the contrarian industry has long had a habit of trying to force reality to fit their beliefs - e.g. the infamous North Carolina effort to declare that sea level was only allowed to change based on a linear extrapolation of past readings.
-
ubrew12 at 03:51 AM on 8 October 2022No, a cherry-picked analysis doesn’t demonstrate that we’re not in a climate crisis
If the authors of this paper find no statistical evidence of climate change on weather events, it seems incumbent on them to posit a reason.
From the conclusions section: "It would be nevertheless extremely important to define mitigation and adaptation strategies that take into account current trends." This seems reasonable except for two things:
1) the authors are saying the current trends are indistinguishable from zero.
2) Even if nonzero, nobody expects 'current trends' to remain current for long, in an exponential phenomenon.
You can't look at what is happening and conclude anything else: that we're in the midst of something best explained by the exponential function. Which is also used to describe things that are exploding.
After sea level rises 3 feet, it's easy to say we should have done something. But the actual moment to do something is when you jump off the cliff, not when you hit bottom (btw, your trajectory after jumping off a cliff is also best described by the exponential function).
-
Bob Loblaw at 02:46 AM on 8 October 2022No, a cherry-picked analysis doesn’t demonstrate that we’re not in a climate crisis
...just as a rigorous, thorough medical examinaton of a person falling off a high-rise building could say "no signs of any harm yet" - as long as they finished before the person reached the ground.
-
One Planet Only Forever at 01:51 AM on 8 October 2022No, a cherry-picked analysis doesn’t demonstrate that we’re not in a climate crisis
I am sure that a rigorous accurate detailed evaluation of water use in the Colorado Basin could also conclude that there is no evidence of a crisis or emegency.
Only a few users of water have been getting less than they want ... so far.
-
Bob Loblaw at 01:41 AM on 8 October 2022From the eMail bag: A Review of a paper by Ellis and Palmer
OPOF:
In the paper, Ellis and Palmer make no direct mention of any implications of their work for future climate. As it stands, it is a simple attempt to understand what might have happened in past climates.
Of course, the reason why the discipline of climatology looks at past climates is due to the old adage "the past is the key to the future". If we understand how and why climate has changed in the past, we have a greater chance of being able to predict future events. The IPCC reports give extensive coverage to past climates, for this specific purpose.
We can only guess what Ellis and Palmer wished to imply - if we restrict ourselves to what they say in this paper (which is the proper way to review a paper). But it is easy to see why this paper is attractive to those that wish to imply that CO2 has no radiative effect.
-
One Planet Only Forever at 07:47 AM on 7 October 2022From the eMail bag: A Review of a paper by Ellis and Palmer
Ellis and Palmer's story and its potential appeal, in addition to presenting significant misunderstandings, is an example of what can happen when scientific investigation of a part of the bigger picture fails to be presented in the full context of the bigger picture.
Even if the investigation and reporting about the part is accurate, failing to situate it in the bigger picture, especially failing to investigate and present the potential harms associated with the part being investigated, can end up being applied to develop harmful popular and profitable beliefs and activity (it actually often happens).
Learning about the constantly improving understanding of what is harmful and unsustainable is fought against by people who develop a powerful interest in 'evading learning to be less harmful and more helpful'.
Bee's even offer an example. The scientific development of chemicals that can be profitable did not include an indepth investigation of the more complex potential for harm to be done (that is difficult because of the complexity, and it would be expensive and take time). And now the people profiting who did not do that 'harder to do' investigation of the potential harm get to 'legally' demand that 'others have to do the harder work of conclusively proving the harm done (like the tobacco people still claim that the exact biological mechanisms of harm caused by smoking are not conclusively proven'. The scientifically beneficial development of the chemical was quickly embraced and exploited without serious concern for potential harm done.
Back to the story made up by Ellis and Palmer. Aspects of it are attactive to people wanting to ignore the harm of fossil fuel use ... because they benefit from fossil fuel use, and fossil fuel use got to be popular and profitable before the harmful consequences were investigated and better understood.
-
Bob Loblaw at 23:37 PM on 6 October 2022From the eMail bag: A Review of a paper by Ellis and Palmer
ubrew12:
The mechanism that Ellis and Palmer argue for their low CO2=low vegetation (cover, not height), is rather convoluted and you need to read their paper to see what they say. It's covered in their section 5.
Part of what they do is summarized in table 4 of their paper, where they list reductions in CO2 affecting treeline. They use CO2 values of 150 for alpine treeline (2000m altitude), and 115 for tropical treeline (4000m altitude)....
...but you need to carefully read the table to notice that they are using CO2 values in μbar, not ppm. How do they get these numbers? Well, at sea level (1 bar, or 1000 mb pressure), an interglacial CO2 concentration of 300ppm equates to 300 μbar, and a glacial CO2 concentration of 190 ppm translates to 190 μbar. They then use the standard decrease in pressure with height - at 4000m, pressure drops to about 620 mb - and 190 ppm translates to a partial pressure of CO2 of only 115 μbar.
When I read the Gerhard and Wort paper Ellsi and Palmer cite, it does not support using CO2 values in μbar. It does discuss plant response vs. altitude, and plant response at low CO2 levels, but nearly all the discussion focuses on units of ppm.
So, like the flying bee example, Ellis and Palmer choose to do a unit conversion and calculation that favours the conclusion they want to support, without really justifying the logic. Perhaps someone who knows plant physiology better than I can provide a solid argument why partial pressure rather than concentration is important for plant uptake of CO2, but Ellis and Palmer do not convince me.
-
David-acct at 12:26 PM on 6 October 2022Thinking of buying an EV? Hurry up … and wait … or?
Jim Hunt
the Vx2 technology looks to be a really good and promising idea to supplement the CA power grid, especially since solar has such a rapid drop off in electric generation from solar starting around 5-6pm, and since wind doesnt pick up the short fall as the peak demand continues through 10pm on a daily basis. (this is typical of the electric generation by source recurring on a daily basis with seasonal variations)
Details are available at US Energy Information administration.
Be sure to select the California grid / CISO grid .
EIA is a great source for actual real time data.
-
ubrew12 at 11:59 AM on 6 October 2022From the eMail bag: A Review of a paper by Ellis and Palmer
"the paper...[argues] that low CO2 leads to low vegetation, which leads to increased dust" How does this comport with general knowledge? Vegetation requires sunlight, soil, and water, primarily. In what ecosystem is CO2 the limiting factor... deserts? In deserts, low CO2 should shrink the Hadley Cell, shrinking the desert, i.e. more vegetation, not less. I can't think of another ecosystem for which 'low CO2 leads to low vegetation' sufficient to rob the surface of all vegetation, i.e. create dust. As long as there is sunlight, soil, and water, you're going to grow stuff. And, as we've seen with hydroponics, you don't even need soil. Perhaps below 200ppm of CO2, the authors have a case. But, if so, do they prove it? And do they prove it for CO2 above 200ppm? It seems to me that for most vegetative areas, a CO2 above 200ppm precludes it as a limiting factor in vegetative growth.
"low CO2 leads to low vegetation... increased dust... reduce[d]... ice sheet albedo... end of a glacial period...[= higher temperature]." Condensed, the claim is "low CO2... = higher temperature". This demonstrably hasn't been true at any time in the last 400,000 years. If these guys think low CO2 leads to higher Earth temperature, it seems they should have to demonstrate that.
-
Eagle the Greek at 05:23 AM on 6 October 20222022 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #37
As a Greenhouse gas, CO2 makes life possible on Earth but also threatens it's inhabitants with extinction. Both side of the argument have big misunderstandings on this issue and that's what makes things really frightening. To see a US Senator babble about what the"ideal temperature" is without realizing that it is ∆T, is, the rate of change is of crucial importance. We are still in a glacial period and we need to learn more about being able to control the Earth's climate.
-
One Planet Only Forever at 03:39 AM on 6 October 2022Thinking of buying an EV? Hurry up … and wait … or?
Jim Hunt @3,
With my "pursuing increase awareness and improve understanding" hat on, I would add that it is also important to consider the 'need for a new vehicle'. And, related to that 'consideration of need for a new vehicle', it is important to seriously limit the energy demand and use of any vehicle, existing or new.
There are now many presentations of the merits of reduced consumption. One of the more entertaining ones I have become aware of is a study by sufficiency researcher Maren Ingrid Kropfeld mentioned in J. B. MacKinnon's book "The Day the World Stops Shopping". That study evaluated the level of harmful impact of 4 different types of consumers: Environmentally conscientious, Frugal (buy bargains), Tightwads (dislike spending), Actively pursuing limited consumption (only buying what is 'needed' and buying and repairing more durable things). Those 'Choosing to consume less' and the Tightwads had the lowest level of harmful impact. The Frugal and Environmentally conscientious (who were not Tightwads or Actively pursuing limited consumption) had far more harmful impact because they did not limit their consumption.
So, the best things for people to do are (in the order I believe is best given the above):
- Reduce the use of any existing personal vehicle. If you are able, adapt to living Free from the burdens and impacts of owning a personal vehicle.
- Maintain the vehicle to minimize the impact of its use (no oil burning) and maximize its potential use (impacts of end of use are significant)
- If the existing vehicle is higher impact than you need because it is larger, heavier or more highly powered than 'needed' buy a replacement 'now' so that someone needing what you have but don't need can use your used vehicle rather than buying a 'new' one.
- If you are buying a new vehicle, buy the lowest impact vehicle available rather than waiting for 'better options' be become available.
- If you are unable to afford a 'new electric vehicle' to 'impact downsize' from the vehicle you do not 'need' buy the lowest impacting available vehicle you have access to, prioritizing used vehicles. Avoid buying a fossil fuel burning vehicle. If you must buy a 'fossil fuel powered vehicle' try to find the lowest impact hybrid that meets your 'needs' (new or used - but note that a new hybrid is not likely much cheaper than a new electric). Note that some quirks exist(ed) where larger hybrids had better fuel efficiency that smaller models (older Honda Accords vs Civics are an example).
Purchasing the 'potentially better' vehicles of the future should be done following the same steps. The ability of a vehicle battery to be reverse used in the power grid would not justify replacing a usable personal vehicle that is minimally used. In fact, that 'system improvement' encouraging more use of personal electric vehicles would likely not be an improvement at all. Environmentally conscientious consumers continuing to do unnecessary things, or doing more, is likely not helpful in the overall pursuit of sustainable improvements for the benefit of the future of humanity.
-
BaerbelW at 23:35 PM on 5 October 2022The Conspiracy Theory Handbook: Downloads and translations
On October 5, we added the Slovak translation of The Conspiracy Theory Handbooks thanks to the work of the Science+ project of Free Press for Eastern Europe.
-
slumgullionridge at 22:50 PM on 5 October 2022Climate Change: They Lied
Very entertaining person. It leaves me with the question of where the blames should lie. Fossil fuel companies are making the stuff, but we are the one's burning it. When the price of motor fuel practically double this past spring, it, not the war in Ukraine or the overturn of Roe V Wade or the 8.5% inflation rate, commanded more attention. It seems to me that in order to reduce and finally eliminate most of the fossil fuels we fault as the leading cause of climate changing emissions, we need to severely ration, even outlaw much of its production.
-
Jim Hunt at 19:03 PM on 5 October 2022Thinking of buying an EV? Hurry up … and wait … or?
With my "professional" hat on, here's some recent interesting news from California:
https://V2G.co.uk/2022/09/california-is-keen-on-v2g/According to Gavin Newsom:
"The opportunity now with electric vehicles, and the vehicle-to-grid technology, and the bi-directional opportunity of two way charging creates opportunities for million and millions of batteries on wheels...Low carbon green growth!"
Perhaps the question should be "Wait and buy when V2x is readily available" versus "Buy now and upgrade later"?
-
One Planet Only Forever at 13:01 PM on 4 October 2022Thinking of buying an EV? Hurry up … and wait … or?
Really good regional government action would be trying to most rapidly make their regional power generation fully renewable.
-
Charlie_Brown at 02:56 AM on 4 October 2022Thinking of buying an EV? Hurry up … and wait … or?
For some, the incentive is not just financial but also an interest in doing their part to reduce CO2 emissions. To this end, the source of electrical power adds another complication. In locations where the source is primarily coal, EV’s do not provide as much benefit. A couple years ago, the MIT Trancik Lab produced an interactive carbon counter for lifecycle greenhouse gas emissions by vehicle model which could be tuned to the source of power. Knowing your utility's source is best, but a quick filter allows selection by state as an estimate. However, to complicate it further, consider the source of increased power as demand for EV’s surges. A good government program to reduce CO2 emissions could incentivize EV sales in regional areas where they would be most effective.
-
One Planet Only Forever at 06:23 AM on 3 October 20222022 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #39
The following recent articles reinforce the understanding I presented in my comment @1.
NPR item "Facts come to the rescue in the age of gaslighting"
CBC Ideas item "American democracy is at a precipice, experts say. And time is ticking"
A harmfully selfish group has teamed up to fight as dirty as they can get away with in pursuit of personally benefiting the most and defending or excusing their ill-gotten gains. They argue that popularity and profitability must rule, as long as they benefit from what is popular and profitable. Think about Elon Musk's claim that Social Responsibility is to be judged by popularity and profitability.
Popular and profitable beliefs and actions can be undeniably harmful. And they develop powerful resistance to change. The more popular or profitable something has become the harder it can be to learn about how harmfully incorrect it is (corporate or political team secrecy is key). People benefiting unjustly will try to fight against investigation into the harmful incorrectness of the beliefs and actions they benefit from. And even if, by some fluke, the harmfulness of developed popular and profitable ideas and actions becomes knowable it can be very hard to get adoring passionate fans to change their made-up minds. Many people will simply resist learning about the harm and the need to correct and restrict popular and profitable beliefs and actions. Their interests are contrary to learning to limit the harm done to the future of humanity. And they will be tempted to believe they are justified to do what many did on January 6, 2020 (when a gang 'visited and toured' the USA Capitol)
Climate science is one of the many fronts that the diverse collective team of harmfully selfish people fight on. The people opposed to learning about climate science because they oppose the required corrections of what has developed can be seen to be teaming up with people who desire to resist corrections of understanding on other issues. They have a common sense of the need to prolong their ability to benefit unjustly. They sense the threat of evidence and constantly improving understanding that contradicts what they have developed a liking for.
Their way of fighting is to tempt people to like to believe misleading claims, often using carefully made messages that are likely to powerfully trigger unjustified fear or anger in easily impressed fans. And many people will become so unjustly fearful and angry that they will even persist in believing utter non-sense, and publicly act out in unjustified anger (January 6, 2020 comes to mind, but it is not the only example).
That harmful reality is on bold display in many of the supposedly 'most advanced nations' on this planet, not just the severely harmfully compromised USA. But the USA can be seen to be the likely origin of the global harmful plague of harmful fictions claimed to be Truth, including semi-fictions based on selective evidence like the claims that the global climate science conspiracy has been exposed by selected bits of stolen emails taken out of context.
Clearly, the future of humanity requires some people to be severely disappointed by having their beliefs and desired actions publicly robustly declared to be harmfully incorrect. Some people will powerfully resist learning, will not responsibly self-govern. They will require external governing to limit their ability to influence what happens ... because everybody's actions add up to form the future including, but not only, the future global surface climate conditions.
